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Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber has reintroduced legislation to overturn a 20-year mining ban near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness that was imposed two years ago under the Biden administration. 

The bill would also return two key federal mineral leases to Twin Metals Minnesota, the company vying to build an underground mine for copper and nickel near Ely, Minn., on the shore of Birch Lake, just south of the wilderness. 

Twin Metals is owned by the Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta. The Biden administration revoked those leases in 2022. 

Stauber, who represents Minnesota’s 8th District where the project would be built, originally introduced the bill in 2023. It passed the GOP-controlled U.S. House, but was never taken up by the Democratically controlled Senate. 

Now that Republicans control both chambers in Congress, the bill stands a much greater chance of passing. 

President Trump has also promised to undo the mining ban, which covers about 350 square miles of the Superior National Forest within the watershed of the Boundary Waters. That means any potential water pollution from mines there could flow into the wilderness area. 

Biden’s Department of the Interior imposed the so-called ‘mineral withdrawal’ after conducting an environmental review that found potential mining projects in the region posed too great a risk of doing “irreparable harm” to the watershed.

On the Presidential campaign trail last year, at a stop in St. Cloud with Stauber at his side, Trump promised to undo the mining moratorium in “about 10 minutes.” 

While Trump has yet to act specifically on the Twin Metals leases or the mineral withdrawal in the Superior National Forest, new Interior Secretary Doug Burgum 

 this week calling for the reinstatement of natural resource leases canceled during Biden’s term, and for the review and revision of withdrawn public lands. 

Stauber told MPR News his legislation is just one possible vehicle to open up northeastern Minnesota to mining. 

“All options are on the table, and we’re going to use all options in order to allow us to mine in Minnesota and across this country,” Stauber said. 

Stauber, who’s from Hermantown, Minn., just outside Duluth, said Minnesota has an opportunity to mine important minerals from the Duluth Complex, a rich mineral repository in northeastern Minnesota he called the “biggest untapped copper-nickel find in the world.”

Calls to open new mines have taken on more urgency in recent years, to help supply minerals needed to build electric vehicles, solar panels and other technologies needed to power a carbon-free energy transition. 

“We have 21st century technology,” Stauber continued. “We have the ability to do it right, following our environmental and labor laws. We do it better in our backyard, and I want to celebrate that. And I think that when we follow the strict laws that we have, we ought to be able to mine these God-given natural resources.”

Environmental groups immediately pushed back against Stauber’s bill, arguing it would strip important protections from more than 225,000 acres of land, and open it up to a kind of mining that poses much more severe water pollution risks than iron ore mining, which has been conducted in the region for 140 years. 

“It puts pollution over clean water. We will challenge this decision through every available avenue,” said Chris Knopf, executive director of Friends of the Boundary Waters. 

Ingrid Lyons, executive director of Save the Boundary Waters, called Stauber’s bill a “giveaway” of the country’s most popular wilderness area. 

The bill “undermines the robust record of science, public opinion, law and economics that clearly demonstrates that this iconic American landscape is absolutely no place for our nation’s most dangerous industry,” Lyons added. 

In addition, Stauber’s bill would also limit the ability of opponents to file lawsuits to block the return of leases to Twin Metals. A spokesperson for Stauber said “well-funded activist groups who oppose mining of any kind should not be able to weaponize the courts” to hold up the project. 

Environmental groups have called that provision in the bill “radical,” for eliminating review by the judicial branch, the third branch of government. 

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., who represents the St. Paul area, introduced legislation two weeks ago to make the 20-year mining ban permanent. 

“The Boundary Waters are a national treasure that must be protected,” McCollum said when she introduced the bill. But its prospects appear dim in the current GOP-controlled Congress.

Regardless of what happens at the federal level, any mining project in Minnesota must undergo an extensive environmental review process that typically takes years, and secure state permits from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. 

the Minnesota DNR opted to conduct its own environmental review

 when Twin Metals submitted its first mining proposal, rather than opting for a joint state-federal review.

Stauber acknowledged that the federal government will “need a partner in the state” to get mining projects across the finish line. 

“I’m prepared to hold the governor and his cabinet accountable on these issues, on these anti-mining issues,” Stauber said. “We have to have the ability to mine these critical minerals. We are blessed having them under our feet.”

Dan Kraker

Author

Northern Minnesota Republican Congressman Pete Stauber has reintroduced legislation to overturn a 20-year mining ban near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. If passed, the bill would also return mineral leases to Twin Metals, the company vying to build an underground copper mine near Ely. 

Derek Montgomery for MPR

Kerem Yücel | MPR News

The forest and Kawishiwi River are seen in this aerial photo. 

Stauber reintroduces bill to reverse mining ban near Boundary Waters, return leases to Twin Metals

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