U.S. Offshore Mineral Policies Become Streamlined by Department of Interior

In June of 2025, the United States Department of Interior released new steps in a policy to hasten the search and development of minerals found in offshore mining. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, or BSEE, actively oversee changes in policy that are supposed to allow for the rapid and easier offshore mining process that will improve the sector while cutting time spent waiting drastically. In some cases, this includes identifying potential development areas without any formal information request or a state/federal task force to research the area first.  

On top of that, the more detailed reports of such environmental impacts can be pushed further out in an effort to reduce delays. Permits for the land leased to mine will be upscaled to five years instead of the allowed three and some leasing fees may even be waived. Both the BOEM and BSEE are supplemented with the U.S. Geological Survey, or USGS. The USGS studies mineral rich areas not only in the sea but on land as well. They study what impact those mineral rich areas have on ecosystems they are found in as well as what potential impacts mining those minerals will be.  

Offshore, and potentially deepsea, mineral mining can have an impact on a number of different aspects of this world. First, the minerals obtained from such endeavors — Cobalt, copper, lead, etc., directly link to minerals needed for today’s societal needs and improvements. Think: electric infrastructure like power grids or conductors in chips. These currently are needed to make headway in this sector.  

Second, these minerals can also lead to economic growth. For example, if the US mined for these minerals more than other countries and obtained them, they can gain wealth either by the minerals being used in goods like conductors or the selling of said minerals to others. 

Shifting focus to the third aspect, the mining done to gather these minerals has and will continue to have an environmental impact. The exact scale of impact is unknown, but researchers agree that mining for these will have adverse effects. Current methods used to obtain minerals in the oceans can crush organisms, suck up sediment and small ocean life — thus displacing animals or destroying organism’s habitats — and would create sound pollution that can also negatively impact the migration or feeding habits of sound sensitive animals such as a pod of whales who use sound to locate and communicate with others.  

Such impacts to ocean life may also impact human life. If there is habitat loss or displacement of smaller organisms that act as food for larger fish, there is precedent of a larger risk of reduction in overall fish populations. This in turn means that there will be less fish to gather for human consumption. Smaller life like plankton can be sucked up during mining. If the loss of plankton is great enough, then the oceans, which is the world’s largest carbon sink (~25%), could potentially lose effectiveness and global carbon will increase even faster than it currently is.  

This is on track with the current administration’s plan to strengthen the U.S.’ energy sector — energy that stems from more traditional fossil fuel sources such as coal and natural gas.  

The International Seabed Authority, a body associated with the U.N., oversees international waters due to the treaty known as the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea. As of this article’s writing, they have yet to comment on any policies or guidelines related to deepsea mineral mining in international waters. Though, regardless of their ruling, the U.S. is not a member of the treaty and is not bound to follow their guidelines. What will happen after they state their rulings is yet to be seen.  

While these minerals are important to society as a whole, we have not reached a point where we need to mine them off land. The impacts of the minerals’ large scale sea mining can only be speculated right now. However, if this policy does speed up mining and the amount able to be mined, the effects may be felt long before the ability for proper research is concluded.