Senate Votes to Allow Mining Near Minnesota Wilderness: The move was a victory for a Chilean company that wants to build a copper and nickel mine, which environmentalists say could devastate fragile lakes and forests.

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* The Senate voted on Thursday to allow mining upstream from Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, one of the largest and most visited expanses of federally protected lakes and forests in the United States.
* **By a vote of 50 to 49,** senators passed a resolution that would repeal a [moratorium on new mining](https://archive.is/o/zw5UJ/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/climate/mining-ban-boundary-waters-copper.html) across more than 225,000 acres of the Superior National Forest, which includes the Boundary Waters. The House already passed the Republican-led measure, which now heads to President Trump, who is expected to sign it into law.
* **The vote was a victory for Twin Metals Minnesota, a subsidiary of the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta. The company wants to build a copper and nickel mine about five miles southwest of the wilderness area, and the Biden administration complicated its plans by banning mining there until 2043.**
* Environmentalists have fought for years to block the proposed mine, saying it could contaminate the region’s interconnected lakes and streams with heavy metals, sulfuric acid and other toxic substances. Native American tribes fear the runoff from mining could devastate a watershed that they rely on for fishing and wild rice harvesting. Fishing and hunting groups have also been opposed.
* “The Boundary Waters belong to all Americans,” said Senator Martin Heinrich, Democrat of New Mexico, in an impassioned speech before the vote. “The Boundary Waters are our public lands, all of ours. President Teddy Roosevelt, who had the incredible foresight to protect this beautiful place, he had it right when he said, ‘We should see to it that they are preserved for our children and our children’s children forever, with their majestic beauty unmarred.’”
* **Mine would lie in national forest**