KEY TAKEAWAYS: Gov. Jeff Landry signed two executive orders aimed at accelerating permitting for critical mineral and rare earth projects. State agencies have 90 days to identify categories of environmental permits that could be permanently expedited. Louisiana projects include ElementUSA’s $850 million facility, Syrah’s $586 million expansion and Aclara Resources’ planned $277 million facility. The push could create industrial jobs but has raised concerns about environmental oversight and potential pressure on Louisiana’s electrical grid.   Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has signed a pair of executive orders that fast-track environmental permitting for critical minerals and rare earth production as part of an effort to attract heavy industries to the state. Landry’s Expedited Environmental Permitting order gives the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and other state agencies 90 days from the August 12 signing to submit comprehensive reports providing details on categories of permits that can be permanently expedited. A companion executive order, JML 26-079, Securing Louisiana’s Critical Minerals Supply Chain, identifies heavy rare earth extraction and advanced chemical processing as vital to local job creation and national defense. When he signed the orders, Landry described them in a Facebook video as tools to help small and large businesses navigate a “labyrinth of regulatory permitting.” Landry said, “For decades now, the federal government has basically bogged down both small and large businesses into a ‘labyrinth of regulatory permitting bureaucracy.’ And really and truly, it has killed businesses and jobs across the country.” In one of the two orders signed on Aug. 12 but announced on Aug. 17, Landry declares it is Louisiana policy to “aggressively pursue, support, and expand the domestic production, refinement, and processing of critical minerals, with a specific focus on alumina and its byproducts.” The nation’s only active alumina refinery in Gramercy holds large amounts of bauxite residue. The governor’s executive order mandates that state agencies accelerate the permitting review process for ElementUSA, which is building an $850 million facility to refine this industrial byproduct—often referred to as “red mud”—so it can be processed into metals needed for national defense like gallium, scandium, iron, and titanium. In June 2025, the Atlantic/Atalco Alumina refinery in Gramercy was cited for 23 environmental violations after its earthen levees breached, spilling toxic red mud containing arsenic and chromium directly into public waterways that empty into the Blind River Swamp. Landry said in one of the orders that “by harnessing state-level resources, aggressively cutting bureaucratic red tape, and prioritizing world-class industrial infrastructure, Louisiana will drive the American resurgence in critical minerals and materials production, creating thousands of high-paying jobs for our citizens.” “We’re in a race to beat China,” Landry said in the Facebook video.  “And China has been beating us for decades, but all of a sudden under the Trump administration, he’s made national security an important and integral part of America’s economy. And you do that by securing our critical minerals supply chain.” Syrah, the only commercial-scale supplier of refined, battery-grade natural graphite outside of China, is in the early stages of $586 million expansion of a plant in Vidalia along the Mississippi River that began production in 2024. The Phase 3 expansion project requires construction of six large buildings and three power distribution centers on previously undeveloped land adjacent to the river. Australia-based critical minerals producer Syrah signed contracts with Tesla and Ford in 2021 and 2022 to supply 99.9% pure graphite for EV batteries. Natural graphite was officially designated a critical mineral in May 2018 by the Department of the Interior, following President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 13817. The directive cited a dangerous domestic dependency on foreign adversarial nations—specifically China—for 100% of the United States’ natural graphite supply as a strategic vulnerability to the nation’s defense industrial base. The Governor said in one of the executive orders that development of critical mineral and rare earth production in Louisiana could place additional strain on the state’s electrical grid, and he strongly encouraged the Louisiana Public Service Commission to further evaluate grid reliability in major industrial corridors.  The governor urged the PSC to explore “special industrial power rates” to lower operational costs for large-scale critical minerals and rare earth processors. Consumer advocates contend granting discounted energy rates to large industrial users often force everyday residential utility ratepayers to pay for upgrading utility grids and power generation capacity. Aclara Resources is planning a late-2026 groundbreaking on a $277 million heavy rare earth separation facility at the Port of Vinton in southwest Louisiana. In June, Louisiana awarded Aclara a five-year, $20.8 million local property tax exemption under the state’s revamped Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP). In central Louisiana, Ucore Rare Metals is now scaling up its Strategic Metals Complex at Alexandria’s England Airpark with initial production expected to begin in the first half of 2027. Environmental watchdogs emphasize that rare earth element processing is historically one of the world’s most toxic industrial sectors. In China, which dominates 90% of global refining, rare earth processing has relied on open-air chemical leaching ponds that left behind radioactive waste lakes and severely contaminated regional groundwater. While the emerging U.S. critical mineral and rare earth processors tout themselves as a cleaner alternative to Chinese producers – claiming that their use of closed-loop recycling and chemical waste reclamation reduces environmental harms – environmental advocacy groups have argued fast-tracking state permits risks creating blind spots in Louisiana’s oversight of fragile wetland ecosystems. The Center Square reached out to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and did not receive a response. ...read more read less