New Boundary Waters documents arrived yesterday. I posted a short thread on Twitter as I reviewed them.

These records traverse familiar ground. Most date from January, 2018, when attorneys at Interior were preparing letters notifying the Forest Service and Twin Metals that the Solicitor’s Office had reversed the Obama administration.

For Twin Metals, this would mean that the Department of Interior had rescinded its rejection of their application for lease renewal. Not a green light — that would come more than a year later, in 2019 — but an encouraging sign of new and friendly disposition. For the Forest Service, the reversal would send an early signal that the two-year mineral withdrawal study would either have to favor renewal of Antofagasta’s leases (unlikely), or it would have to be cancelled if it were going to stand in the way of renewal. The issue raised questions about compliance with NEPA, as one heavily redacted exchange suggests:

It would be helpful to know more about how these attorneys saw the problem with NEPA at this time, especially when evaluating the action then-USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue in September of that same year, when under political pressure he abruptly cancelled the planned study.

The document trail invariably takes us back to that critical decision. It deserves careful and comprehensive review. There was some movement in this direction yesterday, when Senator Tina Smith wrote to Perdue’s successor at USDA, Tom Vilsack, and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to ask that the BLM and Forest Service to start a new mineral withdrawal and segregation process and resume the study Sonny Perdue interrupted.

Smith’s letter calls for a return to science but recommends a more limited review than the situation warrants. She wants the agencies to determine whether copper and nickel can be “safely” mined in this area, and she also wants to present herself as a champion of Minnesota mining. It’s a move she seems to have learned from Amy Klobuchar.

Be that as it may, Smith offers Vilsack and Haaland one way forward over the next few months, during the court-ordered 90-day stay in Wilderness Society v. Bernhardt.

We must protect our precious wilderness. At the same time, we must pursue opportunities for both recycling and responsible mining of important mineral resources in the United States. If you believe—as I do— that the United States should lead the way in creating a clean energy future, then we must support public policy which allows for responsibly mining the minerals that this future requires. It is irresponsible and unethical to outsource exploitive [sic] labor practices and environmental degradation to other places while we reap the benefits. However, copper-nickel mining is not right for all places. There are some places too sensitive to mine. This is why we the [sic] mineral segregation and withdrawal study is so essential.

The letter simultaneously recommends precautions for the Rainy River Watershed and “responsible mining” to build “a clean energy future.” Those two things aren’t necessarily incompatible, but it’s unclear how this statement translates to coherent rule-or decision-making. It’s also the same line on mining that Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm has taken in recent public statements. How will the new administration determine what responsible mining for the clean energy future looks like? That is going to take some difficult conversations, but it’s not an issue Granholm, Vilsack, and Haaland can or should put off for very long.