On March 20, President Trump signed another Executive Order with major implications for America’s public lands and waters. Titled “Immediate Measure to Increase American Mineral Production,” the order seeks to expedite mining on public lands to the “maximum possible extent.”
“The United States was once the world’s largest producer of lucrative minerals, but overbearing Federal regulation has eroded our Nation’s mineral production” the EO reads—adding that, “it is imperative for our national security that the United States take immediate action to facilitate domestic mineral production.”
In a section titled Priority Projects, the order directs heads of all agencies involved in mine permitting to provide a list of all proposed mining projects to the newly formed National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC) within 10 days of the EO’s March 20th signing. The NEDC, chaired by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, will then identify priority projects that can be fast-tracked for approval, the edict states. In a later section, titled Land Use for Mineral Projects, the EO directs Burgum to "prioritize mineral production and mining related purposes as the primary land uses on all Federal lands that hold mineral deposits and reserves.” And it promises to amend or revise the bedrock Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976 as needed to support the intent of the order.
Northwoods in the Crosshairs?
The United States is home to some 640 million acres of federally managed public land. Much of it—including Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service (NPS), and US Fish & Wildlife (USFWS) lands—falls under the authority of the Department of Interior. Another massive portion is overseen by the US Department of Agriculture, which administers the US Forest Service. Most federal lands—outside of NPS lands and federally designated wilderness areas—allow for extractive-type uses that include timber production, grazing, mining, and drilling. But there are sensitive areas that have been withdrawn from mining over the years.
One such place is the Rainy River Watershed. It sits near the border of northern Minnesota and Ontario, Canada, in the Superior National Forest, and it drains into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The area was afforded a 20-year moratorium on mining in 2023 when Deb Halland was Secretary of the Interior.
“There’s no doubt that the Boundary Waters is in the crosshairs of this EO,” Lukas Leaf, Executive Director of Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters, tells Field & Stream. Leaf and his staff campaigned extensively for the 2023 moratorium on mining near the Boundary Waters. They say that the type of mining proposes for the area would "cause irreparable damage to the very quality that makes these public lands and waters so unique."
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a pristine boreal forest laced with interconnected streams, lakes, and wetlands. Accessible via 1,000 lakes, 2,000 campsites, and hundreds of miles of hiking trails, the area is an angler's paradise known for trophy lake trout, walleye, smallmouth bass, and northern pike. The hunting is nearly as impressive as the fishing, providing a true wilderness experience to countless hunters in search of ruffed grouse, black bear, and legendary Northwoods whitetails. At 1.1 million acres, it is the most-visited wilderness area in the United States. It also sits atop the world’s largest undeveloped copper-nickel deposit.
“The 2023 mineral withdrawal for the Rainy River Watershed would be the first thing that has to go in order for Twin Metals to get its leases reinstated and to move forward at the state level with re-submitting a mine plan of operations,” says Leaf.
Twin Metals is a subsidiary of the Chilean mining conglomerate, Antofagasta. The corporation has fought to construct extensive underground mines near the Boundary Waters for more than a decade, Leaf says. In the wake of Trump’s mining-related EO (which mentions copper explicitly), Leaf and his team are gearing up for a renewed fight to stave off copper-nickel mining in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters.
"I think folks are really grappling with how to deal with this," says Leaf. "Even before this [EO], we’ve seen public-lands rallies across the country, people standing up, making their voices heard, making calls, hitting state capitals. All we can do here at this moment is tell this administration how bad of a move this is.”
Leaf believes the time has come for environmentalists and hunter-conservationists across the political spectrum to set aside their differences and unite behind a common goal—the goal of safeguarding America’s public lands for present and future generations.
"This affects everybody at the national level," Leaf says. "This is public lands at large. The Boundary Waters is one piece, but there are plenty of other areas that this EO is going to affect." Other public land hunting and fishing destinations with identified quantities of what the Trump Administration considers "critical minerals" include the headwaters of Montana's famed Bitterroot River and its salmon fly-rich West Fork, where a Canadian mining company wants to extract rare earth minerals via open pit mines on National Forest land; Forest Service lands with prime deer and elk hunting near Yellowstone National Park, known for large deposits of gold; and the Salmon-Challis National Forest in Idaho, home to critical salmon spawning habitat along with large concentrations of rare-earth elements and cobalt.
When it comes to copper-nickel mining near the Boundary Waters, Leaf is acutely worried about how President Trump's use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) will affect the area. The law was enacted in 1950 during the Korean War and used frequently during the Cold War. Both Clinton and Obama wielded it in response to various international crises, and Biden and Trump invoked it multiple times during COVID. Biden even directed the Department of Defense to use the DPA to bolster domestic mining for critical minerals after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But his order stopped short of prioritizing federal lands for large-scale mining operations.
“This Executive Order invokes wartime powers for the President," said Leaf. "It says that mineral production is now the primary use on our public lands, and it directs agency heads to identify as many sites as possible. There are plenty of exploratory efforts and mine plans for areas that have already been identified, but this magnifies it to an incredible status.”
An Opportunity for Meaningful Compromise?
According to Chris Wood, CEO of Trout Unlimited, Trump’s recent mining EO underscores the country’s dire need for reform when it comes to outdated mining regulations on federal lands. “There is a grand bargain waiting to be had on domestic mining in the United States,” Wood tells Field & Stream. "There's a path through the woods here where we can modernize a law that was passed when Ulysses S. Grant was President."
Wood is referring to the 1872 General Mining Law, which has governed hard rock mining on federal lands since prospectors swung pick axes in the West. TU and other groups have long sought to have the bill revamped. They say it doesn't require mining corporations to pay fair-market royalties for the minerals they extract from public land, that it lacks significant environmental safeguards, and it doesn't require adequate clean up or remediation on public land mine leases.
"There are tens of thousands of abandoned mines already dotting the West," he points out. "We need to exact a royalty on the mining industry so that they pay their fair share. And we can use that money to clean the up the abandoned mines we already have—which will cost tens of millions of dollars as it is."
President Trump's recent mining EO mentions the 1872 law, but it doesn't call for reform. It simply directs Burgum to "submit recommendations ... to clarify the treatment of waste rock, tailings, and mine waste disposal under the Mining Act of 1872."
Under the 1872 law, federal land managers at the BLM or the Forest Service aren't given authority to deny mining permits for sensitive public-land areas. Wood says that too should change. "Right now, the law incentivizes public servants to delay and stall on mine permitting in some cases, because otherwise they would have to approve mines that make absolutely no sense on landscapes that make no sense," he says. "So take that away. Give the agencies the discretion to say no."
He points to Alaska's Bristol Bay—where a proposed mine was denied by the EPA in 2023 due to what the agency described as "unacceptable adverse effects" to the area's salmon fishery—as a model. "It's not a perfect analogy because that was state land in Alaska," he says, "but that's an example of a place where mining makes absolutely no sense, and they shut it down as a result. We should have the ability to do that on our federally managed public lands as well." In return, he says, the mining industry could get some much-needed clarity about public-land areas that are off limits—and areas where they could go to more successfully pursue permits.
Give and Take
Wood fully acknowledges that the mining compromise is a two-way street. He's adamant, for example, that America must produce its own rare-earth elements. And that relying on China for those metals—used in everything from smart phones to precision-guided weaponry—is dangerous from a national security standpoint. "The President and others are right on this," he says. "China doesn't like us. And we need these minerals to hasten our way to a cleaner energy future."
"But we should have the ability to stop mine proposals that make no sense," he adds. "At the same time, the industry shouldn't have to wait 20 years for a permit. And when mine permits do get issued, there should be limits in place that protect drinking water supplies, sacred sites, and fish and wildlife habitat. And the industry should be expected to pay a royalty fee to deal with all these legacy mines that are still polluting public lands."
TU and other conservation groups have been fighting for common sense reforms to the 1872 Mining Law for decades. But up to this point, no public-land mining reform bill has ever made it across the finish line in Congress. "Pushback from the mining industry is part of it, but the other part is that the issue has been so divisive, without stakeholders seeking middle ground and a compromise that provides certainty for both mining and conservation," says TU's Mining Policy Lead Corey Fisher. "But I think that the issue of critical minerals is getting us closer to an inflection point in which compromise is possible, and a politically viable proposal could come together."
Meanwhile, Trump's recent order to expedite mining on public lands comes with tight deadlines. If it plays out according the administration's ambitious "energy dominance" imperatives, and according to the verbatim text of the EO, public-land hunters and anglers could see a flurry of new mining activity kick off in as little as 45 days.
With those prospects looming, some sportsmen and women are justifiably worried. They say the EO gives undue discretion and government subsidies to mining companies, many of them foreign-owned, that already enjoy more leeway on public lands than their counterparts in the timber, oil, or gas industries. Critics of the EO also point to recent efforts by the Trump Administration to rollback habitat protections embedded in the National Environmental Policy (NEPA). And they wonder if robust public comment periods will remain durable as the administration invokes wartime powers to move the needle on public land mining.
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In the face of such concerns, TU's Wood brings the conversation back to the rule of law. "We still live in a nation of laws," he says. "These are our public lands. We own them by virtue of being born in America. Unless they amend NEPA, which would be quite a battle, the government can't just tell us that we don't have a say in public lands management. It would be a huge mistake to cut the peoples' voices out of the process. Maybe a few projects would move through in an expedited manner, but the mining industry would pay for that for decades to come."
