April 16th, 2026VIDEO — Heinrich: “This is a Dark Day for This Body. This is a Stain on What the Senate Used to Be”

Senate Republicans pass measure that will allow Chilean mining company to pollute Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, ignoring the will of the American people
WASHINGTON— U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, reacted to Senate Republicans’ passage of H. J. Res 140, a measure that will allow copper-nickel sulfide mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), opening up millions of acres of pristine wilderness to permanent pollution.
“These are the places on which we have forged our collective identity as a country. They're the places we are still free. They are not places to sell off to some foreign company for a few years of profit — a few years versus a century of identity for the people of Minnesota and this country,”said Heinrich.“This is a dark day for this body. This is a stain on what the Senate used to be, but certainly is not today.”
Heinrich continued, “Public lands are the one thing when I go home that unites my constituents from left to right, whether you're a bow hunter or a bunny hugger — it doesn't matter. [People] love our public lands. They care about our public lands. There are many places that we can mine and do it right. This isn’t one of them.”
VIDEO: U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, delivers impassioned plea on the Senate floor, urging his colleagues to vote no on H. J. Res 140 — a measure that will permanently allow foreign mining in the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area, April 16, 2026.
A video of Heinrich’s floor speech can be foundhere.
A transcript of Heinrich’s remarks as delivered is below:
Mr. President, why are we here today?
We're here today because some people want to abuse the Congressional Review Act and use it in a way it's never been used before.
The Boundary Waters is protected from copper sulfide mining because there was a secretarial order that was put in place, a narrow order authorized by statute under FLPMA, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which specifically spells out the Secretary of the Interior's authority to do this.
It's not a regulation. The Congressional Review Act was written to prevent regulatory overreach.
Regulations are broad. They apply to large swaths of the country. They are not things that are authorized specifically in statute.
This has never been done before.
And if we do this here, if we do it to the delegation from Minnesota, who has spoken up again and again and again about why this is wrong, what about when it's aimed at Montana? What about when it's aimed at Alaska? What about when it's aimed at South Dakota?
This is wrong, and why are we doing it to pad the pockets of the President's buddy from Chile?
So that he can take our minerals — the American people's minerals.
Send them to China, process them in China, and then maybe — maybe — sell them back to the American people with a tariff.
This is nuts. Is that America first? That's America last.
And what's at stake?
What's at stake is a million acres of the most pristine public lands in the United States.
Places where my kids have canoed and fished and forged their identities.
We're going to do that to Minnesota?
We're going to do that to the delegation from Minnesota? We're going to do that to the American people who cherish this place?
20% of the National Forest Service systems, fresh water, is in these Boundary Waters. And we're going to pollute that with sulfuric acid?
This company plans to dump millions of tons of waste rock on this site that will never be removed.
It will be sitting there waiting for the air and the water to turn that waste rock full of sulfides into sulfuric acid.
I can tell you, as somebody who has been a natural resources trustee, who has had to negotiate with copper companies in my own state, that this type of copper mining has never been done without polluting the water. Never, not once.
So we're guaranteeing that we're going to pollute the Boundary Waters.
I know it's fashionable today to talk about selling off the public lands, these places, this place that people like Teddy Roosevelt and Sigurd Olson and so many others fought to preserve, they're the anvil on which we have forged our collective identity as a country.
They're the places we are still free.
They are not places to sell off to some foreign company for a few years of profit, a few years versus a century of identity for the people of Minnesota and this country.
This is a dark day for this body.
This is a stain on what the Senate used to be, but is certainly not today.
The public lands are the one thing when I go home that unites my constituents from left to right, whether you're a bow hunter or a bunny hugger, it doesn't matter.
They love our public lands. They care about our public lands. There are many places that we can mine and do it right. My dad worked for Anaconda Copper. My grandfather was a gold miner.
This is a boondoggle.
This is wrong.

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