Lawmakers to debate Trump deep-sea mining plan

The administration wants companies to mine in U.S. waters.

January 20, 2026

The Trump administration's contentious plan to unleash deep-sea mining in U.S. waters is teed up for debate in the House this week.

The Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources is scheduled to examine regulatory barriers to offshore mining Thursday, a debate that’s likely to spark partisan fighting over the government’s fast-paced moves to advance leasing off the shores of Virginia, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.

The subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), oversees the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is mulling the agency’s first-ever mineral leases in parts of the outer continental shelf. It includes areas off the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic and the Gulf of Mexico coasts.

To date, BOEM has never issued a mineral lease but in recent months has moved quickly to implement President Donald Trump’s directive, “Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources,” which calls for "immediate action” to accelerate the development of seabed minerals to counter China.

Last year, the agency began taking comments on a plan to allow leasing in waters off the shores of American Samoa at the request of Impossible Metals.

Matthew Giacona, BOEM’s acting director, has recommended moving forward with the lease. BOEM has requested information about a similar lease off the Northern Mariana Islands.

BOEM is also at the beginning of the lease sale planning process for waters off the coast of Virginia. Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration has asked the agency to hold a lease sale in waters off the mid-Atlantic and the rights to develop heavy mineral sands containing titanium, zirconium, rare earth elements and phosphate through shallow-water dredging.

Before that, BOEM and its predecessor — the Minerals Management Service — only held one competitive lease sale in Alaska’s Norton Sound in 1991, but mineral leases were never issued.

The hearing Thursday will likely highlight the deep divisions around the economic benefits and science surrounding deep-sea mining and its environmental impacts, as well as the mounting opposition the Trump administration faces.

American Samoa Gov. Pulaali'i Nikolao Pula, for example, is opposing mining off the island’s shores and has banned the practice through a territorial moratorium. Environmental groups and some researchers are also warning of pollution and potential destruction of fragile, deepwater ecosystems.

Natural Resources Committee lawmakers clashed last year over the prospect of deep-sea mining at a hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Republicans at the time accused Democrats of strangling an industry that they said could rake in $300 billion over the next decade and create more than 100,000 jobs.

Republican Rep. Mike Ezell of Mississippi is pushing H.R. 4018 with Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) to codify Trump’s executive order and expand domestic seabed mineral development.

But House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) called for more transparency and environmental guardrails and expressed concern about toxic “plumes.” Huffman is co-sponsoring H.R. 664, which would impose a moratorium on deep-sea mining.

Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee ranking member, argued at the hearing that Ezell’s bill — and Trump’s order — would pave the way for the U.S. to move forward without considering an ongoing international regulatory process while dismissing environmental concerns.

“That's not streamlining, that’s steamrolling,” Ansari said at the time.


By:  Hannah Northey
Source: E&E Daily