AZ GOP Senate Candidate Jim Lamon: Bring ‘Critical Mining, Processing, Manufacturing’ Back To U.S.

In May, Jim Lamon, Founder and Chairman of DEPCOM Power, a solar energy company, entered the Republican race for Senate in Arizona. Lamon is competing against seven other candidates for the Republican nomination; the winner will face Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in 2022.

This week, I had the opportunity to speak with Lamon about a variety of issues, including bringing “critical mining, processing, and manufacturing” back “to the United States.”

When I asked Lamon about his desire to pull critical processes from China and elsewhere, as well as what he thinks about a broader divestment from the nation, he offered an example regarding copper mining.

“The critical ores that we need to ensure our economy moves, as well as our national defense, those must be mined and processed in the U.S.,” Lamon said before noting that while we have large copper supplies in the United States, there are numerous bureaucratic impediments standing in the way of mining more. Additionally, much of what is allowed to be mined is sent overseas to process.

We mine 80% of the copper we need, we have bountiful supplies that are untapped at present. Why is that? EPA, Forest Service, they put impediments in the way, and year after year of endless reviews…

It’s not difficult to comply the laws, we do that. It’s the burdensome regulations that come with it [and] the continuous oversight by people, who quite frankly, aren’t skilled to do it, to begin with.

We do it much more responsibly when we use processing here in our own country. For example, that 80% of copper that we mine in the U.S., only 50% is processed here. The other 30% goes all the way to Indonesia and back.

The pollution control standards there are much less intense than they are in the U.S. Makes no sense. Let’s get it back to America; we can do it responsibly. It’s great American jobs, and we’re not going to have the leverage that a big Chinese Navy that’s being built will one day be used to keep those ores from processing, [and] returning to our country.

Lamon added that he believes China has a “hundred-year plan” to become the “dominant global force,” and one way to stop that is for the United States to “do our own mining and processing and manufacturing of our critical infrastructure and needs here in our own country.”

TRANSCRIPT:

Q: You also say that you want to bring critical mining,

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