Because Congo and Mongolia are far away and out of sight

it doesn’t yurt if yu can’t see it

Biden and his Indian Chief close off another huge chunk of American mining territory. Just as he did last May when, after canceling U.S. oil leases, he turned to Venezuela for new sources, the old man has now taken another step to ensure that the minerals required for variable electricity will be taken from foreign countries that don’t have American eco-voters to complain.

The Biden administration on Thursday announced that it would complete a 20-year withdrawal of 225,504 acres in a northern Minnesota forest area that is home to some of the largest domestic critical mineral reserves.

The action announced by the Department of the Interior (DOI) effectively prohibits mining activity from taking place in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Duluth, Minnesota, and surrounding area for the next two decades. The agency said it took the action in an effort to protect the local environment and watershed, which environmentalists worried would be contaminated by mining activity.

"The Department of the Interior takes seriously our obligations to steward public lands and waters on behalf of all Americans. Protecting a place like Boundary Waters is key to supporting the health of the watershed and its surrounding wildlife, upholding our Tribal trust and treaty responsibilities, and boosting the local recreation economy," DOI Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.

"With an eye toward protecting this special place for future generations, I have made this decision using the best-available science and extensive public input," she continued.

Last year, the DOI canceled two mineral leases held by the firm Twin Metals Minnesota, which had been located in the Superior National Forest located outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. As a result of that decision and the action Thursday, domestic mining companies will effectively be banned from operating in the region for the foreseeable future and the forest's vast critical mineral resources will be left untapped.

However, Twin Metals' mining project contained about 88% of the nation's cobalt reserves in addition to vast copper, nickel and platinum-group elements. Such critical minerals are vital for various green energy technologies like electric vehicle batteries, battery storage facilities, solar panels and wind turbines, which the Biden administration has aggressively pushed.

For the curious, Fox News ran an article last fall on the topic: GREEN ENERGY PROJECTS FACE STARK ENVIRONMENTAL, LOCAL OPPOSITION NATIONWIDE. It details all the various opposition groups fighting all our “Green Energy” dream projects, from offshore wind, to solar farms, to hydropower, to mining, to of course, nuclear. Nothing new: I’m not the only one who has been pointing out that litigation will prevent the completion of these projects for decades, if not forever, but it never hurts to be reminded.

Who is this American Indian running our Interior Department? She’s Deb Haaland, and no surprise, she’s exactly who you’d expect her to be. She’s against fracking, mining, drilling, and lumbering, and was a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal. Just to fill in her odd hours, she also opposes ICE and has called for its abolishment.

We’re in the best of hands.

(Update): Here’s the administration’s promise made in February 2022 to compete with China by “revitalizing domestic manufacturing” and “securing te country’s most critical supply chain” for clan energy development. There are two entire sections devoted to mineral resources, none of which can be accessed until Biden is gone and his actions undone.