CHARM Act Coordinating and Harnessing America’s Recovery of Minerals Act

I 119TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION H. R. 9617 To amend the Solid Waste Disposal Act to direct the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to coordinate a National Critical Mineral Recovery Strategy, and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JULY 9, 2026 Mr. PALMER (for himself and Mr. T ONKO) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce A BILL To amend the Solid Waste Disposal Act to direct the Admin- istrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to co- ordinate a National Critical Mineral Recovery Strategy, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Coordinating and Har-4 nessing America’s Recovery of Minerals Act’’ or the 5 ‘‘CHARM Act’’. 6 VerDate Sep 11 2014 22:09 Jul 09, 2026 Jkt 069200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H9617.IH H9617ssavage on LAPJG3WLY3PROD with BILLS 2 •HR 9617 IH SEC. 2. NATIONAL CRITICAL MINERAL RECOVERY STRAT-1 EGY. 2 (a) IN GENERAL.—Subtitle B of the Solid Waste Dis-3 posal Act (42 U.S.C. 6911 et seq.) is amended by adding 4 at the end the following new section: 5 ‘‘SEC. 2009. NATIONAL CRITICAL MINERAL RECOVERY 6 STRATEGY. 7 ‘‘(a) STRATEGY.— 8 ‘‘(1) IN GENERAL .—The Administrator shall, in 9 consultation with the heads of other Federal agen-10 cies that the Administrator determines to be rel-11 evant, develop and carry out a National Critical 12 Mineral Recovery Strategy (in this section referred 13 to as the ‘Strategy’) for the purpose of coordinating 14 Federal efforts to recover critical minerals from dis-15 carded materials. 16 ‘‘(2) P URPOSE.—In developing the Strategy 17 under paragraph (1), the Administrator, in consulta-18 tion with the heads of other Federal agencies de-19 scribed in paragraph (1), shall— 20 ‘‘(A) identify programs administered by, 21 and authorities of, the Administrator that relate 22 to the recovery of critical minerals from dis-23 carded materials; 24 ‘‘(B) identify programs administered by, 25 and authorities of, the other relevant Federal 26 VerDate Sep 11 2014 22:09 Jul 09, 2026 Jkt 069200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H9617.IH H9617ssavage on LAPJG3WLY3PROD with BILLS 3 •HR 9617 IH agencies that relate to the recovery of critical 1 minerals from discarded materials; 2 ‘‘(C) identify, and consider for inclusion in 3 the Strategy, opportunities that expand the re-4 covery of critical minerals, as well as that ad-5 dress legal, technological, and other barriers to 6 recovering such critical minerals from discarded 7 materials; 8 ‘‘(D) identify, and consider for inclusion in 9 the Strategy, opportunities to recover critical 10 minerals from discarded materials that are min-11 ing waste or residuals or metal processing 12 waste; 13 ‘‘(E) identify discarded materials that are 14 potential sources of critical minerals; 15 ‘‘(F) identify potential critical minerals 16 that may be in discarded materials; 17 ‘‘(G) evaluate the role of recovered critical 18 minerals, and the sources from which such crit-19 ical minerals were recovered from discarded ma-20 terials, in strengthening domestic supply chains 21 of critical minerals; and 22 ‘‘(H) identify opportunities to recover crit-23 ical minerals from discarded materials in a 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 22:09 Jul 09, 2026 Jkt 069200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H9617.IH H9617ssavage on LAPJG3WLY3PROD with BILLS 4 •HR 9617 IH manner that minimizes risk to human health 1 and the environment. 2 ‘‘(b) REPORT.— 3 ‘‘(1) I N GENERAL .—Not later than 2 years 4 after the date of enactment of this section, and every 5 2 years thereafter, the Administrator shall transmit 6 to the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the 7 House of Representatives and Committee on Envi-8 ronment and Public Works of the Senate, and make 9 publicly available, a report that contains the Strat-10 egy and a description of activities carried out pursu-11 ant to subsection (a). 12 ‘‘(2) I NCLUSION.—The Administrator shall in-13 clude in the report transmitted under paragraph (1) 14 a description of— 15 ‘‘(A) any actions taken by the Adminis-16 trator to facilitate the recovery of critical min-17 erals from discarded materials pursuant to the 18 Strategy; 19 ‘‘(B) any actions taken by another Federal 20 agency, in coordination with the Administrator, 21 to facilitate the recovery of critical minerals 22 from discarded materials pursuant to the Strat-23 egy; 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 22:09 Jul 09, 2026 Jkt 069200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H9617.IH H9617ssavage on LAPJG3WLY3PROD with BILLS 5 •HR 9617 IH ‘‘(C) any ongoing or planned actions by 1 the Administrator to facilitate the recovery of 2 critical minerals from discarded materials pur-3 suant to the Strategy; and 4 ‘‘(D) any recommendations for legislation 5 to support the developing and carrying out of 6 the Strategy. 7 ‘‘(c) CRITICAL MINERAL DEFINED.—In this section, 8 the term ‘critical mineral’ has the meaning given such 9 term in section 7002(a)(3) of the Energy Act of 2020 (30 10 U.S.C. 1606(c)(3)).’’. 11 (b) C ONFORMING AMENDMENT.—The table of con-12 tents contained in section 1001 of the Solid Waste Dis-13 posal Act is amended by inserting after the item relating 14 to section 2008 the following: 15 ‘‘Sec. 2009. National Critical Mineral Recovery Strategy.’’. Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 22:09 Jul 09, 2026 Jkt 069200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\H9617.IH H9617ssavage on LAPJG3WLY3PROD with BILLS