Tina Smith introduces bill in U.S. Senate to permanently protect BWCAW

WASHINGTON - A bill that would permanently protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from sulfide mining was introduced by Sen. Tina Smith in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump and his administration have signaled a willingness to open the area back up to mining.

“I think Minnesotans need to understand that ... the Trump administration’s determination to allow this kind of mining in the Boundary Waters is a real imminent threat,” Smith said in an interview.

The senator, who is retiring at the end of her term, helped push former President Joe Biden to withdraw 225,504 acres in the Superior National Forest from new mineral leases for 20 years. Only Congress has the ability to make that withdrawal permanent, the last administration said.

That withdrawal is now in question with Republicans in control in Washington.

Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn., recently introduced a bill that would reinstate the mineral leases that Biden canceled and allow new leasing on the more than 225,000 acres in the Superior National Forest. Stauber has said he is confident Trump will sign his bill into law if it gets to his desk and he slammed Smith for introducing her legislation.

The Trump administration has shown a willingness to cancel other mineral leasing withdrawals in Nevada and New Mexico.

Smith says she’s all but certain Minnesota may be next.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Donald Trump has the Boundary Waters in his sights,” Smith said. ”He has spoken publicly about it, and that’s one of the reasons that I want to introduce this legislation."

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently directed his department to create a plan to reinstate all mineral, oil and gas leases on federal land canceled during the Biden administration and to examine how mining bans like the one in Minnesota could be reversed.

Smith’s bill would prohibit sulfide mining on the 225,504 acres in an area where the BWCAW waters flow into Voyageurs National Park. It also would permit the U.S. Forest Service to allow the removal of sand, gravel, granite, iron ore and taconite from land within the protected area.

However, the bill would not ban or restrict any current or future mining projects outside of the withdrawal area within the Rainy River watershed or affect any taconite mines in Minnesota, Smith said.

Though Smith opposes mining in this area, she stressed that she is “not opposed to all copper nickel mining, and certainly not all mining.”

Republicans control both chambers of Congress, and Smith knows her bill likely faces an uphill battle.

But its introduction comes at a time when some Senate Republicans have shown a willingness to push back against the Trump administration. Four Republicans recently joined Democrats to narrowly pass Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s resolution that would undo parts of Trump’s tariffs on Canada.

“There’s always a chance,” Smith said.

Stauber called Smith’s bill “anti-union” and doubted its chances at getting passed.

“Not only would critical mineral mining in northern Minnesota create good-paying union jobs and revitalize our economy, but it would provide much-needed funding for every school district in Minnesota and reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign adversaries like China,” Stauber said in a statement. “It is offensive to oppose these worthy goals.”

It’s the first time legislation like Smith’s has been introduced in the U.S. Senate since Minnesota’s late Sen. Hubert Humphrey introduced the 1978 Boundary Waters Act in the upper chamber, which President Jimmy Carter later signed.

In the U.S. House, Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., has been carrying similar legislation to protect the BWCAW for the last decade. She reintroduced that bill earlier this year and applauded Smith’s effort in the Senate.

“Minnesotans are leading the charge to permanently protect the BWCA,” McCollum said.

Ingrid Lyons, executive director of Save the Boundary Waters, said Smith’s bill marked a “good and important day for the Boundary Waters.”

It’s unclear where Stauber’s legislation stands, but its approval could boost the Twin Metals project, which proposes to extract copper and nickel from an underground mine near Ely. Twin Metals is a subsidiary of the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta.

The project’s mineral leases are inside the area where Biden barred new mining after a federal study determined hard rock mining risked polluting the Boundary Waters.

The Biden administration also canceled Twin Metals’ mineral leases. The company has been arguing in federal appeals court to keep alive a lawsuit that seeks to overturn that decision.

Chloe Johnson of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this report.

To get Minnesota’s latest political news in your inbox, sign up for the free Hot Dish newsletter.