The Pandemic Has Made Industrial Policy Palatable to Republicans

The Mountain Pass Mine in California has a long history tied to America’s industrial fortunes. It was born out of prospecting for uranium in the 1940s Atomic Age. Through the 1960s it was responsible for much of the global production of europium, an element that ended up in color televisions and fluorescent lights. Today it has the distinction of being the U.S.’s only active source of rare earths, that 17-member suite of peculiar minerals—largely controlled by China—needed to make the magnets used in everything from electric vehicles to wind turbines to ballistic missiles.

The mine’s present-day status has also made ...