REGIONAL— The recent flurry of congressional action on the proposed Twin Metals copper-nickel mine marked apparent victories for both sides on the controversial mining project.
The victory for opponents came last week when the Senate parliamentarian ruled that provisions in the House-passed “One Big Beautiful Bill,” that rescinded the mineral withdrawal and issued four perpetual leases to Twin Metals, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chilean mining giant Antofagasta, had to be removed under Senate rules. Perhaps most significantly, a provision that would have rescinded the U.S. Forest Service’s right to veto mining projects on the Superior National Forest, was also removed from the bill.
Those developments were hailed as a major victory by opponents of the Twin Metals project, who fear that the mine, which is located upstream of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, would harm the pristine quality for which the 1.1-million-acre wilderness is known.
The USFS had confirmed similar concerns when it exercised its veto of the proposed mine back in 2016.
“This means the law is unchanged right now,” said Becky Rom with Save the Boundary Waters. “All of the rules designed on the Superior remain intact.
But that victory for mine opponents was tempered later in the week by the statement of U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, who tweeted last week that she and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum would be initiating a process to cancel the mineral withdrawal in the “Rainey (sic) River watershed on the Superior National Forest. Rollins then claimed: “After careful review, including extensive public input, the U.S. Forest Service has enough information to know the withdrawal was never needed.”
That claim came as a surprise to many, since the Forest Service has not initiated any new public process over the past six months. As recently as last December, the Forest Service issued a letter to the Bureau of Land Management at the Department of the Interior, reiterating the importance of maintaining the mineral withdrawal.
Executive action easily reversed
For opponents of Twin Metals, holding off congressional action was a major victory. While the Trump administration is likely to end the prohibition on new leases and will likely issue new leases to Twin Metals, those executive actions are subject to reversal, as the now nearly-decade-long seesawing of federal policy has demonstrated. The executive actions are subject to litigation, which isn’t a viable option for most legislation passed in Congress.
Ultimately, regardless of what happens at the federal level, most of the key permits for any mine on the Superior National Forest will come through the state of Minnesota, where skepticism over the Twin Metals project has been stronger and more consistent in recent years.