WASHINGTON — A controversial provision restoring leases to a copper-nickel mine project adjacent to the Boundary Waters will most likely be removed from the federal budget bill moving through Congress.
On Tuesday night, draft language released before a U.S. House committee overseeing technical corrections to the bill included instructions to “strike Section 80131.” That section included the provisions to pave the way toward mining in the Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota.
Sen. Tina Smith, the Democrat from Minnesota, had pushed the Senate parliamentarian to remove the language, saying green-lighting sulfide mining near a sensitive watershed did not meet rules in the U.S. Senate for a reconciliation measure, which must be chiefly focused on the budget.
“Today marks a victory in our fight to protect the Boundary Waters,” Smith said in a statement Tuesday evening. “Buried deep in President Trump and Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill was a provision that gave a foreign mining company full permission to build a copper-nickel sulfide mine right on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters.”
The original provision would have nullified a Biden administration prohibition of mining on federal lands in Cook, Lake and Saint Louis counties. It also would have reinstated hardrock mineral leases, including to Twin Metals Minnesota, which is seeking to mine for copper-nickel near Birch Lake, a tributary for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
The federal government in exchange would have received millions in rent for use of federal land.
Twin Metals Minnesota, which is owned by Chilean-based Antofagasta, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Before Memorial Day, the House of Representatives passed a version of the OBBB, a suite of tax cuts and entitlement slashes, including ending green energy credits and mining on public lands. The GOP-controlled Senate is aiming to pass the bill before July 4.
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