NOAA plans to analyze the environmental effects that deep-sea mining exploration could have in international waters.
NOAA plans to prepare an environmental impact statement to examine the impacts of granting a 10-year exploration license to the Metals Co., which has been pushing to move forward with commercial production in an area of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean.
As the U.S. faces a supply crunch of rare-earth metals that are mostly mined and refined by China, officials are increasingly viewing mineral-rich nodules on the ocean floor as a potential source of the key materials for a range of modern technologies.
But environmentalists and some Democrats are concerned about unforeseen harms that could come from mining the seafloor, about which much is unknown. House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) has called for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, which has never been undertaken at a commercial scale.
