Biden administration draft drops uranium from critical minerals list, reversing Trump

The Biden administration is proposing dropping uranium from the critical minerals list, reversing the Trump administration. 

A Trump-era executive order required the federal government to publish a list of critical minerals as part of an effort to boost mining. 

On the list, published in 2018, the Trump administration included uranium, which is used to produce nuclear power. 

But a new draft of the list from the Biden administration excludes uranium. The administration said the mineral couldn’t be evaluated for the list because of a 2020 law that excluded “fuel minerals” from the definition of critical minerals. 

When the Trump administration put out its list, it noted that uranium also has “non-fuel” uses.

Adding uranium to the minerals list was just one of several moves by the Trump administration to bolster the uranium industry. Last year, it put forward a nuclear plan to boost uranium mining, including the creation of a reserve which would buy uranium from U.S. producers. 

The Biden administration has subsequently taken steps towards building such a reserve.

In addition to excluding uranium, the new Biden administration draft of the critical minerals list also added several new minerals, including nickel and zinc, which can be used to make electric vehicles. 

The proposal was first reported by E&E News.