Trump streamlines permitting for deep-sea miners

[Ben Graham]

The Trump administration is finalizing new rules that would effectively cut the permitting process for deep-sea mining in half, even in areas outside of US jurisdiction.

On Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced a revision to regulations under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA) that aims to streamline the seabed mining permitting process.

Parts of the Pacific Ocean and elsewhere are estimated to contain large amounts of rocks known as polymetallic nodules filled with the building blocks for electric vehicles and electronics.

More than 1 billion metric tons of those nodules are estimated to be in US waters and filled with manganese, nickel, copper and other critical minerals needed for the energy transition.

The existing framework stipulates that deep-sea mining companies must follow a two-step sequential process, where an applicant first applies for and obtains an exploration license and then applies for the commercial recovery permit.

NOAA’s new rules, which take effect immediately, consolidate these applications into a single, shorter review period.

The revision was first proposed in July 2025 after President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at bolstering the deep-sea mining industry, part of a broader push to counter China’s control on the critical minerals supply chain.

“Deep seabed mining is key to unlocking a domestic source of critical minerals for the United States,” NOAA administrator Neil Jacobs said in a press release Wednesday.

“This consolidation modernizes the law and supports the America First agenda by enabling US companies to access these resources more quickly, strengthening our nation’s economic resilience and advancing the discovery and use of critical seafloor minerals.”

Applications underway

Under the new NOAA regulations, companies can use either the current two-step process or the new consolidated process to apply for exploration licenses and permits in US and international waters.

Last spring, Canadian miner The Metals Company started the process to obtain its licenses and permits following Trump’s executive order, advancing its bid to become the first to gain approval to develop deep-sea minerals.

“This new rule represents a meaningful modernization of the US regulatory framework for deep seabed nodule collection and acknowledges the significant advances the industry has made since the US regime was first established,” The Metals Company CEO Gerard Baron said in a press release.

TMC’s exploration licence applications cover a combined 199,895 sq. km, while the commercial recovery permit covers 25,160 sq. km within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a resource-rich swath of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico.

Companies have been lining up to mine parts of the Pacific, including areas beyond US territory. Any country can allow deep-sea mining in its own territorial waters – roughly up to 200 nautical miles from shore.

In addition to TMC, California-based Impossible Metals is also looking to mine the seabed. Last year, it asked US federal officials to launch a commercial auction for access to deposits off the coast of American Samoa. Internationally, the company also received backing from Bahrain to mine its waters.

Questions remain

Still, questions remain on how the industry would move forward with the new NOAA regulations.

Industry experts say the revised rules are likely to draw further legal and environmental concerns, given that they extend to areas of the sea outside of US jurisdiction.

Seabed mining beyond national jurisdiction is regulated by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which was created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. However, ISA has spent years formalizing deep-sea mining rules to no avail due to unresolved differences over acceptable levels of dust, noise and other factors from the practice.

ISA rules leave seabed mining stuck without benefit sharing

The US is not a signatory to the UN Convention, and has yet to ratify the ISA.

From an environmental standpoint, many have long called for a ban on all activities related to deep-sea mining, warning that industrial operations on the ocean floor could cause irreversible biodiversity loss. Supporters, on the other hand, argue that it would lessen the need for large mining operations on land.

(With files from Reuters)