Congress Attacks Minnesota’s Boundary Waters using Congressional Review Act
By Shirin Grewal
In early January, Congress introduced H.J. Res. 140, aiming to overturn Public Land Order (PLO) 7917, which protects the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BCWAW) in northeastern Minnesota from copper mining. This resolution narrowly passed in the House on January 21, 2026, and is now pending in the Senate. If this resolution becomes law, it would open thousands of acres of national forest to mining companies, putting corporate profits ahead of public health and environmental harm.
H.J. Res. 140 is a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution, a law enacted in 1996 that allows Congress to overturn certain “rules” proposed by federal agencies. Under the CRA, federal agencies are required to notify Congress when they issue new rules. Congress then has a limited window to consider legislation to overturn the rule. If both the House and Senate approve a resolution, and it’s signed by the President, or if Congress later overrides a presidential veto, the original rule is revoked.
Public Land Orders have never been considered “rules” under the CRA, so the Biden administration didn’t file notice with Congress when they passed the order protecting the Boundary Waters. It is one of many recent examples of the CRA being used to challenge or overturn regulations that would otherwise be well outside statutory review.
The CRA is a blunt instrument that allows Congress to act through a simple majority vote, repealing legislation without any debate. Even more alarmingly, under the CRA, federal agencies are barred from publishing a rule that is “substantially the same.” As the expanded use of the CRA is unprecedented, it is not well settled what this phrase means, but experts believe that it would block the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from being able to reinstate the same mining ban in the future.
This isn’t the first time Congress has overreached and abused the power of the CRA to overturn protections a simple majority doesn’t support. Last year, Republicans tried to use the CRA to overturn California’s Clear Air Act waivers. Both the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Senate parliamentarian said the waivers are not “rules” and therefore cannot be repealed using the CRA. That dangerous precedent is now being litigated.
The same day the Clear Air Act recissions were signed into law, 11 state attorneys general sued in federal court in northern California, challenging the rescissions as unlawful. California and ten other states that had adopted similar waivers say the CRA applies only to federal rules, so Congress had no authority to use it to target state regulations.
Use of the CRA can sweep aside years of public input and environmental review, short-circuiting usual regulatory processes. For example, in the Boundary Waters, the 20-year mining ban was created in 2023, after an extensive study and public survey by the U.S. Forest Service found that mining in the area would create irreparable environmental damage. Overturning this public land order would provide mining companies with unprecedented access to 225,000 acres in the Superior National Forest. Allowing copper mining in this watershed would threaten the area’s $540 million recreation and tourism economy. Copper sulfide mining produces sulfuric acid — essentially battery acid — that could flow into nearby streams or groundwater, potentially contaminating the system of 1,000 interconnected lakes in the BCWA.
Furthermore, an independent peer-reviewed study by economists at Harvard University examined the proposed Boundary Waters mining plan across 72 different economic scenarios over a 20-year window. Their findings were stark: in 89% of scenarios, the net economic value of allowing copper-nickel mining in the Superior National Forest would be negative, meaning the losses to recreation and tourism would outweigh the mining jobs created.
The immediate concern is that Republicans intend to blatantly sell out pristine wilderness to Twin Metals, a Chilean subsidiary of mining giant Antofagasta, demonstrating their clear prioritization of corporate interests over public lands, clean water, and the livelihoods of thousands of Minnesotans. A deeper problem is their misuse of the CRA, opening the door to unchecked congressional overreach over federal agencies.
If H.J. Res. 140 passes the Senate and is signed into law, legal advocacy groups will likely follow the same playbook as the state attorneys who sued after the California Clean Air Act Waiver rescissions were signed. They will likely argue that Congress has no authority to deploy the CRA in this case, given the fact that Public Land Orders are not rules. Organizations across the country are already pushing back. Earthjustice Action and the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards (CSS), which Public Citizen co-chairs, have organized a sign-on letter to the Senate urging opposition to H.J. Res. 140 and any other efforts to apply the CRA to actions beyond the law’s clearly defined scope.
Public Citizen urges you to take action now and call on your Senators to oppose this dangerous resolution when it comes to a vote.