1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

I’m writing because I care about the Boundary Waters. Not in an abstract, policy-debate kind of way, but in the simple sense that some places feel worth keeping intact. There are two pieces of legislation moving through Congress right now that would affect that directly: H.J. Res. 140 and S. 2967. H.J. Res. 140 would reverse a federal decision that currently protects more than 200,000 acres of public land near the Boundary Waters from mining. That protection was put in place because of the risks associated with copper-nickel sulfide mining, which has a well-documented history of water pollution, especially in interconnected watershed systems like this one. The Boundary Waters isn’t just another piece of land. It’s a uniquely fragile ecosystem, and once it’s damaged, it’s not something you can easily undo. S. 2967, the Border Lands Conservation Act, would expand the authority of the Department of Homeland Security to build and operate infrastructure on federal lands near U.S. borders. That could include roads, surveillance systems, and other equipment, even in areas that are currently protected as wilderness. While border security is important, this bill raises real concerns about how existing protections for public lands could be weakened or bypassed. I’m not writing this because I think every issue is simple or one-sided. It isn’t. There are real conversations to be had about domestic mineral production, about national security, about land use. But some places carry a different kind of weight. The Boundary Waters is one of them. Once you industrialize a wilderness area, you don’t really get to call it wilderness anymore. I’m asking you to vote NO on H.J. Res. 140 and NO on S. 2967, and to support legislation like H.R. 588 and S. 1366 that would permanently protect the land around the Boundary Waters. We don’t get many chances to choose restraint. This feels like one of them.