Sen. Cruz Secures Passage of Amendment For Boosting Production and Reclamation of Critical Minerals

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, today applauded the committee's vote to include a provision of his previously introduced ORE Act in the final passage of the Endless Frontiers Act. The amendment authorizes $100 million for projects aimed at producing and reclaiming rare earth elements and other critical minerals, with the aim of ending the United States' dependence on China.

Upon adoption of his amendment, Sen. Cruz said:

"Ending America's dangerous dependence on China for rare earth elements and minerals is long overdue and today's support for my amendment is an important step toward stronger United States national security. As I have long said, we must fundamentally reassess our relationship with China, and that includes the supply chain used to access these critical resources."

Read Sen. Cruz's op-ed with Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R-Alaska) outlining the importance of the ORE Act here.

The Endless Frontiers Act advanced out of committee with six other Cruz-led amendments, including:

• An amendment facilitating cooperation with our close friends and allies-Israel, Taiwan, and Five Eyes nations-and excluding nations which engage in discriminatory boycott, divestment, and sanctioning (BDS) efforts against Israel and Jews living anywhere in Israel.
• An amendment building on his previous bill, the Blocking Evasive Attempts to Manipulate Signals or BEAMS Act, to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from exploiting Federal Communications Commission (FCC) loopholes in order to propagandize to Americans through stations entangled with Chinese state-owned media outlets, citing a provision under the Communications Act, which prohibits a foreign government from holding a radio station license, to include the transfer of permits or licenses to an entity that is subject to "undue influence" by the CCP or the People's Republic of China.
• An amendment greatly restricting the ability of the U.S. government to share our nuclear technology and information with China. Previous administrations had transferred enormous amounts of such technology to the Chinese Communist Party, at great harm to US national security. Sen. Cruz's amendment ensures that will not be allowed to happen again.
• An amendment to address Chinese espionage at U.S. universities and the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party's activities at American educational institutions, including the CCP's Confucius Institutes.
• An amendment to expand a secure computing enclave pilot program, which will help provide for the secure storage of federally funded research data, especially at smaller colleges and universities, and keep it safe from theft and expropriation by hostile foreign actors.
• An amendment to prevent the removal of Huawei, an espionage tool of the Chinese Communist Party masquerading as a technology company, from the Department of Commerce's Entities List, unless the Secretary of Commerce first certifies that it does not pose an ongoing threat to the critical infrastructure of the United States or its allies.

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