Senators Weigh Lifting Mining Ban Near Minnesota Wilderness

Some Senate Republicans are still weighing whether to support a House-passed measure to overturn Biden-era land protections near a beloved wilderness area in Minnesota.

“I am truly undecided,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said March 3 on the looming vote. Senators will decide whether to green-light a disapproval resolution that would scrap a rule related to former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s withdrawal of more than 225,000 acres of federal lands from mineral and geothermal leasing in northeastern Minnesota until 2043.

The withdrawal via Haaland’s 2023 secretarial order aimed to further delay a proposed copper-and-nickel mine near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area ...