Ranking Member Amo Opening Statement at Hearing on Deep-Sea Mining
Environment Subcommittee Ranking Member Gabe Amo (D-RI) opening statement as prepared for the record:
Thank you, Chairman Franklin, for convening today’s hearing to discuss the state of science and technology surrounding deep-sea mining. And thank you to our witnesses for appearing before us today.
For Rhode Island, the ocean is our history, our economy, and our identity. It feeds our communities, supports our fishermen, drives tourism, and anchors a growing blue economy.
But it also reminds us of something deeper: that the ocean is not a collection of isolated parts. It is a single, interconnected system — an intricate web of animals, currents, chemistry, and human activity.
When change happens in one corner of that system, it does not stay there. It ripples outward, often in ways we do not fully understand. And that is precisely the challenge before us today.
The ocean covers more than 70% of our planet, yet we still know remarkably little about what lies beneath its surface. In fact, as one of our distinguished oceanographers on the panel today, Dr. Robert Ballard, has famously stated, we have better maps of Mars than we do of our own seafloor. The U.S. has only mapped 54% of its waters, and 64% of the global ocean remains unmapped – that is not a small knowledge gap; it is a vast unknown.
So, when we talk about deep-sea mining, about extracting minerals from some of the least understood environments on Earth, we must ask ourselves a basic question: do we truly understand the potential impacts enough to proceed responsibly?
Right now, the answer is no.
We cannot credibly claim that the U.S. has sufficient scientific data to begin commercial-scale deep-sea mining when: we do not know the full extent of deep-sea biodiversity, we do not fully understand how disturbances to the ocean floor and water column might affect fisheries, carbon cycling, or the food chains that end at our dinner tables, and we do not yet have comprehensive, long-term monitoring systems in place to detect and respond to those changes.
If we are serious about managing and protecting our oceans, we must start with knowledge.
We must invest in understanding what is happening beneath the waves, what ecosystems exist in the deep sea, how they function, and how they are connected to the broader ocean system.
That is why fully funding federal science agencies is so important. Facilities like NOAA’s new Marine Operations Center, under construction in my district, and assets such as the Okeanos Explorer research vessel are critical to expanding our ability to explore and monitor the deep ocean.
It is also why I, with Chairman Franklin, introduced the NOAA Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing Research Act. This legislation would create a coordinated research program to advance and strengthen American ocean observing capabilities. Without sustained, independent, and science-driven data, we are making decisions in the dark.
And let me be clear: this is not just about environmental protection, though that alone would be reason enough to act.
This is also about our economy – our fisheries depend on a healthy ocean, our coastal communities depend on stable and predictable marine environments, and our industries — from shipping to offshore energy – depend on science-based mapping. We need data to understand, predict, innovate, and responsibly manage our oceans. And right now, we do not have enough of it.
So, as we consider the future of deep-sea mining, let us ground ourselves in what we do not yet know. Let us acknowledge that there are more questions than answers. And let us commit to closing those gaps before moving forward in ways that could cause irreversible harm.
If we are to restore American leadership in deep-sea science and build a brighter blue economy, we must begin with a simple principle: we cannot manage what we do not understand. And right now, there is still so much left to learn.
Before I close, I ask for Unanimous Consent to permit Representative Ed Case of Hawaii to attend this hearing and ask questions of the witnesses.
Thank you, and I yield back.
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