On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said that one reason why China has control over the global rare earth minerals market is because zoning and environmental laws have made it too difficult for America to mine for rare earth minerals itself.
After talking about China’s control of the rare earth mineral market and saying that “China has them all,” Maher stated, “To me, this is the essence of what is so f*cked up about this country and why nobody can be in the center here where I am where everything makes sense. Listen to this: We make none of this here except we have one place here in California, Mountain Pass. They have a rare earth mine there. It takes out of the ground in one year what China does in a day. And this article in the Times said, could we build more rare earth mines, which, apparently, we’re going to need to do since we pissed off China about that and why should they help us now? You know how long it would take to get the next mine online? 29 years. That’s America for you. DOGE cutting everything ridiculously, immediately, and the Democrats, 29 years to build something.”
Maher added that China can build rare earth mines “like in a week, as opposed to 29 years, because of the zoning and the environmental reviews and all this shit.”
Maher then urged Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) to make red tape and the fact that “It’s not that we can’t do anything anymore, it’s we’re not allowed to” an issue.
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