Deep Sea Mining in U.S. Waters: A New Era of Ocean Extraction

1:00:02 A couple of weeks ago, as a way in Jamaica, I get news that Donald Trump has signed an executive order to allow the US to deep sea mine, not only in the US exclusive economics zone, but also in the high seas, which goes against the UN law of the sea. I'm close. And so where do we go from here? I was like, where do I do when I need information on deep sea mining? I get an email right away from a good friend of mine, Dr. Andrew Thaler. He says, "Hey, Andrew, do you want to talk about this executive order about deep sea mining in the US?" I'm like, absolutely I do.

1:00:59 Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. This is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And action is what you might need to do today because we are going to be talking about the executive order that was signed by Donald Trump a couple of weeks ago that looks at deep sea mining in US waters as well as the high seas, which is kind of interesting because the US has not ratified the UN law of the sea on close. And so why are they considering going into the high seas? There's a lot of repercussions that can come from that that can not only be repercussions for the US, but also for other countries and just in general, the ocean and listening to UN policies.

1:01:41 But also deep sea mining is a threat to the ocean. And we just don't know how much of a threat it is because there hasn't been a huge amount of understanding of deep sea processes as well as what would happen to those deep sea processes should we start to fiddle around in the deep sea. But it's okay because Dr. Andrew Thaler is here today to talk about what this new executive order means. How is it going to play a role in the future? Do we need to be worried about something? Is the US able to start production and how long it'll take? And is this going to happen just during this administration or is it going to happen over a number of administrations? We're going to talk about that today. So here's the interview with Dr. Andrew Taylor talking about the executive order for the US deep sea mine in the US as well as in the high seas.

1:02:25 Enjoy the interview and I will talk to you after. Hey, Andrew, welcome back on this wonderful episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about the Americans deep sea mining? Is it going to happen or is it not going to happen? We're going to talk about it. Are you ready? Absolutely. I am. Wonderful. This is going to be a lot of fun. You know, obviously people know I've talked about on the podcast before that, you know, the US, the US administration, Donald Trump has sent an executive order to explore deep sea mining within the US as well as outside of the US, which is against UNCLOS, right? The UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. I think it's, I never able to remember that that acronym. UNCLOS it is. We can just call it the Law of the Sea. Yeah, there you go. Law of the Sea. So it's a lot of interesting things. We know Donald Trump doesn't like to play by the rules. He's not playing by the rules. So you are the one of the experts, foremost experts on deep sea mining. You've come on the podcast a number of times to talk about deep sea mining. So I'm very happy that you hit me up yesterday and was like, hey, you want to talk about deep sea by the US? I'm like, absolutely I do. We did it the next day and I'm happy we're doing it today. So let's just talk about it. You know, first, first, but actually before we talk about it, Andrew, why don't you just remind people who you are and what you do? All right. Well, hello, everyone.

1:03:43 I am a Dr. Andrew Thaler. I am a deep sea ecologist, a conservation technologist and an ocean educator. And I run a small environmental consulting firm that focuses on high seas policy, technology and education. And we're going to talk about everything that you are, that you run in your company, because DC Mining, like this is, this is interesting. We've talked about it before. We talked about every, you know, I think it's every six months, the everybody gets together in Kingston, Jamaica, and we taught, they talk about DC Mining. Usually we have you on to kind of debrief and figure out what went on and where we're at. Seems like a lot of changes were happening. The last out of the last meeting, the mining company, a Canadian company basically said, hey, you know, we're done with all these regulations that are happening at the ISA, the International Sea Bed Association. We are done.

1:04:32 We are going to go to the US. We're going to propose the US to do deep sea mining. You know, seemed like we didn't really, I don't know if we actually heard from the US to say, yes, we're going to, but they seem to be happy about it. But then you put out an article talking about, you know, is it really feasible? So let's start there was originally, was it actually feasible for this to happen? All right. So before we can get into that, we got to talk about what did happen? Yes, please do. So there's two things happening kind of simultaneously. There's the Metals Company, which is the Canadian Deep Sea Mining Company. They have announced that they are frustrated with the ISA process. They do not believe that the ISA is acting in good faith and acting as a good regulator of the industry. They think it is being stonewalled by stakeholders who are opposed to deep sea mining and that the regulations are never going to come. And so they have said they're going to go it alone.

1:05:25 They're going to go to the United States. They're going to apply for a mining permit under NOAA, which NOAA has purview through the deep sea bed hard minerals act over mineral resources in the high seas purview, not necessarily authority, the deep sea bed hard minerals act was passed before on class was ratified. And it was designed to be phased out if and when on class was ratified. So there's questions about whether or not the deep sea bed hard minerals act is really applicable. The US currently says it is the current President of the United States has issued an executive order saying no one has this authority. Legal scholars say wait a minute, probably not.

1:06:07 The mining company wants to go the Metals Company wants to go gung ho and get to mining because they are a private company. They have limited financial resources. You know, they're not China. They're not Russia. They're not France. They don't have basically unlimited resources to commit to this industry. They have a burn rate. Unfortunately for them, the health of the ocean is not beholden to the burn rate of private companies, but they are attempting to begin mining in the high seas through the United States. And they are applying weirdly enough for the area that was permitted to them through Nauru. So there's a lot of questions now about what does that mean for their international relationships? What does that mean for the partnerships they've built through the ISA? If they mine through the US in defiance of ISA regulations, how do they then get the permits to mine in the areas that were supposed to be reserved for Nauru?

1:07:02 Where do they land their metals? They have to land them in the US, both through the deep sea bed hard minerals act and because of the Jones Act, they have to bring those minerals back to the US. The US doesn't have processing capacity for those minerals right now. So are we just stockpiling them? And who's paying for that stockpile? Spoilers, I am. The US taxpayer. Yeah, if they are landed. And so it's really throwing things into a lot of chaos because this is completely unknown territory. The US has followed the law of the sea as customary law since UNCLOS was ratified. The US signed UNCLOS. They did not ratify it, but they signed it. And they signed it after negotiating specifically for carve outs within the creation of the ISA. So, you know, we have we exist right now under an administration that is very gung ho and very anti UN.

1:07:53 Deep sea mining is a much longer play than the lifespan of a single presidential administration, especially a lame duck president who doesn't get another term. So, you know, whether or not they convince Trump to allow them to mine, there may be new questions raised when the next president who almost certainly will be elected based on opposition to Trump Trump policies, I think is going to be it's very hard to see a different kind of future where you have another Trumpian president. So there will be I mean, the US president flip flops. That's generally how we go with elections. Yeah. So, you know, they how that is going to rack up against the next presidential administration or the next Congress because Congress generally flip flops in the second term of a presidency to.

1:08:38 And so it's really it's a strange moment for international policy. All the international partners are furious because they have been working on getting these mining regulations done for years. And it is a difficult negotiation. It is a process. I think the argument that it's being stonewalled does not hold very much water. Right. You know, this is a long process. This is a big international negotiation. Uncloshed itself took 30 years to negotiate. And we're only on, you know, we've only really been negotiating the mining code seriously for the last 10 years. And technology has only been online even to reasonably get us close to mining within the last two. So I think it's a bit farcical to say that it's being stonewalled.

1:09:20 Well, do you think it's just more they're using as an excuse because they know that the president will be will be on board for this type of work? You know, they're just using as an excuse. That's an assumption, but it's a Canadian company. It's a multinational company. They've got employees in London. They've got employees in Canada. They've got employees in Australia. They don't have that many employees in the US. And, you know, there's a cynical interpretation that they're like, oh, yeah, Trump's in power. We should go for it. But I think the more reasonable interpretation is they're running out of money and they need to get they need to get to profitability quick or they're never going to be able to continue. And they're just probably playing the cards. They've been dealt the best they can. And it just so happens to be up, upending, you know, a multilateral regime at the moment. Right.

1:10:10 But I think, you know, I think the reality of the situation is they're just they're running out of money. Private company. They got it. They got to get to profitability. Yeah. On that token, a second company has entered the fray. And this is impossible metals. And you've talked to Oliver Gonserka from impossible metals before. Yes. Over. Yeah. Over LinkedIn. Yeah. Yeah. And he you know, they have a much more cautious approach and they have a different set of mining technologies. And on the same token, they have applied for a permit to do pilot studies within the US easy off the coast of American Samoa.

1:10:53 And, you know, whatever you want to think about the validity of deep sea mining on its own, that is at least a legally defensible position. The US does have authority to issue permits in its own exclusive economic zone. Right. Companies have a right to apply for those permits. They applied last year under the last administration and were rejected. So this is a fresh application. They're also they're not at nearly as close to commercialization, I think, as the metals company is. And so they're in the process of doing their environmental impact assessments of doing their pilot studies of seeing how commercialization might move forward using their technology.

1:11:36 So we've got kind of deep sea mining coming on two fronts in the US right now. We've got the national regime, which has a much more stable legal framework to rely on. And then we've got the international regime, which is just throwing everything into complete chaos. And on top of all that, because there's always an end on top of all that. No, I has lost 28% of its workforce. Department of the Interior, Boa has lost. I don't have the numbers on it, but a significant percentage of its workforce. The people who would be reviewing and revising these permits to as far as I am currently aware have all been retired or forcibly retired basically. Well, they took the ones I know I know I took the Vera that the voluntary retirement program, the buyout. So it's not forcibly forcible. Like it's not one of these cases that's being tied up in legal struggles because it was legal firing, but they were close to retiring.

1:12:32 They decided I'm going to I'm going to retire, which kind of helps the younger generation that's coming into right or were eligible for retirement and didn't want to deal with it. There are people, you know, if you've put in your time, you may not be close to 65. But if you put in your time, you're eligible to take their time and buyout and you can go do something else. But you know, the executive order calls for an expediting of the permitting process, but they don't have the personnel to do that. So it's going to be from a logistics standpoint. It's going to be a very interesting few months watching how any of this plays out. But is the idea of taking away the people to review because there's a review process for every permit is the idea to take away that review and just to rubber stamp anybody who wants to put a proposal in.

1:13:15 You know, if I do mining companies and if I were Noah and if I were any reasonable person, I absolutely would not want that to be the case because right. Like I said, this is a long process if if they get their first permit to do their experimental test mining for impossible or if they get their first permits to do commercialization for the metals company. And there are questions about that permit. They're going to be vulnerable to lawsuits for the next 10 years. They'll get bled out long before they get a chance to reach profitability. So, you know, if I were one of these companies, I absolutely would not want a rubber stamped permit expedited is one thing rubber stamped is perhaps true, not what anyone wants to see because that makes everyone vulnerable.

1:13:57 And of course, they overturned the Chevron doctrine, which means that NGOs can just constantly sue for regulations. They don't agree with because now we don't have this doctrine within the US that defaults regulatory judgments to the regulator. Right. Gotcha. Okay. So it's what I'm going to say is that everything in the US is chaos right now and you know, take everything I say with a grain of salt because it is very hard to predict what the next six months or two years or four years or even the next week at some time or the next week. What's gonna happen? I don't know what it's gonna look like when it's time for happy hour tonight. Yeah, it's true. Well, it's like it was a surprise, right? I were you surprised when this all came out, you know, the metals company making this announcement, but also that was like maybe less than a month before the executive order came out and and it didn't seem to be and I and it didn't seem to be at the forefront of a lot of a lot of talk on social media.

1:15:01 Definitely not mainstream media because there's more going on than this, but it never really there's a bit of like the announcement cause a little bit of buzz. But before that, it never really was talked about as much as like this is coming down the pipe. Like we're expecting this to come down. Was you were you surprised by the executive order? So we had heard rumors about the executive order for about two months leading up to one actually came out. And it was one of those things where like every two or three days I'd be getting a text message from one of my colleagues being like, I heard it's coming out today. It's gonna come out tonight. It's gonna come out tonight. You know, by the time it actually came out, I was so inert to hearing this. Yeah, I was skeptical that we'd ever see it. Gotcha. But we had heard rumblings of the EO would come out. The thing that really surprised people, I think was the metals company saying they were going for mining in the high seas.

1:15:51 I was expecting an EO that was going to focus on building refining capacity, which the administration has been talking about for critical minerals and developing resources within the US easy. I was not expecting them to go straight up to the line of challenging the international seabed authority because this is a multinational industry. And, you know, the US is the only major economy that hasn't ratified the law of the sea blowing up the law of the sea for one small, relatively small company in the grand scheme of things seems like a terrible development for the entire industry. Is it legal? Like, can they are they allowed to actually go into the high seas and do deep sea mining? They haven't ratified on close or law of the sea. So how are they allowed to go in? Or is it just more of who's going to stop them?

1:16:45 So I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding about how the UN functions as an authority, because the UN itself is not like an authority. It's not a police. There's no enforcement or anything. It is a collective of nations that agree to different treaties, to different agreements. And it's functionally I don't know if you were ever in like an outdoor education program in college or if you've ever been involved in some of these fun little like communal living group experiments that do. Okay, so the UN is an anarchic organization in the political definition of anarchy.

1:17:30 It is structurally composed of entities who all have co equal voices and representation within the institution with huge caveats. Obviously, you know, the bigger the country, the more you can bully people around, which is also how communes work. But functionally speaking, the UN is built on consensus. So when the ISA is having these negotiations, they're not necessarily voting on the mining code. They're trying to consent to the mining. It's getting everyone into agreement. And that causes a lot of trouble. It causes a lot of heartache. It's very difficult to get 169 nations to consent on one thing on anything. So there's a lot of political back and forth. There's a lot of these maneuvers.

1:18:14 And there are kind of these these consensual agreements about like how decisions are made and when there are disagreements, how those get decided. So there is it loss, the international tribunal on the Law of the Sea, which will hear cases between member states who believe that they're in violation of UNCLOS. But critically, the US is not a member state. We are not party to UNCLOS. We have treated it as customary law and we have accepted it as custom money law, customary law, which means for most of the existence of the Law of the Sea, we have been beholden to it, but not in a position to negotiate it. If we say we're just going to ignore it, who like the repercussions are trade disputes, which I don't know if you're aware, but the US does not appear to be particularly concerned about angering all of its trade partners at the moment.

1:19:06 Apparently not. There can be punitive actions about access to resources and access supply. China can say, well, we're just going to shut down your access to all our other resources. Yeah. You know, there can be like diplomatic consequences. Embassies can get kicked out. Visas can get revoked. It can become much more difficult for an American to travel to different countries. But in terms of actual like hardline punitive actions, there really isn't anything. It's not going to spark a war. No one's going to be sailing off to like arrest the United States vessels that are mining in the high seas. What could happen is that other countries can decide, okay, well, if UNCLOS is no longer the law of the sea, if that is not holding the US back, then why should it hold us back?

1:19:51 And countries like Russia and China can say, okay, well, we don't care about UNCLOS now either. We're pulling out of the treaty. And then it becomes a real free for all. Yeah. And then it comes in. It doesn't matter what protection or what agreements we do. It's people are just going to do whatever they want. So it's not a good leadership position to take from a world perspective. Yeah. And that's why it's so dangerous to disrupt this very state and very well respected multilateral agreement. Yeah. Now, it's interesting. There's a lot of headache around deep sea mining anyway for any country to do. We've seen it before. Anybody who's done it has been shamed multiple times. Protests have happened and so forth. You have the US who's not signed on or not ratified the Law of the Seas. So there's a lot of probably headaches around that.

1:20:38 We've seen a lot of people discuss what the problems could be internally. There's probably going to be a lot of environmental regulations that are going to be ignored or rolled back just to allow this to happen. But you also mentioned that it's something that can't happen in the next two years where they become profitable. They still don't have a way to refine it. They're just going to stockpile it. It's expensive. So should we be worried? Is this something to worry about from an ocean conservation perspective? From an ocean conservation perspective, absolutely. It is an industry we need to be following very closely. It is an industry we need to be fighting to make sure has the most stringent possible environmental rules that we can.

1:21:24 The reality is one of the reasons we don't see a lot of deep sea mining in national waters is because it is a politically difficult position for a lot of countries. And so there is a difference in the way your citizens and your constituents think about what's happening in your waters versus what's happening in the high seas. And I think that's why there's been so much focus on the high seas as of late. The financial reality of deep sea mining, I'm, you know, we've talked about this before. I'm one of those who thinks that the financial viability is a bit optimistic coming from the mining companies. I'm not entirely convinced that it will ever be a particularly profitable industry. And I'm because of that, I'm a little bit more willing to say, okay, well, let's see what your first, you know, pilot studies look like.

1:22:15 You know, let's, you know, I may be the fastest way to bring about the end of deep sea mining is to let them do those first pilot studies and really show that like the profitability and the viability of extracting resources from the deep ocean is not viable or not a financially productive endeavor. You know, I could be entirely wrong about that. I'm not an economist. You know, I look at my stock market portfolio and I'm like, oh, I don't I don't really know how to pick a company. That's definitely for sure. Well, the way I hear it is if you just if you if you tank the stock market and then you buy everything at that point and it goes up, you make billions of dollars. That's what I've heard. That's how you make money in the stock market these days. It sounds like anyway.

1:22:57 I mean, I heard a bunch of people said I should go buy doggy. And so I went to the I went to the pound and now I've got like six puppies, but they just they cost money. You're always sinking money into those doggies. Yeah. But no, so I think, you know, the metals company is an interesting case because I don't think they've at this point, it really doesn't seem like they've done the work to develop the goodwill to get that social license to go on to the next. Right. And I think five months ago, I might have said something different. But blowing up the international regime like this, I think has has sapped them up. They're goodwill and possible metals like their technology is interesting.

1:23:38 I want to see how it works. I want to see it go. I want to see a pilot study. I want to actually like we're not going to understand really what the impacts of this technology are going to be until we see those first go small scale pilots. And, you know, I think impossible metals has has has done a little bit more on the social licensing side of thing. And like, I'd be you know, I'd be willing to see, you know, what that first small experimental pilot study looks like before I make any judgment calls about whether or not they should be permitted to mine. I'm not 100% convinced, but I'm not 100% weighted either. You know, if deep sea mining is an inevitability, I want the people that are doing the best with regard to environment, not necessarily perfect, but at least, you know, doing the best they can to be the ones that get to advance.

1:24:26 So yeah, it's a tricky. But they got rejected last time, though, right? Like they got rejected from during the last administration. Do you know why they got rejected? Was that anything particular? My understanding is American Samoa, their local government was opposed. They have had they've also flipped parties. I think they have a new governor now. So that that could change things that could change. And, you know, perhaps their technology wasn't as far as along during their first application as it is now. And, you know, they there just was a big congressional hearing. And now there's more excitement about deep sea mining. So I think they're probably feeling pretty optimistic right now that they're going to get that permit approved. And, you know, in the hearing, the CEO of impossible was very much like we're just at the beginning here.

1:25:13 We're still doing the environmental work. We're not going to go full bore commercial mining until we've done those studies. And so, you know, I feel at this juncture, I want to see those studies. Yeah, yeah, of course. Now it's just the science the hell out of it. Right. It's like, how do we how do we figure out and especially if it's in a pilot project in a smaller place, you know, and hopefully that guy hate to say it for the impossible company. But it's like, hopefully it's not viable and we don't have to worry about this. And it's all been for nothing. However, I mean, the other the other side of the coin is, you know, if it is viable, maybe they're technology. I mean, maybe all their technology lives up to the hype. Yeah, I'd love to be proven wrong in such a way that like their technology does live up to their claims and like we have that like shiny golden optimistic future of giant robots because who doesn't love a giant robot.

1:26:03 I love a giant robot. Well, I hear they're making a Voltron movie. So maybe that's that'll be the closest we get to a giant robot soon. But you never know. You never know what might happen. So like for people listening to this, they've they've heard us talk about deep sea mining a lot. Right. Now we have this executive order. Some people are not going to be too happy about about this. You know, people are going to be concerned, as you mentioned, as they should be. We know this administration is not big on environmental policy. We know that certain mining companies seems a little desperate or the metals company. Sorry, they seem a little desperate. As you mentioned, they might be running out of money. And so they have this either now or never. The impossible company like metal company like they they seem to have the environment in mind.

1:26:51 And so we're that's that's a good thing in terms of having a company that wants to do this, but also wants to do it the right way and think of like any kind of implications. But when it comes down to it, money money rules in a capitalistic society. And what can what can what can people do? You know, they're listening to this and like how like how should they feel and and and and and what what can they do to to help if they don't want to see to see mining happen in US. What is happening in US waters or in in the high seas? If you if you don't want to see deep sea mining happen, this is not the moment to panic. You know, the metals company is making a move that I think is based out of desperation. That's a good sign if you're opposed to deep.

1:27:36 You know, I don't I don't I'm not particularly optimistic about any company that's that's that's hinging its financial future on the Trump administration. Generally speaking, Trump comes out of everything perfectly fine. And all of the people that partner with them either end up bankrupt or in jail. So I think that's a risky move. It's a very risky move. And, you know, if you're if you're a private company, it's probably the only move you have. You got to work with the administration that you've you've got. You can't you can't wait it out for four years. But, you know, calling your representatives, Congress just had a hearing on it. There will almost certainly be some form of a vote. It might be a pro form of vote. It might not be. There may not ever be a bill about deep sea mining.

1:28:19 But you should let your Congressperson know that that's what matters to you. If you're not in the US, reach out to your representatives. However, you are represented with your own government. Let them know where you stand on the US flaunting the international order. And, you know, really at this moment, you know, supporting the NGOs that are bringing up the legal cases against them, supporting the NGOs that are that are doing protest work, if that's what you want, is really probably the best way to go. You know, it's a tricky industry because until now it's all been purely international, which means it's much harder for stakeholders to be directly involved. But on the other hand, letting your elected representatives know how you feel.

1:29:03 It's always, you know, the most important thing you can do. Write letters to the editor. Get some letters in your local papers. I'm going to I'm writing a letter from my local paper because I'm because I'm me and like, you know, my county has one of the, you know, not to toot my own horn, but there's not that many experts on deep sea mining and I'm one of them. So I could at least lean on the local angle for that and get our local paper. You know, small things like that matter. Keep making sure you know, you're not getting surprised by things keeping track of the industry as it develops. If you're on blue sky, we have a deep sea mining feed you can subscribe to that tracks all the deep sea mining news so you can you can stay abreast of everything happening.

1:29:47 And you know, at this moment at this juncture, there's not much you can do once the permits are being reviewed, there will be a public comment period. So US citizens especially should participate in that public comment period, period, whether you're opposed or in favor. Right. You should participate in the public comment period. And yeah, it's, it's, it's a wild moment in time. I don't really have a great handle on where things are going next. You know, it's possible six months from now, everything's going to blow up in everyone's face and we're not gonna, there will be, you know, another deep sea mining company will declare bankruptcy, which, by the way, look Marine, which bought out the Lockheed mining leases declared bankruptcy last month.

1:30:31 So, okay, that's another deep sea mining company that has proven non viable. So right, right. It's a very dynamic moment in the history of the industry. And it'll be fascinating to follow. And it will be and we'll follow it and with with your help and and we'll we'll put that link to that blue sky feed to in the show notes that people can get access to it, as well as Southern fried science because you keep putting you and your fellow writers David Schiffman and Angela Gomez and others who keep putting out these great articles on not only science communication, Brett Favaro as well, but also all in the what's happening with policy and what we should be looking at and keeping everybody informed on these specifics that don't always get into the mainstream media and not and definitely not in that detail. So I'll link to Southern Fried Science as well.

1:31:19 Yeah, I think it's interesting. I was surprised that the U.S. was entertaining a Canadian company to doing some of the work because I put up my last post because it is. They created a U.S. subsidy just for this. But like, yeah, everyone sees through that. It's a Canadian company. It's a Canadian company. I put up the post last time and one of the comments like get out of there. So I thought it was I thought it was interesting. It might make him even more unpopular if he loves a Canadian company to to mine in U.S. water. So yeah, it'll definitely be interesting to follow. So, Andrew, we always appreciate you coming on and informing us and keeping us abreast of what we're doing. And it's always it's always helpful. And then like the biggest thing is just educate, you know, you get your education up, get your information in a row, making sure we get the right information, tuning into this podcast or going to Southern Fried Science or both.

1:32:12 Definitely both and and saying, hey, look, I'm going to keep aware of what to do. So you have some great talking points in those articles. So I think people should should definitely check them out. So thanks a lot. I do appreciate you doing this such last minute. And and I just I can't wait to have you back on to talk more, more deep sea mining and other projects that you have on. I have a feeling I'll be back. It's awesome. I'm sure you will. It'll probably be the next couple of weeks. Who knows? But it'll be fun. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it. You're very welcome. Thanks for having me on. Thank you, Andrew, for joining us on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. It was great to talk to you again. Obviously, it's always great to have Andrew on the podcast. He's one of our regulars, maybe even one of the people who've been on the podcast the most. I don't know. I think it's true, but we'll have to go and look at that.

1:33:00 But it's something that we always appreciate, Andrew. You appreciate your time. We appreciate your insights. I enjoyed like a policy guru when it comes to this kind of stuff, especially when it comes to the deep sea. And so it was really nice to be able to have him to explain all the different intricacies of the policies that would come into play and how they would be able to either get around it or even just the fact of putting things into production, like how realistic is it to put things into production within the span of this next term that Donald Trump is in right where he's signing. He wants to see this happen. It's going to be interesting to see what happens. But it's also a little scary seeing how things can do. And I'm sure it's sort of just not work out or just slide down that slippery slope as easy as it does. And that's what's scary to me. I'm sure it's what's scary to Andrew and a lot of other people around the world when it comes to deep sea mining. So we are going to see what happens. But I would love to hear your comments on this. I'm going to put links to what Andrew mentioned, the blue sky feed as well as Southern fried science.

1:33:54 But also, I want to hear what you think about this whole deep sea mining. Do you think this is good for the U.S.? Do you think it's not? No judgment here. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Put a comment down below if you're watching this on YouTube or if you're listening to this. I'm going to be talking to you soon. I'm Andrew and I'm your host, Andrew. I'm your host, Andrew. And have a great day. I'll talk to you next time. And have a conservation.