EPA says massive Appalachian lithium find could boost US independence
( NewsNation ) — The head of the Environmental Protection Agency is calling a newly identified lithium deposit in the Appalachian Mountains a “great find,” saying it could help the United States reduce its reliance on China for critical minerals essential to modern technology.
“You hear a lot about unleashing energy dominance. We also care about batteries and magnets and chips and semiconductors,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said during an appearance on “Batya!” this weekend. “When we have these own resources within our own country, we should not only be extracting them here — we should be processing them here.”
The U.S. Geological Survey said researchers have identified an estimated 2.3 million metric tons of recoverable lithium, largely concentrated in the southern Appalachians in the Carolinas, with additional deposits in the northern Appalachians in Maine and New Hampshire. The lithium is estimated to be worth more than $64 billion .
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If fully extracted and processed, the lithium could replace roughly 328 years of U.S. imports at last year’s consumption levels, according to federal officials. The mineral is contained in pegmatites, coarse-grained rocks similar to granite.
“The United States was the dominant world producer of lithium three decades ago, and this research highlights the abundant potential to reclaim our mineral independence,” USGS Director Ned Mamula said in a news release.
Reducing U.S. dependence on China and other foreign suppliers for critical minerals and rare earth elements has been a priority of the Trump administration amid rising geopolitical tensions.
Zeldin says political confrontations worsen
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York, was also asked about political violence following a recent assassination attempt targeting President Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet at a Washington, D.C., event. He said the escalating rhetoric and incidents of violence in the U.S. “almost feels Third World.”
“I was on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and I saw all these Middle Eastern countries — everybody was calling their opposition ‘terrorists,’” Zeldin said.
“And you see the rhetoric here in the U.S. go from right‑wing Tea Party extremists to the evolution, as they realized that label wasn’t working, and eventually all you’re left with is the next level of saying, ‘OK, we’re out of words, now we have to start actually confronting our political opposition,’” Zeldin said. “We’ve seen that to the extreme over the past decade, and it’s only gotten worse.”
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