Arctic Strategic Minerals Conference Being Held…In the Swamp?’

July 11, 2023

If you think about it – really hard – you could possibly see the rationale behind holding a two-day conference focused on strategies to enhance Arctic mineral development in Washington, D.C..

But it would be much easier to see the University of Alaska hosting the affair, or Anchorage’s Dena’ina Center, or even Centennial Hall in Juneau.

Tomorrow and Thursday, guests will ‘have dialogue’ with representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy, officials from the University of Alaska and the RAND Corporation in D.C.’s Woodrow Wilson Center.  While anyone can sign up for a few keynote sessions, the entire event is invite-only for in-person attendance.

A closed-door ‘dialogue’, not open to the public?  Seems very Swampy.

The stated end-goal of the two-day affair is to “develop policy recommendations for development of critical mineral resources in the Arctic, in the context of US national security, energy, climate, and technology goals.”

Here’s hoping the hard questions are asked by ‘dialoguees’, including why the Biden Administration has completely thwarted efforts to open Alaska’s key mining projects that can help secure domestic supply chains for critical and strategic minerals?

Because, without those questions being asked and answered, there’s little hope the ‘dialogue’ will amount to anything other than behind-closed-door chatter.  That isn’t going to help create Alaskan jobs, develop Alaska’s mineral resources or take power back from the Communist Chinese, who control the lion’s share of the world’s critical and strategic minerals currently.