Environmentalists Sue to Halt First Sale of Seabed-Mining Rights
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- Fa'asao Amerika Samoa and Conservation Council for Hawai'i, represented by Earthjustice, filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii seeking to vacate a National Marine Fisheries Service finding that seabed mining "is not likely to adversely affect" endangered species.
- The Marine Minerals Administration last month announced plans to sell mining leases for 31 million acres of seabed in U.S. territorial waters off American Samoa in the Pacific Ocean — the first commercial seabed-mining lease sale in American waters.
- The plaintiffs argue the fisheries service's determination was "arbitrary and unlawful" because it included no analysis of how exploration, testing, surveying, or mining could affect blue whales, sea turtles, and other protected species.
- Earthjustice senior attorney Chris Eaton said the government is "rushing ahead with this without actually paying attention to any of the effects," noting that a full biological opinion analyzing mining effects and offsetting measures would have been legally required had the agency considered those impacts.
- The targeted seabed contains fist-sized nodules rich in nickel, cobalt, manganese, and copper — minerals the United States considers critical for economic competitiveness and military security.
- President Trump has made seabed mining a priority of his administration, setting up a legal collision with groups arguing the Endangered Species Act was bypassed in the lease-sale greenlight.
Why it matters: This lawsuit puts the Trump administration's seabed-mining push directly on trial. The plaintiffs argue a full biological opinion — analyzing mining's effects on endangered species and identifying offsetting measures — was legally required before any lease sale, a step the fisheries service skipped when it greenlit the 31-million-acre auction. If the court agrees, the administration must redo its environmental review before the first commercial seabed-mining lease sale in U.S. waters can proceed.
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