Learning To Look Ahead: The Need for a National Materials Policy and Planning Process

Problems involving materials have begun to emerge in the past few years and promise to present the United States with difficult and critical choices in the near future. GAO has conducted and summarized a staff analysis of these problems and presented a framework for their consideration. This will help in the formulation of an enlightened national materials policy. The critical questions are whether materials are available, from whom, and at what price. GAO believes that the chief concern must be assuring the availability of materials and related subjects, along with their scarcity and industrial uses, available information, the accessibility of supplies, the development of a shortage mentality, time and space considerations, domestic shortages combined with foreign abundance, and the possible effects of technological change on the future values of certain materials.