The state of the attempt to un-zombify Twin Metals – Update
Update: This is from an email Tuesday evening from Friends of the Boundary Waters.
Congress has removed Section 80131 from the draft Budget Bill—the provision that would have handed public land near the Boundary Waters to the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta while blocking court review.
A formal vote to strike this language may happen as early as tomorrow.
Original story: It sure seems like this is becoming quite possible.
The bill, which passed the House and is now being considered by the Senate, includes provisions that rescind the Biden administration’s 20-year mining prohibition in the Superior national forest and grants Twin Metals 20-year mining leases to pursue its copper-nickel project on nearly 6,000 acres (2,500 hectares) of public land near the Boundary Waters. It also grants Twin Metals rights in perpetuity to lease renewals and it prohibits judicial review of the leases, meaning that citizens cannot sue to challenge them. Only one party retains rights to judicial review per the legislation: Twin Metals. If the federal government fails to comply with the reconciliation bill, Twin Metals can sue to enforce it…
As the reconciliation bill moves through the Senate, conservationists as well as their allies in Congress are hoping it will be stripped out of the bill before it lands on Trump’s desk. They argue, among other things, that the bill’s Twin Metals provision may run afoul of Senate rules governing the reconciliation process, which disallows the body from including “extraneous provisions” in budget bills.
(The Guardian)
As far as I’m concerned it’s very, very clearly correct that this can’t legally be part of a reconciliation package. I did find this yesterday afternoon which indicates that the Party of Trump Senate majority does intend to follow legitimate procedure and not just ignore the parliamentarian on whatever matters they like. But that doesn’t guarantee anything. I guess we’ll find out how many “friends” Antofagasta really has there.
Also, my inbox hasn’t been getting hit with fervent email warnings about this from Minnesota’s great environmental organizations that have played key roles in stopping sulfide mining so far. So maybe, being more in the know than I am, they’re reasonably confident that the vile provisions will be dropped. But I’m still nervous.
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