Sen. Mike Lee Sounds Alarm on China’s Critical Minerals Control

WASHINGTON—Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) raised concerns about American access to critical minerals at an Oct. 21 event questioning a recent major assessment of those resources. Like the National Center for Energy Analytics (NCEA), which authored the Oct. 20 report scrutinizing an International Energy Agency (IEA) assessment of critical minerals, the chairman of the Senate’s energy committee warned of China’s sophisticated control over those materials. “China today has a chokehold grip on this marketplace,” Lee said at an NCEA meeting presenting the report. “China is something that makes OPEC look like a Sunday picnic list by comparison.” He cited reports that China, which is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, dominates both the production and manufacturing of critical minerals, which range from rare earth metals to nickel....