H.J. RES. 140

On 2026-04-15, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) delivered a floor speech titled "H.J. RES. 140" in the Senate. The speech addressed immigration and also covered taxes, the environment. It referenced legislation including S1790, S1806, S1791, among other bills.

H.J. RES. 140

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 66 (Wednesday, April 15, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 66 (Wednesday, April 15, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S1790-S1806] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] H.J. RES. 140 Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise tonight thinking about my beloved Minnesota and thinking about all of the people in Minnesota and around the country that love the Boundary Waters. And I want to talk for a while about the Congressional Review Act resolution--this is H.J. Res. 140--that is before us tonight, and I want to speak directly to my colleagues about the CRA and why I think it is so important that we vote no on this CRA. So what this CRA would do is it would roll back protections for the Boundary Waters Wilderness, which is in Northeastern Minnesota. This is a picture of just one of the many glorious scenes of what you find in the Boundary Waters, which I will be talking about more this evening. This CRA, as I said, would roll back protections for the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Northeastern Minnesota. What it would do is it would allow copper sulfide mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters, and this would be devastating to the wilderness. The decision that this body makes will have long-term implications for the Boundary Waters, and it will also have long-term implications for how we protect public lands around this country going forward. So I want to start with the core point that Minnesota is a mining State. We support mining--just not mining in this place. Minnesota is a mining and natural resources State. Mining is so important to our economy. We are proud to be the No. 1 source of iron ore in the whole country, and we produced three-quarters of the iron that went into the tanks and planes that led us to victory in World War II. And we are still producing most of the Nation's iron ore today. And it is also true that there are other potential mines currently under consideration and development in Minnesota--not iron ore mines but other mines--that would produce copper and nickel. Responsible mining is an economic driver in our State. It is part of our history, and it is part of our future. So why oppose this CRA? Why would we oppose this CRA, which, I will tell you, will pave the way for developing a copper sulfide mine right on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters? Well, I want to start this discussion tonight by giving three simple and basic reasons. The first is that this is an incredibly special place, beloved by Minnesotans and beloved by people all around the country, and this mine poses an unacceptable threat to this place. The Boundary Waters, if the Presiding Officer has not been there, is a million acres of lakes and bogs and rivers. It is a wealth of hunting and fishing resources. People go there to canoe all the time. They go there in the wintertime to dogsled and to ice-fish. I was there last summer, and I saw two wolves just in one day, on a day trip to the Boundary Waters. It is some of the cleanest water that you will find anywhere in this country. You can drink the water right out of the middle of the lakes. You will find lake trout and northern pike and walleye. There is no better place in the world for it. Over 150,000 people visit this incredible place every year, and so what that means is that the outdoor recreation economy in Northern Minnesota benefits greatly from the Boundary Waters. This generates thousands of jobs and supports hundreds of local, small businesses, and it generates millions in economic activity. Outdoor recreation is also a significant economic driver in the region around the Boundary Waters Wilderness. What happens here with this mine that will be allowed by the CRA is that this mine puts this incredible resource and the economic benefits of this resource at great risk. It is kind of unbelievable to know that this kind of mine in 100 percent of the instances where they have been built has caused pollution. What happens is you bring up the rock from underground. The sulfide in the rocks interacts with the water and the oxygen. My colleague Senator Heinrich is an expert on this. That rock interacts with the water and the oxygen, and it creates basically sulfuric acid. That sulfuric acid flows directly into the Boundary Waters and on into Voyageurs National Park. We have a map here so you can see how the water flows. This sulfuric acid, of course, is extremely dangerous, not just for fish and wildlife and the whole ecosystem in the Boundary Waters but also for the humans that recreate there, that swim in this water, that canoe in this water. This is why Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, why sportsman's groups, why Trout Unlimited, and Pheasants Forever, and outdoor people of all kinds have weighed in and said: No. Simply, this is the wrong thing to do. Not this mine in this place. Even descendants of the great President Theodore Roosevelt have said that we should protect this national treasure and ``leave it as it is.'' This is also why this mine is so unpopular in Minnesota. A recent poll showed that 70 percent of Minnesotans across the political spectrum--Independents, Republicans, and Democrats--agreed that protecting the Boundary Waters from sulfide-based mine pollution should be a very important priority for elected officials in the State. And 61 percent of Minnesotans have said that they support establishing a permanent protection for public land within the Boundary Waters Watershed. So that is the first reason because this place is so special and because this mine is so dangerous to this place. But the second reason why, colleagues, we should oppose this CRA is that it sets an incredibly unprecedented and dangerous use of the Congressional Review Act. Now, we know that the Congressional Review Act is a way for Congress to doublecheck the executive branch if Congress feels that the Executive has passed a regulation that goes too far, that didn't follow the laws that Congress passed. If the Executive passes a regulation that Congress feels doesn't reflect the will of Congress, then Congress can within 60 days say: Nope. You can't do that. That doesn't make sense. But that is not what is happening with the CRA before this body tonight because for the first time ever, the House is asking the Senate to apply [[Page S1791]] the CRA process not to a rule, but to a statute, to a public land order. They want to claw back a public land order that was put into effect legally and lawfully 3 years ago. This was never the intention of the Congressional Review Act. It has never been used in this way, to overturn a mineral withdrawal or any public land order, and especially not a mineral withdrawal that was finalized 3 years ago like this one was. Now, I know that many of my Republican colleagues are thinking about this, and they are asking themselves: What does this mean? What are the implications of this? What would happen if this were to pass--this CRA were to pass? And ask yourself: What would you do if the shoe was on the other foot? What would you do if we set this precedent where we say that with a simple partisan majority, Congress can claw back a public land order that has been in place potentially for years or decades? What might that mean in North Dakota? In Montana? In Utah? In Arizona? In any State in the country if these public land orders could be undone so easily? I mean, it would be chaos, I think. The third reason that I want to talk about why it is so important to oppose this Congressional Review Act before us today, this House resolution, is that this will violate Tribal treaty rights in a way that is strongly opposed by Tribal Nations not only in Minnesota, but also around the country. These are Tribal Nations, indigenous people, that have lived in Northern Minnesota, on the borderlands of Northern Minnesota, for time immemorial. They have treaties with the Federal Government, particularly the treaty of 1854, which grants to these Tribes in exchange for the land that they gave up hundreds of years ago, it grants them hunting and fishing rights, and also the rights to harvest manoomin, which is wild rice. And yet, this CRA before us today completely aggregates those Tribal treaty rights. It ignores the responsibility of the Federal Government to consult with Tribes, which has not been done. That is why so many of the Tribes across the country have come together to oppose this. This includes the Grand Portage Band and all the other members of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. It includes the National Congress of American Indians which passed a resolution urging the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to at least hold a hearing on the implications of this before this legislation--this resolution--passes the Senate. Tribal Nations across the country have spoken out, including the Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes, White Earth Nation, Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation, the Eastern Shoshone. They have all come out in opposition to the CRA. So before I hand over to my dear colleague from Minnesota the senior Senator from Minnesota, Senator Klobuchar, I want to address one question that I have heard made in favor of this mine and just kind of flush this out for folks. Now, some people will say that we need to pass this CRA for its national security benefits. They claim that this mine will provide much-needed sources for critical minerals. But I ask, colleagues, to think about what is really going on here and who will be the owner of these minerals because that is very important as you think about this national security argument. Just because these minerals are mined on American land, on public land, on national forestland, that does not mean that they will be reserved for American markets. In fact, the copper and nickel mined in the Duluth Complex which is where the Boundary Waters is, where this mine would be, would essentially be brought out of the groun

Referenced legislation: HJRES140, HJRES140