*ICYMI*
The fate of the Boundary Waters is on the November ballot
Ely, MN – Last week Save the Boundary Waters National Chair Becky Rom wrote a commentary published in the Minnesota Reformer that highlights Former President Trump’s history of environmental corruption including enabling destructive mining in the Superior National Forest next to the Boundary Waters. When he was in office he reversed years of progress in protecting the Boundary Waters in the pursuit of profits for Chilean mining company Antofagasta, and recently spoke at a convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, about rescinding the existing federal mining ban in the Superior National Forest.
70% of Minnesotans want the Boundary Waters permanently protected from copper mining. The future of America's most visited Wilderness areas now heavily depends on the November election.
From the commentary:
An extraordinary story in the Washington Post on May 9 reported that at a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump told oil and gas industry executives that if they gave $1 billion to his presidential campaign, he would reverse dozens of President Biden’s regulations enacted to combat the climate and biodiversity extinction crises.
That sort of crassness is entirely consistent with Trump’s drive to help Chilean billionaires exploit our public lands by mining copper in the Superior National Forest near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. He callously disregards the welfare of the American people. All that matters to Trump is what’s in it for Trump…
…Trump’s federal mineral leases to Antofagasta’s Twin Metals were cancelled after the Biden Administration determined that they had been unlawfully issued. Although the mining company challenged the cancellation in court, its lawsuit was dismissed because of legal inadequacy. The Biden administration re-instituted the study on the risks of harm to the Boundary Waters if sulfide-ore copper mining were allowed upstream, and on January 26, 2023, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland signed a Public Land Order banning sulfide-ore copper mining on 225,504 acres of Superior National Forest lands for 20 years (the maximum period allowed under current law). The order thus helps to protect the Boundary Waters and other parts of the Superior National Forest; Quetico Park; and Voyageurs National Park from acid mine drainage and related water pollution.
What’s in it for Trump to reverse the strongest protection the Boundary Waters has received in 45 years? He obviously thinks he can benefit by shilling for extraction industry barons, as shown by the Washington Post article.
Trump acolyte Stauber authored legislation that recently passed the U.S. House that would force the reinstatement of cancelled federal mineral leases for the benefit of one foreign corporation, Antofagasta, which is owned primarily by one of South America’s richest families. Stauber’s bill blocks judicial review of reinstated illegal leases, because Stauber knows that a court would throw out the leases. The Stauber bill would also rescind the 20-year ban on sulfide-ore copper mining in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters and compel rapid approval of a dangerous mine plan.
Stauber’s plan, pandering to South American billionaires, is Trump’s plan. The blatancy of the mutual pandering is chilling. For four years, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner rented a Washington, D.C., mansion owned by a member of the family that controls Antofagasta.
Make no mistake, Trump would sell out the Boundary Waters. On May 17, at the GOP Lincoln-Reagan dinner in St. Paul, Trump stated that he would reverse Biden administration policies that restrict mining in northeastern Minnesota to protect the Boundary Waters: “I rescinded the federal withdrawal of, in Superior, you know, Superior National Forest, did anybody ever hear of Superior National Forest? Well, I opened it up. What’s wrong with that?”
You can read the full commentary here.
###