Earthjustice Statement on Trump Administration’s Deep Seabed Mining Executive Order
The order, among other things, directs the Secretaries of Interior and Commerce to move toward issuing permits to deep sea mining corporations in both U.S. and international ocean waters.
Contacts
Geoffrey Nolan, gnolan@earthjustice.org
Today, President Donald Trump issued an executive order on deep seabed mining. The order, among other things, directs the Secretaries of Interior and Commerce to move toward issuing permits to deep sea mining corporations in both U.S. and international ocean waters.
“This executive order is a life raft for an untested, opaque industry that science is telling us poses enormous threats to ocean ecosystems for little gain,” said Earthjustice Legislative Director for Lands, Wildlife, and Oceans Program Addie Haughey. “It is yet another bid to give away our nation’s public lands and waters, this time coupled with an attempt to circumvent international law to exploit our shared global oceans for corporate profits.”
There is currently no commercial scale deep seabed mining in U.S. or international waters. Deep seabed mining in international waters is governed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an international body created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The United States has not ratified UNCLOS and therefore only has observer status in the ISA.
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