The Chinese has a 96% monopoly on the World's supply and distribution of rare earths. Rare earths are enabling to the U.S. consumer and defense industries. There is no U.S. based process to produce rare earth metals. A significant breakthrough has been developed by MER which has been augmented by a DOE SBIR program to economically produce rare earths. MER is raising capital to build the first rare earth plant in the U.S.