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Contact: Libby London (612) 227-8407
July 3, 2026
*ICYMI* Burcum: After blow to Boundary Waters, Trump’s visit to Roosevelt Library is rank hypocrisy
“To bask in Roosevelt’s legacy while actively working to dismantle it is a level of shamelessness hard to fathom.”
In a new column, Pulitzer Prize finalist Jill Burcum spotlights the hypocrisy of President Trump's recent visit to North Dakota's new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and his administration's rollback of protections for the Boundary Waters, exposing the stark contradiction between celebrating America's conservation legacy and the current administration's mission to dismantle it.
Burcum calls the visit "rank hypocrisy," pointing to the administration's rollback of the 20-year mineral withdrawal protecting the Boundary Waters watershed, and its broader efforts to weaken and overturn safeguards for America's public lands across the country. The column concludes that truly honoring Roosevelt's conservation legacy requires permanently protecting the Boundary Waters—not advancing policies that put it at risk.
From the piece:
“On July 1, President Donald Trump visited North Dakota’s new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, a $450 million tribute to the Rough Rider outdoorsman who shaped more than a century of American conservation.
It was galling to watch from here in Minnesota.
Just two months ago, Trump put his presidential signature on a controversial congressional measure ending a 20-year ban on risky copper mining in the fragile watershed of the state’s beloved Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA). The hypocrisy of celebrating Roosevelt’s legacy so soon after dealing a serious blow to a natural treasure located in the state next door is hard to miss — and even harder to stomach.
Sadly, the Boundary Waters move is just one piece of a broader strategy the Trump administration has pursued to roll back protections for the nation’s natural resources.
Roosevelt founded the U.S. Forest Service in 1905 to preserve and protect those resources. But last year, the Trump administration gutted the “Roadless Rule,” a decades-old policy that had shielded nearly 59 million acres of national forest from logging and road-building, despite more than 200,000 public comments submitted in opposition.”
…“To bask in Roosevelt’s legacy while actively working to dismantle it is a level of shamelessness hard to fathom. Footage from the president’s North Dakota visit is even harder to swallow given that the administration has ignored public pleas from Roosevelt’s direct descendant to keep the copper mining ban in place.
Earlier this year, I spoke with Theodore Roosevelt IV. Unsurprisingly, he shared his forebear’s passion for conservation. He serves on The Wilderness Society’s Governing Council, and during our conversation he warned of copper mining’s risks not just to the Boundary Waters but to the nearby businesses reliant on the tourists this natural wonder attracts from around the globe.
“Unfortunately, the Republican Party no longer seems to care about conservation as it did during the time of Presidents Grant, Lincoln and the old lion,” he told me in April, the lion being his illustrious ancestor.
At the time, Roosevelt IV energetically urged the Senate to vote against overturning the copper mining protections. But the Senate, along with the U.S. House, is controlled by Republicans.
The upper chamber passed the measure in April. It then went to the White House for the signature of a president who has spent both of his terms greasing the skids for Antofagasta, a Chilean conglomerate owned by the multi-billionaire Luksic family, to open a copper mine on the Boundary Waters’ doorstep.”
The mine isn’t in the protected wilderness but just outside it. The operation’s location hugs the shoreline of a lake eventually draining into the watery wilderness, providing a path into it for any pollution from the mining operation. That’s an unacceptable risk when the water in the BWCA is so pure that it lacks the minerals and other natural defenses water bodies elsewhere have to mitigate pollution.
Lifting the mining ban didn’t automatically hand Twin Metals what it needs to build. Permits are still needed. The company’s two federal mineral leases, which were canceled in 2022, remain tied up in litigation. Restoring them requires either an act of Congress or executive action, and both strategies are being pursued.
Rep. Pete Stauber, a Minnesota Republican who has long been Antofagasta’s chief errand boy in Washington, has pushed a House measure that would force the U.S. Department of Interior to reissue the leases and, disturbingly, block legal challenges to them. Officials from Interior have separately moved to reinstate a legal opinion supporting the leases’ renewal without waiting on Congress.
Whichever path succeeds first, the goal is the same: swiftly clearing the last hurdles standing between Antofagasta and a mine on the Boundary Waters’ doorstep. That Interior is currently led by Doug Burgum adds to the contradictions on display at the Roosevelt Library’s kickoff festivities.”
… “A new Congress could pass the kind of permanent protection that the Boundary Waters deserves. That legislation, not Trump’s cynical appearance and hollow words in North Dakota, is what honoring Roosevelt’s legacy would actually look like.”
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