alengo/E+ via Getty Images
Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) urges the U.S. government to cut red tape to accelerate a buildout of a domestic supply chain for lithium and other materials needed for batteries, electric vehicles and cleaner technologies, CEO Eric Norris said on Tuesday in a Bloomberg interview.
The only way for the U.S. to have a chance of catching up to China, South Korea and Japan is to make it easier to build a domestic supply chain “and have the government clear the way to make sure that happens quickly,” Norris said, adding “It takes more than money.”
The Biden administration added battery metals including lithium to the list of items covered by the 1950 Defense Production Act, which could help mining companies access funds, but Norris notes the move included no action to streamline the permitting process.
“It’s hard to have your cake and eat it too,” Norris said of the Biden administration’s efforts to strike a balance between creating a domestic supply chain to enable more sustainable forms of energy with environmental concerns.
“If we want to rid the world of CO2, ozone depletion, we want to have EVs to enable that to happen, and we want to have a supply chain that isn’t dependent on a foreign country… then these are things that have to be done to speed things along.”
Norris said on Monday that Albemarle (ALB) plans to build a lithium processing plant in the U.S. that would produce as much of the metal as the entire company produces today.
