03/25/2026 at 02:00PM
On Wednesday, March 25, 2026, at 2:00 p.m., in room 1324 Longworth House Office Building, the Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold an oversight hearing titled “Unleashing America’s Mineral Potential: The Critical Mineral Commodity Supply Chain.”
Witnesses:
- Dr. Simon Jowitt, Director of the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, Nevada State Geologist, and the Arthur Brant Chair in Exploration Geology at the University of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV
- Dr. Gracelin Baskaran, Director, CSIS Critical Minerals Security Program, Washington, D.C.
- Abigail Hunter, Executive Director, Ambassador Alfred Hoffman Jr. Center for Critical Mineral Strategy at SAFE, Washington, D.C.
- Faith Williams, Director of the Effective and Accountable Government Program, Project on Government Oversight, Washington, D.C. (Minority witness)
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) publishes and updates a Critical Minerals List (CML), the most recent edition of which was published on November 7, 2025. The Final 2025 CML listed 60 critical minerals, including 10 new additions—boron, copper, lead, metallurgical coal, phosphate, potash, rhenium, silicon, silver, and uranium.
H.R. 4090, introduced by Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN), will remove legal and regulatory limits to domestic mining by directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to revise or rescind agency actions that hinder mining projects, recommend changes to streamline current mining laws, and conduct a nationwide review of state and local laws impeding mineral exploration and development.
On February 2, 2026, President Trump announced the launch of “Project Vault.”70 Backed by a $10 billion loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and nearly $2 billion in privatesector investment, Project Vault will establish a U.S. Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve. The reserve will be an independently governed public-private partnership that stores essential raw materials in secure facilities nationwide.