Feds move to advance two controversial mining projects in northern Minnesota

Two moves this week – one by Congress, one by the Trump administration – seek to help pave the way forward for two controversial mining projects in northeast Minnesota: Twin Metals outside Ely, and NewRange Copper Nickel near Babbitt and Hoyt Lakes on the Iron Range. 

Late Thursday, the House Committee on Natural Resources published its portion of the budget reconciliation bill, a budget tool House Republicans are using that enables Congress to bypass the 60-vote threshold normally required to pass a bill in the Senate. 

The draft language includes a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber to rescind a 20-year mining moratorium that covers a large swath of federal land south of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, including the area southeast of Ely along Birch Lake where Twin Metals proposes to dig its underground mine. 

The proposal would also reinstate two federal mineral leases to Twin Metals that the Biden administration had revoked. And it would eliminate the ability of environmental groups, tribes and other mining opponents to sue to try to stop the mining projects. 

The House Natural Resources Committee meets Tuesday to vote on the language. Eventually, the House budget committee will assemble all the drafted legislation from committees into one large legislative package.

If the language is included in the reconciliation package, it would only require a simple majority vote to pass in the Senate, not the typical 60 votes. 

That’s significant, because Democrats in that chamber would likely line up against the measure. U.S. Senator Tina Smith recently introduced legislation to place a permanent ban on mining on the roughly 225,000 acres of Superior National Forest land currently covered by the moratorium. 

“Republicans are treating our most precious wild places as nothing more than opportunities for industry to plunder, profit and pollute,” said Ashley Nunes, public lands policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Meanwhile, the “National Energy Dominance Council,” established by the Trump administration via executive order in February has now designated NewRange Copper Nickel’s Northmet project as a priority for federal permitting. 

NewRange, formerly known as PolyMet, is a planned open pit mine for copper, nickel and precious metals that was first proposed to state and federal regulators in 2004. It received final approvals more than five years ago, but since then two key state permits have been put on hold, and a federal permit was revoked, following court challenges. 

The Trump administration has now labeled NewRange a “Transparency Project,” under an executive order signed in March aimed at increasing domestic mineral production. 

The project’s listing on the federal government’s new permitting dashboard indicates that a new permitting timetable for the project will be posted in two weeks. 

NewRange said it plans to submit an updated federal wetlands permit – known as a Section 404 permit – to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in September. The company said the application would include “new mining technology and sustainability practices.”

In the last two years NewRange has launched several studies to analyze different aspects of its mine plan, after the Army Corps rescinded the project’s wetlands permit following a lawsuit by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, which argued the project would violate the Band’s water quality standards downstream from the proposed mine. 

“NewRange’s inclusion on the federal Transparency List recognizes the urgency of bringing domestic projects like ours into operation, while ensuring responsible development that meets the highest environmental performance and sustainable design standards to safeguard our water quality for generations to come,” said NewRange president Tannice McCoy. 

Regardless of what happens at the federal level, Minnesota officials will have a critical voice in deciding whether Twin Metals and NewRange ultimately move forward. 

Any mining project in Minnesota must undergo an extensive environmental review process, and secure several state permits from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency– in addition to federal review and permitting. 

Six years ago, 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.

“I call on the Walz Administration to follow the science and the law, while recognizing the need for good paying jobs and the demand for these incredible resources we have right here at home,” said U.S. Rep Pete Stauber about the NewRange proposal. 

“This project is a win-win for Minnesota.” 

But environmentalists and conservation groups don’t see it that way.

“Rep. Stauber is trying to sneak this wildly unpopular bill into the reconciliation process,” says Chris Knopf, executive director of Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness.  “This is the mining industry’s dream bill and it has nothing to do with the budget.

“This is radical legislation that would not only blot out critical clean water protections and give away public land,” Knopf adds, “but by blocking any kind of judicial review, would gut our constitutional government.” 

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