Stauber’s Bill to End Biden’s Illegal Mining Moratorium in Minnesota Heads to the President’s Desk
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the United States Senate passed Congressman Pete Stauber’s (MN-08) Congressional Review Act resolution, H.J. Res. 140, to repeal the Biden administration’s illegal 20-year mining ban on 225,504 acres in Northern Minnesota’s Superior National Forest. It will now head to the President’s desk for signature.
“A major victory for America and for Minnesota’s families and workers was secured today,” said Congressman Pete Stauber. “Never again can any Democrat President or administration unilaterally ban mining in this vital portion of the Superior National Forest, killing jobs and locking away trillions of dollars of critical minerals essential to our way of life. Mining is our past, our present, and our future – and the future looks bright!
“Despite the lies and hysterics from the left, my bill doesn’t allow mining in the Boundary Waters or the surrounding buffer zone, nor does it weaken environmental safeguards. It simply returns the decision to established permitting processes, where science, not politics, guides the outcome. I look forward to Minnesota’s miners and workers meeting every state and federal requirement so they can responsibly source the critical minerals, helium, and other natural resources that allow us to compete in the 21st century. We cannot continue to allow foreign adversaries like China to dominate mineral supply chains that are essential to our economic and national security.”
This resolution does not approve specific projects. It removes the ban, allowing proposed projects to proceed through the strictest state and federal regulatory and permitting processes.
BACKGROUND:
In January 2023, the Department of the Interior, at the direction of former President Joe Biden and former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, issued Public Land Order (PLO) 7917, instituting a 20-year mineral withdrawal covering 225,504 acres in the Superior National Forest in Northern Minnesota. This mineral withdrawal banned mining and other responsible resource extraction in a strategically significant area of the Duluth Complex, which is the largest untapped copper-nickel deposit in the world, which contains trillions of dollars of mineral wealth and at least a century's worth of future mining. Under the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act, the Department of the Interior is required to notify Congress of public land orders impacting an excess of 5,000 acres. The Biden Administration failed to properly transmit PLO 7917 to Congress in January 2023. Earlier this year, the Trump Administration corrected this error and properly transmitted PLO 7917 to Congress.
Under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), Congress has the authority to review and disapprove of federal actions within 60 Senate session days of the action’s submission to Congress. If a CRA joint resolution of disapproval addressing a federal action is passed by both chambers and signed by the President, it is nullified and ceases to have effect (or is treated as never having taken effect). Additionally, under the CRA’s substantially similar provision, when a federal action is successfully disapproved of by Congress, the executive branch is prohibited from taking a substantially similar action in the future.
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