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The U.S. Senate in April 16 voted to overturn a 20-year ban on mining on federal forest near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The vote draws Chilean-owned Twin Metals a step closer to gaining permits to open an underground copper mine near Ely, Minnesota, close to the protected wilderness.
The resolution, sponsored by Minnesota Republican Rep. Pete Stauber, fulfils a promise by President Donald Trump, who campaigned in 2024 to repeal a three-year-old moratorium on mining issued by the Biden administration, which was concerned that discharges from of sulfide mining would contaminate the region’s surface and groundwater.
Twin Metals, a subsidiary of the giant Chilean mining company Antofagasta, has been working for more than a decade to open a mine along the shore of Birch Lake, about seven miles east of Ely.
As Circle of Blue explained in an article in February there’s more riding on the Senate vote than one mine in Minnesota. By ending the mining moratorium the Senate significantly advanced the president’s goal of accelerating development of coal, oil, timber, and minerals on public lands across the U.S., and seriously diminishing the government’s ability to protect America’s cleanest waters, most exquisite forests, and wildest natural landscapes.
That’s because Republicans deployed the Congressional Review Act (CRA), a 30-year-old statute that gives Congress the authority to hastily review and approve resolutions to nullify federal agency rules. In the 20 years between the law’s passage and Trump’s election in 2016, Congress had never passed a resolution to impede environmental safeguards.
Last year, Congress considered 76 CRA resolutions to change or halt federal regulations, according to the Center For Progressive Reform, a think tank. Acting on the president’s executive orders to limit environmental oversight and speed development of natural resources, Congress proposed 23 resolutions to nullify regulations administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, more than for any other agency. Of those 23, 16 became law, including one resolution that nullified a federal rule that reduced hazardous air pollution from rubber manufacturing that took the EPA over two years to finalize.
Featured image: Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Minnesota, USA. Credit: Chad Fennell – Flickr: BWCA – FALL 08, CC BY 2.0
Senate Vote Tests Future of Boundary Waters Protections
The U.S. Senate this week is poised to vote on a narrowly-cast resolution intended to clear a new pathway to eventually open a long-disputed copper mine close to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeast Minnesota. There’s a lot more, though, riding on the Senate vote, and not just for a region of the…