Interior Will Investigate Deep Sea Mining Near American Samoa

The waters off American Samoa could come up for lease for mineral exploration under a process the Trump administration will kick off on Monday.

The action from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is consistent with President Donald Trump’s desire to extract critical minerals from the seabed, which can be used in products such as electric vehicle batteries, smart phones, and other technology.

Trump signed an executive order in April prodding federal agencies, including BOEM, to quickly review and issue seabed mineral exploration licenses and permits.

Now BOEM is asking the public to submit information, comments, and expressions of interest in the leasing of minerals on the American Samoan Outer Continental Shelf, according to an pre-publication notice from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The area in question spans 18.1 million acres and is located near the eastern limit of the shelf.

Some of the information BOEM is requesting addresses environmental sensitivity, potential hazards, the kinds of preliminary activities needed to develop mining plans in the area, and estimates of reasonable and fair rental rates.

The request for information was spurred by an unsolicited mineral lease sale request from Impossible Metals Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based company that wants to mine an area located offshore American Samoa, BOEM said.

The RFI doesn’t mean the area will be leased, but environmental groups were nevertheless quick to castigate BOEM’s action.

“It’s despicable that the Trump administration is racing to auction off our oceans to the highest bidder, putting whales, corals, and fish at risk,” Emily Jeffers, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “If this destructive plan goes forward, it’ll be the first-ever deep-sea mining in US waters, and scientists have barely begun to understand all the harms that could cause.”

“Every scientific expedition into the deep sea reveals undiscovered species that have the potential to provide innovations like medicines that could benefit humankind,” Addie Haughey, Earthjustice’s legislative director for lands, wildlife, and oceans, said in a statement.

Moreover, mining the seafloor won’t solve the US’ supply chain problems, Haughey said.

“Market uncertainty, a lack of processing capacity, and technological advancements all call into question the value of this dangerous mining proposal,” she said.

The nascent deep-sea mining sector has yet to take off in a significant way, partly due to the difficulty of scraping up minerals miles under the sea, and partly because the rules governing international waters—where most of the riches are thought to be—are still up in the air.

To the Trump administration, the undersea reserves of nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, titanium, and rare earth elements offer a way for the US to steer away from dependence on hostile foreign nations.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said it will review applications for exploration licenses as fast as possible. NOAA in April called the push for deep-sea mining “the next gold rush.”