What follows are a group of snipets from an article published today in Forbes and focusing on 2 different lithium mining projects in Nevada, one being LAC's Thacker Pass and the other one being Ryolite Ridge by Ioneer.  While the article focuses more on Ioneer's project, it does a great coverage of the issues for both Ioneer and LAC in their respective Nevada lithium mining projects vs the adverse influence of extreme environmentalist groups.   The snipets:

"But there’s just one catch: One radical group from the same environmentalist movement that pushes for all of these various climate change-related goals has formed up a roadblock opposing the permitting and approval of these crucial Nevada lithium production efforts."

“These extreme anti-development groups like to say ‘you don’t need to produce this lithium here because there are reserves all over the place,’ but after 14 years in leadership positions looking for and developing lithium, that just isn’t true,” he continued. “Just the other day, in a state senate hearing, a letter was sent in by the Center for Biological Diversity, and in this letter they basically said how dare these companies ‘site’ – that’s the word they used, ‘site’ – these projects in environmentally sensitive areas?

“Well, it’s not as if we have a building that we’re just deciding to plop down somewhere – the resource is where it is. This is madness. But it shows you that they really have little knowledge of what it takes to find and develop a major lithium resource. You don’t ‘site’ where these resources are; they are where they are.”

It’s an old story with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), an organization that Calaway accurately describes as an “extreme anti-development group.” Founded in 1989 by a group of individuals including its most prominent leader, Kieran Suckling, CBD has long been known for the extreme rhetoric and tactics it uses, and its skill at manipulating and bullying the federal bureaucracy and warping the intent of major environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Indeed, these are tactics that the group is proud of using. You don’t have to take Calaway’s word for it: All you have to do is read Suckling’s own statements made during a 2009 interview with a publication called High Country News. In that interview, he boasts about CBD’s tactics of bullying and intimidation of career federal employees, his contempt for reliance on science and data in federal permitting processes, and his organization’s preference for hiring “philosophers, linguists and poets” to do the work of the group.

This is what the world is up against. Assuming the Biden administration is really serious about meeting its stated goals related to climate change in general and the energy transition specifically, its biggest roadblock does not come from industry or the Republican party: it comes from extreme elements of the same environmental lobby that claims to support those same goals.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration appears more concerned about preserving relations with groups like CBD than it does with ensuring the U.S. is able to tap its own resources of strategic minerals like lithium. A May 25 Reuters report headlined “Biden looks abroad for electric vehicle metals, in blow to U.S. miners” details an administration strategy that focuses on obtaining these minerals from “ally countries” such as Brazil, Australia and Canada.

Reuters quotes two administration officials who said that the administration’s focus is “part of a strategy to placate environmentalists,” noting that the administrative approval of mining operations faces roadblocks “both from environmentalists and even some Democrats.”

These are only a few snipets from the article by David Blackmon in today's Forbes titled:  

Biden’s Green Energy Dilemma On Critical Minerals

The link:  Biden’s Green Energy Dilemma On Critical Minerals (forbes.com)