Photo: Melissa Greenlee on Unsplash.com

By Laura Durenberger-Grunow - Boreal Community Media - June 11, 2025

The US Senate has removed a section from President Trump's "One Big, Beautiful Bill" that would have granted permission to a Chilean-owned mining company to build a copper-nickel sulfide mine along the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in Minnesota. Section 80131 of President Trump's budget bill would also aim to limit judicial review of the mine's construction. The full bill passed the US House of Representatives in May and is now being reviewed by the Senate. 

Senator Tina Smith (D-MN), who, along with Betty McCollum (D-MN), worked to have the language removed from the bill, said in a Facebook post on June 10 that she was "relieved to announce that we were successful in forcing Republicans to drop this language attacking the Boundary Waters from the bill." Senator Smith has been a long-time advocate of protecting the BWCAW. 

Those who were in favor of including the language in the bill state that opening up federal land to mining would bring jobs to the area and lessen the United States' reliance on minerals from overseas.

A formal vote is expected soon to strike the language from the bill permanently.