An inconvenient truth — clean energy requires minerals

The Biden administration’s 100-day supply chain review shines a spotlight on the urgent need to produce more critical minerals from U.S. mines.

This review includes useful directives to expand geologic studies to identify new critical mineral deposits, evaluate existing mine wastes as valuable sources of critical minerals, and increase the nation’s mineral processing capacity. However, it fails to focus on the main reason why we are so reliant on China and other adversaries for key minerals — the glacially paced and litigious federal permitting process.

Lengthy permit appeals and costly litigation have...