Why the US Might Start Deep Sea Mining (And What It Means for the Ocean)

0:00 Have you ever wondered why the U.S. hasn't really been brought up in the conversation of deep sea mining? That's because it's never really been a topic, probably because they can't really deep sea mined in international waters because they are not part of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, which plays a big role in shaping, you know, the deep sea mining and the fact that the U.S. is not part of it has played another deep role, a huge role in the country and not being able to approach deep sea mining both legally and politically. So here is today we're on the podcast. We're going to be talking about why the U.S. hasn't got into it and latest thing of the metals company, which is a Canadian company, trying to work with the U.S.

0:42 and Donald Trump to actually start mining within the deep sea, within their natural borders, within the United States exclusive economic zone. We're going to be talking about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, a scary topic. The U.S. is not a signatory of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which is known as UNCLOSE.

1:55 I'm going to call it that because it's easy to do. I know it's jargon, but it has a domestic laws, but also has domestic laws governing deep sea money. So the big question here, once it came out, people are freaking out. Look, Donald Trump is president. You never know what's going to happen. He tends to like extractive processes. Deep sea mining is an extractive process that could be a little lucrative in terms of the money it brings not only to the companies that work with the countries that would like this to happen, but also, you know, the country itself, they want to make money and they want to be able to use their natural resources to make money. So I can't blame them. Then somebody like Donald Trump, who is into making money and is not having a great three months, depending on how you look at it.

2:36 But the lately the stock market has crashed from his tariffs, his reciprocal tariffs, you know, taxing islands that are not inhabited, only inhabited by seals and penguins and stuff. And so it's not going great. Now, this is not going to make him popular for a lot of people, which he doesn't care about. But there are some really interesting matters at hand of can the US actually use, you know, the metals company to be their exploratory deep sea mining company? And that's really what it comes down to. There was a great article written by Dr. Andrew Thaler, who's been on the podcast a number of times to talk about deep sea mining and the deep sea.

3:16 He's a deep sea ecologist. It's involved in a lot of projects. The last time we actually had him on, he was talking about his foray into D and D for forest ecology, Dungeons and Dragons with no community members for forest ecology. So he talks a lot of a lot about things. But his main focus right now is deep sea mining and has been over the last his whole career, really, because he did his PhD in it. And it's been the editor of the largest deep sea mining magazine in the world. And he just keeps writing on Southern Fried Science dot com, which was his blog that he started with a number of different colleagues back in the day. And it's just it's an amazing article. I highly recommend that you take a look at it because we're going to be talking about it all day today on this episode all day during this episode, which doesn't take all day to record.

4:00 I trust you. Trust me. But we're going to be talking about it. And so go over to Southern Fried Science dot com. Check out the article. I'll put the link in the show notes. But he talks about relevant US legislation that matters when we're looking at deep sea mining in the US. So it's really can this company in particular do this? They're probably the best place company because they have so much money invested. They have the technology. They know the technology. They've been working with the ISA for a while. Now, the reason why they're going to the US is because the ISA has recently changed secretary generals. The secretary general now is I'm trying to miss Leticia. And if I can remember her last name, I don't know.

4:42 I still have the article up here. Sorry, Miss Leticia race de Cavallo, who was who was basically elected, started her secretary general position on January 1st, 2025. She is also an oceanographer. She is the fourth secretary general of the ISA. And she was elected in August and it was a bit of a surprise because the ISA secretary general that that was there before he was known to be a little bit more biased towards the companies. I don't know if that's true or not, but some of his policies that came out, some of his focuses have come out that said, hey, you know what? Like, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna mine. Eventually, it's just a matter of doing the regulations and figuring this out.

5:24 Well, a lot of other people are like, let's pause, even killing many countries. Let's just pause this and let's figure out whether this is going to be safe or not. So the election spark or the election came up because Miss Leticia was like, you know what? I think I can do a better job. I can be more partial. I'm an oceanographer. I understand what's happening in the deep sea of better understanding than most. And so she gets elected all of a sudden. Great for the environment. At least we have somebody who has a background in oceanography. We've been asking for people in these positions to have that type of background and not just a business background. So I say it was like we need to hold off on the money. We need to do more research and we need to discuss this a little bit more. TMC was like the Meadows Company.

6:05 The Canadian company was like, no, no, I don't want to do that. I want to I want to mine. I'm sick of this. And I know I'm not going to get the answers that I need in this like in this forum. So I'm going to go to a democracy country that has a new president who's very into extractive processes. And I'm going to go ahead and talk to Donald Trump and say, hey, Donald. Hey, Mr. President. Let's how about we start extracting polymetallic nodules off this off the sea floor in jurisdiction like in a jurisdiction for the U.S. And so apparently, according to studies or according to reports, the administration surprise surprise is interested in that kind of stuff.

6:48 And so we're going to discuss some of the relevant legislation, U.S. legislation that matters in this in this situation. So the first thing I identified by Dr. Andrew Taylor was the Deep Sea Hard Mineral Resources Act, which regulates exploit exploration, exploitation of deep sea minerals. The other one is the outer criminal criminal outer continental shelf Lands Act. It extends U.S. laws to the seabed and subsoil of the outer continental shelf. And then there's the Jones Act, which is also known as the Marine as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, which mandates the cargo transporter between U.S. points must be on vessels built owned and operated by U.S. citizens.

7:29 So here is the thing for the compliance to meet for the TMC to meet the compliance. It really comes down to the Jones Act, the hidden gem, which is a vessel owned by all seas, which is a Dutch company works for TMC. The MV Coco, which is owned by Magellan based in Guernsey, which I believe is foreign, I think it's in France, they are not U.S. owned. Neither vessel complies with the Jones Act requirements, posing a significant operational challenge for TMC. So essentially what happens is for this to be in compliance with the Jones Act, the ship that's carrying the cargo from point where they extract it.

8:14 So point A to point B back to a U.S. port has to be American. Right now, the TMC does not have an American ship. Does that mean they can't get an American ship? I'm sure they can find it. I'm sure they can figure it out. But at this point, they may not be able to use that. The other thing too is because the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act extends jurisdiction to certain seabeds, certain seabed areas potentially like outside of the U.S. jurisdiction. This classifies TMC's mining sites as U.S. points once operations are commenced. So essentially the loophole of saying, hey, you know what, even though this is beyond your jurisdiction, this is our land. So going into like the Gulf of Mexico and certain places in Mexico are actually available.

8:58 Well, not so because it's still be considered American jurisdiction according to the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. So that means they still have to the Jones Act still applies. They still have to use American vessels again. Can they get American vessels? I'm sure they can find something they don't. They're not. I don't know what their contracts are like with the other two vessels. But, you know, I'm sure they can figure it out if they really, really want to, if they're motivated, which seems like they are. So it's it's pretty interesting. The U.S. Mexico Western Gap Treaty extended over U.S. jurisdiction over a specific high seas areas, indicating that U.S. can assert jurisdiction over seabed resources, resources beyond their jurisdiction in the exclusive economic zone.

9:41 So that's something of interest. And if the U.S. claims jurisdiction over high seas resources, the Jones Act does apply, as I mentioned before. So to comply with the Jones Act, TMC would have to use vessels that meet the stringent requirements, which the current fleet does not. And this regulatory hurdle could complicate TMC strategies to operate under U.S. jurisdiction and may require significant adjustments to their operational plans. And to be honest, if the U.S. gets the idea of starting to, you know, mine for these polymetallic nodules, what's in it for them to say, hey, we're going to hire a Canadian company? Look, let's be honest, they're not. Canada is not in favor with the U.S. right now. Also, they they want it for themselves. There's nothing stopping them from saying, hey, you know what?

10:23 We're actually just going to get a company ourselves or do it by government and we'll figure it ourselves and we'll take the time and we'll get the relevant information, the relevant technology, the relevant ships and we'll do it our way. You know, mind you, they could also change their laws. So there's a bit of a bit of a scary thing going on here is really what it comes down to is like, is the U.S. really going to take this seriously? I haven't heard anything else in the news since this has happened, but this was very worrisome a week ago when this first came out. And I'm glad Andrew started talking about it. I'm also glad that Chris Corbero started talking about it. She is on TikTok and she has a great post on it. I'll link to it in the show notes on, you know, how you can act and what you can do.

11:05 But I think it's it's super important to be able to talk about this and to be able to say, hey, you know what? This is something that we need to talk about. This is something that we need to assess whether it is a threat or not. This is something that we can't just let it go by, you know, because there's been a lot of work that's been pushed onto the I.S.A. in terms of non-government organizations, scientists, governments who have been put, who have been put a lot of research, a lot of money and a lot of time and to make sure that we do this properly. And although some have been rushed into it and others have not, it seems to have been pretty much gone in a way that we, as Andrew says, we have this wonderful opportunity to do this right. If we are going to extract minerals, we can do the studies to make sure that nothing happens or to do it in a way that we have the least amount of impact on it.

11:54 Am I for deep sea mining? Absolutely not. Do I think it's going to happen in my lifetime? Probably. Is it going to affect the the the EV community? Because that's why people want a deep sea minus for electric vehicles to have the metals to make the batteries, which are currently mined in many places. But mostly in the Republic of Congo, which there are a lot of human rights violations that are associated with that project. And so being able to have it where human rights are not affected and be able to have it where you can just extract it as you please, that would be helpful if this extraction is going to happen. Now, with the the developments, the huge developments and advancements in the technology to create batteries where the metals are used for electric vehicles, some of them are using these metals anymore.

12:42 And they're they're much more sustainable in the way we dispose of them and the way we use them, the way we build them. So the development is getting fast. The technology is increasing at a rapid rate. Do we need this in the long run? Hopefully not. Is this going to happen in my lifetime? I do think so, but I'm not happy about it. But if we're going to do it, let's do it right. And let's make sure that we are on the proactive side instead of the reactive side, which we're usually on the end of the reactive side when we're extracting marine resources or any type of thing. So, you know, if you want to do it, you can do it and you can do it. But I do want to make sure that we're doing it. I mean, I think it's a pretty good idea to do it, but I really like how you build on it. So, you know, I'm going to do a little bit of a quick demo, which is a little bit of a quick demo because it's going to be a really nice video about how we're going to create these different types of resources around the sea or around nature in general. So this is what we're talking about today and I'd love to hear your opinion on that. Hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean.

13:22 I've got a different episode of the on YouTube if you want to check that out as well. There's not a lot of resources. I just said it in a different way because I'm doing it more. It's going to be a little shorter. But I want to create something different for the audio. Just a little bit more raw, a little bit more old school for me in terms of the way I do it. It kind of excites me a little bit. YouTube's great. I love doing the video, but it's going to be done a little differently. So we're going to do it in different ways. So you can listen to it on video or on your way to work through audio or on your dog walks or in your nature walks or however you want to do it exercising, however you want to do it.

14:02 Just listen to me, please. I'm just kidding. I love that you listen to me and I love the feedback even more. So hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean or hit me up on the website speakupforblue.com. That's speakupforblue.com. Check it out. There's you can leave me a voice memo. You can go to our contact page and you can just write me an email. I answer that personally. I'd love to hear your thoughts on all of this. So thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True North strong and free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.