The vote moves Congress toward reopening roughly 400 square miles of the Superior National Forest to potential copper and nickel mining by a Chilean-owned company, reversing a protection the Biden administration imposed in 2023. The wilderness drew about 776,000 visitor permits between 2020 and 2024; conservationists say mining could contaminate its watershed.
The U.S. House voted 214-208 on Wednesday to lift a 20-year federal ban on mining near Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, passing a resolution that now heads to the Senate for a vote.
If the Senate approves the measure, it would go to President Donald Trump for his signature. Republicans hold 53 of the chamber’s 100 seats, but it was not immediately clear when the Senate might take it up.
The vote fell largely along party lines. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska was the one Republican to vote against the resolution; Rep. Jared Golden of Maine was the one Democrat to vote for it.
The resolution and its target
Rep. Pete Stauber, a Duluth Republican, introduced the resolution under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn certain federal agency actions. The measure targets the moratorium President Joe Biden’s administration imposed in 2023, which barred mining on about 400 square miles (103,600 hectares) of the Superior National Forest to protect the adjacent wilderness and its watershed.
The resolution clears a potential path for Twin Metals Minnesota LLC, a subsidiary of Chile-based Antofagasta Minerals, which submitted a plan in 2019 to mine copper, nickel, cobalt and other metals in the forest. The Trump administration reinstated a 2017 legal opinion last fall that allowed Twin Metals to renew its federal leases, and Minnesota regulators approved the company’s exploratory mining plans in December.
Arguments on the floor
Republicans argued that opening the area to mining is necessary to compete with China and Russia for cobalt, copper, nickel and other key minerals.
“It’s better in our backyard than in China or Russia or other adversarial nations,” Stauber said.
Democrats said any minerals extracted would be sold on the international market regardless, and that mining posed an existential threat to the wilderness.
“Some places are just too precious to mine,” said Rep. Betty McCollum, a Minnesota Democrat.
Democrats also raised a procedural objection, arguing the Congressional Review Act required the resolution to be brought within 60 days of the moratorium’s implementation in 2023, not three years later, and that the act cannot be used to erase public land protections. Republicans countered that the Biden administration failed to formally notify Congress of the ban when it was imposed.
Jackie Feinberg, the Sierra Club’s national lands conservation campaign manager, said in a statement: “Minnesota’s Boundary Waters is one of our nation’s most iconic wilderness areas. This push by the Trump administration and their Congressional allies to allow toxic mining in the Boundary Waters watershed puts this fragile ecosystem at risk, and is a clear giveaway to corporate polluters.”
Matthew Schultz, a spokesperson for Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters, cited Bacon’s vote as evidence the debate does not divide strictly by party.
“The hunting, fishing, angling and outdoor community wants to see this place protected, plain and simple,” Schultz said. “No matter who you voted for, nobody voted for less public lands and less access to them. Without a shadow of a doubt, should this pass through the Senate, that is what will happen.”
About the Boundary Waters
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness stretches about 150 miles (about 240 kilometers) along Minnesota’s border with Canada in the far northeastern corner of the state, covering a swath of remote woods, lakes and swamps in the Superior National Forest. Logging is prohibited there; aircraft must remain above 4,000 feet except in emergencies; and motorized boats are restricted to certain areas. The U.S. Forest Service issued about 776,000 visitor permits between 2020 and 2024, according to agency data.
The underlying rock formation, the Duluth Complex, contains deposits of copper, nickel, lead, zinc, iron, silver and gold, according to the Forest Service.