[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 66 (Wednesday, April 15, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1790-S1806]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
H.J. RES. 140
Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise tonight thinking about my beloved
Minnesota and thinking about all of the people in Minnesota and around
the country that love the Boundary Waters.
And I want to talk for a while about the Congressional Review Act
resolution--this is H.J. Res. 140--that is before us tonight, and I
want to speak directly to my colleagues about the CRA and why I think
it is so important that we vote no on this CRA.
So what this CRA would do is it would roll back protections for the
Boundary Waters Wilderness, which is in Northeastern Minnesota. This is
a picture of just one of the many glorious scenes of what you find in
the Boundary Waters, which I will be talking about more this evening.
This CRA, as I said, would roll back protections for the Boundary
Waters Wilderness in Northeastern Minnesota. What it would do is it
would allow copper sulfide mining in the watershed of the Boundary
Waters, and this would be devastating to the wilderness.
The decision that this body makes will have long-term implications
for the Boundary Waters, and it will also have long-term implications
for how we protect public lands around this country going forward.
So I want to start with the core point that Minnesota is a mining
State. We support mining--just not mining in this place. Minnesota is a
mining and natural resources State. Mining is so important to our
economy. We are proud to be the No. 1 source of iron ore in the whole
country, and we produced three-quarters of the iron that went into the
tanks and planes that led us to victory in World War II. And we are
still producing most of the Nation's iron ore today.
And it is also true that there are other potential mines currently
under consideration and development in Minnesota--not iron ore mines
but other mines--that would produce copper and nickel.
Responsible mining is an economic driver in our State. It is part of
our history, and it is part of our future.
So why oppose this CRA? Why would we oppose this CRA, which, I will
tell you, will pave the way for developing a copper sulfide mine right
on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters?
Well, I want to start this discussion tonight by giving three simple
and basic reasons. The first is that this is an incredibly special
place, beloved by Minnesotans and beloved by people all around the
country, and this mine poses an unacceptable threat to this place.
The Boundary Waters, if the Presiding Officer has not been there, is
a million acres of lakes and bogs and rivers. It is a wealth of hunting
and fishing resources. People go there to canoe all the time. They go
there in the wintertime to dogsled and to ice-fish.
I was there last summer, and I saw two wolves just in one day, on a
day trip to the Boundary Waters.
It is some of the cleanest water that you will find anywhere in this
country. You can drink the water right out of the middle of the lakes.
You will find lake trout and northern pike and walleye. There is no
better place in the world for it.
Over 150,000 people visit this incredible place every year, and so
what that means is that the outdoor recreation economy in Northern
Minnesota benefits greatly from the Boundary Waters.
This generates thousands of jobs and supports hundreds of local,
small businesses, and it generates millions in economic activity.
Outdoor recreation is also a significant economic driver in the
region around the Boundary Waters Wilderness. What happens here with
this mine that will be allowed by the CRA is that this mine puts this
incredible resource and the economic benefits of this resource at great
risk.
It is kind of unbelievable to know that this kind of mine in 100
percent of the instances where they have been built has caused
pollution.
What happens is you bring up the rock from underground. The sulfide
in the rocks interacts with the water and the oxygen. My colleague
Senator Heinrich is an expert on this. That rock interacts with the
water and the oxygen, and it creates basically sulfuric acid. That
sulfuric acid flows directly into the Boundary Waters and on into
Voyageurs National Park.
We have a map here so you can see how the water flows. This sulfuric
acid, of course, is extremely dangerous, not just for fish and wildlife
and the whole ecosystem in the Boundary Waters but also for the humans
that recreate there, that swim in this water, that canoe in this water.
This is why Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, why sportsman's groups,
why Trout Unlimited, and Pheasants Forever, and outdoor people of all
kinds have weighed in and said: No. Simply, this is the wrong thing to
do. Not this mine in this place. Even descendants of the great
President Theodore Roosevelt have said that we should protect this
national treasure and ``leave it as it is.''
This is also why this mine is so unpopular in Minnesota. A recent
poll showed that 70 percent of Minnesotans across the political
spectrum--Independents, Republicans, and Democrats--agreed that
protecting the Boundary Waters from sulfide-based mine pollution should
be a very important priority for elected officials in the State. And 61
percent of Minnesotans have said that they support establishing a
permanent protection for public land within the Boundary Waters
Watershed.
So that is the first reason because this place is so special and
because this mine is so dangerous to this place.
But the second reason why, colleagues, we should oppose this CRA is
that it sets an incredibly unprecedented and dangerous use of the
Congressional Review Act. Now, we know that the Congressional Review
Act is a way for Congress to doublecheck the executive branch if
Congress feels that the Executive has passed a regulation that goes too
far, that didn't follow the laws that Congress passed.
If the Executive passes a regulation that Congress feels doesn't
reflect the will of Congress, then Congress can within 60 days say:
Nope. You can't do that. That doesn't make sense.
But that is not what is happening with the CRA before this body
tonight because for the first time ever, the House is asking the Senate
to apply
[[Page S1791]]
the CRA process not to a rule, but to a statute, to a public land
order.
They want to claw back a public land order that was put into effect
legally and lawfully 3 years ago. This was never the intention of the
Congressional Review Act. It has never been used in this way, to
overturn a mineral withdrawal or any public land order, and especially
not a mineral withdrawal that was finalized 3 years ago like this one
was.
Now, I know that many of my Republican colleagues are thinking about
this, and they are asking themselves: What does this mean? What are the
implications of this? What would happen if this were to pass--this CRA
were to pass?
And ask yourself: What would you do if the shoe was on the other
foot? What would you do if we set this precedent where we say that with
a simple partisan majority, Congress can claw back a public land order
that has been in place potentially for years or decades? What might
that mean in North Dakota? In Montana? In Utah? In Arizona? In any
State in the country if these public land orders could be undone so
easily? I mean, it would be chaos, I think.
The third reason that I want to talk about why it is so important to
oppose this Congressional Review Act before us today, this House
resolution, is that this will violate Tribal treaty rights in a way
that is strongly opposed by Tribal Nations not only in Minnesota, but
also around the country.
These are Tribal Nations, indigenous people, that have lived in
Northern Minnesota, on the borderlands of Northern Minnesota, for time
immemorial. They have treaties with the Federal Government,
particularly the treaty of 1854, which grants to these Tribes in
exchange for the land that they gave up hundreds of years ago, it
grants them hunting and fishing rights, and also the rights to harvest
manoomin, which is wild rice.
And yet, this CRA before us today completely aggregates those Tribal
treaty rights. It ignores the responsibility of the Federal Government
to consult with Tribes, which has not been done. That is why so many of
the Tribes across the country have come together to oppose this.
This includes the Grand Portage Band and all the other members of the
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. It includes the National Congress of American
Indians which passed a resolution urging the Senate Committee on Indian
Affairs to at least hold a hearing on the implications of this before
this legislation--this resolution--passes the Senate.
Tribal Nations across the country have spoken out, including the
Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes, White Earth Nation, Rosebud Sioux
Tribe, Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation, the Eastern Shoshone. They
have all come out in opposition to the CRA.
So before I hand over to my dear colleague from Minnesota the senior
Senator from Minnesota, Senator Klobuchar, I want to address one
question that I have heard made in favor of this mine and just kind of
flush this out for folks.
Now, some people will say that we need to pass this CRA for its
national security benefits. They claim that this mine will provide
much-needed sources for critical minerals.
But I ask, colleagues, to think about what is really going on here
and who will be the owner of these minerals because that is very
important as you think about this national security argument.
Just because these minerals are mined on American land, on public
land, on national forestland, that does not mean that they will be
reserved for American markets. In fact, the copper and nickel mined in
the Duluth Complex which is where the Boundary Waters is, where this
mine would be, would essentially be brought out of the ground. They
would be shipped to the Pacific Coast. They would be taken to China
where they would be smelted, and there, they will either be sold by the
company that is doing all of this, a foreign international conglomerate
from Chili, Antofagasta. It will either be sold there or sold back to
the United States to be paid for by all of us.
This mine is wholly owned by Antofagasta, a massive Chilean
conglomerate with billionaire owners. It is one of the largest foreign
mining companies in the world. They have deep ties to the Chinese
Government in its mineral processing operations. Most recently,
Antofagasta secured recordbreaking, zero-cost processing agreements
with the Chinese copper smelters, all of which are state-owned in whole
or in part.
So what we are doing here is we are creating a pathway for this
foreign company to build a mine, pollute the Boundary Waters, send the
minerals to China where they will be processed with this sweetheart
deal, and then sold on the open market. And that is not an America-
first strategy.
So I encourage my colleagues to take a look at who is benefitting
from this mine, and it certainly won't be in the long run Minnesotans.
There are no real winners here except for this massive Chilean company.
So in a few hours, we are going to be voting on this resolution, and
I urge my colleagues to vote no on rolling back protections for the
Boundary Waters Wilderness Area. We can support mining in Minnesota and
in this country, but not this mine in this place.
We can be good stewards of our natural resources and support mining,
but not this mine. These public lands belong to all of us, and we
should not allow them to be exploited for our loss and the gain of
others far, far away.
With that, I would yield the floor to my colleague Senator Klobuchar
who has been such a strong champion for Minnesota for so many years.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, this bill is an unprecedented use of a
procedural mechanism that would have far-reaching consequences, not
just for the Boundary Waters, as Senator Smith has explained, but for
public lands across our country.
I have always supported science-based review, especially a project so
close to this cherished Boundary Waters canoe area, and I continue to
have concerns about this administration's disregard for science.
So as many of my colleagues know, I am the granddaughter of an iron
ore miner. My great-grandparents came from Slovenia, and that was the
job that my great-grandpa came to do. He died very young from his work,
and then my grandpa took it up. He started very, very young in
underground mines with a number of brothers and sisters that he took
care of when his parents died, married my grandma, and this was his
life. And he loved that life.
But he mostly also loved the time he had in the outdoors. He loved to
hunt. He loved to fish. Every day he would go down 1,500 feet in that
cage in that mine and always thought about what he thought about with
that black lunch bucket that my grandma packed for him every single day
in that little house that they had taken when a mine closed down in
Babbitt. They put it on the back of a flatbed truck and they blew a
hole with dynamite in the ground and put that house on top of it. That
was their life.
My grandpa worked most of his life in the mines as did so many
friends. He became, in his later years, the foreman of the mine, and I
would meet people when I was first running for U.S. Senate up in
Northern Minnesota that would say to me: You know, my dad worked with
your grandpa. And whenever they explored a dangerous part of the mine,
the other foreman wouldn't go. They radioed down from above. But your
grandpa, he went first. He went with the guys, and he went down in the
mine.
Such a big part of my life. That is why I have stood with our miners.
I have stood with them when we had steel dumping from China and brought
President Obama's chief of staff up to Northern Minnesota, met with our
steel workers and our unions.
I have stood with our workers through good times and bad and will
continue to do that. We have, as Senator Smith explained, some exciting
new projects up there like Mesabi Metallics which is going to be a big
taconite mine, a modern mine with some of the biggest equipment in the
country. And we will have more.
But what this is about today is something else because my grandpa
always got that balance. It was a balance of the working life that we
must continue up in Northern Minnesota and a balance of the world
around him, that world where he loved to hunt and he loved to fish.
[[Page S1792]]
I was 18 years old before I took a vacation that didn't involve a
tent or a camper in one way or the other. I grew up in a family that
valued the outdoors. My mom and dad met in the Twin Cities Hiking Club
and generations of Minnesotans have found this same joy: hiking,
paddling, camping in the Boundary Waters, and our beautiful parks. But
I don't think they would have ever expected this.
H.J. Res. 140, as I noted, is an unprecedented use of a procedural
mechanism that would have far-reaching consequences, not just for the
BWCA but for other public lands. Secretaries of the Interior have long
had the ability to issue public land orders to reserve Federal land for
specific uses, setting it aside for things like infrastructure, certain
military purposes, training and border security, or protection and
conservation.
And public land orders are carefully made. The U.S. Forest Service
and Bureau of Land Management gather public input. They hold townhalls.
They analyze inputs.
But now for the first time, the Congressional Review Act is being
used to rescind a public land order. Public land orders have never been
considered rules under the CRA and have never been submitted to
Congress as rules.
Today, the CRA before the Senate is being used simply as a way of
revoking the land withdrawal without having to conduct that public
engagement. And this unprecedented use of the CRA will have broader
disruptive impacts on land management agencies' ability to oversee
public lands all across the country.
This process is focused on Northern Minnesota today, but this new
precedent could lead to Congress overturning public land orders
elsewhere.
The Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service have long been
trusted with working with landowners, nearby towns, and counties, and
others to develop plans for managing public lands. This is often a
give-and-take process built on trust. But this Congress, for the first
time, has disrupted decades of work by the Bureau of Land Management
and has stepped in the way of locally led land management.
These CRA resolutions disregard extensive public input. If this CRA
resolution were approved, public access to some of the Nation's most
treasured landscapes could be lost and the careful management of their
lands and waters eliminated.
There are hundreds of public land orders that have been issued to
protect our public land that could be put at risk: The Charles M.
Russell National Wildlife Refuge in Montana, considered a sportsman's
paradise for its elk and bighorn sheep hunting; the 355,000 acres of
Federal land near the Chaco Canyon National Historical Park in New
Mexico. The precedent potentially being established today could pave
over the comprehensive process undermining these landowners.
The CRA even threatens the protected status of the Grand Canyon,
which happens to sit on significant mineral deposits. This precedent
could lead to CRA resolutions beyond the BLM's work. Forest Service
plans might be the next Land Management Agencies Congress attempts to
disrupt using this process.
This ultimately could lead to Washington micromanaging public lands
rather than letting the people and experts that live near the forest,
grasslands, and waterways have a say.
So look at who is concerned about what is happening in the Senate
today, the groups that are supportive of what I have been talking about
here and are against this effort: American Fisheries Society, American
Fly Fishing Trade Association, American Hunters & Anglers, Angler
Action Foundation, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, Bass Anglers
Sportsman Society, Fly Fishers International, the Izaak Walton League
of America, Minnesota Trout Unlimited, Minnesota Wildlife Federation,
National Deer Association, National Wildlife Federation, North American
Falconers Association, North American Grouse Partnership, Pheasants
Forever, Quail Forever, Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters, Theodore
Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Trout Unlimited, Whitetails
Unlimited, Wildlife Management Institute, the American Canoe
Association, the Outdoor Alliance, Outdoor Life, Outdoor Realm.
So maybe some time should be taken to listen to what some of these
national groups are saying that care about what my grandpa and my dad
cared about, and that is public lands that can be used for recreation,
for canoeing, for hunting, and for fishing.
So I will end with this: Sigurd Olson, the great Ely, MN, author and
conservationist, wrote that ``joys come from simple and natural things,
mists over meadows, sunlight on leaves, the path of the moon over
water.''
This is the Boundary Waters. So Sigurd Olson just happened to be the
dean of Ely Junior College and yet he rose to this national fame and
that is when my dad met him because my dad went to a 2-year college,
Ely Junior College, because my grandma believed that somehow that would
launch his career in journalism. She happened to be right, but no one
would have believed it then.
But Sigurd Olson was then the college dean. My dad and Sigurd Olson
maintained a friendship for many years, powered by their shared love
for the written word, for the Boundary Waters, and for their efforts to
preserve Minnesota's forests and parks.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed into law Hubert Humphrey's
bill, and this is the desk that I stand at today--Hubert Humphrey's
desk--to protect this area by creating the Boundary Waters Canoe Area
Wilderness.
And the Boundary Waters are now the most visited wilderness area in
the country, welcoming 150,000 people each year. Over the course of my
dad's career, he wrote 8,400 columns, more than a few of which were
dispatches from the Boundary Waters. Speaking to the complexity of this
national wonder, my dad wrote about the Boundary Waters: This is a
place of woods and lakes and repose most of the time where a person can
roam or drift or watch and listen. And that is not so much different in
winter than in summer.
He called it a million acres of waterway and forest unlike any in the
United States.
And my grandpa who loved that area, loved the forest, understood that
you can make both things work but not when you are messing around with
rules, not when you are not even taking the time to look at what is
happening here to our public lands, and instead are just making this
decision at night and going home for the day.
I thank Senator Smith for her work, and I ask my colleagues to vote
with us and listen to us about what is going on here.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. SMITH. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar.
Senator Klobuchar, you and I have known each other for many years,
and I never knew that your father was friends and colleagues with
Sigurd Olson, which is really incredible. He is such a storyteller of
this particular part of this amazing, beautiful part of the world. So
thank you for sharing that. And also thank you for the incredible
representation that you have provided to Northern Minnesota and all of
Minnesota for so many years. Your deep roots in Minnesota's Iron Range
gives you so much credibility across the State, particularly on this
issue. So thank you.
Mr. President, I believe that Senator Baldwin wants to say something.
Ms. BALDWIN. Thank you for your leadership, Senator Smith.
And I also want to note the powerful words that Senator Klobuchar
just shared. She took me down memory lane as we remember the
conservationists and the folks that came from our States.
And just earlier today, I was noting with my staff that next week we
will be commemorating the 56th anniversary of Earth Day, the first
Earth Day, and it was Gaylord Nelson, a Senator in this body who
brought forth the whole concept of respecting the Earth and celebrating
with a day focused on celebration of the Earth.
Wisconsin was also home for large portions of their lives, Aldo
Leopold and John Muir. And hearing those accounts makes me feel
especially humbled and honored to rise to speak to this resolution,
this joint resolution that is before the Senate right now that we
really must defeat.
I want to share with my colleagues what is at stake if the Senate
removes
[[Page S1793]]
protections from the Boundary Waters. The Boundary Waters Wilderness
Area is one of the most pristine freshwater systems in the entire
country.
And if these protections are rolled back and mining moves forward,
there is no restoring, there is no restoration of this watershed. It
will be risking permanent damage for the profits of a multibillion-
dollar foreign mining company, and I will return to that in a moment.
We must recognize who will be most affected by revoking the
protections that have been in place for decades and for good reason.
Tribal nations in this region have lived with and depended upon the
Boundary Waters for generations. These lands are sacred to the Ojibwe
people. Tribes have treaty rights to hunt, to fish, and to gather.
Voting for this resolution would betray our centuries-old treaties
between the United States and the Chippewa of Lake Superior.
We cannot say that we respect Tribal sovereignty while undermining
the very resources that those rights depend upon.
There is a reason that the Boundary Waters is also America's most
popular and water-rich wilderness area. Its 1.1 million acres contain
more than a thousand pristine lakes and 1,200 miles of river and
stream.
Voting for this resolution risks the destruction of the region's
prized natural resources, where the wild rice beds and the fisheries
are thriving, and the water is clean and safe to drink.
People come from all over this country to recreate on the Boundary
Waters, fish in the lakes, hunt in the forests. Before my colleagues
vote to greenlight a mining operation, I urge them to come and see the
beauty and the magic of the Boundary Waters. I have done so. It was an
amazing experience. And I have heard from so many Wisconsinites who
have shared their stories, their memories. And they cannot fathom the
idea that Congress would take the step that we are on the precipice of
taking.
As well, I have heard from our 11 federally recognized Tribal nations
and their strong opposition. Our waters, our rivers, our lakes are all
a part of the way of life in the Midwest. They provide fresh drinking
water; they are endless sources of recreation; and they bring tourism
to our States.
You know, this area, in particular, generates over $900 million in
annual tourism revenue and sustains roughly 17,000 jobs. Rural towns
across the region depend on the protection of the wilderness area and
its natural resources. Family-owned small businesses that provide
guiding and fishing and outdoor recreation will not survive if the
water is polluted and the wilderness is degraded.
The Boundary Waters must not be put at risk of perpetual pollution,
which is what this resolution would do. I also just want to make it
clear to my colleagues who actually stands to benefit if this
resolution passes the Senate.
While we have heard that rolling back protections for the Boundary
Waters would bring economic opportunities for the region, that is
false. The profits from the mining contract that this resolution aims
to fast track are ultimately going overseas to benefit a Chilean
multinational organization and China's industrial supply chain.
That is right. After enabling the destruction of one of our most
pristine natural resources, those very resources are expected to be
sold to China. With this resolution, the majority will be cashing out
on a mining deal that has no long-term benefit to our economy or
workforce.
The short-term gain of a mining contract cannot compete with the
benefits of protecting the region that already generates, as I said
earlier, over $900 million annually in tourism revenue and sustains
nearly 17,000 jobs.
This resolution does not invest in the future of communities across
the Boundary Waters, nor does it respect the treaties with our Tribal
nations. Its passage would come at public expense while the profits
from the project flow to foreign corporations.
I invite my colleagues who have never yet made it to the Boundary
Waters to come and experience it for yourself.
I encourage you to meet with the Tribes and small businesses in the
region and see for yourself what we stand to lose. I implore my
colleagues not to jeopardize the future of one of the most pristine
freshwater ecosystems in America and override Tribal rights.
I urge my colleagues to vote no on this resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I want to just thank my colleague from
Wisconsin for her powerful words and her longtime support for the
Boundary Waters and for treaty rights and for American jobs and
American-made products.
And I just so greatly appreciate your being here today in support of
this and appreciate very much--and I also really appreciate my
colleague Senator Heinrich from New Mexico being here today as well to
talk about how important this is and why this matters so much to him.
I know Senator Heinrich is planning a trip to the Boundary Waters
this summer, and we will all be able to hear stories of that when you
get back.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from
Minnesota for her endless advocacy for this special place, one of
America's true gems.
I do hope to make it to the Boundary Waters this summer. Last July, I
was supposed to be in the Boundary Waters. I had long planned a trip
with my family. It was to be our first time exploring the Boundary
Waters.
My family made it; I did not. My wife Julie and my sons Micah and
Carter had an incredible time that they will always remember. They
paddled their canoes across lakes. They portaged from lake to lake.
They slept under a blanket of stars that most people in Washington, DC,
could never imagine because they can't see it.
I was supposed to be part of that trip. I was stuck here, fighting to
strip out the public land selloff language from the Republican budget
bill. They sent me lots of pictures afterwards, pictures of the
northern pike here that my son caught--my son Micah.
My wife Julie was able to spend some really quality wilderness time
with both of our sons before they went off to their respective colleges
for the year. She basically told me that they ate more food on this
trip than most rugby teams.
Like my family, millions--literally millions--of Americans have
hunted and fished and paddled and traversed the Boundary Waters. In
fact, it has an almost religious connotation among sportsmen in
particular.
It is somewhat amazing to me to see a Republican Party that used to
have such fidelity to hunters and anglers basically roll all of the
organizations that my colleague from Minnesota rattled off which said
this is not the right place for this--organizations like Pheasants
Forever, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, and Theodore Roosevelt
Conservation Partnership and on and on and on--but that is where we are
today.
You know, stories from the Boundary Waters, stories of stalking
whitetail and grouse are passed down from generation to generation in
the Midwest. Legendary stories of lake trout and northern pike and
walleye abound, sometimes with the fish actually getting bigger with
each telling of the story. The water, as the Senator from Minnesota,
Senator Smith, said, is some of the cleanest you will find anywhere in
the lower 48. It is a bucket-list, once-in-a-lifetime designation for
so many public land owners. And that is precisely what is at risk with
this vote--one of our Nation's true crown jewels.
So let's back up a little bit for folks who don't have firsthand
knowledge of what the Boundary Waters is, where it is, and do a little
explaining.
The Boundary Waters is one of the most incredible intact wilderness
landscapes left in our Nation. It is an absolute tapestry of lakes and
streams, consisting of well over 1,000 individual lakes, 2,000
designated campsites, and hundreds of miles of rivers and streams. The
Boundary Waters contains the largest contiguous landscape of uncut
forest remaining in the Eastern United States.
The 3 million-acre Superior National Forest in which the Boundary
Waters
[[Page S1794]]
sits contains fully 20 percent of all the freshwater in the entire
National Forest System--an incredible figure.
In fact, this wilderness was so important that Teddy Roosevelt
himself, President Roosevelt, set it aside as part of the Superior
National Forest all the way back in 1909. Almost half a century later,
Congress voted overwhelmingly to include the Boundary Waters as one of
the original units of the National Wilderness System.
In many ways, Minnesotans rely on the Boundary Waters to support
their local economy. Every year, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area
Wilderness draws more visitors--more visitors--than any other
wilderness area in the entire Nation. This recreation supports 17,000
Minnesotan jobs, contributes roughly $1 billion in annual sales, and
preserves and shares, more importantly, a way of life--a way of life
that has been passed down from generation to generation.
This is a place, this is an area that is no stranger to threats. In
addition to containing so many of the natural resources that come with
the wilderness, the area also contains copper.
I should say, you know, for one, there is a long history of iron
mining in this area. I grew up the son of someone who worked for
Anaconda Copper, the grandson of somebody who was a gold miner. But I
want to talk a little bit about the difference between some of these
Iron Range mines that mine ore that is just chemically inert. It is
chemically stable.
When you mine for iron, you are basically mining iron oxide. You are
mining rust, and then you are turning that back into iron. This is not
that kind of mine. This is a copper sulfide mine, and the company that
wants to mine here is called Twin Metals. And that sounds so
Minnesotan. I think they might have picked it to sound Minnesotan. It
is actually a subsidiary of a Chilean mining company called
Antofagasta.
They want to build this copper-nickel mine less than a mile upstream
from the Boundary Waters on a spit of land between two waterways.
Let me explain a little bit about what it looks like to mine copper
in a place like Boundary Waters, particularly when you are mining
copper sulfide ore. The company will have to dig some very deep shafts
to reach these very deep ore bodies. They will then remove many
millions of tons for processing, millions and millions of tons of
copper sulfide ore. After they remove what copper and nickel are
economically recoverable in that ore, they will dump as much as 100
million tons of waste rock and low-grade ore on the site, never to be
removed.
Now, deep underground, the copper is locked up in this ore rich in
sulfur, but that ore has never been exposed to water. It has never been
exposed to oxygen or air. And when you bring it to the surface and you
let it sit out in a pile and you expose it to air and water, oxygen
bonds with that sulfur, and when you bond oxygen to sulfur, you get
sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid is one of the hardest waste products you
can imagine to try to control.
The waste rock that has been dumped on the site will naturally form
sulfuric acid. That acid will then dissolve toxic heavy metals present
in the waste rock, and then you have this toxic stew of heavy metals
along with sulfuric acid.
Now, there is no plan to remove all this waste from the mine site, so
it is basically a ticking time bomb of acid and heavy metals.
Studies by the EPA say that the odds of sulfuric acid polluting the
Boundary Waters under this scenario are highly likely. And I will do
you one better: It has a perfect track record of polluting water. That
is according to the peer-reviewed study on sulfide-ore copper mining
that drove the 2023 decision to ban mining in the area. It is also my
personal experience as a former natural resources trustee who had to
negotiate with copper companies that polluted water with this same
technology.
So it is not just highly likely; it is guaranteed. Sulfide mining in
the Rainy River watershed will cause certain irreversible pollution to
the Boundary Waters. Think again about eating those fish that you
caught or drinking that water you dipped from the middle of the lake,
because the thing about sulfuric acid poisoning is it is invisible. You
can't see it, but it makes water unsafe to drink.
Sulfuric acid also lowers the pH level of water, changing entire
ecosystems. At high levels, fish that rely on healthy water to live
literally experience respiratory failure in water poisoned by sulfuric
acid. They literally drown to death. They will not be able to reproduce
normally. Their food sources will be tainted, meaning entire fish
populations of lake trout and smallmouth bass will be at risk.
The sulfuric acid produced by this mine will leach heavy metals like
lead, mercury, or copper into that same water. That will then
accumulate in the bodies of fish and wildlife that consume that water.
And when people eat meat and fish with heavy metals, they accumulate in
our bodies too.
This isn't a myth; it is a virtually guaranteed outcome because we
know that plans for the mine include storing over 100 million tons of
toxic waste rock on the edge of the wilderness upstream of the Boundary
Waters. Think about how much that is. Let's visualize how much waste
rock we are talking about being dumped and never removed from this mine
site. A hundred million tons is like 740,000 Boeing 777 airplanes. It
is twice the mass of all the living people on Earth. It is 500 times
the weight of the Empire State Building sitting there, generating toxic
acid. It is the amount of toxic waste that Antofagasta--a foreign
mining company that plans to sell the copper to foreign countries--
plans to store on the edge of the largest patch of wild rivers and
forests in our country, the place that has 20 percent of all the
freshwater in our National Forest System.
The damage is really unthinkable, but it is also irreversible because
currently we don't have any technology available that is capable of
reversing sulfuric acid contamination.
This is bad. It is so bad that in 2016, even before there was a
mineral withdrawal, the Obama administration canceled the mine's lease.
And in 2023, after years of review and overwhelming public support, a
20-year mineral withdrawal was established in the Rainy River
watershed, home to the Boundary Waters. That decision reflects common
sense. Some places are too valuable to gamble with.
With today's technology, if it is a gamble, why not wait 30 years
when maybe that technology is a sure bet? But it is not a sure bet
today.
That decision also reflected the voices of the American people
because the assessment that led to the mineral withdrawal was completed
by the U.S. Forest Service in 2022, and it included hundreds of
thousands of public comments--675,000 public comments--over 95 percent
of which favored the withdrawal area being withdrawn from nonferrous
mining, sulfide mining.
Today, 70 percent of Minnesotans oppose mining in the Boundary
Waters. Instead of listening to Minnesotans and Americans from all over
the country who care about this place, Republicans today are using an
unprecedented, blunt-force legislative method that includes zero public
comment--no comment period--to make decisions about our public lands
without any input from the people to whom those lands actually belong.
We can't talk about the Boundary Waters without also speaking of
belonging and Tribal communities. Three Tribes--the Bois Forte Band,
the Fond du Lac Band, and the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa--have
extensive treaty rights in Northeastern Minnesota. These are rights to
do things like hunt and fish and gather wild rice. These rights are
guaranteed to them by the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe and have been
reaffirmed by Federal courts over and over again. By overturning the
public land order with a CRA resolution, Senate Republicans will not
only cut Tribes out of the conversation, but they disrespect the Tribal
treaty rights and directly risk those Tribes' guaranteed access to
their traditional way of life and subsistence use of this place.
So since my Republican colleagues are refusing to include
constituents' voices in this process, I will bring a few of those from
New Mexico to the floor here today.
Dr. Brown, from Santa Fe, wrote me in urging that we oppose this
vote. He said:
I've canoed the Boundary Waters many times and can attest
to its uniqueness . . . with some of the purest water in the
U.S., these lakes are visited and admired by thousands of
Americans . . . Pollution of the
[[Page S1795]]
Boundary Waters would be a tragedy for the nation and the
world.
Dr. Merriman, from Albuquerque, said:
Please vote no on HJ Res 140. Some things are worth more
than money.
Lee, from Los Alamos, wrote:
I am writing to ask you to oppose H.J. Res 140 . . . The
[Boundary Waters Canoe Area] is a national treasure--not just
for Minnesotans but for me and other New Mexicans as well.
From Naima in Santa Fe:
This is a hideous giveaway to corporate profiteers and
cannot stand. Please vote NO.
From Dr. Bagne in Silver City:
Any short-term economic gains would clearly not outweigh
the long-term risks to the ecosystem and water supplies.
Although it is in Minnesota, many similar public lands in New
Mexico would be threatened by . . . relaxing mining rules.
Please oppose.
Judy, from Albuquerque, wrote:
I am aghast . . . Please do all that you can to stop this
giveaway of our wonderful public lands. This happened despite
all the thousands of citizen signatures against the vote.
From Roxane in Rio Rancho:
Please vote against reversing the ban on mining . . . I am
very concerned that the Trump Administration is flying under
the radar and doing a lot of damage that will be difficult,
or even impossible, to reverse.
From Amy in Albuquerque:
Please do not allow this to happen. [The Boundary Waters]
belong to all Americans, not to a Chilean mining company with
contracts to [process ore in] China.
Their voices matter because the Boundary Waters are our public
lands--all of ours. President Teddy Roosevelt, who had the incredible
foresight to protect this beautiful place, had it right when he said
that we ``should see to it that they are preserved for [our] children
and [our] children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all
unmarred.''
The way I look at public lands is that they are the closest, most
tangible thing we have to being able to represent true Jeffersonian
democracy.
They are the thing, as we saw last June, that often unites us across
the political spectrum. If you take these public lands away, you tear
away the places where we are the most free. This is an issue of our
heritage, and it is an issue of our inheritance.
It is an issue for Minnesota, but it is not just an issue for
Minnesota--it is an issue for our Nation. It is about something bigger.
It is a test of whether our public lands--as a friend of mine likes to
say--our public lands that are the anvil upon which we have forged our
collective identity.
Can that be stripped from us? Can it be stripped of their
protections?
You know, I am going to summarize this one more time. We are going to
allow a foreign mining company to take our minerals, to ship those
minerals to China for processing, and then to sell those back to us
with a tariff on top.
Like, how is that ``America First''? It is not. And to risk this
globally, incredible rare asset that is the Boundary Waters for that,
boy, that just seems really shortsighted to me.
I would urge every one of my colleagues--I would urge you--to vote no
on this Congressional Review Act resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from New
Mexico for laying out the issues so ably that are before us with this
House resolution on the Boundary Waters. It is wonderful to have a
colleague who not only is really good at being a legislator but who is
also an outstanding hunter and fisherman and then, on top of that, is
also an engineer so that he can explain to us the impacts of this kind
of mining on the environment with a scientific expertise that I just
really value.
I thank Senator Heinrich so much for being here tonight to help tell
the story of what the impact of this mine would be on this incredible
place and why it is so important that this CRA be defeated.
As I think about what I want people to know about this place, I can't
help but think about the first time that I saw the Boundary Waters
myself. Some of my colleagues may know that I was originally born in
New Mexico. I have lived in Minnesota for over 40 years now, but I was
originally born in New Mexico. New Mexico is a desert climate. So, when
I first went to Minnesota, I didn't quite know what to make of all of
the lakes and rivers and streams and the beautiful green everywhere.
But I was married to a man who had spent his high school years up in
the Boundary Waters. He went to a camp up there where he would go up
for weeks at a time and canoe throughout the Boundary Waters. The
Boundary Waters are connected to a big Canadian provincial park called
the Quetico, and you literally can canoe from surface water in the
Boundary Waters and get all the way to Hudson Bay, which is just
remarkable. I went up there for the first time to see this incredible
place after Archie and I had lived in Minnesota for a few years, and I
think, in a lot of ways, it is when I first fell in love with
Minnesota--the place of Minnesota--because I just couldn't believe all
the water and the green and the wildlife and also how wild it was and
to be able to be out on the water, in a canoe, and feel like you were
just so far away from the pressures of modern civilization.
Yet, the Boundary Waters is really quite accessible to people. It is
not one of those areas that is a wilderness area that is impossible to
get to, which is why, as you know, we are talking about it tonight.
People have been--you know, hundreds of thousands of people are able to
visit the Boundary Waters each year and are able to experience what it
is like to be in this place.
As I said earlier, the last time I was there was at the end of last
summer. We were in the Boundary Waters just for a day trip, and even on
that day trip, we saw two wolves, which is, like, really incredible.
You can imagine in the wintertime, when it is so dark in that part of
the world--long, long nights--the opportunity to see the aurora
borealis, or the northern lights, which are just really phenomenal.
Then, in the summertime, the long, long northern summer evenings
stretch on until, you know, 9:30 or 10 at night, and you have
incredible opportunities to go fishing and just be at the camp and just
enjoy it. It is really amazing.
When I first went to the Boundary Waters with our kids, I started to
get really interested in the history of this place, and I found it just
fascinating to think about. So you have got, you know, what today we
think of as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which is a
million areas of protected wilderness. It is important, I think, as I
was diving into the history of this place, to understand that,
historically, this has been the home of the Anishinaabe people, the
Ojibwe people, in Northern Minnesota. They lived in this place for, you
know, generations and generations. They canoed and hunted and fished to
support themselves and their families and their communities, and that
was their home.
Starting in the 18th century, the Boundary Waters got connected up
through the fur trade routes as the voyageurs came, you know, all the
way from across the Atlantic and in through, you know, what is now
Northern Minnesota and Canada; but it was at that point that this was
just an incredible resource for these fur trading routes that were a
hugely--hugely--big deal. That fur trade really, you know, drove what
was happening in that part of the country. In the 1700s and 1800s,
French explorers and traders really opened up the area. The North West
Company established a trading post at Grand Portage, and that was
really kind of the economic driver.
In this moment, this part of the country that is now the Boundary
Waters experienced some, you know, huge transitions, but I think it is
important for us all to understand that, even though this is a
wilderness place--it is a wild place--it has also always been a place
where people were, where people were a part of what was happening in
this country and in this particular part of the country.
Of course, you know, over time, as the United States became a country
and entered into relationships with the Tribal nations that lived in
this part of the country, that became sort of what drove a lot of the
geopolitics, I guess you could say, of this part of the Nation.
In 1857, there was the Enabling Act, and the U.S. Congress was
granted land to support schools through the University of Minnesota.
Then a little bit later--this is right about the time of
[[Page S1796]]
the statehood for Minnesota; Minnesota was admitted into the Union in
1858--you know, there was additional negotiating that happened, and
Congress granted the right to the State to swap lands in order to, you
know, pull, you know, big chunks of land together.
By the time of about 1902, the U.S. Land Office--what it did is it
withdrew a half a million acres in what is now the future--what was the
future WCA wilderness area, and they withdrew it from settlement, which
was a really, really important thing because, at this time, we were
seeing massive development in Northern Minnesota, a huge--you know,
massive timber resources were present in the State and, of course,
mineral resources, including iron.
In 1904, at the request of the State's forestry board, Congress
granted 20,000 acres to the State for the Burntside Forest Reserve, and
it said in that situation that State forest reserves should be devoted
not alone to the business of raising timber but to the pleasures of all
the people. It is interesting to me. I think about how Minnesota--even,
you know, back more than a century ago--was thinking carefully about
how to balance the power and the vitality of our economy in Northern
Minnesota with also the understanding that some of that most precious
land needs to be set aside in a place where people can enjoy it.
Over time, in 1909, the Superior National Forest was created by
President Theodore Roosevelt--a great conservationist in our country's
history. I often think of him as the man who really was the leader of
the powerful Republican conservation movement in this country. So, in
1909, President Theodore Roosevelt created the Superior National Forest
from previously withdrawn lands that had been set aside, including what
is now part of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. There was continuing
work both at the State level and at the Federal level to create sort of
game refuges--yes, refuges--and other places that would be places
where, you know, the moose and the caribou and other wild creatures
would have a place to live even as Northern Minnesota was becoming
increasingly developed.
In 1926, the roadless wilderness area in the Superior National Forest
was established by the Secretary of Agriculture at the time, which was
640,000 acres. At that point, they said the policy here was to retain
as much as possible the land which had recreational opportunities of
this nature in the wilderness.
The efforts of this country to continue to protect this area went
forward in the 1930s with the passage of the Shipstead-Newton-Nolan Act
to protect water levels and lakeshores. There had been some dams and
other sort of navigational structures that had been built that were
having an impact on how the water flowed in the Boundary Waters. So
here we had kind of a prohibition of those dams and logging within 400
feet of this recreational area just to sort of protect the natural
area.
And then in the late 1920s and early 1930s, work continued to sort of
establish what was this special place that was going to be protected.
In 1938, the U.S. Forest Service established the Superior Roadless
Primitive Area, with boundaries that, today, are quite similar--quite
similar to what today is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
In Minnesota, we know a lot about something called Thye-Blatnik. I
can talk more about that, but in 1948, Congress passed the Thye-Blatnik
area. And what happened then is that, through the Thye-Blatnik Act,
resorts and other private lands in the wilderness were bought up, and
we established something that is still very important to this day,
something that I work on all the time, that in lieu of the property
taxes that might have been achieved through those lands, there is a
payment in lieu of taxes called Thye-Blatnik that goes to the counties
up in Northern Minnesota--Cook County and Lake County, St. Louis
County--in exchange for what was this wilderness area for all of us to
enjoy.
In 1949, President Truman issued an Executive order for basically an
airspace reservation over the wilderness area to prohibit planes from
flying in on the lakes and disrupting the experience of nature that
people could have there. You were not allowed to fly lower than 4,000
feet over the wilderness.
And then in 1958, the Forest Service changes the name of this place
to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and it becomes a part of what we now
know as the Boundary Waters.
In 1964, another really important milestone happened for the
protection of this incredible place, and that was when Congress passed
the Wilderness Act, and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area became part of
the National Wilderness Preservation System with a clause that allowed
for some logging and some use of motorized vehicles to continue in this
area.
In 1965, the Secretary of Agriculture at the time was Orville
Freeman, who was a Minnesotan, and Secretary Freeman issued all sorts
of management changes that were recommended to kind of further protect
this area from logging and from motorized boats and zoning to make sure
that it would stay in its most natural state.
In 1978, Congress enacts the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness
Act, which protected this place in perpetuity--we would hope--to be the
wilderness area that it is. This was a very, very important thing.
It was somewhat controversial in Minnesota at the time, there is no
doubt, but it has, today, become one of the most beloved places in
Minnesota, thanks to the prescience of State and local leaders who went
forward to protect this place.
And I am thinking--as I think about all of the people over so many
generations who have been in this place for sustenance, for their food,
for their housing, and in more modern times, for their ability to get
away from it all and to enjoy this place in ways that is so difficult,
I am thinking about all the people that I have heard from who have
asked me to make sure that we are protecting this place.
I think, today--a big thanks to everybody who has reached out to our
office. I think, today, we had hundreds of phone calls into the office
asking me to do everything I can to protect the Boundary Waters
Wilderness Area. And, honestly, over the last many weeks that this
issue has been on the forefront of people's minds, we have gotten, I am
sure, just thousands and thousands and thousands of messages from
people.
And what is interesting about these messages is, you know, one, how
many people have firsthand experience of this incredible place and what
it means to them and just the diversity of the stories that people
have.
I find this all the time when I go around Minnesota, and people will
stop me and thank me for the work that I have done to protect this
place, just the way that people want to tell the stories of what it has
meant to them.
I think, today, especially in this time when it is so hard,
especially for our young people to get--I mean all of us, however old
you are--to get away from technology and to just sort of be centered in
that experience of being, you know, out in nature, that it is causing
people to be even more appreciative of what it means to have a
wilderness area like this.
So I am going to just take a moment to read some of the stories that
have been forwarded to me about the power of this place and the lives
of people in Minnesota and across the country.
This is a story from Grand Rapids, MN, which is in the, kind of,
northern part of the State, still south of the Boundary Waters, and it
says:
I am a 53-year-old that has lived in Northern Minnesota her whole
life. My family and I have enjoyed God's great Northwoods and all it
has to offer through canoeing and camping, water skiing, biking,
campfires, hiking, swimming, and much more. To see and hear about the
Boundary Waters possibly condemned would be beyond a travesty. Just
think of all of the animals, all of the family trips ended, tree
growth, the disaster that would happen there, not to mention what it
would do to the ecosystem and whatever else I cannot fathom right now.
This is a message that was sent in to me from Mahtomedi, MN, which is
more in the Twin Cities, South Central part of the State in the Twin
Cities area. This person wrote:
The Boundary Waters have been a very special place to me for a long
time. I was first taken there by my father and my uncle, and it was the
start
[[Page S1797]]
of my relationship with my uncle who was previously more distant from
our family due to work. Since then, I have gone to the Boundary Waters
Canoe Area Wilderness once a year for the past few years with my father
and my uncle. So many of my fondest memories are all from the Boundary
Waters, and I hope to continue to make more of them, not only with my
father and my uncle but with my own children in the future as well.
This is a message from someone from Farmington, MN. Farmington is
also in the suburban metro area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. And this
person said:
Me and my dad take a trip once yearly to canoe the Boundary Waters. I
am 23 years old, and every year is incredibly special because the
Boundary Waters are so important to my family. My dad proposed to my
mom in the Boundary Waters. The Boundary Waters represents love; the
wild, untamed American spirit; and my family. I want to be able to show
my children pristine wilderness. I am begging you to act to protect the
Boundary Waters.
This is a message from Rochester, MN, the home of Mayo Clinic and
University of Minnesota Rochester, an incredible community. This person
has written this:
I was 10 years old when I first visited the Boundary Waters with my
dad and my grandfather. I have since visited numerous times, including
in 2020 when my grandfather, who had been going to the Boundary Waters
for 40 years, made his final visit. This place is now, to my family,
not just a tranquil retreat but also a time-honored family legacy and
an act of remembrance for my grandfather. To allow the Boundary Waters
to be permanently open for mining is to destroy one of the great
natural gifts God has given Minnesota for current generations and
generations to come.
Now, I just want to pause on this because I think it is an
opportunity to talk a little bit more about--kind of help to locate in
colleagues' and people's brains like where this mine will be, and I
have a map which shows how this all flows.
So the Boundary Waters is this huge area, as we have said, a million
acres of wilderness. And I am going to orient you here. The green here
is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. And this is the border
between Minnesota and Canada here. And this is the Quetico Provincial
Park, which is this huge Canadian national park. It is really quite
incredible.
And then here you see Ely, MN, which is a major entry point into the
Boundary Waters. If you were to go over here, you would find--oh, I
guess it is down here as I am orienting myself on this map. I guess it
is over here. There is another access point that is commonly used by
people in going into the Boundary Waters through the Gunflint Trail and
Grand Marais, which is right here on Lake Superior.
And what we are talking about here, here you can see--I am going to
give you the orientation here--the red--this area here, the yellow and
green stripes, which you can see here, this is where the Twin Metals
deposits are, this mine that we are talking about. These are the
deposits that would be developed by Antofagasta, by the Twin Metals
Mine, right here.
The red area shows how the water flows on the map, and it gives you
an idea of why, even though this mine is just slightly outside of the
actual boundaries of the Boundary Waters, that, for the practical
purposes of the watershed and how the water moves, it might as well be
inside the watershed in terms of how the damage to the water would flow
because you can see, it is all connected. I mean, that is what happens
with water, it flows.
And so here you have Birch Lake. It flows up this way. This is the
Namakan River, Namakan Lake. Up here is Rainy Lake. This is close to
where our kids went to camp. Kabetogama Lake is up here.
All of this area is connected. And so when you hear, colleagues,
people telling you: You don't need to worry about this because this
mine isn't in the Boundary Waters, that is not the point. The point is
that it is in the watershed of the Boundary Waters, and that is how the
damage is done.
(Mr. ARMSTRONG assumed the Chair.)
Mr. President, I was showing colleagues this map because I wanted to
make a couple of points about how this works--how the waterflow works.
One is that even though the mineral deposits and how they are going
to be developed are just barely outside of the Boundary Waters Canoe
Area, the impact of the mine and the impact on the water spreads not
only through the Boundary Waters, but it also flows up through these
rivers that essentially form the border between Minnesota and Canada--
the United States and Canada--and then into Voyageurs National Park. I
think sometimes we don't talk enough about the impact on Voyageurs,
which is an incredible park.
Together, Boundary Waters and Voyageurs offer people so many
different ways of experiencing this wilderness, and the impact on both
of them is really significant.
I think sometimes also it is hard for folks to fully understand and
appreciate what is the impact on water quality of this kind of mine.
And so I want to just share some of that with you as well as you think
about what is the risk that is actually posed by this?
And I am going to get into this a bit more in some detail, but I
think it is important, as you are considering this, to understand that
during the mineral lease withdrawal process that happened in--well,
really, stretched over time between, roughly, 2016 and 2021, when it
was brought to a conclusion, there was a massive amount of effort,
scientific research study that was done, huge amounts of public comment
to gather information about what people thought about this that became
the basis for the decision to do this mineral withdrawal.
The mineral withdrawal process is defined in the Federal Land
Management Policy Act. I believe it is the FLPMA, as people call it
around here. And that was followed to a tee. And that congressional law
allows for mineral withdrawals when it is determined that the potential
risks of mines or other kinds of natural resources development pose too
great a risk to the public resource that belongs to it all. So I will
talk about that in a little bit more detail, but I wanted to just share
with colleagues this background on why sulfide ore copper mining poses
such a unique risk to the Boundary Waters of Minnesota.
So the background here is that a Chilean mining company operating
under the name of Twin Metals--Senator Heinrich said it sounds like a
nice Minnesota name, and it is, but it is essentially a wholly owned
subsidiary of Antofagasta.
So this Chilean mining company has proposed this mine--a large
copper-nickel mine immediately upstream of the Boundary Waters Canoe
Area Wilderness. And this proposed mine would extract copper from a
geological formation called the Duluth Complex.
The Duluth Complex really runs kind of this way. It runs from
northeast to southwest across Minnesota. This is important because
there are lots of places where the Duluth Complex can be developed in
addition to this particular place where these leases in question are
right on the border of the Boundary Waters. There are huge resources
all across the way. And, in fact, there are other mines under
development down in this part of the State that are going through the
process of getting developed.
So this Duluth process, which has a specific type of sulfide ore that
interacts with water in ways that can create--that do create permanent
contamination risks. And so the question is, How does this mechanism
work? What exactly happens? And why is it so particularly difficult to
manage in this watershed? Part of why the water quality is of such a
big concern in this area is that the baseline condition here is just so
outstanding.
A 2017 report by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency describes the
water within the Boundary Waters watershed as ``exceptionally clean and
immaculate.'' It concludes that the majority of the water bodies within
this watershed have exceptional biological, chemical, and physical
characteristics.
So the water in the Boundary Waters is so clean that visitors
frequently drink right out of the lakes. There is no need for any
purification. I have done this myself. When you are canoeing--now, you
are not going to want to drink the water right next to the shore
[[Page S1798]]
because that is where the wild animals are, but you can go out into the
middle of the lake and dip your mug into the water in the middle of the
lake, and the water is incredible. So the fundamental hazard of sulfide
ore mining is this acid mine drainage that happens.
When sulfide-bearing rock is excavated and exposed to oxygen and
water, a chemical chain reaction begins, and what happens is that the
sulfide minerals here, primarily--I might not say this exactly right--
pyrrhotite, which is in the Duluth Complex, it oxidizes upon exposure
and then you have sulfuric acid. And sulfuric acid then dissolves the
surrounding rock and leaches out heavy metals--including copper and
arsenic and lead and cadmium--into the water. And the resulting
contaminated water, which is the acid mine drainage, is very acidic,
and it is also laden with heavy metals, and that, of course, is toxic
to aquatic life.
And the mining operations are going to dramatically increase the
surface area of this rock as it is exposed to water and oxygen, and
that accelerates the oxidation by many orders of magnitude compared to
what you would see with natural weathering rates. And once this acid
mine drainage has started, it is incredibly difficult to stop it, and
it can continue for centuries or in perpetuity after the mine closes--a
problem that is sometimes called perpetual treatment.
So if you think about it, this mine--the mining company itself says
that they think that the mine would probably be in operation for, I
think, 10, 15 years or in that area. Yet you are going to have
centuries of impact from this so-called perpetual treatment issue.
A secondary chemical hazard, when you are doing sulfide ore mining in
this particularly damp environment of the Boundary Waters watershed,
would also substantially increase sulfite loading in the water. So
elevated sulfate triggers a separate but related chemical reaction with
serious consequences for human health.
Sulfite-reducing bacteria in sediment can convert sulfate to sulfide
under low oxygen conditions and then the sulfide can react with
inorganic mercury, which is naturally present in the environment, to
produce methylmercury. And methylmercury bioaccumulates in the food
chain, concentrating in fish at levels that can be dangerous for human
consumption.
Sulfate discharges from existing disturbed areas of sulfide ore in
the watershed have already elevated sulfate levels in the BWCA
headwaters, and analysis of monitoring data indicates that there is a
measurable water quality degradation that is already occurring.
So this is important because the Boundary Waters fisheries--
particularly walleye, the most beloved fish in Minnesota--are central
to the recreational and economic value of this place. And, of course,
mercury contamination resulting in consumption advisories would have a
significant impact for the sport fishing industry, certainly for Tribal
subsistence rights, and overall for the negative impacts on the
regional tourism economy.
So I think, as you think about this, I mean, you have got to
sometimes think: Wow, like, that sounds bad, but is that really going
to happen? Do we really have to worry about that? Won't there be a way
of avoiding this? And I just want to point out that we can look at the
precedence of what has happened in the other places around the country
to help answer that question.
The chemical risks that I have just described are not theoretical. In
fact, there are two sites in the United States where this AMD from
sulfide ore mining has caused serious and long-lasting harm. This is
the acid mine drainage--AMD.
So the first site is the Gold King Mine in Colorado. This is from
2015. In August of 2015, an EPA contractor crew working at the
abandoned Gold King Mine near Silverton, CO, accidentally breached a
plug, releasing approximately 3 million gallons of acid mine drainage
into Cement Creek, which is a tributary of the Animas River.
So this plume, which was literally visible orange from dissolved iron
and heavy metals, it traveled more than 100 miles downstream through
Colorado and New Mexico. It crossed into the Navajo Nation. The Navajo
Nation relies on the San Juan River for irrigation and for drinking
water, and three States had to declare emergencies.
The Navajo Nation had to shut down all water withdrawals from the
river, farmers lost crops and were forced to sell their livestock, and
some metals were measured at hundreds of times the legal limits for
drinking water. Now, a treatment plant costing $1.5 million to build
and $2.4 million per year to operate was still running as of 2024--9
years after the spill. This treatment plant is treating an estimated
300 gallons of contaminated water per minute draining continuously from
the mine.
Local communities have declined Superfund designation for years out
of concern for tourism, but the spill forced their hand, and victims
have filed hundreds of millions of dollars in claims. None has been
paid because the EPA evoked sovereign immunity.
So this was a breach in this gold metal mine in Silverton talking
about a plume of this polluted acid drainage that is traveling more
than 100 miles. And I know my Minnesota pretty well, but I would say
that--I mean, certainly from Birch Lake to Voyageurs National Park is
less than 100 miles. So it gives you an idea of how far this polluted
water can spread in these kinds of dangerous environments.
I want to tell colleagues about another example of this kind of
failure, and that is the Summitville Mine in Colorado. At the
Summitville Gold Mine in southern Colorado, acid- and metal-laden
runoff killed all biological life in a 17-mile stretch of the Alamosa
River.
The operator declared bankruptcy in 1992 and abandoned the site
midoperation, leaving EPA to manage the ongoing emergency, and the site
was designated a Federal Superfund site, and Federal cleanup costs have
exceeded $210 million. The Alamosa River has never fully recovered.
I think it is important that we think about these things as we
consider the risks of this kind of mine. And, again, I want to remind
colleagues that that is one of the reasons why this mineral withdrawal
was done--because the Forest Service considered these risks. They did
an environmental assessment, and they concluded that this risk was too
great to bear.
When we weigh these substantial risks of mining near the Boundary
Waters, it is important for us to ask: What is the benefit? What might
we see here? Where might we benefit? And this is, I think, really
important to understand because where would these minerals go?
There has been an argument made that this is an ``America First''
national security priority to develop these minerals, but the question
is, Who would own the minerals that are brought up from this piece of
land right here near Birch Lake in Northern Minnesota? And the answer
to that question is these minerals are going to go to China.
Antofagasta--the Chilean company that is wanting to develop these
leases--operates a number of copper mines in South America, and it
sends the majority of the ore that it pulls out of the ground to
Chinese state-owned refineries for processing.
This year, in fact, these Chinese refineries have agreed to an
unprecedented zero-dollar contract for processing Antofagasta ore. So
if you think about it, what this means is that China is in such great
need of copper ore to develop their energy and their AI
infrastructure--and all of the reasons that they need copper ore--that
they have agreed to directly subsidize Antofagasta's copper production
by providing free processing of its ore.
So what this means, of course, is that the copper nickel that is
pulled out of these deposits is going to probably travel by train to
the Pacific coast, where it is then going to be transported to China,
where it will be smelted in China, and it will be used.
Those minerals aren't going to then be sent back to us free. They are
going to be maybe, at best, sold back to us in iPhones or other kinds
of consumer products. But they are not ours to develop. We are going to
have to buy them back.
So I question, colleagues: What is the advantage here? Where is the
national security advantage? Where is the ``America First'' advantage
that we are looking for?
With a critical minerals trade war already underway, shipping
American minerals to China seems to run counter to so much of the work
that Congress
[[Page S1799]]
is trying to do to onshore critical minerals and critical mineral
supply chains.
So as I have been looking at this, I think it shows us that the
proposed risks of this mine are substantial. They arise from the
chemistry of the ore itself and, specifically, the chemistry in this
very particular climate. And here in the particular rock and the
particular climate in Minnesota, you have got the inevitability of AMD,
this acid mine drain-off, from this sulfide-rich rock. You have the
absence of any natural acid buffering capacity in the watershed. And
then you have this sort of sulfate-driven methylmercury pathway that is
developed.
These chemical realities, combined with the connectivity of this
water across so many miles between the mine site here, the BWCA
immediately adjacent to it, and then all of this watershed mean that
the consequences of contamination would be really severe. They would be
long-lasting, and they would be effectively irreversible.
And as we consider the risks that come from this mine proposal, I
think we really have to ask ourselves if it is worth endangering one of
our most beloved wilderness areas so that American minerals can be
processed and used in China.
Now, colleagues, I want to turn to an issue that is a little bit
geeky and nerdy. If you are in Congress, though, you appreciate the
value of it. And this has to do with, sort of, what is the process that
we are using right here, right now, to pass this CRA. Let me just kind
of talk about that a little bit because I think it is important for us
to understand the precedent that we will be setting if we pass this
resolution.
So we have before us H.J. Res. 140, which would essentially apply the
congressional review authority process, with all of the privileges of
that process, to something that is not a rule--which is what the
congressional review authority is all about--but is a public land
order. And this is important to understand.
The mineral withdrawal that was done here was done under the
authorities of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. And in that
Federal Land Policy and Management Act, there are processes that
Congress defined if they don't like what happened, if they don't like
what the executive branch did. There are processes for congressional
disapproval of a public land order.
And so under this Federal Land Policy and Management Act--I am going
to call it FLPMA because that is what everyone calls it around here--
there is an existing process for Congress to express its disapproval
with a public land order, like the 2023 mineral withdrawal which is
under consideration here on the Senate floor tonight. In that process
that is described, Congress is given 90 days to adopt a concurrent
resolution of disapproval.
So what is interesting is that, following the 2023 mineral
withdrawal, which was completed in 2023, a resolution of disapproval on
that mineral withdrawal was actually introduced. It was introduced on
the House floor, and it passed out of the House Natural Resources
Committee--all done, sort of, under the rules of sort of what FLPMA
establishes. But it was never brought to the House floor, never brought
to the Senate floor. And, in fact, Congress never acted on it.
And what happened, of course, is that under FLPMA you have 90 days to
review or disapprove of an action, and that 90-day window opened and
closed, and it passed.
So now what is happening--you might be asking: So why are we dealing
with this now? This was in 2023. It actually came up on the House
floor, and nothing ever came of it. Why are we dealing with this now?
Well, so the reason for that is that Republicans in the House are
trying to use the congressional review authority, basically, to get a
do-over. They are ignoring the fact that the CRA wasn't created to
overturn a public land order, especially one that was 3 years old.
The CRA was designed by Congress to say: If the Federal Government
passes a rule that we don't like, within 60 days we have the right to
say: No, that is not what we meant; we want to draw it back again.
But, of course, that is not what is going on here. We are talking
about not 60 days, not 90 days; we are talking about 3 years. We are
not talking about a Federal regulation; we are talking about a public
land order that has been standing for 3 years.
And I just think we have to think about what are the impacts of this
precedent if this is the step that the Senate decides to take, because,
if we are allowing these public land orders to be rescinded under the
Congressional Review Act--I mean, this is a really dangerous precedent.
Public land orders have never previously been submitted by any
administration, including the first Trump administration. They have
never previously been submitted as rules subject to the congressional
review authority. This is the first one, submitted 3 years after the
public land order was issued by the Department of the Interior. And, in
fact, as I have just said, Congress set up a completely different set
of procedures specifically to reconsider public land orders under the
Federal Land Policy and Management Act.
So what we are seeing here is using the CRA to undo this public land
order, which would establish an entirely new precedent. It would allow
future Congresses to undo public land orders with no time limit on any
public land order. And potentially, based on this precedent, it could
allow future Congresses, with a simple partisan majority vote, to undo
any administrative action.
So what would that look like? What would that mean? Because I think,
as we are making this decision, colleagues, you always have to think
about that sometimes you are in power, sometimes you are out of
power. But you have to think about what are the long-term implications
of your decision.
So if this precedent is set--if we say, yes, the CRA could be used to
undo a public land order, like we have here in the Boundary Waters--
well, then, I would think that some future Democratic Congress might
think: Hmm, let's use the CRA to undo a fossil fuel lease or a mining
lease or a timber lease that we don't think makes sense in South
Dakota. Maybe we could use--this precedent would suggest that you could
use the CRA to undo a permit or undo a permit denial. In fact, it seems
so broad, this precedent, that it could probably undo any determination
on an administrative law matter.
So that seems to me to be really risky--because one of the things
that matters in this country is that you might not always agree with
what happens, but there has to be some continuity, some consistency. If
we are constantly doing something and then undoing it and then doing it
again, I can tell you from my business background that that is a
disaster, because how do you decide to make investment decisions if you
think that willy-nilly, depending on who is in power and what the
environment is, what the political environment is, an investment that
you made in one area, under one administration, is going to be undone
by another administration at another time--because that is exactly what
is happening here. One administration, one party, is undoing what was
done perfectly legally 3 years ago.
Now, it makes sense to me, right, that if something is done that
Congress just disagrees with, that you would have a window of time to
undo it--like, I think, 60 days, 90 days, as we have with the CRA and
the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. That makes sense.
Congress says: No, that is not what we wanted. That is not what we
intended. That was not our legislative intent when we wrote this. We
are going to undo it.
Then that makes sense to me.
If an administration does a mineral withdrawal like we did here, like
the Biden administration did here, and Congress says, ``That was a
mistake; that doesn't comply with the laws as we wrote them; we are
going to change it,'' then, by all means, go ahead and try to change
it, but not 3 years later and not in this way, not using a tool that
was not--the CRA tool was not built for this. It was built to change a
regulation that Congress disagreed with.
I think that it is a very dangerous--very, very dangerous--precedent,
and I think it is the kind of precedent that, honestly, when the shoe
is on the other foot, it creates problems. And I know that I have
spoken with my colleagues
[[Page S1800]]
on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, who are
concerned about this precedent and wonder what it might mean. And the
Presiding Officer and I both have experience in the private sector, and
I think we could relate to the idea that capital likes certainty,
capital likes to minimize risk by knowing what is going to--what they
can count on. And that is, I think, one of the gravest dangers of this
action that the Senate seems poised to take.
In a world where the Senate is always going to be a place where
people disagree with one another, where we are not always going to see
things the same way, where a project that I might think shouldn't be
permitted somebody else might think is reasonable to be permitted--
those disagreements will always be there. But if we get into a
situation where different parties, depending on whether they are in
power or not, are just sort of--kind of randomly--undoing what has been
in place for several years, I just think it further undermines the need
for--it adds to chaos, it undermines certainty, and it certainly
doesn't contribute to the problem-solving mentality that I think that
we need around here.
And, of course, for my precious Boundary Waters, it has potentially
really significant impacts, as I have described here, with the likely
impact of water pollution on this precious place. And it also just
leads to more lawsuits and more, sort of, legal wrangling that, in my
mind, I wish we could just avoid.
In my life as a political leader, I have always found that the best
ideas usually come from the people that are closest to the ground and
closest to the work and do understand best what is going on, and so I
am going to just take a few more minutes to read some of the comments
that have come my way from people who have firsthand experience with
the Boundary Waters and know what an incredible place it is.
This is a note from a constituent of mine from Medina, MN, which is,
again, in the Twin Cities Metro Area. They write:
I know all the facts and arguments below are important, but for
someone who went on Boundary Waters trips growing up, to bring my own
girls starting at ages 5 and 8, it is truly a place like no other. It
is my dad's happy place. He has led and gone on hundreds of BWCA trips
over his lifetime, and at the young age of 72, he continues to go.
This is what I was talking about earlier about how, even though this
is a very wild place, it is also so accessible to people.
This person goes on to write: He told myself and my husband when we
were packing up for our first trip ever with the girls that from the
moment that they were born, he has dreamt of this moment. The girls
love it there. We have gone every year since. They adore being in the
wilderness, seeing nature, and disconnecting from a world that can be
so overwhelming. They look forward to it every year. As a mom, I am
truly proud that my two girls are getting these opportunities. They are
learning valuable life skills while being up there, and it doesn't hurt
that we all get to disconnect from technology for a few days. I beg you
to work as hard as you can to save this special place so that my
daughters' kids will be able to enjoy it all in its splendor for years
to come.
This is a message that came to me from Waconia, MN, and this is what
this person writes: I first visited the BWCA on a church retreat in
2001, and it has been a magical place for me since then. As someone
with a wildlife biology degree who also happens to have conservative
political beliefs, I believe that protecting our country's pristine
wilderness should take precedence over any financial partnerships with
other countries. While it may momentarily create jobs for people in the
Iron Range, those benefiting the most will be in Chile and China. Let's
protect one of our country's last natural treasures so it will be
around for generations to come. I have a close group of nine
girlfriends from high school, and we have been making an annual trip to
the BWCA just outside of Ely--this is it; this is what it looks like--
just outside of Ely for 23 years now. I am now a 41-year-old mother,
and it is still my favorite weekend of the year. Please vote no to
protect the environment, the animals, and my own personal sanity. I
need the BWCA to remain protected. Remember, take nothing but pictures;
leave nothing but footprints; kill nothing but time.
I love that.
This is making me think that there has been, you know, some things
written--some things said--about what is it that Minnesota wants when
it comes to this mine and this place and protecting this place. The
stories that I am reading give wonderful anecdotes about what people
think about it, but I think I am just going to bring some polling into
this here because this is polling that shows what Minnesotans think
about this broadly across different parties.
I think it is important to know that this was research that was done
just in December of 2025. That is quite recent. This research shows us
that Minnesotans are deeply connected to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area
Wilderness and intensely support its protection. Multiple polls over
the last 10 years have consistently shown this deep connection amongst
voters across all political alignments.
This connection drives opposition to sulfide ore copper mining within
the Boundary Water watershed by double margins. Minnesota voters are
generally pro-mining, as I talked about earlier. They are pro-mining
for iron ore, taconite, and for copper-nickel with one important
exception: They overwhelmingly oppose sulfide ore copper mines that
would be located in the watershed of the Boundary Waters.
I am going to give you some of the data in a minute, but I think this
is something that I was saying earlier and that I want to return to.
Minnesota is a pro-mining State. We are so proud of our mining
heritage, and we are very, very proud of the continuing contributions
we make to the Nation's economy through iron ore. We are the No. 1
producer of iron ore in the whole country. It is a crucial part of our
economic foundation, and we are excited about the opportunity to
develop new precious metals mining in Minnesota as these new deposits
in the Duluth Complex are being explored. But Minnesota's view is, not
this mine in this place. That is the issue here because they understand
how popular, they understand how precious this place is.
So here is some of the data that I think is interesting. The Boundary
Waters is uniquely popular, and voters across all political parties--
all political parties--say protecting it is an important priority.
Sixty percent of Minnesotans say that they have been to the Boundary
Waters. That is kind of incredible.
The Boundary Waters is viewed favorably by nearly all Minnesotans
across the State. Eighty-six percent of Minnesotans have a favorable
view and 67 percent of Minnesotans have a very favorable view of
Boundary Waters.
Now, I don't know what your State is like, Mr. President, but to find
something that 60 percent of people say they have done and--what was it
here?--86 percent of people have a favorable view of, that is a pretty
big deal in our State, that everybody agrees on this.
I think it is important to understand--let me kind of break that down
a little bit because you might be thinking: Is this something that is
driven by party politics? And I can tell you as a Senator from
Minnesota that there is nothing political about people's love of the
Boundary Waters. It is not a Democratic love or a Republican love or an
Independent love, and you see that in this data.
When you ask Minnesotans ``How much of a priority do you think it
should be for Minnesota elected officials to protect the Boundary
Waters from mining pollution,'' overall, 68 percent say it is a
priority. Eighty-seven percent of Democrats say this, 66 percent of
Independents say this, and 50 percent of Republicans say this. So,
again, it is not a partisan issue. By more than a 2-to-1 margin,
Minnesota voters oppose sulfide ore copper mining in the Boundary
Waters watershed, and opposition is consistent. It has been consistent
over quite a few years because this issue has been very much on
Minnesotans' minds for quite a few years. This has been in the works
for nearly 10 years. So I think it is important to understand that this
is consistent.
It is also interesting that support for sulfide ore copper mining in
the Boundary Waters watershed has actually dropped in 8 years--over the
last 3
[[Page S1801]]
years. So there is strong support for the Boundary Waters, strong
opposition to developing a mine right in the watershed of the Boundary
Waters, and actually a growing concern for what this might mean.
It says--I will just read this--it says: This is consistent with the
view that Minnesotans generally support mining outside the Boundary
Waters watershed by a 14-percent margin--40 percent favor, and only 26
percent oppose--and they strongly oppose sulfide ore copper mining
within the Boundary Waters watershed.
I love this because it sort of shows that Minnesotans--I guess it is
no surprise that as a Minnesota Senator, I should be reflecting the
views of my constituents, and I think that is the case here--being pro-
mining, wanting to see that opportunity, wanting to see that developed
but not this mine in this place.
If you look at the biggest differences in opposition between mining
in Minnesota versus mining in the Boundary Waters watershed, it is
really quite interesting. The difference amongst Independents is plus-
62. That is a very big number for people who look at polling across the
board.
I don't know if it shows this in this memo that I am referring to,
but I can tell you, because I have seen the data, that this is also not
a regional thing. Even in Northern Minnesota, even in the Eighth
Congressional District where this mine would be, a majority of people
in the Eighth Congressional District would agree with this statement:
not this mine in this place.
So you can imagine what Minnesotans are thinking about tonight if
they are watching me talk here and thinking about what the Senate is
doing, and they are asking themselves: Why is the Senate--why did the
U.S. House--why are they undoing this protection that we had in place
that we wanted? Why are they ignoring what we think should be happening
in our State? Why are they ignoring or undermining or undoing the
protections we want to see in place for these public lands that matter
so much?
I can tell you from the conversations I have been having that it is
contributing to their lack of trust in this body, the ability of this
body to, you know, produce action and legislation that actually reflect
what they want to see happen. It is frustrating to them, and they are
asking me: Why is this happening? Why is it even possible that
something that was done and done correctly and done legally, you know,
years ago is now being undone by a lot of people who have never even
been to Minnesota and don't really even know what this is all about?
You know, it is difficult for me to explain exactly why this is
happening. That is why I am here tonight to talk about this in all the
ways that I can and help to try to change the flow of this debate as I
am trying to change the flow of this polluting water through the
Boundary Waters.
I would like to take a couple of minutes and talk a little bit about
the work that was done to establish this mineral lease withdrawal
because I think there has also been some discussion about what was
really involved in that and shouldn't we just really let sort of the
permitting process play out as it normally would?
I would say I understand that argument that there is a--you know, we
have established a permitting process at the State level and at the
Federal level, and that should be allowed to play out. But, you know,
it is interesting because Congress also, in this Federal Land Policy
and Management Act, said that there might be occasions when there are
places where we want to be able to withdraw those mineral leases
because we can see ahead of time--before all of the work has been done,
we can see ahead of time based on our environmental assessment that
this is not wise, that this doesn't make sense.
That is exactly what happened with the Rainy River withdrawal
environmental assessment, which was done with extensive work.
I have it all right here. I do not think that I will read it all to
you tonight, but I want to just highlight some of the pieces of this so
that it can give colleagues an idea of how comprehensive this
environmental assessment was--I mean, honestly, much more comprehensive
than the Congressional Review Act resolution that is before the Senate
right now that included, you know, no outreach, no scientific evidence.
There was nothing that was presented in this CRA that says ``Nope,
this is all wrong'' that was done in this environmental review. There
was none of that at all.
So let me just highlight some of what is in this Rainy River
withdrawal, which is the basis for the mineral lease withdrawal, to
give you some confidence that it was done with a lot of integrity and a
lot of scientific backdrop.
The environmental assessment says this: The purpose of the requested
withdrawal is to protect and preserve natural and cultural resources in
the Rainy River watershed, including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area
Wilderness, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Mining Protection Area, and
the 1854 ceded territory.
Let me just let everyone know that that is the ground that is covered
by the 1854 treaty between the Federal Government and the Chippewa
Tribes of Northern Minnesota that gives them hunting and fishing and
wild rice-harvesting rights.
So it is saying basically that the purpose of this requested
withdrawal is to protect and preserve natural and cultural resources in
the Rainy River watershed from the known and potential adverse
environmental impacts arising from exploration and development of
federally owned minerals.
The withdrawal is needed because the Forest Service and the BLM have
seen and can reasonably anticipate increasing interest within the
private sector for developing the copper, nickel, ore mines in the
Duluth Complex that may adversely impact the Rainy River Watershed.
This goes on to describe what the decision-making process looks like
under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and describes how this
act, written by Congress, of course, signed into law, authorizes the
Secretary of the Interior to make and modify and extend or revoke
withdrawals, in accordance with the terms of the law. And that is what
this is all about.
So what happens in this environmental assessment is that they look at
alternatives, they look at an alternative where the leases are
withdrawn, for 20 years to be clear, or a second alternative where
there is no withdrawal and the leases continue.
And they evaluate what is likely to happen, what is likely to happen
to the environment. They also evaluate what is likely to happen to the
socioeconomics of the region because, of course, these things are
always a balance.
We don't want to live in a world where all we do is to protect
environmental resources but there is no way for people to earn a living
or to feed their families or to own their own home.
So let me just talk, let me just highlight some of this because I
think it is interesting and gets to that point.
It says, the region--this region around the Boundary Waters has a
long history of mineral exploration and extraction with mining activity
attracting migrants and establishing communities since the 19th
century. Similarly, the region's unique natural amenities and
recreation opportunities have been a source of recreation and tourism
and an amenity-based economy. The relative concentration of jobs in
both mining and tourist and related sectors demonstrate these economic
dependencies within the region, which I can say from personal
experience is very true.
So in 2019, the mining-related employment was estimated at 3 percent
of total employment in St. Louis County, Cook County, and Lake County,
that is this region. So think about that, 3 percent.
This represents over 40 percent of all mining sector jobs in the
State. Sectors associated with recreation and tourism also make up a
higher proportion of total jobs in the study area relative to the State
average.
In 2019, recreation and tourism-dependent jobs--so that includes
retail trade, arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation, and food
services--that was 22 percent of total employment in the three-county
analysis plan.
But, of course, job numbers tell only part of the economic picture,
average
[[Page S1802]]
annual wages vary substantially by sector. The average wage and natural
resource extraction sector was generally high compared to wages in many
other sectors. That is certainly the case. The Boundary Waters Canoe
Area Wilderness--this goes on to say--provides many thousands of
visitors with a unique, primitive, and nature-based recreation
experience. The wilderness area also provides economic drivers to the
local communities and the State of Minnesota. The Boundary Waters Canoe
Area Wilderness is surrounded by resorts, outfitters and guides,
campgrounds, and other visitor service businesses and hundreds of homes
and cabins.
In 2018, visitors to the wilderness area were estimated to contribute
between 230 and 570 jobs and 6 million to 14.8 million in labor income
all across this region, which we call the Arrowhead Region in
Minnesota.
So I like that this is looking at the socioeconomics of this and kind
of what are we going to do, how do we kind of maximize the benefit
here.
I want to also just say I think it is important, because I always
come back to this, the impacts on Tribes in Northern Minnesota. And
this assessment points the following out: The lands proposed for
withdrawal include the homeland and traditional use areas of the Lake
Superior Chippewa Tribe, comprised of multiple independent bands living
around Lake Superior and what is the northern parts of Minnesota.
And this, I think, is important. The Ojibwe bands were signatories of
key treaties executed by the Federal Government in the 19th century.
This withdrawal application area falls entirely within the 1854 ceded
territory of the Lake Superior Chippewa from lands deemed to have been
under the sole control of signatories at signing.
So every single thing that we are talking about here falls within the
1854 ceded territory, and this is not some historical document that is
interesting to know about that has no impact on our daily life. This
treaty is still in effect. It still establishes these hunting and
fishing and wild rice harvesting rights that exist to this day. It
still establishes the right that the Lake Superior Chippewa people, the
Anishinaabe people of Northern Minnesota have around moose and deer and
fish and berry and wild rice, their sugar bush sites, their maple
stands, their white cedar stands, ducks, and other forest resources.
Of course, these resources are available to everybody, but they have
a particular legal access point for the folks--for the Tribal nations.
It is not known in many parts of the country, but in Minnesota, wild
rice, manoomin, is a hugely important food source and also very
important culturally to Native people, and it is a very important part
of the ecosystem of this part of Minnesota.
And wild rice is a wetland plant that grows in exactly this kind of
ecosystem, and it is, again, super important to the Ojibwe people. And
this wild rice, it grows in very shallow freshwater marshes on the
edges of lakes and rivers, and typically it grows only to about 3 feet
high. And it is a very, very important part of what is included in
these treaties. I think it is important to understand that.
As I go through this environmental assessment to share what it
evaluates in terms of the opportunities in this area, what needs to be
protected and what impacts you might see from the mine, I want to just
share a little bit of that with you. I just need to find it here. This
talks about--let me find it here.
Here we go. This is a good summary, I think, of what the
environmental assessment finds. It says: The greatest potential risk to
water quality of the wilderness area and lands within the withdrawal
area comes from the catastrophic failure of a wet basin tailings
storage or impoundment dam. Wet basin tailings storages pose the risk
of dam failure and the potential release of a large volume of
contaminated sediment or tailings into the water to a nearby water
body, the potential transport of that downstream in water bodies and
receptors.
Dam failures have the greatest potential of traveling downstream at a
volume that could impact receding wilderness area water resources.
Impacts would be most severe for streams and wetlands and lakes most
adjacent to the failure. Failure would be highly likely to result in
increases of total solids, sulfates, metal, or other constituents,
exceedance of water quality standards, and observable impacts of
aquatic bio and habitat in Birch Lake becoming successively less
severe, of course, as the water moves forward.
But it assesses that the risk effects to the Boundary Waters Canoe
Area would be significant and can't be--can't be--you know, mitigated
in any way.
I think that that is the reason why this environmental assessment
forms the basis for the mineral lease withdrawal. And, again, the
mineral lease withdrawal is for 20 years, and 20 years seems like a
long time. I have been in the Senate for 9 years--half of that time--
but the idea here is that you don't want to lock these minerals up
forever. That doesn't seem reasonable. But given what the technology is
right now, given what we know about the environmental risks and what
this kind of mining would do, something is going to have to change
before this makes sense, before this is a risk worth taking.
And I believe that that is really--the message that I take out of
this environmental assessment, along with, you know, the many hundreds
of thousands of people who wrote in talking about this and saying why--
why this mattered to them.
I think during the course of this discussion when we are talking
about the special place that this is, also talking about the unusual
precedent, the remarkable and dangerous precedent that the CRA
establishes should it pass and also talking about the special
consideration that I think that we need to give to Native people who
have particular and sovereign treaty rights related to this place.
And I want to just, if I can, take a minute to go over in a bit of
detail what some of the Tribes have said about this because I think it
gives a good impact--it gives a good sense of why this is important to
them.
And let me just find this for you before I--while I am looking for
that, I want to share these other things with you because I think they
are helpful.
Senator Heinrich spoke about this earlier, and it was really
remarkable to me that as we were considering this CRA, as it was coming
over from the House to the Senate, that we received here in the Senate
an open letter from President Theodore Roosevelt's direct descendants
talking about the importance of saving the Boundary Waters. I am going
to just read this letter to make sure that people have had a chance to
understand what it says.
The letter says: Dear United States Senators, the purpose of this
letter is to strongly recommend all Senators vote against House Joint
Resolution 140 and to ask you to work with President Trump to seek ways
to permanently protect the Boundary Waters and to send a unified
message that America is still a land that relentlessly protects its
greatest wilderness terrain.
The proposed House resolution erroneously uses the Congressional
Review Act to disallow the current withdrawal of over 225,000 acres and
the headwaters of the Boundary Waters and would green-light exposure of
this national treasure to the highly toxic and destructive impacts of
sulfide-ore copper mining.
It is faulty on several key fronts. First, it is the opposite of
``America First.'' The mining company in question is foreign-owned,
will use Chinese state-owned smelters, and will then sell the extracted
metals on the open market.
Next, it removes the American public from public land decision
making. A key priority of American public land policy has always been
to have a strong bias towards obtaining robust public input. Hundreds
of thousands of Americans have already weighed in on the Boundary
Waters, and they overwhelmingly want it protected forever.
Next, it discards sound science. A detailed environmental assessment
has already documented the substantial risk copper mining poses to this
highly-valued ecosystem.
It sets a very bad precedent for other public lands. Using the CRA in
this fashion, which has never been done before, would put at risk other
public land withdrawals across America to
[[Page S1803]]
similarly irresponsible actions. Finally, the proposed resolution is
diametrically at odds with the conservation legacy of President
Theodore Roosevelt.
For all these reasons we feel a deep obligation to T.R.--as they call
him in this letter--to speak out loudly in support of this exceptional
American wilderness area.
As T.R. said at the Grand Canyon in 1903, we now reiterate with the
Boundary Waters today ``leave it as it is.'' Vote no on House Joint
Resolution 140 or any other similar legislation and seek creative ways
to protect the Boundary Waters forever.
Frankly, T.R. would have been appalled at House Resolution 140 and
the misguided and harmful effort to revoke sound and necessary mineral
withdrawals in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters.
To understand T.R.'s perspective on all of this, it is important to
review a little of his history starting with Minnesota.
T.R. had a strong affinity for Minnesota. T.R.'s love of Minnesota
emanated directly from Lincoln and Grant's leadership during the Civil
War. Minnesota immediately stepped up to support the dire cause.
T.R. had a huge amount of respect for the 1st Minnesota Infantry
Regiment, who literally saved the Union at Gettysburg. It is perhaps
why, shortly after the Civil War, as a 10-year-old sitting in Germany,
T.R. dreamed of proudly going to Minnesota someday. He hoped to get
there when he was 14, and he cheered in his diary about the prospect:
Hip, hip, hoorah.
In 1880, T.R.'s first extended hunting trip to the West brought him
as far as the Red River in Moorhead, MN, way up in the northwestern
quadrant of our State, where he briefly ducked into the Dakota
Territory for the first time. From then on, T.R.'s strong historical
connections and interest in Minnesota accelerated exponentially.
In 1838, he signed his first cattle ranching contract in Saint Paul.
In the rest of the 1880s and in the 1890s, he crossed through the State
on many memorable occasions.
In 1900, he launched his Vice Presidential campaign in Minnesota. In
1901, he gave his famous ``Big Stick'' speech at the Minnesota State
Fair.
These are just a few small samplings of T.R.'s oversized affection
for Minnesota, which helped to catapult him toward his destiny.
T.R. worked exceedingly hard to protect Minnesota's forests and
water. It should come as no surprise that T.R.'s appreciations for
Minnesota translated into an aggressive pursuit of protecting the
State's favored forests and water.
In 1902, shortly after taking office, T.R. used scientific forestry
to establish the Minnesota Forest Reserve, which was later renamed the
Chippewa National Forest. It was the first national forest reserve in
America east of the Mississippi River and the first one set aside
through an act of Congress, rather than by a Presidential proclamation.
Around the same timeframe, closer to America's northern border,
T.R.'s administration withdrew hundreds of thousands of acres in Lake
and Cook Counties in the vicinity of the Boundary Waters to get a jump
start on protecting this even more pristine source of water.
Finally, in 1909, for the public good, T.R. formally established the
much broader Superior National Forest, where the Boundary Waters Canoe
Wilderness Area resides.
Based on all of these proactive measures, there is no doubt T.R.
wanted Minnesota's greatest natural resource, its most beloved Boundary
Waters ecosystem, protected in perpetuity for all future generations to
enjoy. It was a central tenet of his balanced approach to
conservationism.
Saving the Boundary Waters makes common, bipartisan sense. Because of
the foresight of America's early Republican leaders, the Boundary
Waters has risen, as per the Department of the Interior, to become
America's most heavily visited wilderness area. Its greatness goes way
beyond Minnesota. It is the fourth pillar of all of America's greatest
continental wilderness terrain--Yosemite, Lincoln and Harrison;
Yellowstone, Grant; the Grand Canyon, Roosevelt; and the Boundary
Waters.
Saving it from the devastating effects of copper mining is,
therefore, the conservation imperative of our time and should be
bipartisan in nature.
It is certainly bipartisan in Minnesota, as evidenced by the fact
that 70 percent of Minnesotans want the Boundary Waters permanently
protected. Minnesotans know, aside from the devastating impact on the
environment, copper-nickel mining in the Boundary Waters would deal a
crushing blow to a great rural American economy. It would kill jobs,
dampen growth, decrease affordability, and erase any meaningful
prospects for future economic prosperity in the region.
For all of these reasons, we are positive T.R. would want the
Boundary Waters protected in a bipartisan fashion. But, sadly, the
passage of H.J. Res. 140 in the House puts all of this in grave
jeopardy.
Our specific ask of the United States Senators: To America's
Senators, please do all that you can to protect this national treasure.
On both sides of the political aisle, we strongly ask you to vote no on
this resolution and on any other similar legislation proposed in the
future.
T.R. was active in the preserving of our greatest wilderness terrain
on both the east and west coasts. It became one of the greatest
enduring legacies of his life. It is now time for all of you to get in
the arena with him.
We implore you to do your own parts to ensure T.R.'s commonsense
approach to conservationism is as strong today as it was more than a
century ago. There is no better place to do this than to preserve the
greatest wilderness terrain in the middle of America's heartland: the
Boundary Waters, the greatest ``America 250'' conservation gift,
protecting the fourth pillar.
This letter concludes in this way: In conjunction with America's
250th birthday, we ask you to honor President Theodore Roosevelt's
conservation legacy.
As T.R.'s Presidential Library formally opens in Medora, ND, on
Independence Day, three pillars of T.R.'s life will take central stage:
Leadership, conservation, and citizenship.
It is one thing for politicians to say they believe in these three
pillars, and it is quite another to see them act that way. We humbly
submit it would be hard to gift America a more meaningful fourth
pillar, one that better unites these three aspects of his legacy, than
a huge enduring present in the form of a permanently protected Boundary
Waters.
Finally, it should be noted that the signatories below represent the
three branches of Theodore Roosevelt's family, emanating directly from
his three sons, who all served in both World War I and World War II.
Quinton Roosevelt was, sadly, killed in action in World War I or he
certainly would have risen to the call of service the second time.
The four of us below--this is important. The four of us below have
never collectively cosigned a letter together, which should give an
indication of how strongly we support voting no on this resolution and
then voting yes on permanent Boundary Waters protection.
We greatly appreciate your time and attention to this matter.
This is signed by Theodore Roosevelt IV, Teddy Roosevelt's great-
grandson, and cosigned by Tweed Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt III, and
Mark Roosevelt.
I think this is so interesting because, one, it speaks to the great
tradition of conservationism in the Republican Party. And I love also
that it highlights these other great pillars of American remarkable
places. They talk about, in this letter, America's greatest continental
wilderness terrain: Yosemite, protected by Lincoln and Harrison;
Yellowstone protected by Grant; the Grand Canyon and Roosevelt.
And, you know, just as it is impossible for us to imagine a big mine
right on the doorstep of the Grand Canyon or Yosemite, it is impossible
for us in Minnesota to imagine this mine right on the doorstep of the
Boundary Waters. The Boundary Waters is the same caliber of national
treasure as the Grand Canyon or Yosemite or Yellowstone.
And in this country, we certainly don't say we don't want to do any
mining anyplace. But we also acknowledge that there are places that are
so special, that that does not need to be the place where we look to
meet our needs for precious metals, precious minerals.
[[Page S1804]]
I was searching, a moment ago, for--I had mentioned that I wanted to
share some of the views of America's indigenous Tribes, talking about
why they think that it is important to protect the Boundary Waters.
I have got a few here that I am going to read to you, and I am going
to start with the letter from the National Congress of American
Indians, which, as you no doubt know, is the oldest and largest
organization of sovereign Tribal nations from around the country.
I am going to--this is actually not a letter. Forgive me. This is a
resolution that the National Congress of American Indians put forward a
few weeks ago, speaking on behalf of all of the Tribes, all of the
Tribes that are members.
It is as follows. It is called: Calling on the Senate Committee on
Indian Affairs to hold a hearing to consider and take testimony on H.J.
Res 140, entitled, ``Disapproving Public Land Order 7917'' due to the
impacted Tribal interests contained in the subject public land order.
It goes as follows:
Whereas we the members of the National Congress of American Indians
of the United States, invoking the designed blessing of the Creator
upon our efforts and purposes, in order to preserve for ourselves and
our descendants the inherent sovereign right of our Indian Nations,
rights secured under Indian treaties and agreements with the United
States, and all other rights and benefits to which we are entitled
under the laws and Constitution of the United States, and the United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to enlighten
the public toward a better understanding of the Indian people, to
preserve Indian cultural values and otherwise promote the health,
safety, and welfare of the Indian people, do hereby establish and
submit the following resolution:
And whereas the National Congress of American Indians, NCAI, was
established in 1944, and as the oldest and largest national
organization of American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal governments;
And whereas the Ojibwe people have resided in North America since
time immemorial, and before the establishment of the United States,
have resided among what has become the border between the United States
and Canada and the places now called Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
and North Dakota;
And whereas the Ojibwe people entered into numerous treaties with the
United States, ceding land and reserving rights within those lands in
exchange for peace, protection, and services, including the Treaty of
La Pointe, September 30, 1854;
And whereas in the 1834 treaty, the Ojibwe reserved rights to hunt,
fish, and gather within the territory ceded in the 1854 ceded
territory, and such rights remain intact and are presently exercised by
the current beneficiaries of the 1854 treaty;
And whereas, over time, the Federal Government took land within the
ceded territory for conservation and protection, including the Superior
National Forest and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, both
within the Rainy River Watershed, which runs along the current United
States-Canada border and what is now Northeastern Minnesota;
And whereas the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a globally
unique freshwater ecosystem with some of the world's cleanest water--it
comprises 20 percent of the freshwater within the entire National
Forest System. And through its interconnected system of lakes, forests,
and wetlands, provides irreplaceable habitat for threatened species
like the lynx and the loons, and, by doing so, offers invaluable and
cultural recreational resources, including resources that the Ojibwe
utilize when exercising their reserved treaty rights;
And whereas, as recognized in the NCAI resolution on FDA O2510, wild
rice, manomin, is the sacred food of the Ojibwe people, integral to
their identity and necessary for their subsistence, and the Federal
Government must protect the waters of the 1854 ceded territory from
contamination to maintain traditional harvesting of wild rice, which,
as the Ojibwe treaty guaranteed, are usufructuary rights;
And whereas, on January 31, 2023, then Secretary of the Interior Deb
Haaland issued Public Land Order 7917, withdrawing approximately
225,504 acres of National Forest System lands from disposition under
the United States mineral and geothermal leasing laws for a period of
20 years to protect and preserve the 1854 ceded territory of the Lake
Superior Chippewa in Northern Minnesota from the political adverse
effects of mineral and geothermal exploration and development;
And whereas the order further provides that the purpose for the
withdrawal is also to protect the health, traditional cultural values,
and subsistence-based lifestyle of the Tribal nations that rely on
resources in the region, such as wild rice, which are particularly
susceptible to adverse impacts associated with mineral exploration and
development;
And whereas NCAI acknowledges that any threats to Tribal rights and
treaty rights of one Tribal nation erodes the reserved Tribal and
treaty rights of all Tribal nations, thereby eroding Tribal
sovereignty;
And whereas H.J. Res. 140, introduced in the U.S. House of
Representatives on January 12, 2026, authorizes the disapproval of
Public Land Order 7917;
And whereas the U.S. House of Representatives enacted H.J. Res. 140
without a hearing and without soliciting input from the impacted
parties, including from the Tribal nations whose treaty rights are
impacted by the disapproval;
And whereas pursuant to the rules of the Congressional Review Act
adoption and enactment of H.J. Res. 140 would permanently preclude any
future consideration or action by the executive branch, forever
stripping the impacted Tribal nations of their right to be consulted
prior to Federal actions that materially impact their lives, lands, and
interests;
And whereas H.J. Res. 140 has been transmitted to the U.S. Senate and
because disapproval of the underlying public land order directly
impacts more than one federally recognized Tribe's treaty guaranteed
rights, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs should hold a hearing on
Public Land Order 7917 in order to solicit testimony from the impacted
Tribal nations before Senate floor consideration;
Now therefore be it resolved that NCAI urges the U.S. Senate Indian
Affairs Committee to expeditiously schedule a hearing regarding the
contents of Public Land Order 7917 and the potential detrimental impact
adopting H.J. Res. 140 would have on treaty rights by soliciting
testimony from the Tribal nations impacted.
And be it further resolved that NCAI insists that the administration
and the Congress protect the unique ecosystems of the Boundary Waters
Canoe Area Wilderness from contamination and encroachment, which is the
underlying purpose of Public Land Order 7917.
And be it finally resolved that this resolution shall be the policy
of NCAI until it is withdrawn or modified by any subsequent resolution.
Now, I think this is important for a couple of reasons.
One, this is such an important organization reflecting so many Tribal
nations. It is important also that they are saying clearly that they
believe that the public land order in place right now is protecting
their Tribal sovereignty and treaty rights as they should be protected.
The resolution is also saying, if you are going to take such a
dramatic step, U.S. Senate, you ought to at least have a hearing in the
Senate Indian Affairs Committee to create an opportunity for Tribal
nations to express their views on this.
Of course, that hearing hasn't happened. Because the CRA came before
the Senate as a privileged resolution, it was not possible to refer
this to the committee during these processes that were going on. There
are so many things that the Senate is limited from doing because of the
form in which the House sent this resolution over to the Senate; but I
think it is a travesty that, at the very least, a hearing exploring the
impacts on Tribal nations will not have been held before Members of the
Senate are to make a decision that has such a significant impact on
treaty rights and Tribal nations in Minnesota. As this letter says,
what impacts one Tribal nation impacts all Tribal nations in this
environment, in this situation.
[[Page S1805]]
Having the support of the National Congress of American Indians is
extremely important, but I also want to just note that the Minnesota
Chippewa Tribes--that all of the Chippewa Tribes in Northern Minnesota
have also expressed their strong disapproval of this action that the
Senate is contemplating tonight. So I am going to read the letter that
the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe sent to Senator Klobuchar and me so that
everyone will--so that it will also be in the Record.
Here is the letter, which was written on March 4, my birthday. It's
to Senator Tina Smith and Senator Amy Klobuchar. Re: Vote No on Mining
in and around the Boundary Waters: Dear Senators Smith and Klobuchar, I
write at the direction of the leadership of the six bands of the
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe--otherwise MCT--all of which are federally
recognized Indian Tribes under the umbrella of the MCT.
As you know, in January, H.J. Res. 140 passed the House and rolls
back the 20-year ban on mining in and around the Boundary Waters Canoe
Area Wilderness and within the Superior National Forest in Minnesota.
The MCT strongly opposes any mining in that area and asks that you vote
no on any companion bill in the Senate, and we thank you both for your
public statements to date in opposition of this destructive measure.
Members of those MCT bands who were signatories to the 1854 Treaty of
La Pointe, which encompasses the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness,
retain the right to enter millions of acres in the Arrowhead region of
Minnesota to exercise their treaty reserved rights to hunt and fish and
gather.
The entire area is Ojibwe homeland. In fact, one of the key purposes
of the Bureau of Land Management order withdrawing the Superior
National Forest lands from potential mineral and geothermal leasing was
to protect and preserve the fragile and vital socio-natural resources,
ecological integrity, and wilderness values from the potential diverse
effects of mineral and geothermal exploration and development. The 1854
ceded territory was expressly called out as one of the areas that must
be protected.
The letter includes a map of the ceded territory, and the letter
concludes by saying: Again, we appreciate your opposition to lifting
the mining ban and your support of Tribes in this region. Thank you.
I have here also letters from the White Earth Indian Reservation
expressing their opposition to mining in or near the Boundary Waters
Wilderness.
I have a letter from the Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes, and
all of the Anishinaabe Tribes across Minnesota and Wisconsin are all
relatives.
This is another letter basically saying: We are writing to you today
on an issue of utmost importance to all of our members. It is our
understanding that the House joint resolution may soon be brought to
the floor. This resolution is a measure brought under the Congressional
Review Act to repeal a current rule banning copper-sulfide mining. We
urge you and your colleagues to vote no on this measure.
I have here a letter from the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, which is a
Wyoming Tribe, sent to Senator Lummis, Senator Thune, and also to
Senator Schumer and Senator Barrasso. It includes opposition, saying
clearly, on behalf of the Eastern Shoshone Business Council, it urges
the Senate to oppose H.J. Res. 140.
I have a letter from the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation urging
opposition to this resolution.
I have a letter from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe from Rosebud, SD, urging
opposition to this CRA.
I have here a letter from early February to all of the Members of the
Senate, and I am just going to read you a bit of it, but I think what I
want you to know is that, at the end of this letter, it is signed by--I
mean, my word. I would have to count them all up--I would guess, 40 or
50 small businesses in Minnesota. Many of them are from the area--you
know, they benefit so much from the natural resources of Northern
Minnesota and from the outdoor recreation economy of Northern
Minnesota.
They are urging the U.S. Senate to oppose H.J. Res. 140, and I am
just going to read you a bit of it.
It says: The Boundary Waters and downstream Voyageurs National Park
are currently protected by Public Land Order 7917--the 20-year mineral
withdrawal banning copper and nickel mining on Federal public lands in
the headwaters of these beloved wildlands. This mining ban is 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 region's watershed, fish, and wildlife,
treaty and Tribal rights, and robust recreation economy.
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.
Overturning the mining ban puts at risk the forests and the clean
waters of the region as well as its town's indigenous communities and
the regional economy.
The love for the Boundary Waters powers a strong and enduring
recreation economy in Northeastern Minnesota--responsible for 17,000
jobs and over $1 billion in sales annually in the region. This includes
the many businesses many of us have created and grown which will be
seriously damaged if sulfide-ore copper mining were allowed in this
fragile environment.
The wilderness is also a crown jewel of Minnesota and important to
the State's growing $13.5 billion outdoor economy. Economic studies
show that protecting the Boundary Waters would be better for the
economy than opening the area to copper mining.
The letter goes on to say: Once compromised, the Boundary Waters
cannot be restored. This region is much more than a beautiful place. It
embodies the best of our public lands: clean water, expansive habitat,
world-class recreation, vibrant wilderness communities, and sustainable
local economies. Generations of Midwesterners and Americans from across
the country have formed deep connections to nature through hunting and
fishing and camping and canoeing and hiking in the Boundary Waters.
We urge you to vote no on H.J. Res. 140. Do not sell out our
wilderness, our way of life, and our businesses.
This letter is signed by--and I won't read all of the people who have
signed it--Ely Outfitting in Ely, MN; Freedom Explorer; the Lodge of
Whispering Pines; River Point Resort; Wilderness Cabins; Piragis
Northwoods Company; Voyager Outward Bound School; North of North
Resort; Ely Cabin Collective; Final Touch Proofreading and Editing.
I am sure there are, you know, advertising and marketing jobs
connected to the Boundary Waters.
White Pine Productions. All of these are in Ely, MN.
Then there are many others: North Shore Adventure Park in Silver Bay;
Big City Mountaineers in Tower; Granite Gear in Two Harbors; Madison
Elyse, LLC, in Alexandria; Littlbug Enterprises in Bemidji; Java Moose
in Grand Marais; the Fisherman's Daughter in Grand Marais.
I mean, there are dozens of businesses that are listed here, and I
think this just goes to show how the outdoor recreation economy powers
these small businesses. They are the employers and the drivers of
Minnesota's economy. So listening to them and hearing what they have to
say as we make this decision is just so important.
The hour grows late, and I know we have people who have been here all
day long, so I am going to take a couple of--a bit more of the time
that I have--5 hours all in--on this extremely important topic just to
talk a little bit more about some of the feedback that I have gotten
from Minnesotans before I wrap up tonight.
Here is something that I think is really an important and interesting
note that I have gotten from Lakeville, MN.
This person says the following: I moved to Minnesota over a decade
ago from Chicago. As someone born in Iowa, I visited Minnesota often.
When making the decision to move to Minnesota, a huge draw for us was
outdoors. We visit the Boundary Waters Canoe Area every year, and my
kids know the feeling of a great hike and the beautiful scenery to go
with it. If this resolution passes Congress, not only will my
grandchildren not be able to enjoy this beautiful place, but my kids
will watch it disappear before
[[Page S1806]]
their eyes. Please protect this land, protect beauty, and protect the
feeling of a great hike.
This is a letter from Lake Elmo, MN. It is very short.
She says: I am a 79-year-old woman who goes to the BWCA with my kids
and grandchildren. Chilean mining in the area will hurt the tour
industry.
Thank you for sending that.
I will read a couple more here before I close.
This is from St. Augusta, MN, and it says: I am a 45-year resident of
Minnesota. I am an Eagle Scout, husband, and father of three daughters.
I have been an outdoor enthusiast from a very early age--deer hunting
with extended family and camping with the Scouts. When my daughters
were old enough, I began planning annual trips into the BWCA for 4 to 6
days, acquiring all of the equipment necessary and passing on my
knowledge and appreciation of the outdoors, hoping that, one day, they
will take up the mantle with our children and help protect these
critical ecosystems. I also require that no phones or electronic
devices accompany us on our BW adventures--something my daughters label
as a technology detox and, in my opinion, provides a type of reset
against an increasingly technological existence.
Here is a note from somebody from Big Lake, MN: I am Minnesota born
and raised. I grew up in a Republican household with a father who
showed me all the true beauty and wonder of this State through fishing,
hunting, foraging, and camping. The land that makes up this State and
all the creatures and features within it have given me a purpose and a
mission. I went to college at Gustavus Adolphus, where I studied the
environment, and I got a job there guiding others on how to enjoy the
outdoors and invest in protecting the wonderful State that gives them
these opportunities.
I have seen the impact firsthand on how countless times people's
whole worlds have changed when they are introduced to the beauty and
recreation of the Land of 10,000 Lakes, of which you are representing
me.
If I could sit down with you face-to-face, Mr. Emmer, you would see
the absolute fear in my eyes at the prospect of losing more wild areas
than we already have. And I can assure you that sentiment is shared by
a vast majority of Minnesotans. No matter what side of the aisle people
are on, they can unite over the unique beauty and foundational
importance that our ecosystems have, not only on the very water we
drink and the air that we breathe but in the foundation for pride in
our chest when we beam that we are from Minnesota.
I sincerely urge you to consider this deeply, to talk to those you
represent about the impact that this would have, and to take heed to
science. This isn't about me. This is about every little kid who is
growing up or who is about to be born in this great State. Will they
still hold that pride in their chest when they declare where they are
from if the very thing that makes us Minnesotans is ripped away from
them?
Already I have taught young people who have never seen an
unobstructed night sky or know what it is like to catch a firefly. I
have taught young people who know what it is like to fish at a lake
their grandfather recommended and to catch nothing because the fish are
gone and hear nothing but machinery instead of loon calls while they
are out. Please, I am begging you on behalf of all our legacies, please
fight for us.
Mr. President, I think I wanted to just clarify that this letter was
forwarded to me, but it was sent to Congressman Emmer of Minnesota, and
this Minnesotan is begging him to listen and fight.
Here is a letter from a Minnesotan that says: I am devastated to
learn that the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to repeal the
longstanding ban on mining near the Boundary Waters. I have been going
on yearly BWCA trips with my mom since 2009, when I was 10 years old. I
am now 27, and she is now 70, and we plan to continue our annual
tradition for as long as we can. Though I haven't yet started a family,
my mom has always hoped she will be around to introduce her future
grandchildren to this beautiful wilderness. I now fear, though, that
the Boundary Waters themselves won't be around for my children to
enjoy.
My mom raised me to care for nature, to leave each BWCA campsite
cleaner than I found it, and it grieves me that I am powerless to
preserve the Boundary Waters beyond these small actions.
When we go on our 2026 trip, I will continue to treat each campsite
and portage and lake with respect and love. I can only hope that those
with power in this country can, from afar, do the same.
I don't think I could possibly read all of the letters and messages
that have come from Minnesota to me over the last many months about
this, and you may be wondering why I am standing here at nearly
midnight keeping everybody up, and here is why: because I know there
are so many people in Minnesota who are wondering--excuse me. I am
losing my voice. I know there are so many people in Minnesota who are
wondering whether anybody in this building cares about what they think,
and the one thing that I can do is to be here, speaking to this mostly
empty room, making sure that, to the best of my abilities, that their
voices will be heard. Their voices will be heard, regardless of what
the Senate does.
I dearly hope that the Members of this body will think about their
legacy in protecting the great places in this country, to think about
the risks--there are risks in this time that you must take, but then
there are other risks like the risk of polluting this beautiful place
that is not necessary. It is not necessary to take.
And I hope that my colleagues will also think about the precedent
that taking this action will take and the ways in which other
politicians down the road will look back on the actions that this
Senate is taking right now and saying: They gave us permission to do
the same thing because they said it was OK. And that will have impacts
not only on the Boundary Waters, this precious place, but it will have
impacts on precious places all over the country, and it will have
impacts on the overall integrity of our government if actions that are
taken that are legal can just be undone willy-nilly. And that just
seems to me to be so bad for this body, to be bad for the public lands
that we all love, and to be bad for this country that we all love so
much.
So I stand here tonight with a mostly gone voice to give voice to all
of those people in my home State and in States all over this country
who feel like what they think doesn't really matter, and I am here to
tell you that it does. And the power of the organizing that has
happened over the last many weeks to raise up this issue in the face of
a time in our country when there are so many issues that demand so much
attention: a war in Iran, the brutal attacks on my home State of
Minnesota by Federal agents, so many worries, so many worries that so
many people have in this country right now--worries, fundamentally,
about how they are going to put food on the table and how they are
going to pay rent and how they are going to hold their lives together.
But they organized to make sure that their voices were heard on this
thing that they care so much about, and so it has been my honor and
also my responsibility and my obligation to help to lift those voices
up tonight.
Tomorrow, I believe the Senate will vote on this, and I hope that the
Senate makes a good decision--a good decision not only for my home
State of Minnesota and for this precious place but also for the good of
the whole, for the good of the whole country, and the protection of our
public lands and the integrity of our democracy.
I yield the floor.
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