NOAA sent a draft rule to the White House on Tuesday that would streamline permitting for deep-sea mining, the next step in the Trump administration’s efforts to open the ocean floor to harvesting critical minerals.
The proposal being weighed by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs would update the 45-year-old Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act to promote the exploration for and recovery of what are known as “polymetallic nodules” in waters governed by international law.
The idea is to combine what is currently a two-step permitting process — one for exploration and one for minerals production — into a single review.
NOAA is currently reviewing a proposal from The Metals Co., which wants to search for and recover mineral-rich nodules from a Pacific Ocean region known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. The 1.7-million-square-mile area between Hawaii and Mexico is believed to hold one of the world’s richest deposits of nickel, manganese, copper, zinc, cobalt and other rare minerals.
