Ensign Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. (Photo by Zach Spindler-Krage)

A proposal to repeal a ban on mining in northeastern Minnesota’s Superior National Forest is headed to the U.S. Senate following approval in the House, reigniting a long-simmering fight between environmentalists and pro-mining interests.

The reaction of outdoors and environmental groups was swift Wednesday.

“Congress just tossed aside years of scientific study and local input about how to conserve the headwaters of this wilderness for future generations, allowing the threat of toxic mining to return,” Jordan Schreiber, director of government relations at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. He called on the Senate to “reject this attack and the precedent it sets to arbitrarily strike down” public land protections.

House Republicans voted Wednesday to undo former President Joe Biden’s 20-year moratorium on the extraction of copper, nickel and other minerals across more than 225,000 acres near the popular Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. If approved by the Republican-controlled Senate, the resolution would next go to President Donald Trump, who has indicated he would sign it into law. 

The resolution requires only a simple majority vote to pass the Senate, rather than a filibuster-proof majority.

Republican Congressman Pete Stauber, whose Duluth-based district covers the area, introduced the resolution last year. It uses an obscure but increasingly popular procedural tool that allows Congress to void certain Executive Branch actions.

In a statement Wednesday, Stauber hailed the resolution’s passage as a win for the regional economy, national security and congressional prerogatives. The resolution would prevent future administrations from imposing similar bans in the future.

“Reversing Biden’s mining ban will protect Northern Minnesota jobs, strengthen national security through domestic production, and prevent future overreaches from happening again,” Stauber said.

Organized labor cheered the move, too, albeit in terms more palatable to the Democratic base.

“One of the most important contributions Minnesota can make to the fight against climate change is leading the world in setting the highest bar for labor and environmental protections in the responsible production of copper, nickel and other critical minerals,” Joel Smith, president and business manager of LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota, said in a statement, also mentioning the promise of “family-supporting careers” for union members and “community-supporting jobs at schools, hospitals, public and private sector employers.”

Environmental and outdoor recreation groups have long opposed mining near the Boundary Waters, a remote section of Superior National Forest along the border with Canada. The groups say it would disturb critical habitats and pollute a pristine watershed enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. 

In a statement describing the resolution as an unprecedented use of congressional power over public land use, Save the Boundary Waters urged voters to contact their senators and push for a “no” vote on the resolution. Save the Boundary Waters is pushing for a permanent ban on copper-ore sulfide mining in the boundary watershed. Citing peer-reviewed scientific research, the group says mining for copper and other heavy metals inevitably leaches sulfuric acid, toxic metals and other pollutants into surrounding water systems, harming the natural environment and imperiling tourism.

Northeast Minnesota sits atop the Duluth Complex, one of the world’s richest deposits of copper and nickel. Twin Metals, a subsidiary of the Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta, wants to extract both minerals — along with cobalt and other precious metals — from underground veins near Ely and Babbitt, about a dozen miles from the wilderness area.

It would be the first copper-nickel mine in Minnesota, which produces most of the United States’ domestic iron but few other metals. Regional and state officials have sought for years to reduce northeastern Minnesota’s economic dependence on volatile global markets for iron and steel. Its rich deposits of higher-value metals, along with elusive gases like helium and possibly hydrogen, could offer a lifeline.

The Twin Metals project has been in development for more than 15 years amid an arduous state and federal permitting process. It suffered a severe setback in early 2023 when the Biden administration announced a 20-year moratorium on mining across 350 square miles of the Superior National Forest, though Minnesota has issued new mineral exploration permits in the years since.  

Copper, nickel, cobalt and some precious metals are key inputs for a bevy of medical, automotive and industrial products. They’re also needed to produce wind turbines, solar panels, rechargeable batteries and other electrical technologies that scientists say are crucial for mitigating local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Environmentalists say the the demand can be met with more robust recycling. 

Mining companies and their allies say it’s better for everyone’s sake to extract them in the United States rather than countries with lax environmental and human health protections, such as China or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Removing the 20-year moratorium allows “proposed developments to proceed through the world’s strictest state and federal regulatory and permitting processes,” Stauber said on Wednesday.