In the 1970s, when OPEC halted oil shipments to the United States, Congress established a “Strategic Petroleum Reserve.” It was an emergency measure to stockpile oil against a future crisis.

Now, 50 years later, the United States is building a new strategic reserve. With China repeatedly threatening to halt exports of rare earth metals, the Trump administration has launched “Project Vault”–a $12 billion plan to stockpile critical minerals ahead of potential shortages. Much like the 1970s oil reserve, this “vault” will store key metals and minerals to blunt future supply chain disruptions.

Project Vault is the administration’s latest effort to confront China’s overwhelming global control of the metals and minerals that serve as building blocks for U.S. technology and national security. In particular, when it comes to the “rare earth” elements used in everything from smartphones to nuclear submarines, China controls 70% of global mining production and 90% of processing. That makes Beijing’s iron grip on minerals far stronger than OPEC’s previous dominance over global oil.

Reducing China’s mineral advantage won’t happen overnight. Global minerals demand is already soaring and Beijing is doubling down on efforts to control the world’s mineral supplies. Bringing new U.S. mines online–and building new, domestic processing and refining capacity–will be an expensive, time-intensive process.

China not only controls global mining production but also dominates the refining and chemical processing that transforms minerals into usable industrial inputs. In contrast, the United States currently lags far behind in processing capacity. In fact, much of America’s raw mineral production is actually shipped to China, only to be reimported to the U.S. as higher-value products.

Ironically, the United States possesses vast mineral reserves–including one of the world’s largest endowments of copper and a massive lithium deposit along the Nevada-Oregon border. But building new mines and processing operations here at home continues to be stymied by failed federal policies.

Right now, it takes a staggering 29 years to bring a new mine online in the United States–one of the longest timelines in the world. It’s absolutely imperative to fix this disturbingly slow process–and start granting approvals for new mines.

Faster mine permitting alone won’t solve the problem, though. Without domestic and allied refining capacity, new U.S. mines will still feed into the same China-controlled processing bottlenecks that created this vulnerability in the first place.

Washington must therefore combine permitting reform with long-term incentives to rebuild refining and chemical processing at home and with allies. That means production credits for capital-intensive facilities, federal procurement and defense purchasing agreements, and safeguards against subsidized overseas price suppression. It also means ending the loopholes that currently allow China-controlled processing–whether located abroad or routed through third countries–to qualify for U.S. subsidies and tax credits.

In December, the House of Representatives passed two bipartisan bills–the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act (SPEED) and the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act–that could significantly reduce permit delays and also establish regulatory certainty for new projects. Now that the House has acted, the Senate should swiftly pass both bills.

The United States has the raw materials, technical expertise, and capital to rebuild its mineral security. As a nation, we are not resource-poor, but processing-constrained. Turning abundant resources into the materials required for advanced technologies and national defense will require Congress and the administration to act quickly on permitting reform as part of a broader effort to restore domestic mining and processing capacity.

Mihir Torsekar is a Senior Economist at the Coalition for a Prosperous America.