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.
