Ranking Members Huffman, Garcia, Heinrich Demand Answers on Trump Administration's Taxpayer-Funded Mining Spending Spree

Administration bypassed congressional oversight, waived investor protections before spending hundreds of millions on equity stakes in private companies

Washington, D.C. – Today, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Ranking Member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) sent letters to the Secretaries of Defense, Energy, Commerce, and Interior Departments demanding documents and a briefing on the Trump administration's unprecedented acquisition of equity stakes in multiple mining and mineral companies using taxpayer dollars.

Since July 2025, the administration has gone on a buying spree, aggressively acquiring ownership stakes in Trilogy Metals, Lithium Americas, MP Materials, Vulcan Elements, ReElement Technologies, Korea Zinc, and USA Rare Earth, with even more deals in the pipeline. The federal government is now a significant shareholder in each company, a level of state control over private industry with few precedents in American history. The secrecy surrounding these deals and whether Trump and his allies are profiting behind the scenes erodes public trust at a moment when Americans are being asked to foot the bill.

“By privileging select corporations through direct ownership—essentially picking winners and losers—the government may undermine broader market competition and the development of innovative technologies or mineral or material substitutions,” the lawmakers wrote.

The letter demands the legal justification for the equity stakes, the criteria used to select these companies over competitors, and policies in place to prevent conflicts of interest when the government regulates companies in which it owns stock.

The lawmakers wrote, “To date, there has been no public disclosure of procedures or safeguards in place to ensure these ownership stakes do not influence permitting decisions, regulation generation, alteration, or enforcement, contracting decisions, or any other agency decisions relating to these mining and minerals projects.”
The letter asks whether administration officials, their families, Trump campaign donors, or Trump Organization affiliates hold personal stakes in any of these companies — and demands answers on what happens to Americans' money if these bets go bad, who benefits if they pay off, and whether Congress will ever be notified when the government buys or sells stock.

“Ensuring these taxpayer dollars are effectively invested and potential proceeds are responsibly managed, without risk of corruption or conflicts of interest, is a matter of national security and public trust and warrants Congressional oversight,” the lawmakers wrote.
Read the full letter here.

Background

Red flags surround the administration's critical minerals spending spree. USA Rare Earth, which received federal investment in late January, hired Cantor Fitzgerald to help with fundraising — a firm chaired by Brandon Lutnick, the son of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The administration announced equity investments in Trilogy Metals while simultaneously directing agencies to fast track permitting for Ambler Road, a controversial project needed to access Trilogy Metals’ proposed mine. Trilogy Metals’ third-largest shareholder is John Alfred Paulson, a Trump megadonor and economic advisor.
In recent decades, the federal government has taken equity stakes in private companies only during financial emergencies: financial sector and automaker bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis and airline rescues during the pandemic. The Trump administration is doing something entirely different: using taxpayer money to buy stakes in companies while simultaneously regulating, permitting, and enforcing rules over those same firms. The federal government is picking winners and losers in an emerging industry, and taxpayers foot the bill if those bets go bad.
Before making these investments, the administration moved to shield its dealmaking from scrutiny by issuing Executive Order 14241 in March 2025, which waived congressional notification requirements under the Defense Production Act for projects exceeding $50 million. The order also waived SEC disclosure requirements that normally force mining companies to prove their projects are economically viable before attracting investors, protections designed to prevent American taxpayers and investors from getting burned on speculative ventures.
Trump and Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act provided nearly $13 billion for direct Defense Production Act grants and approximately $350 billion in available financing for critical minerals and related projects. This gave the administration no-strings-attached resources to buy stakes in private companies. The administration also recently expanded to funding equity deals through a $39 billion fund created by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 in an unprecedented use of the grants and loans program for semiconductor incentives.

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