U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

68–444PDF 2011

CHINA’S MONOPOLY ON RARE EARTHS:

IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. FOREIGN AND

SECURITY POLICY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

SEPTEMBER 21, 2011

Serial No. 112–63

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

RON PAUL, Texas 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

DAVID RIVERA, Florida 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina 

VACANT 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

DENNIS CARDOZA, California 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

FREDERICA WILSON, Florida 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

YLEEM D.S. POBLETE, Staff Director 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois, Chairman 

RON PAUL, Texas 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

FREDERICA WILSON, Florida 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DENNIS CARDOZA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. Mark A. Smith, president and chief executive officer, Molycorp, Inc. ......... 13

Mr. Robert Strahs, vice president and general manager, Arnold Magnetic 

Technologies, North America .............................................................................. 25

Mr. John Galyen, president, Danfoss North America .......................................... 31

Ms. Christine Parthemore, fellow, Center for a New American Security ........... 40

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Donald A. Manzullo, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Illinois, and chairman, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific: 

Prepared statement .............................................................................................. 4

The Honorable Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, a Representative in Congress from 

American Samoa: Prepared statement ............................................................... 8

Mr. Mark A. Smith: Prepared statement ............................................................... 16

Mr. Robert Strahs: Prepared statement ................................................................ 28

Mr. John Galyen: Prepared statement ................................................................... 34

Ms. Christine Parthemore: Prepared statement ................................................... 42

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 66

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 67

The Honorable Donald A. Manzullo: Statement by Grundfos ............................. 68

The Honorable Eni F.H. Faleomavaega: Material submitted for the record ...... 70

(1)

CHINA’S MONOPOLY ON RARE EARTHS: IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. FOREIGN AND SECURITY POLICY 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2011

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC, 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1 o’clock p.m., in 

room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Donald A. Manzullo (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. MANZULLO. The Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific will 

now come to order. We are waiting for Congressman Faleomavaega, so I will start with my opening statement. 

In September 2010, the People’s Republic of China shocked the 

world by halting critical rare earth mineral exports in retaliation 

to a territorial dispute with Japan in the East China Sea. The Chinese action sent a clear and unmistakable message to Japan and 

the rest of the world: China is willing to use economic tools to 

achieve diplomatic goals. 

Two months later, when the export ban was lifted, the price of 

cerium soared from approximately $5 per kilogram before the ban 

to $67 per kilogram after the ban. The price of neodymium went 

from $42 per kilogram in April 2010 to $142 per kilogram 3 months 

after the ban. Then, the price of dysprosium nearly doubled from 

$250 per kilogram to $400 per kilogram in January 2011. 

Today’s hearing about rare earth minerals is both timely and important given the role that these elements play in America’s manufacturing and defense industrial base. Rare earths are vital in a variety of manufactured goods, such as fluorescent lights, hybrid engines, wind turbines, cell phones, and neodymium iron boron permanent magnets used in defense systems. 

China’s actions against Japan fundamentally transformed the 

rare earths market for the worse. As a result, manufacturers can 

no longer expect a steady supply of these elements, and the pricing 

uncertainty created by this action threatens tens of thousands of 

American jobs. 

For America’s defense industry, a total reliance on China for rare 

earths represents a serious weakness for national security. China 

currently controls 97 percent of the world’s rare earth production, 

including all stages of the supply chain for permanent magnets. 

China’s ability to dictate market terms to the rest of the world 

is particularly worrisome given its unwillingness to follow estabVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:29 Nov 01, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AP\092111\68444 HFA PsN: SHIRL
2

lished international trade rules. To make matters worse, China is 

determined to retain much of the rare earth minerals it produces 

to meet growing domestic demand. 

Thus, American manufacturers are locked into a no-win scenario 

where the world’s sole supplier of rare earths is tightly controlling 

global supply. In fact, domestic Chinese demand is projected to consume nearly all the rare earth minerals that country produces, 

leaving nothing for export markets. 

From the 1960s to the 1980s, the U.S. was the global leader in 

production, research, development, and fabrication of rare earth 

elements and magnets. During this period, however, Chinese leaders strategically targeted the rare earth industry for export to 

China. They succeeded. By using a combination of low labor cost 

and non-existent environmental standards, China gradually transferred the entire American rare earth industry overseas. 

In 2002, the sole remaining American producer of neodymium 

iron boron magnets, Magnequench, located in Indiana, was sold to 

the Chinese with full approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. That was the last act in the American tragedy. 

Subsequent to that, I authored a change in the bill that provides 

whenever a state or an enterprise buys an American company of 

significance, that it has to be elevated to the highest level of vociferous review, as opposed to being done at the lowest level. 

This is where we are today. This crucial American intellectual 

property was forever transferred to China. If it were not for entrepreneurs like Molycorp, we would never end our dependence on 

China for rare earths. That is why we are having this hearing 

today. 

After China’s 2-month rare earth mineral export embargo concluded in November 2010, the market price of certain rare earths, 

particularly cerium, neodymium, and dysprosium, soared to new 

highs. Currently, the prices of these elements are at astronomical 

levels, in some cases 650 percent over pre-export ban prices. 

As a result of this unprecedented supply disruption, the Japanese manufacturing industry implemented efforts to stockpile rare 

earths and to begin development of alternative technologies. 

In the U.S., however, there has been barely any awareness of the 

seriousness of this crisis. But, to their credit, the Department of 

Energy, under the ARPA–E program, is conducting cutting-edge research into rare earth alternatives. Unfortunately, the scope of this 

crisis is enormous and only a concerted national effort will lead us 

out of this mess. 

The 16th District of Illinois, which I have the honor of representing, depends heavily on manufacturing for its livelihood. 

Manufacturing accounts for approximately 25 percent of the local 

economy or is double the national average. In fact, in just three 

counties comprising less than 300,000 people, we have exports in 

excess of $3.2 billion a year. 

Manufacturers in Illinois and nationwide are extremely concerned about China’s monopoly on rare earths, and we need to heed 

their urgent call to action. Thus, we call upon the administration 

to work with Congress to formulate a coherent, common sense approach to ending China’s monopoly on rare earths. 

3

It is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. It is an American 

issue that requires bipartisan leadership. I have met at length with 

industry representatives and officials from the Departments of Energy and State to try to gain a better understanding of the magnitude of this crisis. 

I cosponsored legislation authored by Representative Mike 

Coffman of Colorado to streamline the process for domestic rare 

earth production, and I recently urged U.S. Trade Representative 

Ron Kirk to take action at the World Trade Organization against 

China’s unfair export practices. 

Before I recognize my good friend the ranking member for his 

opening statement, I want to acknowledge the presence of Chairman Jerry Lewis, who is the Member of Congress that represents 

Molycorp’s mine in California. Chairman Lewis is here to introduce 

Mr. Smith. 

I intend to recognize the ranking member for his opening statement, then allow Chairman Lewis to introduce Mr. Smith. I now 

recognize Ranking Member Eni Faleomavaega. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Manzullo follows:]

4


68444e-1.eps
5


68444e-2.eps
6


68444e-3.eps
7

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Chairman thank you for calling this 

hearing. Like you, I would like to personally welcome our colleague 

before our subcommittee, my good friend Chairman Jerry Lewis, 

for being with us this afternoon. 

As I say, Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing. Considering China has been operating in rare earths, it has implications not only for our security concerns but as well as our foreign 

policy issues. 

Why do rare earth’s elements matter? They matter because these 

elements are used in military systems we count on to protect us 

like anti-missile defense and space-based satellite and communications systems. These are used to power clean energy. They are used 

in medical devices, jet fighter engines, the automotive industry, colored television, and flat panel displays like cell phones, portable 

DVDs, laptops, et cetera, et cetera. 

While the United States was once self-reliant and domestically 

producing REEs, over the past 15 years, we have become 100 percent reliant or dependent on imports, primarily from China, which 

currently controls 95 percent of the world’s market of rare earth 

even though they only have 35 percent of the world’s reserves. 

Like many of my colleagues, I believe our dependence on China 

for REEs poses a risk to our national security as well as our economic well-being. Data from the U.S. Geological Survey estimated 

that in 2010 the added value to Gross Domestic Product by major 

industries that consume processed non-fuel mineral materials, including rare earths, was approximately $2.1 trillion, or 14 percent, 

of the total U.S. Gross Domestic Product. That is $14.6 trillion 

GDP, a considerable portion of our nation’s economy. 

Concerned by these developments and also many other potential 

for the U.S. and its territories, I introduced a bill, H.R. 2803, to recover non-fuel minerals from the shallow and deep oceans under 

the U.S. territorial jurisdiction throughout the Pacific. These deposits are known to include an abundant supply of rare earth minerals. 

My proposal would require the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement 

in consultation with other appropriate agencies to conduct an assessment of the sea bed area around the U.S. continental shelf, including areas that are contiguous to and within the 200 miles EEZ 

of the United States and its possessions for non-fuel minerals. 

Mr. Chairman, it is only a preliminary request, but the important step is that there should be a comprehensive effort to ensure 

that there is no risk to the supply of important minerals for domestic consumption. 

I want to thank my colleague Chairman Lamborn of the Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources for holding a hearing on the bill, especially considering the value of refined 

rare earths imported by the United States last year alone was $161 

million and that the Chinese Government recently placed restrictions on its supply of rare earths as reported in the New York 

Times article dated 16 September entitled ‘‘Chinese Consolidated 

Group on Rare Earths,’’ which I ask to be included and be made 

part of the record, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Without objection. 

8

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. And I do want to welcome our distinguished 

guests and experts on this very important issue. And I look forward 

to their testimony. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Faleomavaega follows:]


68444f-1.eps
9


68444f-2.eps
10

Mr. MANZULLO. Chairman Lewis, can you wait until Mr. Sherman gives his opening statement? Are you okay on time? Okay. Mr. 

Sherman? 

Mr. SHERMAN. The fact that China has been operating this area 

is not an act of God. God in his wisdom put two-thirds of the rare 

earth elements outside China. 

It is a result of Chinese unfair trade practices, not only the cheap 

labor and manages to the environmental standards that the chairman referred to but the fact that China subsidizes this industry 

under the table. And they could afford to do so because of their 

other unfair trade practices. 

The underlying problem is that the most powerful interests of 

the United States benefit massively from Chinese unfair practices. 

They may not benefit from Chinese unfair practices with regard to 

rare earth elements but the overall relationship with China means 

you make it for pennies, sell it for dollars in the United States, 

ship the jobs overseas, and report high earnings per share. And 

Chinese control over rare earth elements gives them one more argument as to why we should kowtow to China. After all, they have 

got all the rare earth elements. 

The solution is to end these practices by ending MFN for China 

6 months after enactment, which is what a bill I have proposed 

would do, and force China to change all of its unfair policies under 

threat of a regime-challenging economic downturn. 

Now, the most powerful and rich in our society are not going to 

allow us to seriously consider that. And the think tanks they fund 

will discourage it. They won’t allow any fundamental change in our 

relationship with China. And they will constantly tell us that earnings per share is the same thing as national economic health. 

In my district, there are four full-time cable television channels 

dedicated to the worship of Wall Street and earnings per share. 

There are only three channels dedicated to the worship of Jesus 

Christ. 

So we will have a hearing on this unfair trade practice. We could 

have 999 other hearings on other unfair trade practices. We will 

file something with the WTO. It will be meaningless. We may be 

able to deal with this one issue by subsidizing the industry if we 

have any money left over for that or perhaps restricting Chinese 

exports, rare earth elements, which strikes me as unlikely. 

It is time to tell China that MFN ends 6 months from today. 

Otherwise we are going to die from 1,000 unfair cuts. And we will 

have the opportunity to have 1,000 hearings on each one of them. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you. 

Mr. Lewis, do you want to introduce your constituent? 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will be 

very brief. The members of the committee probably don’t know this, 

but in my territory, San Bernadino County, there is enough desert 

space you can place easily four eastern states. And within that territory, there is many an opportunity as well as a resource. And it 

happens to be the location of America’s very large deposits of rare 

earth elements. 

It is very important for us to expand upon your already very able 

articulation about the importance of rare earth minerals and what 

11

they mean to the United States. It is significant I think for you to 

know that I met Mark Smith only recently when I traveled out to 

Mountain Pass, which is really out in the boondocks in my district, 

about 40 miles, 50 miles away from Las Vegas. 

At that event, there were a couple of hundred employees of the 

United Steel Workers Union largely. And Mr. Smith, whom I will 

be introducing to you formally, had a presentation to make. And 

it was a very sizeable photograph of the president of the United 

Steel Workers along with Mr. Smith and one Harry Reid of beautiful downtown Nevada, all of whom have an interest in this subject area in no small part because most of those employees live 

across the line in Nevada, but also it is my understanding that 

many years ago, Harry Reid’s father worked at this very location 

in Mountain Pass as one of the mining employees. 

This resource is critical to our future. And China is deadly serious about having as much control as they possibly can over this resource, wherever it might exist. They have made significant efforts 

to try to get control, get their nose into the control of this resource 

and other elements that relate to it in the United States. 

Australia has a very significant supply or location or rare earth 

minerals. China was going about attempting to capture influence 

and control of that resource. And the legislature in Australia stood 

in the way and prevented it, indicating at a very fundamental way 

the recognition of the importance of rare earth minerals in terms 

of future development that relate to horizon kinds of technologies, 

very important, as the chairman mentioned, the guidance systems 

for some of our missiles and used in elements that write very much 

to the effectiveness of some of our computer systems and the like, 

very, very critical. 

Mark Smith didn’t start out to be a mining engineer. He got his 

engineering degree from Colorado State University, where he had 

hoped to specialize in the field of agriculture, maybe building tractors for you at home, Don Manzullo. 

But in the meantime, economies ebb and flow. And that took him 

directly to mining. And, with that, he has been associated with 

Unocal and Chevron for many, many years. 

At one time, he was the president of Chevron’s Mining Corporation, a solely owned corporation of Chevron. With that, eventually 

those interests were sold in the marketplace. And Molycorp became 

the holding base for these rare earth elements located at Mountain 

Pass. 

Not so long ago, we recognized this growing need and the competition that exists in the marketplace. Molycorp went about to 

going public and, in no small part, going public in order to raise 

the capital necessary to expand the mining activities at Mountain 

Pass but also to be able to process those minerals in a fashion 

whereby they can be effectively and efficiently used in industry. 

The project involves almost $800 million of investment at Mountain Pass, very important to our constituency, a lot more important 

to the country. 

I have come today with absolutely no expertise in terms of the 

details of the way these minerals do apply themselves to our industry, but you and I share a great interest in the future of our security and the role that we play on behalf of freedom in the world. 

12

So to have the likes of Mark Smith and the balance of the balances that I will shortly leave to join you at the rostrum is not just 

a privilege. They have been of great service to our country. It is 

very important that your committee be focusing the way they are 

upon these elements to our future security. 

So thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And let me introduce 

Mark Smith. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, would you like to 

have a seat up here? Without objection, we welcome you to our 

panel. 

Today’s witnesses represent three key components of the rare 

earth supply chain from mining to fabrication to manufacturing. 

Molycorp is at the forefront of bringing rare earth production back 

to the United States. Mr. Smith is chief executive officer of 

Molycorp. It is a real pleasure to welcome you to our subcommittee. 

Arnold Magnetic Technologies is one of America’s leading manufacturers of permanent magnets. Arnold is a key component of the 

rare earth supply chain. Magnets are indispensable in many of the 

products that we use today. I am delighted to represent one of 

Arnold’s manufacturing facilities in Marengo, Illinois, which is part 

of the 16th Congressional District. 

Mr. Robert Strahs is vice president and general manager of Arnold Magnetic. He currently manages their three facilities in Rochester, New York; Marengo, Illinois; and Ogallala, Nebraska. Previous to this role, Rob was chief marketing officer in charge of 

Arnold’s global sales and marketing efforts. He has been with Arnold almost 10 years. 

He received a master’s of business administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a bachelor’s of business 

administration from Iowa State University. 

Danfoss is a global manufacturer of energy-efficient pumps and 

valves that depend on the rare earth magnets produced by companies such as Arnold Magnetic. Danfoss is located in Loves Park, Illinois, also part of our congressional district. 

Mr. John Galyen is president of Danfoss North America, a $600 

million subsidiary of Danfoss, and oversees the company’s most important market. John has 30 years of industry experience. He is a 

graduate of Northwood University. He also completed a Strategic 

Leadership Program at the Ashridge Business School in Hertfordshire, England. 

Finally, Ms. Christine Parthemore is a fellow at the Center for 

a New American Security, where she directs the organization’s 

Natural Security Program and natural security blog. She is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. 

Prior to joining the center, she worked with journalist Bob Woodward. She has contributed to the Washington Post, Roll Call, and 

Atlanta Journal Constitution. She is a graduate of the Ohio State 

University and has an M.A. from Georgetown University. 

One of the reasons we are calling this hearing is that I have 

heard from numerous manufacturers throughout the country desperately trying to buy these permanent magnets, especially the neodymium iron boron. They are down to two suppliers worldwide 

and having to pay 50 percent in advance, even before the order is 

processed. 

13

The people who are using these magnets including Regal Beloit, 

just over the line, which makes a high iron motor and is using the 

neodymium iron boron to speed up efficiency by 2 to 3 percent, 

which is pretty high for a motor. 

All over the country, there is a huge shortage of these magnets. 

It impacts the manufacturing industry to the point where China is 

sucking American manufacturers into China based upon the fact 

that they have a monopoly on these rare earths. This hearing is absolutely critical to keeping thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 

jobs in this country. 

Mr. Smith, you are up. You have 5 minutes. When you have 

about 15 seconds remaining, I will lightly tap. If you go over that, 

the tapping becomes louder. 

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman might have them hit the button so we 

can hear them. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Okay. 

Mr. LEWIS. You have to hit the button. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Hit the button in front of you. 

Mr. SMITH. Got it. I think I should be on now. 

Mr. MANZULLO. I look forward to your testimony. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Congressman 

Lewis, for your kind introduction, and other members of the subcommittee. 

STATEMENT OF MR. MARK A. SMITH, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, MOLYCORP, INC. 

Mr. SMITH. You have my more detailed written testimony. So I 

will try to err on the side of efficiency and try to be as brief as I 

can today. 

This hearing is very timely, Mr. Chairman. I spent last week in 

China. Indeed, the first part of the week, I had the privilege of 

touring the iron ore mine in inner Mongolia, where 63 percent of 

the rare earths are produced for the world as a byproduct from that 

mine. According to the Chinese officials that toured me, I was the 

first foreigner ever allowed into that mine. 

I spent the latter half of the week at a rare earth conference in 

Beijing speaking with top government officials and private sector 

leaders from around the world concerning rare earth industry 

issues. 

Last week, Chinese officials communicated to me and to the 

world, through this rare earth conference in Beijing and in subsequent public statements, several clear and unambiguous messages 

about their rare earth policies. 

First, while Molycorp currently supplies almost 5 percent, China 

supplies over 95 percent of the global rare earth demand. And they 

do not intend to remain the primary supplier to the rest of the 

world. Instead, they will continue to consume more of their own 

rare earths and export less. 

Second, they see tight global supplies and high prices of rare 

earths as an ‘‘irreversible’’ trend. 

And, third, they believe that the rest of the world needs to start 

meeting more of their own rare earth demand with their own rare 

earth supply. 

14

Molycorp has been predicting that China could potentially move 

from being the world’s predominant supplier to a net importer of 

rare earths by 2014 or ’15. If this happens, it will have major implications for our defense as well as other manufacturing sectors in 

the United States and other allied nations. 

Mr. Chairman, if I were to deliver one message to you today, it 

is this. The time has come to roll up our sleeves and get to work 

rebuilding our own domestic rare earth manufacturing supply 

chain. And I can assure you that the men and women of Molycorp 

have had their sleeves rolled up for several years now and are committed to this effort. 

We must continue to move as rapidly as possible to a position 

where our economy and our national security interests are no 

longer tied to these declining Chinese rare earth exports. 

Moreover, I think it is time we took a page from China’s own 

rare earth playbook. China is—and I might add, very successfully—

using its rare earth supplies to leverage growth in its manufacturing base as a means to create hundreds of thousands of jobs for 

its massive population. Simply put, I strongly believe we can and 

should do the same. 

Consider these facts. We have the geologic good fortune of having 

one of the richest and largest rare earth mineral deposits in the 

world at Mountain Pass, California. We have some of the best and 

most experienced rare earth scientists, chemists, engineers, and 

workers in the world. And Molycorp has pioneered technological 

breakthroughs in rare earth processing that will not only make us 

environmentally superior but will allow us to produce rare earths 

at the lowest cost in the world, indeed about half that of what the 

Chinese costs are. 

All of this highlights our ability to unleash a job-creating engine 

here in the United States fueled by our own domestic rare earths, 

just as the Chinese have done and continue to do in their country 

today. 

As you can see from the photos being shown here, we are making 

rapid progress to dramatically increase our rare earth production 

from our current 5,000 tons per year to a level that will be almost 

20,000 tons per year at our flagship facility in Mountain Pass. 

Over the past year, we went to the capital markets successfully 

and raised money that we needed for both phases 1 and 2 of 

Project Phoenix and were successful in raising the money needed 

for that $781 million capital project. 

We remain on time and on budget in constructing what will be 

the most technologically advanced, energy-efficient, and environmentally superior rare earth manufacturing facility in the world. 

Mr. Chairman, I provide in my testimony specific numbers on 

what we expect to produce and when. Let me just say that, as a 

result of Molycorp’s efforts, the United States is on track to achieve 

a high degree of independence in overall rare earth production before the end of 2012. 

Let me also take a moment to publicly acknowledge the hundreds 

of men and women who are working virtually around the clock to 

restore America’s rare earth production capacity at Mountain Pass. 

They are the reason that America is rapidly and confidently moving toward greater independence concerning these strategic mateVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:29 Nov 01, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AP\092111\68444 HFA PsN: SHIRL
15

rials. And they are doing it safely, I might add, having gone well 

over 6 years without a lost time accident at Mountain Pass. 

In addition to increasing their production of separated rare earth 

elements, we are working hard to have more integration and do a 

‘‘mine-to-magnets’’ strategic business plan. When completed, this 

will increase the diversity of global supply for a variety of other 

rare earth-based materials, which are needed for additional job-creating manufacturing sectors. 

What can the U.S. Government do to encourage greater independence of rare earth production and more diversity in global supply? I think there are three things in particular. One, we can promote more private sector investment in technology innovation. 

Today, technology is the ultimate differentiator between Molycorp 

and the Chinese rare earth industry. It is what is enabling the 

United States to confidently move to a position of greater independence in rare earths. 

Number two, we need to strengthen the fundamental research 

and development of rare earth materials and our graduate and 

postgraduate instruction in the basic and applied sciences relative 

to rare earths. 

And, number three, we need to support government and private 

sector efforts to recycle rare earths. 

Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to discuss these recommendations and other issues in more detail. Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]

16


68444a-1.eps
17


68444a-2.eps
18


68444a-3.eps
19


68444a-4.eps
20


68444a-5.eps
21


68444a-6.eps
22


68444a-7.eps
23


68444a-8.eps
24


68444a-9.eps
25

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you. 

Mr. Strahs? 

STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT STRAHS, VICE PRESIDENT AND 

GENERAL MANAGER, ARNOLD MAGNETIC TECHNOLOGIES, 

NORTH AMERICA 

Mr. STRAHS. Thank you, Chairman Manzullo and members of the 

subcommittee. 

Arnold Magnetic Technologies employs 775 people globally, 337 

of these in the States of Illinois, Nebraska, New York, and Ohio. 

The work of about 250 of our employees is directly related to the 

production of rare earth magnets or precision components containing them. These include engineers, machinists, accountants, 

material scientists, and general laborers. 

We are a tier 1 or 2 supplier and produce rare earth magnets 

and assemblies sold to approximately 200 customers, many of 

which of them produce either final products or components. We estimate that our downstream customers employ over 25,000 people 

directly involved in the fabrication products, including rare earth 

magnets. 

These critical components can be found in all commercial planes, 

including the 737 and the new 787. They are found in the oil and 

gas, chemical, and mining industries. 

Rare earth magnets are essential to green technologies, including 

hybrid systems important in reducing our dependence on foreign 

oil. Perhaps most importantly are the rare earth magnets and assemblies that are found in military weapons systems, such as the 

F–35, the F–18, Javelin Missile, Precision Guidance Munitions, and 

military counter measures. They are also being used to develop hybrid and electric power systems for our ships and ground vehicles 

and many other defense uses. 

Today China is the only supplier of rare earths needed to 

produce the rare earth magnets: Neodymium iron boron, or neo, 

and samarium cobalt boron magnets. We need to maintain good relations with China as they have established themselves in rare 

earth supply and for the time being have reserves of heavier 

earths, such as dysprosium, that are needed to create high-performance magnets. 

The Chinese estimate that their known reserves of heavy rare 

earths may last only 15 to 25 years at the projected demand. So 

it is vital that alternate supply chains be created. 

Due to the export controls put in place in China, prices for products, including rare earths, have dramatically increased. Neo and 

samarium cobalt magnet costs have increased between 300 and 500 

percent in the last 9 months. 

These price increases came about not only because of export controls imposed at 2008 levels, when demand was unusually low due 

to the recession, but other factors contributed as well. These include speculators bidding up the prices of rare earths and China’s 

enforcement of environmental laws, which has stopped illegal mining operations. Increased demand for rare earth magnets for green 

energy applications in hybrid vehicles and wind turbines has also 

created price increases. 

26

Industrial users had hoped that prices and supply would quickly 

return to historical levels, but that is not going to happen in my 

opinion. Neodymium iron boron is a relatively new magnetic material. And many uses are just coming into the marketplace that rely 

on this material to make their products more energy-efficient and 

lighter and smaller than past magnetic materials allowed. So at a 

time when demand is growing, the reduced supply from China 

could be crippling to the next generation of energy-efficient appliances, hybrid cars, and wind turbines, not to mention defense systems. 

We now have customers considering whether they should move 

their production to China. Arnold Magnetic Technologies has Chinese facilities, in addition to our facilities in the U.S. and Europe, 

to maintain a close relationship and source of supply. But this 

should be an opportunity for the U.S. to step up and reestablish 

an industry that was started here in the late 1950s but was substantially closed by 2002. 

We are here to state the importance of the need to bring back 

the rare earth industry to the U.S. to protect and grow jobs as well 

as to control our own sources of rare earths that are so important 

to green technologies, aerospace, and defense, and energy-efficient 

motors and generators. 

Magnets are ubiquitous, but because they are largely unseen inside the products we use, the public has not realized their significance in our daily lives. 

We cannot trade our dependence on foreign oil for dependence on 

foreign rare earths. The U.S. Government has had a preoccupation 

with funding battery and solar technologies, but the power that is 

produced or stored by these technologies will often be generated or 

consumed by motors and generators that are most efficiently produced with neo magnets. Current and next generation military 

products from the Joint Strike Fighter to precision-guided munitions to hybrid systems all require rare earth magnets to operate 

most efficiently. 

Tens of thousands of jobs could be created by reestablishing a 

rare earth industry here in the U.S. 

In support of this goal, Arnold Magnetic Technologies has the 

knowledge base and people in place to produce neo magnets here 

in the U.S. in addition to the samarium cobalt magnets that we 

produce, but there are critical issues that only the U.S. Government can address to restart rare earth production in the U.S. 

One, intellectual property. Currently Hitachi holds the patents 

for the production of net magnets and has refused to license any 

U.S. companies. We would like the support of our Government to 

work with Hitachi to have licenses granted to allow production of 

these magnets in the U.S. 

Two, stop the illegal importation of unlicensed neo magnets that 

enters the U.S. either within products or as magnets. This erodes 

the ability of our company and customers to fairly compete. 

Three, inclusion of rare earth magnets into Buy American legislation to allow U.S.-based companies to compete with subsidized 

Chinese producers of magnets and assemblies. 

And, finally, grants or loan guarantees to accelerate the construction of the rare earth industry and magnet production facilities 

27

here in the U.S. and add high tech jobs, such as was successfully 

used to bring back the production of beryllium. 

Without these steps being taken, we foresee more jobs going to 

China, and we see the potential for rare earths mined here in the 

U.S. to be exported to China to support their production, their 

green initiatives, and their job growth, further strengthening their 

global manufacturing dominance. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Strahs follows:]

28


68444b-1.eps
29


68444b-2.eps
30


68444b-3.eps
31

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you. 

Mr. Galyen? 

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN GALYEN, PRESIDENT, DANFOSS 

NORTH AMERICA 

Mr. GALYEN. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and 

members of the subcommittee. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify on this critical issue surrounding rare earth elements and how it is undermining American 

competitiveness, in our business area anyway. 

Again, my name is John Galyen. I am the president of Danfoss 

in North America. Danfoss is a leading global manufacturer of compressors, controls, and variable frequency drives, primarily for 

high-efficiency air conditioning, refrigeration, heating, and motion 

systems. We have 12 factories in the United States, one of you 

mentioned, employing somewhere around 3,000 or more employees, 

not including our large network of U.S. suppliers of parts and services. 

Our overall focus is climate and energy. We design, develop and 

manufacture products to enhance the performance of our customers’ products. Innovation and energy efficiency are really critical for us and our competitiveness in the marketplace. 

Our Danfoss Turbocor facility in Tallahassee, Florida produces 

what we call advanced centrifugal compressors. They are used in 

chiller systems manufactured here in North America and also 

around the globe. Essentially, we use the magnets to suspend the 

centrifugal shaft in a magnetic field, generating high efficiencies 

but also eliminating oil that is problematic in these systems. 

It has been a fantastic business for us. We have been growing 

at an annual rate of 20 percent from 2007 to 2010, despite an economic slowdown. And we are creating jobs, good jobs, in R&D and 

manufacturing, including in 2011 we have increased employment 

by 21 percent. 

I talk about these are high-paying jobs. The average compensation, if you look at total wage and benefits, is $72,000 per year, 

well above the average in the Tallahassee area. These sophisticated 

magnetic bearings really eliminate a lot of the reliability problems 

that you see in systems, again without using oil. And they operate 

at very high speeds, but it comes with rare earth elements, disposing them in neodymium. And they are vital for their unique 

combined capabilities. 

The root of the issue is our suppliers tell us that in the early 

’90s, the Chinese suppliers began to really price out of the market 

the domestic competition here and around the world. We have seen 

almost a tenfold increase in our cost of the rare earth elements and 

let alone in this year alone, we have seen an 800 percent increase. 

On top of that, we have got reduced supplies. And, as you mentioned earlier, Mr. Chairman, we are having to pay in advance, as 

much as 6 months in advance. 

Our business in Tallahassee is not the only one affected by this 

crisis. We are currently developing a new line of variable-speed 

compressors with very high efficiency for residential air conditioning and light commercial systems that will be used around the 

world, but the target market for us is the U.S. This technology will 

32

result in very large energy savings, as it is already being deployed 

in many countries, including China and Japan. But the U.S. is behind. 

We have started this transformation, but it is in the beginning 

stages of applying this type of technology, which makes the viability of this technology especially vulnerable now. 

The severe cost increases that we have seen this year make the 

high-efficiency technologies uneconomical. I mean, it is challenging 

our existing business plans and is jeopardizing some of the energy 

savings opportunities for our customers and our nation. 

My over-arching point is this. China’s rare earth elements’ strategy is an issue affecting the U.S. and friendly country industries 

broadly. It is threatening our leadership in such innovative technologies and our ability for our country to meet energy-saving 

goals. And it appears that their strategy will also attract high technology manufacturing, investment, and jobs to China while offering 

local supply and price advantage. 

Unless the U.S. is willing to pay a steep price in lost opportunities to innovate in energy, defense, and other important areas, the 

U.S. Government must develop an effective means of countering 

China’s emerging approach to rare earth elements. 

I would add that we do not see such a recommendation as antiChina. In a global economy, lost opportunities for progress and innovation affect all economies. 

What are we doing about it as an industry? We are reacting to 

try to migrate to other alternatives, but it takes time. It takes research and effort. So there are no readily available alternatives 

today. 

Our procurement managers are seeking other sources of supply, 

including new mines, new fabricators, and new processes. But that 

is not so easily done nor timely. Our research and development 

teams are evaluating alternative technologies. But finding, testing, 

and qualifying new alternatives will require years, not months. 

And we need action now. 

In the near term, we need to ensure that there is access to Chinese sources at reasonable prices while U.S. manufacturers, as we 

have already heard, develop alternative solutions. 

I would like to conclude my testimony today by outlining the 

short and long-term actions that we hope you will consider to minimize the destructive impact on the cost and availability of these 

elements because these elements are critical to the U.S. manufacturing and trade. 

In the short term, we would ask that you reduce the import duties on magnets from 2.1 percent to 0 percent. While we know this 

is a small step, it sends a signal of actions to alleviate additional 

price burdens for manufacturers. 

We would ask also that you consider temporary subsidies for new 

mining or processes to bring them online within the next 18 to 36 

months. We would also ask that you establish a collaborative approach to encourage China to increase export/production quotas 

until other sources can be brought online. 

Longer term, I think it was brought up by Mr. Sherman that the 

U.S. should file a claim with the World Trade Organization to pressure China to honor their commitment to the World Trade OrganiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:29 Nov 01, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AP\092111\68444 HFA PsN: SHIRL
33

zation, not to restrict exports of materials, including the ones we’re 

speaking of today. 

And then, additionally, consider Federally funding research of alternative materials, through the National High Magnetic Field 

Laboratories based in Tallahassee, Florida or Los Alamos, New 

Mexico. 

We ask Congress and the administration to act on this decisively 

to protect American industry, our economic and technological future, and jobs in the U.S. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify on this important issue. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Galyen follows:]

34


68444c-1.eps
35


68444c-2.eps
36


68444c-3.eps
37


68444c-4.eps
38


68444c-5.eps
39


68444c-6.eps
40

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you. 

Ms. Parthemore? 

STATEMENT OF MS. CHRISTINE PARTHEMORE, FELLOW, 

CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Faleomavaega, and other members of the subcommittee, thank you 

for the honor of appearing here to testify. 

While I concur with the remarks of my fellow witnesses today, 

as a fellow at a nonpartisan and nonprofit think tank here in 

Washington, my perspective is a little bit different on the rare 

earths challenge. 

My comments to the committee are based on years spent conducting academic research on the long history of the United States 

Government trying to minimize the foreign policy and national security risks surrounding its natural resource demands. 

One thing that is clear from this history is that Congress has 

consistently been the leading edge of identifying U.S. security and 

foreign policy vulnerabilities related to minerals and other natural 

resources. It is clear by this hearing today that Congress is once 

again on this leading edge in terms of understanding the challenge, 

the current challenge, brought to us by rare earth elements. 

The risks to U.S. foreign policy and national security surrounding China’s near total monopoly on rare earths are clear. It 

allows mineral suppliers easy leverage over the United States, creates roadblocks for achieving other U.S. foreign policy goals around 

the world, especially in Asia and the Pacific region, and can ignite 

trade disputes that entangle other U.S. security interests, create 

supply disruptions that can drive price spikes and lags in delivery, 

including for defense equipment. And, most important, the United 

States may also lose ground strategically if it continues to lag in 

managing mineral issues as countries that consider assured access 

to minerals as far more politically important are increasingly setting the rules for trade in this area. 

In terms of helping to prevent supply disruptions that affect U.S. 

businesses and America’s allies, based on my research, government 

officials can watch for a series of warning signs that minerals are 

likely to become strategically problematic or challenging to U.S. interests; for example, political instability in supplying countries, 

lack of stockpiles by our Government, by our allies, and by domestic businesses, or just generally increasing demand and new competitors capturing large market shares. 

The historical concentration of world supplies in the hands of 

just a few actors is the single most glaring warning sign that minerals will trigger problems for the United States. This is certainly 

the case with rare earth supplies from China today. And, put simply, as long as we face the situation of near-complete control over 

rare earth supplies by China or any single country, I do not expect 

the risks I mentioned to decline. 

Moving forward, it is important to note that these challenges are 

ultimately manageable and future foreign policy challenges related 

to rare earths and other minerals are preventable. The trends leading to China’s dominance in the supply of rare earths have been 

clear for years. And its behavior with respect to its rare earth inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:29 Nov 01, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AP\092111\68444 HFA PsN: SHIRL
41

dustry should have been pretty predictable given its past behavior 

and the historical patterns that other supplier countries have exhibited. 

So, first and foremost, I recommend that the United States Government can act to improve its ability to foresee foreign policy and 

security challenges regarding minerals. For example, the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy can integrate conflicts over 

minerals and raw materials into relevant war games and scenario 

exercises, which they conduct on a regular basis as a way of thinking freshly through these challenges. 

The Defense Science Board could conduct a new assessment on 

the changing nature of its different supply chains, including more 

extensive consideration of minerals and raw materials, than has 

been the case in its last two reports focused on supply chains. 

Greater information sharing among U.S. Government agencies 

and with the private sector and internationally would be helpful. 

Some of my fellow witnesses are engaging in that, clearly, as well 

as the chairman of this committee mentioned his own information 

exchanges. 

Congress can also play a critical role in preserving the ability to 

collect and analyze data that the government has expanded for the 

past 2 years through its programs in the Department of Energy 

and USGS. 

Additionally, the U.S. Government has several concrete options 

for mitigating challenges, like what we are experiencing now with 

rare earths. It could leverage its relationships with defense contractors so that the government can better prevent supply chain 

vulnerabilities. They can provide other countries with leverage over 

the United States that potentially cause major disruptions. 

Congress and the executive branch should continue updating 

stockpiling policies with the Department of Defense. The U.S. Government can create incentives to reduce consumption and promote 

recycling and develop substitutes. Research and development funding and loan guarantees can be useful mechanisms for doing this. 

And while domestic production is not a panacea for every mineral and for all foreign policy challenges related to minerals and 

raw materials, in the current challenge surrounding rare earths, 

domestic production would clearly help mitigate the geopolitical 

tensions and security risks that we have at hand. 

In closing, because disputes related to natural resources tend to 

be preceded by clear warning signs, complacency is probably the 

single biggest challenge for the U.S. Government. This committee 

must, therefore, be commended for calling a hearing today on U.S. 

challenges with rare earth minerals. 

And I hope that research we have conducted at the Center for 

New American Security can help with the current challenge and 

assist in preventing this history from repeating itself again in the 

future. 

Thank you. And I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Parthemore follows:]

42


68444d-1.eps
43


68444d-2.eps
44


68444d-3.eps
45


68444d-4.eps
46


68444d-5.eps
47

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you. 

Eni, I want to thank you for bringing up the issue of the ionic 

clays, the rare earths that are found at the bottom of the seabed. 

You have lots of water around your district, don’t you? 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Chairman, I wanted just to share with 

you a bit of information because it does include the issue of rare 

earths in the Pacific. We call it seabed minerals: Manganese nodules that contain cobalt, manganese, copper, so many other different rare elements, quite extensive throughout the Pacific region. 

And what I have come to realize is that we have not done a very 

good job in putting our focus on this issue, just as has been the testimony of our friends here before the panel. But I will 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you. 

Yes. I have a very basic question to educate us. Would you give 

examples of where rare earths are used by themselves and then 

where rare earths are used in the magnetic form? There are two 

different applications here. Anybody? 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to answer that 

question. Elements like cerium are used primarily to polish glass 

or they are used in the catalytic converters in our automobiles so 

that we meet the emissions standards set by the U.S. Government. 

Lanthanum is primarily used in two applications. One would be 

FCC catalysts, which is a unit at a refinery that takes crude oil, 

breaks the hydrocarbon chains and turns it into gasoline for our vehicles. The other primary use is lanthanum metal, which goes into 

nickel metal hydride batteries, which runs all of the hybrid vehicles 

today. Those would be your two primary nonmagnetic rare earth 

elements. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Then would you give an example of the application of the magnetic rare earths? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir. The application of magnetic rare earths, 

which would be primarily neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium—sometimes terbium can be used as well—those would be 

used in things like hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles, permanent 

magnet generators in wind turbines, and many of the products that 

my esteemed colleagues here on the panel make as well. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Why are they called permanent magnets? 

Mr. SMITH. I would be happy to answer that question, but Mr. 

Strahs as the magnet manufacturer might want to answer that. 

Mr. MANZULLO. This is a very basic question. 

Mr. STRAHS. Thank you, Mark. 

A permanent magnet is a material that once it is magnetized, it 

will stay magnetized essentially forever. 

Mr. MANZULLO. The witnesses today have set forth to me the full 

range of the issue with the rare earths. I would like to address my 

question to—is it Mr. Galyen? 

Mr. GALYEN. Galyen is the proper pronunciation. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Galyen? 

Mr. GALYEN. Yes. 

Mr. MANZULLO. There seems to be a lot of conflict in the country 

today, not a lot of conflict, maybe some misunderstanding as to 

whether or not there is really a shortage of rare earth elements. 

When your representative stopped by my office and told us about 

the centrifugal chiller that is made in Florida, he said that it is beVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:29 Nov 01, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AP\092111\68444 HFA PsN: SHIRL
48

coming more and more difficult to get those permanent magnets. 

Could you elaborate upon that? 

Mr. GALYEN. Yes. Probably you got more direct from the source 

today, from the CEO, I would assume, Ricardo Schneider. But I 

think our biggest concern, really, is not so much the availability. 

It is concern over availability, but it is more so the long lead time; 

in other words, going out to 6 months in lead time and also having 

the price again increase tenfold, including 800 percent this year. 

So I think as China looks to set up export restrictions, the 

amount, then our availability, especially as the demand for the material goes up, causes us great concern for price but also for availability. 

Mr. MANZULLO. When you have a long lead time like that, what 

does that indicate to you? 

Mr. GALYEN. Shortage. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Ms. Parthemore, could you comment on that? 

You bring a unique perspective to this. 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. Comment on which, the shortages? 

Mr. MANZULLO. The shortages, if you feel comfortable to do that. 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. Again, so a lot of my research on this has 

looked at historical trends and past disruptions. And there is nothing about the current situation with rare earths that is atypical 

from the history of past experiences, particularly with minerals 

that are important for defense manufacturing equipment. 

Whenever you see all of the signs that we have seen in the past 

3 or 4 years with China and its exports of rare earths, all of those 

warning signs were there that we were going to start seeing shortages and that China, whatever the exporting country is—in this 

case, it is China—was going to use those shortages and their control over the entire export sector for political leverage and tie it in 

with other strategic and security and foreign policy challenges that 

we have with them. 

So, again, I am not happy to hear that American businesses are 

experiencing these kinds of shortages. Again, from looking at the 

history of this for the country, it is not surprising at all. 

Mr. MANZULLO. In speaking to manufacturers today, my understanding is that as technology evolves, to make, for example, electric motors more efficient, there is more demand for the neodymium iron boron not only in components that exist today but in components for new products that are coming out. Do you want to take 

a stab at that, anybody? Mr. Galyen? 

Mr. GALYEN. Yes. Sure. I will. In fact, I mentioned it briefly. You 

know, we make the very large compressors down in Tallahassee. So 

we are ranging from 600- to 200-ton. And you have a market globally in the, let’s say, tens or the hundreds of thousands. 

We are developing today compressors for the residential air conditioning market in the U.S. That is a market that, even depressed 

with the construction industry, is 5 million units a year. And we 

plan on using permanent magnet motors to get the maximum efficiency for variable speed of those compressors. 

And that business plan is being now put at risk. And we have 

been investing there significantly for years. 

49

Mr. MANZULLO. The reason for using the permanent magnets in 

the motors is to increase the efficiency of the air conditioners and, 

therefore, to save energy. Is that correct? 

Mr. GALYEN. Absolutely. You are generally looking at 30 percent 

or so improvement in system performance. 

That is not just pure motor efficiency. But when you incorporate 

variable speed, you are actually able to—rather than turning it on 

and off, you are able to follow the demand load, control the temperature, humidity, comfort, all of those kinds of things, very accurately. 

Mr. MANZULLO. So, cutting-edge technology in air conditioning 

really depends upon the availability of these permanent magnets. 

Is that correct? 

Mr. GALYEN. Correct. And most of the research and development 

has been around these rare earth elements. There may be others, 

but it is going to take us some time to try to figure that out. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Faleomavaega? 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I fear that I don’t want to take Mr. Smith’s statement out of context, but I do want to quote this from you, Mr. Smith. And, again, 

I think it does add some substance to our hearing this afternoon. 

You said that it is not very productive to spend time blaming 

China or to seek legal threats or sanctions or whatever against 

China. It seems to me that at this stage when China now controls 

95 percent of the world’s market on rare earths it is because they 

have been working on it for years. 

My question is, what have we been doing for all of those years? 

Why are we in the situation that we are in now where we have to 

import from China? Are we blaming China for its success, the fact 

that we have to provide 1.3 billion people with their needs and jobs 

and all of this? 

I just want to catch that note from Mr. Smith’s statement. Can 

you elaborate on that, Mr. Smith? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. I would be happy to address that, sir. And it is 

a very good question. And thank you for asking for clarity. 

Molycorp’s position on that is that the United States should take 

whatever measures it needs to. And certainly actions by the WTO 

or anything else, those are legal channels that are available. 

Our concern about taking those measures is that the ability to 

make something happen under those measures takes a lot of time. 

And the problem that we have now is immediate. And we need to 

act. We need to not depend on those legal actions to get where we 

need to go today. We really need to roll up our sleeves, get to work 

and solve the problem, which we can do domestically. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. How much does China spend in developing 

this industry or has it spent for all these years in developing rare 

earths? 

Mr. SMITH. I don’t have a precise figure on that, but I do know 

that they have over 6,000 scientists dedicated to nothing more than 

the research and development of rare earth processing and uses of 

rare earth minerals. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. And how many scientists do we have, in 

contrast? 

Mr. SMITH. Molycorp has about 25 research scientists. 

50

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. 25 to 6,000 scientists. That is a real good 

combination. 

Mr. SMITH. However, I would add, sir, that I would take my 25 

against their 6,000 any day. [Laughter.] 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. All right. I understand China graduates 

about 100,000 engineers a year. How many engineers do we graduate a year? 

Mr. SMITH. I don’t have a clue on that. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Yes. Well, I appreciate your response to this 

because you had mentioned also that you were visited—was it in 

Mongolia that you visited? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. Mine in inner Mongolia. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Did you visit Mongolia proper? 

Mr. SMITH. I did not get that far, no. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. You should because there is tremendous 

wealth of minerals and potential resources available in Mongolia, 

not necessarily in—well, inner Mongolia is part of China. 

I like the challenge you offered. Do we have the resources? Do 

we have the technology or the markets? Where do we go from here? 

Mr. SMITH. We keep doing what we are doing, sir. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Should the Congress be involved in offering 

subsidies or some way of start-up capital to assist our companies 

or to help you in this industry to develop this industry? 

Mr. SMITH. I will let Congress make that decision on other members of the industry, but we have all the capital we need. And we 

are fully funded for our project. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I see. How much capital are you utilizing 

right now in developing the industry, about? 

Mr. SMITH. It will take us $781 million to put our new Mountain 

Pass Project Phoenix into operation. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Is that in contrast to the green energy program that we are trying to develop? Are rare earths part of the 

green energy dynamics in terms of the industry that it develops? 

Mr. SMITH. They absolutely are. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Okay. 

Mr. SMITH. And it is our humble opinion that without them, the 

green energy technologies that all of us want and desire today will 

not be possible. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. And I didn’t mean to just ask Mr. Smith. 

Please, I would welcome the members of the panel to join. We are 

looking at potentially at how many jobs. If we get this industry 

done right within our own domestic consumptions and needs and 

the means for our military for private sector consumer needs, what 

are we looking at? 

Mr. SMITH. for Molycorp’s mine to magnets business strategy, we 

are looking at a total of over 1,000 direct jobs just in Molycorp 

alone. And then, of course, there will be the multiplier effect because of all of these direct jobs that are created. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Approximately how many Chinese workers 

have developed out of this industry since the Chinese have been 

doing this for years? Approximately how many people are employed 

in China for this besides the 6,000 scientists? 

Mr. SMITH. I don’t have a clear number on that. My estimate is 

that it is well into the tens of thousands of people. 

51

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Please, gentlemen, you are welcome to join 

in the dialogue. I know one specializes in air conditioning, the 

other one on magnetics. And I totally envy you. I have to plead my 

ignorance about the industry. 

The fact is how many Americans know anything about the industry? I would say less than 1⁄10 of 1 percent know anything other 

than the fact you turn the air conditioner, you do all of this. But 

beyond that, are we looking at a possible multibillion-dollar industry if we work this thing right? 

Mr. STRAHS. I think from our standpoint, absolutely. Neodymium 

magnets are critical to green technologies, the hybrid cars. We need 

to bring hybrid car manufacturing to the United States. They need 

the neodymium for that. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. And we have the substance in our own 

country. 

Mr. STRAHS. Right. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. We don’t need to import it from China. Am 

I correct? 

Mr. STRAHS. That is correct. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Johnson? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding such an important hearing today on the importance of rare earth procurement 

to the U.S. economy and China’s troubling monopoly of these elements. 

The extremely wide range of applications for rare earth minerals 

from cars to medical devices to military jets speaks to the significance of these elements. Many of these consumer and defense products contribute to vital industries that have kept our economy 

strong and our nation at the forefront of technological innovation. 

And, yet, the U.S. is almost completely dependent on China for all 

aspects of the rare earth supply chain. 

China’s monopolistic control over the mining processing and exporting of rare earth elements has drastically driven up costs for 

U.S. manufacturing companies, particularly after China cut export 

quotas by 40 percent last year. 

And the availability of rare earth elements has increasingly diminished as China diverts these resources to internal domestic production. However, the real problem here isn’t so much about China’s actions but more about our own inaction. 

According to your testimony, Mr. Galyen, China is currently the 

source of 97 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth elements 

but holds only 35 percent of the world’s known reserves. 

As portions of China’s reserves run out and it continues to restrict its own production quotas, resolving rare earth trade practices with China will no longer be the answer. 

I believe we must look to our own rare earth elements strategy 

or the lack thereof. This is not only an opportunity for American 

mining and processing but also for American manufacturing. 

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 13 million metric tons 

of rare earth elements exist within known deposits in 14 states. 

Last week President Obama unveiled his newest plan for jobs. To 

me, our rare earth potential as an obvious solution is staring us in 

the face. This could be a far-reaching investment in our nation’s 

52

economic future, not just something to give us a near-term economic jump start over the next few months, but also in creating 

long-term jobs here at home. Such an investment also has serious 

national security implications. As China attempts to build up its 

military, another source for rare earths used by the U.S. defense 

industry will become pivotal. 

I do have a few questions. Mr. Smith, in your testimony, you outlined the steps that Molycorp has taken in anticipation of China’s 

rare earth supply limitations. 

You also point out that we do have the ability to leverage the 

power of our own very large and very rich rare earth resources to 

catalyze manufacturing and job growth. With so many U.S. stakeholders in the development of a new supply chain, how have mining, manufacturing, and other industries readied themselves to 

meet this demand in a potential U.S. market? 

Mr. SMITH. Sir, we have been working for over 81⁄2 years to make 

sure that we develop new technologies so that we are not subject 

to the cost limitations that we were subject to prior to this time. 

The price that China could produce their materials was much 

lower than ours, not something we were proud of. But we have 

worked on that issue feverishly for 81⁄2 years. And we have developed our own innovative technologies right here in America that 

will allow us to produce at half the cost of what China does today. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Okay. Mr. Strahs, based on known deposits of rare 

earth minerals in the United States, how much of a role do you believe the U.S. could play in meeting this future demand once Chinese reserves are depleted? 

Mr. STRAHS. I think certainly the United States and production 

here could fulfill all of our needs. That would be easy to do. The 

first step, though, even once the materials are available, is the patent issues that need to be dealt with. So currently there are patents held by Hitachi. 

So, for instance, in Arnold today, we could be producing neodymium iron boron magnets within 12 to 18 months. However, we can’t 

do that because there are patents in place that don’t allow us to. 

So we need to address the licensing issue. 

Mr. JOHNSON. In terms of going after our own rare earth resources here in America, have any of you experienced regulatory 

issues or barriers to being able to go after those elements? 

Mr. SMITH. We have not experienced any, sir. And we have been 

working very hard on that. We have all of our permits in place, 

which are good for the next 30 years. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Okay. Well, as a member of the Natural Resources 

Committee, I have had the chance to explore some of these issues 

from another viewpoint in other hearings back in June. Businesses 

nationwide have highlighted the importance of permitting reform 

in the U.S. as a crucial step needed to be able to develop a comprehensive rare earth policy. 

And I would commend to the committee to look at the National 

Strategic and Critical Minerals Policy Act. This bill would coordinate a government-wide survey of our national mineral policy, suppliers’ demands and other critical factors impacting mineral development to eliminate our dependence on foreign sources for rare 

earth elements. 

53

And, with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Duncan? 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just want to piggyback on some things Mr. Johnson talked 

about because I, too, serve on the Natural Resources Committee 

here in Congress. And we have had at least one, if not more than 

one, committee hearing about rare earth minerals, about mining 

practices in this country. 

We had a hearing today on ANWR. And the theme is very prevalent when we talk about rare earth minerals. And that is jobs. 

These are American jobs that could be created, maintained, and expanded through lessening of regulations and opening up Federal 

land for production of these rare earth minerals. 

I visited a company in my district that takes rare earth minerals 

and develops the catalyst for catalytic converters but also the catalyst for a lot of chemical processes using gold, platinum, palladium, 

and some other minerals that they use there, long-term good-paying jobs. That company has been there for decades providing goodpaying jobs in South Carolina. So it is not just mining of these rare 

earth minerals. It is also the use of those minerals as well. 

And I firmly believe that we have got to change the policies in 

this country to open up the Federal land and lessening the regulations and revamp the regs and laws that are keeping us from harvesting those resources and utilizing those and being so reliant on 

foreign sources of those resources. It is not just China, but it is 

very, very similar to oil and natural gas, where we are reliant on 

other countries to provide the needs here in this country. 

So, Ms. Parthemore, I want to ask you. We heard from Mr. Johnson 13 million tons of rare earth minerals exist according to the 

Geological Survey. I believe it could be far more with that with new 

mining techniques. 

What specific laws and Federal regulations does U.S. Congress 

and this administration need to repeal in your opinion or to allow 

businesses to access these natural resources and prevent the U.S. 

from being so dependent on China and other countries? 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. Sir, I don’t know of any specific laws or regulations that need to be repealed to open it up. Again, it varies 

greatly mineral by mineral of those that I have studied, our current history and our current predicament. There are none for which 

regulatory or legal issues are standing in the way. 

One of the main things that we need to do in this country is be 

vigilant and watch for those. Keeping domestic jobs here and allowing these industries to bloom over time and changing laws and regulations if it is necessary to do that requires identifying the next 

rare earths and this type of issue in advance, years in advance, and 

making sure that those industries are created and maintained, get 

the research and development support from the government, potentially loan guarantees, things like that, well in advance of it hitting 

a crisis level, like we have with rare earths right now. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. 

When I was in business for myself, I realized real quickly that 

you could never hire somebody or pay someone to do something as 

cheaply as you could do it yourself. And I believe that buying rare 

54

earth minerals from other countries that are producing them, I believe we can do that cheaper here in America. 

We can increase the tax base of working Americans’ revenues to 

the country by putting more Americans to work in this and many, 

many other industries. And so I think this is a very timely issue. 

I think Americans have common sense. And they understand 

that we have got the resources here, whether it is rare earth minerals or natural resources for energy production. And they scratch 

their head wondering why government policies continue to thwart 

efforts to be self-reliant in this country. 

It is what made America great, was harvesting our natural resources and utilizes those in American companies and putting 

Americans to work. So I think it is an important issue, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing. I yield back. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Without objection, we welcome Mr. Rohrabacher 

to the subcommittee. Mr. Rohrabacher, you are recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I am very interested in this, perhaps for survival purposes. If our 

country is to survive, we have got to be able to have those building 

blocks to modern society that will permit our people to have a decent standard of living. 

I noticed when I was younger that the price of gasoline stayed 

about the same for a long period of time. I remember when I was 

a kid in the ’50s, it was like 50 cents, actually 25 cents, a gallon. 

By the time I got into college, it was still right around 50 cents, 

25–50 cents, a gallon. But the minute that the United States became a net importer of gasoline, rather than exporter of oil, the 

price of oil jumped drastically and had a major impact on the 

standard of living of the American people. 

But what is worse, Mr. Chairman, an increase in the price of oil, 

that only the United States stood between this higher price and the 

lower price which was there for almost a decade, or that the people 

in the Third World’s standard of living dramatically went down. I 

mean, to have the wealth sucked out of their country by a natural 

resource of oil that America now needs to import, rather than export, well, I am afraid the same can be true of just the very issue 

that we are looking at today with rare earth minerals, and I think 

China sees the type of leverage that it can have to squeeze wealth 

out of the rest of the world. 

Those producers of oil back in the ’60s saw that they could 

squeeze wealth out of the world by manipulating oil prices, so it 

behooves us as Americans and to the benefit of the rest of the 

world to see that this does not happen, that this control of rare 

earth minerals does not take place. 

I would like to ask the panelists, do we know of instances similar 

to when China tried to pressure Japan in a policy dispute by using 

the cutoff of rare earth minerals, where China is trying to corral 

the control of these rare earth minerals in other parts of the world? 

Do you have any stories of that at all? 

Mr. SMITH. I certainly don’t have any stories about dictators, but 

there are certainly documented cases where different Chinese mining companies have tried to acquire the Molycorp assets here in the 

55

United States as well as the Lynas assets in Western Australia, 

which are the two largest and richest ore bodies in the world. 

All of those attempts have failed, which is the good news, but 

they are strategic in their thinking, and they are very disciplined. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I am sure in the Third World they would just 

be paying off the local government officials. Thank God that they 

have been unsuccessful. 

Mr. Chairman, we might look into, for example, legislation that 

might restrict the sale of this type of mineral wealth to corporations that were associated with, for example, dictatorships, China 

being the world’s foremost human rights abuser and dictatorship. 

I would think that would be very much against our national interest to permit companies that are really fronts for the People’s 

Liberation Army from coming in and purchasing those mineral 

rights here in the United States. 

So let me just add one note. I have also noticed in my career the 

demonization of people who are utilizing minerals in the United 

States for the betterment of our people, whether it is mining or 

whether it is the oil industry. 

People who were utilizing these gifts, that we have from God, in 

order to put into our marketplace, which helped ordinary people’s 

lives, had been demonized to the point that there are all sorts of 

political impediments to their ability to get that job done. I hope 

this panel today and your leadership will provide us a method of 

getting away from that demonization of people who are trying to 

do an efficient job of providing us with these resources. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you. 

In 2007, when Congress passed the Foreign Investment and National Security Act, I added an amendment stipulating that whenever the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. is examining a potential sale and the buyer is a state-owned enterprise, it 

will be reviewed at the highest level so that something like this 

would not happen again. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you for your leadership, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MANZULLO. I appreciate that. 

I have a couple of questions. Mr. Faleomavaega brought up the 

issue of jobs, but it is not just the jobs that are associated with the 

mining and the manufacturing and the steps in between. Tell us 

about companies that have gone to China to set up operations because that is where the rare earths are and what China does to 

woo those American companies to leave here. 

Mr. GALYEN. I will take a stab at it, Mr. Chairman. For us, we 

haven’t seen it directly. We have operations and production in 

China, but our intent, as I commented earlier—we produce in Florida. And we produce the residential compressors I was talking 

about in Arkansas. And we manufacture power electronics in Rockford. 

I think the risk becomes stronger if the supply of this needed 

material, as we have talked, is only available in China. Then my 

options are going to be such that if I want to play in the market, 

then I must go to China and be in China to get those materials. 

56

And that is where I think you could actually see a movement of 

jobs and production and investment to China. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Do you know of any anecdotal stories of where 

this actually happened or is that just a sore that is hanging out 

there that you can see dangling? 

Mr. GALYEN. I asked some questions of my colleagues. And I 

said, ‘‘I don’t have any evidence of it actually moving,’’ but we do 

track the prices in China and out of China. And there is a gap 

today. There is also very clearly the statements that they are going 

to establish quotas and given a priority to their domestic supply. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Yes. 

Mr. GALYEN. So in both of those cases, I think they are sending 

us the signal that they would like to have the jobs, they would like 

to have the technology, and they would like to have the investment 

in China. 

Mr. MANZULLO. They are setting the stage. 

Mr. GALYEN. And, to be honest, Mr. Duncan’s comments, I think 

did they see the opportunity? Yes. I think they have seen the opportunity and for a long time. 

Mr. MANZULLO. I would like to shift just a little bit. We are talking about additional mining and processing to come up with these 

permanent magnets. Mr. Smith, talk to us about the terbium that 

is found in fluorescent lights and what your company has done to 

recycle those and the possible uses of terbium. 

Mr. SMITH. We are looking at the recycling of the rare earth elements from the compact fluorescent light bulbs. Those light bulbs 

have been on the market for about 10 years now. So the useful life 

is starting to come to an end. And there is a real need to recycle 

these materials. 

There are only about 200 tons of terbium that are required 

worldwide every year. So a very simple process of recycling the terbium from those compact fluorescent light bulbs year after year 

now can actually do a major piece of good to the supply situation 

in terms of making sure terbium is available. 

The other advantage that terbium offers, particularly in the magnetic market, is that terbium will also increase the temperature capacity of the neodymium iron boron magnets, which only need 

about one-third to one-half of that amount of material versus dysprosium. 

So there are a lot of win-win situations here by taking advantage 

of what we think are existing resources of materials by just simply 

recycling these items. 

Mr. MANZULLO. We discussed in our office this morning about 

contacting GSA on using the fluorescents that are in public buildings. 

There is technology that is available to do this. There is a French 

company that does this that is looking to set up operations in this 

country. There is obviously room for more than one company——

Mr. SMITH. Right. 

Mr. MANZULLO [continuing]. Based upon the amount of fluorescents. 

If GSA decided to start a program to take fluorescent bulbs and 

put them into a facility to recycle, what impact would that have? 

57

Mr. SMITH. We do not have exact numbers on that, Mr. Chairman, but I will speculate that it will have a major impact on our 

ability to supply the terbium market across the board and probably 

provide additional uses for terbium that we don’t have today because there isn’t enough supply. 

Mr. MANZULLO. It is not just recapturing terbium. It is recapturing——

Mr. SMITH. Europium and yttrium as well. 

Mr. MANZULLO. And then those can be recycled again for lighting? 

Mr. SMITH. Absolutely. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Is that correct? 

Mr. SMITH. That is correct. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Faleomavaega, did you have any other questions you want to ask? 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. If I could? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

For our second round, I wanted to ask Ms. Parthemore. I sense 

that you have an extensive understanding about implications of 

foreign policy and our national security interests concerning this 

issue. 

What is your estimate of the dollar value that we place on rare 

earths as far as our military industry complex is concerned? I 

mean, with a $760 billion budget that we have in our defense, how 

much of that goes into rare earths in terms of building our aircraft, 

our electronic system, and all of that? Do you have any estimates 

on that? 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. No, sir. And the challenge is that no one 

knows. The Department of Defense’s biggest problem by my estimate is that it does not fully understand, despite years and instruction by Congress, to really study its supply chains and quantify how, when, where, and in what quantities it relies on different 

valuable earths. I don’t think the Department is anywhere near 

having a good estimate of——

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Let me say this for the record. Are you saying that we do not know in the Defense Department how much we 

are spending for these rare earth materials that we need for our 

aircraft, missile defense system, and all of this? 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. It is my estimate that that is the case, correct. 

Again, so there are contractors. There are private companies that 

supply the Department of Defense that may have a good estimate 

of what they need for their own supplies and assets that they are 

providing to DoD. 

But they don’t always share that information with the Department of Defense, even upon request. I have seen more willingness 

over the past year or 2 than previously to share that information 

with DoD given the current crisis and concerns over shortages. 

But no, I don’t think that there is a single good overall estimate. 

If there is, that is wonderful. But I don’t know of it. 

Mr. MANZULLO. With China now controlling 95 to 97 percent of 

the rare earths, as we have discussed this afternoon, what are the 

implications in terms of our national security? 

What level of risk are we putting on our national security because of the fact that China controls 95 percent? What is the reaction time? Do we need, do we really critically need, these elements 

58

as part of our national defense? I mean, not just building tanks and 

bullets and airplanes, but where does it really come in when it is 

really critical? 

I don’t know if I am asking the right question here. 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. No. It is a good question. 

My biggest concern is political leverage. So for China, in addition 

to other exporting countries that know that they have control over 

a market that is strategically important to other countries, they 

will use that for political leverage. 

It has happened before the case of—in cases with uranium and 

other mineral supplies historically from countries like Kazakhstan, 

Chile, other places. And, again, I think that it was predictable that 

China once it gained control over this system was going to use that 

for political leverage in examples like with the trawler captain 

issue with Japan last year, some of its other geopolitical challenges 

and tensions and fights with other countries. It is going to add this 

into the mix as one more thing in which it has control over this 

situation and can exert that leverage into negotiations. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. What is your estimate in terms of how 

many years would it take us to catch up with China concerning 

this industry? Mr. Smith, Mr. Strahs, we have what it takes, but 

I am just curious. How long will it take us to catch up with China 

in that regard? 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. Sir, I am hoping not long given that Mountain 

Pass was a productive mine before. And, from what I have learned 

from industry counterparts, that goes a long way toward speeding 

up the process of getting production up and running domestically. 

So that is a good thing. 

Part of it, though, anything that we can do to reduce that control 

over the market, even if we are not displacing 75 percent or 50 percent of Chinese production and supplies to the market of rare 

earths, anything to do to just change that percentage in the favor 

of them not having almost full control is going to start to diminish 

the political leverage that they see in this situation. 

So anything we can do in this country will help, but it is sort of 

the more, the better, the faster, the better off we are going to be. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Is uranium considered a rare element? 

Mr. SMITH. No, sir. No, it is not. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. But we need it for nuclear——

Mr. SMITH. Correct. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA [continuing]. Nuclear bomb development or 

nuclear reactors that Japan has decided not to get into. The reason 

why I raised the issue is the fact that Australia I think has about 

25 percent of the market in uranium. And Kazakhstan also has 

about another 25 percent control of the market. 

What is our percentage control of uranium? Does anybody know? 

Maybe I am asking the wrong question here. 

Mr. SMITH. I don’t know. I am in the rare earths business. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. All right. Let’s stay with the rare earths. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. As, Mr. Smith, I think, you have alluded 

earlier that you are not having any problem with the regulations. 

So with these Federal agency bureaucracies that pound on you sayVerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:29 Nov 01, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AP\092111\68444 HFA PsN: SHIRL
59

ing that you have got to fulfill your permits, it has been no problem? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, I wouldn’t ever say that it is not a problem or 

that it doesn’t take a long time to get them, but we have all of our 

permits in place and some good advance timing and some collaborative efforts have made a difference. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. EPA is not giving you a hard time on this? 

Mr. SMITH. No, sir. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Oh, that is interesting. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the panel for their testimony, 

appreciate your coming. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Johnson? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Smith, one of the recommendations you offer is to support 

private sector efforts to recycle rare earths. How effective would 

such a process be? 

Mr. SMITH. Right now under a voluntary program, it is not very 

effective. The numbers that we are hearing are that we have less 

than 5 percent of the used compact fluorescent light bulbs being recycled today, which means that 95 percent of them are being 

thrown away into landfills, which is also not a good practice. 

So it is our opinion that we can have a major impact on certain 

heavy rare earth elements, such as yttrium, europium, and terbium 

if we get the idea of recycling across to the American public in a 

much bigger way than what it is today. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Is it generally more cost-effective to recycle rare 

earth elements than to mine new ones? 

Mr. SMITH. Historically the answer has been a very simple absolutely not, but with prices for these rare earth elements where they 

are today, recycling has become a very, very important consideration by almost everybody that uses these minerals. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Ms. Parthemore, in September of last year, China 

placed an embargo on rare earth exports to Japan after a diplomatic dispute. How likely is it in your opinion that China would 

use a similar foreign policy strategy with the U.S.? 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. For the United States, it depends on the circumstances. In general, speaking in regards to China and, again, 

any exporting country that has full control over a market like this 

will use it again and again for political advantage when they see 

that the circumstances are there, I think 100 percent. They absolutely would, as we would as well. I think it is just the logical thing 

to do when you have possessed this type of economic control that 

allows you political and strategic leverage. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Besides Japan, has China used its rare earth monopoly as leverage with other nations to date or threatened to do 

so, as far as you know, other than Japan? 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. Sir, not that I know of. From a trans-perspective as well, it is—I think there are partial truths in all of those, 

but it is also trying to address its own environmental concerns and 

the potential for its environmental practices, which have been unregulated within China, to drive social instability, which is an extraordinarily major concern for the Chinese Government. 

60

So, again, I think they have a lot of domestic issues that are attaching to this. It is not just how they are using these within the 

foreign policy arena. It all connects together, though. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Probably an easily answered question here, but in 

your opinion, would a disruption in the supply chain of rare earths 

have a serious negative implication, hinder, or harm our national 

defense and foreign policy objectives? 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. Yes, sir, I do. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I think that is all the questions I have. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Duncan? 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank the panelists for 

sitting through another round of questioning. And I want to thank 

Mr. Smith. 

I was talking about jobs earlier. I had not read your testimony. 

And being tied up when you gave it, I didn’t realize a lot of the 

points I was making you had made as well. It is all about jobs. And 

I appreciate your perspective on this. 

In your testimony, you talk about China’s former premier, Deng 

Xiaoping, who famously commented in 1992, ‘‘Middle East has oil. 

China has rare earths,’’ that China recognized this key advantage 

20 years ago and, ever since, has focused intently on rare earths 

production as a job creation engine. Hello? Jobs for America. 

But you mentioned another critical trend that we are witnessing 

as China’s efforts to exercise much tighter control over its internal 

production and that it has settled in the pace of the internal consumption of these rare earth minerals and rapidly resulting in 

rapid constriction of its exports. What are they using? If they are 

using more and more of the rare earths internally, what are they 

using those rare earth minerals for? 

Mr. SMITH. There are two different areas that we look at in 

terms of what they are using these minerals for. One is they are 

making more and more end-use products: The MRI machines, the 

motors, the cars, the wind turbines. They are actually making 

those products and exporting them to the rest of the world. 

The other item, though, is that they are trying to increase their 

standard of living. And their 1.3 billion citizens would also like to 

have computers and cell phones and iPads and iPhones. So we are 

seeing a real doubling-up, so to speak, of China’s demand because 

they are trying to produce more end-use products for the rest of the 

world as well as these end-use products for their own citizens. 

Mr. DUNCAN. So if the U.S. were able to mine its own rare earths 

and create products here that were in demand in China, there 

would be an export possibility of U.S.-made goods to China using 

U.S. rare earths? 

Mr. SMITH. We don’t see any reason why that can’t be done with 

good technology. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Okay. Well, thank you. 

A lot of other questions, Mr. Chairman, were asked by Mr. Faleomavaega. So I will yield back the balance of my time. Thank you. 

Mr. MANZULLO. I have a couple more questions. In what you are 

doing, Mr. Smith, the mining, extraction, alloying, oxidizing, and 

then going into making the metal itself, you are, what, four-fifths 

of the way through? Is that correct? 

61

Mr. SMITH. Yes. We look at the supply chain from mine to 

magnets and suggest that there are five steps in that process. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Did I leave out a step? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, the fifth step is the actual production of 

magnets. 

Mr. MANZULLO. You mean the actual magnets? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. We certainly have the first four. And we have 

all of those capabilities in Molycorp today. 

Mr. MANZULLO. So, then, your business plan is to manufacture 

the neodymium? 

Mr. SMITH. The neodymium, the neodymium metal, the neodymium iron boron alloy. And ultimately we plan to be in a joint venture magnet production effort as well. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Strahs, you are presently manufacturing the 

samarium cobalt and also lower-end ferrite magnets. Is that correct? 

Mr. STRAHS. Yes, we do. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Your business plan, for lack of a better word, is 

to manufacture the neodymium. Is that correct? 

Mr. STRAHS. We would like to be able to manufacture, yes, neodymium iron boron magnets. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Galyen says the more manufacturers of this 

the better because there are a lot of uses for it out there. 

I noticed you had mentioned this, Mr. Smith, that the Chinese 

are developing more and more uses for the permanent magnets in 

the development of more and more consumer products. 

Mr. SMITH. Correct. 

Mr. MANZULLO. And that is where the jobs are. 

Mr. SMITH. That is correct. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Go ahead. 

Mr. SMITH. From what we have seen, the further you get into the 

supply chain, the higher level of employment. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Do you believe that if these and the permanent 

magnets are more available in the United States they could help 

keep jobs here or actually create jobs in areas to manufacture new 

products that have to use these elements? 

Mr. SMITH. There is no question in my mind. The answer is yes, 

it will. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Okay. Well, we are supposed to have votes at 

2:45. Let me introduce to you Ken Reiman. Ken is on loan to us 

from the State Department. He is a fellow. We have been blessed 

to have him. He is working full-time on this rare earth issue. 

What we have been doing for about the past 4 or 5 months is 

meeting with every conceivable player that we know is involved in 

rare earths, including people in the government. We have met with 

people from State. We will be meeting with people from DoD. We 

have obviously met with people from the Department of Energy. 

We have been trying to piece together this whole picture as to 

exactly what it means for the United States not to be able to manufacture these high-end magnets. 

It is amazing to me. I know DoD is looking at it, but, for goodness gracious sake, the guidance system of missiles depends upon 

us importing these neodymium iron boron magnets from China. 

62

I would think that they are probably used in the drones. Would 

that be correct? 

Mr. SMITH. That would be correct. 

Mr. MANZULLO. So we are making more uses of these permanent 

magnets in our own defense systems. I just don’t see DoD really 

stepping up. 

The last question is, should rare earths be classified here, as it 

is abroad in Europe and Japan, as a strategic resource? The Japanese refer to rare earths as ‘‘the seeds of high technology.’’ Should 

we be stockpiling rare earths, as our partners around the world are 

doing, in preparation for future disruptions, especially in the area 

of military defense? Anybody? 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. Yes, sir. I definitely think so. The National 

Academies put out a report a few years ago recommending hundreds of pages of material on just how to update the stockpiling 

policy. 

So DoD going further and just implementing these ideas that 

have been floating around for years I think would benefit our understanding of our defense supply chains and make sure that rare 

earths and any other minerals that can be classified as being this 

important and potentially leading to crises such as this, we can be 

vigilant and watch for it and prevent it from happening again. 

Mr. MANZULLO. You testified earlier that you don’t believe that 

the Department of Defense is quite on top of this. I am not trying 

to be critical of anybody here because we are trying to piece together all the resources and go forward. 

Is that the statement you made earlier? I don’t want to 

mischaracterize your statement. 

Ms. PARTHEMORE. No. It is correct. It is less the fault of anyone 

in DoD necessarily but just the fact that defense assets are now relying on global supply chains more than they ever were before. And 

defense assets are becoming more dual use in terms of civilian and 

military technologies. 

So telecommunications equipment, for example, obviously has a 

lot of civilian use as well as military components to what it is 

doing. So the supply chains for all of these are not just a distinct 

defense supply chain, as it once was. 

It is privatized. It is globalized. And a lot of these things, such 

as using iPods for translations devices abroad, things like that, 

mean that the supply chains are significantly more complex than 

they used to be. It is just going to take a lot of effort to fully understand how one mineral ties into——

Mr. MANZULLO. It doesn’t take much examination of the supply 

chain for neodymium iron boron to realize it is all coming from 

China. I would have thought somewhere along the line that somebody at the Pentagon would have said, ‘‘There is a problem, Houston.’’

Ms. PARTHEMORE. Yes. I think that there is one manufacturer in 

Pennsylvania of those magnets I believe is the case. One may not 

be enough, especially if anything were to happen to that one. But 

it is definitely problematic. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Even in the neodymium? I would think that any 

of those——

63

Mr. STRAHS. No, there are no producers of neodymium iron boron 

magnets today in the U.S. There are two producers of samarium 

cobalt magnets——

Mr. MANZULLO. Right. 

Mr. STRAHS [continuing]. Ourselves and the company in——

Mr. MANZULLO. But nobody is producing neodymium here? 

Mr. STRAHS. Correct. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Well, I want to thank you all for coming. It has 

been a very interesting panel. We are still looking for more information. The reason I introduced Ken is that he is going to continue 

to work on this until we sharpen our focus even more and make 

some priorities. We are very much interested. One initiative we 

think we can help implement right away is the recycling of rare 

earths. 

It is a win-win for everybody. I don’t see who would be opposed 

to it. So, we are going to contact GSA and even perhaps House Administration here in the House of Representatives to see if we can 

get involved in helping to recapture the rare earths from the 

tombs. 

Thank you for coming. This subcommittee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:41 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(65)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

66

f


68444n.eps
67

f


68444m.eps
68

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE DONALD A. MANZULLO, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, AND CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC


68444g-1.eps
69

f


68444g-2.eps
70

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE ENI F.H. 

FALEOMAVAEGA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM AMERICAN SAMOA


68444h-1.eps
71


68444h-2.eps
72


68444h-3.eps
73


68444h-4.eps
74


68444i.eps
75


68444j-1.eps
76


68444j-2.eps
77


68444j-3.eps
78


68444j-4.eps
79


68444j-5.eps
80

Æ


68444j-6.eps