Catherine Cortez Masto on Critical Minerals, Climate Policy, and the Technology of the Future

At Heatmap’s event, “Onshoring the Electric Revolution,” held last week in Washington, D.C. every guest agreed: The U.S. is falling behind in the race to build the technologies of the future.

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, a Democrat who sits on the Senate’s energy and natural resources committee, expressed frustration with the Trump administration rolling back policies in the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act meant to support critical minerals companies. “If we want to, in this country, lead in 21st century technology, why aren’t we starting with the extraction of the critical minerals that we need for that technology?” she asked.

At the same time, Cortez Masto also seemed hopeful that the Senate would move forward on both permitting and critical minerals legislation. “After we get back from the Thanksgiving holiday, there is going to be a number of bills that we’re looking at marking up and moving through the committee,” Cortez Masto said. That may well include the SPEED Act, a permitting bill with bipartisan support that passed the House Natural Resources Committee late last week.

Friction in the permitting of new energy and transmission projects is one of the key factors slowing down the transition to clean energy — though fossil fuel companies also have an interest in the process.

Thomas Hochman, the Foundation of American Innovation’s director of infrastructure policy, talked about how legislation could protect energy projects of all stripes from executive branch interference.

“The oil and gas industry is really, really interested in seeing tech-neutral language on this front because they’re worried that the same tools that have been uncovered to block wind and solar will then come back and block oil and gas,” Hochman said.

While permitting dominated the conversation, it was not the only topic on panelists’ minds.

“There’s a lot of talk about permitting,” said Michael Tubman, the senior director of federal affairs at Lucid Motors. “It’s not just about permits. There’s a lot more to be done. And one of those important things is those mines have to have the funding available.”

Michael Bruce, a partner at the venture capital firm Emerson Collective, thinks that other government actions, such as supporting domestic demand, would help businesses in the critical minerals space.

“You need to have demand,” he said. “And if you don’t have demand, you don’t have a business.”

Like Cortez Masto, Bruce lamented the decline of U.S. mining in the face of China’s supply chain dominance.

“We do [mining] better than anyone else in the world,” said Bruce. “But we’ve got to give [mining companies] permission to return. We have a few [projects] that have been waiting for permits for upwards of 25 years.”