U.S. mining companies and battery recyclers are rushing to close multibillion-dollar government loans before January, fearing that former President Donald Trump, if re-elected, would block funding needed to boost American production of key minerals for the energy transition.
This year’s collapse in the prices of lithium, nickel and other minerals (link) and lower-than-expected sales of electric vehicles (link) have spooked private investors and put the traditionally conservative mining industry in the unusual position of needing support from Washington to grow and counter what the West sees as China’s market manipulation (link).
Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) has awarded 21 companies, including Li-Cycle LICY, ioneer 
INR, Lithium Americas 
LAC, Redwood Materials and others planning to build plants to recycle batteries or process lithium and other minerals for use in electric vehicles have been granted nearly $25 billion in conditional loans. Such conditional loans still need to be finally approved, which takes some time.
Solar companies, including South Korean company Qcells (link), and hydrogen companies, including Plug Power (link) 
PLUG, have also received conditional loans, but their plans are partly dependent on domestic supplies of critical minerals, making mine financing critical to the U.S. energy transition.
The average LPO loan is $1 billion, and each of these loans must be reviewed by the agency and other government officials – including engineers, financial experts and even Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm – before funds are disbursed.
Given Trump’s promise to end the electric vehicle mandate ((link)) and plans by former Trump administration officials in the Project 2025 ((link)) document to close the LPO, mining companies and others are rushing to close the loans before Biden leaves office in five months. Some of them are likely to fail given the short time frame, according to interviews with more than two dozen industry executives, consultants, investors, analysts and policymakers.
Without these financial lifelines, all insiders say, many domestic projects for critical minerals could be frozen in the planning stages, a move that could cripple the Western EV supply chain as Beijing-linked rivals increase their market share by flooding global markets with cheap metal supplies (link).
One senior executive whose loan is pending at LPO said Trump is a “wild card,” which is why the company is anxious to close the loan before a new president takes office in January. The executive was one of five people interviewed for this article. Along with other experts in the field, they declined to be named so as not to offend Republican Trump or his Democratic rival in the Nov. 5 election, Vice President Kamala Harris (link).
Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025 (link), even though much of the energy-related portions were written by advisers from his first term.
LPO officials have told applicants they will not be able to close many outstanding loans before January because of the need to closely examine each project’s creditworthiness and other factors, with most loans inevitably going to the next president, three insiders with direct knowledge of the talks said.
The Harris and Trump campaigns did not respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. Department of Energy, which controls the LPO, said the loan program has “provided American entrepreneurs and innovators with a bridge to bankability” for nearly 20 years and considers “responsible stewardship of taxpayers’ money” a key priority.
“Federal programs like ours will continue even after a change of government,” said a spokesman for the Energy Ministry.
Harris, who cast the deciding vote on the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, is expected to continue many of the climate policies introduced by Biden, although her advisers told Reuters she was strategically ambiguous with her energy proposals (link).
The LPO employs around 400 people, 90 more than when Biden and Harris took office in January 2021.
Trump made only one LPO loan during his first term, to a nuclear project in Georgia (link) that had already received loans under then-President Barack Obama. The LPO was not used again for the remainder of Trump’s term, although his administration updated lending policies a month before he left office to invite critical mineral projects to apply.
Much of the uncertainty surrounding a second Trump term, the insiders said, is how he would implement the funding portions of the IRA, which increased LPO funding but was opposed by Trump. While Trump could not unilaterally shut down the LPO because it is funded by Congress, he could slow the loan approval process to the point where applicants drop out.
Plug Power, which is building several U.S. hydrogen power plants, said it is working closely with the Energy Department to finalize its $1.66 billion loan. “Given the resilience of the Energy Department’s () programs during previous administration transitions, we remain confident that subsequent administrations will continue to support projects previously approved conditionally,” Plug Power CEO Andy Marsh told Reuters.
MINING PROJECTS
The LPO, which gave Tesla a $465 million loan (link) in 2010 to avoid bankruptcy, has been very scrupulous in its loan review under Biden. More than two-thirds of applicants needed help navigating the complex credit review process, which slows the loan approval timeline, LPO chief Jigar Shah told Reuters (link) last year.
For mining projects in the US, any delay in financing could jeopardise plans to deliver cathode and battery equipment, many of which are also eligible for LPO financing.
In Nevada, Ioneer is pushing to close a $700 million LPO loan (link) for its Rhyolite Ridge lithium project, which is estimated to cost more than $1 billion. And the General Motors-backed 
GM Lithium Americas (link) has begun work on its nearly $3 billion Thacker Pass lithium project, which Trump approved five days before leaving office (link). The majority of the project’s financing will come from a $2.26 billion LPO loan (link) that the company expects to close by December.
“We are pleased that our project has been supported by both the Trump and Biden administrations,” said a Lithium Americas spokesperson. “Both have expressed the importance of Thacker Pass to securing domestic supplies of critical minerals.”
The Australian company ioneer did not respond to requests for comment.
Recycling startups Li-Cycle (link) and Redwood are also in a rush to close LPO loans. Redwood was conditionally approved for a $2 billion loan (link) that was supposed to close last year, but the company is still waiting for funding.
Li-Cycle said it continues to “work closely with the U.S. Department of Energy on key technical, financial and legal workstreams to prepare the final financing documents for a loan.”
Representatives for Redwood and Qcells did not respond to requests for comment.
Another executive whose loan application is pending with the LPO said she believes Trump understands that electric vehicles are becoming increasingly popular, a sentiment shared by some Republicans.
The question of whether Trump, in a possible second term, would recognize the need for a U.S. industrial policy to support miners and other businesses – or whether he would lean more toward Project 2025 goals – is fueling anxiety among executives who must now make decisions that will affect their companies for years to come.
A third executive with a pending loan said it was not clear whether Trump’s comments on the issue were “rhetoric or actual policy”
