WASHINGTON—In a move aimed at fortifying the nation’s industrial base and technological leadership, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced today that Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has officially designated helium as a critical material under the Energy Act of 2020. This decisive action advances the Trump Administration’s broader commitment to freeing the United States from reliance on foreign sources of critical materials, strengthening domestic manufacturing, supporting American jobs, and securing the raw inputs essential to both U.S. economic vitality and national security.
The designation places helium alongside other vital substances deemed indispensable to modern technology and industry. By formally recognizing helium’s strategic importance, the federal government is prioritizing efforts to address supply chain vulnerabilities that have increasingly threatened domestic producers, particularly in high-tech sectors where the gas plays an irreplaceable role.
"President Trump is bringing back America’s manufacturing industry, and that means making sure we have the materials needed to build things in America again," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. "Helium is essential to producing the semiconductors and advanced technologies that power our economy. By designating helium as a critical material, we are taking another step toward securing our supply chains, creating American jobs, and ensuring the United States leads the world in energy and technological innovation."
The Department of Energy arrived at this determination after evaluating helium against the rigorous statutory criteria established by the Energy Act of 2020. Officials concluded that helium satisfies the definition of a critical material due to its indispensable function in American manufacturing coupled with a rapidly growing exposure to domestic and global supply chain risks.
While helium is widely recognized by the general public for lighter-than-air applications such as party balloons and blimps, its unique chemical and physical properties make it fundamentally critical to advanced industrial processes. Most notably, helium is indispensable to semiconductor production. In the manufacture of microchips—which form the computational backbone of everything from consumer electronics to advanced defense systems—helium is utilized for cooling, cleaning, and creating controlled inert atmospheres necessary for precision fabrication. Furthermore, helium features no viable substitutes in many of these critical technological applications, leaving manufacturers highly vulnerable to disruptions in availability.
Despite these vulnerabilities, the United States possesses significant domestic deposits of helium-rich natural gas, positioning the country well to support expanding industrial demand if structural hurdles can be overcome. Historically, the U.S. played a dominant role in global helium supply, anchored in part by the Federal Helium Reserve. However, as global demand for the gas continues to climb faster than overall production, American manufacturers have faced mounting supply risks.
Government and industry analysts point out that while the nation is rich in raw natural gas deposits containing helium, domestic production remains constrained by limited refining capacity and lengthy federal and state permitting timelines. These bottlenecks have occasionally restricted the flow of refined helium to the high-tech industries that need it most, heightening the urgency of the new DOE designation.
Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson emphasized that the department’s actions are designed to clear these hurdles and foster a more resilient economic environment.
"The U.S. Department of Energy is committed to strengthening our country’s supply chain of critical materials that are essential to continued economic and job growth, energy dominance, and U.S. leadership in cutting-edge technologies such as AI and semiconductors," said Assistant Secretary Robertson. "Under Secretary Wright’s leadership, DOE is taking decisive action to ensure American manufacturers have reliable access to helium as a critical resource they need."
The designation under the Energy Act of 2020 opens the door for enhanced federal focus, coordinated interagency strategies, and potential support mechanisms aimed at encouraging domestic extraction, refining efficiency, and infrastructure expansion. By signaling to the private sector that helium is a priority for national security and economic growth, the administration hopes to spur private investment in domestic processing facilities and streamline the infrastructure required to bring more refined helium to market.
As global competition in advanced technologies intensifies, ensuring an uninterrupted supply of raw materials like helium has become a central focus of U.S. industrial policy. With today’s announcement, the Department of Energy has formally established helium’s status as a linchpin of modern American manufacturing, setting the stage for ongoing efforts to secure the nation’s technological future from the ground up.
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