The American Seabed Protection Act would ban deep seabed and Outer Continental Shelf mining for minerals, protecting vast ocean areas from exploration and commercial extraction activities. The bill makes an exception only for scientific research, allowing studies to continue while prohibiting any mining operations. The legislation requires the Secretary of Commerce to contract with the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine within 90 days to conduct a comprehensive environmental study on how seabed mining affects ocean ecosystems, marine life, fishing industries, greenhouse gas storage, and indigenous communities. The study must also evaluate alternatives to deep seabed minerals, such as recycling, substitute materials, and cleaner terrestrial mining practices. The bill is based on findings that deep seabed mining poses major risks to marine environments through habitat destruction, sediment plumes, noise pollution, and potential contamination of fish stocks, with current scientific knowledge still insufficient to fully understand the consequences.
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