Thousands of miles from the closest federal office building, a group from Pacific Island partners and Greenpeace gathered in a small radio studio early on a January morning in American Samoa. They had come to hear. They were invited by local leaders to hear what communities had been saying for years about the ocean that surrounds, supports, and, in many ways, defines them, rather than to give talking points. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management met separately up the street a few hours later. Officials were guided through an existing leasing process by the agency. The distance between those two events was difficult to ignore.
The majority of the story is revealed by that gap. The unincorporated U.S. territory of American Samoa, which is located about halfway between Hawaii and Australia, has been nearly unanimous in its opposition to deep-sea mining in its territorial waters. Nearly every important voice has stated unequivocally and publicly that they do not want this, including the governor, local lawmakers, community members, and Indigenous leaders.
Over 76,000 public comments were received by BOEM regarding its leasing proposal. The vast majority cautioned about harm to the environment and culture. Despite the concerns, the agency nearly doubled the size of the potential lease area. Officials just don’t know enough about what’s down there, was the stated explanation. Admitting that while speeding up a process is amazing.
Over two dozen locals gathered in the village of Utulei on the eastern shore of Tutuila in August 2025 to listen to a mining executive from San Jose speak via Zoom. As a community benefit from mining operations about 130 miles offshore, Oliver Gunasekara, co-founder of Impossible Metals, offered 1% of projected profits, potentially $10 million a year. A woman from the area got up and said it was offensive. “This is our ocean,” she declared. Gunasekara defended the offer by arguing that it was voluntary and not required by law. That framing did not make the room feel cozy. Observing conversations like this one gives the impression that the two parties aren’t even having the same conversation.
Here, the political architecture is important. American Samoa is a territory of the United States. Representative Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, its representative to Congress, has a seat but no voting power. There is absolutely no Senate representation for U.S. territories. American Samoans are completely subject to executive orders signed in Washington, but they had no say in the 2024 presidential election. American Samoa was pulled into a process it never consented to when Trump issued his order in April 2025 to accelerate the deep-sea mining industry. Indigenous peoples have the right to approve projects that impact their lands and waters under international frameworks. Instead, the Department of the Interior has proposed consultation, which, according to BOEM, can result in a lease being approved despite community opposition.
The day following BOEM’s visit to American Samoa, Pacific Island delegates expressed their opinions clearly at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing. Radewagen recounted the traditional tale of a mother and daughter who swam to Tutuila after changing into a shark and a turtle, claiming that she stood with the locals to defend them. Legislators were reminded by Kimberlyn King-Hinds of the Northern Mariana Islands that decisions made regarding the Pacific Ocean are final. “We don’t get the luxury of being wrong,” she replied. These weren’t justifications for granting permits more slowly. They were survival-related disputes.
At the same hearing, industry voices demanded regulatory stability because permits are hard to change, even if science advances or public opposition increases. The Metals Company’s Gerard Barron commended expedited permitting. The contrast was so striking that it was almost educational.
Federal officials may sincerely think that the mineral wealth on the seafloor—cobalt, nickel, and manganese nodules required for battery technology—justifies moving forward. The strategic reasoning is not imperceptible. However, a procedure that views community opposition as a box to be checked rather than a requirement to be met is not consultation. It’s documentation. Additionally, history indicates that it is almost impossible to reverse a lease once it has been issued; in previous federal attempts to do so, courts have sided with developers. American Samoa might be more of a model than a test case.
