A bid to extract mineral-rich nodules from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean for the first time on a commercial scale is inching closer to federal approval, alarming international regulators and environmental groups.
NOAA has found that an application, which The Metals Co. (TMC) submitted earlier this year to explore and mine in international waters, is in “substantial compliance” with federal law, the company said Monday. Approval of the combined license would allow the Vancouver, British Columbia-based company to use remote-controlled vehicles to suck up potato-sized polymetallic nodules rich with minerals on the seabed floor.
The Trump administration is pushing to boost domestic mining on land and at sea while moving to create a U.S.-led trading bloc to rival China and establishing an industry-led $12 billion stockpile. NOAA officials have insisted the agency is empowered under an obscure federal law from the 1980s — the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act — to issue licenses for exploration and commercial recovery of seabed minerals beyond U.S. waters.
TMC is targeting an area of the Pacific dubbed the Clarion Clipperton Zone that covers 65,000 square kilometers, about the size of West Virginia.
