NASEO's Critical Minerals and Materials Working Group brings together a group of 14 State Energy Offices (AK, AZ, CA, ID, IN, LA, MI, MO, MS, MT, UT, VA, WV, WY) committed to advancing measurable actions across the full critical minerals and materials supply chain: from resource characterization and extraction, to processing and refining; to recovery from waste streams, material recycling, and end-of-life products; to the end-use manufacturers that depend on reliable domestic supply. The Working Group will position State Energy Offices as domestic supply chain leaders; build shared education, communications, and policy capacity; accelerate project demonstration, permitting, and supply chain coordination; develop market confidence and project financing; track and share intelligence across projects, funding, and policy; and elevate state needs and priorities with federal agencies, congress, and key private sector partners.

Participating states as of August 2026.

Why This Matters for State Energy Offices
  • State Energy Offices are the connective tissue. No other state entity spans permitting agencies, economic development, utilities, universities, and federal partners. State Energy Offices convene state agencies and industry groups, advise policy makers, and connect federal programs to state priorities — this Working Group scales what they already do. 
  • Economic development. Critical minerals underpin the technologies, fuels, and infrastructure State Energy Offices support and steward as part of their economic development prerogatives, including investment in and deployment of technologies and programs that advance storage, transformers, magnets, and advanced manufacturing. Domestic supply chains mean in-state investment, jobs, and resilience against foreign market disruption. 
  • Energy security. State Energy Offices are responsible for maintaining State Energy Security Plans, which assess risks to the sector and provide practical solutions to mitigate those risks. Long-term critical mineral and material insecurity—which may threaten economic and national security—is an essential risk that State Energy Offices are actively addressing as part of these plans.
  • Planning and demand-side visibility. State Energy Offices are responsible for state energy planning, and mineral and material availability is now a planning input: supply chain risk directly affects whether state energy goals and infrastructure buildout are achievable. 
  • Technology and Research and Development leadership. States support the innovation pipeline federal programs alone can't reach, and State Energy Offices are the natural bridge between National Laboratories, universities, and in-state industry partners. 
  • Federal-state policy alignment. Federal priorities have consolidated around critical minerals, and states that highlight on-the-ground realities to be considered by federal policy and legislation will benefit more acutely from federal actions.
  1. Position State Energy Offices as Domestic Supply Chain Leaders
    State Energy Offices convene agencies, advise industry, and connect federal programs to state priorities. The Working Group will highlight, socialize, and expand successful practices of State Energy Offices as key players for domestic supply chain development, including development of primary production, secondary recovery, recycling infrastructure, and circular economy strategies that strengthen domestic supply.
  2. Build Shared Education, Communications, and Policy Capacity
    The Working Group will develop model policy, programming and messaging frameworks and adaptable materials that State Energy Offices can use to build informed support among legislatures, industry partners, and the public, including the development of model policies and programs related to: 
  3. Accelerate Projects: Demonstration, Permitting, and Supply Chain Coordination
    The Working Group will connect participating states to demonstration and commercialization projects through site visits and peer exchanges with National Laboratory and academic partners. It will seek to develop practical permitting flowcharts and work to resolve near-term ambiguities, particularly around waste-to-resource permit triggers. The Working Group will identify regulatory and permitting barriers that affect material recovery, recycling facilities, battery management, and waste-to-resources.
  4. Develop Market Confidence and Project Financing
    The Working Group will help State Energy Offices engage federal and industry partners on market finance solutions (e.g., procurement preferences, price floor policies, offtake agreement frameworks, equity financing models, tax incentives, bond financing, and other economic development tools) that to signal sustained demand, ensure market confidence, and to encourage private investment. The Working Group will evaluate market development opportunities for recovered and recycled critical minerals and materials, including procurement policies, recycled-content incentives, secondary material markets, and mechanisms to increase demand certainty for domestically recovered materials. 
  5. Track and Share Intelligence Across Projects, Funding, and Policy
    The Working Group will develop a shared, continuously updated tracker of the domestic critical minerals landscape including successful demonstration and commercialization projects, federal and state funding opportunities, state legislation and executive actions, federal directives/ guidance, and peer-state activities.
  6. Federal/Legislative Engagement
    The working group will highlight and elevate state needs and priorities with federal agencies, congress, and key private sector partners, and explore opportunities for states and federal partners to work together to advance the domestic critical minerals and materials supply chain.

Coming Soon

Participating States

Alaska's involvement in the critical mineral supply chain is driven by the Alaska Legislature, which by statute directed the Department of Natural Resources to develop a state strategy for critical and essential minerals covering exploration, development, production, refining and value-added manufacturing. The Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys reports that 57 of the 60 minerals on the 2025 federal critical minerals list have production potential in Alaska. Alaska already supplies the majority of U.S. zinc and is the sole domestic germanium producer. Binding constraints are cost, access, logistics and seasonality rather than geology; access to a known deposit is frequently more difficult than its development. Under Governor Dunleavy, Alaska was the first state to sign a memorandum of understanding with the federal Permitting Council, and the statutory Alaska Minerals Commission has recommended adopting FAST-41-style public dashboards and published milestones statewide. In-state processing and refining capacity is the acknowledged gap. 

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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Arizona's involvement in critical minerals rests on its copper base; the Arizona Geological Survey reports Arizona produced roughly 70 percent of total U.S. copper output in 2025, alongside molybdenum, lithium, and byproduct gallium, germanium, indium and tellurium. Arizona has no dedicated critical minerals statute or executive order. Legislative prerogative is exercised instead through the Survey's standing statutory mandate under A.R.S. § 27-106 to map and characterize energy and mineral resources, paired with legislative appropriations, including $4 million annually for the University of Arizona School of Mining and Mineral Resources under Arizona's New Economy Initiative. Federal characterization funding is the visible activity: USGS Earth MRI has invested more than $3.1 million in an airborne survey of the southeast Arizona copper porphyry belt, with earlier awards supporting lithium mapping and tailings sampling. 

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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California is the nation’s leading producer of critical minerals and accounts for approximately 15% of global rare earth supply. The state is currently producing (or has historically produced) a majority of the critical minerals required for the energy transition, including lithium, neodymium, manganese, boron, and zinc, among others. California is home to more than a dozen lithium projects, including one of the world’s largest known reserves in the Salton Sea Known Geothermal Resource Area. A U.S. Department of Energy analysis places the probable resource at 3,400 kilotons of lithium. The state’s energy office – the California Energy Commission (CEC) – serves as lead for state agencies focused on development of the lithium economy, working closely with the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) and the Department of Conservation. By legislative directive, the Energy Commission convened the Blue-Ribbon Commission on Lithium Extraction, known as the Lithium Valley Commission, which delivered 15 recommendations. A tiered lithium extraction excise tax, enacted through SB 125 (2022), directs 80 percent of receipts to producing counties in proportion to collections, with the remainder to a Lithium Subaccount of the Salton Sea Restoration Fund; that revenue-sharing design is of direct interest to states weighing royalty and severance structures. The Commission reports more than $14 million invested in lithium recovery innovation since 2017, plus a $23 million ratepayer-funded solicitation for brine recovery research. Aside from direct investment in lithium R&D projects, the CEC continues to advance the recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission via two primary workstreams: an interagency state working group on the Lithium Economy and the CEC’s Lithium Valley Vision Informational Proceeding.   

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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The Idaho Governor's Office of Species, Minerals and Energy Coordination (State Energy Office) possesses an explicit minerals coordination mandate in its charter, originally established by executive order, but now in statute under (Idaho Code Title 67 Chapter 8 (Idaho Code § 67-818)). The resource base is broad: phosphate, recently added to the federal critical minerals list and called the premier mineral in Idaho; copper; nickel antimony; cobalt; tungsten; rare earth elements; and the silver, lead and zinc of the Coeur d'Alene district. The policy driver is executive rather than legislative. Through Executive Order 2025-02, Governor Little created the Idaho Strategic Permitting, Efficiency, and Economic Development (SPEED) Council chaired by the Administrator of the energy and minerals office, to expedite review of large-scale projects, with mining named explicitly among eligible categories. A memorandum of understanding with the federal Permitting Council commits Idaho to align state environmental review timelines with the federal FAST-41 process. The Idaho Geological Survey publishes a Critical Mineral Atlas covering 11 minerals, and Idaho National Laboratory runs separations, rare earth metals and e-waste recovery programs in state. 

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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Indiana's involvement in critical minerals and materials rests on a defined executive instrument: the Indiana Rare Earth Recovery Council, established by Governor Braun through Executive Order 25-62 and chaired by the Secretary of Energy and Natural Resources and seating agency heads, five industry appointees and one member from each chamber of the General Assembly, giving the Legislature a direct role in the Council's recommendations. Its directives cover coal-site reclamation, deployment of recovery and refining technology, evaluation of regional refining potential, an Indiana-based supply process using coal waste as strategic feedstock, and a university workforce pathway; a final report with recommendations on continuation is due December 31, 2026. The technical basis is an Indiana Geological and Water Survey study, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Office of Energy Development, which estimates Indiana's coal ash impoundments alone hold more than $5.8 billion in recoverable rare earth elements and recommends a public-private consortium spanning the Survey, Indiana University and Purdue University. Named feedstocks include coal preparation refuse, acid mine drainage, combustion ash and black shales. 

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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Louisiana seeks to bolster its existing position as a strong, critical minerals processing and refining state, centered on its industrial corridors and world-class port networks, by leveraging traditional hydrocarbon production operations to augment critical mineral extraction. North Louisiana has been recognized as a leading potential source for lithium extraction through brining, and the state has passed legislation to encourage investment in that industry, dealing with issues such as brine ownership, extending the state Mineral Code to brine production and dealing with lithium compounds as brine products. 

Recently, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry issued an Executive Order directing Louisiana Economic Development to build a critical minerals attraction strategy, instructing the Departments of Conservation and Energy; Environmental Quality; and Transportation and Development to expedite permitting associated with critical minerals extraction and processing. The order further directs universities and technical colleges to establish rare earth extraction workforce programs. 

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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Michigan's involvement centers on recycling and the circular economy, driven by materials management and manufacturing retention and exercised through EGLE's program and grant authority rather than an extraction mandate. The state energy function sits inside EGLE's Materials Management Division, alongside recycling and pollution prevention; that placement is why battery recovery and critical minerals arrive at the same desk. A $4.75 million Critical Minerals Recycling Grant program has awarded roughly $4.47 million across the Centrepolis Accelerator at Lawrence Technological University, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, covering autonomous battery disassembly and sorting, second-life battery grid storage, and lithium iron phosphate black mass recovery. EGLE's Battery Circularity Program coordinates statewide efforts across single-use, rechargeable and large-format batteries, and a NextCycle Michigan electric vehicle battery track. EGLE has also completed a Consumer Battery Recycling Gap Analysis to identify gaps and opportunities in Michigan's collection, recycling and recovery infrastructure and to inform future program development and investments. Legislatively, Michigan's Part 173 electronic waste law is its existing extended producer responsibility framework; battery producer responsibility remains under discussion. 

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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Missouri's involvement spans every stage of the critical minerals supply chain, with processing, refining, and manufacturing identified as the largest domestic area for development. The Department of Natural Resources reports that 36 of the 60 minerals on the 2025 federal list are present in Missouri. Missouri is the nation's leading lead producer, and lead-acid battery recycling is a mature, closed loop that serves as a domestic reference model. Legacy contamination and environmental compliance have constrained further economic development in several sites across Missouri: four counties in the Old Lead Belt carry Superfund designation, which complicates access to underlying deposits, and the inactive Pea Ridge mine is under an active abatement order on consent for wastewater issues. The driver is executive and agency-led, but legislative actions are supporting the drive. Missouri’s Governor Kehoe signed Senate Bill 1553 in July 2026 (the Missouri Defense and Energy Independence Act), although Missouri House Bill 2510 (the Missouri Critical Minerals Development and Security Act) failed to pass in recent legislative sessions. The Department has retained a contractor to develop a Missouri Critical Minerals Plan with the Missouri Geological Survey, and USGS Earth MRI has funded characterization of historic mine waste. Missouri S&T anchors a $38 million EDA Tech Hub, and a UMKC-led NSF Regional Innovation Engine carries up to $160 million. 

Missouri Senate Bill 1553, passed by the Senate and signed by Governor Kehoe in July 2026, incorporates into the Missouri Sales Tax Exemption (Section 144.054) an expanded definition of ‘product’ to include ‘critical materials’ and ‘critical pharmaceuticals.’ Current law authorizes a sales tax exemption for energy, machinery, equipment, and materials used or consumed in the manufacturing, processing, compounding, mining, or producing of any product. The bill also, establishes the ‘Missouri Defense and Energy Independence Act (Section 620.1641) – awards tax credits through the Missouri Department of Economic Development to ‘qualified companies for ‘qualified project costs’ incurred on or after January 1, 2027. Transferrable tax credits must equal 20% of qualified project costs for companies that incur from $5M to less than $15M; 25% for companies that spend at least $15M ($40M cumulative cap per year); sunsets December 31, 203. Lastly, it established the Missouri Department of Economic Development “Grants for Independence from Foreign Influence Fund” to be third-party administered by the Missouri Development Finance Board – dependent on at least $10M in appropriations. 

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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Mississippi's position is subsurface and brine-hosted, anchored in the Upper Jurassic Smackover Formation, and its stated priority is quantification before development. The Mississippi Development Authority's Office of Energy names critical minerals development, particularly lithium extraction, among its focus areas. MDA's critical minerals report, announced by Governor Reeves in May 2026, is organized around five pillars — legal certainty, operational capability, fiscal strategy, industrial ecology and social license — and MDA is partnering with the University of Mississippi's Mississippi Mineral Resources Institute on geologic mapping of lithium-bearing brines. The Department of Environmental Quality's Office of Geology holds Mississippi's core and sample library, the largest such collection in the state and the underlying asset for that characterization work. Mississippi has no statutory framework yet; brine remains classified as waste rather than a mineral, and reclassification rests with the Legislature, which is expected to take the question up in 2027. 

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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Montana DEQ's Air, Energy and Mining Division houses both the State Energy Office and Montana’s permitting program for critical minerals and materials. The permitting program is administered under Montana’s Metal Mine Reclamation Act. Montana has several critical materials of interest including rare earth elements, antimony, arsenic, bismuth, chromium, cobalt, copper, gold, nickel, niobium, platinum group metals, silver, sulfur, tellurium, yttrium, and zinc. The Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology and Montana Technological University perform mineral and deposit characterization and continue to develop critical mineral recovery processes through multiple research projects in collaboration with the Army Research Laboratory. Montana does not have statutes specific to critical minerals; legislative involvement is led through the efforts of the Environmental Quality Council (EQC), the Legislature's interim environmental policy committee.  The EQC remains actively involved in critical mineral and material recovery projects and has requested Army research and development funding for critical mineral recovery at five legacy mine/metal processing sites, including the Berkeley Pit and the Anaconda smelter waste complex. Montana continues its emphasis on identifying opportunities at Brownfield projects to recover critical minerals and materials and bolster the United States national security through domestic supply chains. 

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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Utah's involvement rests on a statutory framework enacted by the Legislature in SB 254 (2026), which sets a long-term objective of capturing 20 to 25 percent of U.S. domestic critical minerals demand; creates a Critical Minerals Council in the Department of Natural Resources; directs the Department of Environmental Quality and the Division of Oil, Gas and Mining to develop parallel permitting processes for critical minerals projects; mandates a Critical Minerals Atlas geological data repository; supports a MINES Center for research and commercialization; and authorizes Critical Mineral Development Zones funded through property tax differentials that route revenue into a Critical Minerals Development Account. A legislative concurrent resolution, SCR 9 (2026), supports the MINES Center as an open-access user research facility and asks Congress for block-grant flexibility in federal critical minerals funding. The Utah Geological Survey reports 28 critical minerals present in Utah. University of Utah partners include a new Institute for Critical and Strategic Minerals and the Energy & Geoscience Institute's Earth MRI-funded characterization of tailings and mill piles in the Greater Tintic mining area. 

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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Coming Soon

West Virginia's niche is recovery of rare earth elements and critical minerals from acid mine drainage, and the Legislature has enacted an explicit enabling statute on that question through HB 4003 (2022), codified at W. Va. Code § 22-2-10. West Virginia University's Water Research Institute Critical Materials Division leads that work in West Virginia, holding a roughly $8 million U.S. Department of Energy award for a pre-commercial demonstration facility and a NETL contract aimed at a multi-state supply chain; the commercial target is the neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium fraction of acid mine drainage. By statute, the Legislature has directed the Office of Energy to deliver a state energy policy to the Governor and Legislature by December 1, 2026. 

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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Wyoming's principal instrument is financial and legislatively created: the Wyoming Energy Dominance Fund, established by SF 123 (2026), directs severance tax revenue, up to a $105 million cap, to eligible categories that expressly include rare earth and critical mineral processing and uranium conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication. The Wyoming Rare Earths Fund offers up to $16 million in dollar-for-dollar matching grants for construction or operation of commercial rare earth processing and separation projects sited in Wyoming, reviewed three times yearly by a committee spanning the State Geological Survey, the Governor's Office, Workforce Services, the Business Council and the Treasurer's Office. The Wyoming Energy Matching Funds are to be used for purposes of providing matching funds for private or federal funding for research, demonstration, pilot projects or commercial deployment projects related to Wyoming energy needs. Permitting primacy was also expanded: Wyoming's NRC Agreement State authority was amended effective April 30, 2026 to cover source material recovered from resources processed primarily for other purposes, placing radioactive-bearing rare earth processing under Wyoming DEQ. The University of Wyoming leads a $10.1 million DOE CORE-CM coalition spanning ten states. 

Relevant Recent Legislation and Governor’s Actions 
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