Discussion · House of Representatives
Jared Huffman Democrat
“I want to change this bill so our foreign enemies cannot benefit from it. Democrats tried to add rules to stop foreign adversaries from getting these fast-tracked mining projects on our public lands. Republicans keep voting against our changes, even though the idea came from a Republican.”
“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we agree with the gentleman from Utah that we need to be taking seriously our dependence on foreign adversaries when it comes to critical minerals and processing. That is why time and again my Democratic colleagues and I have offered amendments to make sure that when it comes to opening up our public lands--and, in this case, when it comes to opening up the benefits of this fast-tracked FAST-41 process--we are not handing it over to our foreign adversaries. We have proposed amendments time and again, and those amendments have been opposed by our Republican colleagues. We have yet to hear a good reason why they keep opposing this, nor is there one. The language we have proposed time and again comes from one of their own Republican colleagues, the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party chairman, Mr. Moolenaar. We have proposed his exact language time and again as a commonsense guardrail to make sure that our public resources and the benefits of this fast-tracking are not simply used to hand a gift to the very foreign adversary we say we are so terribly concerned about. It keeps getting rejected time and time again, which makes you wonder what this bill is really about. It is definitely not the competitive rivalry with China. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.”
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we agree with the gentleman from Utah that we need to be taking seriously our dependence on foreign adversaries when it comes to critical minerals and processing. That is why time and again my Democratic colleagues and I have offered amendments to make sure that when it comes to opening up our public lands--and, in this case, when it comes to opening up the benefits of this fast-tracked FAST-41 process--we are not handing it over to our foreign adversaries. We have proposed amendments time and again, and those amendments have been opposed by our Republican colleagues. We have yet to hear a good reason why they keep opposing this, nor is there one. The language we have proposed time and again comes from one of their own Republican colleagues, the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party chairman, Mr. Moolenaar. We have proposed his exact language time and again as a commonsense guardrail to make sure that our public resources and the benefits of this fast-tracking are not simply used to hand a gift to the very foreign adversary we say we are so terribly concerned about. It keeps getting rejected time and time again, which makes you wonder what this bill is really about. It is definitely not the competitive rivalry with China. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.