I have been reading the executive order issued by Trump on 20 Dec 2017 as below:
Trump Executive order
Interesting excepts are:
Section 1 "An increase in private‑sector domestic exploration, production,
recycling, and reprocessing of critical minerals, and support for efforts to identify more commonly available technological alternatives to these minerals, will r
educe our dependence on imports, preserve our leadership in
technological innovation,"
Section 2 "of this section to be (i) a non-fuel mineral or mineral material essential to the economic and national security of the United States, (ii)
the supply chain of which is vulnerable to disruption, and (iii) that serves an essential function in the
manufacturing of a product, the absence of which would have significant consequences for our economy or our national security.
Section 3 - "increasing activity at all levels of the supply chain, including exploration, mining, concentration, separation, alloying,
recycling, and reprocessing critical minerals;(c) ensuring that our miners and c access tproducers have electronio the most advanced topographic, geologic, and geophysical data within U.S. territory to the extent permitted by law and subject to appropriate limitations for purposes of privacy and security, including appropriate limitations to protect critical infrastructure data such as those related to national security areas; and
(d) streamlining leasing and permitting processes to expedite exploration,
production, processing, reprocessing, recycling, and domestic refining of critical minerals.
Section 4 (ii) - an assessment of progress toward
developing critical minerals recycling and reprocessing technologies, and technological alternatives to critical minerals;
and so on.
