Presidential agendas without success: United States critical minerals and materials policy to support the electric vehicle transition

Abstract

Presidents are important agenda setters in the U.S. policy making process, but the field of presidential studies has paid little attention toward critical minerals and materials policy. This article evaluates the efforts by Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden to spur the development of a domestic mining and processing sector to supply processed critical minerals and materials for electric vehicles. We focus on seven minerals and materials likely to be essential to batteries and magnet production in the near- and medium-term: cobalt, copper, graphite, lithium, manganese, neodymium, and nickel. Sourcing of these critical minerals and materials within the U.S. is seen as important from security, environmental, and economic perspectives. This article reveals a stunning paradox: three presidents, coming from different political parties and having a multitude of policy disagreements, uniformly agreed for fifteen years (2009–2023) that expanding mining and processing of critical minerals and materials in the U.S. is a national priority. Nevertheless, despite numerous presidential speeches, executive orders, agency activities, permitting processes, and subsidy/loan programs, minimal progress was made in stimulating additional U.S. mines for critical minerals and materials. Our analysis also explores why presidential agendas on critical minerals and materials policy did not lead to any meaningful change, highlighting systemic challenges, policy inconsistencies, and broader barriers, as well as suggestions for future research on how to make progress for the development of a robust U.S. supply chain to support the electric vehicle transition.