`[Senate Hearing 118-467]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]





                                                        S. Hrg. 118-467

                      DIGGING DEEPER: BUILDING OUR
                      CRITICAL MINERALS WORKFORCE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

            SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE SAFETY

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
                          LABOR, AND PENSIONS

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                                   ON

           EXAMINING BUILDING OUR CRITICAL MINERALS WORKFORCE

                               __________

                             JUNE 12, 2024

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 
                                Pensions






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          COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS

                 BERNIE SANDERS (I), Vermont, Chairman
PATTY MURRAY, Washington             BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana, 
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania       Ranking Member
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             RAND PAUL, Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut   SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
TIM KAINE, Virginia                  LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire         MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                ROGER MARSHALL, M.D., Kansas
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Colorado          TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
ED MARKEY, Massachusetts             MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
                                     TED BUDD, North Carolina

                Warren Gunnels, Majority Staff Director
              Bill Dauster, Majority Deputy Staff Director
                Amanda Lincoln, Minority Staff Director
           Danielle Janowski, Minority Deputy Staff Director
                                 ------                                

            SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE SAFETY

                 JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Colorado, Chairman
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania   MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             ROGER MARSHALL, M.D., Kansas
TIM KAINE, Virginia                  MITT ROMNEY, Utah
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
ED MARKEY, Massachusetts             TED BUDD, North Carolina
BERNIE SANDERS (I), Vermont, (ex     BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana, (ex 
    officio)                             officio)
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                               STATEMENTS

                        WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 2024

                                                                   Page

                           Committee Members

Hickenlooper, Hon. John, Chairman, Subcommittee on Employment and 
  Workplace Safety, Opening statement............................     1
Braun, Hon. Mike, Ranking Member, U.S. Senator from the State of 
  Indiana, Opening statement.....................................     3

                               Witnesses

Arnold, Barbara J., Ph.D., P.E., Chair of Mining Engineering, 
  Professor of Practice in Mining Engineering, The Pennsylvania 
  State University, University Park, PA..........................     4
    Prepared statement...........................................     6
Baskaran, Grace, Ph.D., Director of the Project on Critical 
  Minerals Security, Center for Strategic and International 
  Studies, Washington, DC........................................     8
    Prepared statement...........................................    10
Evans, Jon, President and CEO, Lithium Americas, Reno and 
  Winnemucca, NV.................................................    16
    Prepared statement...........................................    18
Zisch, Bill, J. Steven Whisler Head of Mining Engineering, 
  Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO...........................    19
    Prepared statement...........................................    21

                          ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.
Hickenlooper, Hon. John:
    The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, 
      Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International 
      Union (USW), Statement for the Record......................    37
    MP Materials Corp., Statement for the Record.................    41

 
                      DIGGING DEEPER: BUILDING OUR 
                      CRITICAL MINERALS WORKFORCE 

                              ----------                              


                        Wednesday, June 12, 2024

                                       U.S. Senate,
           Subcommittee On Employment and Workplace Safety,
       Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
                                                    Washington, DC.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m., in 
room 562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John 
Hickenlooper, presiding.

    Present: Senators Hickenlooper [presiding], Casey, Smith, 
and Braun.

               OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HICKENLOOPER

    Senator Hickenlooper. The Subcommittee on Employment and 
Workplace Safety will come to order.

    Today's hearing is going to explore how we can 
strategically build our critical minerals workforce. My co-
chair, Ranking Member Braun, and I will each give an opening 
statement. Then, we'll introduce the witnesses and after the 
witness give their testimony. Senators will have 5 minutes to 
ask a round of questions.

    Last month, the Subcommittee convened a hearing about the 
importance of health and safety in the overall mining industry. 
And our witnesses talked about America's mining history and 
practices we can adopt to enhance the safety of our workers 
today, and going into the future.

    Today, we're going to dig deeper into the future, talk 
about how to build the critical minerals workforce that our 
Country's going to depend on for decades to come.

    I think it's fair to say right now, America's in the middle 
of a great transition to a clean economy. But to reach full 
energy independence, we're going to need to build faster and to 
build smarter. To power the transition, we're going to need 
critical minerals just as we do the transition, and we're going 
to need a lot of them. According to the International Energy 
Agency, mineral demand could double by 2030 and quadruple by 
2040. Those are sobering statistics to say the least.

    Globally, we don't have nearly enough of some of these 
minerals, but even for the minerals we do have, processing 
facilities are controlled by a relatively small number of 
countries. Not all of them are allied with our values, and even 
if they were all our friends, we end up with bottlenecks in 
supply and the resulting geopolitical competition.

    As mineral demand rises, I think we're going to see that 
vulnerability increase, as far as actors try to insert 
themselves into our supply chain, manipulate prices for their 
own benefit.

    I think China's made it clear that they are aggressive in 
this type of role, especially as in terms of processing 
minerals that would be crucial for our national and for our 
energy security.

    As a couple of examples, China dominates 70 percent of rare 
earth element production, 90 percent of the processing. These 
minerals are crucial for wind turbines, for electric vehicles, 
missile systems, I could go on. It's a long list, as you all 
know.

    To meet our clean energy goals, reduce our dependence on 
China, we need to increase domestic production and processing 
of critical minerals and strengthen our alliances with 
international partners. Preparing for this new wave of domestic 
minerals production it's a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle. All 
the right pieces have to get in the right place at the right 
time if this is really going to work.

    A key piece of the puzzle is recruiting and training and 
making sure you can retain a robust, talented, diverse, 
resilient workforce that could address critical minerals.

    It's estimated that the critical minerals workforce will 
need to double over the next 5 years to just meet the needs we 
now project. But instead of the workforce growing, what we've 
seen in the last couple years is a decline. And over a longer 
term, we've seen a decrease of roughly 40 percent over the last 
30 years.

    Many workers are retiring as that average age, got older 
and older. Some have moved into other industries. I think even 
more concerning our talent pipelines are not in shape. They're 
not fit to be able to deliver the number of skilled workers we 
need and making sure these workers have the right skills.

    While China is graduating literally thousands of students 
from mining related programs every year, the U.S. has only 
about 600 students over total enrollment right now.

    According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we'll need at 
least 70,000 more craftsmen to build out these work sites. 
We'll also need surveying, mapping technicians to make sure 
that we can find the mineral deposits. We're going to need 
upskilling and reskilling our workforce to meet the diverse 
demands that this is all going to require, especially for all 
these workforce slots.

    A lot of this has got to happen in rural communities. There 
are certainly some bright lights in our State of Colorado. The 
Colorado School of Mines is a leader, in the way in how you go 
about training engineers and chemical processors and 
geologists. As a recovering geologist myself, I'm sensitive to 
the challenge involved in that educating process.

    Unions like the United Steelworkers and International Union 
of Operating Engineers are offering apprenticeship and other 
training opportunities to train not just engineers, but 
construction workers and heavy equipment operators, equipment 
servicers.

    This is all a great start, but we need to build and expand 
these programs, and we need to learn from our international 
partners like Australia and Canada, that have maintained their 
energy in this regard over these last few decades, when we have 
maybe backed off.

    In many ways they are ahead of the game in training this 
next generation of crucial mineral workforce. So, it's time to 
get building, today we're going to get to hear from a panel of 
experts, as we begin to craft a blueprint to expand the 
critical minerals workforce.

    I want to thank my co-chair, Senator Braun, and his staff 
for working with us to host this hearing. And before I hand it 
off to Senator Braun for his opening, I want to submit two 
statements for the record. The first statement is from the 
United Steel Workers Union. The other is from MP Materials, a 
Nevada-based company in support of today's hearing.

    [The following information can be found on page 37 in 
Additional Material:]

    Senator Hickenlooper. With that, I'll recognize Ranking 
Member Braun for his opening statement, and to also introduce 
our first witness.

                   OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BRAUN

    Senator Braun. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Critical minerals 
have been regarded as the building blocks of U.S. economic and 
national security. The physical and chemical traits of these 
unique materials allow them to be applied to advanced 
technologies that can benefit our Nation in many ways.

    Strengthening America's critical minerals helps to reduce 
our reliance on getting these materials from adversarial 
countries, and it seems to be a lot of that is at play 
currently. Additionally, our critical minerals supply chain is 
an important issue for strengthening American manufacturing and 
keeping jobs here in the U.S. as part of a connected supply 
chain.

    Strength of America's critical minerals largely depend on 
the strength of the workforce. And in so many different places 
in our Country, the workforce just has not stayed up with the 
demand. So, much of that has to do with how we educate kids and 
advise them when they're in high school.

    This should be starting in middle school, and a lot of the 
programs that would've prepared kids for this have been 
disbanded. And we don't have the guidance systems. We don't 
have higher education working together, especially through 
transparency on what these high demand, high wage jobs are.

    To me that is simple and for too long, we've kind of just 
hid behind a system that's not doing it well in many arenas, 
not just critical minerals. This leads us into the issue of 
improving that workforce development.

    As with many industries facing shortages, we're trying to 
still find that right mix. In my own State of Indiana, which is 
the biggest manufacturing state per capita, we've been talking 
about it for years. When I was in our state legislature back 
seven, 8 years ago, we had 15-20 different programs spending a 
billion dollars a year, not quite getting it right.

    On my own, I built a business in my hometown and county. 
Found out our school systems were stigmatizing against pathways 
like this. Very simple, high demand, high wage jobs. Put it out 
there. Know what the career pay is going to be, what starting 
pay is, and what educational costs are going to be associated 
with it. It's imperative that young people understand this 
along with their parents or else we will miss opportunities.

    The way to drive home this message is to make sure our kids 
and their parents have full information and transparency.

    We're going to talk about it, particularly today on 
Critical Minerals. I get the opportunity here to introduce our 
first witness Dr. Barbara Arnold, who is a professor of 
Practice and Mining Engineering at the Penn State, which I 
won't get into our competition with Indiana University and 
Purdue with Penn State. Let's stay on a pleasant subject here.

    Dr. Arnold has over 30 years of experience in the coal and 
mineral industries, and over 20 years, she represented several 
coal and mineral processing equipment companies in the U.S. and 
consulted with coal companies and engineering contractors to 
develop flow sheets for new coal preparation plants and plant 
retrofits.

    She's a recognized international expert in coal 
preparation, and we welcome her expertise to this panel. Thank 
you for being here. I Yield back. I think Dr. Arnold, you're 
welcome to your opening statement.

 STATEMENT OF BARBARA J. ARNOLD, PH.D., P.E., CHAIR OF MINING 
 ENGINEERING, PROFESSOR OF PRACTICE IN MINING ENGINEERING, THE 
       PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY, UNIVERSITY PARK, PA

    Dr. Arnold. Thank you, Senators, staff, and guests. Good 
afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to address you on 
a matter of utmost urgency, the need to expand our critical 
minerals workforce.

    My name's Barbara Arnold, a professor of Practice and chair 
of the Mining Engineering Program at the Pennsylvania State 
University. I teach and conduct research on mining health and 
safety, focused on respirable dust and critical minerals, 
assessing the domestic critical mineral resources, especially 
in Appalachia.

    The National Academies hosted a workshop in late January, 
2024, supported by the United States Geological Survey titled, 
Building Capacity for the U.S. Mineral Resources Workforce. The 
workshop report was recently published.

    Let me quote from that report. ``The 14 mining engineering 
programs across the United States collectively graduated only 
162 students in 2023. Falling far short of the estimated 
employment demand for 400 to 600 mining engineering graduates 
per year in the United States. By contrast, China's 45 mining 
engineering programs currently enroll about 12,000 students and 
graduate approximately 3000 annually, about 16 times the number 
of graduates in the U.S.''

    One might think that the need for critical minerals in a 
stable domestic supply would encourage increased enrollment in 
our mining engineering programs. But let me quote the NASEM 
report again. ``A key concern expressed by several participants 
is that negative public perceptions of mining can dissuade 
students from considering a career in minerals extraction.

    For many, the minerals industry is linked with the legacy 
of environmental damage, which has been reinforced by negative 
depictions of the industry and popular culture. To begin to 
overcome this perception, several participants suggested 
focusing on reframing the industry as being part of the 
solution to environmental issues. Improving awareness of the 
role of mining in addressing climate change and environmental 
degradation could help to attract students who are passionate 
about the environment''.

    The mining industry itself is moving toward a digital and 
autonomous future. We incorporate digital twins to optimize 
mining and mineral processing technology: We fly drones to 
monitor tailings, do aerial surveys of stockpiles and collect 
water samples. Autonomous haul trucks and trains move materials 
with automation and control technologies becoming increasingly 
sophisticated.

    The Society for Mining Metallurgy and Exploration, the lead 
U.S. based Mining professional society, is focused on workforce 
development. Their Ph.D., fellowship and career grant program 
helped address faculty shortages along with research funding 
for capacity building from the National Institute of 
Occupational Safety and Health.

    Those of us at the U.S. mining schools are revamping our 
curricula to incorporate this ever-changing landscape. At Penn 
State, we've added courses on automation and control and 
sustainability.

    Despite these efforts, we still need help attracting more 
students into our programs. In spring 2023, we graduated only 
four students with bachelor's degrees in mining engineering at 
Penn State, they're all employed with an average salary of 
$75,000. Our program should be attracting more students.

    In the QS University rankings, our Penn State Mining 
Engineering program is ranked second in the U.S. and 13th 
globally up, from 17th last year. So, we should be attracting 
talent.

    Incoming students just don't know that mining exists. To 
address this, we're offering our first ever MINING ROCKS! Penn 
State Summer Mining Camp in August, free of charge to the first 
20 students, thanks to support of our alumni and mining 
industry partners.

    During the NASEM workshop, several other actions were 
suggested. One specific piece of suggestion was, to make sure 
that the K-12 curriculum incorporates the significance of 
minerals in our daily lives. For example, there are 62 
different elements in a cell phone. All sourced from mining, 
electric vehicles require much more copper and other critical 
minerals than conventional cars. Wind turbines and solar panels 
all require critical minerals.

    The 2021 report by the International Energy Agency titled 
The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions, says 
that mineral demand will increase by about four times by 2040 
to meet climate goals. Where will the minerals come from? Who 
will mine the minerals safely and responsibly? Everyone must 
understand that if it can't be grown, it has to be mined.

    Miners play a crucial role in our society. They provide 
fertilizers in the metal for farm implements. They provide 
metals for trucks for catalytic converters in those trucks to 
reduce pollution, and they provide all the critical minerals in 
our increasingly high-tech everyday lives.

    Let's take a moment to appreciate their hard work and 
dedication. Thank a miner every day. Thank you for allowing me 
to discuss the critical mineral workforce with you today.

    [The prepared statement of Dr. Arnold follows.]
                  prepared statement of barbara arnold
    Senators, staff, and guests. Good afternoon and thank you for the 
opportunity to address you regarding the urgent need to expand our 
critical minerals workforce. My name is Barbara Arnold, a professor of 
practice and chair of the mining engineering program at The 
Pennsylvania State University. I teach and conduct research on mine 
health and safety focused on respirable dust and on critical minerals, 
assessing the domestic critical mineral resource especially in 
Appalachia. I obtained my BS in mining engineering and MS and Ph.D., in 
mineral processing from Penn State, conducted coal beneficiation 
research at the Electric Power Research Institute's Coal Cleaning Test 
Facility in Homer City, PA, and then started my own company, selling 
coal and mineral processing equipment to engineering contractors and 
coal and mineral companies, developing flowsheets for coal preparation 
plant retrofits and new construction. In 2020, I joined the faculty at 
Penn State.

    Allow me to start by saying that there are already issues related 
to the mining and mineral industry workforce, skilled labor as well as 
scientists and engineers. This will translate to even greater needs for 
the critical mineral workforce as we will need even more people 
equipped with mineral exploration, processing, extractive metallurgy, 
and refining backgrounds. We have 14 mining engineering programs in the 
U.S. and even fewer economic geology or processing and metallurgy 
programs.

    Related to the current mining and mineral industry workforce 
issues, the National Academies hosted a workshop in late January 2024 
that was supported by the United States Geological Survey titled, 
Building Capacity for the U.S. Mineral Resources Workforce. The 
workshop report was recently published. Let me quote from that report:

        Kecojevic described a sharp drop-off in mining engineering 
        enrollments, from a collective total of 1,449 U.S. 
        undergraduate students in 2015 to just 590 in 2023, a 60 
        percent decline over 9 years. The 14 mining engineering 
        programs across the United States collectively graduated only 
        162 students in 2023, falling far short of the estimated 
        employment demand for 400-600 mining engineering graduates per 
        year in the United States. By contrast, China's 45 mining 
        engineering programs currently enroll about 12,000 students and 
        graduate approximately 3,000 a year--about 16 times the number 
        of graduates in the United States. Keane stated that while 
        enrollment in geosciences undergraduate programs may have 
        rebounded to early 2010's levels following the COVID-19 
        pandemic, there was a nearly 50 percent drop in enrollment in 
        geoscience graduate programs after 2019. At the same time, 
        demand is rising for geoscience support activities and 
        professional services for mining.

    One might think that the need for critical minerals and a domestic 
supply of these would encourage increased enrollment in our mining 
engineering programs. But let me quote the NASEM report again:

        A key concern, expressed by several participants, is that 
        negative public perceptions of mining can dissuade students 
        from considering a career in minerals extraction. Climate 
        change and environmental degradation are prominent issues for 
        the current generation, and for many, the minerals industry is 
        linked with a legacy of environmental damage, which has been 
        reinforced by negative depictions of the industry in popular 
        culture. To begin to overcome this perception, several 
        participants suggested focusing on reframing the industry as 
        being part of the solution to environmental issues. For 
        example, minerals extraction provides materials necessary for 
        the technologies that play an important role in achieving 
        decarbonization, such as wind turbines, solar panels, and 
        electric vehicles. Improving awareness of the role of mining in 
        addressing climate change and environmental degradation could 
        help to attract students who are passionate about the 
        environment. ``Without turning a blind eye to the real 
        environmental damage that's been done in the history of mining, 
        we can still be very proud of mining and what it has done for 
        our planet,'' Misael Cabrera, University of Arizona, said. ``In 
        fact, modern civilization is simply not possible--medicine, 
        computing, data analytics, take your pick--none of it is 
        possible without minerals, and therefore without mining.'' 
        Cabrera also pointed to mine waste, remining, and reclamation 
        as opportunities for the minerals industry to advance 
        environmental stewardship.

    What can those of us in the trenches do? The Society for Mining, 
Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME), the lead U.S. based mining 
professional society, is taking this issue very seriously, and one of 
its strategic committees is focused on workforce development. As early 
as 2014, SME released a white paper titled, Workforce Trends in the 
U.S. Mining Industry, indicating significant shortages in scientists, 
engineers, skilled labor. At that time, SME addressed another critical 
need--the number of faculty available for our mining engineering 
programs. Their Ph.D., fellowship and career grant program helped 
address this along with research funding for capacity building from the 
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. SME notably is 
also promoting a series of videos, Jobs of Tomorrow, available on 
YouTube. Yes, jobs of tomorrow.

    The mining industry itself is moving toward a digital future. We 
incorporate digital twins for optimization of mining and mineral 
processing technology; we fly drones to monitor tailings impoundments, 
do areal surveys of stockpiles, and collect water samples. Autonomous 
haul trucks and trains move materials. Automation and control 
technologies are becoming more and more sophisticated. Some of this 
will help to address worker shortages. However, we still need skilled 
scientists and engineers to ensure that we deliver our mined products 
in the safest and most responsible way and to develop new technologies 
to mine and process ores and waste materials. A recent report, called 
The Digital Underground, from Mining Magazine and Mining Monthly, 
discusses how data analytics will be key in incorporating the large 
data streams coming from underground mining equipment. Another report 
could be written on the digital surface mine or the digital processing 
plant.

    Those of us at the U.S. mining schools continue to address our 
curricula to incorporate this ever-changing landscape. At Penn State, 
we've added courses on automation and control and sustainability. 
Despite these efforts, we still struggle to attract more students into 
our programs. In spring 2023, we graduated only four students with 
bachelor's degrees in mining engineering at Penn State. One is working 
for an engineering company in Utah, one in New York and one in 
Baltimore working in the aggregates industry. The fourth recently left 
an aggregates company in Virginia to work with a gold company in South 
Carolina. Their average starting salary with their bachelor's degree 
was $75,000. This May, we graduated two who are starting their careers 
with aggregate companies, and a third will graduate in December. Good 
paying jobs, an increasingly safe and environmentally conscious 
industry, applications of high technology, addressing a key supply 
chain component--if it can't be grown, it must be mined. Why do we not 
have more students? In the QS university rankings, our Penn State 
mining engineering program is ranked second in the U.S. and thirteenth 
globally (up from seventeenth last year), so we should be attracting 
talent. We know that the number of traditional-aged college students is 
decreasing. We know that other industries are also seeing a shortfall 
of workers. But if we don't address the critical need for more mining 
and mineral processing engineers, we will not be able to meet our 
domestic critical mineral needs.

    We have offered seminars to students interested in STEM fields, and 
we have begun collaborating more closely with our College of 
Engineering advising staff. We're offering our first-ever MINING ROCKS! 
Penn State Summer Mining Camp in August that is free-of-charge to the 
first 20 students that sign up. It's free-of-charge because it's being 
sponsored by our alumni and mining industry contacts. The students that 
do enter our program often receive scholarships from our program 
endowments. We encourage them to apply for the many scholarships that 
are available for students in the industry. They visit mines, attend 
industry conferences, and hear from industry speakers. Many companies 
come to recruit interns and full-time employees each fall. Our students 
get multiple job offers. Our introductory mining course has about 70 
students enrolled in both the Fall and Spring semesters. Most are 
upper-level students who are taking it as an elective and are well past 
considering mining engineering as a major at that point. Incoming 
students just don't know that mining exists. And it's not just at Penn 
State. The University of Arizona's program surveyed incoming students 
and found that many students were not aware of mining engineering as a 
career. That's in a state that is ranked No. 2 in the value of non-fuel 
mineral production in the U.S. (Minerals Commodity Summary, USGS, 
2024). Arizona produces cement, copper, molybdenum mineral 
concentrates, sand and gravel for construction, and crushed stone and 
their principal commodities.

    Some actions were suggested during the NASEM workshop. One specific 
action is to include the importance of minerals in our daily lives in 
K-12 curriculum. There are 62 different elements in a cell phone--all 
need to be mined. Electric vehicles require much more copper and other 
critical minerals than conventional cars. Wind turbines and solar 
panels all require critical minerals.

    According to a 2021 report by the International Energy Agency 
titled, The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions, 
mineral demand will increase by about four times by 2040 to meet 
climate goals. Where will the minerals come from? Who will mine the 
minerals safely and responsibly? We need everyone to understand that if 
it can't be grown, it must be mined.

    Social media is a great place to see memes thanking farmers or 
thanking truck drivers. I agree that we should. But we also need to be 
thanking miners. Miners provide the fertilizers and the metal for farm 
implements. Miners provide metals for trucks and the catalysts for 
catalytic converters in those trucks to reduce pollution. And they 
provide all the critical minerals in our increasingly high-tech 
everyday lives. Thank a miner every day!

    Thank you for allowing me to discuss the critical mineral workforce 
with you today. I am happy to answer any questions.
                                 ______
                                 
    Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Dr. Arnold. I will make 
sure I thank a miner today, and in future days. Now, I'm happy 
to introduce our next guest, Dr. Gracelin Baskaran. Dr. 
Baskaran is the director of the project on Critical Mineral 
Security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 
Dr. Baskaran has garnered experience studying international and 
domestic critical minerals production, and regularly offers her 
expertise at universities and policy forums of all sizes in all 
shapes.

    Dr. Baskaran.

STATEMENT OF GRACELIN BASKARAN, PH.D., DIRECTOR OF THE PROJECT 
    ON CRITICAL MINERALS SECURITY, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND 
             INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, WASHINGTON, DC

    Dr. Baskaran. Chairman Hickenlooper, Ranking Member Braun, 
and distinguished Members, thank you so much for having me.

    I'm honored to share my views on this topic today. I'd like 
to reflect a bit on how workforce has become an impediment to 
reducing our reliance on China, both domestically and 
internationally.

    By way of introduction, and I think it's a little bit of a 
background, is I started in the mining industry 11 years ago 
through a Fulbright Fellowship from the U.S. State Department. 
And they very kindly dropped me into South Africa's platinum 
belt, which was a bit of a culture shock at the time. But I 
really saw the long-term value of the sector, both economically 
and technologically, acknowledging how, for example, the 
automotive industry was changing, I grew up in metro Detroit.

    My career, which has taken me from the depths of the mines 
in South Africa through a Ph.D., into the halls of Washington, 
began with a Fulbright. And that framed some of my 
recommendations that I would put forward about how we can 
actually make existing mechanisms better fit for purpose.

    Dr. Arnold did a great job, I don't need to go too far down 
the numbers again. But we know that the Chinese education 
system, which has over 38 minerals processing schools and over 
44 mine engineering programs, has really enabled them to build 
this dominant hold they have both on production and processing 
globally.

    Central South University, China's biggest program, graduate 
about 1,000 undergraduates and 500 graduates alone ready to 
build that. When China cutoff our rare earth processing 
technology exports, it really struck us with a shortfall that 
we have in the knowledge to deploy that technology.

    A report published by the U.S. Department of Interior noted 
that the mining industry is having difficulty attracting young 
professionals. They always say if there's two industries that 
are not attractive for the youth, it's at being a farmer and 
being a miner.

    There's two things again, I think Dr. Arnold hit really 
well. One is understanding its tech base now. We're not in an 
era of picks and wheelbarrows. We're really in an era of like 
what essentially resembles a NASA control room, if you've spent 
a lot of times at new modern mines. And the second is that 
mining is far more responsible than it was two decades ago. And 
as such, it doesn't have that negative connotation.

    There's three strategies that I would quickly propose. So, 
the first is to create a dedicated Fulbright program for the 
mining industry. Right now, we have the Fulbright Arctic 
Initiative, Fulbright Hays for school age educators and 
administrators. We have a Fulbright program for people building 
expertise in Europe.

    We have another one for artists, but a Fulbright program 
that does two things. It takes STEM graduates from the United 
States and sends them to programs--we have four of the top 12 
mining programs in the world in Canada, four in Australia, 
there's one in Saudi. It opens up potential to send our STEM 
graduates abroad, but it also gives us potential to bring 
faculty from abroad to the United States, to help build mining 
programs in geology programs.

    I grew up in a world of geology. My dad is a geology 
professor, and he said mining has just never been a presence 
and we need to bring that expertise to our geology and 
environmental science program.

    Second one I'm sure we'll come back to, is increasing NSF, 
National Science Foundation funding. The National Science 
Foundation has 15 focus areas. Chemicals and materials is 
perhaps the closest to mining, but it's still largely absent. 
And if you look at the active grant opportunities from the NSF, 
just nine out of 815 of them are for mining, which is about 1.1 
percent.

    The third mechanism under there is actually expanding the 
infrastructure Investment Jobs Act. Right now, there's 
provisions to expand energy jobs, but expanding energy advisory 
work to mining, to open up those jobs actually lets us ensure 
that we have the feed stock needed to produce a very renewable 
energy technology that we set out to build.

    The second bucket is saying collaboration between mining 
companies and universities, there's a lot of scope. We have a 
lot of expertise in the private sector, but opening up 
scholarships, which we can come back to as being a best 
practice elsewhere.

    Anglo American, for example, has funded a significant 
amount of the mining expertise built in South Africa over the 
years by putting in the bursaries and the graduates go back and 
work for them afterwards. There are mechanisms that are budget 
neutral in that way that we can support.

    Finally, we need to leverage our U.S. military academies. 
If we go back and look, many of our academy trained engineers 
built the railroads and bridges for westward expansion, and 
they were instrumental in the industrial revolution. It's 
really time we have a national security challenge on our hand 
to leverage those institutions.

    There are only two American CEOs of mining majors. One is 
Richard Adkerson at Freeport-McMoRan. The other is Bob Wilt at 
Ma'aden. And Bob was an Alcoa executive for many years. And 
then is now, after doing his career with the Army, he's now 
leading one of the fastest growing mining companies in the 
world built on that expertise.

    At CSIS we're now planning our first National Security and 
Critical Mineral summit to help fill that gap. So, I think it's 
a multi-dimensional challenge. I think we have the solutions at 
hand as the United States, and I look forward to discussing 
more how we can do that.

    [The prepared statement of Dr. Baskaran follows.]
                prepared statement of gracelin baskaran
    Chairman Hickenlooper, Ranking Member Braun, and distinguished 
Members of the Subcommittee, I am honored to share my views with you on 
this important topic. CSIS does not take policy positions, so the views 
represented in this testimony are my own and not those of my employer. 
In my testimony, I would like to reflect on how the workforce became a 
key impediment to reducing our reliance on China for key minerals 
required for national, economic and energy security. I will then look 
at potential solutions: how the United States can make existing tools, 
such as the Fulbright program, National Science Foundation, and the 
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, better fit for supporting our 
minerals security needs, how we can support partnerships between mining 
companies and universities to attract young talent, and how we can 
leverage our military academies to help meet our workforce needs.

    My name is Dr. Gracelin Baskaran. I am the Director of the Project 
on Critical Minerals Security at the Center for Strategic and 
International Studies (CSIS). I started in the mining industry 11 years 
ago, when the U.S. State Department awarded me a Fulbright Fellowship. 
Through my Fulbright, I spent a year in South Africa's platinum belt, 
including time in the mines, and saw the long-term value of the 
sector--both economically and technologically. I went on to do a Ph.D., 
at the University of Cambridge on the platinum sector and later co-
authored a book on leveraging mining, oil and gas for economic 
transformation amidst decarbonization. My career, which has taken me 
from the depths of mines in South Africa, such as Twickenham and 
Mogalakwena, to the halls of Washington DC, began with the Fulbright.

    At CSIS, I now work to increase our economic and national security 
by reducing vulnerability in our supply chains for critical minerals. 
My work informs the White House National Security Council, State 
Department, Department of Energy, Development Finance Corporation, U.S. 
Embassies globally, and bipartisan and bicameral Members of Congress. 
My work also takes me to resource-rich jurisdictions around the world, 
where I work with industry players from 8 of the biggest Western mining 
companies by market capitalization, government officials from the 
United States, Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and members of 
civil society to understand how we can effectively build minerals 
security. This has given me perspectives that reflect the realities on 
the ground both domestically and internationally.
                               Background
    Minerals are important for national, economic and energy security. 
Their strategic value to the United States motivated an active minerals 
policy in the 20th century. In 1910, the United States Department of 
Interior created the United States Bureau of Mines with the goal of 
overseeing domestic mining activities and securing a sufficient mineral 
supply. The Bureau supported scientific studies and knowledge sharing 
about mineral resource extraction, processing, utilization, and health 
and safety standards. In 1996, Congress voted to close the Bureau and 
decentralize some of its responsibilities amongst several other 
departments. A Department of Interior report published in 2023 noted 
that, ``At the end of the 20th century, the United States lost its 
position as the global leader in mining, both in terms of total 
production and the development of cutting-edge mining technology.'' \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\  U.S. Department of the Interior. Recommendations to Improve 
Mining on Public Lands. September 2023.

    Over the last three decades, China has become a dominant player in 
the supply chains of minerals key to national and energy security. Even 
if it is a marginal producer directly, China finances and imports from 
the rest of the world to control 65 percent to 90 percent of global 
supply of key metals. \2\ This concentration is the result of decades 
of industrial strategy and foreign policy from Beijing. It is also a 
strategic challenge for the United States, given the importance of 
strengthening national security and meeting energy needs while 
geopolitical tensions between the two countries rise. China has 
developed a robust workforce that has allowed it to develop an absolute 
advantage in these supply chains.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\  Baskaran, G. What China's Ban on Rare Earths Processing 
Technology Exports Means. Center for Strategic and International 
Studies. January 8, 2024.

    Rare earth elements, nickel, lithium, germanium and gallium are 
critical inputs for defense systems, including precision guided 
munitions, strategic nuclear applications and several missile classes, 
lasers that serve as range fingers and target designators, military 
information communication technology, modern naval missiles, weapon 
systems, tanks, and radar modules. They are the backbone of national 
security. Copper, lithium, nickel, manganese, cobalt, graphite, zinc, 
and rare earth elements are necessary for meeting our global 
decarbonization goals by manufacturing and deploying offshore and 
onshore wind, stationary and electric vehicle batteries, solar 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
photovoltaics (PV), nuclear power and natural gas.

    The United States, and much of the globe, is most reliant on China 
for its critical minerals supply. \3\ Of the 50 minerals included in 
the 2022 Final List of Critical Minerals produced by the USGS, the 
United States had larger than a 50 percent reliance on imports for 31 
\4\, \5\ and was wholly import reliant for 12. The United States is 
wholly reliant on China for 9 of them. \6\ China has already 
demonstrated a willingness to use export controls or quotas on critical 
minerals as a geopolitical tool.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\  Stanford University. Assessing the U.S.-China Competition for 
Minerals Crucial to the Development of Emerging Technologies. October 
1, 2023.
    \4\  National Mining Association. U.S. Reaches Highest Recorded 
Mineral Import Reliance. January 31, 2023.
    \5\  This includes 14 lanthanides, which are part of the rare earth 
elements group.
    \6\  Department of the Interior. Recommendations to Improve Mining 
on Public Lands. September 2023.

    The United States needs a strategy for reducing dependency and 
strengthening mineral supply. The last two administrations have set out 
to improve supply through better exploration, production, recycling, 
and reprocessing of critical minerals. In 2017, President Donald Trump 
issued Executive order 13817, to facilitate better management of 
critical minerals to strengthen energy security and executive 
prosperity. An output of this was an inter-agency report from the 
Secretaries of Commerce, Defense, Interior and Energy and the U.S. 
Trade Representative on critical minerals. One of the six calls to 
action in the report was to, ``Enhance International Trade and 
Cooperation Related to Critical Minerals: [Identify] options for 
accessing and developing critical minerals through investment and trade 
with America's allies, discusses areas for international collaboration 
and cooperation.'' \7\ In 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 
14017 which ordered a review of vulnerability in the U.S. critical 
mineral and material supply chain. Subsequently, a supply chain 
assessment was released by the Administration that found over-reliance 
on foreign sources and adversarial nations for critical minerals and 
materials posed national and economic security threats. The White House 
published its ``Plan to Revitalize American Manufacturing and Secure 
Critical Supply Chains'' in 2022, where it announced plans to increase 
domestic processing capacity of rare earth minerals, copper, nickel, 
lithium, and cobalt.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\  U.S. Department of Commerce. A Federal Strategy to Ensure 
Secure and Reliable Supplies of Critical Minerals.

    The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) has a stockpile of 47 
commodities worth more than $1.5 billion. The stockpile was first 
established after World War 1. In February 2022, Congress authorized $1 
billion for the National Defense Stockpile to acquire strategic and 
critical materials to increase its buffer in the event of crises and 
disruptions in supply chains. \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\  Barna, S., Hastings, A. and Pearce, M. 2023 NDAA Provides New 
Opportunities for Industry. National Defense Magazine. February 7, 
2023.

    Over the last few years, Congress also passed the Infrastructure 
Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the CHIPS and Science Act, and the 
Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which authorized and provided over $8.5 
billion in funding for critical minerals activities. \9\ Specifically, 
the IRA seeks to prioritize domestic production of minerals. The Clean 
Vehicle Tax Credit and the Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit 
of 2022 extend tax credits only to vehicles that meet threshold 
requirements for critical materials sourced domestically and from 
countries with which the United States has a free trade agreement. 
These tax credits and spending programs are uncoordinated and mostly 
focused on domestic mining and processing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\  Broberg, D. and Jacobs, J. Expanding Domestic Critical Mineral 
Supply Chains. Bipartisan Policy Center. March 15, 2023.

    However, the domestic-only approach to critical minerals cannot 
work. Geologically, a significant share of the minerals we need are not 
located in the United States or economically recoverable here. The 
United States has less than 1 percent of the world's nickel, cobalt, 
and graphite, 1.3 percent of the world's rare earths, and 1.5 percent 
of the world's manganese, which is a non-substitutable metal required 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
for all steel production.

    The United States ability to build both its domestic and 
international capacity in mining will require a skilled workforce, 
which we have a significant deficit for. A recent McKinsey survey 
revealed that 71 percent of mining leaders stated that human capital 
shortages are preventing them from reaching their production targets 
and strategic goals. \10\ We need mining engineers, geologists and 
geoscientists, metallurgists, geophysicists, economists, and senior 
management that we can deploy domestically and internationally. An 
analysis from CSIS notes:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\  Has mining lost its luster? Why talent is moving elsewhere 
and how to bring them back. February 14, 2023.

        ``More than half the current domestic mining workforce will 
        need to be retired and replaced by 2029 (roughly 221,000 
        workers). This number stands in stark contrast to the total of 
        just 327 degrees awarded in 2020 in mining and mineral 
        engineering and a 39 percent net drop in graduations in the 
        United States since 2016. University programs tasked with 
        creating this workforce have also been decreasing, with the 
        number of mining and mineral engineering programs in the United 
        States dropping from 25 in 1982 to 15 in 2023. This is in stark 
        contrast to China, which has over 38 mineral processing schools 
        and upwards of 44 mining engineering programs. Central South 
        University, China's largest mineral processing program, has 
        1,000 undergraduates and 500 graduate students alone ready to 
        accomplish China's mineral ambitions.'' \11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\  Hale, T. The United States Needs More than Mining Engineers 
to Solve Its Critical Mineral Challenges. May 8, 2023.

    As the graph below shows, without this, we will not be able to meet 
future minerals demand, which will grow significantly over the next 30 
years, largely driven by clean energy technology. In 2020, the world 
needed approximately 8 million metric tons of minerals for the 
deployment of clean energy technologies--electric vehicles, electricity 
networks, solar and wind technology, battery storage, low-carbon power 
generation and hydrogen. In 2030--just 6 years from now--we will need 
roughly 50 million metric tons--over a sixfold increase. In 2040, this 
increases to about 105 million metric tons--a thirteenfold increase 
from 2020. And by 2050, we will need about 150 million tons--nearly a 
19 fold increase. Training a workforce to meet future demand is 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
imperative and it requires efforts that begin as soon as possible.

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                 .epsAddressing the Workforce Shortage
     Repurposing Existing Instruments to Build the Mining Workforce
    The Department of Interior report published in 2023 noted that, ``A 
lack of educational programs for building expertise in mining and 
mining oversight and a lack of interest in mining among the cohort of 
students who will become the managers of tomorrow compound a shortage 
of properly trained workers.'' \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\  U.S. Department of the Interior. Recommendations to Improve 
Mining on Public Lands. September 2023.

    My dad is the Chair of the Geology Department at Wayne State 
University in Detroit. As I've built my own career in the mining 
industry, we have discussed how geology, environmental science and 
engineering graduates in the United States are not moving to the mining 
sector. The United States needs to support embedding mining workstreams 
into geology and engineering programs. The need to build a mining 
workforce is a more recent priority--so few programs have historical 
depth here. Catching up in this area will require a significant 
increase in capacity building and financing. This is for two reasons. 
First, academic programs largely succeed or fail based on available 
funding--particularly for research and scholarships. Second, there is 
often a lack of expertise to build these programs. This will require 
bringing in both skilled industry experts and faculty from mining 
programs around the world to cross-pollinate knowledge and build these 
programs--in particular Australia and Canada have deep academic 
expertise in the mining sector. The 2024 QS World University Rankings 
for mineral and mineral engineering show that one out of the top 12 
programs in the world are American--Colorado School of Mines. Of the 
other 11, there are four in Australia and Canada and one in Russia, 
Chile and Saudi Arabia. \13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\  QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024: Mineral & 
Mining Engineering. https://www.topuniversities.com/university-subject-
rankings/mineral-mining-engineering.

    A key solution to achieving these two goals is to make existing 
mechanisms better fit for mining workforce development. With that in 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
mind, I can make three suggestions:

    The first is creating a dedicated Fulbright program for mining, 
minerals processing, and recycling. There are already a number of 
Fulbright programs--the Fulbright Arctic Initiative, the Fulbright Hays 
Program for K-14 teachers and administrators, Fulbright United States 
Scholar program for United States scholars and artists, Fulbright 
European Union Scholar-in-Residence (EUSIR) Program to strengthen 
United States expertise in European Affairs, and Fulbright Specialist 
Program to send U.S. faculty abroad to serve as expert consults and do 
faculty development, amongst others. A Fulbright program for mining to 
bring mining experts and faculty to the United States and send 
undergraduate and graduate students to top mining institutions abroad 
offers a real opportunity to both establish and expand mining programs 
in the United States and allow our students, particularly in STEM-
related mining fields, to develop the necessary skills and knowledge to 
enter the modern minerals workforce.

    The second is increasing targeted funding to the National Science 
Foundation (NSF) for mining-related research and capacity building. The 
NSF is an independent Federal agency that supports science and 
engineering in all 50 U.S. states and U.S. territories. In 2023, the 
NSF's enacted budget was $9.9 billion, and they supported over 2,000 
organizations in every state and U.S. territory.

          The NSF has 15 focus areas--ranging from the arctic 
        and Antarctic to astronomy and biology. Chemicals and materials 
        are perhaps the closest to the mining sector--but it's still 
        not fit to building mining expertise. The objective of this 
        effort is ``breakthroughs in chemistry and materials science 
        that enhance nearly every aspect of daily life, from 
        pharmaceuticals to plastics, environmental cleanup to battling 
        pandemics.'' Mining is notably absent. \14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \14\  The full list of focus areas include the arctic and Antarctic 
to astronomy and chemistry and materials, computing, diversity in STEM, 
earth and environment, education and training, engineering, facilities 
and infrastructure, mathematics, people and society, physics, research 
partnerships and interdisciplinary convergence and transformative 
research.

          The NSF also has 11 technology focus areas--ranging 
        from artificial intelligence to biotechnology and 
        cyberinfrastructure. \15\Advanced materials are closest to the 
        mining industry and the institution notes that ``NSF invests in 
        the discovery of new materials and processing methods that can 
        unlock innovations across a wide range of sectors--such as 
        medicine, agriculture, electronics, manufacturing, energy and 
        national security.'' Mining is inadequate in this program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \15\  The full list of the NSF's 11 technology focus areas is 
advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, artificial intelligence, 
biotechnology, communications and wireless, cyberinfrastructure and 
advanced computing, cybersecurity, disaster risk and resilience, energy 
technology, quantum information science and technology, semiconductors 
and microcolonies.

          Mining remains vastly underfunded by the NSF--just 9 
        of 815--or 1.1 percent of active grant opportunities are for 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        minerals.

    The CHIPS Act of 2022 (Section 10359) authorized funds for the NSF 
to increase its work on critical minerals mining and development. \16\ 
It includes provisions for institutions of higher education or 
nonprofits to offer training and research opportunities to 
undergraduate and graduate students, preparing the next generation of 
mining engineers and researchers. Funding for these programs has not 
been appropriated and could be included in the appropriations 
legislation for fiscal year 2025.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \16\  H.R. 4346--Chips and Science Act. https://www.Congress.gov/
bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4346.

    Third, widen the sectoral scope of section 40211 of the IIJA which 
mandated that the Department of Energy create a 21st Century Energy 
Workforce Advisory Board to evaluate the requirements of the domestic 
energy workforce. The Board has also been mandated to develop 
strategies to provide opportunities for students to qualify to work in 
the energy sector and identify avenues for the Department of Energy to 
work with Federal agencies and nongovernmental organizations to drive. 
\17\ It is crucial for this program to go beyond an energy workforce 
and examine the needs of the mining workforce since the mining sector 
is essential for the implementation of nearly all new energy 
technologies. Without upstream support, the downstream renewable energy 
development will be impossible.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\  Energy and Minerals Provisions in the Infrastructure 
Investment and Jobs Act (P.L. 117-58). Congressional Research Service. 
https://crsreports.Congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47034.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         Partnerships Between Mining Companies and Universities
    According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median age of a 
worker in the United States mining industry is 42, which underscores 
the need to attract younger generations. \18\ There needs to be a 
fundamental rebranding of the mining industry. The report published by 
the United States Department of the Interior--Recommendations to 
Improve Mining on Public Lands--in 2023 notes that ``The mining 
industry is having difficulty attracting young professionals and 
building a workforce. One major obstacle appears to be the negative 
public perception of the industry.'' \19\ There are two key areas for 
rebranding.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \18\  Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey. 
https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat18b.htm.
    \19\  United States Department of the Interior. Recommendations to 
Improve Mining on Public Lands. September 2023.

    The first is that the industry is that the industry is tech-based. 
The modern mining industry is no longer one that uses picks and 
wheelbarrows--it runs on satellite imaging, artificial intelligence, 
advanced analytics, automation, robotics, and manufacturing 4.0. I've 
been to various mines that are entirely run out of what resembles a 
mission control room--blasting, production, and transportation of 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
minerals.

    Second, significant advances have been made in further improving 
the environmental and social impacts of mining. Responsible mining is a 
core focus area for nearly all Western companies. The mining industry 
has a goal of zero fatalities and zero injuries, amongst a range of 
other Environmental, Social and Governance targets. In the United 
States, injuries in mines have been reduced by 58 percent over the last 
15 years while fatalities have decreased by 55 percent during that same 
time window. \20\ Globally, institutions like the International Council 
of Minerals and Metals (ICMM), a key industry association for 
responsible mining, have worked with their members to improve human 
rights, health and safety, environmental performance, conservation of 
biodiversity, and social performance. Earlier this year, the ICMM, 
Mining Association of Canada, World Gold Council and Copper Mark 
launched a process to create a consolidated global standard for 
responsible mining.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \20\  National Mining Association. Improving Mine Safety and 
Health. https://nma.org/category/safety-and-health/.

    This means that mining is more technology-based and responsible 
than ever before. From a financial perspective, there is incentive for 
young people to go into mining. The average annual salary for a miner 
in 2023 was $94,848--which is well above the United States average wage 
of $72,609. This means that the average worker in the mining industry 
makes 31 percent more than the national average. \21\ Furthermore, as 
the shortage of workforce grows, supply and demand dynamics should 
drive wages up further.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \21\  National Mining Association. Annual Mining Wages vs. All 
Industries, 2023. https://nma.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/annual-
mining-wages-state-23-1.pdf.

    It is in the interest of mining companies to build their workforce, 
particularly with young people. Establishing a Federal program to 
coordinate collaboration between mining companies and universities to 
strengthen the development of the mining workforce, particularly in 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
STEM fields, enhance research and promote innovation in the industry.

    Mining companies can provide curriculum support to reflect the 
latest industry trends and technological advancements and experts 
working in the mining sector can deliver guest lectures and conduct 
workshops to give students field experience and share practical 
knowledge. Mining firms can also provide internships and co-op programs 
so students can get paid hands-on experience ahead of graduation, for 
an easier and more experienced transition to the workforce.

    Another key avenue of support for the mining sector is by providing 
scholarships to students. This has long been used in other mining 
jurisdictions. For example, in South Africa, where I worked for 7 
years, companies like Anglo American have financed many students over 
the years on the condition that they come back and work for the company 
after graduation. This is particularly useful to encourage 
socioeconomically disadvantaged students--who are often 
underrepresented in the industry--to enter the field, thereby 
supporting diversity efforts.
     Leveraging U.S. Military Academies to Build Tomorrow's Leaders

    The primary purpose of U.S. military institutions including the 
United States Military Academy, United States Naval Academy, United 
States Air Force Academy, and United States Coast Guard, amongst other 
institutions is to build future military leaders. Academy-trained 
engineers built the railroads and bridges for westwards expansion and 
were instrumental in the Industrial Revolution. It's time to enable 
them to answer the call for another national security challenge.

    I was privileged to speak at West Point on critical minerals in 
February 2024. Lieutenant General Jonathan Braga--who is serving as the 
commanding general of the United States Army Special Operations 
Command--provided the keynote for the event. The interest from cadets 
afterward was clear. They are our future leaders--they will go on to be 
political leaders, cabinet members, Ambassadors, and even mining 
executives that can advance United States mineral interests.

    Mining executives have a key role to play in advancing strategic 
mining objectives, including talent development and pursuing national 
security goals. They require an understanding of engineering, diplomacy 
and strategy. There is a clear need to develop a workforce that is 
capable of leading mining companies. There are only two American CEOs 
of large market cap mining companies that I'm aware of--Richard 
Adkerson at Freeport McMoRan and Bob Wilt, an American West Point 
graduate and Army veteran from the Gulf War. After a long career at 
Alcoa, an American company, Bob is now the CEO at Ma'aden, one of the 
fastest growing mining companies in the world. The experience he gained 
in engineering, diplomacy and strategy at both West Point and his 
subsequent military career has been valuable. Scaling up the number of 
American mining executives is critical if we are to build U.S. 
leadership in the mining sector--and our military academies are an 
excellent place to do this.

    At CSIS, we are planning the first national security and critical 
minerals summit, which will be held in October. Our speakers will 
include many West Point alumni--former U.S. cabinet members, 
Ambassadors and a mining executive. Our goals are two-fold. The first 
is to give cadets much needed exposure to the importance of critical 
minerals and what careers in the mining industry look like. The second 
is to give faculty more exposure to critical minerals issues, which the 
United States has disregarded for the last 30 years. Upscaling support 
to initiatives like this is key.
                               Conclusion

    The future of meeting American minerals security needs will require 
both domestic and international mining given the distribution of 
resources. In my conversations with industry, workforce shortages are 
universally cited as limitation. The United States may have closed its 
Bureau of Mines in 1996--but investing in workforce development must be 
a priority to reduce our reliance on China. Without an adequate supply 
of mining engineers, geologists and geoscientists, metallurgists, 
geophysicists, economists, and senior management that we can deploy 
domestically and internationally, China will continue to have the upper 
hand, leaving our national, economic and energy security highly 
vulnerable to disruption.
                                 ______
                                 
    Senator Hickenlooper. Great. Thank you for Dr. Baskaran. 
Next, we'll have Mr. Jon Evans. Mr. Evans is the president, CEO 
of Lithium Americas, which is building a lithium mine and 
chemical facility in northern Nevada. John's been with the 
company since 2017, but he has over 20 years' experience in 
operating and managing various businesses, including running 
FMC corporations, lithium division, Mr. Evans.

 STATEMENT OF JON EVANS, PRESIDENT, AND CEO, LITHIUM AMERICAS, 
                    RENO, AND WINNEMUCCA, NV

    Mr. Evans. Thank you, Senator, Chairman Hickenlooper, 
Ranking Member Braun, and Members of the Subcommittee. My name 
is Jon Evans and I am the president, CEO of Lithium America's 
Corporation. Greatly appreciate your focus on workforce 
development for critical minerals development. Finding the 
skilled workforce in my project and industry needs to thrive is 
a significant challenge, and I commend you for working to 
address this important issue.

    Lithium Americas is building a major lithium mine and 
processing facility in northern Nevada called the Thacker Pass 
Project. We've been working on Thacker Pass for more than a 
decade and are pleased to be fully permitted and funded to move 
forward with this essential project.

    Once in operation in 2027, we'll produce enough refined 
lithium carbonate for approximately 800,000 electric vehicle 
batteries per year. That's a market improvement on the U.S.'s 
ability to provide materials we need. To start the projects 
offtake will be sold exclusively to General Motors. This will 
profoundly assist GM with their transition to electric 
vehicles.

    Workforce development is a challenge that we're trying to 
meet head on. Lithium Americas will utilize as many as 2000 
skilled workers to build Thacker Pass. To ensure we get the 
workers we need in a remote area of Nevada, we've entered into 
a Project Labor Agreement with a North American Building Trades 
Union. NABTU knows how to recruit and train local and regional 
professionals to build large scale projects like ours and to 
get the job done right.

    Once completed, Lithium Americas will employ roughly 350 
full-time professionals at our Thacker Pass facility. These 
jobs will operate sophisticated processing and chemical 
manufacturing plants and the workers we need are not readily 
available. I'll add that the average wage with benefits is 
$100,000 a year.

    To meet this need, we have embarked on aggressive efforts 
working with the University of Nevada, Great Basin College in 
Nevada, the State of Nevada, and others to implement the 
training we need so our future workforce is ready to go once 
Thacker Pass is complete in 2027.

    Lithium Americas is committed to doing this project right. 
This includes sound environmental stewardship, ensuring the 
benefits of our project accrue to local communities, including 
the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe, and providing 
family supporting careers in this exciting and emerging battery 
industry.

    Because of the significance of our project and being an 
industry leader from the start, Lithium Americas has been 
committed to engaging with local community and Tribal members. 
This active dialog has allowed Lithium Americas to be 
transparent about the project's details and its impacts. 
Lithium Americas has participated in numerous open houses, 
community meetings, one-on-one dialogs; provided numerous 
tours; and emphasized employment opportunities and other ways 
the project could benefit local and Tribal members.

    Over the past several years, many throughout Humboldt 
County have expressed interest in working onsite and 
participated in job skills training, coordinated, or provided 
by our company as well.

    Numerous members of the tribe have emphasized that this 
project allows members to stay home or return home because of 
the jobs we will provide.

    Lithium Americas and the Fort McDermitt Tribe have a formal 
Community Benefits Agreement founded on years of active 
engagement. It focuses on ensuring the tribe can benefit from 
the job creation at Thacker Pass, by committing to additional 
job training and employment opportunities for tribal members, 
as well as providing infrastructure development and support for 
cultural education and preservation.

    Lithium Americas has agreed to build a $5 million community 
center for the tribe that includes a preschool and daycare so 
parents will be able to take advantage of the jobs we'll create 
while knowing their kids are safe and secure.

    Larina Bell, Fort McDermitt's Tribal Chairwoman commented 
on the announcement of the Department of Energy loan that will 
help finance construction of the project, that ``Thacker Pass 
will provide important economic and employment opportunities 
for members of our Tribe.''

    In the nearby town of Orovada, Lithium Americas is 
committed to building a new K-8 public school. A leading 
motivator for this community investment is to ensure prosperity 
at Thacker Pass benefits many generations of locals starting in 
elementary school and potentially continuing through lifetime 
quality careers in the area.

    Lithium Americas is committed to meeting the focus of this 
Subcommittee by growing a skilled workforce to fill family 
supporting careers in jobs that benefit the Nation's security, 
bolster the state and local economies, and fulfill a rapidly 
growing demand to electrify our economy.

    Thank you for the opportunity to be with today, and I look 
forward to your questions.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Evans follows.]
                    prepared statement of jon evans
    Chairman Hickenlooper, Ranking Member Braun, and Members of the 
Subcommittee, my name is Jon Evans, and I'm the President and CEO of 
Lithium Americas Corporation (LAC). I greatly appreciate your focus on 
workforce development for critical minerals development. Finding the 
skilled workforce my project and industry needs to thrive is a 
significant challenge, and I commend you for working to address this 
important issue.

    Lithium Americas is building a major lithium mine and processing 
facility in Northern Nevada called the Thacker Pass Project. We have 
been working on Thacker Pass for more than a decade and are pleased to 
be fully permitted and funded to move forward with this essential 
project. Once in operation in 2027, we will produce enough lithium 
carbonate for approximately 800,000 electric vehicle batteries per 
year. That's a marked improvement on the U.S.'s ability to provide the 
materials we need. To start, the project's offtake will be sold to 
General Motors. This will profoundly assist with their transition to 
EVs.

    Workforce development is a challenge we're meeting head-on. Lithium 
Americas will utilize as many as 2,000 skilled workers to build Thacker 
Pass. To ensure we get the workers we need in a remote area of Nevada, 
we entered into a Project Labor Agreement with the North Americas 
Building Trade Unions. NABTU knows how to recruit local and regional 
professionals to build large-scale projects like ours and to get the 
job done right.

    Once completed, Lithium Americas will employ roughly 350 full-time 
professionals at our Thacker Pass facility. These jobs will operate 
sophisticated processing and chemical manufacturing plants, and the 
workers we will need are not readily available. To meet this need, we 
have embarked on aggressive efforts working with the University of 
Nevada, Great Basin College in Nevada, the State of Nevada and more to 
implement the training we need so our future workforce is ready to go 
once Thacker Pass construction is completed in 2027.

    Lithium Americas is committed to doing this project right. That 
includes sound environmental stewardship, ensuring the benefits of our 
project accrue to local communities including the Fort McDermitt Paiute 
and Shoshone Tribe, and providing family supporting careers in this 
exciting and emerging battery industry.

    Because of the significance of our project and being an industry 
leader from the start, Lithium Americas has been committed to engaging 
with local community and Tribal members. This active dialog has allowed 
Lithium Americas to be transparent about the Project's details and its 
impacts. Lithium Americas has participated in numerous open houses, 
community meetings, one-on-one dialogs; provided numerous tours; and 
emphasized employment opportunities and other ways the Project could 
benefit local and Tribal members.

    Over the past several years, many throughout Humboldt County have 
expressed interest in working onsite and participated in job skills 
training coordinated or provided by LAC. Numerous members of the Tribe 
have emphasized that this Project allows members to stay home or return 
home because of the good jobs we will provide.

    Lithium Americas and the Fort McDermitt Tribe have a formal 
Community Benefits Agreement founded on years of active engagement. It 
focuses on ensuring the Tribe can benefit from job creation at Thacker 
Pass by committing to additional job training and employment 
opportunities for tribal members, as well as providing infrastructure 
development and support for cultural education and preservation. 
Lithium Americas has also agreed to build a $5 million community center 
for the Tribe that includes a preschool and daycare so parents are able 
to take advantage of the jobs we'll create while knowing their kids are 
safe and secure.

    Larina Bell, Fort McDermitt's Tribal Chairwoman, commented on the 
announcement of the Department of Energy loan that will help finance 
construction of the Project that, ``Thacker Pass will provide important 
economic and employment opportunities for members of our Tribe.''

    In the nearby town of Orovada, Lithium Americas has committed to 
building a new K-8 public school. A leading motivator for this 
community investment is to ensure prosperity at Thacker Pass benefits 
many generations of locals starting in elementary school and 
potentially continuing through lifetime, quality careers.

    Lithium Americas is committed to meeting the focus of this 
Subcommittee by growing a skilled workforce to fill family supporting 
careers in jobs that benefit the Nation's security, bolster the state 
and local economies, and fulfill a rapidly growing demand to electrify 
our economy.

    Thank you for the opportunity to be with you today. I look forward 
to your questions.
                                 ______
                                 
    Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Mr. Evans.

    Now, Mr. Zisch. Mr. Zisch serves as the Head of The Mining 
Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines. He also 
has over 40 years of experience in the mining industry, 
including international mining, mining plant operation, and 
numerous corporate assignments with various mining companies.

    Mr. Zisch.

   STATEMENT OF BILL ZISCH, J. STEVEN WHISLER HEAD OF MINING 
       ENGINEERING, COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES, GOLDEN, CO

    Mr. Zisch. Chairman Hickenlooper, Ranking Member Braun, and 
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today on the growing importance of our 
critical minerals workforce.

    With over 40 years of experience in the global mining 
industry, I have seen firsthand the sector's significant 
contributions to the economy, local communities and living 
standards. Critical minerals are essential to produce 
medicines, semiconductors, defense systems, clean energy and 
more.

    I have also seen examples of the lasting damage mining can 
have on communities and ecosystems. These conflicting realities 
complicate perceptions of an industry that is vital to our 
economy, energy future, and national security.

    I know that when it comes to critical minerals in the 
modern world, the most important critical resource is our 
people, skilled professionals, and stewards of natural 
resources, trained to solve complex engineering and social 
challenges. For this reason, I returned to mining education and 
now serve as the head of the Mining Engineering Department at 
Colorado School of Mines, the world's top ranked mineral and 
mining engineering school. Our interdisciplinary education and 
research cover the full mineral life cycle from exploration to 
reclamation.

    As a global demand for critical minerals has surged, there 
is growing recognition that these goals will require more 
minerals and more mining. At the same time, it is estimated 
that half of the U.S. mining workforce, about 220,000 people 
will retire by the end of the decade and the talent pipeline is 
not sufficient to meet demand.

    Declining enrollments are a result of a combination of 
factors, including limited knowledge or experience with the 
industry, the globalization of mining operations and industry 
image that associates mining with environmental concerns as 
well as a perception of an unsafe workplace.

    In response, the university is promoting a new vision for 
the future of mining and responds to the scientific, social, 
and environmental challenges facing the sector and aligns with 
the student's passion for environmental stewardship. It also 
integrates innovation, advanced technologies, and sustainable 
practices to minimize environmental impact, optimize resource 
utilization, and increase productivity.

    We must demonstrate that careers in the minerals industry 
are rewarding and impactful. There are signs of an enrollment 
rebound at Colorado School of Mines. In fall 2023, 
undergraduate mining engineering enrollment increased by 22 
percent from the prior year with just over 100 students 
enrolled in the mining engineering program.

    With climate change at the forefront of many students' 
concerns, we work to inform students of the essential link 
between mining, minerals, responsible resource management, and 
sustainable energy, which appeals to their sense of purpose and 
drive to solve the world's most complex problems.

    Today, mines curriculum extends beyond geology and mine 
operations, and includes classes in waste, water, and tailings 
management and social and community engagement. Our mining 
department faculty also includes anthropologists, highlighting 
the need for technical and social awareness to understand 
projects in an environmental and societal context.

    Mines vision for future of mining also recognizes the 
transformational role of research and innovation. Advanced 
technologies, robotics, AI drilling innovations, advanced 
separations, tailings management, recycling, are all essential 
for an economically viable interest industry with a net 
positive impact for stakeholders.

    At its core, Mines research is rooted in partnerships with 
industry, national labs, academia, and government. Research is 
critical to address the most pressing mineral challenges and to 
the development and retention of mining and mineral educators 
that support and sustain mining engineering programs. Mining 
schools play an important role in growing our Nation's critical 
mineral workforce through both education and research.

    Colorado School of Mines is committed to a new vision for 
mining in the future and working with industry, academia, 
communities, and government, to reestablish our mineral 
workforce as a critical element of the U.S. economic energy and 
security future. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Zisch follows.]
                    prepared statement of bill zisch
    Chairman Hickenlooper, Ranking Member Braun and distinguished 
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify 
today on the growing importance of our critical minerals workforce.

    With over 40 years of experience in the global mining industry, I 
have seen firsthand the value the minerals industry brings to the 
economy, local communities and living standards. Critical minerals are 
the building blocks of medicines, semi-conductors, defense systems, 
clean energy and more.

    I have also seen examples of the damage mining can have on 
communities and ecosystems in the U.S. and abroad, if not done properly 
or responsibly. This includes lasting environmental damage, 
unacceptable labor practices and legacy waste sites which are difficult 
to repair or remediate. These competing realities complicate 
perceptions of a mining industry that is vital to our economy, energy 
future and national security.

    My experience has taught me that when it comes to minerals and 
their role in our modern world, our most critical resource is our 
people--skilled professionals equipped to responsibly manage our 
earth's resources and solve complex engineering and social challenges.

    It is for this reason that I returned from semi-retirement to 
mining education--first as a professor of practice. Today, I serve as 
the Head of the Mining Engineering Department at Colorado School of 
Mines (Mines), home to the top ranked mineral and mining engineering 
program in the world. \1\ Our world-class faculty support 
interdisciplinary education and research covering all aspects of the 
mining and mineral life cycle--from exploration, extraction and 
processing to recycling, mine closure and reclamation, as well as water 
management, community engagement, occupational health and safety, 
mineral economics and supply chains. Our broad scope of study also 
includes space mining and deep underground mining and construction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\  QS Top Universities. (2024). University subject rankings: 
Mineral & mining engineering. https://www.topuniversities.com/
university-subject-rankings/mineral-mining-engineering.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                Mining and Minerals Workforce Challenges
    As global demand for critical minerals has surged, largely in 
response to energy goals, there is a growing recognition that achieving 
these goals will consume more minerals and require more mining.

    The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that to meet demand 
for clean energy technologies by 2040, the world will need 42 times as 
much lithium compared to 2020--25 times more graphite, 21 times more 
cobalt and 19 times more nickel. \2\ According to Benchmark Mineral 
Intelligence, at least 284 new mines will need to be built globally to 
meet electric vehicle demand by 2035. \3\ The challenge is compounded 
both by the scarcity of economically viable deposits and the length of 
time required to characterize, permit and develop a new mine.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\  International Energy Agency. (2021). The role of critical 
minerals in clean energy transitions: Executive summary. https://
www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-
transitions/executive-summary.
    \3\  Hodgson, C. (2023, May 1). More than 300 new mines required to 
meet battery demand by 2035. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. https://
source.benchmarkminerals.com/article/more-than-300-new-mines-required-
to-meet-battery-demand-by-2035.

    It is well documented that for most critical minerals, the U.S. is 
heavily reliant on foreign sources for its consumption requirements 
\4\--many of which are mined and processed in adversarial nations with 
low or unenforced environmental, labor and human rights standards. 
While the U.S. was once the global leader in mineral development, we 
have ceded that leadership position. Nonetheless, there are important 
and impactful new mineral developments being advanced throughout the 
country, including for lithium, copper, manganese, nickel and cobalt.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\  U.S. Geological Survey. (2023). Mineral commodity summaries 
2023 (Report No. 2023-3000). U.S. Department of the Interior. https://
pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023.pdf.

    At the same time, it is estimated that half of the U.S. Mining 
workforce, about 220,000 people, will retire by the end of the decade, 
and the talent pipeline is not sufficient to replace experienced 
professionals in mining engineering or other related disciplines. \5\ 
The minerals and mining workforce includes a broad range of skilled 
professionals including technicians, engineers and scientists trained 
in geology, hydrology, metallurgy, chemistry, community engagement and 
social science, business and economics, data science, health and 
safety, mine closure and reclamation and more.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\  Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration. (n.d.). 
Workforce trends in the U.S. mining industry. https://www.smenet.org/
What-We-Do/Technical-Briefings/Workforce-Trends-in-the-U.S.-Mining-
Industry.

    Today, there are 14 mining engineering programs in the U.S.--down 
from 25 in 1982. Last year, these mining schools collectively enrolled 
590 undergraduate students, graduating just 162 students for an 
industry demand of 400-600 new mining engineers each year. \6\ In 
comparison, China's 45 mining engineering programs currently enroll 
about 12,000 students and graduate approximately 3,000 a year--about 16 
times the number of graduates in the United States. \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\  Society of Mining Professors and Society for Mining, 
Metallurgy and Exploration, 2021; data collected by Vlad Kecojevic. 
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. 
Building Capacity for the U.S. Mineral Resources Workforce: Proceedings 
of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://
doi.org/10.17226/27733.
    \7\  National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 
(2024). Building Capacity for the U.S. Mineral Resources Workforce: 
Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies 
Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/27733.

    Declining enrollments are the result of a combination of factors, 
including limited knowledge or experience with the industry, the 
globalization of mining operations, an industry image that associates 
mining with adverse environmental impacts, as well as a perception of 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
an unsafe workplace.

    It is imperative that we--industry, academia and society--
thoughtfully address these concerns and demonstrate that careers in 
mining engineering are rewarding, technology-driven and impactful. 
Absent a meaningful shift in perceptions, the best and brightest 
students and leaders will pursue opportunities in other competitive 
fields.
                 A New Vision for the Future of Mining

    In response to these challenges, Mines is advancing a compelling 
new vision for the future of mining that aligns with students' passion 
for environmental stewardship. This vision also integrates advanced 
technologies and sustainable mining practices to increase productivity, 
minimize environmental impact, improve safety and optimize resource 
utilization.

    While undergraduate enrollment in Mining Engineering at Mines, like 
other mining schools, has experienced a decline in enrollment, there 
are signs of a rebound. In Fall of 2023, Mines' undergraduate Mining 
Engineering enrollment increased by 22 percent from the prior year, 
with just over 100 students enrolled in the Mining Engineering program.

    This rebound is attributed, in part, to a focus on first and 
second-year students who are undecided or not yet strongly committed to 
their major. With climate change at the forefront of many of our 
students' concerns, informing students of the world's essential 
critical mineral applications and the need for innovative leadership 
appeals to their inherent sense of purpose and desire to solve the most 
complex challenges. Also, promoting strong stewardship of natural 
resources to create sustainable development and prosperity for 
communities, tribes, governments and other stakeholders speaks to 
students' altruistic desire to positively impact the world. Thus, we 
teach the essential link between mining, minerals, responsible resource 
management, sustainable energy, and community and societal benefits.

    Informed by regular input and support from industry partners, the 
Mining Engineering curriculum extends far beyond the basic foundations 
of geology and mine operations. Students take classes in waste, water 
and tailings management and social and community engagement. Our Mining 
Department faculty also includes an anthropologist, highlighting the 
need for both technical and social awareness to understand projects 
within the context of the environment, communities and society.

    Furthermore, our industry partners consistently share that today's 
mining operations require talent from various disciplines, including 
expertise in mechanical, electrical, civil, environmental, chemical, 
petroleum, and humanitarian engineering--and need to extend to 
economics, computer science, data science, risk management, statistics 
and math. We believe promoting a Minor in Mining Engineering to 
students in these disciplines can also help draw non-mining engineers 
to the sector.

    As a result, Mines graduates are highly sought after by industry, 
academia and government, serving in roles that range from mine 
planning, extraction and processing, mine remediation and reclamation, 
community engagement, business and finance, public policy and 
regulatory compliance.

    Mines is also strengthening diverse pathways into engineering 
careers by actively working with Colorado's community colleges to 
expand opportunity and access to all Mines engineering degrees, 
including Mining Engineering. Mines Academy is a program that puts 
community college students on a direct pathway to a bachelor's degree 
from Mines after completing a 2-year Associate of Engineering Science 
degree at a participating community college, which includes minority-
serving institutions. \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\  Colorado School of Mines. (n.d.). Mines Academy. https://
www.mines.edu/undergraduate-admissions/mines-academy/.

    Beyond aligning students' interests with the world's need for 
critical minerals, Mines also engages in more traditional outreach 
programs such as career information workshops, highlighting 
opportunities that include readily available scholarships and 
internships and near 100 percent graduate job placements in well 
compensated positions that offer unique lifestyle opportunities.
                     Mining and Minerals Innovation

    Mines' vision for the future of mining also recognizes the 
transformational role that research and innovation can and must have on 
the future of mining. Research--and strong research funding--is 
critical to inspire the most talented minds to tackle the most pressing 
mining-related challenges. It is also necessary to recruit and retain 
the next generation of mining and mineral faculty and educators that 
support and sustain mining engineering programs.

    The mining industry faces significant changes due to evolving 
social and environmental conditions, technological advancements, 
development costs, market fluctuations and the need for sustainable 
mining practices. For example, future mines will likely need to be 
self-sufficient in power and water to avoid competing with local 
communities, relying on renewable energy systems to support 
decarbonization efforts.

    Advanced technologies and techniques--robotics and artificial 
Intelligence (AI), drilling innovations, brines extraction, advanced 
separations, coproduction processes, digital subsurface applications, 
tailings management, recycling and more--will be critical to create an 
economically viable industry that generates net positive impact for 
stakeholders.

    Specific advances expected to evolve from applied technological 
innovation include mine design algorithms that will incorporate social 
license considerations. Advanced analytics, machine learning and AI 
will enhance operations by reducing costs and improving dispatch 
systems, ore sorting, recycling, ore control, maintenance and downtime. 
Safety advancements will focus on operator fatigue, collision avoidance 
and vehicle intervention systems. Autonomous equipment like trucks, 
drills, loaders and dozers will improve safety and efficiency, while 
drones and robots will handle tasks traditionally performed by humans.

    The research community, including the Colorado School of Mines, is 
actively engaged in applied research of semiconductors, clean energy, 
and advanced technologies--all of which require critical materials. 
These strategic investments, supported by the CHIPS and Science Act, 
the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, have 
focused on downstream processing and battery manufacturing, but have 
not included investments in next generation mining innovation and 
research and development.

    Since the dissolution of the Bureau of Mines in 1996, largely for 
budget reduction purposes, there has been no Federal program dedicated 
to improving mining technology and processes for sourcing critical 
minerals more efficiently and responsibly at home or abroad. 
Investments in research not only address the mining industry's most 
pressing economic, environmental and sustainability challenges, they 
also support a strong academic community, which is essential for 
developing a skilled workforce.
                   Research Centers and Partnerships
    Central to Mines' vision for the future of mining is partnerships 
with industry, national labs, academia, government and communities, and 
a commitment to listen, innovate and co-create advanced mining 
technologies and processes.

    More broadly, mining innovation is intended to support community 
engagement and regulatory acceptance, develop a skilled workforce and 
inform mining and mineral policies that ensure a responsible, 
sustainable, and economically viable domestic mining industry.

    Mines serves as the academic lead of the Department of Energy's 
Critical Material Innovation Hub (CMI), which carries out scientific 
and engineering research to facilitate more diverse primary supply 
chains, more efficient manufacturing, reuse and recycling, as well as 
the development of new materials. In addition, the Center for Resource, 
Recovery and Recycling (CR3), affiliated with Mines' Kroll Institute 
for Extractive Metallurgy both have direct application in the recovery 
of critical minerals through primary processing or secondary and 
recycling processes. Mines' Tailings Center is an industry-university 
consortium focused on applied and basic research in tailings and mine 
waste management, as is the NSF-supported Center for Advanced Science 
and Exploration to Remediation of Mining (CASERM), a partnership with 
our colleagues at Virginia Tech.

    Additionally, with the support of the Bipartisan Infrastructure 
Law, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is constructing the new USGS-
Mines Energy and Minerals Research Facility on the Mines campus. The 
new facility will house the USGS Geology, Geophysics and Geochemistry 
Science Center, and Central Energy Resources Science Center. \9\ More 
importantly the partnership will strengthen collaboration between USGS 
scientists and Mines faculty and students to advance research on topics 
including critical mineral origins, supply chains and markets, as well 
as educate the next-generation workforce that will support the critical 
materials sector.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\  U.S. Geological Survey. ``Energy and Minerals Research.'' U.S. 
Department of the Interior, https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/
bipartisan-infrastructure-law-investments/science/energy-and-minerals-
research. Accessed 7 June 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               Conclusion

    The future of mining vision begins with the workforce--and will 
require active engagement from industry, academia, communities, and 
government. This effort will take time, resources, and most importantly 
a coordinated strategy. In that regard, Mines supports legislative 
efforts, like the bipartisan Mining Schools Act (S. 912), which would 
establish a grant program for mining schools to recruit students and 
support programs in relevant mining and mineral fields.

    A strong minerals workforce will also require a new social 
relationship with the earth's resources, supported by industry, 
academia (P-20), and government--a relationship that draws direct 
connections between the mineral workforce and the economy, energy 
future, environmental protection and national security.

    Mining schools play a crucial role in growing our Nation's critical 
mineral capabilities through both education and research. The 
opportunity before us is to engage and inspire the next generation of 
mining and mineral leaders with a passion for impactful careers in an 
industry innovating to support a sustainable environment.

    Colorado School of Mines is committed to this vision and working 
with all stakeholders to reestablish our mineral workforce as a 
critical element of our economic, energy and security future.

    Thank you.
                                 ______
                                 
    Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you so much. Thanks to each of 
you for being here. It really is much appreciated. I'll ask 
some questions then I'll turn it over to Senator Braun and ask 
questions. Then I'll probably ask more questions because I'm 
just naturally being a geologist, naturally curious.

    Let me start with Mr. Evans, let's lay a foundation for 
today's discussion. This is a big deal, right? Making sure we 
have the workforce we need is of crucial importance and making 
sure that we don't have an ongoing reliance on foreign 
adversaries. What types of jobs that your company needs now, 
let's say needs now or will need in the future. How do salaries 
in these jobs compare with other jobs that you're competing 
with in the State of Nevada?

    Mr. Evans. Thank you, Senator. Our company requires skilled 
trades to operate the plant. So, welders, electricians, 
instrumentation technicians from an hourly standpoint. From a 
professional standpoint, it's a myriad. We have everything from 
metallurgists, chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, mining 
engineers, so highly technical jobs that come out of the STEM 
field.

    The salaries that we offer in this field are quite 
competitive. They have to be, we're competing against other 
industries that are attracting STEM talent away. So, we have to 
pay well above average to get folks. I guess the converse to 
that is that we've had a lot of success being able to attract 
people, and I think you've heard it across sort of the theme 
here. We need to rebrand.

    I'm one of the oldest folks in the company and at 55, if 
you come to our laboratory and technical center in Reno, 
Nevada, or even out to Winnemucca, you're going to see some 
gray-haired folks there, which is great, because they have the 
experience to help train the younger folks.

    But by and large, our workforce is quite youthful and quite 
young. And they want to come into this field, they don't view 
it as mining necessarily or minerals extraction, but they see 
it as a burgeoning career area around the economies changing 
into a more green economy or green energy.

    I think you and I spoke in the past. My daughter's a great 
example of that. She turned a job down with Goldman Sachs. She 
works at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, 
Colorado. She wanted to go into a field that's growing, that's 
new and have a front row seat to where our economy's going over 
the next 20 or 30 years.

    A lot of our employees that come either as interns or that 
we're working closely with the University of Nevada or Reno, or 
even more importantly in closer term, Great Basin College, 
which is in Winnemucca, Nevada, are all thinking the same 
thing.

    Senator Braun, you had mentioned, we actually go and talk 
to kids in high school. We have a constant open house every 
week, members of the public, we have school kids coming in and 
so forth.

    That's the same out in Winnemucca, Nevada, where we're 
actually outreaching kids in high school, bringing them through 
a Great Basin College. They've actually worked to develop 
programs that are specialized around instrumentation, around 
electricians, which are two of the hardest to find. And they've 
already graduated two or three classes and they're able to do 
that now in an associate's degree program that's only a year 
versus 2 years.

    It's possible, but it's tough. And the other thing I'll add 
too is that, rural economy it's very difficult too. It's much 
easier to get folks in Reno, Humboldt County for the East Coast 
folks is half the State of Connecticut has 16,000 people in it. 
So, it's very rural and typically when kids leave and they go 
to the State University they don't come back. So, it's grabbing 
kids in high school so they don't leave, but it's also trying 
to get people to come back to the area as well.

    Senator Hickenlooper. Right, engaging them in different 
ways. Taking that thread then, Dr. Arnold, can you talk about 
partnerships that you might have with community colleges or 
apprenticeships and programs with businesses as well, and what 
challenges do you expect as you try and scale up those programs 
or see them being implemented in other places?

    Dr. Arnold. As far as the different programs that we have 
dispersed away from, we'll say the flagship at University Park, 
Penn State has commonwealth campuses around the state. And each 
of those has 2-year associate degree programs in things like 
electromechanical engineering and those types of programs.

    While our mining engineering program doesn't directly link 
with those, those are programs that Penn State has. We need to 
do a better job of actually going out into the community 
colleges and into some of the trade schools to actually address 
the need for mining programs, the need for folks to actually 
become better equipped to serve in mining positions, just to 
understand the different environment that they're going into.

    The second part of your question was interacting with 
businesses. We have many numbers of folks contacting us in the 
spring, in the summer, to come onto campus in the fall, and to 
talk to our mining students directly. They interview them often 
the next day, they tell them about their company one evening, 
they interview them for summer internships or full-time 
positions for the next summer. So, by the time the end of the 
fall semester rolls around we have everyone placed. Some of 
them will actually change their mind.

    [Laughter.]

    Mr. Zisch. Well, we all know kids.

    Dr. Arnold. They do that, but so the jobs are there. But we 
need more students to fill them. Got it. But on the critical 
mineral----

    Senator Hickenlooper. Let me switch over to Mr. Zisch, 
we'll come back around. Over to you Mr. Zisch.

    Dr. Arnold. Absolutely.

    Mr. Zisch. Thank you, Senator. The Colorado School Mines 
also has programs where we have relationships with particularly 
three community colleges, which provide opportunities for 
students to have then an entrance into School of Mines.

    Those are working relationships that we have, provides an 
opportunity for students to get their kind of feet on the 
ground. It's a lower cost option for them as well.

    The other thing that we use a lot of those programs for, is 
for targeting underrepresented students coming into mines. It's 
a great avenue for us to reach out to them and have them come 
through, what is a non-traditional approach sometimes, that's 
been very effective on our underrepresented opportunities.

    Senator Hickenlooper. Great, thank you. I'm going to step 
back, but I'm not through. Gracelin, I will be back to each of 
you actually. So, I'm going to turn it over to my co-chair, 
Senator Braun.

    Senator Braun. It's because you're a geologist, right? You, 
you've got several rounds, so.

    Senator Hickenlooper. Exactly.

    Senator Braun. I'm an entrepreneur, business owner, and 
workforce has been a challenge in all areas, I mentioned that 
earlier. Depressing when you hear, did you say 12,000 was the 
number from China?

    Dr Arnold. Yes, students enrolled.

    Senator Braun. We were like, how many was that again?

    Dr Arnold. 162.

    Senator Braun. I mean, that is unbelievable. And then I 
think someone else mentioned, it might have been you, Dr. 
Baskaran, about the stigma associated with sadly farming was in 
there too. And that's the hardest small business that God ever 
created. And of course, that has gotten more intensive with 
capital and equipment and less labor intensive. That's the only 
way we keep up there.

    Then I think back, because I always like to get to the root 
of a problem. When coal was our primary mineral that we were 
mining and using to generate electricity, I don't seem to 
remember issues getting people into the field. Our neighboring 
county was the highest income county per capita in our State of 
Indiana, which is the biggest manufacturing state per capita 
now. And that's almost all gone. So, how much of the skills you 
need for mining in general, would've been because we had a 
vibrant coal industry back many years ago?

    Does that have anything to do with why we don't have as 
many kids interested in it? Because they seem to be interested 
then because they were good paying jobs. Whoever feels 
comfortable answering that, I'd like to get your opinion.

    Dr. Baskaran. I'm happy to go for it. I think globally we 
see a phenomenon where young people, urbanization. I mean, 
there's just been a changing phenomenon where people are moving 
to cities. So, there was once a time, I think at the height of 
the coal boom in the United States, but mining more broadly, 
where you kind of use place-based, right? You stay where you 
grew up and where there was that mining industry, you stayed 
there.

    But now we're just seeing a global trend where people are 
moving to cities. There are more attractive fields that have 
emerged in the last few decades in tech, remote work, all of 
these things. And these are really kind of shifting.

    To the second part now, that's different then, is mining 
now requires a lot more STEM skills than it used to. Because we 
used to use a rock blaster, like a person would go place the 
blast and blast it. Now it's done by an engineer in a different 
space. So, the type of skills that's attracting is different, 
and that's also going to require more emphasis on STEM than it 
did before.

    Senator Braun. It wasn't our policy that initiated the fact 
that we've pretty well said we don't want to use coal anymore? 
And I look at China where they're building all the green energy 
stuff and they're fueling it with fire or coal fired plants, 
building you hear, one a week, in terms of electric generation 
fueled by coal, India as well.

    How much of that, and now that our policy has changed and 
you need the skills that are critical that you used to get, 
wasn't coal mining a large percentage of our total mining that 
we used to do in the U.S.? It seems like it had to be. Anybody 
want to comment on that?

    Dr. Arnold. Sure. I can take that question. Overall, we 
mine a lot of material and actually iron ore is the biggest 
metallic mineral that we mine, but we actually mine more 
aggregates than anything else. There's this one----

    Senator Braun. Are they hurting for workforce too?

    Dr. Arnold. Oh, everybody is.

    Senator Braun. Something has occurred to where anything 
that you're extracting out of the ground, we just have been 
lagging on it. So, it's kind of across the board.

    Dr. Arnold. It's across the board. It absolutely is.

    Senator Braun. Then that sounds like it's mostly going back 
to how we've maybe stigmatized, the reason farming it's easy to 
explain. It's gotten to where you've been able to substitute 
capital and equipment for labor, and we produce more here. 
Here, we've not been able to do that, and then it may get to be 
the nature of the job.

    I'm guessing that issue's not the same in other countries. 
So, looks like until we get to the bottom of that we're going 
to have a lot of trouble regardless of what we're trying to 
extract.

    Mr. Evans. It's very hard to open mines in the U.S., 
Senator. The ones that we had have declined. Opening a new one 
takes a long time. It's hard to finance, and then the workforce 
is aged and you're left with a lot less people than you had 
before.

    Senator Braun. Then one final question before I give it 
back. How much has government policy been a factor in making it 
more or less difficult?

    Mr. Evans. Sir. I'll answer that.

    Senator Braun. You are here with the government, so.

    Mr. Evans. I think that the permitting process and the NEPA 
process is very rigorous and it needs to be. We are going 
through the process ourselves. The one area that I would look 
at for permit reform is judicial. In terms of the length of the 
amount of appeals, it took us four and a half years from start 
to finish to go through the whole process, and that's 
supposedly short.

    We're both business folks, it's hard to get people to lend 
you money or give you money when they don't know when they're 
going to get a return on their investment. There are other 
mines in this country that have been locked in litigation for 
15 or 20 years. Because new cases are brought after other ones 
are dismissed.

    I think that's a key portion of at least the government 
portion around permitting reform, which it's more than just 
mines, as we know, it could be transmission lines; it could be 
everything. It's something we need to address for 
infrastructure in general in this country.

    Senator Braun. Thank you.

    Senator Hickenlooper. Senator Casey, the Senior Senator 
from Pennsylvania.

    Senator Casey. Mr. Chairman, thanks very much. I want to 
thank both you and Senator Braun for this opportunity to 
examine these issues. I'm going to thank each of our witnesses 
for being here. This is a busy hearing day, so everyone's in 
and out and moving around. So, I'm sorry I missed your 
presentations.

    Dr. Arnold, I wanted to direct my main question to you. I 
don't think I have to explain to you or many in Pennsylvania 
what life was like a while back when we had a lot of 
communities that were suffering from the ravages of coal 
mining. When I grew up in Scranton and still live there, the 
Lackawanna River was not what it is today. We were told to 
avoid it, don't go near it, it's dirty. Sometimes would turn 
some form of orange and now it's a place where people come from 
far and wide to fish there. So, it's been completely turned 
around.

    But we know of the devastation of abandoned or the 
devastation resulting in abandoned mine lands and all that came 
with it. We also know that in our state, we have state 
constitutional provision, which article 1, section 27 of the 
Constitution mandates that the people have a right to clean 
air, pure water, and the preservation of the natural scenic, 
historic, and aesthetic values of the environment. It talks 
about each of us being trustees of the natural resources of the 
state.

    Eventually the state took that seriously, starting about a 
little more than 50 years ago, more like 60 years ago now, and 
started to deal with this abandoned mine land problem in 
cleaning up the environment. We've got today, more than 40 
counties that are of our 67 that are somehow impacted by 
abandoned mine lands.

    It's been devastating for the environment, the land, the 
community, the economic development that can occur when that is 
not dealt with. I've worked on these issues a good while here 
and had some success and Senator Braun and I work together to 
pass the Stream Act that allows states to use a portion of 
their abandoned mine land money for acid mine drainage cleanup. 
And that was a good moment when we did that because we had to 
fix a little defect in the infrastructure bill.

    Leaders like Penn State and the National Energy Technology 
Lab in Pennsylvania are taking environmental remediation one 
step further. And they're pioneering ways to extract rare earth 
elements from acid mine drainage. I even visited Penn State and 
saw a demonstration.

    That's a long lead up into maybe the broad question, what 
would you hope we could do here by way of new policy? But 
generally, what would you believe is necessary to leverage what 
is a great energy workforce in our state, to take advantage of 
this opportunity that we have to actually take extract from in 
those communities, those rare earth elements?

    Dr. Arnold. Well, Senator, you absolutely hit it on the 
head with what we're doing as far as recovering rare earth 
elements and other critical minerals from acid mine drainage in 
the project that we're doing right now.

    To leverage our energy workforce, I think it's actually 
going to be difficult because our energy workforce is actually 
aging. They're the 220,000 that are going to retire. And how do 
we bring new people into the pipeline? And that's critical.

    We actually hide our mines. We've got to the point where 
you drive down the road and you don't know that there's a mine 
behind the hill. Now there're still in eastern Pennsylvania, 
there are still combustors, and we still need to address those, 
and we are.

    Some of those fluidized bed combustor plants are doing a 
job of recovering that, creating energy at the same time, and 
then putting that material back better. But we need to figure 
out how to get more people into that workforce as well.

    We can do everything we can on the automation side, and we 
are introducing a lot of automation and control, a lot of 
virtual types of technologies. But, how can we actually get 
younger people to do that, to go into those careers? It's going 
to be a combination of curriculum for K-12, letting them know 
that all of these elements that we're trying to go after are 
critical to high tech jobs. And so that message isn't getting 
out there.

    I think it's a curriculum thing. I think it's also--and not 
necessarily just to go into mining engineering programs or 
mineral processing programs. It's to go into manufacturing, 
it's to go into energy. It's just at this point it's difficult 
to get them to think that those jobs are actually environmental 
jobs.

    Senator Casey. Well, you've given us a lot to think about 
and to strategize about. But thanks very much. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.

    Senator Hickenlooper. Indeed. Thank you. Dr. Baskaran, it's 
estimated that the critical minerals workforce will need to 
double if we're going to meet our energy goals, some people say 
even higher than that. I think many of our international 
partners have been working for a pretty good while building up 
their workforce.

    What challenges have other countries faced in recruiting 
and retaining a skilled, robust workforce that can do what 
needs to be done? And what are some of the best practices 
you've seen at work in these other countries to address some of 
the challenges we've all been talking about?

    Dr. Baskaran. Thank you, Senator. I always think about 
Australia, because it was probably about 15 or 20 years ago 
that Australia decided that they were going to be a mineral 
center of excellence. And when you look at Australia's economy, 
it's about 15 percent of GDP is mining because you have your 
inputs, your machinery, your production, your processing.

    Our DOD DPA Title III grants actually go to Australian 
companies. But what they also did is they really aimed to build 
a robust workforce. So, if you look at a lot of mining 
graduates abroad, they're Australian. And I think a lot of that 
again is that prioritization of a long-term strategy that in 
many ways the U.S. has lacked to developing that workforce.

    If I were to think about two things that I think about that 
we need to realize though, with an Australian model of 
retention is, people don't live at the mines, they fly you in 
and they fly you out, right? And I think that's a big change 
over time, is mines are not, you and I both know, mines are 
often not an exciting place, right? They're not the easiest 
places to attract it.

    Australia's used other mechanisms, in public health, to get 
doctors into places where there's Aboriginal health problems. 
They also have to use similar mechanisms. We need to 
acknowledge that mines are in hard places, and we need to 
develop a system where there's two things.

    First, outreach is really important. We've said a lot here, 
like, young people don't know mining as a career. It's not an 
industry that we think about. So, first is going in and doing 
the outreach.

    Second is financially incentivizing it, not just from--
between the age of 17 and 22, your brain looks vastly 
different. When you're 22 you're thinking about how much money 
you need to make to pay your rent. When you're 17, you're not 
thinking about that. So, it's actually going in and 
scholarships, bursaries, co-ops, internships, paid experience, 
becomes super valuable.

    Then I think the other thing is like we think a lot when we 
think about banking, like our friends who ended up in 
investment banking. They finished college and they went and got 
their signing bonus. This information needs to be pulled 
forward so that we can do that.

    Then the last thing I think is cross pollination. So, when 
I look at Australia, when I look at Canada, I looked at the top 
12, sorry, Penn State was 13, so it's not in my numbers, 
apologies. But when I looked at the top 12 mining engineering 
programs, school of mind is No. 1. And then we have four 
Canadian, four Australian, couple British, Saudi, right? Is 
that actually we need to cross pollinate knowledge better so 
that people see globally, like mining is big.

    I mean, I've been very fortunate to have an extremely 
international career. I spent all my twenties abroad, and that 
was mining, right? But that's not something I would've thought 
of when I was 17 or 18 years old. So, bringing that exposure to 
the fact that mining is not living in Rural West Virginia 
anymore is really important to changing that narrative.

    I think Australia's gotten it right. They too are having an 
aging workforce. Canada has an aging workforce. This is a 
global dilemma. However, what we are seeing is if you put that 
architecture and plumbing into place, it's a gift that keeps on 
giving.

    Senator Hickenlooper. I appreciate that. And I would argue 
that I think many times mines are the most beautiful places. 
And some of Wallace Stegner's novels, if you've ever read Angle 
of Repose or even Crossing to Safety, they get into that a 
little bit further.

    Each of you in your distinct ways are leading important 
efforts to move this, the critical minerals workforce, forward. 
Can maybe each of you speak briefly about the policies that you 
think Congress should support to help accelerate this 
development of the workforce? Why don't we start with you, Mr. 
Zisch. We'll go along this way.

    Mr. Zisch. Yes. Thank you, Senator. I think certainly that 
some of the policies that should be out there need to get at 
and talk to this. Actually, Senator Braun, talked about the 
stigmatism and somehow incorporating these mines as part of the 
solution and part of the contribution to solving our energy 
issues.

    I would think that policies that can help to deal with that 
stigmatism and the industry perspective would be very helpful. 
I would also think that when, from a standpoint of anything we 
can do to encourage the scholarships, internships, et cetera 
would be very helpful.

    Senator Hickenlooper. Good point.

    Mr. Evans.

    Mr. Evans. Yes. My focus has been really local. Mining is a 
very local thing. And they are in areas that are very rural.

    Focusing on programs where the Federal Government assists 
with local or state or county governments with community 
colleges. I gave the example of Great Basin College; I was 
amazed to see what they put together on a shoestring. 
Basically, in some cases with donations, with some small 
grants. But if they had more opportunities and more resources, 
I think they could do more.

    There's a number of, when younger kids, they want to leave, 
they don't come back, but there's also nothing for them. So, if 
you can show them a path, you can start to identify that in 
high school not only trades training, but also some of the more 
sophisticated whether it be around instrumentation.

    Then to the point which we've heard from the larger 
universities as well. These jobs are technical, so the mining 
done by us is actually done by a coal company. So, that's 
another thing that we can do here, is that you actually bring 
in allied industries that--it's the same thing. We're doing 
surface mining. We're using North American coal. It's 120-year-
old company out of Cleveland, Ohio that does late night mining 
and phosphate mining in the U.S.

    But the STEM students, they can go to Apple, they can go to 
others. We have a very sophisticated operation. I could run our 
control room from Reno, Nevada 200 miles away. Bringing that 
where these industries are growing, they're developing, I think 
you need both. You need the professional STEM folks, but also 
it all starts local. The folks that are going to live every day 
around that facility grow families there. And actually, 
hopefully some folks come home.

    Senator Hickenlooper.

    Dr. Baskaran.

    Dr. Baskaran. Money makes the world move. And I think 
appropriations are really important because we have so many 
existing programs and mechanisms in place. But a lot of these 
were developed before--were not made fit for purpose for 
mining. Because they were not at a point. It was really what, 
the last 15 years when we discovered minerals could be 
weaponized and we went into a panic, I mean, maybe 15 years is 
generous might be like 7.

    When I think about this, what I had kind of mentioned 
earlier, was like our Fulbright program has expanded so many 
times, and it's such a good way to get academics, 
practitioners, and students to move and cross pollinate that 
information.

    National Science Foundation, I grew up in a academic 
household, always heard like programs fail or succeed on the 
basis of the amount of money they have available, to be able to 
execute good teaching, good research, good learning.

    I think the third area I would suggest, again, is 
appropriations to our U.S. military academies for minerals. 
This is something we're working on at CSIS. These are our 
future executives, Ambassadors, cabinet leaders, and they have 
fantastic STEM graduates.

    Making sure that we're giving exposure, I mean, to all 
universities, but also to these militaries because they will go 
on to be leaders and giving them the exposure--I spoke at 
something at West Point in February, the amount of interest 
that peaked that now we're doing subsequent events was really 
exciting for me. So, I think we have the avenues, but sometimes 
we just need to increase the funding to allow--to make them fit 
for purpose.

    Senator Hickenlooper. Got it.

    Dr. Arnold.

    Dr. Arnold. Certainly. So, there is a Mining Schools Act 
that is making its way through Congress. If we could get that 
passed, I think that would be fabulous. And beyond that, I 
certainly agree with what the other witnesses have said. It's 
expanding some of the things that we have directly and focusing 
them on mining. We don't need to have essentially new programs, 
but making sure that mining is included in a lot of those.

    Senator Hickenlooper. Got it. More of everything. You guys 
actually sound like a bunch of mayors and Governors. That's 
what they always comment.

    [Laughter.]

    Senator Hickenlooper. I just want more of everything. 
Senator Braun, got more questions.

    Senator Braun. Couple fun facts. You said 15 percent of 
Australia's GDP mining, ours is currently 1.4 percent. In 1947 
it was 2.3, I thought it'd be more than that. 1957 it was 2.3, 
1967 it dipped to 1.4, popped back up to 2.1 in 1977. 1987 it 
was 1.5 and currently it's 1.4. Healthcare in 1987 was about 6 
percent of our GDP. Now it's 18 percent. So, that shows you how 
economies change.

    What's the one thing other than permitting and like each of 
you, and do it fairly quickly, because then I want to go to the 
second question. What's the one thing the feds could do to make 
it better for the issues we're talking about?

    Then No. 2, when it comes to actually fixing workforce, to 
me it looks like that should be the solution of the states, and 
the bailiwick of education would be states. And most of your 
particular programs are there. Can that be done between states 
and their educational systems on correcting this. Second 
question, but No. 1, what is the most important thing the feds 
could do to make life easier? I'll start with Dr. Arnold.

    Dr. Arnold. Well, the most important thing that the Federal 
Government could do would be to, oh my--wasn't thinking we'd be 
getting a question like this, but how about actually making 
mining more prominent in all of the programs that we talk 
about. I mean, that it is important. Just the importance of 
mining.

    Senator Braun. Sounds like we ought to be doing better at 
that, especially when we're wanting to be so involved in new 
ways of energizing stuff that's going to involve critical 
minerals.

    Dr. Baskaran.

    Dr. Baskaran. We need a coordinated strategy for how we're 
going to do this at a national level. Right now, when I look at 
critical minerals, I think we counted recently, there were like 
12 departments and agencies working on minerals. And 
ultimately, they each have a little bit of a different angle.

    DOD, DOE, state, you need a coordinated approach to 
workforce development that all of these entities can weigh in 
on. Because DOD needs are a little bit different from DOE needs 
in terms of the education required.

    Department of Education is a great place to hold a pin on 
that. But there does need to be coordination between the 
government or we overlap mandates and we're not doing it 
efficiently; we discover these gaps. Department of Labor has 
grants that go to mining, but it doesn't overlap. Coordinated 
strategy, Federal one document, this is how we're going to do 
this across agencies.

    Mr. Evans. I'll go back to the local level. Push trades 
between the state and Federal Government, folks coming out of 
high school now you can make a choice. You can go to college; 
you get a 4-year degree or where you can go be a trades person 
in general. Trades wages pay higher.

    Perhaps some grants or other incentives at the Federal 
Government along with the state, through facilities and so 
forth, can push that to offer another choice to graduating 
seniors in high school, which is going to give them a career 
that they eventually can go on and start their own business 
with. We're going to have to build a lot of stuff.

    I mean, I look at things more holistically. There are not 
only mines, but plants, there's transmission lines, and we have 
a lack of skilled trades in this country and those are the same 
people. Primarily when I look at our 350 folks, you need those 
skilled trades, not only to build but to operate the facilities 
like this.

    Mr. Zisch. Senator, I think one of the key issues is that 
there's going to be, research funding is critical for mining in 
the future. And I think from a government standpoint, support 
of any research funding would be exceptional.

    Then I think we also need to remember at least 
conceptually, when we talk about mining, it's a very broad 
area, it's not just the mines. There's a lot of other things, 
processing is certainly essential with regard to critical 
minerals, rare earth, et cetera. And if we can take a look at 
doing something to help the establishment of processing 
facilities, that can be quite helpful, I would think. But 
research is significant.

    Senator Braun. Research would seem to be something maybe 
that would have to be coordinated broadly. In my opinion, when 
it comes down to the successful industries that have addressed 
this, that would be larger parts of our economy, they're not 
waiting on this place to coordinate it. They're even not 
waiting on this place to pay for it since we're borrowing 30 
cents on every dollar that we spend currently. So, I think I'd 
maybe look for a different business partner there, financially.

    Most of them have finally put it together. And I'm going to 
cite a company that's a big one, Toyota near where we live, 
went into a rural area, and immediately got in business with 
their local school districts. And then started initiating 
apprenticeships summer jobs, jobs after school. And they are a 
large employer in a rural area that was in the heart of coal 
country that's figured it out without any help from this place.

    Much of it, I've observed, business has expected our school 
systems to spit it out. You don't have the natural proclivity 
toward trades in the way it used to do when we were the No. 1 
manufacturing company. We've never been that large in the 
mining arena. My advice would be for the companies in this 
business, don't wait on this place. Get busy with where you are 
in the states you're involved with, and I think you can craft 
most of the solutions that we're talking about, and you'll get 
it done a lot more quickly.

    If the Federal Government keeps pushing for all of this and 
has not been very quick at permitting, has made it tough to 
mine generally, due to their other policies, they better wise 
up, they can't have their cake and eat it too. It's been a 
great discussion. That'll be all the questions I have.

    Senator Hickenlooper. Great. This is a more philosophical 
question, because I think what Senator Braun described is that 
shift toward other priorities, which is healthcare in this 
case, that's a dramatic change and certainly that's a 
reflection of some level of the affluence the success of our 
Country.

    That we can now do a lot more mining with less people. We 
can do a lot more farming with less people. So, those show up 
as a smaller percentage of the workforce and the jobs. But at a 
certain point, just to ask your opinion. Does the swing have--
once it creates a momentum of contraction in these jobs, does 
it put us in a position of vulnerability? And I guess I think 
that's what I've been hearing is that now we're going to have 
to import an awful lot of these workers.

    If you want to build a mining infrastructure that is 
resilient and protects us from being at the mercy of 
adversarial nations, if we're going to import the workforce, at 
what point do we begin to counteract that?

    I understand more money into research, more money into the 
education system, closer connection with business the various 
incentives. Is that enough? The pendulum is swinging and now 
we've contracted, now we're probably past the point where we 
have the sufficient numbers, our education system or workforce 
training system that provides the workers we need, we probably 
are significantly understated. And yet it's still contracting, 
right? It's not really expanding yet. If I'm right. How do you 
guys measure that? Or am I wrong? It's a just a philosophical 
point.

    Mr. Zisch. Senator. I'll take that question. I think from 
the standpoint of vulnerability, I don't think you're wrong to 
start with, but I think part of the answer is actually 
automation and technology. We should be able to run these mines 
with less people in the future. The things that are happening 
in Australia and other places where they're running remotely, I 
think is part of the answer.

    But that means we need to get these students coming into 
the universities that see automation technology and all, as 
part of the solution, and are going to come into mining to 
apply those technologies and that applied research, because I 
think there's a lot of opportunities out there from automation 
technology, robotics, a lot of things going on.

    Mr. Evans. I think as well, I'll just kind of go to a 
higher level. I think the Federal Government and state 
governments, those alliances doing something like this, you 
need to build allies. So, you need a bit of a stamp of approval 
from the Federal and state government, this is important mining 
and infrastructure.

    From there, I think companies are happy to partner and 
we've started that already with local institutions, even 
funding some of that at a local level with grants and so forth. 
But the environment needs to be enticing where private capital 
is going to come into this industry and actually fund all this. 
So, big companies like Toyota come in, they speak to the state 
government, the county, they're welcomed. It's great. You cut 
ribbons. This is an industry which has a stigma right now, and 
it's difficult. A lot of folks don't really want to come to 
your ribbon cutting and really want to get it done.

    But the goal is to have private capital fund all this. I 
mean we're a recipient of the ATVM Program. It's hard to even 
get funding for stuff like this because of the unknowns, 
because of how much time it takes and hopefully it's just 
temporary. So, you have a rush of private capital in here and 
then all those things that businesses can self-fund that 
themselves because it's in their own interest to do it. Right.

    Dr. Baskaran. Thanks Senator. It's a very philosophical 
question, so I think I'm going to go home and think about it 
for a bit, but I think there's a couple quick points that jump 
out to me.

    One is, there's a balance also between public and private. 
I can appreciate that. We can't spend our way out of 
everything. One of the models that's worked really well in a 
number of countries is the idea of a skills levy. So, for 
example, South Africa, where there's many mining companies run 
by South African CEOs. They charge a 1 percent skills levy to 
mining companies that turns around and goes into a pot of money 
that essentially then funds all of building the pipeline. And 
South African mining engineers are everywhere in the world. And 
I think a lot of that was because they took that capital and 
put it back in to kind of create a circular system.

    I think what we don't want is to get to a point, and my 
fear is this, and I'm probably not alone, but we see countries 
where there's a real workforce impediment. See Brownfield and 
Greenfield mine just dry up. Because especially in a place 
where you can't permit and if you don't have the workforce 
development, you can't look. The U.S. has significant amounts 
of lithium, it's not at the high end of a lithium because of 
these various barriers. So, we as a U.S. Government, if we want 
to be serious about, I don't know catching up to like and 
compare advantage, there's multiple work streams that need to 
push forward, but if we don't, we're going to choke ourselves 
off on the mining front.

    Senator Hickenlooper. Dr. Arnold.

    Dr. Arnold. Certainly. One of the other things though I 
think we need to be thinking about is grassroots. We need to 
get into the schools and make sure that they know about the 
need for the workforce, that it is high tech, I mentioned that 
in my opening remarks.

    In Pennsylvania, there is an opportunity before next June 
30th or something like that, to go in and actually address the 
STEM curriculum. It's actually called Science, Technology, and 
Environmental Literacy and Sustainability Standards, STEELS, 
there's more than just STEM.

    I will be working with some of the folks in our education 
department at Penn State to see if we can get some of the 
minerals information into the curriculum. And then I forget who 
mentioned veterans, or the military academies. That's the next 
one of the other pieces is to go and talk to our veteran's 
department on campus, to see if those students who have already 
chosen Penn State might not consider a career in mining. So, 
there's some grassroots things that I think we can all do 
local, because every bit is local.

    Senator Hickenlooper. Yes, I guess you could say all mining 
is local, to turn a phrase. You have anything else you want 
to--any points you would like to add? Great.

    Again, thank you so much. To each of you, I know how busy 
you are, and I know it takes a lot of time to get here and to 
ramp up and be prepared. But it adds value and this gets 
captured on C-SPAN, and who knows where, what supermarket 
you'll be shopping in. Someone says, hey, aren't you Mr. Evans? 
Didn't I see you? Don't you have something to do with lithium? 
Anyway, thank you all, I appreciate that.

    That's going to end our hearing today. I'd like to thank 
our colleagues and again, our panel, and also anybody, the in-
person, viewers, and anyone watching online. For any Senators 
who wish to ask additional questions, questions for the record 
will be due in 10 business days, so, until June 26th at 5 p.m.

    Senator Hickenlooper. The Subcommittee now stands 
adjourned.

                          ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

                        statement for the record
 the united steel, paper and forestry, rubber, manufacturing, energy, 
    allied industrial and service workers international union (usw)
    Chairman Hickenlooper, Ranking Member Braun, and Members of the 
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions' Subcommittee on 
Employment and Workplace Safety on behalf of the United Steelworkers 
(USW) 850,000 members, we want to thank you for holding this important 
hearing on workforce training issues in our critical minerals sector. 
As the largest mining union in the United States--and with thousands 
more mining members in Canada--many of these issues are top priorities 
for USW.

    USW miners have a long history of responsibly extracting and 
refining a variety of metal and non-metal substances, including iron 
ore, copper, platinum, silver, potash, trona, salt, limestone, sand, 
clay, and more. Jobs in mining are unique in that they cannot be 
outsourced. Mine operators need a highly skilled, local workforce to 
safely work in mines and, ideally, in co-located minerals processing 
facilities.

    Union mining jobs are typically high-wage jobs that require a 
workforce that is skilled and uniquely attuned to safety on the job and 
safety for the community. Most mining jobs are located in rural 
communities, making it challenging to recruit a skilled workforce from 
elsewhere and necessary to train within the local community.

    Our Nation's principal workforce training legislation--the 
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA)--has not been updated 
since 2014. In that time, the economy has evolved dramatically, and yet 
the tools available to workers to adapt to this shifting landscape have 
remained stuck in place. In this era of advanced manufacturing, new 
clean technology, and an ever-changing service sector, workers and 
their employers must have access to high-quality training programs. 
Accordingly, USW is glad that the HELP Committee is taking action to 
update our current workforce training system and address its 
shortcomings.

    In this statement, we wish to outline our union's priorities when 
it comes to workforce training, with lessons learned from a variety of 
industries and opportunities on the horizon for critical minerals 
workers.
We Need a Multi-Faceted Approach to Workforce Training for the Critical 
                           Minerals Workforce

    A major tenet of USW's philosophy on workforce training is that a 
one-size-fits-all model does not work. Our membership is one of the 
most diverse in the country, impacting all economic sectors: we have 
members in sectors as wide-ranging as manufacturing, mining, 
professional services, construction, healthcare, transportation, and so 
many more. Each of these sectors--let alone the individual workplaces 
within them--are all different, and as such, they require different 
skills and techniques to be successful.

    No one training model can work for all of those sectors. For 
example, Registered Apprenticeship (RA) programs are often referred to 
as the ``gold standard'' for workforce training in certain sectors--and 
rightly so. For workers in the building trades, a strong, union-
sponsored RA program is the best form of training we have. This 
Registered Apprenticeship structure also works in certain industrial 
settings.

    The reason this model works is because workers are trained in a 
specific trade that is broadly applicable across workplaces. For 
example, if a worker goes through an RA program and eventually becomes 
a journeyperson as an ironworker, they can then use those skills as an 
ironworker on a number of projects, regardless of the specifics of the 
workplace (e.g., repairing a bridge or building a skyscraper).

    However, there are just as many, if not more, industries where a 
Registered Apprenticeship model does not work. Take two of our union's 
larger sectors: mining and paper. Both are large-scale industrial 
sectors where maintenance is an essential job function to make a 
facility work. However, being a maintenance worker at a mine requires a 
very different set of skills than being a maintenance worker at a paper 
mill. As such, a standardized Registered Apprenticeship model would not 
work to effectively train a worker in these settings.

    Instead, what is needed is a workforce training system that is as 
diverse as our economy. An optimal workforce training system built for 
the 21st century economy must leverage all of the skills, talent, and 
techniques that make our Country the strongest economy in the world. 
This includes investments in effective training programs like 
Registered Apprenticeships, while also directing resources toward other 
proven training programs that develop the specific skills needed by 
employers.

    USW has high-quality training programs across the country that can 
serve as inspiration for the types of training in mining and minerals 
processing that need more Federal support. For example:

          Incumbent Worker Training: USW Local 135L negotiated 
        with Sumitomo Rubber in Tonawanda, NY to stand up a Junior 
        Electrician program, which made it easier for workers to earn a 
        credential through an accelerated education and on-the-job 
        training program. Although not an official Registered 
        Apprenticeship program, this arrangement works with both the 
        employer and the workers to upskill in a way that benefits both 
        parties.

          Partnerships With Local Community Colleges: USW 
        collaborates with Cleveland Cliffs and Ivy Tech Community 
        College in Valparaiso, IN to sponsor an ``Interdisciplinary 
        Industrial Workforce Certificate Program'' course worth 40 
        credits. The program is a pre-employment training opportunity 
        that offers a mix of coursework through Ivy Tech Community 
        College and on-the-job paid internships at Cleveland Cliffs.

          Using DOE Grants to Provide Community Members With 
        Credentials: Funded by a Department of Energy (DOE) National 
        Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) grant, USW 
        Local 8-550 and Local 1-689 have partnered with West Kentucky 
        Community and Technical College to run a free, 240-hour 
        Radiation Control Technician training program to community 
        members in Paducah, KY. Launched in 2021, the graduates earn a 
        DOE-recognized credential, and fully 90 percent of the first 
        cohort are now employed as USW members at the Paducah plant.

    These are just a few instances that underscore the multitude of 
effective, union-sponsored training programs that are not Registered 
Apprenticeships. As Congress considers legislation to update our 
workforce training system, it is imperative that they complement the 
benefits of Registered Apprenticeship programs by also investing in 
alternative proven, union-sponsored programs like the ones described 
here.
            Labor-Management Partnerships Are on the Horizon
    Our union has signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) and 
partnership agreements with multiple companies in the battery materials 
supply chain, all including the goal of jointly recruiting and training 
a diverse, local workforce to fill these new jobs.

    One exciting example is our partnership with Talon Metals, a 
company in the permitting process for an underground nickel mine in 
Tamarack, MN, that will employ approximately 300 workers. Talon has 
also been selected for funding from the DOE's Battery Minerals 
Processing Grant Program under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to 
process nickel at a facility in North Dakota. USW and Talon are 
collaborating on how to identify needed skills, develop local workforce 
development partnerships, and recruit a local workforce for training. 
While the Talon project is still a couple of years away from hiring 
most of its workforce, USW expects that this partnership can serve as a 
model for other parts of the industry.
        We Need to Improve Our Current Workforce Training System

    It is important to put our current situation into a historical and 
global context. Historically, one study found that ``Federal Government 
spending for workforce services and training have dropped by two-thirds 
despite the fact that the labor force has grown by about 50 percent 
since that time''. \1\ Looking across the world, that same study found 
that many industrialized nations spend as much as five times more of 
their gross domestic product (GDP) than the United States on such 
active labor market policies. \2\ We need significantly more investment 
if we want to provide our workers with the best-in-the-world training 
that they need to succeed in our 21st century economy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\  The Brookings Institution, ``Should the Federal Government 
spend more on workforce development?'' May 23, 2023
    \2\  Ibid.

    Another shortcoming of our existing system is the limited role that 
labor plays in shaping workforce training programs. When it comes to 
on-the-job training, a simple truth emerges: workers know best how to 
do their jobs, and by extension, they also know what skills they could 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
benefit from.

    However, our current approach is not set up in a way that 
recognizes this fundamental truth. For example, under WIOA, state and 
local workforce development boards are overrepresented by industry and 
underrepresented by labor. With such imbalance between employers and 
labor, it is no wonder that our current workforce training system is 
failing to meet the needs of workers.

    In addition to labor's underrepresentation on state and local 
workforce boards, another key limitation of our current system is that 
it does not prioritize funding labor intermediaries and joint labor-
management programs. Labor-sponsored programs, for the same reason 
mentioned above, are the best-known forms of effective workforce 
training. As such, we strongly urge you to include priority funding for 
labor-sponsored programs, as well as labor consultation and/or 
concurrence language in any update to WIOA.

    These represent a few of our union's major priorities as it relates 
to workforce training. We appreciate the efforts that the HELP 
Committee is taking to update and improve our workforce training 
system, and we urge the Committee to implement our union's priorities 
in any such effort.
    We Need Other Policies That Support Effective Workforce Training

    Lastly, in addition to strong investments in our principal 
workforce training system, there is also a need to improve related 
policies that we have to support workers. Market concentration by China 
has the potential to create significant shifts in global prices, and 
therefore operations in the United States. We only have to look at 
recent history of Chinese market pressures on the steel industry, rare 
earths, and other materials to see the impacts it can have on U.S. 
businesses and workers. From USW's perspective, reforming the Worker 
Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act and reauthorizing 
Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) are key to protecting the critical 
minerals workforce.

    The WARN Act was passed into law back in 1988 with the goal of 
providing workers advanced notice in the event of a plant closure or 
mass layoff, so that they would have time to enroll in retraining 
programs and/or look for a new job. Although noble in its intent, the 
WARN Act has several loopholes and shortcomings that limit its 
efficacy. For example, the law exempts certain ``smaller employers'' 
and only requires 60 days notice. Also, there are limited enforcement 
mechanisms when employers fail to give adequate notice. To address 
these limitations, USW has long endorsed the Fair Warning Act, which 
would expand the number of firms required to give WARN notice, and it 
would increase the notice timing from 60 to 90 days. USW has also been 
supportive of legislative solutions to provide the Department of Labor 
(DOL) with investigative and enforcement powers related to WARN 
violations. These reforms would ensure that workers are actually 
provided with the necessary time and resources to transition if their 
workplace is to close.

    Reauthorizing TAA is also critical to supporting workers who need 
training after losing their job due to a trade-induced shock. These 
workers, much like those impacted by WARN closures, have lost their job 
through no fault of their own. Historically, these trade-displaced 
workers could rely on TAA to provide income replacement, as well as 
training opportunities. Much like Registered Apprenticeships for the 
construction trades, TAA has often been called ``the gold standard'' 
for job retraining. Its efficacy in linking workers with strong 
retraining programs make it a highly impactful benefit for workers. 
According to a study by the Census Bureau, TAA recipients earn an 
average of $50,000 more in income over a 10-year period compared to 
workers who did not participate in the program. \3\ However, TAA lapsed 
at the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 2022. Since then, any worker who has 
lost their job since June 30, 2022 has been unable to access TAA 
benefits. As of June 2024, DOL estimates that 745 petitions covering 
118,057 workers are on hold, awaiting TAA to be reauthorized. USW has 
strongly pushed for TAA to be reauthorized to ensure that those workers 
can access these much-needed benefits.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\  U.S. Census Bureau, ``Census Working Papers--Can Displaced 
Labor Be Retrained? Evidence from Quasi-Random Assignment to Trade 
Adjustment Assistance'', February 2022.

    Taken together, each of these policy initiatives, in conjunction 
with enhanced resources for workforce training, would help position the 
U.S. critical minerals workforce to lead the world in responsible 
extraction and processing.
                               Conclusion

    In closing, workforce training is essential to ensuring that the 
U.S. can build the needed workforce to mine and process critical 
minerals necessary for the clean energy economy. To achieve this goal, 
policy must guarantee that there are adequate seats at the table for 
labor, increase funding for workforce training, and ensure that workers 
are trained for the jobs available in their communities. Further, we 
need to make sure the complementary policies align with these goals. 
USW looks forward to working with Congress to ensure that the critical 
minerals workforce is highly skilled and sufficient to meet demand. We 
thank you again for the opportunity to submit this statement for the 
record on this essential hearing.
                                 ______
                                 
                                 MP Materials Corp,
                                                     June 10, 2024.
Hon. John Hickenlooper, Chairman,
Hon. Mike Braun, Ranking Member,
U.S. Senate Subcommittee Employment and Workplace Saftey,
U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.

    RE: STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD OF MP MATERIALS CORP. ON WORKFORCE 
DEVELOPMENT IN THE CRITICAL MINERALS SECTOR

    Chairman Hickenlooper, Ranking Member Braun, and distinguished 
Members of the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety, 
MP Materials Corp. (``MP Materials'' or ``Company'') appreciates this 
opportunity to provide this written statement and supplement the record 
in advance of the Subcommittee's June 12 hearing, ``Digging Deeper: 
Building Our Critical Minerals Workforce.''
                      Introduction to MP Materials
    MP Materials, headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, is the largest 
rare earth materials producer in the United States. The Company owns 
and operates the Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine and Processing Facility 
(``Mountain Pass''), located in San Bernardino County, California. 
Mountain Pass is one of the world's largest integrated rare earth 
production sites and the only major active resource in the United 
States. MP is a publicly traded U.S. company listed on the New York 
Stock Exchange with approximately 730 U.S. employees.

    MP Materials' mission is to restore the full rare earth supply 
chain to the United States. Rare earth elements (``REE'') are a group 
of 17 chemical elements (15 lanthanides and two transition metals) with 
a wide range of high-tech applications. Neodymium magnets, which are 
manufactured from an alloy containing REEs, are the strongest and most 
efficient permanent magnets commercially available. These magnets 
enable the conversion of energy into motion (and motion into energy) 
inside motors, actuators, and generators found in hybrid and electric 
vehicles, critical defense systems, robotics, wind turbines, drones, 
and electronics. As electrification and autonomy take hold across the 
global economy, demand for REEs and permanent magnets is growing.

    MP Materials was founded in 2017 to acquire Mountain Pass, after 
severe operational and financial challenges forced the site's previous 
owner into bankruptcy. At the time, the facility was idle with just 
eight employees. Since restarting operations from cold-idle, MP 
Materials has increased production at Mountain Pass dramatically. In 
2023, MP Materials produced approximately 12 percent of global rare 
earth content at Mountain Pass. We believe Mountain Pass is now the 
world's second most productive rare earth mine. Additionally, in 2023, 
we began producing separated and refined rare earth products at newly 
commissioned processing facilities collocated at Mountain Pass, thereby 
filling a critical void in the midstream of the supply chain.

    To fulfill our mission to restore the full supply chain, MP is 
currently constructing and equipping the first fully integrated 
neodymium magnet manufacturing facility built in America in decades, in 
Fort Worth, Texas. This facility will transform rare earth materials 
produced at Mountain Pass into metals, alloys, and finished neodymium 
magnets for General Motors and other American manufacturers.
                     Efforts to Build Our Workforce
    At MP Materials, our workforce is the backbone of our operations. 
We are dedicated to building a talented, committed, and skilled team 
that drives our mission forward. Since relaunching production at 
Mountain Pass in July 2017, we have grown from eight contractors to 
approximately 730 full-time employees. This significant increase in our 
workforce reflects our rapid business expansion and a commitment to 
fostering a culture that prioritizes ownership, safety, and 
professional growth.

    Central to our operations is the ``owner-operator'' philosophy we 
promulgate, which empowers every employee to take ownership of their 
work and the Company's success. We believe that when employees are 
stakeholders, they are more engaged, motivated, and aligned with our 
mission. This culture fosters innovation, accountability, and a shared 
commitment to excellence. Our employees are encouraged to think and act 
like owners, which drives continuous improvement and operational 
success. To align incentives, every full-time employee of the company 
receives equity compensation.

    Retention is a critical component of our workforce strategy. We 
recognize that retaining skilled employees is essential for maintaining 
operational excellence and achieving long-term goals. To this end, we 
offer competitive pay and comprehensive benefits that include health 
management programs and an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to support 
the mental and physical health of our employees and their families. Our 
efforts have resulted in a retention rate of over 90 percent, 
underscoring our success in creating a supportive and rewarding work 
environment.

    To ensure our employees are equipped with the necessary skills and 
knowledge, we provide comprehensive training and development programs. 
All new employees undergo a minimum of 24 hours of training during 
onboarding, followed by annual refresher courses and specific field 
training. In 2022, our employees completed over 7,500 hours of new hire 
and refresher training and 1,792 hours of emergency medical response 
training. Our employees' career progression is based upon continuous 
skill development and mastery through field and computer-based 
training. We also offer apprenticeship programs that combine classroom 
education with practical field experience. These programs, particularly 
in electrical and instrumentation, allow employees to obtain journeyman 
licenses, enhancing their professional opportunities and earning 
potential.

    Our workforce development initiatives include partnerships with 
local high schools, community colleges, and universities to create 
tailored recruiting and training programs that meet our industry's 
needs. These partnerships help establish a talent pipeline and provide 
students with practical experience and job opportunities upon 
graduation. By collaborating with educational institutions, we support 
local workforce development and create pathways for students to enter 
high-demand fields.

    The health and safety of our employees is paramount. Every staff 
meeting begins with a ``safety share,'' where employees are encouraged 
to discuss recent safety observations, potential hazards, and 
preventive measures. Our annual calendar features safety-focused art 
drawn by the children of our employees. The finished product serves as 
a vivid and daily reminder of the importance of returning home safely. 
This relentless focus on safety has contributed to an impressive 
record--in more than 4 years, no employee of MP Materials has 
experienced a lost time injury.

    By investing in our workforce through training and development, we 
create pathways for career advancement and professional growth. Our 
employees benefit from a supportive work environment that encourages 
continuous learning and skill development, helping them progress in 
their careers and contribute to the Company's long-term success. This 
focus on professional growth from within is key to our retention 
strategy, as employees see clear career paths and opportunities for 
advancement within the Company.
          Recommendations to Cultivate an Effective Workforce
    The mining and mineral processing industry suffers from a critical 
shortage in skilled labor. In addition, skilled trades (machinists, 
mobile and stationary equipment mechanics, electricians, 
instrumentation technicians, millwrights, etc.) are increasingly 
difficult to retain, resulting in low labor productivity and 
underutilization of assets. U.S. critical material producers must 
compete in global commodity markets, and this directly impairs U.S. 
competitiveness and therefore mineral security. We recommend further 
investments by the U.S. Government into developing the skilled trade 
workforce in regions involved in critical minerals production. To 
address this challenge and ensure the sustainability of the industry, 
we recommend the following government actions:

        Support for Education and Training Programs: The government 
        should increase funding for education and training programs 
        focused on industrial equipment used in mining, mineral 
        processing, and related fields. Partnerships with middle 
        schools, high schools, community colleges, vocational schools, 
        and universities can help develop specialized curriculums that 
        align with industry needs. Apprenticeship programs, similar to 
        those we have implemented, should be supported and expanded to 
        provide hands-on training and professional certification 
        opportunities. At MP Materials, starting operator wages, 
        excluding voluntary overtime and benefits, offer equivalent 
        compensation to entry-level positions that require a 4-year 
        college degree. Rates of growth in compensation significantly 
        above inflation are achieved through lines of progression tied 
        to on-the-job training. At the same time, skilled trades-people 
        have wages that reach well into the six figures. Having 
        educational institutions inform young people of this potential 
        rewarding career path while also providing basic skills 
        necessary for success would be a huge benefit to U.S. critical 
        minerals development.

        Incentives for Workforce Development: Offering tax credits or 
        subsidies to companies that invest in workforce development can 
        encourage businesses to prioritize training and education. 
        These incentives can help offset the costs associated with 
        comprehensive training programs and make it more feasible for 
        companies to invest in their employees' professional growth.

        Promotion of STEM Education: Encouraging STEM (Science, 
        Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education from an 
        early age is crucial for developing future talent. Government 
        initiatives that promote STEM programs in schools, provide 
        scholarships for STEM students, and support extracurricular 
        activities like robotics clubs and science fairs can inspire 
        the next generation of professionals in the mining and mineral 
        processing industry.

        Support for Advanced Research and Development: Investing in 
        research and development (R&D) can drive innovation and 
        efficiency in the mining and mineral processing industry. 
        Government grants and funding for R&D projects, particularly 
        those focused on technologies capable of creating meaningful 
        commercial outcomes in mineral processing in the near and 
        medium term, will help companies stay competitive and attract 
        top talent interested in working with cutting-edge 
        technologies.

        Implementation of National Workforce Development Strategies: 
        The government should develop and implement a comprehensive 
        national workforce development strategy for the mining and 
        mineral processing industry. This strategy should include a 
        clear vision, goals, and action plans to address current and 
        future workforce needs. Regular assessments and updates to the 
        strategy will ensure it remains relevant and effective.
                               Conclusion
    MP Materials is dedicated to restoring the full rare earth supply 
chain to the United States and to building a talented, committed, and 
skilled workforce. We believe that with a level playing field and the 
right support, American producers can work with educators to address 
the critical skills shortage and ensure the sustainability and growth 
of the domestic critical minerals mining and processing industry. 
Although the industry faces headwinds, we are optimistic that the 
growth and community enrichment that has occurred in Mountain Pass, 
California, can be replicated across the country.

    Thank you for the opportunity to provide this written testimony. We 
would be pleased to further engage with the Subcommittee on the issues 
and opportunities and look forward to working together to achieve these 
goals.

            Respectfully submitted,
                                   Matt Sloustcher,
                                     Senior Vice President,
                                 Communications and Policy,
                                         MP Materials Corp.
                                 ______
                                 
    [Whereupon, at 3:50 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                                   [all]`