The Metals Company Inc. (Nasdaq: TMC), an explorer of the world’s largest estimated undeveloped source of critical battery metals, has welcomed a letter from around 350 former US government officials and military officers.
The letter urges the US Senate to re-evaluate a formal vote on ratifying the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) treaty.
The letter, which follows this week’s introduction of the Responsible Use of Seafloor Resources Act (RUSRA) in Congress, was signed by around 189 American ambassadors, 73 generals, 50 admirals, four directors of national intelligence and other distinguished supporters.
Recently, increasing US investment in and prioritization of offshore mineral exploration has been codified through the formation of various bodies including the National Ocean Mapping, Exploration, and Characterization (NOMEC) Council in 2020, the Ocean Policy Committee (OPC), formed via direction of the National Defense Authorization Act in 2021, and the declaration of outer limits of the US extended continental shelf in 2023, which declared US rights to approximately one million square kilometers of subsea territory in an effort to protect future economic opportunities.
Although the US has yet to approve UNCLOS — a legislative step that would enable it to access the vast, untapped critical minerals found in seafloor nodules in international waters — it can still process and refine critical minerals extracted from polymetallic nodules collected in international waters.
Furthermore, in December last year, President Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act, through which the House Armed Services Committee directed the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy to submit a report to the Committee to assess “the processing of seabed resources of polymetallic nodules domestically.”
The Metals Company is an explorer of lower-impact battery metals from seafloor polymetallic nodules, on a dual mission to supply metals for the global energy transition with the least possible negative impacts on planet and people and to trace, recover and recycle the metals the company supplies to help create a metals commons that can be used permanently.
To find out more, please visit www.metals.co.
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