Senate Republicans voted 50-49 to repeal a 20-year mining moratorium in Minnesota's Boundary Waters using the Congressional Review Act — a procedural move critics say sets a dangerous precedent for every protected area in the country.
The U.S. Senate voted to repeal a 20-year moratorium on copper and nickel mining in the watershed of Minnesota's Boundary Waters, clearing the way for a Chilean-owned mining company to pursue one of the largest untapped critical mineral deposits in North America. The resolution now heads to President Trump's desk.
The vote, as reported by Grist, relied on the Congressional Review Act, a law from the 1990s that lets lawmakers overturn federal regulations with a simple majority instead of the 60 votes normally required to break a filibuster. What makes this case different: the Boundary Waters protections weren't a regulation at all. They were a Public Land Order issued by the Biden administration in early 2023.
Most people assume Congress needs a full legislative process to reverse decades of land protections. The conventional read of the CRA is that it applies to recently issued rules within a 60-day window. Reports indicate this repeal blew past both limits, raising legal concerns about the legitimacy of the action.
The scale of the shift is striking. During the CRA's first two decades, it was used sparingly. In 2025 alone, President Trump signed 22 CRA repeals, according to analysis in The Regulatory Review, with a significant number of them targeting environmental protections.
The winner is Twin Metals, a subsidiary of Chilean mining firm Antofagasta. The company has been trying to build a copper-nickel mine on the Duluth Complex, near the wilderness area, in recent years. The Luksic family, which controls a majority stake in Antofagasta, previously drew scrutiny for connections to the Trump family during the first Trump administration.
The opposition isn't fringe. Federal agencies have previously determined that sulfide-ore copper mining in the watershed could cause extreme and irreplaceable harm. Three tribes (the Bois Forte Band, Fond du Lac Band, and Grand Portage Band of Chippewa) hold treaty rights in the region guaranteed by the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe. Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota held the Senate floor for hours trying to block the vote, telling colleagues that copper-sulfide mines have caused pollution in the vast majority of documented cases, according to CBS News.
The stated justification is critical minerals security. Copper demand is projected to grow 50 percent by 2040, per S&P Global, driven by AI infrastructure and defense spending. A Carnegie Endowment report projects a significant nickel deficit by 2035.
But the domestic-supply argument has a hole in it. The U.S. has very limited smelting capacity for these materials. Raw ore pulled from Minnesota would almost certainly be shipped abroad for processing, likely back to Antofagasta's existing supply chain, and potentially resold to American buyers. Industry reports have recommended strengthening international partnerships rather than opening protected land.
The bigger story here is precedent. If a Public Land Order from a few years ago can be erased through a procedural workaround, every federal land protection becomes provisional. Lawmakers have floated similar resolutions targeting other protected areas. This fits a pattern VegOut has tracked in its coverage of how governments worldwide are rewriting rules to unlock protected land for extraction.
Twin Metals still has to clear federal and state permitting hurdles, including addressing lease issues from previous years. The fight isn't over. But the legal architecture that kept this protected lake country off-limits just got a lot thinner.
