For Immediate Release
June 13, 2024
Contact: Libby London (612) 227-8407
Statement on the anti-Boundary Waters amendments attached to the National Defense Authorization Act this week
(Ely, MN) – This week the Rules Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives hosted a hearing on five amendments on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that attack Boundary Waters protections. All were proposed by U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber of Minnesota. Fortunately, only one of these five amendments moved to a vote and passed. The Senate will vote on the final bill sometime this summer.
This week’s vote is on the heels of the House passing Rep. Stauber’s extreme Anti-Boundary Waters bill, H.R. 3195, “Superior National Forest Restoration Act,” last month.
Boundary Waters Action Fund Director Alex Falconer issued the following statement:
It's not enough that H.R. 3195 passed last month in the U.S. House—a bill with the sole purpose of overturning the Boundary Waters watershed mining ban—this week, a slew of amendments that directly harm the Boundary Waters were also introduced.
While it’s clear that Rep. Stauber is laser focused on opening up the headwaters of the Boundary Waters to toxic mining, his sneaky attack on America’s most visited Wilderness almost completely failed this week. He tried to tack five anti-Boundary Waters amendments onto the National Defense Authorization Act, all of which had nothing to do with national defense, but thankfully only one of them was voted on. Now it’s up to the Senate to decide if these anti-Wilderness poison pills sink or swim: we are rooting for Senator’s who have the will of the people in mind and will vote for the Wilderness.
70% of Minnesotans support a ban on sulfide-ore copper mining in the Boundary Waters headwaters. The Boundary Waters is the most heavily visited wilderness area in the United States, attracting more than 165,000 visitors from all over the world. It is a major driver of the regional economy, supporting hundreds of businesses and thousands of jobs. A vast collection of peer-reviewed science shows that if a Twin Metals copper-nickel mine were built along the rivers and streams flowing into the Wilderness, pollution and environmental degradation would be certain. A peer-reviewed independent study from Harvard University showed that protection of the Boundary Waters from a proposed Twin Metals sulfide-ore copper mine would result in dramatically more jobs and more income over a 20-year period.
Comments