Key Vote Alert – “NO” on Critical Elements Bill (HR 1022)

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KEY VOTE ALERT

“NO” on Critical Elements Bill (HR 1022)

The Club for Growth urges all House members to oppose the Securing Energy Critical Elements and American Jobs Act of 2013 (HR 1022), sponsored by Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell.  A vote is expected later today under suspension of House rules.  This vote will be included in the Club for Growth’s 2014 Congressional Scorecard.

With very little debate and no ability to amend, this bill creates a whole new $125 million program within the Department of Energy to monitor and research “critical minerals” that are often used in the manufacturing industry.  Through this bill, government intervention in the private sector will only increase.

Worse, an earlier version of the bill, along with a similar bill introduced in 2010 (HR 6160) included granting the Department of Energy the authority to hand out loan guarantees for commercial projects that developed rare earth technologies.  We can only assume that supporters of this bill will seek to implement these guarantees after this program has firmly found its place in the federal government after a few years.  So rather than add another layer of bureaucracy and another layer of crony capitalism onto the federal government, we should be cutting wasteful programs and reducing government intervention in the private sector.

Our Congressional Scorecard for the 113th Congress provides a comprehensive rating of how well or how poorly each member of Congress supports pro-growth, free-market policies and will be distributed to our members and to the public.

Here’s the PDF version.