As President-elect Trump promises to eliminate government agencies and regulations, one American industry — mining — is asking for more intervention. They say national economic and military security are at stake. Some mining industry leaders are calling for the federal government to re-activate the U.S. Bureau of Mines, which President Bill Clinton shuttered. 'Since the mothballing of the U.S. Bureau of Mines, the U.S.
has really been underinvesting in mining and in mining R&D and mining workforce development,' said Professor Elizabeth Holley at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. A recent class discussion focused on why the U.S. is losing to countries like China when it comes to mining critical minerals needed for the energy transition. For Holley, the story starts when the federal Mines Bureau was disbanded, as the U.S. began turning abroad for minerals in the 1990s. It was cheaper, and less controversial than mining here. But now she says we're vulnerable to major supply chain disruptions. Holley told a Congressional committee this Fall that the government needs to intervene and help re-shore domestic mining. 'Right now the U.S. graduates fewer than 200 mining engineers per year,' she said.'Our current demand is for something like 600, and so there's already a gap.' Rich Nolan, president of the National Mining Association, says the workforce shortage is only one part of a looming crisis. 'We've created our own strategic disadvantage through decades of foreign outsourcing for these materials. And that weakness is about to become a national security weakness as well,' Nolan says. 'Their ability to manipulate the commodity prices, as we've seen in the past two weeks, is just shocking,' Nolan says.'So, they had a twenty-year start and we've got a long way to go to catch u
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