Federal Push for Critical Minerals Stockpiling: 2025 in Review and Outlook for 2026
•February 4, 2026
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Why It Matters
Enhanced stockpiling directly strengthens national security and creates a stable market for domestic critical‑minerals producers, while opening new public‑private partnership opportunities.
Key Takeaways
- •DoD plans $1B mineral procurement in 2025.
- •One Big Beautiful Act adds $2B to stockpile fund.
- •Congress proposes Strategic Resilience Reserve for minerals.
- •Trump administration launches $12B private-access stockpile.
Pulse Analysis
The United States is confronting a strategic vulnerability: a fragmented domestic supply chain for critical minerals essential to defense, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing. By leveraging the National Defense Stockpile (NDS), the government can acquire, store, and release materials like lithium, rare‑earths, and specialty metals during emergencies. This approach not only mitigates geopolitical risk but also signals to investors that the federal market will support long‑term domestic production, encouraging mining projects that were previously deemed financially uncertain.
In 2025, the Defense Logistics Agency intensified its procurement cadence, issuing multiple RFIs and RFPs for under‑produced minerals such as scandium, indium, and fluorspar. The One Big Beautiful Act’s $2 billion infusion into the NDS Transaction Fund unlocked multi‑year contracts, allowing DLA to lock in prices and foster supply‑chain resilience. Parallel R&D investments through Broad Agency Announcements, SBIR, and STTR programs are targeting processing technologies that close the domestic refining gap, a critical choke point that has historically forced reliance on foreign facilities.
Looking ahead to 2026, bipartisan congressional proposals aim to create a Strategic Resilience Reserve, an independent corporation that would manage a broader minerals cache beyond the traditional NDS. The Trump administration’s $12 billion stockpile initiative, financed by private investors and the Export‑Import Bank, further blurs the line between public security and commercial opportunity. Combined with advanced data‑analytics tools for demand forecasting, these policies position the United States to secure essential inputs, spur domestic mining investment, and maintain a competitive edge in emerging technologies.
Federal Push for Critical Minerals Stockpiling: 2025 in Review and Outlook for 2026
As the federal government focuses on securing reliable supplies of critical minerals, stockpiling has emerged as a key policy tool, alongside direct investments in private enterprises and expanded funding programs for industry. The National Defense Stockpile (“NDS”) currently serves as the federal strategic reserve of materials needed for national defense, including critical minerals, and the growing policy attention has prompted new proposals and initiatives for upgraded federal stockpiling capabilities. This blog post reviews the NDS and its activities last year and offers an outlook for critical minerals stockpiling in the year ahead.
Background on National Defense Stockpile
Statutorily created in 1939, the NDS is a mechanism for the federal government to acquire and maintain stocks of certain “strategic and critical materials.” The reserve aims to foster the development of domestic sources of these materials and prevent dependence on foreign sources in times of national emergency. The NDS is managed by the Defense Logistics Agency (“DLA”) and can only serve national defense interests, not economic or budgetary purposes.
The statute (50 U.S.C. Chapter 5, Subchapter III) defines “strategic and critical materials” as materials needed for military, industrial, and essential civilian uses during a national emergency that are not domestically produced in sufficient quantities. The list of NDS materials of interest largely overlaps with the Department of Energy’s list of “critical materials,” which in turn incorporates the Department of the Interior’s “critical minerals” list. The NDS list includes copper, nickel, lithium, antimony, as well as 16 rare earth elements.
NDS operations are financed by the NDS Transaction Fund, which holds funds received from the sale of stockpiled material or appropriated by Congress. Prior to the passage of the One Big Beautiful Act, the fund had $958M+ in assets.
In recent years, Congress has significantly expanded the NDS’ legal and financial capabilities. The FY2024 NDAA authorized NDS to issue multi-year contracts for the procurement of domestically processed minerals. Most recently, the One Big Beautiful Act appropriated $2 billion to the NDS Transaction Fund.
Critical Minerals Stockpiling Activities in 2025
In 2025, the Department of Defense (“DoD”) announced its intent to procure up to $1 billion in stockpile materials. The numerous RFIs issued throughout the year for critical minerals reflect this accelerating momentum to strengthen the NDS. The minerals covered in last year’s RFIs include minerals for which the United States has known deposits but has had insufficient commercial production capacity, such as scandium, tungsten, and graphite, as well as the rare earth elements facing particularly acute shortages, such as samarium, dysprosium, and terbium. DLA also sought information about rare earth processing and refining technologies, the domestic absence of which remains a major supply chain vulnerability. Several RFIs, including those for scandium and indium, advanced to further evaluation of proposals or procurement in the form of sole-source IDIQ contracts. Recently, the agency issued RFPs seeking offers for sale of bismuth, vanadium, and indium, and awarded a contract for fluorspar.[1](#_ftn1)
In conjunction with its stockpiling efforts, DLA also invests in the research and development of technologies that can enhance the stability of critical minerals supply chain. Critical minerals have consistently been an area of interest in DLA’s Broad Agency Announcements,[2](#_ftn2) which solicit white papers from industry and academic institutions. Domestic production of rare earth elements was also a focus of the agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (“SBIR”) and Small Business Technology Transfer (“STTR”) programs last year.[3](#_ftn3) According to DLA, it will expand the scope and scale of its critical minerals research and development efforts, in coordination with the Departments of Energy, Commerce, and the Interior.
Outlook for 2026
The federal government’s critical minerals stockpiling efforts are expected to accelerate in 2026 and beyond. Stockpiling is one of the core policy tools the administration intends to sustain and is calling on partner countries to utilize.
As a DoD subagency, DLA has also embraced the ongoing efforts to streamline the defense acquisition process and prioritize rapid delivery. DLA leadership noted that, for its supply chain management, the agency will invest in advanced data analytics to improve demand forecasting, scenario analysis, and risk mitigation. Further, DLA’s critical minerals acquisition will likely involve greater interagency coordination, particularly in light of last year’s presidential directive to develop a common application system for federal funding opportunities related to critical mineral-related projects.
In Congress, proposals for creating a Strategic Resilience Reserve for critical minerals have been introduced in both houses with bipartisan support. The proposed mechanism involves an independent government corporation managing the purchase and storage of the minerals reserve.
The Trump Administration also announced a new initiative for a $12 billion critical minerals stockpile to be made accessible to private industry. As reported, the initial financing will come from both private institutional investors and the U.S. Export-Import Bank.
Takeaways
For companies in the critical minerals space seeking to partner with the federal government, understanding the evolving significance of stockpiling as a policy tool can help to align with the government’s rapidly developing priorities. With billions in new appropriations, ability to make multi‑year arrangements, and stronger appetite for investment in new technologies, DLA is poised to continue growing into a receptive customer and funding partner for industry. Future legislative and policy initiatives for stockpiling capabilities beyond the NDS may also provide new avenues for private-public partnership. By closely tracking these developments, companies can position themselves as effective partners for the federal government’s upcoming investments.
Covington will continue to monitor developments in the critical minerals space.
[1](#_ftnref1) News reports have noted that the quantities of minerals requested in several recent RFIs and RFPs are substantial, approaching or even exceeding the total annual U.S. consumption level.
[2](#_ftnref2) The most recent BAA remains paused as of September 2025, but future announcements will be made on SAM.gov.
[3](#_ftnref3) The SBIR and STTR programs expired on September 30, 2025 and remain in need of congressional reauthorization as of the publication date of this blog.
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