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Winnemucca, Nev. – This week, U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) visited the Thacker Pass Lithium project in Humboldt County, Nevada. She joined leaders from Lithium Americas and Sawtooth Mining to tour the construction site of the mine’s state-of-the-art processing plant and highlighted her work in the Senate to support Thacker Pass and Nevada’s mining industry, spur clean energy development, and create good-paying jobs in the state.
“Nevada is primed to be leading in clean energy innovation, and that means mining, processing, and producing everything from critical minerals to batteries right here in the U.S.,” said Senator Cortez Masto. “The Thacker Pass project is being constructed with union labor, will create permanent jobs in rural Nevada, and will keep our clean energy industry in America instead of offshoring to adversaries like China. I’ll continue to do everything I can to support Nevada’s thriving green economy.”
“We were pleased to welcome Senator Cortez Masto to Thacker Pass — the most significant opportunity to establish a North American lithium battery supply chain,” said Richard Gerspacher, Executive Vice President of Capital Projects at Lithium Americas. “Currently, less than 1% of the world’s lithium is produced in the U.S., and we’re changing that right here in Nevada, with strong support from our federal representatives. This project is a major win for our economy, creating thousands of jobs, and a critical step toward strengthening national security by reducing our reliance on foreign suppliers like China for this critical resource.”
Once fully operational, Thacker Pass will have the capacity to produce over 40,000 metric tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate per year to use in lithium-ion batteries that are playing a crucial role in the country’s growing clean-energy economy. The project is expected to create over 2,000 union jobs during construction and 360 jobs once operational.
As part of her Innovation State Initiative, Cortez Masto has led efforts in Congress to support Nevada’s mining industry, protecting more than 83,000 local jobs and paving the way for Nevada to power the clean energy economy. She has consistently blocked burdensome taxes on mining and wrote important provisions of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to bolster Nevada’s critical mineral supply chain and fund battery recycling programs in the state. She’s also introduced bipartisan legislation to protect mining in the West and strengthen the domestic supply chain for rare-earth magnets. Cortez Masto was instrumental in securing critical designations for the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) including as a Regional Tech and Innovation Hub and a Regional Innovation Ecosystem Engine for innovation and job creation in the lithium-ion battery industry.
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