Minnesota’s Boundary Waters are a vast stretch of wilderness bordering Canada, with over a million acres of untouched forest and thousands of lakes and streams.

Accessible largely by canoe, it is an ecological gem and one of the most popular spots in the country for outdoor recreation.

On Thursday, Senate Republicans voted 50-49 to open the area up to mining — passing a resolution that repeals a 20-year moratorium using a little-known law called the Congressional Review Act, or CRA.

The act was designed in the 1990s by then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who sought to cut back on government bureaucracy by eliminating regulations.

It was engineered to allow Congress to quickly overturn regulatory rules with a simple majority, rather than the usual two-thirds vote.

Critics say it’s dangerous because it enables public rules and regulations based on years of research to be quickly overturned with little debate.

“It allows Congress to basically do a thumbs up or a thumbs down, where otherwise a filibuster would apply,” explained Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit, public interest law firm.

During the CRA’s first 20 years of existence, it was used only once by the second Bush administration.

But President Trump and Republicans have worked to dramatically expand and weaponize the CRA, with the Boundary Waters case being the latest example, Schlenker-Goodrich said.

In 2017, the Trump administration invalidated 17 rules from the Obama era.

In 2025 alone, Trump signed 22 CRA repeals.

The CRA technically gives Congress 60 days to overturn a rule after it’s passed.

The Boundary Waters protections were passed over three years ago during the Biden administration, and not as a rule, but rather as a Public Land Order.

This puts the Senate and administration in territory that is “extraordinarily legally questionable,” said Blaine Miller-McFeeley, a senior legislative representative at Earthjustice.

“We are not done fighting, and there are a lot of open questions because this is such uncharted territory.” The decision could set a dangerous precedent.

Should the resolution be allowed to stand, it could open up all land management decisions to political attacks.

Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, for example, has proposed a CRA resolution to eliminate the resource management plan for the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.

“All of these place-based attacks are occurring concurrently with talk on permitting reform,” Schlenker-Goodrich pointed out.

Signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970, the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, requires federal agencies to assess how large-scale development would affect the environment before approving them.

The policy has been an important tool for environmentalists, helping to halt or delay major industrial complexes or infrastructure.

But in recent years, it has also curbed the deployment of solar and wind energy, as well as updates to the country’s grid required to accommodate new clean energy.

Reforming NEPA has gained broad, bipartisan support in Congress, but when matched with this new use of the CRA, it could put protected areas in grave danger, Schlenker-Goodrich warned.

The Trump administration’s use of the CRA also effectively cuts tribal nations out of Boundary Water negotiations.

“Three Tribes....