The U.S. House has passed a bill, the SPEED Act, to expedite production of critical minerals in the United States. If enacted, the new law would require federal courts to resolve challenges filed under the National Environmental Policy Act within 180 days.
John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, says that by streamlining the permitting process, the legislation would make it “easier to develop the resources the American people need every day.” We would not have to rely so heavily on China to provide many critical minerals. China has used its global dominance of many mineral supplies as a “loaded gun” in negotiations with the United States about trade and other matters (December 18, 2025).
The Associated Press reports that the attempt to “enact the most significant change in decades” to the NEPA was approved by a 221-196 vote in the U.S. House. The bill now goes to the U.S. Senate.
Republicans and many Democrats believe the 55-year-old environmental policy law has become mired in red tape that routinely results in years-long delays for major projects. The law requires detailed analysis for major projects and allows for public comments before approvals are issued. A recent study found that environmental reviews often total nearly 600 pages and take nearly five years to complete.
The House bill would place statutory limits on environmental reviews, broaden the scope of actions that don’t require review and set clear deadlines. It also limits who can bring legal challenges and legal remedies that courts can impose.
Unfortunately, the legislation, in its own words, “only prescribes a process. Nothing in this Act shall be construed to mandate any specific environmental outcome or result, nor shall this Act be interpreted to confer substantive rights or impose substantive duties beyond procedural requirements.”
Taking only 180 days instead of five years to arrive at final rulings about whether U.S. miners may compete with the CCP chokehold on critical minerals is a mandatory reform, one long overdue, a good start—if the legislation does indeed accomplish this truncation. But it’s only a start.
Predatory pricing
In November 2025, the Select Committee on the CCP released a report on the Party’s “Predatory Pricing.”
The adjective “predatory” is unfortunate not because inaccurate but because it has so often been used to assail voluntary cutting of prices by private market actors and, on the basis of indictment of such “predatory” pricing, to rationalize actually predatory government interference with market processes.
What the committee’s report is talking about is coercive manipulation of mineral markets by the government of the People’s Republic of China, not voluntary actions by private companies. This manipulation includes things like the PRC’s subsidizing of “its state mining champions with tens of billions of dollars including zero‐interest‐rate loans to support its global acquisition of mining assets”; making it illegal to publish prices “that deviate from the PRC government’s wishes”; a coordinated PRC effort “to artificially depress global lithium prices that had the effect of preventing the emergence of an America‐focused supply chain.”
Also see:
Select Committee on the CCP: Predatory Pricing: How the Chinese Communist Party Manipulates Global Mineral Prices to Maintain Its Dominance”
