U.S. Rare Earths Inc., an exploration company with mining claims in Idaho, Montana, and Colorado, announced the appointment of Bob Kerrey, former U.S. senator and governor of Nebraska, to the company's board of directors.

"For the sake of America's national security, it is important that we develop a reliable supply of rare earths, a critical ingredient for much of the technology that is generating the jobs of tomorrow,” Kerrey said in a news release. Chairman Victor Lattimore said the company is hoping to end the "monopoly" China has on rare earth elements.

Based in Lonoke, Ark., and formerly known as Colorado Rare Earths, the company said it holds more than 16,000 acres of mining claims for rare earth elements in Colorado, Idaho and Montana. In Colorado, these are the Powderhorn Property in Gunnison County and Wet Mountain Property in Fremont and Custer Counties. Additional claims include the Lemhi Pass Property in Lemhi County, Idaho, and Beaverhead County, Mont.; Diamond Creek and North Fork Properties in Lemhi County, Idaho, and the Sheep Creek Property in Ravalli County, Mont.

Rare earth elements are critical to clean energy technologies such as hybrid cars and electric vehicles; cellphones and digital music players; hard disk drives used in computers; microphones; fiber optics; lasers; defense applications such as global positioning systems, radar and sonar; and advanced water treatment applications, the company said.

U.S. Rare Earths said its properties in the Lemhi Pass region have been recognized in the U.S. Department of Energy's Critical Materials Strategy publications to have significant showings of heavy rare earth elements, in particular for the five identified by DOE as being at "Critical Risk": dysprosium, europium, neodymium, terbium and yttrium.

In an email, Kerrey said he met U.S. Rare Earths Chief Executive Kevin Cassidy at the 50th anniversary of SEAL Team One and has been following the rare earth story with interest. Kerrey was a SEAL during the Vietnam War and won the Medal of Honor. Cassidy is a big supporter of Wounded Warriors and other veterans' causes, Kerrey said.

U.S. Rare Earths is a publicly traded company. Its stock is listed on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board, which means it is smaller and presumably a riskier investment than companies listed on the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange. It traded Monday at $2.20. In its latest fiscal year, ending Dec. 31, 2012, the company had revenue of $2.1 million and an operating loss of $6.7 million.

U.S. Rare Earth's precursor, Colorado Rare Earths, launched in late 2010. It bought U.S. Rare Earths in 2011 and took the acquired company's name.

In addition to his membership on the boards of businesses he helped start in Nebraska, Grandmothers Restaurant and Prairie Life Fitness, Kerrey said he is on the board of one other public company, Tenet Healthcare Corp., and is a director of two other private startup or very early stage companies, Mobile Commons, a mobile messaging company, and Third Ward, which offers a variety of classes online and at sites in New York and Philadelphia. Kerrey said he also is on "a few" advisory boards.

U.S. Rare Earths describes its strategy as supplying elements for domestic growth in high-tech manufacturing, the alternative energy and green energy sectors and, "more importantly," to provide supply chain certainty for U.S. defense logistics.

"By creating a domestic U.S. supply, the result will be self-sufficiency, reducing the world's current dependency on China and allowing for the adaptation of a truly free markets approach that will create needed, meaningful jobs back here in America," the company said in its news release.