Green Groups Seek To Thwart Biden’s Renewable Energy Goals, To The Detriment Of State Coffers & Job Creation

President Joe Biden (D) and congressional Democrats have bold plans to ramp up the usage of wind, solar, and other forms of renewable energy. They’re also pushing to increase electric vehicle ownership, having boosted federal tax incentives to encourage more Americans to switch to EVs as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Yet, at the same time Biden and company are pushing to ramp up use of renewables and EVs, environmental organizations that are a powerful constituency in Democratic Party politics are working at cross purposes with Biden’s energy goals by seeking to halt the extraction of copper and other key minerals necessary to achieve the renewable and EV goals pursued by progressives.

That it will make the White House’s renewable energy and EV goals harder achieve is one argument against environmentalist opposition to multiple resource development projects across the country. Aside from the policy arguments, opposition to domestic mining and energy development is also politically perilous. Pending projects that progressives want to block are estimated to generate thousands of high-paying jobs and millions, if not billions, in new revenue for state and local governments, many of which are dealing with large unfunded pension liabilities and could use the additional resources. What’s more, these potential projects are located in politically important states like Nevada and Arizona.

Rejection of critical mineral projects, contrary to conventional wisdom, has been a bipartisan affair in recent years. Over the last decade, the Trump and Obama administrations both declined to authorize the development of Pebble Mine, located in a remote part of southwestern Alaska, on the site of one of the world’s largest copper deposits. Estimates show development of Pebble would’ve produced more than 16,000 jobs, but that project is indefinitely on hold due to bipartisan opposition.

Having successfully staved off development of Pebble, environmentalists are now working to halt mining projects across the country with renewed vigor. One project in Arizona, commonly referred to as Resolution Copper, could produce approximately 450,000 tons of copper per year.

Estimates show the Arizona project could increase U.S. copper output by 40%, which would give American manufacturers a stable copper supply that’s not reliant on hostile foreign powers. The conundrum that the White House finds itself in has not gone unnoticed. In September, Bloomberg reported that the “delay [of Resolution] highlights the perils the administration faces it seeks to accelerate the transition to a greener economy.”

The fact is a lot more copper will be needed to both maintain current living standards and also meet the White House’s renewable energy and EV goals. According to one estimate, more than 700 million metric tons of copper will be needed over the next 22 years to maintain a GDP growth rate of 3.5%. Robert Friedland, Ivanhoe Mines Founder & Co-Chair, estimates that transitioning the world’s passenger vehicles to EVs would require more metals to be mined over the next 30 years than has been mined in all of previous history.

There are projected to be 20 million EV charging points worldwide by 2030, which will require a 250% increase in copper consumption. The Biden administration has also promised to replace the federal fleet of about 600,000 cars and trucks with EVs by 2035. Allowing projects like Resolution Copper to be blocked like Pebble was will only make it more costly and perhaps logistically impossible to achieve those goals and the other stated objective of having 50% of vehicle sales consist of EVs by 2030.

Arizona is not the only state where a mining project is being opposed even though it would create thousands of high paying jobs while producing resources that are critical to national security and federal renewable energy goals. In Nevada, where proposed lithium mines are also being opposed by environmentalists, 12,000 people are directly employed by mining companies and thousands more make a living with job indirectly tied to mining. Northern Nevada’s lithium deposit is the largest known to exist in the U.S., and could provide 25% of the world’s lithium demand, which is slated to quadruple by 2025 as electric vehicle adoption accelerates. That is, if President Biden and his allies allow for these resources to be developed to fuel the EV boom.

As in Arizona, Nevada mining workers annual salaries are relatively high compared to the entire state, averaging around $83,000. Studies show mining supports more than 1.3 million jobs directly and indirectly. For every metals mining worker, 2.9 other jobs are created. Every job in non-metals mining (i.e., minerals mining) supports a 1.8 new jobs. Yet the past two administrations have opposed new mining despite its significant economic benefits.

The Obama and Trump administrations have already thwarted development of a mine that “would create tens of billions of dollars of wealth and employ thousands of Alaskans for decades in a remote rural area where most people live in poverty,” noted Myron Ebell, the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The Trump and Obama administrations’ scuttling of that project, Ebell notes, “set a terrible precedent for other natural resource projects across America.”

“Who would even think about investing many years and billions of dollars in another mining project if it can be killed by the improper interference,” Ebell questioned in 2020 when the Trump administration was in the process of preventing the development of Pebble Mine.

The same question applies today to resources development projects across the American West that environmental groups are seeking to block. If the economic benefits of mining weren’t enough to convince his predecessors of the need to expand domestic minerals and metals extraction, the importance to national security may get President Biden to take a different course.

U.S. defense capabilities are dependent on access to critical minerals like copper and cobalt. The U.S. Department of Defense uses 750,000 tons of minerals annually in equipment and technologies that protect American troops. Construction and maintenance of weapons systems and modern military gear require a stable supply of metals like copper, lead, and nickel. Gas turbine engines and other components used in aircraft, space vehicles, chemical plants, petroleum plants, and power plants depend on superalloys. Cobalt is needed to manufacture these superalloys.

“Our nation can no longer stick our head in the ground to the reality that China’s worldwide rare earth dominance is a severe threat to national security,” said Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Taxation. But that’s effectively what the last two administrations did by rejecting the development of Pebble Mine, which is “home to at least 70 known occurrences of rare earth elements, which are critical for numerous industries, from cellphones to electric batteries to military weapons.”

Military vehicles like aircrafts, naval vessels, and Coast Guard ships are constructed with copper because of its ability to resist corrosion. Copper is also combined with nickel and lead to produce body armor and other military gear that’s able to withstand impact and degeneration. Right now, China is a leading supplier of these materials. This places the U.S. in a vulnerable situation, since a decision by to Beijing cut off export of these raw materials to the U.S. would wreak economic havoc and also greatly hamper the U.S. military’s ability to defend American interests and allies. Development of domestic mineral and metals deposits is seen by many as only way to mitigate this risk and protect U.S. national security.

By backing greater domestic development of natural resources, the Biden administration can make clear it’s serious about meeting its renewable energy goals. Not only that, doing so would create high-paying new jobs in many states, strengthening national security and boosting state coffers in the process. Donald Trump and Barack Obama declined to take that important step for political reasons, but maybe Biden will.