DENVER — The U.S. Senate today voted 50-49 to invoke the Congressional Review Act to overturn a 20-year ban on mining on more than 225,000 acres of the Superior National Forest upstream of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. For years, Twin Metals has been trying to develop a sulfide-ore copper mine in the area. This use of the CRA is the latest in a troubling pattern of abusing the law to overturn land management plans that agencies have spent years developing in collaboration with communities to ensure multiple uses and values are balanced and protected.
The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Policy Director Rachael Hamby:
“The Senate’s vote to overturn protections for the headwaters of the Boundary Waters is a reckless assault on one of America’s last wild places. The Congressional Review Act was never intended to bypass or reverse the robust land use planning process that led to this mineral withdrawal. Waiting years after the fact to ram through a mining giveaway makes a mockery of the law.
“Some places are simply too special to put at risk, and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is the definition of irreplaceable. The Senate just overrode the voices of hundreds of thousands of Americans who spoke up to protect the Boundary Waters, all to benefit a Chilean mining company that plans to ship its product to China. Americans who cherish their public lands should take note: no place is safe from this administration’s drive to hand over our shared heritage to foreign companies.”
The 20-year mineral withdrawal was signed in January 2023 following a comprehensive U.S. Forest Service environmental assessment that concluded sulfide-ore copper mining would cause irreversible harm to the Boundary Waters ecosystem. The decision came on the heels of extensive public comment periods, from 2016 to 2022, that drew some 675,000 comments, with 98 percent favoring protections for the watershed from mining.
During the second Trump administration, Congress has used or proposed using the CRA to overturn other land management plans in Western states, including Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah and Bureau of Land Management resource management plans in Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming.
Learn more
- Weaponizing the Congressional Review Act against America’s public lands [The Landscape podcast]
- Reporter memo: Seismic shift in public land management across the West [Center for Western Priorities]
- Congress uses CRA to repeal resource management plan, inviting chaos on public lands [Center for Western Priorities]
Featured image: Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, Dan Pemstein via Flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0