A provision that would have issued perpetual mineral leases near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has been struck from the Senate budget bill. It’s the latest victory in a monumental effort by lawmakers and public-lands advocates to strike bad conservation policy from the sweeping legislative package.
Minnesota senator Tina Smith, a democrat, announced the news late Tuesday evening on social media.
“Buried deep in President Trump and Republican’s [sic] Big Beautiful Bill was a provision that gave a foreign mining company full permission to build a copper-nickel sulfide mine right on the doorstep of the Boundary Water,” Smith said in the statement. “I vowed to do everything in my power to protect this precious place. Today, I am relieved to announce that we were successful in forcing Republicans to drop this language attacking the Boundary Waters from the bill.”
Smith didn’t provide details on how she accomplished this, but Politico reported that the Senate sent a so-called “fatalities” list to the House on Tuesday afternoon. Lawmakers in the House must strike the requested items in its version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act so it can enjoy special party-line treatment in the Senate. That list was relatively short — just four pages — but it specified Representatives must strike section 80131, which would have reinstated mineral leases on previously protected federal lands in Cook, Lake, and Saint Louis counties.
This news comes several weeks after six Republicans crossed the aisle to prevent the sale of roughly 500,000 acres of public land in Nevada and Utah in the House version of the budget bill.
In her announcement Smith cautioned against the sale and leasing of public lands, and urged the permanent protections for the Boundary Waters. She hopes to do so by passing her Boundary Waters Wilderness Protection and Pollution Prevention Act, which she introduced in April with support from groups like Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and Trout Unlimited. The bill wouldn’t ban or curtail any existing or potential mining projects in Minnesota outside those parcels in the Rainy River Watershed.
The battle over these mineral leases in the Superior National Forest has been ongoing for years. In 2023 then-secretary of the interior Deb Haaland issued a 20-year administrative mineral withdrawal for 225,000 acres in the watershed. More recently the Trump Administration has attempted to reverse course with executive and secretarial orders to prioritize natural resource development on federal lands.
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The BWCA’s recreation economy currently generates $77 million for the local economy each year, and employs a fifth of the residents in those three counties.
“This action was eventually taken to comply with Senate rules, all but ensuring the effort to include the Boundary Waters in the Senate version will fall short,” wrote Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters in a Facebook post Tuesday. “But make no mistake, this win is thanks to a collective effort by conservation organizations, elected officials, outdoor businesses, stakeholders, and Boundary Waters advocates like YOU.”
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