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Author: Admin | 2025-04-27
White House. In 2012, Groves testified that the U.S. didn't need anyone's permission to mine the seabed. His views haven't changed.Steven Groves: What businessman in their right mind said, "I'm going to invest tens of billions of dollars into a company that I will then have to go and ask permission from an international organization to engage in deep seabed mining?"John Bellinger: But no general counsel, no board of a company uh, if faced with a clear right under a treaty that says, "You can go and do this" or taking an action that's flatly contrary to the treaty of course the companies are going to say, "I want to take the clearly lawful route before I invest billions of dollars." Lawyer John Bellinger told us U.S. companies interested in mining the seabed want the legal guarantees of the treaty. But even as other countries move ahead, Steven Groves insists American companies are staying away—not because the U.S. hasn't ratified a treaty—but because deep sea mining isn't viable. Steven Groves: If China wants to go and think that's it's economically feasible to drag those nodules up to the surface and process them, let them do it. The United States has decided to stay out of the game. The one U.S. company that had rights to the deep seabed got out of the game, that's Lockheed Martin.Bill Whitaker: U.S. companies will tell you it's because there's uncertainty. Steven Groves: What U.S. companies?Bill Whitaker: Lockheed.Steven Groves: Lockheed is out of the game.Bill Whitaker: Lockheed will tell you that their investors—Groves: Lockheed quit.Whitaker: their—their counsel all say, "If we don't have this treaty, we're not—we're not getting into this."Groves: They're already out of it. They quit. Whitaker: Because we are not supporting them in any way.Groves: Well that's a business decision they made. Steven Groves 60 Minutes Lockheed Martin has not quit. The defense giant had rights to four Pacific seabed sites. It sold two and is holding on to two in case the treaty passes. But Lockheed told us if the U.S. doesn't ratify the treaty, it can't dive in. Ambassador John Negroponte told us the Heritage Foundation is standing in the way.John Negroponte: What Heritage is saying is we don't even want to give 'em a chance. We have—we know the answer already. And I, you know, I think that's sort of hypothetical thinking. The pragmatic approach would be to say, "Okay, let us have access and see what happens."Bill Whitaker: And we could end up being even more dependent than we are today on China for access to these minerals?John Negroponte: If they end up being the largest producer and we're not producing at all that might place us in a—in a difficult economic position.But national security fears of China's growing prowess in the deep are about more than mining. In March, a letter signed by 346 former political, national security and military leaders, warned that China was taking advantage of America's absence from the treaty to pursue overall naval
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