As a former U.S. senator and lifelong Wisconsinite, I believe deeply in our responsibility to protect special places. Today, that responsibility includes standing up for one of the most beloved — and politically underestimated — wild places in America: the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota.

In May, House Republicans championed a provision in the budget reconciliation bill that would have given away 6,000 acres of the Superior National Forest to a Chilean billionaire who has dreams of opening a toxic copper mine on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters. Fortunately, the provision was later rejected by the Senate Parliamentarian. Had that language made it through the Senate, it wouldn’t have been just an environmental disaster — it would have been a political one

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