Skip to content

Pennsylvania Stakeholders Participate in Critical Minerals Meeting

March 22, 2022 Energy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – March 21, 2022 (HARRISBURG, PA) – – Stakeholders met via Zoom, hosted by the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, to learn about and discuss the role of the critical minerals industry as it develops in the United States and specifically in Pennsylvania.

The summit brought together national industry experts, state lawmakers and staff, and private sector stakeholders to consider the national dialogue regarding the critical mineral supply chain and how this sector presents a strategic opportunity that is unique to the commonwealth. Highlighted were recent federal initiatives, waste reclamation-to-mineral sourcing, and the consideration of industry best practices to attract project investment.

“Access to critical minerals is essential for our economy, supply chains, national security, and true energy independence,” said David N. Taylor, President & CEO of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association. “Pennsylvania can be a part of the solution to our foreign dependence problem if state government joins us as a partner in this process.”

“If Americans want their smartphones and electric vehicles to be made from materials sourced with the world’s strictest environmental standards and worker safety protections, we must increase domestic production of critical minerals and rare earth elements,” said Wayne Palmer, Executive Vice President, Industrial Minerals Association – North America. “The good news is that both political parties are sounding the alarm on the need to reduce our dependency on foreign sources like China and Russia. But rather than impose new regulatory burdens and taxes as some are proposing, policymakers should be facilitating new domestic sourcing, such as improving the timeliness and predictability of federal and state permitting processes.”

“We’re seeing in Europe what can happen if one country controls the supply chains over another,” said Ned Rauch-Mannino, Chief Development Officer with Greentech Minerals Advisory Group. “Resiliency requires options and the U.S. needs leaders among states—states prepared to lean into a serious economic development endeavor that, if supported, holds promise for national security, conservation, and local outcomes.”

“The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has enormous potential and Penn State University with its cutting-edge expertise is uniquely positioned to lead the nation in the sustainable extraction of critical minerals and rare earth elements,” said Sarma V. Pisupati, Professor of Energy and Mineral Engineering and Chemical Engineering and Director, Center for Critical Minerals at Penn State University. “A partnership of industry, government, and our research universities could not only strengthen our economic and national security, but create economic development across the commonwealth.”

“Why Pennsylvania? Part of it is that people there care,” said Anthony Marchese, Chairman, Texas Minerals Resources. “The Pennsylvania challenge is technical in that we need to learn how to effectively process secondary sources of material and we need enough of it to make a sustainable project out of it.”

Participants concluded that this is the very beginning of building a coalition of Pennsylvania stakeholders on a topic that is critical to American supply chain resiliency. Coordination between private sector investment, legislative, and regulatory processes at both the state and federal level will be necessary.

###

Contact: Carl A. Marrara, PMA
[email protected], 717-603-3020

Ned Rauch-Mannino, GreenTech
[email protected], 202-683-8730 

Attendees were supplied with the following resources: