Letter To Chuck Schumer about Section 80131 of the Budget Bill, Which Hands Over the Boundary Waters to a Foreign Mining Company

After calling Chuck Schumer’s office this morning, I sent this letter today via Schumer’s site. I’m also going to fax it to the New York office and to the environmental staffers in the DC office. Yeah, they still use faxes.

Dear Senator Schumer,

As your constituent, I am writing to share my concerns about a specific section of the Budget Bill that was drafted to enrich a foreign corporation at the American public’s expense. In particular, I urge you to strike from the Budget Bill section 80131. This is a non-budgetary policy provision that hands over our public lands to a Chilean conglomerate owned by a billionaire Trump crony and precludes judicial review of a corrupt deal. 

This is reckless, bespoke policy, dictated by mining company lobbyists and written with utter disregard for science, the law, or good government. 

Antofagasta plc, the mining company under the control of Chile’s Luksic Group, has repeatedly failed to obtain the necessary leases and permits for its Twin Metals project in northern Minnesota by legitimate means, so the company has resorted to influence peddling and relied on Trump’s corruption. 

Even before Trump took office for the first time, it was revealed that Andronico Luksic Craig, the Chilean billionaire at the head of the Luksic Group, purchased a Kalorama mansion for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, in blatant violation of the Emoluments Clause. (This move conformed to pattern; only a few years before, Luksic had been involved in a similar scandal involving the son and daughter-in-law of Chilean president Michele Bachelet.) No surprise, the first Trump administration got quickly to work on reversing Obama-era protections. 

Reporting by the New York Times (June 26, 2019, Page One), based partly on documents I obtained through Freedom of Information Act litigation, showed the administration working behind closed doors and in collusion with mining company executives and lobbyists to rewrite legal opinions in order to reach foregone conclusions. Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture was bullied into burying a scientific study demonstrating that copper and nickel mining – sulfide ore mining – on these lands, in close proximity to the Boundary Waters and north of the Laurentian Divide, would risk irreparable harm. These moves cleared the way for Trump’s Secretary of the Interior, David Bernhardt, to blithely push through the renewal of Antofagasta’s mineral leases without regard for public opinion or environmental concerns. Bernhardt’s firm now lobbies for Antofagasta on the Hill. 

After President Biden restored protections for the Boundary Waters and instituted a 20-year mineral withdrawal in the watershed region, Antofagasta sued in federal court. Unable to prevail on the merits, the mining company is now working hand-in-hand with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to short-circuit proceedings at the DC District Court of Appeals. Knowing that these legal maneuvers are unlikely to succeed, Representative Pete Stauber introduced legislation on behalf of his Chilean masters that would undo the 20-year moratorium, open the Boundary Waters to extractive industry, and roll out the red carpet for foreign mining companies on our public lands. This is the special-interest legislation currently in section 80131 of the Budget Bill. 

To make matters worse, the Stauber language precludes judicial review of Antofagasta’s mining leases. This measure would block the public from challenging the corrupt deal between the current administration and a foreign private entity owned by a Trump crony. As you are well aware, it is of a piece with other alarming language in the Budget Bill, like section 80151, which guts the National Environmental Policy Act, and other sections that prevent the judiciary from reviewing agency actions and holding Trump administration officials accountable. Trump loyalists are trying to codify the outrageous attacks we’re seeing on the judicial branch and on the rule of law itself.  

The Senate Parliamentarian should rule that Sections 80131 and 80151 are not budgetary provisions. Rhetoric from mining touts about critical minerals, renewable energy, and national security is just more bad faith; most mining nowadays is highly automated, so the promised jobs are unlikely to materialize; and there are no provisions to keep the copper and nickel Antofagasta might pull from the ground in northeastern Minnesota, and at great risk to the Boundary Waters, within the United States. It will surely be exported for processing and sold back to us at high tariffs, if at all. We will keep only the toxic pollution sulfide mining creates. In other words, there is not even a decent economic argument to be made for allowing this foreign company to exploit our public lands. 

Finally, I remind you that the lands in Superior National Forest and the Rainy River Watershed are governed by treaties with Native American tribes, who have not been meaningfully consulted in this matter and have not consented to it, and with Canada, whom Trump has already senselessly antagonized. Why should the private interests of a billionaire Trump crony be put above binding agreements with tribes and with our good neighbor to the north? 

Please work with Senator Tina Smith to strike the Stauber language from this bill, and hold the line on NEPA to protect our public lands and defend the public interest. I would be happy to meet with you or your staff to discuss this further. 

Thank you. 

Type your email…

Subscribe

#ANTO #BudgetBill #corruption #cronyism #emolumentsClause #federalLands #governmentCapture #NEPA #publicLands #Section80131 #Water

La Corte di Giustizia Europea indaga sullo spionaggio a carico di Porsia, Ballerini e Romano. Focus sul lato oscuro delle verifiche sulle Ong https://www.articolo21.org/2025/05/la-corte-di-giustizia-europea-indaga-sullo-spionaggio-a-carico-di-porsia-ballerini-e-romano-focus-sul-lato-oscuro-delle-verifiche-sulle-ong/ #Corteeuropeadeidirittidell’uomo #AlessandraBallerini #VittorioDiTrapani #Anto...

Does Tina Smith’s Boundary Waters Legislation Change the Outlook?

Yesterday, Senator Tina Smith introduced legislation to protect the Boundary Waters and make permanent the Biden administration’s 20-year moratorium on copper and nickel mining in the Rainy River Watershed. It was a rare spot of welcome news.

Smith’s Boundary Waters Wilderness Protection Act appears to be closely modeled on Representative Betty McCollum’s bill, which is currently wending its slow way through the House.

Both bills set out reasonable positions that appeal to a strong majority of voters. Neither bill is likely to become law anytime soon. As Smith told MPR:

I understand that it will be hard to get this through Congress, given the current political makeup of Congress. But I think it’s important to put a marker out there and give us all something to work towards.

In other words, don’t bet on anything significant happening before 2026 or 2028, or long after that, and bear in mind that any legislation along these lines will face stiff opposition and counter-legislation.

Just a couple of months ago, Representative Pete Stauber reintroduced his Superior National Forest Restoration Act. Despite its name, the bill doesn’t do much to restore Superior National Forest. Stauber aims to undo the Biden moratorium. The only things he’s out to restore are his Chilean patron’s cancelled mineral leases.

So, at best, the 119th Congress is likely to end in a standoff on this issue.

In the meantime, Boundary Waters litigation is still before the DC District Court of Appeals. The last entry in the docket showed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum asking for a 90-day abeyance, during which time, he informs the court, he plans to conduct a farcical exercise in foregone conclusions and hand the Boundary Waters over to the Chilean mining company.

The court still has not answered that 7 March request. It was predicated on what Burgum calls “a meaningful likelihood that the contours of the issues presented in this case will change.” There’s no question about that. Now, however, it appears that they may not change in the direction Burgum and Antofagasta anticipate.

Smith’s legislation sets out a marker, as she says, and Congress, not Trump’s kleptocratic crony, has the greater constitutional authority and should have the ultimate say. This Congress may choose to abdicate its constitutional authority; and confidence placed in politicians is always confidence misplaced. But even the most hardened cynic would have to acknowledge that with Smith’s legislation on the table next to McCollum’s, the long-term outlook has changed a little, and so have the business risks associated with Antofagasta’s approach to its Twin Metals project.

Now there’s a chance — nothing more than that, but a chance all the same — that Antofagasta could see any services Secretary Burgum hastily and corruptly performs on its behalf eventually undone by statute.

Subscribe

#ANTO #administrativeState #congressionalAuthority #corruption #DougBurgum #politicalAuthority #politicians #risk #socialLicense #Water

New Correspondence Entered into the Twin Metals v. US Docket, Reiterating the Risk of Serious and Irreparable Harm to the Boundary Waters

The attorney for the Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the DOJ just entered this correspondence into the Twin Metals v. US docket.

It attempts to clarify a point on which the federal government has insisted: since the Forest Service moved to withdraw more than 225,000 acres Superior National Forest lands from mineral exploration and development in September of 2021, the Bureau of Land Management acted lawfully — or with authority — when it denied Twin Metals’ Preference Rights Lease Applications, or PRLAs. Therefore, the government contends, Twin Metals has no claim, so Judge Cooper was right to dismiss Twin Metals’ complaint. (For a little more context, see this post.)

In response to the Bureau of Land Management’s request for clarification, the Forest Service reiterates its position:

The record for the 2016 lease consent determination and 2023 withdrawal application demonstrate that development of these mineral resources presented an unacceptable, inherent risk of serious and irreparable harm to the BWCAW natural resources. It has been thoroughly documented that the proposed mineral leasing is not a compatible use within the watershed in such proximity to the wilderness and that the Forest Service’s withholding of consent to the issuance of leases for MNES-057965 and MNES- 050264 would be consistent with the record. This is entirely consistent with previous consent decisions on mineral lease renewals in the same area of the Rainy River Watershed, as well as last year’s decision to withdraw approximately 225,378 acres of land within the watershed from mineral leasing. Extensive analysis and public input associated with prior consent decisions and the mineral withdrawal process informs and supports this response. [emphasis mine]

There is a to to unpack here, and can’t help but wonder why this correspondence comes at such a late hour. Is the federal government is just making sure to cover all bases, or are there alarm bells ringing? Be that as it may, here are the letters in question.

Subscribe

#ANTO #administrativeState #corruption #environmentalEthics #ethics #lawfulAuthority #pollution #Water

A Follow Up on Yesterday’s Filing in the Boundary Waters Litigation: Post-Election Context

I wanted to share the reply brief in Twin Metals v. US as soon as it hit the docket, and it didn’t hit until the very end of workday. In this post, I just want to put this brief in the post-election context.

In this appeal, Twin Metals is trying to establish that:

a) it was correct to sue for violations of the Administrative Procedure Act. In the lower court, the federal government successfully argued that the mining company had come to the wrong court, and (under the Tucker Act) should have sued for breach of contract.

b) that it has a justiciable claim. Judge Cooper ruled that Twin Metals had failed in that regard. Since the US Forest Service withdrew the Rainy River Watershed lands from mineral leasing and development, the Bureau of Land Management acted lawfully when it denied the company’s Preference Rights Lease Applications and rejected its Mine Plan of Operations.

For some context, see this and this and this; you’ll find the original appeal here.

A win for the mining company in the DC Court of Appeals will send this case back to the lower court, or, as the brief has it, “give Twin Metals its day in court.” That’s all going to take much longer than a day, of course. A remand will take this case well past the inauguration, at which point the new administration can get to work.

Past is prologue: in 2016, Antofagasta also had a case before the federal district court. The mining company dropped the case once the Trump 45 administration had completed its reversal of Obama-era protections. (See the timeline at 22 Dec 2017.) The hurdle is higher now, with the mineral withdrawal in place, but there are plans to undo that. (See also this post.)

I also want to call attention to a couple of passages where the brief touches on the energy transition. These are hardly original or brilliant arguments, and they are largely derived from the amicus briefs submitted by the National Mining Association, the Range Association, and the Building Trades. But they hint at broader questions about the role of the administrative state, permitting reform, economic development, and national security — all questions the 119th congress will likely take up.

The first comes on page 3, in the Introduction.  

At bottom, the government’s and intervenors’ atextual position would turn the longstanding mining regulatory scheme into an unworkable mess. Twin Metals has expended hundreds of millions of dollars in exploration and project development and remains committed to developing a sustainable, modern mine that supports the local community and provides critical minerals for clean-energy technology and national security. But no mining regulatory system could work if applicants for permits sink enormous sums into discovering valuable deposits and satisfying all the regulations’ criteria, only to have the government arbitrarily deprive them of a reward. That is certainly not the scheme Congress and the agencies established here.

The second, page 24:

Arbitrary mining lease denials harm not just permitholders but the public too…. BLM’s unlawful actions have cost construction workers in northern Minnesota nearly $200 million in wages and benefits….. Small towns and school districts lose tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue every year the land sits unmined…. And it is impossible to quantify the environmental, economic, and national-security costs of not mining “critical minerals” for clean energy like copper, nickel, cobalt, platinum, and palladium—the minerals Twin Metals seeks to mine.

#ANTO #corruption #criticalMinerals #energyDominance #energyTransition #fragmentedTransition #GreenRight #sacrificeZones #Water

First Post-Election Filing in Boundary Waters Litigation

Here’s the brief, filed today at around 5PM.

#ANTO #administrativeEthics #administrativeProcedureAct #BoundaryWaters #corruption #criticalMinerals #power #Water

Nhận diện nhà cái lừa đảo như thế nào? Đừng để mình trở thành nạn nhân! Tìm hiểu 3 cách đơn giản để tránh xa bẫy lừa đảo: https://ww88.bike/nha-cai-lua-dao/ #Nhacai #LuaDao #AnToan #anto