Congress Moves to Unlock America's Mineral Wealth — And North Carolina Is at the Center of It

As Washington battles over the future of American mining, a quiet revolution in critical minerals policy is unfolding, and North Carolina finds itself at the very heart of it. 

The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.J. Res. 140 on January 21, 2026, on a narrow 214-208 vote. Introduced by Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN), the joint resolution uses the Congressional Review Act to overturn a Biden administration rule that had withdrawn 225,504 acres of land in Minnesota's Superior National Forest from mineral exploration and development. The Biden-era Public Land Order blocked access to some of the largest untapped deposits of copper, cobalt, and nickel in the United States. 

With the resolution now in the Senate, where it faces a deadline of late April to receive a vote under CRA procedures, all eyes are on whether the upper chamber will follow the House's lead and unlock what supporters call a generational opportunity to secure America's mineral future. 

A National Security Imperative 

The stakes extend far beyond the forests of northern Minnesota. China currently controls roughly 90 percent of global rare earth mineral processing — a stranglehold that has alarmed defense planners and national security officials for years. Copper, cobalt, lithium, and nickel are the building blocks of F-35 fighter jets, guided missiles, nuclear submarines, night-vision equipment, and the advanced battery systems that increasingly power the American military machine. 

"The minerals we're talking about are essential building blocks in DOD weapon systems," a 2024 Government Accountability Office report found, warning that the U.S. faces "a high potential for harm to national security in the event of supply chain disruptions" — disruptions that could be triggered by an adversary nation at any time. 

That adversary nation, of course, is China. 

President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to accelerate domestic critical mineral production, and the push to reverse the land withdrawal is widely seen as a cornerstone of that larger strategy. As one legal analyst put it bluntly: "The U.S. must ensure that it utilizes a constitutional balance of powers to neutralize regulatory whiplash" and transform temporary executive orders into a stable, long-term framework for strategic mineral autonomy. 

Sen. Tillis Sees the Bigger Picture 

North Carolina's senior U.S. Senator, Thom Tillis, has been one of Capitol Hill's most vocal champions of domestic critical mineral production. In February 2025, Tillis joined Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) in reintroducing the Unearth Innovation Act, a bipartisan bill that would establish a Department of Energy program specifically designed to drive responsible domestic critical mineral production using next-generation, environmentally sound mining technologies. 

"This legislation promotes innovative technologies that will make mining safer, cleaner, and more efficient," Tillis said at the time. "By collaborating with agencies and experts, we can create high-quality jobs, enhance safety, and equip the next generation with the skills and training needed to strengthen our critical mineral supply chains." 

For Tillis, this isn't abstract policy — it's a matter of protecting North Carolina jobs, North Carolina communities, and the men and women in uniform who depend on a steady supply of strategic minerals to do their jobs. 

North Carolina: Ground Zero for American Lithium 

While the debate over H.J. Res. 140 centers on Minnesota, the underlying urgency it reflects hits especially close to home in the Tar Heel State. 

North Carolina sits atop the Carolina Tin-Spodumene Belt — one of the richest lithium deposits anywhere on Earth. Two of the country's most consequential critical mineral operations call the state home: 

• Albemarle Corporation's Kings Mountain facility — a 1,200-acre complex the Department of Defense has called so strategically vital that it awarded Albemarle a $90 million contract under the Defense Production Act in 2023 to help reopen and expand the site's lithium mine. The facility produces battery-grade lithium hydroxide, lithium carbonate, and lithium metal products essential to the nation's battery supply chain.   

• Piedmont Lithium's Carolina Lithium Project — which received its state mining permit from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality in May 2024 and is projected to produce nearly 489,000 tons of lithium hydroxide over a 25-year mine life, supplying a significant share of U.S. battery manufacturing demand.   

And lithium is just the beginning. Vulcan Elements recently announced plans for a $1 billion rare earth magnet plant in Benson, NC — a facility that would manufacture the powerful magnets used in everything from electric vehicles to advanced defense systems, positioning North Carolina as not just a mining state but a full-spectrum critical mineral powerhouse. 

North Carolina's junior Senator, Ted Budd, has been equally outspoken. A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Budd appeared at the Vulcan Elements announcement in November 2025 and has used his perch on the committee to press the Pentagon directly on rare earth supply chain vulnerabilities — declaring that "the United States should have created a rare earth supply chain independent" of adversarial nations long ago. For Budd, the Benson plant isn't just an economic win — it's a national security imperative, years in the making. 

The Military Connection: North Carolina's Stakes Are Personal 

For North Carolinians, the connection between critical minerals and national security is not an abstraction — it is woven into the fabric of daily life across the state. North Carolina is home to some of the most strategically important military installations in the United States: Fort Bragg, Camp Lejeune, MCAS Cherry Point, and Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. Every F-15 that takes off from Seymour Johnson, every airborne ranger who rappels from a helicopter at Fort Bragg, every Marine who embarks from Camp Lejeune — they are all downstream consumers of the very minerals sitting beneath the soil of the Piedmont and foothills of this state. 

The Bottom Line 

While H.J. Res. 140 is a bill about mining in Minnesota it is also a bill about North Carolina's Kings Mountain. It is a bill about Fort Bragg, Camp Lejeune, and Seymour Johnson. It is a bill about whether the United States of America will have the mineral independence necessary to defend itself — or whether it will continue to depend on a rival superpower for the raw materials of its own national defense. 

As the Senate faces its April deadline to act, North Carolinians — from the lithium miners of the Piedmont to the soldiers and airmen of our military installations — have more at stake in that vote than most Americans realize. 

Senator Tillis knows it. The question now is whether enough of his colleagues do, too.