Last year, Unleash Prosperity published a report by Ned Mamula (now head of the U.S. Geological Survey) and our own Steve Moore showing the United States is highly-dependent on foreign governments including China and Russia for imports of minerals needed to sustain our economy and technological national security advantage. This is despite vast undeveloped resources right under our feet valued at more than $12 trillion.

Data recently published by the USGS showcases how the United States is home to valuable deposits of one of those minerals: lithium.

Lithium is used in the batteries that power portable computers, military equipment, vehicles, phones, electric tools, energy-grid storage, as well as in aerospace alloys. But the United States has only one producer of lithium. As a result, more than half of our lithium came from imports last year.

USGS estimates that there are 2.3 million metric tons of lithium oxide in the Appalachian region – enough to stabilize an electric grid, 180 billion laptops, or 500 billion cellphones (that’s 60 cellphones for every person in the world).

The USGS data is a reminder of the urgent need to address the obstacles to accessing and producing minerals in the United States: unrealistic permitting labyrinths, frivolous but malicious environmental lawsuits, and the withdrawal of mineral-rich federal lands to prevent development.