Deep Seabed Mining: Revisions to Regulations for Exploration License and Commercial Recovery Permit Applications

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>15 CFR Parts 970 and 971</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250630-0118]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BN96</RIN> <SUBJECT>Deep Seabed Mining: Revisions to Regulations for Exploration License and Commercial Recovery Permit Applications</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office for Coastal Management, National Ocean Service, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA or the Act) charges NOAA with the responsibility for issuing licenses for exploration and permits for commercial recovery of polymetallic nodules from the deep seabed in areas beyond national jurisdiction and promulgating regulations necessary to carry out the provisions of the Act. Some provisions of the regulations require updating to reflect significant technological and information changes since the initial regulations were promulgated in the 1980s. NOAA proposes to include a consolidated license and permit review process in a section of the regulations that was reserved for this purpose and make other changes. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on this proposed rule must be received by September 5, 2025. NOAA will hold one virtual public hearing on this proposed rule on a date, time, and virtual location to be determined, which will be published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> and posted on <E T="03">NOAA's Deep Seabed Mining Website.</E> </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments on this proposed rule, identified by NOAA-NOS-2025-0108 by electronic submission described below: <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</E> Submit all public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NOS-2025-0108</E> or go <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> and enter NOAA-NOS-2025-0108 in the keyword search. Locate the document you wish to comment on from the resulting list and click on the “Submit a comment” icon on the right of that line. Comments should be addressed to Mr. Kerry Kehoe, Federal Consistency Specialist, Office for Coastal Management, NOAA. Attention: DSHMRA Proposed Rule Comments. <E T="03">Mail:</E> All comments must be submitted via electronic submission at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NOS-2025-0108;</E> no written comments should be submitted by mail. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Comments must be submitted by the above electronic method to ensure that the comments are received, documented, and considered by NOAA. Comments sent by any other method, to any other address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period, may not be considered. Comments that are not related to the proposed rule or that contain profanity, vulgarity, threats, or other inappropriate language will not be considered. All relevant comments received are a part of the public record and will generally be posted for public viewing on <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> without change. All personal identifying information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> name, address) submitted voluntarily by the sender will be publicly accessible. Do not submit confidential business information or otherwise sensitive or protected information. NOAA will accept anonymous comments (enter “N/A” in the required fields if you wish to remain anonymous). In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(4), a summary of this rule may be found at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NOS-2025-0108.</E> A Regulatory Impact Analysis has been prepared for this proposed rule and is also available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NOS-2025-0108.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kerry Kehoe, (240) 560-8518, <E T="03">kerry.kehoe@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> DSHMRA (30 U.S.C. 1401-1473) charges the NOAA Administrator with the responsibility for issuing to U.S. citizens licenses for exploration and permits for commercial recovery of polymetallic nodules from the deep seabed in areas beyond national jurisdiction. U.S. citizens must obtain appropriate licenses and permits from NOAA before undertaking deep seabed mining. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Mining activities within the U.S. outer continental shelf are governed by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1331-1356c), which is administered by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management within the Department of the Interior. The term “U.S. outer continental shelf” includes the extended continental shelf in areas adjacent to the U.S. States and is limited to the exclusive economic zone in areas adjacent to any territory of the United States. </FTNT> The International Seabed Authority (ISA) regulates deep seabed mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction for countries that are parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The United States is a non-party to UNCLOS. Under U.S. law, NOAA may issue licenses and permits to U.S. citizens in areas beyond national jurisdiction under DSHMRA, provided all statutory and regulatory requirements are met. On April 24, 2025, the President signed Executive Order (E.O.) 14285, “Unleashing America's Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources,” establishing policies to advance U.S. leadership in seabed mineral exploration and responsible commercial recovery. DSHMRA, which was signed into law in 1980, requires the NOAA Administrator to promulgate regulations as necessary to carry out the provisions of the Act. 30 U.S.C. 1468. NOAA published its DSHMRA exploration license regulations (15 CFR part 970) in 1981, and its commercial recovery permit regulations (15 CFR part 971) in 1989. As NOAA reasoned when proposing the commercial recovery permit regulations in 1986, priority of right is established through the licensing process, and the regulations provide that a permittee must be the holder of a valid exploration license in order to receive a commercial recovery permit (§ 971.103). At that time, the sequential nature of the licensing and permitting processes was dictated by the developmental state of deep seabed mining technology and the information required to prepare an application for commercial recovery. However, NOAA acknowledged that once the industry matured and gained experience from activities undertaken during site-specific exploration, circumstances may evolve that might allow later entrants to capitalize on the information gained by previous explorers and lessen the need for further exploration of previously explored areas. In such cases there may be a need for a consolidated license and permit review in which permit applicants could meet exploration license requirements to establish priority of right, and permit requirements, simultaneously. In 1986, consolidation of the two procedures was premature. However, NOAA included a reserved section (§ 971.214) for potential later development. See 51 FR 26794, 26796 (July 25, 1986). As the agency anticipated, over the past decades there has been a vast improvement in the technological capability for deep seabed mining, and the industry has obtained a substantial amount of information from deep seabed exploration activities and expressed a readiness for commercial recovery. For example, the development of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), deep sea sensors, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other technology has substantially improved the ability to more efficiently map and explore the sea floor. These improvements in technological abilities are likely to continue or accelerate in the future. At the same time, knowledge of the sea floor has also increased. Unlike when the regulations were first promulgated, today NOAA and many other entities operating under regimes other than DSHMRA have undertaken detailed mapping of areas of the seabed both within national boundaries and beyond national jurisdiction. In addition, industry has conducted scientific testing on polymetallic nodules, developed and tested new deep sea mining-relevant technology, and have gained scientific and technical expertise and experience in deep seabed mining exploration. This knowledge, experience, and expertise may now be leveraged by U.S. citizens operating under DSHMRA who are interested in pursuing commercial recovery of polymetallic nodules of the deep seabed in areas beyond national jurisdiction. The need for regulatory changes were foreseen by NOAA in the 1980s when it published its proposed and final rules for the DSHMRA commercial recovery permits by reserving a section for a consolidated license and permit review process in which permit applicants could meet necessary exploration license requirements to establish priority of right and permit requirements simultaneously. <E T="03">See</E> 15 CFR 971.214; 51 FR 26793, 26796. NOAA proposes to add that process as well as make changes to other obsolete sections of the license and permit regulations. This approach is consistent with DSHMRA, which does not require sequential licensing and permitting, and is in keeping with the Act's finding that “the present and future national interest of the United States requires the availability of hard mineral resources which is independent of the export policies of foreign nations,” 30 U.S.C. 1401(a)(3). The proposed changes do not alter the substantive standards to which applications would be held and include only technical changes to the regulatory text. NOAA requests comments on this proposed rule. NOAA also requests comments on the Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA), includ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 75k characters. 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