Washington Must Not Auction Samoa’s Ocean Blind, by Fransiscus Nanga Roka

Washington may need more minerals, but that doesn’t give it the right to expend American Samoa’s ocean. If a government is serious about secure supply chains, it ought to emulate one that prizes making sure its extraction strategy does not erode the communities whose waters make it so possible.

It was on August 18, 2026, that the National Marine Fisheries Service and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick were sued in Hawaiʻi’s federal district court by both of those groups — also known as Conservation Council for Hawaiʻi. Earthjustice is calling it the first lawsuit against deep-sea mining in U.S. waters. The immediate target is NMFS’s finding that the proposed leasing action will not likely adversely affect protected species. These are allegations in dispute, not judicial findings.

This would allow the sale of some 31 million-plus acres – or nearly 12.5 million hectares – on the Outer Continental Shelf off American Samoa for a proposed November 19 lease sale. The difference is important — the figure is huge without inflating it through a math conversion error.

The complaint reveals a regulatory cheat that could be tragic. The plaintiffs claim NMFS simply issued a four-page concurrence letter without analyzing exploration activities over the sea floor, and omitted review of any mining. They are hoping to have that determination outlawed and unenforceable under the Endangered Species Act and Administrative Procedure Act.

The key question is: how does an agency delineate the action it reviews? If leasing opens the door to extraction, restricting analysis to scouting activities may comport with only those consequences that make it a consequential decision.

This would privatize the bargain we struck, whereby relatively unencumbered access can be sold first and foreseeable damage settled later: an administrative afterthought.

Earthjustice says the destruction of habitat, underwater noise, artificial light, sediment plumes and possibly poisonous discharges. Healthy ocean ecosystems are vital for the food systems and cultural practices of American Samoan communities. Those concerns should be taken seriously; general assurances that no ill effects will happen everywhere or the wild speculation that every planned operation will lead to global catastrophe is not a substitute for data relevant to the operations under discussion.

The political imbalance is stark. From Washington, federal officials can encourage mineral development while Island communities deal with the potential environmental consequences. A consultation where residents are consulted on a decision but have no power to influence it is an empty one.

The demand for strategic minerals should be taken seriously. It cannot be a password that gives access to ecosystems prior to an understanding of their fragility. Policymakers will need to show that if seabed extraction is to be preferable, at the very least it needs to be better than recycling, material substitution, demand reduction and alternate sourcing (factoring in the environmental and social costs of every example).

Five measures should follow.

Initially, the administration needs to hold off on transfer until adequate species review legally complete. The court would, as in its ASA decision, evaluate the challenged concurrence relative to the administrative record and applicable law.

Second, agencies should assess anticipated direct effects of exploration and extraction, including cumulative stressors and beyond the bounds of existing leases where the law requires.

Third, baseline ecological verifications should be accepted from independent researchers and the data underneath and uncertainty published. Transparent scrutiny of industry-funded studies

Fourth, providing American Samoan fishers, cultural practitioners and traditional leaders with resources to participate productively. Congress should ensure local determination of projects with risks of irreparable damage to what are deemed national treasures.

Finally, the authorisation should be conditioned on liabilities commensurate with risk, provision of financial security and not-conflicting independent monitoring organisation operating entailing suspension thresholds. Compensation should never be an upfront payment for the right to ravage.

A challenge that produces a favorable outcome would be binding on all other leases, but only if they involve the same issues — it would not necessarily ban every project in sight.

The wider principle is unquestionable: scientific uncertainty cannot be turned into commercial entitlement.

Washington must make its case before it auctions off the ocean We must not allow American Samoa to be where America locks up minerals, exporting the risk this time to our own people.

Fransiscus Nanga Roka

Faculty of Law University 17 August 1945 Surabaya and managing Partner Law Firm Victorious Indonesia