Why do US taxpayers now own millions of shares in mining companies? Elected leaders from both the US Senate and House of Representatives want to know, including how these investments affect taxpayers and whether or not they avoid unnecessary risks and conflicts of interest.
Today, a coalition of Ranking Members from the House Oversight and Investigations, Natural Resources and Senate Budget and Energy and Natural Resources Committees sent separate letters to the Administration and to seven mining and mineral processing companies demanding documents and answers to their questions.
The Trump Administration is spending public money to take ownership stakes in mining companies in a way that allows officials to play favorites behind closed doors, smacks of conflicts of interest, and raises risks that oversight and enforcement will take a back seat to profit. Taxpayer dollars should go toward projects that benefit the American people, not toward enriching a few chosen corporate executives.
The Congressional oversight letters request responses by February 26 from Secretaries Hegseth, Lutnick, Wright, and Burgum related to the Federal Government’s purchase of shares in Trilogy Metals, Lithium Americas, MP Materials, Vulcan Elements, ReElements Technologies, Korea Zinc, and USA Rare Earth (USAR). The investments in Trilogy Metals, LithiumAmericas, and MP Materials all follow a recent pattern where the Administration leverages federal grants in order to take equity stakes in mining companies. Mining is already a “boom and bust” business that operates on tight margins. Like many investments, these pose some risk of loss.
One potential risk is over-supply from the taxpayer subsidies fueling this current “boom.” In November 2025, while signing a minerals deal with Australia, President Trump said, “In about a year from now we’ll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won’t know what to do with them. They’ll be worth about $2.” Historic and recent volatility in metals commodities markets—like lithium’s recent crash—suggests the President could be right.
Congress magnified this risk with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Subsidies in that Act include nearly $13 billion in direct Defense Production Act grants and approximately $350 billion in Department of Energy financing available for mines and other projects. Trilogy Metals, LithiumAmericas, and MP Materials, Vulcan Elements, ReElements Technologies, Korea Zinc, and USAR each received public financing through programs authorized or re-authorized under that statute.
Some of this taxpayer-subsidized minerals boom may potentially fund fairly financially risky projects. Usually, publicly traded mining companies must attract investors by providing an independent study showing their project is feasible—that it can make money. Yet, the Trump Administration’s Executive Order 14241, “Immediate Measures to Ensure American Mineral Production,” waived this requirement for mines where American tax dollars are invested. Without a feasibility study, the public risks American tax dollars flowing toward speculative projects that may never materialize.
In addition to the risks of over-supply and speculation, public ownership of mining projects creates a conflict of interest because the government is responsible for regulating the projects it is investing in. For example, the Trump administration bought 10% of Trilogy Metals, a company with no mine and almost no access to the site. To build and operate a mine, Trilogy Metals needs the Federal Government to permit the controversial 211-mile Ambler Road through 26 miles of Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic National Park, putting wildlife, public lands, and Alaskan subsistence communities at risk. And even with these permits, the project still faces significant legal and practical obstacles.
The American public now owns stakes in projects that threaten irreplaceable ecosystems, Tribal rights, and sacred sites. For instance, in September 1865, the War Department’s cavalry massacred dozens of Paiute and Shoshone souls at a site now known as Peehee Mu’huh in Nevada. Nearby, in January 2021, the Federal Government rushed through a 15-month permitting process for Lithium America’s Thacker Pass mine without adequate input from Tribes and communities. The previous Administration later awarded the company a $2.3 billion loan to get started. But in 2025, when the company could not meet their loan conditions, the Trump Administration instead took shares in the company.
Congress needs to exercise strong oversight to respect Tribal sovereignty, protect the American public, guard against speculative public investments, corruption, insider dealing, and ensure agencies carry out their responsibilities to protect wildlife and the environment. Mining causes permanent impacts to land and people. Our government should protect the public interest and ensure that projects proceed only with proper environmental protections, accountability to communities, and consent from Tribes.
Resource nationalism—when a government asserts control over domestic natural resources—is not new to the United States nor anywhere else in the world. However, the United States is the only country in the world where any person, foreign or domestic, can privatize public minerals and pay zero in royalties to the American taxpayer. In fact, one of our country’s greatest mineral supply chain weaknesses is the nineteenth century statute that governs domestic mining. According to our 1872 Mining Law, miners do not ask for permission. They simply claim public minerals for themselves, leaving the government with very few options to secure those supplies without a contract to buy a portion of the mine’s future output.
In every other country in the world, the government exercises some discretion over mining activity according to terms in a lease, license, or concession conditioned upon royalty payments and revenue sharing. The blueprint for more mineral security isn’t secretive government investments in troubled mining projects. For a better way forward, Congress should pass the Mining Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Prevention Act, creating a modern system that provides mineral security, land use certainty, and taxpayer fairness.