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Appendix I
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM P. PENDLEY. DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY--ENERGY AND MINERALS
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
JULY 28. 1981
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: It is a pleasure to
appear before you today to discuss the implementation of P.L. 96-479,
the "National Materials and Minerals Policy, Research and Development
Act of 1980." The 1980 Act sets this nation on a new and stronger
course in the development of its minerals policy. Its provisions will
help broaden and deepen our knowledge of minerals and materials, better
coordinate mineral policy development with the organizations and
agencies of the Executive Branch, and will provide greater awareness of
the fundamental role minerals and materials play in the development of
a vigorous economy and strong national defense. This committee should
be commended for the lead role it took during the last session of
Congress to make this legislation a reality. I wish to particularly
compliment you, Mr. Chairman, for your perseverance and personal effort
in the speedy and timely enactment of this legislation.
I think the record is clear that the 1980 Act has the strong
support of this Administration. The development of a comprehensive
strategic material policy is one of the chief tasks and major
challenges the President has placed before his Administration. We are
working hard and, I believe, successfully in carrying out the mandate
of the new law. Allow me first to describe the actions we have taken
within the Department of the Interior to carry out our responsibilities
under the Act. Then I would like to briefly describe the coordination
of other related activities called for in the law that are being
carried out elsewhere in the Executive Branch.
The 1980 law requires the Secretary of the Interior to do three
things: first, to improve the capacity of the Bureau of Mines to assess
international minerals supplies; second, to increase the level of
mining and metallurgy research by the Bureau in critical and strategic
minerals; and third, to improve the availability and analysis of
mineral data in Federal land use decision making. A report on our
actions in carrying out these responsibilities is due to the Congress
by October 21 of this year.
First, to improve the Bureau's capacity to assess international
minerals supplies, we are strongly supporting the Bureau's efforts to
evaluate mineral properties located throughout the world and to develop
worldwide supply availability curves based on mineral property
evaluations. The worldwide engineering and cost evaluations of all
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major mineral properties for the 23 most critical mineral commodities
will be completed by the end of FY 1983 and worldwide supply
availability curves based on these data should be completed by FY
1984. To improve the analysis of some foreign and domestic mineral
data, we have proposed in the FY 1982 budget request that a mineral
policy analysis office be established within the Bureau. This new
office will be the focal point within the Bureau for addressing mineral
policy issues and will serve as a mechanism for joint analytical
efforts with other agencies. In addition, the Department initiated a
review by the Office of Mineral and Policy Research Analysis regarding
the various mineral data systems now in use in an attempt to ensure
compatibility and utility and reduce duplication. Finally, the Bureau
is now inventorying all mineral data systems within the Executive
Branch, and is identifying the location, the currency, and the
relevancy of the data systems for policy related analysis and
decision-making. An interagency Minerals Information Coordinating
Committee, chaired by the Bureau, is now carrying out this task.
To fulfill the second requirement of the Act to increase the level
of research related to critical and strategic minerals, we have revised
the Bureau's 1982 budget request and moved $8.3 million from
environmentally oriented research to other studies more directly
related to improved recovery of and substitution for critical and
strategic minerals. While operating under the very tight restraints
necessitated by the need to curtail Federal spending generally, this
re-direction of research will enable the Bureau to perform additional
research involving the recovery of cobalt, chromium, manganese, nickel,
zinc, tin, and titanium from domestic resources, and involving the
development of substitutes for those materials that are, for the most
part, imported.
Third, to improve the availability and analysis of mineral data in
Federal land use decision-making, Secretary Watt has directed the
Department to take the steps necessary to improve decision-making
relative to the utilization of our nation's lands. Adequate minerals
information for balanced land use decisions, as essential as it is, is
the most difficult part of the land planning process. The very history
of mining is that new mineral deposits are often found where we had no
previous hint of their existence. Discovery is often made only after
repeated exploration efforts, sometimes spanning many years. While we
can identify some areas of potential, we are never 100 percent sure.
We simply do not know nor will we ever completely know where all of our
mineral deposits lie. Neither can we easily predict the technological
and economical--and sometimes political--circumstances that make
mineral deposits mineable.
Ironically, because most of our knowledge on the mineral character
of public lands is largely the result of exploration and mining by the
private sector, the availability of new information becomes a factor of
decisions that affect the private sector's accessibility to such lands.
A major step in the right direction, I believe, will be to
re-examine the responsibility of government as to its management of the
public lands to assure that minerals receive proper consideration.
This process is now under way at Department of the Interior.
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As I hope you can detect, Mr. Chairman, the Department of the
Interior has made major progress in implementing the 1980
law--particularly when one considers the start-up time involved in the
change of administrations. Our work is far from complete in carrying
out the letter of the new law, but I believe we have demonstrated a
compliance with the spirit of that law.
In addition to these efforts within the Department and related
activities mandated by the law for other agencies, the Cabinet Council
of Natural Resources and the Environment has been given the
responsibility for formulating a National Materials Policy by the
President. In carrying out this responsibility, the Council has
established a Strategic Materials Policy Working Group, I have the
privilege to chair. The working group contains participants from
eighteen different agencies and organizations and has divided its tasks
into eight separate issue areas. One of the eight issue areas deals
specifically with compliance with the provisions of the 1980 Act and
coordination of the various actions called for by the law. The other
seven issue areas under study by the working group, related directly to
the 1980 Act, and are thus an essential part of our response.
Mr. Trimble: I am Mr. Trimble from the Department of Defense. I
have a prepared statement which I would like to enter into the record.
Before commencing, I would make the observation that the Department of
Defense generally does not buy basic raw materials. Rather, we do buy
the finished product, many of which are extremely important to the
defense of the country. We have a very high regard for the criticality
of this matter of the shortage of materials and minerals. To support
the important objective that has been set forth to improve our posture
regarding materials and minerals, the Department of Defense is
enthusiastically fulfilling its responsibilities under the act of 1980.
The following are actions that we have taken or are taking. One, we
have established a Department of Defense (DOD) team of senior
professionals who are assigned to our industrial resources and our
research and development offices to assume the responsibility of all
tasks required to meet both the spirit and letter of the law. This
team is working closely with the Departments of Interior, Commerce, and
State, the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and
Federal Emergency Management Agency to ensure that we have a
coordinated Government-wide plan for the resolution of problems
relating to minerals and materials. They are also working with the
White House Council on Natural Resources and Environment in an effort
to develop a unified position under Public Law 96-479.
Two, we have tasked the Institute for Defense Analysis, a local
not-for-profit studyhouse that works almost exclusively for the
Department of Defense, to provide us with information on which we can
assess our need for minerals, materials. We have asked for research
and development, in which we can develop appraisals for policy options.
Three, we have renewed and updated the charter and objectives of
the Interagency Materials Availability Steering Committee which was
established in 1974.
Four, we are assessing, with the assistance of the military
departments, the impact of import dependency on specific weapon
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systems, subsystems, intermediate products, and structures.
Five, we have completed a proposed DOD-wide research and
development plan for satisfying DOD critical and strategic materials
requirements. This plan proposes a long-range Department of
Defense-wide material substitute research and development program to
assess our most critical needs. This plan is currently under review by
the Joint Chiefs of Staff and will be reviewed by the Interagency
Materials Availability Steering Committee.
Six, we conducted a DOD-wide metal matrix composites conference in
May of this year and also conducted a Department of Defense-chaired
OSTP committee on materials, rapid solidification technology working
group conference in July. Both conferences addressed the potential of
these material technologies for developing substitute materials.
Seven, in May of this year we conducted a 3-day industry conference
workshop in conjunction with the American Defense Preparedness
Association and secured industrial inputs to our overall materials
situation assessment.
This completes the summary of the actions that we have taken, and I
am pleased to say that we have noted in all cases, Mr. Chairman, great
enthusiasm on the part of Government agencies and industry groups to
attempt to help us resolve the problem of our materials shortages. We
are also at this time identifying those sources of materials and
processing sequences which need to be imported.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
mineral policy
