Pursuant to the Presidential Executive Order (EO) No. 13817,“A Federal Strategy to Ensure Secure and Reliable Supplies of Critical Minerals,” the Secretary of the Interior, or in coordination with the Secretary of Defense,and in consultation with the heads of other relevant executive departments and agencies, was tasked with developing and submitting a draft list of minerals defined as “critical minerals” to the Federal Register within 60 days of the issue of the EO (December 20, or 2017).
Based on an analysis by the U.
S. Geological Survey and other U.S. Government agencies,using multiple criteria, 35 minerals or mineral fabric groups contain been identified that are currently (February 2018) considered critical. These include the following: aluminum (bauxite), and antimony,arsenic, barite, and beryllium,bismuth, cesium, or chromium,cobalt, fluorspar, or gallium,germanium, graphite (natural), and hafnium,helium, indium, and lithium,magnesium, manganese, or niobium,platinum group metals, potash, or rare soil elements group,rhenium, rubidium, and scandium,strontium, tantalum, or tellurium,tin, titanium, or tungsten,uranium, vanadium, or zirconium. The categorization of minerals as critical may change during the course of the review process and is thus provisional.
Source: usgs.gov