FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Libby London (612) 227-8407
May 13, 2025
Contact: Libby London (612) 227-8407
May 13, 2025
*ICYMI* Minnesota Star Tribune - Burcum: Stauber sweetens sweetheart deal for Chilean mining firm
The northeast Minnesota congressman is leveraging the budget reconciliation process in an attempt to gut critical Boundary Waters copper mining protections.
Dear reporters and editors,
Over the weekend, Jill Burcum, Pulitzer Prize finalist for her piece "Not this mine. Not this location," and a member of the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board, wrote a powerful piece highlighting U.S. Representative Stauber’s relentless push to open the watershed of America’s most beloved Wilderness to toxic sulfide-ore copper mining – this time via the House Natural Resources Committee’s important budget reconciliation bill that passed out of committee early Wednesday morning. Burcum outlines just how egregious this legislation is for the Boundary Waters region and highlights the uphill battle it could face in the Senate—pointing to Boundary Waters champion U.S. Senator Tina Smith as a key leader in the fight to stop it.
Over the weekend, Jill Burcum, Pulitzer Prize finalist for her piece "Not this mine. Not this location," and a member of the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board, wrote a powerful piece highlighting U.S. Representative Stauber’s relentless push to open the watershed of America’s most beloved Wilderness to toxic sulfide-ore copper mining – this time via the House Natural Resources Committee’s important budget reconciliation bill that passed out of committee early Wednesday morning. Burcum outlines just how egregious this legislation is for the Boundary Waters region and highlights the uphill battle it could face in the Senate—pointing to Boundary Waters champion U.S. Senator Tina Smith as a key leader in the fight to stop it.
“President Donald Trump fortunately didn’t include northeast Minnesota’s risky Twin Metals copper-nickel mine on a recent executive order aiming to fast-track projects like this.But any sigh of relief about that by Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) advocates came to a quick end this week as Minnesota U.S. House Rep. Pete Stauber and his GOP colleagues took another reckless run at resurrecting this controversial mining project…”“In 2023, the Biden administration took a historic step to protect the BWCAW from this project’s potential pollution, enacting a policy that is effectively a 20-year moratorium on copper-nickel mining in the watershed. In 2024, a Stauber bill aiming to overturn those protections cleared the Republican-controlled House, but thankfully never gained traction in the U.S. Senate. It expired with the end of the last Congressional session.Regrettably, Stauber is at it again, cavalierly casting aside the science documenting this type of mining’s troubling threat to this protected place. His bill targeting vital BWCAW protections has new life and an expedited path toward enactment, with key provisions now known as Section 80131 of the House Natural Resources Committee’s budget reconciliation bill.Congressional Republicans, who control the House and U.S. Senate, are using the reconciliation process, a budget tool, to enact much of Trump’s agenda through large spending and revenue legislation. Reconciliation’s key advantage: The legislation can clear the Senate with a simple majority vs. a filibuster-proof 60 votes. Right now, Republicans have 53 seats in the upper chamber.Unlike the nebulous effect of Trump’s pro-mining order, the Stauber measure could be enacted in a matter of months, effectively bulldozing the path forward for Twin Metals to mine on the BWCAW’s doorstep. The legislation, including Stauber’s sweetheart deal for Antofagasta, the Chilean mining conglomerate that controls Twin Metals, passed out of the committee “shortly before midnight on Tuesday,” the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. That advancement is key step forward.“I know this fight has been long, but we are in the most precarious position for the Boundary Waters that we’ve ever been in‚” said Ingrid Lyons, executive director of the Ely-based Save the Boundary Waters advocacy organization…”“The Stauber measure faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where there may be narrower rules on including policy measures like this in reconciliation legislation. It will also face significant pushback led by Minnesota U.S. Sen. Tina Smith. Smith, a Democrat, has commendably introduced a bill to make the 20-year mining protections permanent in the BWCAW watershed.”