§18743 Critical Minerals Mining and Recycling Research

Summary

Creates competitive research awards and grants to speed up U.S. mining, recycling, processing, and reclamation of critical minerals so the country uses more domestic resources and depends less on supplies that can be cut off. It defines key terms in one line each: “critical mineral” (as defined in title 30); “critical minerals and metals” (includes host minerals); “Director” (the Foundation’s Director); “Foundation” (National Science Foundation); “institution of higher education” (as in title 20); “National Laboratory” (as in section 15801); “end-to-end” (the whole life cycle from mining to disposal); “recycling” (turning spent materials into reusable raw materials); “secondary recovery” (getting minerals from discarded products or waste); and “foreign entity of concern” (foreign groups on terrorism or sanctions lists, owned or controlled by certain foreign governments, accused of certain espionage or export crimes, or otherwise judged harmful to U.S. security by Commerce with Defense and the Director of National Intelligence). The Secretary, working with the Foundation’s Director, must make competitive awards to universities, National Laboratories, nonprofits, and consortia to fund basic research that improves mining, processing, recycling, and reclamation. Funded work can include new mining mapping and extraction methods, better processing and recycling techniques, projects that link mining to final uses, long-term study of reclaimed mine sites, using AI and machine learning for exploration and sorting, isotope and geologic studies, and student training. A Critical Minerals Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council must coordinate federal science and technology efforts, advise on research priorities and workforce needs, push for data transparency, seek international cooperation and private investment, make a strategic research roadmap, and report to Congress. The Secretary must also run a pilot grant program, with Interior and Commerce input, for U.S. processing, recycling, or development projects. Each pilot grant may not exceed $10,000,000. The Secretary must favor projects likely to be economically viable, must try to award at least 30 percent of yearly grant funds to secondary recovery projects, must prioritize domestic processing for development grants, and must not allow funded projects to send processing to a foreign entity of concern. Congress authorized $100,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2021 through 2024 to run the pilot program.