A coalition of environmentalists and community advocates sued the federal government Tuesday in an effort to halt the first-ever commercial sale of deep sea mining leases in American waters.
The Marine Minerals Administration, which oversees offshore mineral mining, last month announced plans to sell mining leases for 31 million acres of seabed in the Pacific Ocean off American Samoa, in U.S. territorial waters. The lawsuit challenges a finding by the National Marine Fisheries Service that mining “is not likely to adversely affect” species protected by the Endangered Species Act. That finding greenlit the sale.
Parts of the ocean floor are blanketed by fist-sized nodules that contain valuable minerals including nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper, which are essential to the manufacture of advanced technologies that the United States considers critical for both economic competitiveness and military security.
President Trump has made seabed mining a priority of his administration.
The plaintiffs, Fa’asao Amerika Samoa, a group that advocates for protecting American Samoan culture and natural resources, and Conservation Council for Hawai’i, both represented by the national environmental law group Earthjustice, argued that the government’s determination was “arbitrary and unlawful,” and included no analysis of the effects that mineral exploration, testing, surveying or eventual mining of the leased seabed could have on endangered species, including blue whales and sea turtles.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii.
Had the National Marine Fisheries Service considered the effects of eventual mining, the agency would have had to do a full biological opinion with analysis of the potential effects of mining, said Chris Eaton, a senior attorney at Earthjustice. That analysis, Mr. Eaton said, would also have considered measures to offset the effects of mining on wildlife and the environment.
The United States government is “rushing ahead with this without actually paying attention to any of the effects,” Mr. Eaton said. The plaintiffs asked the court to vacate the finding by the fisheries service, saying it violated aspects of the Endangered Species Act.
The National Marine Fisheries Service, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, declined to comment on the filing Tuesday. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose department oversees NOAA and who is also a defendant in the lawsuit, did not respond to a request for comment.
If the suit is successful, it could slow any lease sale by compelling the administration to consider the potential effects on endangered species of not only the leasing but also the exploration and mining itself, said Stephen Roady, a senior lecturing fellow at Duke University School of Law.
The sale is planned for November.
Seumalu Elora Raymond, a spokesperson for Fa’asao Amerika Samoa, said the group wants to assure that the government “will take seriously how much research needs to be done for this to be contemplated,” adding that seabed mining “has to be done prudently, thoughtfully and with lots of study and discussion and restraint, if it’s to be done at all.”
The lawsuit comes as the Marine Minerals Administration on Monday separately announced another proposed lease sale in federal waters, off the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, north of Guam. The administration is also considering lease sales in U.S. waters off Alaska and Virginia.
To encourage seabed mining, Mr. Trump last April signed an executive order that called for the United States to become a “global leader in seabed mineral exploration and development both within and beyond national jurisdiction.” That order instructed NOAA, which oversees mining permits, to expedite approvals for mining companies.
The prospect of commercial-scale mining of the ocean floor has sparked global concern from environmentalists. Seabed mining requires new and advanced machinery with the potential to “destroy nearly all life in its path,” the filing argued. Critics also fear that plumes of sediment kicked up by mining equipment could spread underwater, harming deep sea ecosystems.
American Samoa, a U.S. territory in the South Pacific, has maintained a moratorium on mining since 2024, citing “significant risks to marine biodiversity.” Globally, more than 45 countries have called for a moratorium, ban or precautionary pause on seabed mining, including France, Germany and Canada.
A deep sea mining firm, California-based Impossible Metals, had last year requested the lease sale off American Samoa. The company did not respond to a request for comment on the filing Tuesday.
The International Seabed Authority, an intergovernmental organization, has for decades attempted to negotiate rules to regulate mining in international waters. But the United States is not a party to that effort, and has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the international treaty governing the use of marine resources.
Last August, 130 scientists signed a letter opposing seabed mining, urging the U.S. government not to lease areas off the coast of American Samoa for mining.
“The full consequences of deep sea mining for our ocean are still far from clear,” the scientists wrote.
