Rep. Betty McCollum used part of a congressional budget hearing Tuesday to grill U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt over decisions to advance copper-nickel mining in northeastern Minnesota.
McCollum, chairwoman of a powerful House subcommittee that controls Interior's budget, asked Bernhardt to address the Trump administration's "reckless push to mine and drill in our public lands, including in my home state of Minnesota, where sulfide ore mining poses a critical risk to the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area and Voyageurs National Park."
The Minnesota Democrat also asked Bernhardt why his office has not provided documents she requested related to key decisions on the copper-nickel mine proposed by Twin Metals Minnesota and its owner, the Chilean mining firm Antofagasta.
In recent weeks, McCollum asked Interior officials for documents on their decision to reverse an Obama administration decision to terminate Twin Metals' federal mining leases, and to explain why they decided to cancel a two-year U.S. Forest Service study that would have examined how copper-nickel mining on Superior National Forest lands might affect the nearby Boundary Waters wilderness.
Bernhardt told McCollum his agency is working on providing the documents.
"There's no way that we're going to approve something that is destructive to the Boundary Waters, but there are processes we go through to analyze that," Bernhardt testified. "We can't approve a mine plan of operation that would cause jeopardy or adversely modify or destroy critical habitat. All of those things will be looked at, at the appropriate time."
The exchange came just days after a group of nearly three dozen retired U.S. Forest Service employees from Minnesota wrote a letter to the Trump administration expressing similar concerns about the two key Twin Metals decisions.
Writing to Bernhardt and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, the group expressed "grave concerns" about the proposed underground copper mine.