Sponsors (5)
Official title: To establish a new educational exchange program to strengthen domestic mining education, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 12, 2026 by Johnny Olszewski · Last progress January 12, 2026
The bill invests federal funds and State Department authority to build U.S. critical-minerals expertise and a domestic mining workforce through fellowships and scholar exchanges—strengthening supply-chain resilience and university-industry ties—while imposing modest but real taxpayer costs and creating risks of resource shifts, equity gaps, and local/environmental pushback.
Students and early-career mining professionals gain funded fellowships, scholarships, stipends, and visa/relocation support that lower financial barriers to specialized mining education and international research, increasing training and job-readiness for U.S.-based mining jobs.
U.S. universities and research institutions gain expanded access to visiting foreign scholars, industry partnerships, and collaborative R&D that strengthen mining curricula, technology transfer, and long-term research capacity.
U.S. national security and supply-chain resilience are strengthened by prioritizing critical minerals (including statutory addition of gold and copper), coordinating with allied Minerals Security Partnership countries, and building domestic technical expertise.
Taxpayers face new spending commitments (about $10M/year from 2026–2035, roughly $100M over 10 years) and additional program administration costs to run fellowships, scholarships, stipends, and outreach.
The Department of State and embassy resources could be redirected (including use of excess foreign currency balances) toward these technical fellowship programs, potentially crowding out other diplomatic, cultural exchange, or operational priorities.
Programs may disproportionately benefit established institutions and industry partners and could exclude interdisciplinary programs or students from less-resourced schools, limiting equitable access to opportunities.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Creates Fulbright-based fellowship and visiting scholars programs to train mining and critical-mineral professionals and authorizes $10M/year for FY2026–2035.
Creates two new international exchange programs under the Fulbright framework to grow U.S. capacity in mining and critical mineral fields. The bill authorizes a Critical Mineral Mining Fellowship for U.S. students to study mining abroad and a Visiting Mining Scholars program to bring foreign mining experts to U.S. campuses and research programs, and it provides $10 million per year for FY2026–2035 to operate the programs.