NMA Mining Minute

Hope and optimism return as Senate Democrats yesterday said they will return to the negotiating table on permitting reform. Permitting reform has been one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement in Washington but Senate Democrats walked away from progress in talks last December due to the White House's stance on wind and solar projects. Now that Interior has been actively processing applications...

It's beginning to look a lot like midterms. That's the sense when you look at all of the proposals to address what seems to be the election's key issue: energy affordability. Starting in the White House, President Trump hosted business leaders yesterday to roll out his "ratepayer protection pledge," which was signed by Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and more and it has tech companies pledging to build,...

The energy markets are continuing to react to the situation in Iran. European thermal coal prices are at their highest level since October 2023. South African thermal-coal export prices have climbed to their highest level since August 2024. And Australian coal futures are also climbing. The price jumps are in response to concerns around natural gas supplies, where European natural-gas prices are u...

The conflict in Iran is obviously having an impact on the markets. On the energy side, the global market for oil and natural gas is seeing significant upheaval. Natural gas markets are being impacted because Qatar ships about 20% of global LNG supplies and had to shut down production after facilities were attacked. In addition to that, shipments of LNG are currently blocked from the waterway from...

You've heard us discuss this legislation in the past and we're talking about it again: the House is planning a vote on the "Critical Mineral Consistency Act." This is one that simply makes sense, and would align the USGS critical minerals list with that of the Department of Energy. There's no good reason to have conflicting lists within the US government so we hope to see this one get across the f...

Members of Congress are reportedly asking questions about President Trump's recently announced "Project Vault," with many looking to learn details on the role of private companies in the public-private partnership, how the stockpile will be led and managed, and how the ExIm loan will get paid back. Ex-Im has reportedly been engaged with Congress, providing bipartisan briefings to lawmakers. Lithiu...

The National Mining Association yesterday released the results of polling that was conducted over the weekend, which found overwhelming American support for mining. The national polling, which was conducted by The Harris Poll found, in part, 83 percent of Americans believe increasing domestic minerals mining is important to U.S. economic and national security. It also found that 57% of Americans s...

The Energy Information Administration said yesterday that U.S. power plants originally scheduled to be retired in 2026 could stay online longer, following last year, when electricity use and prices hit record levels across the U.S. In 2025, only 4.6 gigawatts of electric-generating capacity retired, which is the lowest since 2008, and half of what was scheduled to be retired. Concerns about power...

News reports indicate that the EPA will move today to repeal the prior administration's Mercury Air Toxics Standards – or MATS rule. The move is an important one because the rule was specifically designed to force the closure of coal plants, with revisions far too costly to justify the minimal emission reductions they would achieve, and standards set at levels that were not achievable in the real...

The Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining yesterday released its final "ten-day notice" rule, reversing a Biden-era rule concerning federal government intervention on safety issues at coal mines. The rule reverts to language that was used prior to the Biden administration requiring federal regulators to work with the states before issuing violations or taking enforcement actions. I...

Bloomberg is reporting that the US has developed a critical minerals price floor system. It's working to gain support from partner countries for the new system that was developed by multiple agencies to help alleviate the pressure on the US and its allies from foreign market manipulation. President Trump is scheduled on Thursday to travel to Georgia, where he will talk about affordability issues,...

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on allies to work together to secure supplies of rare earths and other minerals. He urged European countries to join the US in building a Western supply chain for critical minerals that would not be vulnerable to market manipulation. Away from Munich, Mexico and Canada announced that they are working...

AI, data centers, processors. The big data moment is built on a foundation provided by extraordinary physical infrastructure. Few realize how large, or the materials required to make it happen. There are tens of thousands to potentially millions of specialized semiconductor chips in new data centers. To make just one of these chips requires a dizzying variety of minerals. Silicon, Gallium, Germani...

The Trump administration yesterday repealed of the Obama-era endangerment finding, which says that greenhouse gases harm human health, served as the legal and scientific justification for most federal rules that combat climate change. In repealing the finding, according to reporting, the EPA argues that the Clean Air Act only empowers the agency to regulate pollutants that pose a direct danger to...

As we previewed yesterday, President Trump hosted members of the coal industry at the White House where he received an award from the Washington Coal Club, signed an executive order directing the Department of War to buy electricity from coal plants, and announced funding for coal plant upgrades.  Nickel prices are up again today after Indonesia ordered the world's largest nickel mine to cut outpu...

President Trump today welcomes the coal industry—including members of the National Mining Association—back to the White House where he will receive an award from the Washington Coal Club and will reportedly make a number of announcements, including an executive order concerning the Department of War buying electricity from coal plants and funding awards to five coal plants for facilities upgrades....

A new report by Energy Ventures Analysis, released yesterday, found that, in 2025, coal generation served as an important buffer against energy inflation due to rising natural gas prices, electricity demand growth and infrastructure-related costs. Coal generation delivered between $30 and $40 billion in total savings, lowering Americans' power bills an average of $150 per household. The Trump admi...

The USGS on Friday released its annual Mineral Commodity Summaries report, which shows that, when it comes to reducing China's hold on our mineral supply chains, it's harder than you might think. The numbers showed our import dependence—the amount of minerals we need to import to meet the country's mineral needs—worsened last year. The U.S. is now 100 percent import reliant for 16 minerals—that's...

It seems that everyone was making deals in Washington this week with countries including the UAE, the UK, Argentina and the Philippines each issuing separate announcements that they had signed deals with the United States to secure the supply and processing of Critical Minerals and Rare Earths during this week's meetings in Washington. Amidst all of this dealmaking, the New York Times today has an...

Coming out of yesterday's meetings in Washington, which brought together representatives from more than 50 countries to discuss minerals, Vice President JD Vance unveiled plans to create a trade bloc for critical minerals, specifically proposing coordinated price floors. In making the proposal, Vance said, "We want to eliminate that problem of people flooding into our markets with cheap critical m...

The Associated Press reports on China's massive build out of coal power in 2025, noting that more than 50 large coal units were commissioned in 2025, up from less than 20 a year over the previous decade. Last year China commissioned more coal power capacity than India did over the entire past decade. The move is part of the country's efforts to stay ahead of massive demand coming from its efforts...

The U.S. is now building a strategic minerals reserve. President Trump on Monday rolled out a $12 billion initiative, called operation Vault, to establish domestic stockpiles of strategic minerals, as the US looks to defang China's mineral weapon. The reserve will be financed by $1.67 billion in private funds and a $10 billion loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank. EXIM said that the reserve will...

The bitter cold persists and the U.S. grid remains under immense strain. From the Carolinas to Northern Florida, utilities are asking customers to reduce power consumption today for fear demand overwhelms supply. This comes as President Trump's reshuffled Federal Energy Regulatory Commission makes their first appearance before congressional lawmakers this week. Electricity reliability will be in t...

At a cabinet meeting yesterday, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright briefed President Trump on the vital role coal has played in keeping the lights on across the country over the past week. And speaking of reliability, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation yesterday issued its 2026 Long-Term Reliability Assessment, which found that by 2029, nearly two-thirds of the country will move int...

The story of the week continues to be the brutal cold spell that has settled across much of the U.S., putting added strain on a grid that is already stretched thin. In emergency orders issued in the past several days, Energy Secretary Chris Wright ordered plants to run without limits "to mitigate blackouts." This is in addition to earlier orders DOE issued to keep several coal plants online that w...