On March 20, 2025 President Trump issued an executive order (EO) titled Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production. It uses public money to fund financially riskier mining and processing on public lands, while removing protections frontline communities and their environments need. The EO guides most of these public subsidies for mining projects by labeling certain minerals as “critical.”
What Does it Mean for a Mineral to be Designated as “Critical”?
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act provided loans, grants, and tax credits specifically for “critical mineral” projects, like mines. Under the Energy Act of 2020, the United States Geological Survey updates their Critical Minerals List every three years. The list includes minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, which are necessary for renewable energy and defense technologies. USGS’s methodology provides a formula measuring a mineral’s criticality, based upon its importance, abundance, and risk of a supply chain disruption. USGS also analyzes mineral recycling and substitution as measures to reduce criticality.
The EO purports to expand the list of critical minerals to include gold, uranium, potash, copper, and even forms of coal. There is good reason these minerals are not critical:
- The Energy Act of 2020 excludes “fuel minerals” such as uranium, gas, oil, and coal.
- Potash comes from Canada where it is cheaper than in Wyoming. USGS concluded there is low potential for a supply chain disruption.
- USGS also concluded there is low potential for a copper supply chain disruption. In 2024, 35% of domestic copper consumption came from recycled scrap.
- Gold is 92% mined for jewelry.
Unnecessarily Speeding the Mine Permitting Process
Even though Members of Congress—of both parties—have spent many years puzzling over hardrock mine permitting times, evidence shows domestic mine permitting remains prompt. To resolve how long the process takes, the Bipartisan Infrastructure law directed our public lands agencies to measure average and median permit times for mines. In response, the Interagency Working Group on Mining Laws, Regulations, and Permitting concluded public lands mines spend roughly three years in permitting. This period is similar to other mining nations like Canada and Australia. The causes of mine permit delays stem from untimely or inadequate information provided by mining companies to under-resourced agencies.
Despite this, by March 30, every agency involved in permitting mineral production (which includes mining, processing, refining, and smelting) must provide the National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC) Chair (formerly of the Newmont mining company) a list of projects that have already submitted a plan of operations or permit application. Within the following ten days, each relevant agency must identify priority projects for immediate approval or expedite their progress as much as possible. By April 19, some NECD selected mine projects may get designated by the Permitting Council for expedited review.
According to the EO, the Interior and Agriculture Secretaries must prioritize mineral production and mining-related purposes on public lands known to have mineral resources. Such places likely include New Mexico’s Pecos Watershed and the Ruby Mountains in Nevada. Other cherished places could include the Grand Canyon (managed by the National Parks Service), Mount Taylor (managed by the US Forest Service), the McDermitt Caldera (managed by the Bureau of Land Management), and many others.
In addition to selecting individual mining projects, the Interior Department appears ready to weaken the 1872 Mining Law to allow nearly unfettered access to public lands to build roads, powerlines, waste disposal, or other infrastructure to support mine operations. The EO instructed DOI’s lawyers to suspend and review the previous Administration’s response to the 2022 Rosemont Decision, in which mining company Hudbay planned to dump waste atop their invalid mine claims. Hudbay’s mine claims were invalid because they had not discovered valuable minerals- evident by their plan to dump waste, instead of dig for copper, on their claims. DOI’s new legal views may no longer require companies to prove they have valuable minerals, nor show they have valid mill sites for their waste, resulting in fewer guardrails for more public lands mining operations.
Financing (With Taxpayer Money) Domestic and Foreign Mining With Less Oversight
During the previous Administration, the US Export-Import Bank (ExIm) and the Defense Department each funded separate portions of the Perpetua Resources Stibnite gold mine in Idaho, without consulting the Nez Perce Tribe who oppose the project. This EO, for the first time, gives the Export-Import Bank (ExIm) and the State Department’s Development Finance Corporation (DFC) access to Defense Production Act (DPA) funds to finance more mining projects, including on public lands. In addition to ignoring Tribal consultation, this EO gives new authorities and funding sources to ExIm and DFC specifically for financially and environmentally riskier mining projects.
The EO specially urges ExIm and DFC to prefer funding publicly traded mining companies that have not disclosed material information to their investors. Feasibility studies tell investors how much a mine is potentially worth, and often reveal risks related to a project’s environmental and social governance. This EO urges the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to soften rules governing these disclosures while placing more public money at risk through DPA loan guarantees, grants, equity investments, or offtake agreements.
A False Premise
This EO claims that domestic over-regulation led to increased reliance on foreign mineral production. However, it is globalization, not regulation, that caused mineral processing to occur more commonly in China and Indonesia than in the US. Throughout the later decades of the twentieth century, mineral processing largely moved from the US and other Global North countries to Global South countries where mining and processing companies could pay workers much less and pollute more with fewer consequences. This trend also swept up many other industrial sectors, including new technologies in minerals recycling and batteries.
Communities Pay the Price
This EO will increase mineral extraction in the United States with even fewer community protections and environmental regulations. It also supports taxpayer funding for riskier mining projects without adequate oversight across the globe. This lack of adequate protections has always been acute for US companies operating in the Global South—where the majority of extraction and processing has taken place for the last fifty years—and some marginalized places in the Global North. It will now directly affect more residents of the US than ever before, building solidarity for a world with less extraction and consumption.