Commercial Leasing for Outer Continental Shelf Minerals Offshore the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands-Request for Information and Interest

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Ocean Energy Management</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. BOEM-2025-0351]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Commercial Leasing for Outer Continental Shelf Minerals Offshore the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands—Request for Information and Interest</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Request for information and interest. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is initiating the first steps that could potentially lead to a lease sale for minerals on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) offshore the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) by publishing this request for information and interest (RFI). This RFI is not a final decision to lease and does not prejudge any future Secretarial decisions concerning leasing on the OCS offshore the CNMI. This RFI requests information and comments on, and indications of interest in, the leasing of OCS minerals in an area offshore the CNMI, referred to as the RFI Area, with details in section 5 “Description of the RFI Area.” BOEM will consider information and interest received in response to this RFI when considering whether to proceed with additional steps leading to an offer of OCS minerals for lease offshore the CNMI. Those interested in providing comments or information should provide the information requested in section 6, “Types of Information and Comments Requested,” of this RFI. Those interested in leasing in and around the RFI Area for OCS mineral development should provide the information described in section 7, “Requested Information for Indications of Interest.” BOEM may or may not offer a lease for commercial OCS mineral development offshore the CNMI after further consultations, public participation, and environmental analyses. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> BOEM must receive all comments, information, and indications of interest in response to this RFI no later than December 12, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Please submit indications of interest in commercial leasing electronically via email to <E T="03">Pacific.Region@boem.gov</E> or by hard copy by mail to the following address: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Pacific Region, Office of Strategic Resources, 760 Paseo Camarillo (CM 102), Camarillo, California 93010. If you elect to mail a hard copy, also include an electronic copy on a portable storage device. Do not submit indications of interest via the Federal eRulemaking Portal. Please submit all other comments and information as discussed in section 6, entitled, “Types of Information and Comments Requested,” by either of the following two methods: 1. Federal eRulemaking Portal: <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> In the search box at the top of the web page, enter BOEM-2025-0351 and then click “search.” Follow the instructions to submit public comments and to view supporting and related materials. 2. By mail to the following address: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Pacific Region, Office of Strategic Resources, 760 Paseo Camarillo (CM 102), Camarillo, California 93010. Treatment of confidential information is addressed in section 8 of this notice entitled, “Protection of Privileged, Personal, or Confidential Information.” BOEM will post all comments received on <E T="03">regulations.gov,</E> unless the comments are labeled as confidential and BOEM determines that an exemption from disclosure applies. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jennifer Miller, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Pacific Region, Office of Strategic Resources, 760 Paseo Camarillo (CM 102), Camarillo, California 93010, at <E T="03">Pacific.Region@boem.gov</E> or (805) 384-6305. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The OCS Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1331 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) declares that it is the policy of the United States that the OCS “is a vital national resource reserve held by the Federal Government for the public, which should be made available for expeditious and orderly development, subject to environmental safeguards, in a manner which is consistent with the maintenance of competition and other national needs.” <E T="03">Id.</E> at 1332(3). BOEM requests information and comments from Indigenous communities, territory, state, and local governments, Federal agencies, environmental and other public interest organizations, the deep-sea mineral mining industry, other interested organizations and entities, and the public, for use in the consideration of whether to offer OCS minerals for lease offshore the CNMI. BOEM is seeking a wide array of information, including but not limited to information on the potential impact of OCS mineral exploration and development on OCS resources and the marine, coastal, and human environments. This RFI is published under the OCS Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. 1337(k)(1), and its implementing regulations at 30 CFR 581.12. <HD SOURCE="HD1">1. Public Comment Procedure</HD> BOEM's strong preference is to receive comments via <E T="03">regulations.gov,</E> except when a comment contains proprietary information. Comments should include the full name and address of the individual submitting the comment(s). 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 submitted voluntarily by the sender will be publicly accessible. If you would like BOEM to withhold your personal identifying information, please state so prominently as described below in Section 8. BOEM cannot guarantee that we will be able to withhold any voluntarily submitted information. Even if BOEM withholds your information in the context of this RFI, your submission is subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and if your submission is requested under the FOIA, your information will only be withheld if a determination is made that one of the FOIA's exemptions to disclosure applies. Such a determination will be made in accordance with the Department's FOIA regulations and applicable law. <HD SOURCE="HD1">2. Background Information</HD> Section 8(k) of the OCS Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1337(k)) authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to grant leases on the OCS to qualified persons offering the highest cash bonuses for minerals other than oil, gas, and sulfur on a competitive basis. The Trump Administration recognizes that an overreliance on foreign critical minerals and their derivative products could jeopardize U.S. defense capabilities, infrastructure development, and technological innovation. To support and facilitate domestic production of critical minerals, President Trump has issued a series of Executive Orders (E.O.s), including E.O. 14156, “Declaring a National Energy Emergency” (January 20, 2025); E.O. 14154, “Unleashing American Energy” (January 20, 2025); and E.O. 14285, “Unleashing America's Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources” (April 24, 2025). The Secretary of the Interior also issued Secretary's Order (SO) 3417, “Addressing the National Energy Emergency,” (February 3, 2025) and SO 3418, “Unleashing American Energy,” (February 3, 2025) which direct Department of the Interior (DOI) bureaus to facilitate and expedite critical mineral permitting, leasing, and ultimately development of critical minerals on the OCS. In response to the EOs and SOs, BOEM is taking immediate action to accelerate the responsible development of OCS mineral resources, advance American leadership in associated extraction technologies, and ensure secure supply chains for U.S. defense, infrastructure, and energy sectors with the publication of this RFI. Earlier this year, BOEM initiated the process for a potential lease sale offshore American Samoa with the publication of an RFI on Commercial Leasing for OCS minerals offshore American Samoa; please refer to the RFI (Docket No. BOEM-2025-0035) published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 25369) on June 16, 2025, for more information. Additional information on American Samoa activities can be found at: <E T="03">https://www.boem.gov/American-Samoa.</E> BOEM will advance America's national security and future prosperity through the identification of and access to OCS minerals, which include those minerals identified as critical minerals by Federal statute. Pursuant to Section 7002 of the Energy Act of 2020 (Pub. L. 116-260, Division Z), critical minerals are defined as any minerals, elements, substances, or materials that are determined to be essential to the economic and national security of the United States, have a supply chain vulnerable to disruption, and play an essential role in manufacturing a product whose absence would significantly affect U.S. economic or national security. The Secretary of the Interior, through the U.S. Geological Survey, identified 50 critical minerals in February 24, 2022 (87 FR 10381). According to a 2025 Congressional Research Service report (Report No. R48302) up to 37 of these minerals may occur on the OCS. The list of critical minerals is being updated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and may change during the publication period of this notice. Section 50251(b) of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 expanded the definition of the OCS under the OCS Lands Act to include submerged lands within the Exclusive Economic Zone adjacent to U.S. territories and amended the OCS Lands Act by modifying the definition of “State” to include each of the 50 States of the Union, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, and the CNMI. BOEM will coordinate with the Government of the CNMI throughout the OCS mineral leasing process relating to the area proposed for l ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 29k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━