Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Politics

Trump Includes Critical Minerals in His Energy Bonanza

A trio of executive orders boost rare earth metals essential to batteries.

Donald Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

It’s not just drill, baby, drill (for oil) — it’s mine, baby, mine. Along with the shots at wind energy and the previous administration’s climate policy, President Donald Trump’s blizzard of energy and environmental policy announcements and executive orders on Monday included a boost to the domestic mining and refining of critical minerals.

The directives outlined a strategy that would promote both the extraction and, crucially, the processing of critical minerals in America and would look skeptically at importing them — especially from China.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio focused on Chinese mineral dominance as a national security threat in his confirmation hearing earlier this month,telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that China has “come to dominate the critical mineral supplies throughout the world … Even those who want to see more electric cars, no matter where you make them, those batteries are almost entirely dependent on the ability of the Chinese and the willingness of the Chinese Communist Party to produce it and export it to you.”

The German Marshall Fundhas estimated that China makes up 60% of the supply of critical minerals and 85% of the processing capacity. The United States Geological Survey’s list of 50 critical minerals includes commonly used metals like aluminum, as well as a number of metals and minerals crucial for batteries and green energy technology like cobalt, lithium, graphite, and manganese.

While new reserves of lithium are constantly being discovered, China dominates refining of the metal, with 60% market share for refining battery-grade lithium,according to S&P. And the Trump administration’s interest in critical minerals may not be limited to the (current) boundaries of the United States; it is also one reason why the president is so interested in Greenland, which likely has massive stores of rare earth metals, including uranium.

In the executive order “Unleashing American Energy,” President Trump called for agency heads and relevant Cabinet officials to “identify all agency actions that impose undue burdens on the domestic mining and processing of non-fuel minerals and undertake steps to revise or rescind such actions,” along with specifically directing the secretary of Energy and the secretary of the Interior to make “efforts to accelerate the ongoing, detailed geologic mapping of the United States,” and “ensure that critical mineral projects, including the processing of critical minerals, receive consideration for Federal support,” respectively.

He also directed Cabinet officials not directly involved with energy and resources policy to lend their weight to the American critical mineral effort.The United States trade representative and secretary of Commerce were tasked with looking at overseas critical mineral projects to see if they’re “unlawful or unduly burden or restrict United States commerce” and to examine “the national security implications of the Nation’s mineral reliance and the potential for trade action,” indicating that Trump administrationmay likely continue a version of the Biden administration’s tariffs and restrictions on imports of Chinese critical minerals.

Critical minerals also showed up in executive orders where President Trump declared a “national energy emergency” and an order specific to resource exploitation in Alaska. In the emergency declaration, minerals were included alongside energy as areas whose “identification, leasing, development, production, transportation, refining, and generation capacity of the United States are all far too inadequate to meet our Nation’s needs.” In the Alaska order, “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential,” minerals were listed alongside “energy, timber, and seafood,” as the “abundant and largely untapped supply of natural resources” that the state possesses, even as the order was largely specific to oil and gas projects like liquefied natural gas and oil drilling.

The Trump administration’s interest in critical minerals is not unique. The Biden Administration also pursued a domestic critical minerals policy, includingapproving and lending money tolithium mining operations.

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
The Capitol and power lines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Republican effort at permitting reform by way of the reconciliation process appears to have failed — or at least gotten washed out in the “Byrd Bath.”

Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee announced late Thursday night that the chamber’s parliamentarian had advised that several provisions of the new reconciliation bill text violated the “Byrd Rule” and thus were subject to a 60-vote threshold instead of simple majority rule. The parliamentarian has been going over the Senate bill for the past week and her rulings on more sections of the bill are expected this weekend.

Keep reading...Show less
Politics

The Senate Bill’s Anti-China Clean Energy Killer

A new “foreign entities of concern” proposal might be just as unworkable as the House version.

A container ship entering a storm.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

In the House’s version of Trump’s One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act Republicans proposed denying tax credits to clean energy companies whose supply chains contained any ties — big or small — to China. The rules were so administratively and logistically difficult, industry leaders said, that they were effectively the same as killing the tax credits altogether.

Now the Senate is out with a different proposal that, at least on its face, seems to be more flexible and easier to comply with. But upon deeper inspection, it may prove just as unworkable.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Climate

AM Briefing: Hurricane Erick’s Rapid Intensification

On storm damage, the Strait of Hormuz, and Volkswagen’s robotaxi

Hurricane Erick Intensified Really, Really Quickly
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: A dangerous heat dome is forming over central states today and will move progressively eastward over the next week • Wildfire warnings have been issued in London • Typhoon Wutip brought the worst flooding in a century to China’s southern province of Guangdong.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Hurricane Erick slams into Mexico after rapid intensification

Hurricane Erick made landfall as a Category 3 storm on Mexico’s Pacific coast yesterday with maximum sustained winds around 125 mph. Damages are reported in Oaxaca and Guerrero. The storm is dissipating now, but it could drop up to 6 inches of rain in some parts of Mexico and trigger life-threatening flooding and mudslides, according to the National Hurricane Center. Erick is the earliest major hurricane to make landfall on Mexico's Pacific coast, and one of the fastest-intensifying storms on record: It strengthen from a tropical storm to a Category 4 storm in just 24 hours, a pattern of rapid intensification that is becoming more common as the Earth warms due to human-caused climate change. As meteorologist and hurricane expert Michael Lowry noted, Mexico’s Pacific coast was “previously unfamiliar with strong hurricanes” but has been battered by epic storms over the last two years. Acapulco is still recovering from Category 5 Hurricane Otis, which struck in late 2023.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow