The Department of Interior is accepting public input on its potential offshore minerals lease sale until 7:59PM Alaska time on April 1st, 2026.
Public comment template
✍️ Use the bullets below to craft your custom message! The more personalized and unique your comment, the more weight it carries.
NOTE: It's critical that you avoid copy and pasting everything below, as any letters with too much identical text will only be counted as a single submission, weakening your individual voice. Use what resonates, mix up the order, and most importantly write what's personal to you!
Begin your comment with a version of the following:
Thank you for the opportunity to submit input for the Department of the Interior’s Commercial Leasing for Outer Continental Shelf Minerals Offshore Alaska—Request for Information and Interest [Docket No. BOEM–2025–0318].
I am a [coastal resident / commercial fisherman / tribal member / student / Alaskan / etc.] from [city/community], Alaska, and I strongly urge the Bureau NOT to advance any lease sales for minerals on the Alaska Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
Here are some additional prompts to get you thinking as you describe your opposition to seabed mining in your own words:
Alaska’s oceans support species and ecosystems that are foundational to Alaska Native peoples, coastal communities, and some of the world’s most productive fisheries.
Seabed mining is a speculative and experimental industry that is not operating commercially anywhere in the world. Mining would destroy seafloor habitat and generate sediment plumes that can spread far beyond mining sites.
Any seabed mineral extraction in Alaska waters would pose serious risks to the state’s ecosystems, threaten fisheries, and undermine long-standing cultural and economic lifelines.
Alaska communities will get no jobs from seabed mining — just the pollution. Minerals likely would be processed in other countries while habitat important to us is wrecked.
The commercial fishing industry already has agreed not to bottom fish in many of these areas because the seafloor features – like seamounts – are so important. It’s unacceptable for a different part of the federal government to come in and propose strip mining them.
Alaska is the last state – not the first – where seabed mining should be considered. Targeting Alaska’s oceans, which provide half of America’s seafood and support coastal communities across the state, is wrong.
Only One will submit your name and message to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on regulations.gov (Docket BOEM-2025-0318). Since this is a public consultation, your name and information may be publicly disclosed. For more information, please see the Privacy Notice and User Notice available on regulations.gov.
