So far, one chamber of the U.S. Congress has acted to bolster the Trump administration’s efforts to deflect the critical-minerals bludgeon being wielded by China. The U.S. House voted 224 to 195 to pass the Critical Mineral Dominance Act (New York Post, February 4, 2026).
The legislation gives Interior Secretary Doug Burgum the job of expediting mining projects, in part by working with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to determine which federal lands might be leased for mining purposes.
The bill also includes a deregulatory component, requiring taking action to “suspend, revise, or rescind…each agency action identified as unduly burdensome….”
“For far too long,” says Representative Pete Stauber, who introduced the bill, “America’s reliance on imports has left us vulnerable, with China controlling roughly 60 percent of global critical mineral production, 90 percent of processing, and 75 percent of manufacturing.
“The Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly weaponized this dominance through export restrictions and trade leverage, creating uncertainty for key U.S. industries. Previous administrations exacerbated this issue by reversing project approvals and restricting development on millions of acres of public lands.”
Now the bill goes to the Senate.
Ideally, as Robert Bidinotto argues in his book A Rebel in Eden, the federal government should shed all of its “federally owned” land, neither preserving it as sacrosanct nor provisionally renting it out. If the firms of an unfettered mining industry had the chance to outbid others to purchase mineable federal land, they wouldn’t need permission slips and subsidies from the government. Mining companies would be able to dig up and process all the critical minerals and rare earths needed to radically reduce or eliminate the country’s dangerous dependence on China. They could make their own judgments about what land to obtain and open up to mining without also having to convince bureaucrats.
However, we’re not there yet. Too few policymakers have experienced the epiphany that property rights should be instituted and safeguarded consistently. Until more fundamental reform is enacted, with luck before the end of Trump’s second term, a second-best policy of liberally leasing fed-land to the miners is necessary.
But it’s not a permanent solution. As Congressman Stauber has noticed, the leasing regime makes it all too easy for an anti-mining administration to “reverse project approvals and restrict development.”
Also see:
Common Sense with Paul Jacob: “Rebel in Eden?”
