By Rose Standifer 

Welcome to the October 2026 edition of Climate Law Matters. Much of the climate technology sector is contending with compressed valuations and a federal policy environment that has become less hospitable. One corner of the market is doing the opposite. Critical minerals are absorbing capital, policy attention, and talent at a remarkable pace.

The clearest evidence is not a new company. It is a change in how existing ones describe themselves. Startups founded to decarbonize heavy industry now lead with the critical minerals their processes happen to yield, and the byproduct stream has become the commercial headline. Few abandoned their original technology. Most simply reframed it. Not always by choice. Federal support for decarbonization narrowed. Funding has shifted. For those of us who counsel emerging companies, that reframing is the story of this edition. What brought us to this moment?

Technology that changes the unit economics. Securing the materials that power the energy transition has long been capital-intensive and environmentally fraught. Only a small fraction of mineral prospects ever becomes an economically viable source of supply. A generation of startups is attacking that arithmetic from both ends: reducing what must be disturbed and recovering far more of what has already been brought to the surface. Exploration companies now apply machine learning to large geological datasets, targeting concentrated deposits with a precision that narrows the exploration footprint, though first production in most cases remains years away. Recyclers are commissioning commercial-scale facilities to recover materials from end-of-life equipment, and refiners are working legacy tailings. A third group sidesteps the problem entirely, substituting abundant materials for constrained ones in batteries, magnets, and motors.

Capital that no longer looks like venture capital. The capital stack here has little in common with software. Commercialization depends on government loans, project debt, and sovereign capital. Contractual and non-dilutive capital has become the gating item. Long-term offtake commitments from global trading counterparties and governmental award selections increasingly validate these companies before any priced equity round does, and landmark commercial contracts now sit alongside comparatively modest equity marks. The facilities behind them may still be years from operating.

Policy following the market, not leading it. The Department of Energy has deployed capital across a striking range of programs this year. So the policy environment is favorable, right? Not quite. Permitting alone runs seven to ten years for a new domestic project. A company willing to clean up a legacy site can inherit responsibility for contamination it did nothing to cause. And the One Big Beautiful Bill Act narrowed the relevant tax credit framework, introducing a phase-out where prior law had none. Favorable policy and workable policy are not the same thing.

In this issue, we examine these dynamics across the regulatory, transactional, and commercial dimensions. In Second Life for Mine Waste: Turning Tailings into a Critical Minerals Recovery and Environmental Remediation Opportunity, Sarah Main takes up the federal framework for recovering critical minerals from legacy mine waste. In Analyzing the Legal Landscape Since Trump’s 2025 Deep Sea Mining Executive Order, Nicholas Renzler, Basil Seggos, Christina Hioureas, Andrew Loewenstein, and Elza Bouhassira review the current status of deep-sea mining permitting in both U.S. and international waters. In Digging Deep: Inside the Race for Domestic Critical Minerals, Ben Vaughan and Lucas Freeman provide a high-level overview of the United States domestic critical minerals industry. And in Talking Circularity with Ron Gonen, Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners, Basil Seggos sits down with Ron Gonen on the circular economy in practice.

Whether this cycle reduces the footprint of the energy transition or merely relocates it will depend on choices being made now. In facility siting, in offtake terms, in which feedstocks get designed in from the outset.

As the critical minerals sector continues to evolve, the Energy & Climate Group will be monitoring this market closely and assessing the novel legal questions it raises for our clients.

Read full report here.