So many of the challenges the U.S. now faces, from supply chain security to energy and housing affordability, require the same solution: we must start building again. And doing so demands making it far easier to build. We need policy that unlocks American ingenuity, that enables problem solving and puts people to work instead of placing self-imposed barriers in the way.
From minerals and energy projects to roads, bridges and even housing, essential investments are stuck in a permitting system that is remarkably ill-suited for today’s economic and geopolitical realities. If we want a stronger economy, more secure supply chains and lower costs for American families, permitting reform isn’t optional. It’s an imperative.
The consequences of delay are everywhere. Projects that should take years take decades or simply die on the vine. Crumbling infrastructure and an industrial base in desperate need of modernization are monuments to a permitting system that has frozen investment and driven industry and millions of community-supporting jobs overseas. Instead of providing predictability, our permitting system has created crippling uncertainty. There is no industry, no segment of our economy that isn’t affected.
We’ve reached a tipping point where the necessity for change has brought together a bipartisan push for permitting reform in Congress. The House has acted, passing a series of deeply important bills that together could be an economic and industrial gamechanger. It’s now up to the Senate to put this essential reform on the president’s desk.
The urgency for reform has never been greater. Consider, for example, the nation’s alarming mineral import reliance and the weaponization of mineral supply chains by China. We’re living in the most mineral intensive period in human history where every sector of our economy and every dimension our national security are dependent on access to a dizzying variety of minerals and metals. While our resource base is vast, our reliance on mineral imports – particularly those controlled by Beijing – has reached shocking levels. The very minerals we should and could be producing here are instead supplied by our economic rivals and geopolitical adversaries.
No challenge facing our mining industry has been greater than our unworkable permitting system. It takes a stunning 29 years to bring a mine online in the U.S., the second longest development timeline in the world. While our mineral needs grow nearly exponentially – from smart phones, batteries, semiconductors and data centers – our ability to respond has been handcuffed by our own policy failure.
Copper demand, alone, underscores the urgency for action. Global copper demand – the metal of electrification – is growing at such a pace that we will need to mine as much in the next 20 years as humanity has mined in the past 10,000 years combined. The question is not if we will need more metals but where to source them?
Commonsense permitting reform would allow the U.S. to responsibly develop more of these resources at home — strengthening economic security, reducing vulnerability to global disruptions and ensuring that the materials essential to our future are produced by American workers under world-leading environmental and safety standards.
The U.S. mining industry alone supports 488,000 direct jobs. These are family and community supporting jobs with the average miner earning nearly $95,000 a year. And those are just direct jobs. Mining supports hundreds of thousands more jobs across construction, manufacturing, transportation and equipment supply.
Permitting reform is a key that unlocks countless doors. It provides certainty, efficiency and allows capital to flow into communities and projects here, rather than overseas. From mines to assembly lines, the opportunity to build a new future, to provide economic security and a modern, dynamic industrial base is within reach. This is the moment to choose growth over gridlock. It’s time for America to start building again.
Rich Nolan is President & CEO, National Mining Association.
John Downey is General President of the International Union of Operating Engineers.