October 8, 2026 - U.S. Assistant Sec. for Energy Audrey Robinson visited the University of Kentucky Thursday as part of a Trump administration push to graduate more students in areas related to mining and critical minerals.

With global competition in artificial intelligence driving economic and strategic thinking, Robinson said one administration focus is on re-industrializing the country's mining sector.

"We are not able to build things in this country without the metals and underlying resources to build them. It is actually a crisis level problem," she said.

Josh James, WUKY

A crisis, she says, that has the Department of Energy visiting schools with mining programs like UK to recruit more students into the field. She offered a stark contrast.

"Last year, we graduated 163 mining engineers in the entire United States. In China, they graduated 3,000. We have had a 90 percent reduction in mines and a 25 percent reduction in the number of educational institutions that provide these opportunities," she said.

To bolster that effort, the Trump administration announced in August $180 million in grants to get more Americans trained in fields related to critical minerals like lithium, silicon, graphite and rare earth elements, materials that are essential for semiconductors and other modern technologies.

Critics of the White House's mining agenda have raised environmental concerns, arguing the president is undercutting climate and wildlife preservation efforts.