30 U.S.C. § 1607: Critical minerals supply chains and reliability

In this section, the term “critical mineral” has the meaning given the term in section 1606(a) of this title . critical minerals are fundamental to the economy, competitiveness, and security of the United States; many critical minerals are only economic to recover when combined with the production of a host mineral; to the maximum extent practicable, the critical mineral needs of the United States should be satisfied by minerals responsibly produced and recycled in the United States; and the Federal permitting process has been identified as an impediment to mineral production and the mineral security of the United States. establishing and adhering to timelines and schedules for the consideration of, and final decisions regarding, applications, operating plans, leases, licenses, permits, and other use authorizations for critical mineral-related activities on Federal land; establishing clear, quantifiable, and temporal permitting performance goals and tracking progress against those goals; to incorporate and address the interests of those parties; and to minimize delays; ensuring transparency and accountability by using cost-effective information technology to collect and disseminate information regarding individual projects and agency performance; to avoid conflicts or duplication of effort; to resolve concerns; and to allow for concurrent, rather than sequential, reviews; providing demonstrable improvements in the performance of Federal permitting and review processes, including lower costs and more timely decisions; expanding and institutionalizing Federal permitting and review process improvements that have proven effective; developing mechanisms to better communicate priorities and resolve disputes among agencies at the national, regional, State, and local levels; and developing other practices, such as preapplication procedures. identifies additional measures, including regulatory and legislative proposals, if appropriate, that would increase the timeliness of permitting activities for the exploration and development of domestic critical minerals; identifies options, including cost recovery paid by permit applicants, for ensuring adequate staffing and training of Federal entities and personnel responsible for the consideration of applications, operating plans, leases, licenses, permits, and other use authorizations for critical mineral-related activities on Federal land; calculating the range, the mean, the median, the variance, and other statistical measures or representations of the period of time; and taking into account other aspects that affect the period of time that are outside the control of the Executive branch, such as judicial review, applicant decisions, or State and local government involvement; and describes actions carried out pursuant to subsection (c). Not later than 90 days after the date of submission of the report under subsection (d), and after providing public notice and an opportunity to comment, the Secretaries, using as a baseline the period of time quantified under paragraph (3) of that subsection, shall develop and publish a performance metric for evaluating the progress made by the Executive branch to expedite the permitting of activities that will increase exploration for, and development of, domestic critical minerals, while maintaining environmental standards. summarizes the implementation of recommendations, measures, and options identified in paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection (d); using the performance metric developed under subsection (e), describes progress made by the Executive branch, as compared to the baseline developed pursuant to subsection (d)(3), in expediting the permitting of activities that will increase exploration for, and development of, domestic critical minerals; and compares the United States to other countries in terms of permitting efficiency and any other criteria relevant to the globally competitive critical minerals industry. Each year, using data contained in the reports submitted under subsection (f), the Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall prioritize inclusion of individual critical mineral projects on the website operated by the Office of Management and Budget in accordance with section 1122 of title 31 .