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On Tuesday, Representative Pete Stauber of Minnesota introduced a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act that would overturn a public land order that protects the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from the impacts of mining. Public Land Order 7917, issued in 2023 by then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, withdrew the headwaters of the Boundary Waters area from mining for 20 years. Stauber's resolution proposes to nullify the withdrawal entirely, allowing mining to occur in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters and exposing the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and other nearby areas to potential pollution and other impacts from mining activity.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) allows Congress to review, and attempt to overturn, a rule promulgated by an executive branch agency. The CRA has been used to overturn rules finalized by administrations of both parties since it was signed into law in 1996. However, since the beginning of the second Trump administration, members of Congress have attempted to use the CRA to overturn agency actions that have never been considered rules for the purposes of the CRA. Earlier this year, Congress passed resolutions of disapproval of land management plans, an unprecedented move has caused significant uncertainty because the CRA prohibits an agency from passing another rule "substantially similar" to a rule that is overturned using the CRA. Since the CRA has never been used in this way before, it is unclear how land management agencies are to plan for future land management if they cannot write new land management plans, or whether oil and gas leases and other permits issued under an overturned land management plan remain valid.
The attempt to use the CRA to overturn a public land order is similarly unprecedented in that public land orders have also never been considered rules. If successful, this effort would open up mineral withdrawals and other public land orders across the West to a raft of disapproval resolutions that would cancel protections for unique and irreplaceable landscapes and wildlife habitats. Once an area is open to mining or other extractive activity and mining claims or other rights are established, they cannot be taken away by a future mineral withdrawal. Undoing a mineral withdrawal, even if it is restored later, exposes the area to the threat of the impacts of industrial extractive activity for decades.
"Mining in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters would pollute one of the crown jewels of America’s public lands and pose a toxic threat to the wilderness and the approximately 250,000 people who visit it each year,quot; Jordan Schreiber, director of government relations at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. "Congress should reject this legislative scheme, which relies on unprecedented treatment of a public land order, and defend this critical landscape for present and future generations."
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Whether they serve as hunting hubs or gateways to our nation’s first wilderness, these rural communities thrive on access to public lands.”
