Guam senators will hold a hearing next week on a resolution opposing seabed mining in the waters east of the Mariana Islands.
The United States wants to accelerate the acquisition of critical minerals - primarily cobalt, copper and nickel – that are essential for high-tech devices, green energy and national defense.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has asked local residents, agencies and interested mining companies to comment on a proposal to lease an area near the Mariana Trench so companies can extract these minerals.
Last week, a bipartisan group of Guam’s political leaders issued a statement against the proposal, agreeing on a unified opposition.
In the Legislature, 10 senators have introduced a resolution reaffirming the 2021 call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining. The resolution states that the 60-day comment period is insufficient for meaningful consideration, and that deep-sea mining operations pose environmental and ecological risk.
The document states that the federal proposal is “legally flawed, scientifically unsound, and gravely disrespectful to the Indigenous peoples of the Marianas.”
A hearing on the resolution will be held at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 7.
So far, more than 1,000 comments have been submitted on the proposal. The deadline to comment is Jan. 12.