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Floor Speech

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Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss a Congressional Review Act resolution H.J. Res. 140 that could come before the Senate any time over the next 2 weeks, and I want to speak directly to my Republican colleagues about this CRA and why you should vote against it.

This CRA would roll back protections for the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Northeastern Minnesota. It would allow copper-nickel sulfide mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters, which would be devastating to the wilderness.

The decision that the Senate makes--that we will make--in the coming weeks will have long-term implications for the Boundary Waters, certainly, but it will also have long-term implications for how we go about protecting public lands around the country going forward.

So I want to start with the core point being a Minnesota Senator, that Minnesota is a mining State. We support mining, just not this mine in this place. Minnesota is a mining and natural resources State. We have a wealth of natural resources, and mining is a really important part of our economy.

We are proud to be the No. 1 source of iron for the whole country. We produced three-quarters of the iron that went into the tanks and planes that led us to victory in World War II, and we are still producing most of the Nation's iron ore today.

And it is also true there are other potential mines in Minnesota that are currently under consideration and development that would produce copper and nickel and other precious metals.

Responsible mining is an economic driver in Minnesota; and it is part of our history; and it is part of our future.

So why oppose this CRA which would pave the way for developing a copper-nickel sulfide mine on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters?

Colleagues, I want to give you three reasons why this is a bad idea. The first is this is an incredibly special place. It is beloved by Minnesota and beloved by people around the country, and this mine in this place poses an unacceptable risk.

For those of you who haven't been to the Boundary Waters, I want you to picture a million acres of pristine lakes and bogs and rivers. There is a wealth of hunting and fishing resources. People canoe everywhere. I was there last summer just on a day trip into the Boundary Waters, and I saw two wolves just on that one day.

You will find here some of the cleanest, freshest water any place in the world. You can go out into the middle of lakes and dip your cup into the water and drink the water right from the lake. You see lake trout and northern pike and walleye. I mean, there is no place in the world that is better to be than this.

That is why over 150,000 people visit the Boundary Waters every year in the mosquito season of the summertime and in the ice and freezing cold of the wintertime. It is one of the most visited national wilderness areas in the whole country.

As a result of that, the outdoor recreation economy in Northern Minnesota generates thousands of jobs. The Boundary Waters supports hundreds and hundreds of small, local businesses, and it generates millions of dollars in economic activity for Minnesota. Outdoor recreation is a significant economic driver in the region around the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area.

What this mine would do is to put all of that at an unacceptable risk. This kind of mine has been built in other places around the country and around the world, and in 100 percent of the instances, this mine has caused pollution.

What happens is you mine the rock underground; you bring it up to the surface. This is copper sulfide ore, and as soon as it is exposed to the air and to water, the sulfide in the rocks turns into basically what is battery acid. And then because this mine is right on the edge of the Boundary Waters in the watershed of this incredible place, that water flows into the Boundary Waters ultimately into Voyageurs National Park at great risk--at great risk--to the wildlife and also to the humans that are using this incredibly special place.

Basically, you are putting sulfuric acid into the water and watching it flow into this place. And this reason--the dangers of this mine, which I should say have been widely studied--the moratorium that is in place on mining in the Boundary Waters is the result of years of scientific evaluation; it is the result of hundreds of thousands of public comments saying: Nope, the risks to this in this particular place are just too great.

This is why my Republican colleagues would appreciate: Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, sportsmen's groups, Trout Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, and many other outdoor groups, people of all kinds from all over the country have weighed in and said: No, this is simply the wrong mine in the wrong place.

Even descendants of the great President Theodore Roosevelt have said that we should protect this national treasure and ``leave it as it is,'' as they said. This is also why this mine is so unpopular in Minnesota.

A recent poll showed that 70 percent of Minnesotans across the political spectrum--where this is not a political-partisan issue, I should say--agree that protecting the Boundary Waters from sulfide- based mining pollution is a very important thing for elected officials to consider. And 61 percent of Minnesotans expressed support for establishing a permanent State-level--permit protections for this incredible piece of public land.

That is the first reason why this CRA does not make sense because this is an incredibly special place, and this mine poses an unacceptable risk to the resources of this place.

The second reason that I want to talk to you about, colleagues, is more of an internal Senate issue, but it is extremely important. You should oppose this CRA because it would be an unprecedented and dangerous use of the Congressional Review Act.

Now, within the Senate, we know what the CRA is. It is a way for Congress to doublecheck the actions of the executive branch. If Congress feels that the executive branch has passed a regulation that goes too far, that doesn't follow the intent of Congress, the CRA, the Congressional Review Authority, gives Congress the power to say: Wait. Hold the phone. We are going to say: No, you can't do that. We are going to vote to say that regulation goes too far.

Now, you have to do that within 60 days. That makes sense, right? Because you can't have future Congresses clawing back the decisions that have been made years and years ago.

OK. But that is not what is happening here with this CRA, colleagues. What is happening here is for the first time ever that I am aware of, they are applying the CRA process not to a rule, but to a completely different public land order, a different statute. What they want to do with the CRA is to clawback a public land order that was put into place 3 years ago.

This was never the intention of the Congressional Review Act. The Congressional Review Act has never been used in this way before to overturn a mineral withdrawal, especially not a withdrawal that was finalized 3 years ago.

Now, I think, probably, many of my Republican colleagues are thinking as they contemplate is this a good idea or not, you always have to think in this body: What is going to happen when the shoe is on the other foot?

We might do this now, but then if this tool has been sharpened to be used in this different way, how might the Members of the other party use this tool in ways that we don't approve of, that we don't like?

I can tell you, as I have had many conversations with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, this is something that is a big concern to folks. What would this do? What would this mean if we take this action? What would it look like if Congress gets into the business of repealing administrative actions that have been in place for years?

I think many people look at that and say: Well, that would just be chaos.

The third reason that I think it is important to oppose this CRA is that it would violate Tribal treaty rights. This is why it has been so strongly opposed by the Tribal Nations who have lived in the borderlands of Minnesota for time immemorial. And their rights--their rights to hunting and fishing, and for the Minnesota Chippewa Tribes, their rights to harvest wild rice or manoomin, those rights are enshrined in a treaty with the Federal Government. And this treaty would ban this kind of mining in this area without the Tribe's approval.

But today, the Tribes have not approved this. They have not been consulted on this. I mean, they were consulted during the mineral withdrawal process that happened several years ago. Over many, many government-to-government meetings and consultations, they were consulted, but not on this.

That is why the Grand Portage Band and the Minnesota Chippewa Tribes that have treaty rights here have written letters expressing their strong opposition to this effort. It is why the National Congress of American Indians passed a resolution urging the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to at least hold a hearing on the treaty implications of this CRA before moving forward and also why they oppose this CRA.

It is also why in solidarity with the Minnesota Anishinaabe people, the Chippewa people, the Tribal Nations from across the country have spoken out--the Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes, the White Earth Nation, Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation, the Eastern Shoshone--they have all come together and said: No, we reject this CRA.

Minnesota Tribal leaders and Minnesota Tribal members feel the same way that other Minnesotans do. We are not anti-mining, but this mine in this place poses too great of a risk.

Before I wrap up, I want to address one question that I have heard quite a bit about in terms of sort of what would be in favor of voting for this CRA, and I want to just give my perspective on it.

So some would say that passing this CRA is important for national security. They would claim that this mine would provide a much-needed domestic source of critical minerals.

I will give it to you that we need to think about this. Everybody's cell phone--I mean, so much of our modern life relies on these critical minerals. But here is the question that needs to be considered as you are making this decision. The question is: Who is going to own these minerals? And who is going to benefit? And where is the money going to go?

That is why this is really not an ``America First'' issue to vote for this CRA.

Just because the minerals are mined on American--United States-- forest land does not mean that they will be reserved for an American market. In fact, any copper or nickel that would be mined in the Duluth Complex, which is where this mine would be, would immediately be sent to our strongest global competitor of China.

The rock would be pulled up. The ore would be sent by train most likely to the Pacific Coast where it will be loaded onto big boats and taken to China where it will be smelted. And then it will be used either in China for their infrastructure and defense technologies, or it will just be sold to the highest bidder.

So the mine in Minnesota--it is important to understand--is a wholly owned subsidiary of Antofagasta, which is a massive Chilean conglomerate with billionaire owners. This is one of the largest foreign mining conglomerates in the whole world.

And Antofagasta, OK, has deep ties with the Chinese government and its mineral processing operations. In fact, most recently, Antofagasta that would be building this mine in Northeastern Minnesota has secured a recordbreaking, zero-cost--meaning, that is free--processing agreement with Chinese copper smelters, all of which are state-owned, either in whole or in part.

So what we are doing here with this mine is we are creating a pathway--a pipeline--for this foreign company to build a mine almost certainly polluting the Boundary Waters to take the copper to send it to China where they then have a sweetheart deal for smelting and then sell it back out on the open market.

This is not an ``America First'' strategy, so I would encourage my Republican colleagues as you consider this to take a look at who is benefiting from this mine, and it certainly is not going to be Minnesotans whom this land belongs to, along with the rest of this country. No. The real winners of this deal are the Chilean billionaires who will further line their pockets with profits from this mine.

Should this resolution come before the Senate, I urge my colleagues to vote no on rolling back protections for the boundary waters wilderness area.

We can support mining but not this mine and this place. We can be good stewards of our natural resources, and we can support mining but not this mine. These public lands belong to all of us, and we should not allow them to be exploited by a foreign mining company for our loss and for their gain.

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