The Trump administration is bending the rules to open up the deep sea to commercial mining for the first time.
The Trump administration is bending the rules to open up the deep sea to commercial mining for the first time.
is a senior science reporter covering energy and the environment with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home, a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals.
The Trump administration took the next step toward unilaterally jumpstarting deep-sea mining this week, announcing a “consolidated” permitting process for both searching for and commercially extracting minerals that have so far remained relatively untouched.
These minerals are found so deep in the sea that they’re beyond any single nation’s national jurisdiction — which is why President Trump has sparked outrage over his efforts to bypass an international mining code. A chorus of scientists and ocean advocates warn that disturbing the deep seabed could trigger a chain of unforeseen consequences that could eventually harm coastal communities around the world.
Those concerns have been enough to push some companies that might even benefit from a new source of these minerals — coveted for producing rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles, renewable energy, and all kinds of gadgets — to pledge not to use any of the materials sourced from the deep sea. The deep sea is dotted with polymetallic nodules containing nickel, cobalt, manganese, and other minerals used in rechargeable batteries.
The new rules the Trump administration announced would make it easier for American companies to start harvesting those minerals. Typically, they’d apply first for an exploration license that allows them to start surveying and studying a site. Then, they might move forward with a request for a commercial recovery permit. Now, they’ll be able to apply for both at the same time. It also truncates the environmental review process, since the consolidated application could only require a single environmental impact statement.
The updated rules crafted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) follow through on an executive order Trump signed last April telling federal agencies to expedite the process for issuing licenses in order to “counter China’s growing influence over seabed mineral resources.”
Other leaders have accused the Trump administration of violating international law by doing so. The International Seabed Authority (ISA), established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) says “unilateral exploitation of resources that belong to no single State but to all of humanity is prohibited.”
The Trump administration, on the other hand, claims in a 113-page document published yesterday that the NOAA can “issue licenses and permits to U.S. citizens in areas beyond national jurisdiction” under the 1980 US Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act. The document also argues that ISA merely regulates deep seabed mining for countries that are parties to the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC), which the US has not joined.
The ISA has been deadlocked in its attempts at finalizing an official mining code that would govern how any commercial deep-sea mining would proceed. Forty countries have called for a moratorium or ban on deep-sea mining because there’s still so little that humanity understands about the seafloor and the ripple effects that could result from disturbing it. Some car companies and tech companies including Apple and Google have also endorsed a moratorium; solar company Sunrun joined last month.
Nearly 1,000 marine scientists and policy experts have similarly voiced their opposition. Even the surface of the moon is better mapped than the ocean’s abyss, according to NASA. Researchers are also trying to assess whether it’s a source of dark oxygen for life on Earth.
“By fast-tracking mining in unexplored areas of the deep ocean, the Trump administration is practically inviting an environmental disaster,” Emily Jeffers, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an emailed statement to The Verge. “Deep-sea mining could change the ocean forever, but Trump officials are basically just rubberstamping the exploitation of these little-understood ecosystems.”