ST. PAUL— Supporters of permanent protection of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and its surrounding watersheds made their case at a Wednesday morning press conference on the steps of the state Capitol building here. The press event, which featured U.S. Sen. Tina Smith among others, came ahead of a possible vote in the U.S. Senate that would purportedly overturn a 20-year ban on mineral development adjacent to the 1.1-million-acre wilderness area.
As of press time, the possible vote had yet to be scheduled, but it will have to be held by March 7 if the measure is to be enacted. The U.S. House has already given its narrow approval of a similar measure sponsored by Minnesota Eighth District Rep. Pete Stauber that would ostensibly repeal the mining ban, ordered by President Biden’s Interior Department in 2023.
Supporters of wilderness protection say the action would threaten the future of the BWCAW, by furthering the efforts of Chilean mining giant Antofagasta to open a sulfide-based copper-nickel mine along the Kawishiwi River, a major watershed that flows into the heart of the wilderness.
“The Minnesotan way of life is under attack, and we must stand united to protect our public lands,” said Ingrid Lyons, executive director of Save the Boundary Waters. She called the House resolution, HJR 140, “a blatant sellout to foreign mining interests,” and argued that the proposed mine would do nothing to ensure domestic sources of key minerals, since the proposed mine would utilize Chinese-owned processing facilities and leave the resulting metals on the global market.
Both Minnesota senators were expected to vote against the measure. Speaking at Wednesday’s press conference, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said she intends to fight the Republican effort to undermine protection of the Boundary Waters. “Our public lands should not be sold off to enrich a foreign mining company,” she said. “The Boundary Waters belong to every single one of us, not a foreign mining company. I support mining, but not this mine in this place.”
Smith isn’t the only prominent individual seeking to block HJR 140.
Theodore Roosevelt IV, the great grandson of the late Republican President Teddy Roosevelt and three other direct descendants of the former president, wrote a letter to GOP members of the U.S. Senate recently, urging them to defeat HJR 140. Noting the former president’s key role in preserving hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, including the creation of the Superior National Forest and initial protection of the land that would become the BWCAW, Roosevelt — a moderate Republican— bemoaned the Republican Party’s sea change when it comes to protection of public lands and the environment.
As first reported in the New York Times, Roosevelt traveled to Washington earlier this month to meet with GOP senators and urged them to oppose Stauber’s attempt to undermine protections.
Legislative gambit
Stauber’s measure seeks to permanently rescind the 20-year mining ban put in place in 2023 on approximately 225,000 acres of the Superior National Forest, a move that would open the way for Antofagasta’s joint venture, Twin Metals, to apply for new mineral leases along the Kawishiwi River watershed.
Stauber’s measure is based on a questionable reading of the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, enacted in 1996 as part of a small business reform measure. Stauber now claims the CRA applies to agency orders and management plans as well as regulations. The CRA gave Congress authority to review and, potentially, overturn federal agency regulations. But the law limited that review and decision-making process to 60 days.
For decades, the use of the CRA was limited to review of regulations promulgated by federal agencies, but a recent determination by the General Accounting Office suggests that the law could also apply to other agency actions, including public land management plans. Since that decision, Congress has used the CRA to overturn land management plans in Alaska and North Dakota, among other places.
Deputy Secretary of the Interior Katharine Sinclair MacGregor officially submitted the 2023 mining ban, known as Public Land Order 7917, to Congress on Jan. 6, 2026, which gave Congress until March 7 to vote to rescind.
State protections touted
The event, which included comments from three state lawmakers, also highlighted efforts in the Minnesota Legislature to provide state protections of wilderness watersheds. On Feb. 13, state Sen. Steve Cwodzinski and state Rep. Alex Falconer introduced the Boundary Waters Permanent Protection Bill, which would prohibit sulfide-based copper mining operations on any state lands within the watersheds that feed directly into either the BWCAW or Voyageurs National Park. The bill would not affect any existing taconite or iron ore mining, or the mining of sand, gravel, or granite.