President Joe Biden may have no tougher critic in the United State’s Senate than Missouri’s Josh Hawley.
The Republican from the Show Me State has turned grilling Biden nominees and White House officials into a spectator sport.
And Hawley just called out this top Biden official for putting Chinese Communist Party interests over what’s best for hard-working Americans.
Blue Collar Joe doesn’t know diddly squat about energy
One of President Joe Biden’s first official acts upon assuming the Oval Office was shutting down the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Since then, President Biden has made a series of policy moves to appease his environmental-extremist base and undermine the American energy industry.
In fact, when Biden came into office, he inherited a nation that not only was energy independent – but thanks to former President Donald Trump – was one of the largest energy exporters in the world.
Under this President’s watch, however, America is no longer energy independent – now relying on countries with gross human rights violations to fuel our cars and keep our lights on.
Biden has also drained America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves to dangerously low levels.
And his policies have created gasoline prices surges that have crippled American families.
But Biden isn’t stopping at cracking down on drilling for oil and fracking for natural gas.
Mineral mining has taken a big hit under his administration as well – and China is benefiting from it.
Biden White House shuts down mineral mining
Deputy chief of state and private forestry at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Jaelith Hall-Rivera, testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources last week.
There was one Republican Senator on the committee in particular who had zero intentions of throwing Hall-Rivera any softball questions.
Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri lasered in on the Biden Administration’s decision to prohibit mineral mining on nearly a quarter of a million acres in Minnesota.
Josh Hawley vs. the Biden Administration
The Show Me State’s senior Senator cornered Hall-Rivera and got her to admit that critical minerals are essential to U.S. energy security – and, furthermore, that being energy secure is a good thing.
But as you can see in the five-minute video above – that’s when he went in for the kill.
“Here’s the thing that worries me, one nation in the world is currently refining 68% of the world’s nickel,” Hawley stated before asking Hall-Rivera to guess which U.S. rival that might be.
She correctly presumed it was China.
“One nation is refining 40% of the world’s copper,” Hawley added. “Want to guess who that is?”
Once again, Hall-Rivera confirmed it was, indeed, China.
“I would presume the same,” the administration official answered.
“One nation has 59% of the lithium and 73% percent of the cobalt,” Hawley continued. “Want to guess?”
“I’m gonna say it’s China,” Hall-Rivera answered.
“It is China,” Hawley exclaimed. “So, given that, would you agree with me that it’s important that we do everything we can to develop our domestic critical mineral mining here in this country?” the Missouri senator asked.
“Yes, I would agree with that,” Hall-Rivera responded.
And with her directly standing over the “X”, that’s when Hawley really lowered the boom.
“Great, okay, then let me ask you about the Superior National Forest in Minnesota,” Hawley said. “Earlier this year, partly at the behest of the forest service, the Biden administration withdrew 225,000 acres of critical mineral mining in northeastern Minnesota. This is the largest reserve of cobalt and nickel in the United States, perhaps I’m told, maybe even in the world. And yet, your administration shut it down. Your agency recommended that it be shut down, depriving us of these minerals, making us dependent on other nations that mine them in a completely unsafe and unsustainable way and also making us more dependent on these foreign nations. Why?”
Unfortunately for her and the President, Hall-Rivera was not prepared to answer substantive questions.
“I know we have a lot of values to balance there – especially with the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture deputy chief of state and private forestry replied. “But I’m sure that we could get back to you with more details on the specifics of that decision.”
But Hawley wasn’t willing to let her off the hook.
“My view is we shouldn’t be making China richer and America poorer,” Hawley asserted. “My view is we have the best technology in the world to mine and develop these minerals. We know how to do it in a safe and responsible manner, we should be doing it. Why would we want to tie our own hands and make us and the world more dependent on China, who’ve got to have the worst environmental record of any nation in the world?”
Before It’s Banned will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story – before it’s banned.
