User:Uneven Steven/sandbox

RARE, The Association for Rare Earth
RARE is a non-partisan international advocacy organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. and founded in October 2011. RARE advocates for rare earth elements and helium for industries, companies and end-users across the entire rare earth supply chain on issues such as increasing the availability of supply, trade, licensing, affordability, recycling and other policy matters.

As one of its first official actions upon coming into existence, on October 24, 2011, RARE led the industry in calling for the creation of rare earths caucuses in both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. As a result of this effort, on November 9, 2011 Republican U.S. Representative Mike Coffman announced the formation of the United States House of Representatives Rare Earth Caucus. Democratic U.S. Representative Hank Johnson of Georgia subsequently became the Democratic Co-Chair of the House Rare Earth Caucus.

Within months of RARE's creation in the United States, China created its own rare earth association to help manage domestic supplies, clamp down on illegal mining and environmental dumping, and manage its rare earth export quotas. 

Rare Earth Elements
Rare earth elements (REEs) are 17 chemical elements on the periodic table and are fundamental to the manufacture of many products with an environmental, health, or safety focus, as well as to commonly used electronic devices. REEs are used to make hybrid automobiles, solar panels, wind turbines, smart phones, personal computing tablets, flat screen monitors, specialty magnets, hard drives, MRI scanners, advanced jet engines, guided missiles, specialty glass for the motion picture industry and much more.

In the 1980s, Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping adopted an industrial policy for the rare earth industry in China, which is best encapsulated by his 1992 quote that “The Middle East has oil. China has rare earths.” Since then, China steadily has gained dominance in the production of rare earth metals, oxides and phosphors made from REEs, and by 2012 produced approximately 95% of the REEs in the world, while tightening its export controls in the name of shutting down illegal mining and cleaning up the environment. However necessary these policies may have been domestically for China, they created alarm among high-tech and national security sectors alike. This in turn provided impetus for the creation of RARE, The Association for Rare Earth, to advocate on behalf of policies which would increase the amount of rare earth elements and their derivatives throughout the entire REE supply chain.

Law of the Seas Treaty Advocacy
Main article Law of the Sea Treaty, United States non-ratification of the UNCLOS

Since its creation, RARE has become a key player in efforts to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty in the United States Senate through working with The Pew Charitable Trusts and The Atlantic Council on The American Sovereignty Campaign, and acknowledged as one of the leaders in the ratification effort. The Law of the Sea Treaty is officially called The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

RARE's Helium Committee
RARE’s interest in rare elements extends beyond the traditional 17 elements typically called rare earth elements, and which generally are used in metal or powered form. It is also concerned about other elements, such are helium (He), which are in short and declining supply, but necessary for a wide range of industries. In spring 2012, RARE established its Helium Committee to address challenges facing America’s depleting supplies of industrial helium.

While helium is one of the most abundant elements in the universe, most of Earth’s helium escapes from the atmosphere into space . Helium used for industrial purposes is a byproduct of natural gas production, and its industrial applications are wide-ranging: some of its uses include arc welding, cryogenics, manufacturing silicon microchips, and medical imaging. Helium’s inert properties as a gas are why it is used to cool superconductors used by Medical Resonance Imaging machine. In fact, MRI machines require up to 10000 liters of helium .

The U.S. produces 75 percent of the world’s helium and stores approximately half of it in the Helium Reserve in Amarillo, Texas. This reserve supplies approximately one-third of the world’s demand for helium. Popular Mechanics, Wired and other mainstream publications have been reporting on a potential helium shortage for over a decade. Ironically, this shortage was caused by Congressional action in 1996 to privatize the helium business and sell off all U.S. Government supplies by 2015. However, until more companies begin producing helium on their own, supplies will continue to tighten causing prices to spike.

The greatest industrial impact of helium supply shortages will be on small-scale scientific research and healthcare. Any shortage could be harmful to patient care by restricting the ability to obtain an MRI. In the meantime, one tangible example of increased helium costs due to the shortage are newspaper reports that increased costs had resulted in fewer inflated balloons for Class of 2012 graduation parties and other celebrations throughout the country.

The goal of RARE’s Helium Committee is to promote the adoption of federal policies which will stabilize helium’s market price. RARE works with the members of its Helium Committee to develop and promote policies that will stabilize or increase the amount of helium available for industrial and commercial purposes.

RARE has actively worked to stabilize the U.S. helium supply by pursuing the most effective public policies. Most recently, this came in the form of supporting the bi-partisan efforts of Senators Akaka, Barasso, Bingaman, Murkowski and Webb and for their leadership on these issues.

President and CEO
RARE's President and CEO is Adam Falkoff, a well-known figure in the international relations and energy community.