On Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration finalized a new rule making it easier for companies to apply for the right to mine the deep ocean floor.
The next day, the Metals Company, a seabed mining start-up, submitted a new application that more than doubled the area it was seeking to exploit. The new rule could significantly shorten the company’s path to mining the seafloor, a change it celebrated.
“Nearly 50 years after this industry took shape, it’s ready to move forward,” a company spokesman wrote in an email. The new NOAA rules streamline commercial and exploratory applications to mine the seabed into a single process, cutting in half the number of required environmental assessments and public-comment periods.
The Trump administration has taken steps to grant companies the right to mine the seabed in the open ocean, drawing criticism from other countries and environmental groups. Deep-sea mining, which involves retrieving mineral-rich nodules from the ocean floor, hasn’t yet been carried out on a commercial level.
Kim Doster, a spokeswoman for NOAA, said the agency’s revised rule “doesn’t eliminate protections — it consolidates them into one efficient process.” She also said that promoting seabed mining would reduce U.S. reliance on Chinese technology, and that it would help secure a source of critical minerals.
At a hearing held by the House’s Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources on Thursday, the Metals Company’s chief executive, Gerard Barron, said he was “highly confident” that the company’s permits would be granted this year.
During the hearing, Democrats raised economic and environmental concerns.
“The question isn’t whether we need these minerals, the question is whether deep sea mining is a smart, responsible way to get them. Based on everything I’ve seen, the answer is no,” said Yassamin Ansari, a Democrat from Arizona on the subcommittee.
The industry’s possible environmental impact has come under scrutiny. Dozens of companies and countries have announced bans or moratoriums against the industry and the use of the minerals it collects from the seafloor. Indigenous leaders of Pacific island communities that live close to proposed mining areas, such as American Samoa, have been outspoken critics of the industry.
The new rule “removes the ability to ensure effective protection of the marine environment,” said Beth Orcutt, the vice president of research at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine. She was among a number of scientists who publicly cautioned against the new NOAA rule before it was finalized.
Studies show that life on the seafloor is diverse, largely undiscovered and would take many decades to fully recover from mining. “The stakes are really high if we get it wrong,” she said.
The Metals Company is proposing to mine 65,000 square kilometers of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a broad swath of Pacific seafloor blanketed in nodules.
The area is adjacent to sections of the zone that have been protected from mining by the International Seabed Authority, which was created by the United Nations in 1994 to regulate seabed mining.
The United States is not a member of the body and is not bound by its guidelines, which have been deliberated for years but remain unfinished.
The Metals Company has spent hundreds of millions of dollars and years studying the Clarion-Clipperton Zone under an exploratory permit from the international authority. While the company has included much of the data is has gleaned from its research in its application, scientists say it is not enough to answer key questions about the seafloor.
Last April, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order prioritizing the seabed mining industry and authorizing the U.S. to issue mining permits in international waters.
“If the Trump administration does start issuing these permits for deep sea mining, I think there’s a really good chance it’s going to undercut the International Seabed Authority’s process,” said Emily Jeffers, a lawyer at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental nonprofit.
The industry’s future is legally murky. Even if a company is granted permission to mine the seabed by U.S. officials, many contractors supporting the industry are based in one of the 170 countries that have committed to following the international body’s rules.
The nodules found on the seafloor are rich in metals like cobalt, nickel, and manganese that are important to industries that manufacture electric cars, batteries and other clean-energy technologies. But some experts argue that traditional mining — on land, not at sea — may already be able to satisfy the demand for these metals.
Experts also question whether demand will remain strong. For instance, Chinese battery makers, who produce most of the world’s batteries, have recently moved away from using cobalt and nickel.
Sachi Kitajima Mulkey covers climate and the environment for The Times.
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