Senate Votes to Strip Minnesota’s Boundary Waters of Protection from Mining Pollution

Today, the U.S. Senate voted along partisan lines to revoke a 20-year mineral withdrawal protecting 225,378 acres of public lands in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness watershed from toxic mining. The move puts one of the country’s most visited Wilderness Areas in danger of permanent pollution from a proposed sulfide-ore copper-nickel mine that Chilean mining giant Antofagasta has long sought to develop directly upstream of the Boundary Waters through its subsidiary, Twin Metals.

Julie Goodwin, Senior Attorney at Earthjustice, said: “The Boundary Waters belong to everyone. They should be protected and enjoyed by all, not jeopardized to benefit a wealthy foreign company. Congressmembers who voted to allow mining on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters have betrayed the millions of Americans who treasure this unparalleled wilderness, and they did so using a backdoor maneuver that’s unprecedented and legally questionable.”

In January, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed H.J. Res. 140, a Congressional Review Act resolution that bypassed the normal 60-vote threshold in the Senate to invalidate the mineral withdrawal that was enacted in 2023 by the US Department of the Interior (DOI). Known as Public Land Order 7917, the 20-year mineral withdrawal was based on the U.S. Forest Service’s comprehensive environmental assessment, which concluded that sulfide-ore copper mining near the Boundary Waters would cause irreversible harm to the ecosystem and downstream Voyageurs National Park. The analysis completed by the Forest Service in 2022 included 675,000 public comments, over 95 percent of which favored protecting the Boundary Waters and Voyageurs from sulfide-ore copper mining.

Blaine Miller-McFeeley, Senior Legislative Representative for Earthjustice, said: “If and when President Trump signs this indefensible bill, it will mark the first time a mineral withdrawal was killed by the Congressional Review Act. More and more, corporate polluters and their friends in Congress are using this arcane law to force through deeply unpopular policies that sell out our public lands.”

The first Trump administration unlawfully reinstated two mining leases for Twin Metals, prompting a lawsuit by Earthjustice on behalf of The Wilderness Society, Izaak Walton League of America, and the Center for Biological Diversity. When the Biden administration cancelled the leases, Twin Metals sued and Earthjustice intervened on behalf of the conservation groups to successfully defend the administration’s actions. The second Trump administration has signaled it will help Twin Metals secure more leases, with DOI Deputy Secretary Katherine MacGregor signing a memo last summer that reversed a 2022 legal opinion that had invalidated the leases.

“This fight is far from over,” said Goodwin. “Every option is on the table to preserve this special wilderness for future generations to enjoy.”