Key Points
- The U.S. has designated lead as a critical mineral, underscoring the vital role recycled lead plays in domestic battery manufacturing, energy storage, and national security.
- North America’s closed-loop lead-battery recycling system achieves more than a 99% recovery rate and supplies a large share of U.S. lead needs — but it weakens when used lead batteries are exported.
- Lead metal scrap leaves the U.S. each year via mislabeled exports, driving up domestic prices, straining recyclers, and increasing reliance on foreign supply chains.
- Stronger enforcement to keep our domestic lead supply in North America is the fastest way to stabilize supply, protect defense readiness, and support a competitive battery industry.
North America is facing a lead deficit, which threatens domestic battery manufacturing, national security applications, and other essential systems. The U.S. Department of the Interior’s decision to add lead to the Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals is a long-overdue milestone. This designation recognizes the essential role battery recycling plays in the domestic supply chain. It also acknowledges a growing supply imbalance of critical minerals such as lead.
While this designation is a step in the right direction, it isn’t a solution by itself. Action is required to protect domestic supply, stabilize pricing, and maintain a competitive domestic battery industry.
The Current Situation
The U.S. has a highly regulated and efficient closed‑loop recycling system for lead batteries with a 99% recovery rate, ensuring a robust domestic supply chain. But the system only works when the North American lead supply stays in North America.
Because the U.S. no longer has primary lead smelting – the industrial process that separates lead from mined ore and refines it into useable material for manufacturing – domestic supply relies on secondary lead smelting, or recycling, to meet demand. Recovering materials from more than 160 million batteries annually meets about 70% of domestic lead demand. The country relies on lead imports to meet the remainder of the demand, which is not enough to support the growing need for energy storage. Maintaining this vertically integrated domestic supply chain is critical to ensure reliable access to the raw materials required to support the nation’s essential infrastructure.
The Export of Lead Scrap Is Fueling a Domestic Supply Shortage
The domestic lead supply and recycling infrastructure are rapidly declining as used lead batteries are unlawfully exported offshore. Spent lead battery exports are being mislabeled and shipped under incorrect commodity codes to avoid inspection and oversight.
The unlawful export of used batteries is driven by a combination of weak enforcement of export laws, lower outbound shipping costs, and growing demand from underdeveloped countries, such as India, which does not have formal recycling infrastructure. Logistical challenges and limited infrastructure create higher processing costs, so overseas recyclers justify paying a premium for used lead batteries from the U.S., while operating in environments with lower regulatory and labor standards and expenses.
This dynamic inflates U.S. lead scrap prices, putting pressure on domestic recyclers, raising costs across the domestic battery supply chain, and threatening long‑term production stability.
Once used batteries leave the system, the lead and other critical minerals, like antimony and tin, are removed from the North American circular economy and rarely return. These batteries are lost to markets where they are processed under unregulated and unsafe conditions and may be subjected to environmentally harmful smelting operations, and, in many cases, disposed of in landfills.
If this trend continues, the U.S. faces the very real possibility of a recycled lead supply shortage, which would undermine domestic manufacturing competitiveness and increase dependency on foreign supply chains.
A Lead Shortage Impacts National Security
A lead supply shortage doesn’t just affect commercial markets. Lead is essential for many military applications, including ammunition, almost all land‑vehicle batteries and critical backup‑power systems used by the U.S. submarine fleet. When domestic availability tightens and prices rise, it introduces an avoidable vulnerability into defense supply chains.
Conclusion: How to Protect the Domestic Lead Supply
Adding lead to the Critical Minerals List affirms its importance, but action must follow. Federal agencies, including the EPA, DOE, U.S. Trade Representatives, CBP, and others, have the authority to protect the domestic lead supply.
The decline in domestic supply is happening now and is accelerating. By not stopping the unlawful export of lead scrap and other critical minerals, the U.S. risks losing control of material essential to the nation’s transportation, energy storage, and defense sectors. Enforcing the established laws around exports is needed now.
The tools exist, and the need is urgent. Keeping the domestic lead supply is the fastest, most effective step we can take now to stabilize supply, protect national security and defense readiness, and preserve the competitiveness of domestic battery manufacturing.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Question: Why was lead added to the U.S. Critical Minerals List, and why does that matter?
Answer: The designation recognizes lead’s essential role in domestic battery manufacturing, energy storage, and national security, and it highlights growing supply imbalances. It underscores how vital North America’s closed-loop recycling is to the U.S. supply chain. However, the listing alone doesn’t fix shortages; it signals urgency and the need for concrete actions—especially enforcement to keep the lead supply in North America.
Question: If the U.S. recycling system recovers about 99% of lead from batteries, why is there still a domestic lead deficit?
Answer: The U.S. has no primary lead smelting, so supply depends on recycling and imports. While recycling from more than 160 million batteries annually covers a large share of domestic demand (about 70%), it isn’t enough to meet total consumption—particularly as energy storage needs grow. When used lead batteries are exported, the closed-loop economy is broken, further tightening domestic supply.
Question: How do unlawful exports of lead scrap harm the U.S. battery supply chain?
Answer: Hundreds of tons of lead metal scrap equivalent leave the U.S. each year via falsified commodity codes. This removes critical materials from domestic recyclers and smelters, inflates U.S. lead prices, raises costs across the battery supply chain, and threatens long-term production stability. Once lead batteries leave, they rarely return and may be processed under lax standards.
Question: What’s driving unlawful spent lead battery exports in the first place?
Answer: A mix of weak enforcement of export rules, cheaper outbound shipping, and strong demand from countries lacking formal recycling infrastructure encourages exports. Overseas processors can pay more for used U.S. batteries because they often operate with lower regulatory and labor costs, outbidding North American recyclers and draining domestic feedstock.
Question: What immediate steps are proposed to protect the domestic lead supply and national security?
Answer: Stronger enforcement of existing export laws to keep the used lead battery supply in North America is presented as the fastest, most effective lever. Agencies such as the EPA, DOE, Customs and Border Protection, and the U.S. Trade Representative can act now to curb unlawful exports. Keeping lead battery supply domestic helps stabilize supply, protect defense readiness (given lead’s role in military batteries, ammunition and critical backup power), and preserve the competitiveness of U.S. battery manufacturing.
