The Senate plans to vote as soon as Wednesday on legislation that would eliminate Biden-era mining limits near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
The House passed H.J. Res 140, from Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), chair of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, in January largely along party lines. It would scrap a ban on new mining within the Superior National Forest.
“The Biden Administration’s decision to enact its illegal mining ban in Northern Minnesota was not only an attack on our way of life and cost countless good-paying, union jobs, it also put our nation’s mineral security at risk,” Stauber said.
Supporters of the mining limits take issue with Stauber’s illegality claims. They also call it improper for Congress to undo a mineral withdrawal using the Congressional Review Act, a law meant to repeal agency rules.
