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
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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.
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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.