16. Department of the Interior · Notable
Abandon the Boundary Waters mineral withdrawal in Minnesota
Printed page 523 16. Department of the Interior
“Abandon withdrawals of lands from leasing in the Thompson Divide of the White River National Forest, Colorado; the 10-mile buffer around Chaco Cultural Historic National Park in New Mexico (restoring the compromise forged in the Arizona Wilderness Act); and the Boundary Waters area in northern Minnesota if those withdrawals have not been completed.”
What has happened
- Done
P.L. 119-85 disapproved, under the Congressional Review Act, "the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to Public Land Order No. 7917 for Withdrawal of Federal Lands; Cook, Lake, and Saint Louis Counties, MN" — the twenty-year Boundary Waters mineral withdrawal in the Superior National Forest. A CRA disapproval voids the rule and bars a substantially similar one without new authority. The withdrawal the Quote asks be abandoned is gone.
- Partially done
The Deputy Secretary withdrew Solicitor's Opinion M-37072 — the 2022 opinion that BLM had improperly renewed Twin Metals Minnesota's mineral leases and that they were therefore cancellable — and reinstated M-37049, the 2017 opinion holding the opposite. The leases in the Boundary Waters watershed were the subject; the 225,504-acre withdrawal, Public Land Order 7917, still stood.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Two instruments, one from each branch: the Solicitor’s opinion that restores the Twin Metals leases, and the Congressional Review Act resolution that nullifies the withdrawal itself.
- Action
- withdraw
- Object
- Boundary Waters area withdrawal in northern Minnesota
- ID
- 1473