House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) recently explained that Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s new order blocking copper-nickel mining near the Boundary Waters will only serve to empower foreign adversaries such as China, while also destroying union jobs across the state’s northern Iron Range. The comments were made during an interview with Breitbart News Saturday.
Speaking with show host Matthew Boyle, Emmer stated that Walz, who is not running for reelection, made the order out of pure spite as he prepares to leave office, making the case that the decision drives mineral production to other countries with far worse environmental records than the United States. “But this lame duck loser… named Tim Walz, he’s not only, I think, complicit in the fraud in this state, he’s completely incompetent and now he’s being spiteful,” Emmer stated.
“Literally as he’s leaving office in the next couple of months, what he’s doing is he’s trying to exercise executive authority from the governor’s office to end mining in Minnesota. He is going to empower our adversaries like the Communist Party of China. We have the most stringent environmental laws on the face of the planet,” Emmer told Boyle.
“If you’re going to end mining in the United States of America, you’re going to send it to places like China and Russia where they don’t care,” Emmer stated during the interview, according to Breitbart News. Emmer said he’s not buying what Walz is selling when it comes to the environmental case made for the order, going on to say that everyone wants to have clean water and clear air and that the environment wasn’t the real issue.
“We’re all environmentalists… We all appreciate clean water, clean air. We want to leave the planet in as good or better condition than we found it,” Emmer went on to say. “But that’s not the issue, even though that’s what he wants to claim the issue is.” He then said the deposit is one of the largest precious-metals finds in the world, containing copper, nickel, and palladium that is used in a variety of goods such as cell phones and cars.
Emmer then said that the order kills hundreds, possibly thousands of good-paying union jobs and also cuts off revenue that flows to Minnesota’s public school trust lands. Emmer also pointed the finger at Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) along with Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, arguing that Democrats who talk about the working class are only governing “one downtown Minneapolis.”
Rep. Peter Straub (R-MN), who led the charge in Congress for repealing the federal mining ban, referred to the order as “an outright war on Northern Minnesota and our way of life.” Walz, who is also the failed Democratic Party running mate of former Vice President Kamala Harris, signed Executive Order 26-10 a week ago.
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The order directs state agencies to halt permitting and leasing for nonferrous mining in the Rainy River Headwaters Watershed. He also ordered a review of 38 existing leases, including a lease held by Twin Metals, which is a subsidiary of Antofagasta, a subsidiary of a major mining conglomerate, exposing the hypocrisy of the left’s claim to be all about helping the “little guy.”
Watch Trump accuse Walz and Omar of being complicit in the fraud here: