The entire environmental movement has been used to artificially restrict resource development and forcefully push it overseas.

The lithium is so important, the powers that be would rather it be purchased from abroad, than mined in the Continental US: If you take it from them, they can't use it to produce batteries of their own. They'll be forced to purchase batteries from manufacturers in the US. A step further: Then too, if you keep it in the ground of the US, it can't be exported. (I have high hopes of this being the case.)

Just my hot take on it. A quick history lesson I learned on Poal:

At one point, titanium was a very scarce metal. (It's in the platinum metals group.) The SR-71 Blackbird had a titanium skin. The US government used the CIA to make straw purchaser's of titanium from the USSR to supplement the US's own already short supply. At the time, there wasn't enough available to make the planes in the US marketplace. The whole move was chocked up as a national security measure.

I'm seeing demand for lithium, but I don't believe the US government will allow it to be mined in the US, just yet. Pay to import it, play the waiting game, as global supply dwindles, then we'll see the US mining and producing it to meet demand. And, at higher prices. Some land owners are going to get paid, just not in this generation.

Tell all of the illegals they'll be paid $10 per ton of lithium that they mine. Give them the location and it will take care of itself.

I think all the schizos in Cali should start eating it.