Interior Secretary Doug Burgum used X this week to spotlight a quietly important piece of Washington infrastructure: a new interactive map that shows where America’s critical mineral deposits sit relative to mining claims, land withdrawals, power lines, and processing plants.
In a Nov. 8, 2026 post, Burgum wrote that the Bureau of Land Management, using USGS data, had introduced the Critical Minerals Screening Tool — “an interactive, multi-layer map highlighting critical mineral deposits across the United States” — to support mineral development on public lands, strengthen domestic supply chains, and advance “Energy and Mineral Dominance.”
For Invest Offshore readers — internationally mobile investors, expats, and anyone watching commodities from outside the United States — this is not just another federal GIS launch. It is a public signal that U.S. mineral policy is shifting from speeches to tools that industry, capital markets, and junior explorers can actually click through.
What the Critical Minerals Screening Tool actually does
The BLM announced the tool on Nov. 4, 2026. It is free to use online via an ArcGIS Experience:
BLM Critical Minerals Screening Tool
According to the bureau, the map displays critical mineral concentrations — including rare earth elements — alongside clickable layers for:
- Mining claims
- Land withdrawals
- Rights-of-way
- Transmission lines and power production facilities
- Mineral processing facilities (refineries and smelters), drawn from the International Council on Mining and Metals’ Global Mining Dataset
The geological backbone comes from the U.S. Geological Survey. BLM notes that 16 of the 17 rare earth elements are themselves designated critical minerals, and that the tool leans on USGS occurrence and deposit data tied to the 2025 List of Critical Minerals.
Importantly, BLM is careful about what the map is not. It does not replace coordination with local BLM offices. Project proponents still need early engagement on site-specific resource issues, tribal considerations, and permitting. In other words: useful screening, not a permit in a box.
The policy backdrop: lists, orders, and import dependence
The timing is deliberate. In November 2025, Interior published the final 2025 List of Critical Minerals — 60 minerals judged vital to the U.S. economy and national security and exposed to supply-chain disruption risk. The update added ten minerals to the prior list, including copper, uranium, silver, phosphate, potash, silicon, and metallurgical coal.
DOI’s own release underscored the rare-earth vulnerability: in 2024, the United States imported 80% of the rare earth elements it used. That figure sits behind much of the political urgency around domestic mining, processing, and magnets.
On March 20, 2025, the White House issued Executive Order 14241, Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production, directing agencies to expedite priority mineral permits, put projects on the federal Permitting Dashboard, and lean harder on Defense Production Act and development-finance tools. BLM says the new screening tool supports that order, as well as Secretary’s Order 3436 on unlocking critical and strategic minerals from mine waste and cutting red tape.
Outside the United States, China’s export-licensing regime for selected rare earths and related materials — including medium and heavy rare earth items announced by China’s Ministry of Commerce in 2025 — has kept supply-chain risk in the headlines for magnets, defense components, and advanced manufacturing. When a major producer controls downstream processing, every Western jurisdiction that can show credible deposits and permitting pathways becomes more investable in relative terms.
Why this matters if you invest from offshore
Critical minerals are a classic offshore-investor theme for three reasons.
1. The equity universe is international. Many of the exploration and development companies with U.S. lithium, copper, rare earth, antimony, or graphite exposure are listed in Toronto or Australia — TSX, TSX Venture, and ASX names that international brokers and expat portfolios already touch. A clearer U.S. public-lands map does not change geology, but it can change how quickly management teams, offtakers, and capital markets price a project’s “path to permit.”
2. Washington is putting balance-sheet skin in the game. Recent public-private structures have gone beyond grants. MP Materials announced a July 2025 Department of Defense partnership in which DoD purchased $400 million of convertible preferred stock plus warrants that, on an as-converted and as-exercised basis, represented about 15% of then-outstanding common stock (company release). The Department of Energy restructured its Lithium Americas / Thacker Pass financing to include warrants for roughly 5% equity in the company and a separate 5% interest in the joint venture (DOE; Reuters). Trilogy Metals disclosed a strategic U.S. government equity investment of about US$35.6 million that left Washington holding roughly a 10% stake tied to Alaska’s Ambler district (company). Equity, offtake floors, and loan packages do not guarantee returns — but they do change the risk map for anyone comparing U.S. projects with peers in friendlier or friendlier-sounding jurisdictions.
3. ETFs and thematic baskets amplify the policy story. Rare earth and strategic-metals funds, battery-materials ETFs, and broader commodities vehicles give diversified exposure without picking a single junior. Policy maps and permitting acceleration can move the whole theme even when individual drill results are mixed.
For expats and internationally diversified portfolios, the practical takeaway is jurisdiction awareness. A copper or lithium story in Nevada or Alaska now sits inside a louder U.S. industrial-policy frame than it did five years ago. That can mean faster capital formation — and sharper drawdowns when permitting stalls or commodity prices roll over.
Sensible cautions (read these twice)
A screening tool is not a mine. Deposit dots on a map are not reserves. Reserves are not cash flow.
U.S. hard-rock permitting remains multi-year even under expedited banners; litigation, tribal consultation, water, and NEPA-adjacent process risk do not vanish because an executive order exists. Junior miners are equity-volatile by design: dilution, financing gaps, and commodity beta can overwhelm a good policy headline. Government equity stakes can support strategic projects and still leave common shareholders exposed to execution risk and political change.
None of the companies, funds, or policy tools mentioned here is a recommendation. Do your own work, or hire someone who will.
Bottom line
Burgum’s post is useful because it points investors to something concrete: a public, multi-layer map that stitches USGS critical-mineral geology to the land-use and infrastructure layers that decide whether a deposit can become a project. Pair that with the 2025 critical minerals list, Executive Order 14241, and visible federal capital in names like MP Materials, Lithium Americas, and Trilogy Metals, and the message to offshore capital is clear — the United States is trying to re-price domestic mineral development as a strategic asset class.
Open the Critical Minerals Screening Tool, compare it with the juniors and ETFs you already follow, and ask the only question that matters for an international portfolio: which projects still look investable after you overlay claims, withdrawals, power, processing — and time.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not investment, legal, or tax advice.