50 U.S.C. § 98h–6 — Development and conservation of reliable sources

(a) Subject to subsection (d), the Stockpile Manager must encourage developing and appropriately conserving reliable sources of strategic and critical materials by: (1) purchasing, or committing to purchase, materials from reliable sources when the stockpile needs them; (2) contracting, or committing to contract, with reliable-source-owned facilities to process or refine stockpile materials when that's needed to make them more suitable for storage, use, or meeting stockpile requirements; (3) qualifying reliable-source-owned facilities, or the materials they produce, to meet stockpile requirements; (4) contracting with reliable-source-owned facilities to recycle materials, either to meet stockpile requirements or to grow the Transaction Fund; and (5) co-funding a “bankable feasibility study” for developing strategic and critical materials owned and located in a reliable source, as long as the agreement (A) limits the stockpile's liability to no more than the total federal funding given, (B) limits the federal share to no more than 50 percent of the study's cost, and (C) doesn't require the government to buy materials from that source. (b) Additional rules: (1)(A) A contract or commitment under subsection (a) cannot last more than ten years. (1)(B) A contract signed before December 22, 2023, for more than ten years can be extended, on or after that date, by up to ten more years if the contract's own options allow it. (2) To the extent Congress authorizes under the Defense Production Act of 1950, and the President determines is required under that Act, the Stockpile Manager can provide loans or buy debt from other entities to carry out a materials-development project studied under (a)(5). (c) Any proposed transaction under subsection (a) must be described in the Annual Materials and Operations Plan. Changes to a transaction, or adding a new one not in the plan, must follow section 98d(a)(2). (d) The Stockpile Manager's authority to make commitments under this section only works, for any fiscal year, to the extent the Transaction Fund has enough money to cover them. (e) In this section, a “bankable feasibility study” means a full technical and economic study that (1) covers the chosen option for a materials-development project, with detailed, realistic assessments of extraction, processing, metallurgy, economics, marketing, legal issues, environmental and social impact, government factors, and financial analysis needed to show production makes sense at the time of the report; and (2) could reasonably support a decision by a project sponsor or a lender to move forward with, or finance, the project.