Lawmakers, companies clash over Trump ocean mining order

April 30, 2025

Companies pushing to scrape the ocean floor for minerals using a directive President Donald Trump signed last week defended their plans at a House hearing on Tuesday where lawmakers clashed over the need to compete with China and the potential for environmental destruction.

The top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations blasted Trump for inking an executive order to fast-track permitting of underwater exploration and extraction ahead of the hearing.

"It’s unfortunate indeed that our president has already issued an executive order on this topic, even knowing that we had this hearing forthcoming, showing his disregard for transparency and public input," said Rep. Maxine Dexter of Oregon.

But Republican leadership highlighted the potential economic and security benefits tied to encouraging exploration and mining of the seafloor for nodules that contain materials like nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese.

Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, who chairs the subcommittee, accused Democratic regulators of strangling the nation’s ability to explore and produce minerals during the previous administration.

Doing so, he said, appeased foreign adversaries like China, which controls the majority of global mineral production, processing and manufacturing.

Mining in U.S. waters could add $300 billion to the country's economic output over the next decade and create more than 100,000 jobs, said Gosar.

Gosar also noted that China accused Trump, upon signing the directive, of violating international law by sidestepping ongoing work at the International Seabed Authority — a U.N. body — which is working to craft international rules for deep-sea mining under a treaty the U.S. has yet to ratify.

"This Chinese reaction only highlights President Trump and Republicans in Congress are charging ahead in the right direction," he said.

Dexter countered that mining the ocean floor is unproven, comes with very high upfront costs and opens up the possibility for widespread destruction on an environment that’s not fully understood and difficult to monitor and regulate.

At the hearing, Dexter also pushed Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals Co., to explain why regulators and taxpayers should support his company’s bid for a permit from NOAA to conduct deep-sea exploration and mining under Trump’s order when the company has yet to show that doing so is commercially viable.

The Vancouver, British Columbia-based company on Tuesday applied for exploratory permits from NOAA under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act, which then-President Jimmy Carter signed into law in the summer of 1980.

"America has an urgent need for critical minerals,” Barron told Dexter. “America has a need to reindustrialize it ... to secure these metals."

'Not the great silver bullet'

The hearing repeatedly returned to the unknowns around deep-sea mining, possible impacts on the ocean floor and sensitive ecosystems, as well as nearby coastal and indigenous populations that rely on sustenance fishing and ecotourism.

Democrats noted that companies like Google and BMW, groups representing the tuna and seafood industry, and leaders across the Pacific oppose the practice.

Duncan Currie, a legal adviser for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition and a Democratic witness, said a total of 32 countries back a moratorium, precautionary pause or ban until more research is gathered.

House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) expressed concern about "toxic plumes" from underwater mining. He said the risks are not worth it.

"It is not the great silver bullet that solves our critical mineral problem … especially if it’s pursued in the reckless cowboy manner reflected in President Trump’s imperial edict," said Huffman.

But Thomas Peacock, a professor of mechanical engineering and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who directs the institute’s Environmental Dynamics Laboratory, countered that research has shown dire concerns about deep-sea mining are not proving out in all studies.

"Some of the proposed impacts of nodule mining may not be as severe as speculated,” said Peacock, who referenced at least two pilot studies conducted in 2021 and 2022.

Peacock in particular downplayed the risk of plumes that mining causes and suggested that debris would be diluted.

But those assertions failed to dissuade Democrats who said there are too many unknowns and Trump’s approach too reckless.

Democratic Rep. Ed Case of Hawaii, who has floated two bills to impose a moratorium on jurisdiction and international mining, questioned what science Barron and The Metals Co. are relying on when they assert that nodules are located in “desert-like environments.”

Case said lawmakers don't have those studies on hand. He also criticized Trump’s executive order for failing to mention environmental protection and said there’s not enough research around specific mining techniques — from sucking up nodules to strip mining — and how they will affect the oceans.

"I see absolutely no reference to environmental protection whatsoever in the president’s executive order,” said Case.


By:  Hannah Northey
Source: E&E News by Politico