NOAA moves ahead on offshore critical minerals

NOAA (the National Atmospheric and Oceans Administration) yesterday reported two key steps it is taking to implement President Trump’s April 24, 2025, Executive Order, Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources.

On the regulatory front, NOAA announced revisions to the regulations for exploration licenses and commercial recovery permit applications under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHMRA), a widely anticipated milestone in NOAA’s effort to streamline the deep seabed mining permitting framework.

Final rule published

Under the final rule published in the Federal Register, an eligible applicant may either use:

1. The current two-step sequential process where an applicant first applies for and obtains an exploration license and then applies for the commercial recovery permit; or
2. The new consolidated application process where an an eligible applicant applies for and obtains the exploration license and commercial recovery permit at the same time.

NOAA to map critical mineral deposits in deep waters off American Samoa

In a parallel development announced yesterday, NOAA’s National Ocean Service announced a new hydrographic survey project to map and characterize more than 30,000 square nautical miles of federal waters off American Samoa.

“NOAA is proud to play a leading role in the President’s plan unlocking access to critical minerals for domestic supply chains,” said Neil Jacobs, Ph.D., NOAA administrator. “This project highlights NOAA’s strong impact on economic resilience as we invest in research that supports sustainable deep sea mining practices and allows partners to better understand their marine environments.”

NOAA contractor NV5, a current hydrographic survey services vendor, will begin survey work in February 2026. NOAA will use approximately $20M of fiscal year 2025 funding to produce publicly accessible maps, images and samples of the marine environment off the coast of American Samoa. These products will serve to inform NOAA, other federal agencies and interested parties of the critical mineral deposits and relative prospectivity of the surveyed area. This effort, says NOAA, will generate high-quality and transparent deep-ocean data that will help to increase the baseline understanding of the federal waters off American Samoa’s deep-ocean environment, and will stimulate further exploration, research and management projects, including activities related to deep sea minerals.

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