House Democrat trying to enlist Trudeau in fight to save boundary waters. Why Betty McCollum has asked Ottawa to join her stand against a proposed mine in Minnesota.
What makes McCollum's pressure campaign to protect the area unusual is how publicly she has appealed to leaders outside the U.S. For intervention.The extent of the Canadian government’s willingness to engage is unclear. Communities and First Nations in Ontario upstream from the Twin Metals mine site question whether they’ll get to air their concerns about a massive resource development project that would be just miles away and subject to U.S. Permitting rules.Any construction on the proposed copper mine, which environmentalists say poses the risk of leaching toxic slurry into the Boundary Waters, is likely years away. Proponents argue the mine would bring jobs to an economically distressed area of the state and would yield minerals integral to advanced technologies ranging from smartphones to wind turbines.
The canoe wilderness is a federally protected area that doesn’t allow even motorized fishing boats and limits the number of canoe permits to keep the number of people there at any given time low. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Leon Neal/Getty ImagesTrudeau has just come off a rocky few years with the president during which Canada grappled with the possibility that free trade with its biggest customer would evaporate. It's unclear he’d readily go to bat again over something like the mine, which is owned by a subsidiary of Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta.Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said last month that the Liberal government is “very engaged” on the issue, though she offered no specifics. “It’s a proposal for a future project and it’s something that Canada definitely is involved in and will continue to work with our American partners on,” she said.The Canadian government has signaled its wariness. “Canada is concerned about the potential for increased mining activity within the basin which could contaminate boundary waters if not properly assessed and managed, putting Canadian water quality and ecosystems at risk,” Global Affairs Canada wrote in January 2019 to the U.S. LoadingBy signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google and apply.McCollum has said she plans to continue to press the issue during the fiscal 2021 appropriations process, specifically promoting “the need for a mining pollution early-warning system to protect our cross-boundary waters and prevent treaty violations.” She also has introduced a bill to effectively yank the leases from Twin Metals Minnesota by permanently withdrawing 234,328 acres of federal land in the Rainy River Watershed from most resource development.In 2016, the Obama administration proposed banning mining there for 20 years. The Trump administration canceled an environmental study of that proposal in 2018 and has refused to release any preliminary findings. McCollum attempted to revive the study in the fiscal 2020 spending measure for federal resource and environmental agencies, but the during eleventh-hour negotiations over the broad appropriations package.The project isn't without support in Congress.
Pete Stauber, who represents the district where the mine would be built, has blasted McCollum's attempts to get in the way. His Democratic predecessor, former Rep. Rick Nolan, also supported the mine. Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith but have called on the administration to finish the environmental study.Even so, the project isn't without challenges in the U.S. Legal system.