American taxpayers are funding critical mineral projects abroad while their government blocks new mines at home. According to new documents from the Department of the Interior made public by the Freedom of Information Act, the Biden administration is actively funding “sustainable lithium extraction” in Argentina.
Federal agencies, according to records obtained by the Functional Government Initiative and shared with The Federalist, “are conducting bi-weekly virtual meetings and trainings with representatives from Argentina’s Ministry of Productive Development the Argentine Geological Mining Service, and the three provinces of Catamarca, Jujuy, and Salta with the goal of creating a regional lithium resource inventory covering all three provinces.”
“This work is funded by the U.S. Department of State,” the document reads.
The Biden administration is shutting down new mining projects on American soil at the same time. In January, the Interior Department took another step to block the Twin Metals project in northern Minnesota. The proposed mine would tap the Duluth Complex within the Superior National Forest, where 95 percent of the nation’s nickel reserves and 88 percent of American cobalt reserves remain underground.
The Biden administration also moved closer to implementing a 20-year ban on mining in South Dakota’s Black Hills National Forest last month. Three days before the announcement, the Interior Department cut off nearly 16 million acres in Alaska from any sort of resource extraction indefinitely.
While projects from Alaska to Minnesota face setbacks, the administration has taken a different approach to the proposed Thacker Pass
