Senators grill DOE's Turk about mine investments
Murkowski: Current administration stymies domestic mining While the U.S. Department of En- ergy is investing billions of taxpayer dollars into establishing robust bat- tery material processing and battery manufacturing capacity in the United States, the federal agency has done little to support domestic mines that would feed critical minerals into do- mestic electric vehicle supply chains. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, believes DOE is putting the domes- tic battery materials processing cart before the battery minerals horse as part of a White House strategy that is resulting in the minerals for Ameri- ca's clean energy future being mined anywhere but China — or the U.S "You've got an administration that is approaching how we deal with this with one hand deliberately tied be- hind our back — and we are talking about the critical minerals that go into this," Murkowski said while questioning Department of Energy Deputy Secretary David Turk during a Jan. 11 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on EV supply chains. While Turk reiterated DOE's com- mitment to strengthen the reliability and resilience of America's EV sup- ply chains, he indicated the depart- ment's hands were also tied when it comes to supporting domestic bat- tery materials mining projects such as Graphite One Inc.'s Graphite Creek project in western Alaska. "We are trying to be as creative as possible with the tools and the au- thorities that we have got," Turk said in response to Murkowski's state- ment that potential future mining projects such as Graphite Creek are not eligible for DOE's battery supply chain loan program. Murkowski and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., both of which helped to author the domes- tic mining provisions in the Biparti-
Photo Courtesy Graphite One Graphite One has received a $37.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to support the company's plans to establish a domestic graphite supply chain that includes a mine at Graphite Creek along with an advanced graphite materials processing and recycling plant in the U.S.
san Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act — which appropriate billions of dollars to establish do- mestic EV supply chains — contend that the Biden administration is not implementing the domestic mining sections of these laws the way Con- gress wrote them. "The Biden Administration didn't write this bill and, quite frankly, it seems like some of the people imple- menting the law haven't even read it," Manchin said during his opening remarks during the EV supply chains hearing. "We explicitly wrote in provisions in this infrastructure law to include mining, and we didn't think there was any wiggle room there," Mur- kowski added. Investing in Mozambique Murkowski contends that DOE's heavy investments in processing segment at the middle of domestic
EV material supply chain are direct- ly and indirectly bolstering foreign mining projects at the expense of similar projects on American soil. The Alaska senator pointed to the more than $320 million in loan guarantees and grants DOE has awarded to Syrah Resources Ltd. to build a graphite anode plant in Loui- siana. While this facility will provide American lithium-ion battery mak- ers with a domestic supply of anode material, the raw graphite will come from Syrah's Balama mine in Mo- zambique. Last year, Syrah was also approved for another $150 million loan from the U.S. Development Finance Corp. for the Balama mine. "When it comes to a country like Mozambique, which doesn't exactly have good labor standards, it doesn't exactly have good environmental standards, then it is all okay," Mur- kowski said.
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The Alaska Miner
Winter 2024
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