Congress’ move to allow mining in a national forest near a wilderness area may have broad ramifications across the country.

The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to overturn a mining ban in Minnesota’s Superior National Forest, the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

By using an obscure tool known as the Congressional Review Act to open the national forest for mining, lawmakers have called into question the validity of every management plan issued by the U.S. Forest Service over the past several decades. That could result in legal chaos for thousands of permits covering logging, grazing, mining and outdoor recreation. 

Over the past year, Congress for the first time has used the Congressional Review Act to revoke management plans for regions managed by the Bureau of Land Management, seeking to allow more mining and drilling. Such plans had not previously been considered “rules” subject to lawmakers’ review. 

Under the act, federal agencies must submit new regulations to Congress before they can take effect. Because management plans, which function as high-level guidance documents, were never considered rules, federal agencies did not submit them to Congress for review. 

Using a new legal theory, Republicans in Congress have opened reviews and revoked several specific plans that limited resource extraction in Alaska, Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming. But those actions call into question whether more than 100 other such plans are legally in effect, since they are now considered rules that were not sent to Congress as the law requires.

Public lands experts say the new interpretation could create legal jeopardy across hundreds of millions of acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management, threatening any permit issued under a management plan drafted after the passage of the Congressional Review Act in 1996.

Now, for the first time, Congress has used the review tool to overturn a management decision on Forest Service land. 

“There’s a huge playing field of actions that would be forbidden if none of these management plans are lawfully in place,” Robert Anderson, who served as solicitor for the Department of the Interior during the Biden administration, told Stateline earlier this year. “This could bring things to a screeching halt.”

Longtime outdoors writer Wes Siler, who has written extensively about the Boundary Waters review battle, said in a post Thursday that the vote will “destroy the Forest Service’s ability to conduct regular business for the foreseeable future.” If the agency’s management plans suddenly become invalid, he wrote, “not only could this grind industrial operations on (Forest Service) land to a halt as all of this winds its way through federal court, but it could also set (the Forest Service) the task of re-doing 30 years of work.”

On Thursday, the Senate voted 50-49 to revoke a Biden-era plan that banned mining on land in the Superior National Forest. The resolution will now go to President Donald Trump for his signature.

A Chilean mining company has proposed to mine for copper, nickel and cobalt along Birch Lake in Minnesota. The planned mine would sit at the headwaters of the wilderness area’s watershed. The Boundary Waters is the most popular wilderness in the country, and advocates say the water is so pristine that many visitors fill their bottles straight from the surface of its lakes.

Wilderness proponents say such mines have a long track record of pollution, and leaks from the proposed site would flow downstream and irreversibly contaminate the treasured Boundary Waters.

U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, the Minnesota Republican who sponsored the review action, has said the mine would bring jobs to the region. Opponents have argued that the tourism economy centered on the Boundary Waters is a larger economic driver, and noted that the mine will be run by a foreign company that will likely export the copper to China. 

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, led the effort to uphold the mining ban on the Senate floor. Following the vote, she said that supporters of the Boundary Waters would likely mount a legal challenge, questioning the use of the Congressional Review Act to revoke a public land order from the Forest Service. 

“I question the legality of what Congress did,” Smith said, according to the Minnesota Reformer.  

Two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, also voted against the measure. Tillus also questioned the use of the Congressional Review Act.

“It’s a precedent that I think our Republican colleagues are going to regret,” he told The Minnesota Star Tribune. 

The Forest Service oversees nearly 200 million acres of land, managed for multiple uses, including timber harvests, grazing, outdoor recreation and wildlife habitat. Some legal experts fear the management plans governing those activities are now in legal jeopardy. 

“That right there is chaos,” Peter Van Tuyn, a longtime environmental lawyer and managing partner at Bessenyey & Van Tuyn LLC, told Stateline earlier this year. 

“Those (plans) go across the full spectrum of what land managers do: conservation and preservation, mining approvals, oil and gas drilling, resource exploitation, public access and recreation,” he added. “There’s a very real chance that a court could say that a resource management plan was never in effect and all the implementation actions under the umbrella of that plan are invalid.”

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org. 

The U.S. Senate voted 50-49 Thursday to allow sulfide mining in areas near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

The vote ends President Joe Biden’s 20-year moratorium on mining leases across more than 225,000 acres of Superior National Forest near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which was visited by nearly 150,000 people in 2024. 

Northeast Minnesota sits atop the Duluth Complex, a significant deposit 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.

The resolution already passed the U.S. House, shepherded by U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, a Republican who represents the 8th District, which includes the protected wilderness. The resolution is headed to the desk of President Donald Trump. He’ll sign it, having already initiated the push to end the mining ban. 

Ingrid Lyons, executive director of Save the Boundary Waters, issued a statement: “Today is a dark day for America’s most beloved Wilderness area, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and a stark warning call for public lands nationwide.”

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith was raw with emotion on the Senate floor late Wednesday as she argued against the resolution. 

“You may be wondering why I am standing here at nearly midnight keeping everyone up. Here’s why: Because I know people in Minnesota are wondering whether anybody in this building cares about what they think,” she said. 

She’d been reading letters from constituents arguing against threatening the pristine waters along the border between Minnesota and Canada.

“I dearly hope the members of this body will think about their legacy in protecting the great places in this country,” Smith pleaded to an empty chamber. 

Environmental protection groups say 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.

Smith and her allies say they’ll fight on. “We’ll continue our important job of protecting the Boundary Waters,” she said in a press call Thursday. “We have more work to do now.” She previewed potential litigation from outside groups, who could sue over whether the congressional process for undoing the ban was legal. “I question the legality of what Congress did,” she said.

Michael Fairbanks, the chairman of White Earth Nation, said, “We’re going to try to figure out how we’re going to combat this. I have a hard time wrapping my head around this.”

The industry and the building trades argue the new territory would reduce Northeast Minnesota’s economic dependence on volatile global markets for iron and steel. Its rich deposits of higher-value metals, along with gases like helium and possibly hydrogen, could offer a lifeline.

Opponents argue environmental degradation would lead to economic disaster for a region with a growing tourism economy, which relies on waters so pure that some people drink right out of the lakes, known as “dipping.” 

Protection for the Boundary Waters — and its removal — has swung metronomically in the past decade depending on which party has controlled the White House, with the administration of President Barack Obama denying mining leases, followed by Trump pushing for mining and then the Biden 20-year moratorium. Given the congressional vote, however, a future president couldn’t enact a substantially similar mining ban. A future Congress could, however. 

Despite the new federal regulatory relief, Twin Metals still faces major obstacles before it can begin. 

The company has not won the necessary state or federal permits, and a Democratic trifecta next year could stymie the project by passing a law protecting state lands in the same area and banning hard-rock mine permitting in the region. 

Even if they win the necessary permits and win in court in the face of inevitable litigation against the project, Twin Metal would face a hostile Minnesota public. 

Polls have long shown heavy majorities oppose mining near the Boundary Waters. 

Over the past year, GOP leaders and the Trump administration have used a law known as the Congressional Review Act to push for coal mining in Montana, oil drilling in Alaska and copper mining in Minnesota, while also attempting to reverse protections for a national monument in Utah.

The rarely used act gives Congress a few months to revoke new federal regulations. Only in the past year has it ever been used to overrule land management plans.

Conservation advocates say Congress is recklessly throwing out detailed plans, which are created after years of research, public meetings and local collaboration. They fear lawmakers’ intervention could upend the long-standing management system that governs hundreds of millions of acres of public lands — with consequences that could threaten endangered species and coal miners alike.

But the fallout could be much more far-reaching than the rollback of protections for specific areas, some legal experts say. By using their review authority in a way that was never thought to apply to land management plans, lawmakers are calling into question the validity of well over 100 other such plans that were never submitted to Congress for review.

If those plans are challenged, it could create legal uncertainty for tens of thousands of leases and permits for oil and gas, mining, cattle grazing, logging, wind and solar farms and outdoor recreation.

“Using the Congressional Review Act (to revoke management plans) is really unprecedented and will have unforeseen consequences,” said Robert Anderson, who served as solicitor for the Department of the Interior during the Biden administration. “There’s a huge playing field of actions that would be forbidden if none of these management plans are lawfully in place. This could bring things to a screeching halt.”

Republicans have argued that congressional action is necessary to unleash President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum frequently refers to public lands as “America’s balance sheet,” and has pledged to increase returns by extracting more resources like oil, minerals and timber.

Montana U.S. Rep. Troy Downing, a Republican who sponsored a resolution to revoke a management plan in his home state, argued during debate on the measure that Montana’s economy and energy demands rely on coal production.

“When the federal government acts recklessly, it is the responsibility of Congress to step in and course correct. … The war on coal must end,” he said.

What’s the Congressional Review Act?

The Congressional Review Act, which was signed into law in 1996, requires federal agencies to submit new regulations to Congress before they can take effect. Congress then has 60 working days to review those regulations, and may vote to revoke them.

If lawmakers reject a rule, federal agencies are barred from crafting a new one in “substantially the same form,” unless Congress passes a new law.

For 20 years, the Congressional Review Act was rarely invoked. But during Trump’s first term, Republicans used it to overturn 16 regulations, such as a rule to protect streams from coal mining pollution. Democrats used the act to revoke three rules from Trump’s first presidency.

But in 2025, Congress and Trump revoked 22 Biden-era rules.

“It seems increasingly popular from Congress as a way to get a quick win to reverse something that happened under the previous administration,” said Devin O’Dea, Western policy and conservation manager with Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, which has opposed efforts to open public lands for resource extraction. “The long-term implications are what we’re concerned about.”

Until recently, management plans for public lands were not considered subject to congressional review. Federal agencies have issued well over 100 such plans without ever submitting one to Congress. Those documents guide the work of agency officials who oversee specific areas of land, often covering millions of acres.

Created after years of public meetings and local feedback, they determine which landscapes will be leased for oil and gas drilling, protected for endangered species or open for off-road vehicles, along with a multitude of other uses.

But last year, Republicans asked the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan advisory agency for Congress, to affirm a sweeping new view of the Congressional Review Act. The office found that certain management plans were subject to review because their land-use decisions “prescribed policy,” and determined that lawmakers’ queries had opened the 60-day review “clock” for the plans in question.

“A very long deliberative process goes into these plans,” said Justin Meuse, government relations director for climate and energy with The Wilderness Society, a conservation nonprofit. “These plans are so broad and multifaceted and deal with so many different things. This is taking a hatchet to something that should be done with a scalpel.”

Using this new tool, Republicans have revoked plans that restricted mining and oil production on federal lands in Alaska, Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming. Meanwhile, House Republicans voted in January to overturn a regulation that blocked development of a mine near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, a move that now awaits a vote in the Senate.

And GOP lawmakers from Utah are seeking to overturn the management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in that state.

Conservation leaders say the rollbacks are unprecedented.

“It’s very surprising,” said Autumn Gillard, coordinator with the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, a group of tribal nations working to protect the monument. “The (resource management plan) is created as a set of advisement points to land managers to reflect on when making decisions. It’s not a direct set of rules.”

In Minnesota, advocates for the Boundary Waters wilderness area say it is treasured for its pristine lakes, where paddlers can fill their water bottles straight from the surface. They fear efforts to allow a copper mine near the headwaters of the area will irreversibly pollute the most popular wilderness in the country.

“We weren’t expecting the Congressional Review Act to be on the table in this way,” said Libby London, communications director with Save the Boundary Waters, a coalition seeking to protect the wilderness area. “It sets a really scary precedent that undermines decades of land management decisions.”

Officials at the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management did not grant interview requests. Staff at the House Committee on Natural Resources did not grant an interview with U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican who chairs the committee and who has championed using the Congressional Review Act to allow more mining and drilling.

Legal questions

Environmental groups have condemned Republicans’ use of the act to push for more resource extraction. If Trump wants more mining and drilling, they say, then federal agencies should take the time to draft new management plans using the same rigorous process.

But perhaps more concerning to some public land stakeholders are the potential implications for a whole host of other lands. None of the plans issued by federal land managers over the past 30 years were ever submitted for review, because no one at the time considered them to be rules.

In other words, hundreds of plans covering millions of acres of land could be deemed invalid under the new congressional interpretation that they qualify as rules.

“That right there is chaos,” said Peter Van Tuyn, a longtime environmental lawyer and managing partner at Bessenyey & Van Tuyn LLC. “Those (plans) go across the full spectrum of what land managers do: conservation and preservation, mining approvals, oil and gas drilling, resource exploitation, public access and recreation. There’s a very real chance that a court could say that a resource management plan was never in effect and all the implementation actions under the umbrella of that plan are invalid.”

In a letter to the Bureau of Land Management late last year, The Wilderness Society and other organizations identified more than 5,000 oil and gas leases that could be legally invalid, as they were issued under management plans that were never reviewed by Congress.

Public lands advocates say the same logic could be applied to mining leases, grazing permits, logging, outdoor recreation and many other activities covered by agency planning documents. Many industries that rely on public lands, such as hunting and fishing guides, could be thrown into chaos.

“Let’s say you’re operating as an outfitter,” said Ryan Callaghan, president and CEO of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers. “Having something like an entire resource management plan rolled back would be a huge curveball, and something you’d have an absolute inability to plan for as a business owner. It’s very reasonable to have a lot of questions as to what the ramifications are.”

Industry concerns

Some industry leaders are also worried about the precedent Congress is setting by wiping out plans that were created after years of local input and consultation.

“I’m fairly concerned about that,” said Kathleen Sgamma, a longtime oil and gas advocate who now serves as principal for Multiple-Use Advocacy, a consulting group focused on federal land policy. “It’s not unreasonable to think about a future day where there is a Democratic trifecta and they would be able to (revoke) old plans likewise.”

Sgamma was nominated by Trump to lead the Bureau of Land Management, but withdrew her nomination last spring amid fierce opposition from conservation groups, and following the publication of a memo in which she had criticized Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

She said she was less concerned with the idea that previous plans could be declared invalid. She argued that, if challenged, agency officials could submit those old plans to Congress and start the 60-day review “clock” before litigation advanced.

The greater uncertainty, Sgamma said, is the provision that agencies cannot adopt rules in “substantially the same form” as those that have been revoked by Congress. While Republicans intend to target restrictions on drilling and mining, they are using the Congressional Review Act to revoke entire plans. That could prevent agencies from issuing new plans covering less controversial topics, such as campgrounds and trails.

Van Tuyn, the environmental lawyer, shared that concern.

“If they have a plan that looks 80% like the previous plan, and a court says 80% is ‘substantially similar,’ what does the agency do? Go back to the drawing board and say 50%? You used to have all this public access and now you can’t?” he said.

The Public Lands Council, which advocates for ranchers who operate on public lands, did not respond to an interview request. Western Energy Alliance, which advocates for oil and natural gas production, did not grant an interview request. The American Petroleum Institute did not respond to an interview request. Public Lands For The People, which advocates for mining on public lands, did not respond to an interview request.

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

A bill in the Assembly seeks to order the Evers administration to follow a White House demand and turn over data on all Wisconsin food aid recipients since 2020 — despite a lawsuit that has put the federal demand on hold.

AB 1027 would give the administration six months to compile and share with the U.S. Department of Agriculture “all data” that USDA demanded in a letter to the states this past summer on applicants and recipients of benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Aid Program (SNAP).

SNAP funds the state’s FoodShare program.  The letter threatened to cut off SNAP benefits to states that didn’t comply with USDA’s data demand.

Wisconsin is one of 21 states along with the District of Columbia that have sued to block the demand, and a federal judge in California granted the request for a temporary restraining order in their favor. The case remains in litigation.

On Wednesday, the nine Assembly health committee Republicans who were present voted to advance the bill after holding a public hearing with just two witnesses. All five Democrats voted against the measure.

In the hearing, Rep. Nate Gustafson (R-Omro), the bill’s author, said it doesn’t change who is eligible for FoodShare.

“It is focused solely on compliance with the existing federal requirements, so that funding continues without disruption, and Wisconsin citizens can keep receiving the benefits that they have been promised,” Gustafson said.

Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) asked Gustafson exactly what information was being demanded from the state.

“I’m trying to figure out the motivation for wanting this data, and without a clear picture of what this includes, it certainly concerns me,” Subeck said. “Given what’s happening in the federal government right now, this raises a number of red flags.”

Gustafson said he had not spoken with the Department of Health Services, which administers the FoodShare program, but that in his view, “what this bill is trying to say is, why, we don’t have anything to hide, so let’s just comply.”

Subeck rejected the claim that the bill would help uncover fraud in the FoodShare program.

“I believe that we should absolutely root out any fraud that is in any of our programs,” she said. “I do not believe this bill does anything to address fraud.”

The only other hearing testimony was from Mike Semmann, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Grocers Association, which opposed the legislation. Wisconsin grocers have many customers who use FoodShare in order to meet their needs, Semmann told the committee.

“Many times Wisconsin’s retailers are on the front line, and they’re going to be the ones who are going to be asked the questions about the program and about the concept of what’s going on with their information,” Semmann said. “And we just think that due to everything that is going on with both the potential pending litigation, but other additional questions, that right now to pass a piece of legislation at this time is just a little bit premature.”

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