The Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a large area of the Pacific seafloor between Hawaii and Mexico that is about 4,000 meters below the surface and is home to potato-sized rocks called polymetallic nodules that are dispersed throughout the abyssal plain like nature’s version of a hidden treasure map, has an almost cinematic quality. For many years, people talked more about those manganese, cobalt, nickel, and copper-rich nodules than they actually touched them. The economics was ineffective. The technology wasn’t prepared. Additionally, the regulatory route was, at most, a two-lane road through a fog of bureaucracy. That is now changing. Additionally, the change happened more quickly than most people anticipated.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration quietly released a final rule in the Federal Register on January 21, 2026, which reorganized the application process for deep seabed mining licenses for American businesses. The amendment, which is a direct result of President Trump’s executive order from April 2025 ordering agencies to “unleash America’s offshore critical minerals,” does something that may sound technical but has significant practical implications: it permits businesses to simultaneously apply for an exploration license and a commercial recovery permit through a single, integrated process. In the past, those two approvals had to be obtained in order: after years of exploration, separate applications had to be submitted in order to mine. The time between those two steps could be ten years or longer under the previous framework. On the administrative side alone, the new rule shortens that timeline by about 100 days, and in practical terms, it could be much longer.
It’s worth considering the true implications of that. Congress passed the first Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act in 1980, the year Mount St. Helens erupted and Ronald Reagan was elected. It was intended to serve as a stopgap measure while international treaty negotiations took place. The International Seabed Authority, which has spent the better part of three decades attempting to draft its own commercial mining regulations without ever finishing them, was born out of the Law of the Sea Convention, an international agreement that the United States never ratified. In the meantime, NOAA’s framework was mainly inactive. Exploration licenses were available to companies, but commercial mining permits were still only a theoretical idea. In reality, no one had ever gotten one.
The Metals Company, a Canadian-listed company that operates through its U.S. subsidiary, seems committed to being the first. TMC submitted a combined application for a commercial recovery permit and an exploration license for polymetallic nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone just one day after the consolidated rule went into effect. Through partnerships with the Pacific Island nations of Tonga and Nauru, the company already has ISA exploration contracts, but those agreements fall far short of approving commercial production. In essence, TMC’s wager is that rather than waiting for the ISA to finalize international regulations that have been “almost done” for years, NOAA’s domestic framework offers a quicker and more certain route to actually extracting minerals. What NOAA does next will determine whether or not that wager is profitable. However, the fact that TMC moved in less than a day indicates that the business had been planning for this event for a while.
Observing all of this gives me the impression that the worldwide competition for essential minerals has finally reached the ocean floor in a significant, institutional manner. The cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese found in those nodules are precisely the materials that battery producers, defense contractors, and the electric vehicle industry are rushing to obtain. On land, those supply chains pass through geopolitically complex locations, such as Indonesia and the Philippines for nickel, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for cobalt. The argument for deep seabed mining has always been that the ocean floor provides a technically feasible, politically neutral substitute. A functional U.S. regulatory path now supports that pitch, at least in part.
Environmental review is consolidated rather than eliminated by NOAA’s rule. The agency can now issue a single Environmental Impact Statement that covers both phases of activity, eliminating the need for separate EISs for exploration and commercial recovery. Sequential reviews, according to some environmental commentators, are necessary because you learn things during exploration that should help you decide whether to mine at all. Recognizing the issue, NOAA maintained the authority to demand additional reviews on an individual basis. During the rulemaking process, more than 24,000 public comments were submitted, an impressive amount for what most people would consider to be a specialized regulatory process. Industry representatives, environmental organizations, Indigenous communities, and scientists all offered their opinions. That degree of involvement implies that, even as it progresses, this will not be a quiet permitting story.
There are actual and poorly understood ecological stakes. One of the world’s least researched large ecosystems is the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Concerns regarding sediment plumes—clouds of disturbed seafloor material that can travel great distances and suffocate filter-feeding organisms—have been raised by previous testing. Instead of dredging, TMC’s nodule collection system uses a suction mechanism that directs collected material up a riser pipe to the surface vessel while returning excess water and sediment to about 2,000 meters below the most productive ocean layers, according to the company. It’s still up for debate whether that design truly reduces ecological harm at scale. Whether the environmental monitoring tools available today are adequate to identify damage over the critical time periods for deep ocean ecosystems is still up for debate.
The response has been sharp on a global scale. In a 35-page response to developments surrounding TMC’s application, the ISA stated unequivocally that any commercial exploitation of the deep seabed outside of its authorization framework would be illegal under international law. France, Brazil, and China have all expressed support for the ISA’s stance. Citing Reagan’s 1983 declaration that deep seabed mining is a legitimate exercise of freedom of the high seas, the United States has upheld its long-standing position that it is not bound by the Law of the Sea Convention’s provisions on the subject. Although it puts American businesses operating under NOAA licenses in a difficult diplomatic position, that argument is legally defendable from a U.S. standpoint.
According to NOAA’s own estimates, the rule changes would only have a significant impact on roughly seven businesses in the near future, with no more than ten applicants anticipated over the following ten years. If critical mineral competition increases, as most indicators point to, those estimates may prove to be conservative. Additionally, the agency projects about two new exploration applications annually in the future. This figure appears optimistic considering the capacity of the industry today, but it might represent real private-sector discussions that haven’t yet been made public.
In reality, the consolidated permitting process dispels the myth that commercial recovery and exploration are wholly independent choices. That sequential framework made sense in 1980 because the geology was poorly mapped, the technology was uncertain, and ten years of exploration might actually show that commercial mining was not viable. By 2026, firms such as TMC have already invested hundreds of millions of dollars and years in mapping the CCZ using exploration contracts issued by ISA. The information gap that previously supported a two-step procedure is now mostly closed. Even though the environmental and diplomatic issues surrounding deep seabed mining are still unresolved, NOAA’s rule recognizes that reality.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that the ocean floor, one of the planet’s last truly uncharted territories, is turning into the next stage of the resource competition that has influenced land-based geopolitics for centuries. It is genuinely unclear whether the consolidated process results in the first commercial recovery permit within the next two years or becomes entangled in environmental review and litigation. However, as of January 21st, the door is open. The businesses that are waiting on the opposite side seem prepared to cross it.
