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A fiercely contested Minnesota copper-nickel mining proposal is among stymied mineral and energy development projects President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to quickly reanimate after he is sworn into a second Oval Office term on Jan. 20.
The former president said it would be addressed as quickly as “about 10 minutes” during a July 27, 2024, campaign rally with Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Trump promised to reverse the Biden administration’s 20-year mining ban on 225,500 acres within Superior National Forest and restore rescinded mineral leases held for decades by Twin Metals Minnesota and predecessor companies.
The ban, issued in 2023 by the Department of the Interior (DOI), effectively buried Twin Metal’s $1.7 billion proposal to extract copper, nickel, cobalt, and other minerals on up to 25,000 acres within the national forest in what would the largest open-pit mine in Minnesota history—and first in the state since 1967—that the Chilean-owned company says would employ 850 over its projected 30-year operation....
