#resource-hoarding — Public Fediverse posts

A Reminder that Antofagasta’s Copper and Nickel Mine on the edge of the Boundary Waters is a Coordinated Political Project

In my most recent post about the Senate vote to overturn the Rainy River Watershed Mineral Withdrawal, I made the simple point (for what seems the umpteenth time, forgive me) that this latest bid to hand over the Boundary Waters to a foreign mining company is part of a coordinated political project, one that stretches back to Trump’s first term and with connections to Project 2025.

The coordinating is being done behind closed doors, much of it by Antofagasta’s lobbyists, and nowadays that means The Bernhardt Group, the lobbying firm that Trump’s former Secretary of Interior, David Bernhardt, set up last year. The Group has edged out all other firms and now exclusively runs the Antofagasta lobbying game in DC.

Now we have The Bernhardt Group’s lobbying disclosures for the first quarter of 2026. The form shows a slight increase in revenue — from $110,000 in the final quarters of 2025 to $120,000 this quarter. Three Bernhardt lobbyists worked every room necessary: the House, the Senate, Interior, Executive Office of the President, and USDA.

It’s notable that the Group did not lobby DOJ this quarter, as they did in 2025. As I remarked last week, passing HJR 140 likely rendered moot the case before the DC District Court of Appeals. A favorable judgment in that case seemed highly unlikely.

Having worked with the federal government to put that case on hold, the Bernhardt Group could focus instead on the political front. The House and Senate passed House Joint Resolution 140 to overturn the mineral withdrawal. The Executive Office of the President could be involved in all sorts of ways, and it’s worth remembering that one of the most powerful figures in that Office these days is Russell Vought, architect of Project 2025; the agencies (Interior and USDA) had to be captured and controlled — easy enough with people like Doug Burgum and Brooke Rollins in charge.

Under their direction, the agencies will now start taking steps to approve Antofagasta’s lease applications (the stated object on these federal disclosures) and move the Twin Metals project toward the permitting phase.

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Another delay in the Boundary Waters litigation will open the door to even more political finagling

No one should be surprised by the Joint Status Report just filed in the Boundary Waters litigation before the DC District Court of Appeals. Twin Metals, joined by the federal government, has asked for yet another 180-day abeyance. The mining company clearly sees that it has little chance of succeeding at law, so it has joined forces with the federal government, the putative defendant in this case, to keep the Twin Metals project on a strictly political path.

This is the same strategy they’ve pursued for a while. By petitioning for delay at the DC Circuit, the mining company and its lobbyists can make headway on the political front. They have already made some. Last July, the Department of the Interior revoked the Biden-era legal opinion that canceled (or re-canceled) the zombie leases revived by a legal opinion issued by the Solicitor of the Interior during Trump’s first term. There is still time over the next few weeks for the Chilean mining company and its lobbyists to push the republican-controlled Senate to pass House Joint Resolution 140, which would overturn the 20-year Rainy River watershed mineral withdrawal. And just last week, the Trump administration announced the dismantling of the US Forest Service, closing more than 57 research facilities and virtually shutting down the agency’s ability to conduct scientific research — the kind of careful, incremental, localized research that the 20-year mineral withdrawal would allow and for which it was designed.

Another 180-day abeyance would bring us to October 3rd or thereabouts (depending on when exactly the court issues the order). That’s about a month before the November elections, after which the the political finagling behind closed doors should face some much-needed congressional scrutiny.

We are still waiting to hear from Intervenor Defendant Appellees — the group of non-profits and small businesses that I call the Civil Society Group. Though the federal government has done an about-face, the Civil Society Group has not, so I would expect them to oppose this request. I am not confident the court will see it their way, though. For now, here’s today’s Joint Status Report.

Update 11 April 2026: Here’s the 9 April order: the case is on ice until 5 October, 2026. The plan is to keep justice at bay, sideline science, and let the mining company’s lobbyists (led by Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior) dictate to the corrupted agencies. And remember, there is still a chance — a slim chance at this point, but a chance all the same — that the Senate votes to overturn the 20-year mineral withdrawal.

If all this reads like so much inside baseball, that’s because it is: this is a complex and coordinated political project, with many moving parts.

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The Chilean billionaire who wants to mine copper and nickel near the Boundary Waters can’t even be bothered to pay his DC sewer bill?

Law professor and ethics watchdog Richard Painter put it bluntly back in 2019:

Jared and Ivanka’s landlord — a billionaire from Chile who rents them their mansion in D.C. — will use the Boundary Waters as his toilet. Pro-sulfide mining politicians in Minnesota and Washington are handing him the washroom key.

Seven years later, the key to the billionaire’s commode is now turning in the lock. House Joint Resolution 140 will open the door. Meanwhile, as the above notice of delinquency indicates, this same Chilean billionaire has been using Washington DC’s waters and sewers, and the people charged with managing his toilet can’t even be bothered to see that the water bill is paid on time. 

The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority — whose motto reminds us that “Water is Life” —issued this notice to the owner of 2449 Tracy Place NW back in November. The property in question is the Kalorama mansion purchased for $5.5 million right after the 2016 election by Andronico Luksic Craig, the billionaire whose family also controls Antofagasta plc, the foreign mining conglomerate currently pushing to mine copper and nickel on the edge of the Boundary Waters. 

Luksic rented the Tracy Place NW mansion to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump for the duration of Trump’s first term while Antofagasta’s lawyers, lobbyists, and executives worked behind closed doors with administration officials to undo environmental protections and advance the Twin Metals mine. Despite serious public concern about foreign emoluments and other improprieties, no formal ethics review of the Kalorama rental arrangement was ever undertaken. It was, at best, a not-so-subtle influence operation, a form of corruption that today can seem almost quaint (but that hardly makes it excusable). Nowadays, Luksic could just arrange a meeting at the White House and present Trump with a gilded copper chamberpot.

Luksic continued to hold the Kalorama rental property after Trump’s first term violently unraveled and Jared and Ivanka fled DC. These days, the billionaire’s lawyers are supposed to be managing Tracy DC Real Estate (a Luksic front, one of many) and the the Kalorama property. They appear to be negligent or inattentive managers. In 2019, they failed to renew the required business license for the rental property on time; then in 2023, they simply “abandoned” the business license. The matter was referred to enforcement. 

So this latest infraction appears to be part of a pattern of neglect, and I would suggest that the pattern merits some serious consideration. In other words, I don’t think I’m just taking cheap shots here. In Washington DC, Luksic is an absent rent-seeker, as he would be in Minnesota; and in DC, it seems, his property managers can’t be arsed to comply with local codes and ordinances. His Minnesota managers might do better, or not; but the irresponsible oversight of the Kalorama property does nothing to assuage concern. (Much the same could be said about the significant fines another Luksic enterprise incurred for unauthorized water extraction at Agricola El Cerrito in April 2025).

DC has had to chase down Tracy DC Real Estate for operating the Kalorama property without a license; and the city has had to place a lien against the property in order to collect what is owed for water and sewage management. This is not exactly the conduct of a model citizen or someone with a commitment to the District of Columbia. It’s what we might expect from an absentee landlord.

And that is essentially what Minnesota and the country will get with the Twin Metals mine: an absent owner from a faraway place and a group of hired managers on the ground. Antofagasta might hire the most qualified managers at the Twin Metals mine, and I’m sure they will say that they have; but even the best managers are employees, not owners. With ownership comes responsibility.

The absentee, rent-seeking model of resource extraction is especially concerning when it comes to sulfide mining, where responsible local water management is critical in order to prevent – or at least try to prevent – acid mine drainage and other toxic pollution. Only last month, in fact, the Chilean government fined Antofagasta $775,000 for failing to comply with water management rules. Will our regulators ever be so diligent?

Think of it this way: a copper and nickel mine is, among other things, a sewer. It can, and in most cases will, drain, leak, or discharge pollutants for decades after the mine has closed and the owner has absconded with the profits.

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If We’re Talking about the Violent Occupation and Colonization of Minnesota, Let’s Also Talk about the Play for Minnesota’s Critical Minerals

The ever-prolific docket watcher and political commentator Marcy Wheeler put up a video the other day where, in her words, she “laid out how Trump’s invasion of Venezuela is like his invasion of Minnesota: Tribute and obeisance.” I have been wanting to draw and explore that same analogy, but I am reluctant to paint with the broad brush Wheeler uses here. I do, however, think there’s a way to make the analogy she draws between Venezuela and Minnesota a little more compelling.

Wheeler’s general point is that the “model” of power in both Venezuela and Minnesota is the same: “extract tribute, subjugate the population… and impose your rules on how to govern.” Or, as she puts it near the end of the video,

It is the same model: Stephen Miller is trying to colonize Minnesota, he is trying to colonize Venezuela, he has no fucking interest in bringing benefits to the citizens of either one. He wants extraction and he wants obeisance.

The neo-colonial project, in this view, is to invade, conquer, subdue, and plunder. This is inflammatory language but I have no trouble applying it to Venezuela, where Trump has declared himself “acting President of Venezuela” and in that capacity (it appears) will now control an offshore, Qatar-based fund for Venezuela’s oil proceeds. So what about Minnesota? What form might the “tribute” demanded in Minnesota take?

Wheeler doesn’t say (though she uses the word “extraction”), and I haven’t seen other commentators spell out what form it will take. So for what it’s worth I am going to offer this: it’s important to understand that Trump and those in his circle regard Minnesota not only as a hotbed of Somali daycare fraud, a stronghold of illegal immigration, and the home of whistle-blowing paid agitators and domestic terrorists, but also as a resource play. A critical minerals bonanza.

(As anyone who reads this blog knows, this is a theme I’ve been chasing since Trump was first elected, and Jared and Ivanka moved into the five-million-dollar mansion purchased for them by a Chilean billionaire with a controversial plan to mine copper and nickel in northern Minnesota, on the edge of the Boundary Waters.)

Just last week, when news of Renee Good’s murder broke, there was another Minnesota story in the news that helps illustrate what I’m talking about. You can read it as a story about a cynical abuse of the Congressional Review Act, but it’s also about the convergence of a foreign mining company’s US political project with the Project 2025 authoritarian takeover of the US government.

Once it became clear that there was no lawful path forward for the Twin Metals project, that convergence was bound to happen. The mining company’s case in US District Court had been dismissed (though it is still on appeal at the DC Circuit), their lease applications had been denied, their mining plan of operations was rejected, and the Biden administration had put a 20-year moratorium on copper and nickel mining in the Rainy River watershed. The only way forward for Chilean mining giant Antofagasta was political, as I put it at the time. The company could count on a Trump victory in 2024, on corruption, and on the Project 2025 plan to weaken and hobble the administrative state.

Now that bet is starting to pay off, as the latest chapter in this story shows. Just after the new year, on January 6, this entry was made in the Congressional Record:

Project 2025 specified that the 20-year mineral withdrawal of the Rainy River watershed should be “[abandoned]” if it had “not been completed.” In 2023, that read like a throwaway line. The mineral withdrawal had been announced in January of that year, and it seemed all but certain that the withdrawal would be completed by the end of Biden’s term.

Now, Republicans claim, the Biden administration failed to take one small, final step.

The Biden White House published notice of the withdrawal in the Federal Register, but not in the Congressional Record, as required by law [or not, see the postcript below*]. With this letter, Trump’s Department of the Interior is correcting that oversight. But of course it’s a bad faith gesture. The notice creates an opportunity for the House of Representatives to review and for the Republican majority to reject the mineral withdrawal, as this Reuters article explains. The same notice was sent to Vice President Vance, as head of the Republican-controlled Senate. Opponents of the withdrawal will now have 60 days to muster simple majorities in both houses.

Though it may look like a bureaucratic fix to cure a deficiency, the letter is clearly part of a coordinated effort to advance Antofagasta’s Twin Metals project. It’s a clever ploy, designed to give corruption the appearance of legitimacy. Start with the office issuing the letter, the Office of the Secretariat and Regulatory Affairs (OES) in the Department of the Interior. OES serves as “the primary point of contact” with the White House Office of Management and Budget, and communicates and works regularly with OMB to “ensure” that regulations and policies “comply with…OMB requirements.” That is the principal and legitimate channel of communication for this kind of letter.

However, anyone paying attention for the last year or so knows that OMB is now a fully captured office, under the direction of Russell Vought, one of the architects of Project 2025. At every turn, Vought has directed OMB to dismantle and hamstring federal agencies and undo rules unfavorable to private industry. OMB is most likely the office that ordered this OES review, and the “White House Office” where the Bernhardt Group, according to its most recent disclosure, has been lobbying for the Twin Metals mine. (Next week, we’ll see if Q4 25 lobbying disclosures offer any more clarity on this point.**) Along with OES, OMB, and Antofagasta’s lobbying firm, Rep. Pete Stauber was also in the loop. Or at least he wasted no time doing his part. Less than a week after the letter from OES appeared in the Congressional Record, Stauber introduced a joint resolution of “Congressional disapproval” of the withdrawal.

Communications among these groups would make a particularly ripe target for a FOIA request, and help establish who did exactly what in this latest scheme. At the same time, I doubt that document production would help us make any meaningful connection between what’s going down in Minneapolis right now and these behind-closed-door maneuvers on behalf of a foreign mining company. That’s not really the point, anyway. I am not trying to suggest that extracting the treasures of the Duluth Complex is the main motive for the federal occupation of Minnesota, or that the violent brownshirt tactics we’re seeing on the streets of Minneapolis are primarily intended to pave the way for extractive industry up north. What I am suggesting is that we should look for places where these two Trumpist efforts might come together: the federal occupation of Minnesota and the push to plunder Minnesota’s mineral resources. That’s the intersection where the case for colonialism or analogies with Venezuela or Greenland will gain real traction.

With Trump now threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act, there are already some worrying signs that the authoritarian takeover of Minnesota could extend beyond subjugation of Minneapolis to demand tribute from the Iron Range. The ICE surge is already providing Stauber, Tom Emmer, and other Minnesota Republicans with an opportunity to attack Twin Cities leadership and widen existing north-south, rural-urban political divides. With his cronies on the House Natural Resources Committee, Stauber has tried to drag environmental groups before Congress on the pretext that they colluded with the Biden administration on the Rainy River withdrawal, and he has made McCarthyite threats about their non-profit status. ICE kidnappings and detention of Oglala Lakota and raids on the Little Earth housing complex suggest that blind racism and utter disregard for tribal sovereignty could (once again) enable extractive industry in the north. And from everything we’ve seen, it’s clear this lawless administration will not hesitate to label environmental defenders and water protectors — or anyone who stands in the way of their booty — domestic terrorists, and deal with them accordingly.

*Postscript Longtime Boundary Waters champion and lawyer Rebecca Rom writes to say the law does not require publication in the Congressional Record:

The issue isn’t the Congressional Record (the claimed technicality) but rather the application of the Congressional Review Act for Interior Dept. Public Land Orders. 

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) governs federal land withdrawals and requires thorough and timely notice to Congress upon the signing of a Public Land Order for a withdrawal. The Interior Department has followed the FLPMA Section 204 notice provisions to Congress for nearly 50 years (since 1976), through Republican and Democrat administrations. This is the pattern and practice of FLPMA notice compliance by the Interior Department.

This did not change with the enactment of the Congressional Review Act in 1996, which applies to notice of rules (not orders) to Congress in a process that is nearly identical to FLPMA.

In the past 25 years, there have been 28 withdrawals. Interior has not sent any of these withdrawals (those that were over 5,000 acres) to Congress pursuant to the Congressional Review Act. All notices that have been to Congress have been FLPMA notices.

The Interior Department delivered FLPMA notices to Congress, as required by law, on Jan. 26, 2023, when Public Land Order 7917 was signed. All members of the MN Congressional delegation received a letter of notice, including Congressman Stauber. The decision was published in the Federal Register, as required.

Any claim by Congressman Stauber of a violation of the Congressional Review Act is wrong. Any claim by Congressman Stauber that Congress did not receive notice of PLO 7917 is wrong; it received the legally required notice under FLPMA.

**Update 23 Jan 26: A little more clarity. The most recent disclosure by the Bernhardt Group corrects “White House Office” to “Executive Office of the President (EOP)” — which is where OMB is housed. It also shows the Bernhardt Group lobbying for Twin Metals at USDA. I found it curious that the Department of Agriculture was not among the agencies listed on the Q3 disclosure form.

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Goddard and Newman On Resource-Hoarding Hyper-Elites

Stacie E. Goddard and Abraham Newman urge us to take off our “Westphalian blinders” if we are to make sense of the bullying, extortion, and belligerence that now passes for US foreign policy.

Their paper on “neo-royalist cliques” addresses a theme I’ve discussed from time to time on this blog: “a return to the ‘patrimonial’ state, with rational-legal bureaucracies displaced by personalized rule and ‘extra-legal’ sovereignty.”

Goddard and Newman see patrimonial or personalist rule not only dominating US domestic politics but also extending to international affairs — to the re-ordering of “the whole world.”

I’m not crazy about the term “neo-royalist,” and even Goddard and Newman are careful to qualify:

We use “neo”-royalism to describe this order because, while it recalls pre-sixteenth-century European dynastic systems, this is not necessarily the return of kings and divine right. Instead, it is an international system structured by a small group of hyper-elites who use modern economic and military interdependencies to extract material and status resources for themselves.

What’s more convincing is their focus on “networks”:

neo-royalism…centers on ruling cliques, networks of political, capital, and military elites devoted to individual sovereigns [or personalist rulers], seeking to generate durable material and status hierarchies based on the extraction of financial and cultural tributes.

Where they say “cliques” we could just as well say “gangs.” It’s a world re-ordered by lawless bands of resource-hoarding hyper-elites and their hangers on, marauders and plunderers, serving and being served by the personalist ruler. Should they prevail, the state will be corrupted beyond redemption, serving only to give them cover, distribute favors to friends, and punish enemies — which is anyone who doesn’t pay tribute when demanded.

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Chasing Returns Leaves a Big Carbon Footprint

This chart is from the World Inequality Report 2026, published this week by the World Inequality Lab.

The authors explain:

Most emission estimates traditionally attribute greenhouse gases to the final consumers of goods and services. This “consumption-based” approach highlights differences in lifestyle and consumption patterns. However, it overlooks another critical dimension of responsibility: capital ownership.

Focusing on ownership highlights investor agency:

While many consumers have limited ability to alter their consumption, due to constrained budgets, a lack of information, or limited access to alternatives, owners of productive assets actively decide how and where resources are invested. They directly benefit from the profits generated by emission-intensive industries. An ownership-based approach, therefore, assigns emissions from production to those who own the corresponding capital stock. 

Under this framework, an individual owning 50% of a company’s equity is attributed 50% of that firm’s emissions, whether directly or via intermediaries such as investment funds….

Accounting for emissions through this ownership lens reveals a high degree of concentration. In France, Germany, and the United States, the carbon footprint of the wealthiest 10% is three to five times higher when private ownership–based emissions are included….

The extreme concentration of private ownership–based emissions stems from both the amount of wealth owned and the investment choices made. Wealthy individuals not only hold larger asset portfolios but also allocate them disproportionately toward high-carbon sectors. 

As shown in Figure 6.3, every $1 million invested in business assets in the United States corresponds to roughly 143 tonnes of carbon emissions, compared with 75 tonnes for equities (Chancel and Rehm (2025a)). Similar patterns emerge in France and Germany.

The global top 10% allocates about half of their wealth to such carbon-intensive holdings, often seeking higher-risk, higher-return investments that coincide with higher emissions. Hsu, Li, and Tsou (2023) find that high-emission companies yield, on average, 4.4 percentage points more in annual excess returns than low-emission peers—an implicit “pollution premium” that further incentivizes carbon-heavy investments. 

From this ownership perspective, the nature of emissions changes across the wealth distribution. For low- and middle-income groups, nearly all emissions are linked to essential consumption — transportation, heating, or electricity. For the top 10%, and especially for the top 1%, emissions from capital ownership dominate, accounting for 75–95% of their total footprint in France, Germany, and the United States. This also means that the wealthiest have a far greater capacity to reduce emissions without compromising their living standards. [emphasis mine]

And, note, this chart is drawn from 2019 data, and does not take into account the investing trends, governance failures, or policy retreats of the last several years.

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#agency #collectiveAgency #ethics #futureHoarding #inequality #investing #ownership #resourceHoarding #responsibility #responsibleInvesting

The Bernhardt Group’s Lobbying for Antofagasta’s Copper and Nickel Mine on the Edge of the Boundary Waters, Q3 2025

The Bernhardt Group, the lobbying shop set up just down the street from the White House by Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, is now the sole firm lobbying for Antofagasta’s Twin Metals project on the edge of the Boundary Waters (as I noted back in July). The Group’s third quarter disclosure reports income of $110,000 for lobbying on “mine leasing issues” on behalf of Twin Metals. That’s more than double The Bernhardt Group’s Twin Metals Q2 2025 income ($40K), and toward the high end of what other clients pay per quarter.

Bernhardt’s firm has been lobbying for the Twin Metals project in both the House and the Senate and at the White House, the Department of the Interior, and, notably, DOJ. (I am a little surprised that there is no mention here of the Department of Agriculture.) At DOJ, The Bernhardt Group was likely helping to devise and coordinate the legal strategy that saw the federal government do an about-face, join forces with Twin Metals, and get the case before the DC District Court put on ice.

It’s worth reading this latest disclosure in light of a piece by Brendan Bordelon, Amanda Chu, and Caitlin Oprysko that appeared a couple of days ago in Politico, about the reduced influence of non-Trump affiliated lobbying firms and the concentration of lobbying in one place: the presidency. The article offers a K-Street perspective on Congress’ abdication, the destruction of the administrative state, and the rise of a corrupt personalist regime.

The president and a handful of lieutenants have seized full control over policies once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies, including hyperspecific issues like tariff rates, high-skilled visa fees and funding freezes. Trump’s gravitational pull has forced CEOs to act as their companies’ top lobbyists, plying the president with gifts and concessions to secure their policy priorities. [emphasis mine]

Let’s pause here for clarification. These policies were not just “once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies.” They are lawfully the remit of Congress, but Congress remains supine or, worse, bent over and taking it. Meanwhile, the administration is ridding itself of all those pesky experts at the agencies and conducting sloppy and unlawful “reviews” of its own, as the Department of Agriculture recently did with the Rainy River watershed withdrawal.

Politico puts it more politely than I ever could, but the thrust of the reporting here is no less troubling. As Sam Bagenstos remarked yesterday, “per [Politico], the lobbyists are basically treating Article I as dead.”

The new dynamic has transformed the business of Washington influence, shutting out many veteran lobbyists and excluding even longtime experts from the most important policy fights in Washington. With Congress and the agencies often sidelined, outside lobbying firms and in-house specialists — many with decades of policy experience and cross-party relationships — are declining in importance….

The legislative branch is losing importance as Republicans — in charge of both chambers — take their cues from the White House to a degree that’s unprecedented in modern politics.

“Congress has basically taken itself out of the equation,” said Rich Gold, a Democrat who heads lobbying and law firm Holland & Knight’s public policy and regulation group. “There is a perception that Democrats have not fought back, and Republicans have basically ceded all their authority to the president.”

The same is true at federal agencies, which once operated more independently but are now closely responsive to the president himself.

From K Street’s point of view, there’s only one lever consistently worth pulling — and it sits in the Oval Office.

But rest assured: the lobbying world is adapting.

Despite the upheaval on K Street, Washington’s lobbying sector is on track to earn more money than in any year since 2010, adjusted for inflation — driven by corporations’ mix of enthusiasm and concern about what Trump is doing.

That revenue is flowing away from established firms with policy expertise and robust networks of cross-party contacts, and toward a handful of rising firms able to open the Oval Office door.

The Bernhardt Group is, of course, one such firm.

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#abdication #corruption #governmentCapture #governmentCollapse #kleptocracy #lobbying #personalistRegime #resourceHoarding #Water

The Bernhardt Group’s Lobbying for Antofagasta’s Copper and Nickel Mine on the Edge of the Boundary Waters, Q3 2025

The Bernhardt Group, the lobbying shop set up just down the street from the White House by Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, is now the sole firm lobbying for Antofagasta’s Twin Metals project on the edge of the Boundary Waters (as I noted back in July). The Group’s third quarter disclosure reports income of $110,000 for lobbying on “mine leasing issues” on behalf of Twin Metals. That’s more than double The Bernhardt Group’s Twin Metals Q2 2025 income ($40K), and toward the high end of what other clients pay per quarter.

Bernhardt’s firm has been lobbying for the Twin Metals project in both the House and the Senate and at the White House, the Department of the Interior, and, notably, DOJ. (I am a little surprised that there is no mention here of the Department of Agriculture.) At DOJ, The Bernhardt Group was likely helping to devise and coordinate the legal strategy that saw the federal government do an about-face, join forces with Twin Metals, and get the case before the DC Circuit put on ice.

It’s worth reading this latest disclosure in light of a piece by Brendan Bordelon, Amanda Chu, and Caitlin Oprysko that appeared a couple of days ago in Politico, about the reduced influence of non-Trump affiliated lobbying firms and the concentration of lobbying in one place: the presidency. The article offers a K-Street perspective on Congress’ abdication, the destruction of the administrative state, and the rise of a corrupt personalist regime.

The president and a handful of lieutenants have seized full control over policies once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies, including hyperspecific issues like tariff rates, high-skilled visa fees and funding freezes. Trump’s gravitational pull has forced CEOs to act as their companies’ top lobbyists, plying the president with gifts and concessions to secure their policy priorities. [emphasis mine]

Let’s pause here for clarification. These policies were not just “once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies.” They are lawfully the remit of Congress, but Congress remains supine or, worse, bent over and taking it. Meanwhile, the administration is ridding itself of all those pesky experts at the agencies and conducting sloppy and unlawful “reviews” of its own, as the Department of Agriculture recently did with the Rainy River watershed withdrawal.

Politico puts it more politely than I ever could, but the thrust of the reporting here is no less troubling. As Sam Bagenstos remarked yesterday, “per [Politico], the lobbyists are basically treating Article I as dead.”

The new dynamic has transformed the business of Washington influence, shutting out many veteran lobbyists and excluding even longtime experts from the most important policy fights in Washington. With Congress and the agencies often sidelined, outside lobbying firms and in-house specialists — many with decades of policy experience and cross-party relationships — are declining in importance….

The legislative branch is losing importance as Republicans — in charge of both chambers — take their cues from the White House to a degree that’s unprecedented in modern politics.

“Congress has basically taken itself out of the equation,” said Rich Gold, a Democrat who heads lobbying and law firm Holland & Knight’s public policy and regulation group. “There is a perception that Democrats have not fought back, and Republicans have basically ceded all their authority to the president.”

The same is true at federal agencies, which once operated more independently but are now closely responsive to the president himself.

From K Street’s point of view, there’s only one lever consistently worth pulling — and it sits in the Oval Office.

But rest assured: the lobbying world is adapting.

Despite the upheaval on K Street, Washington’s lobbying sector is on track to earn more money than in any year since 2010, adjusted for inflation — driven by corporations’ mix of enthusiasm and concern about what Trump is doing.

That revenue is flowing away from established firms with policy expertise and robust networks of cross-party contacts, and toward a handful of rising firms able to open the Oval Office door.

The Bernhardt Group is, of course, one such firm.

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#abdication #corruption #governmentCapture #governmentCollapse #kleptocracy #lobbying #personalistRegime #resourceHoarding #Water

The Bernhardt Group’s Lobbying for Antofagasta’s Copper and Nickel Mine on the Edge of the Boundary Waters, Q3 2025

The Bernhardt Group, the lobbying shop set up just down the street from the White House by Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, is now the sole firm lobbying for Antofagasta’s Twin Metals project on the edge of the Boundary Waters (as I noted back in July). The Group’s third quarter disclosure reports income of $110,000 for lobbying on “mine leasing issues” on behalf of Twin Metals. That’s more than double The Bernhardt Group’s Twin Metals Q2 2025 income ($40K), and toward the high end of what other clients pay per quarter.

Bernhardt’s firm has been lobbying for the Twin Metals project in both the House and the Senate and at the White House, the Department of the Interior, and, notably, DOJ. (I am a little surprised that there is no mention here of the Department of Agriculture.) At DOJ, The Bernhardt Group was likely helping to devise and coordinate the legal strategy that saw the federal government do an about-face, join forces with Twin Metals, and get the case before the DC District Court put on ice.

It’s worth reading this latest disclosure in light of a piece by Brendan Bordelon, Amanda Chu, and Caitlin Oprysko that appeared a couple of days ago in Politico, about the reduced influence of non-Trump affiliated lobbying firms and the concentration of lobbying in one place: the presidency. The article offers a K-Street perspective on Congress’ abdication, the destruction of the administrative state, and the rise of a corrupt personalist regime.

The president and a handful of lieutenants have seized full control over policies once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies, including hyperspecific issues like tariff rates, high-skilled visa fees and funding freezes. Trump’s gravitational pull has forced CEOs to act as their companies’ top lobbyists, plying the president with gifts and concessions to secure their policy priorities. [emphasis mine]

Let’s pause here for clarification. These policies were not just “once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies.” They are lawfully the remit of Congress, but Congress remains supine or, worse, bent over and taking it. Meanwhile, the administration is ridding itself of all those pesky experts at the agencies and conducting sloppy and unlawful “reviews” of its own, as the Department of Agriculture recently did with the Rainy River watershed withdrawal.

Politico puts it more politely than I ever could, but the thrust of the reporting here is no less troubling. As Sam Bagenstos remarked yesterday, “per [Politico], the lobbyists are basically treating Article I as dead.”

The new dynamic has transformed the business of Washington influence, shutting out many veteran lobbyists and excluding even longtime experts from the most important policy fights in Washington. With Congress and the agencies often sidelined, outside lobbying firms and in-house specialists — many with decades of policy experience and cross-party relationships — are declining in importance….

The legislative branch is losing importance as Republicans — in charge of both chambers — take their cues from the White House to a degree that’s unprecedented in modern politics.

“Congress has basically taken itself out of the equation,” said Rich Gold, a Democrat who heads lobbying and law firm Holland & Knight’s public policy and regulation group. “There is a perception that Democrats have not fought back, and Republicans have basically ceded all their authority to the president.”

The same is true at federal agencies, which once operated more independently but are now closely responsive to the president himself.

From K Street’s point of view, there’s only one lever consistently worth pulling — and it sits in the Oval Office.

But rest assured: the lobbying world is adapting.

Despite the upheaval on K Street, Washington’s lobbying sector is on track to earn more money than in any year since 2010, adjusted for inflation — driven by corporations’ mix of enthusiasm and concern about what Trump is doing.

That revenue is flowing away from established firms with policy expertise and robust networks of cross-party contacts, and toward a handful of rising firms able to open the Oval Office door.

The Bernhardt Group is, of course, one such firm.

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The Bernhardt Group’s Lobbying for Antofagasta’s Copper and Nickel Mine on the Edge of the Boundary Waters, Q3 2025

The Bernhardt Group, the lobbying shop set up just down the street from the White House by Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, is now the sole firm lobbying for Antofagasta’s Twin Metals project on the edge of the Boundary Waters (as I noted back in July). The Group’s third quarter disclosure reports income of $110,000 for lobbying on “mine leasing issues” on behalf of Twin Metals. That’s more than double The Bernhardt Group’s Twin Metals Q2 2025 income ($40K), and toward the high end of what other clients pay per quarter.

Bernhardt’s firm has been lobbying for the Twin Metals project in both the House and the Senate and at the White House, the Department of the Interior, and, notably, DOJ. (I am a little surprised that there is no mention here of the Department of Agriculture.) At DOJ, The Bernhardt Group was likely helping to devise and coordinate the legal strategy that saw the federal government do an about-face, join forces with Twin Metals, and get the case before the DC District Court put on ice.

It’s worth reading this latest disclosure in light of a piece by Brendan Bordelon, Amanda Chu, and Caitlin Oprysko that appeared a couple of days ago in Politico, about the reduced influence of non-Trump affiliated lobbying firms and the concentration of lobbying in one place: the presidency. The article offers a K-Street perspective on Congress’ abdication, the destruction of the administrative state, and the rise of a corrupt personalist regime.

The president and a handful of lieutenants have seized full control over policies once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies, including hyperspecific issues like tariff rates, high-skilled visa fees and funding freezes. Trump’s gravitational pull has forced CEOs to act as their companies’ top lobbyists, plying the president with gifts and concessions to secure their policy priorities. [emphasis mine]

Let’s pause here for clarification. These policies were not just “once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies.” They are lawfully the remit of Congress, but Congress remains supine or, worse, bent over and taking it. Meanwhile, the administration is ridding itself of all those pesky experts at the agencies and conducting sloppy and unlawful “reviews” of its own, as the Department of Agriculture recently did with the Rainy River watershed withdrawal.

Politico puts it more politely than I ever could, but the thrust of the reporting here is no less troubling. As Sam Bagenstos remarked yesterday, “per [Politico], the lobbyists are basically treating Article I as dead.”

The new dynamic has transformed the business of Washington influence, shutting out many veteran lobbyists and excluding even longtime experts from the most important policy fights in Washington. With Congress and the agencies often sidelined, outside lobbying firms and in-house specialists — many with decades of policy experience and cross-party relationships — are declining in importance….

The legislative branch is losing importance as Republicans — in charge of both chambers — take their cues from the White House to a degree that’s unprecedented in modern politics.

“Congress has basically taken itself out of the equation,” said Rich Gold, a Democrat who heads lobbying and law firm Holland & Knight’s public policy and regulation group. “There is a perception that Democrats have not fought back, and Republicans have basically ceded all their authority to the president.”

The same is true at federal agencies, which once operated more independently but are now closely responsive to the president himself.

From K Street’s point of view, there’s only one lever consistently worth pulling — and it sits in the Oval Office.

But rest assured: the lobbying world is adapting.

Despite the upheaval on K Street, Washington’s lobbying sector is on track to earn more money than in any year since 2010, adjusted for inflation — driven by corporations’ mix of enthusiasm and concern about what Trump is doing.

That revenue is flowing away from established firms with policy expertise and robust networks of cross-party contacts, and toward a handful of rising firms able to open the Oval Office door.

The Bernhardt Group is, of course, one such firm.

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The Bernhardt Group’s Lobbying for Antofagasta’s Copper and Nickel Mine on the Edge of the Boundary Waters, Q3 2025

The Bernhardt Group, the lobbying shop set up just down the street from the White House by Trump’s former Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, is now the sole firm lobbying for Antofagasta’s Twin Metals project on the edge of the Boundary Waters (as I noted back in July). The Group’s third quarter disclosure reports income of $110,000 for lobbying on “mine leasing issues” on behalf of Twin Metals. That’s more than double The Bernhardt Group’s Twin Metals Q2 2025 income ($40K), and toward the high end of what other clients pay per quarter.

Bernhardt’s firm has been lobbying for the Twin Metals project in both the House and the Senate and at the White House, the Department of the Interior, and, notably, DOJ. (I am a little surprised that there is no mention here of the Department of Agriculture.) At DOJ, The Bernhardt Group was likely helping to devise and coordinate the legal strategy that saw the federal government do an about-face, join forces with Twin Metals, and get the case before the DC District Court put on ice.

It’s worth reading this latest disclosure in light of a piece by Brendan Bordelon, Amanda Chu, and Caitlin Oprysko that appeared a couple of days ago in Politico, about the reduced influence of non-Trump affiliated lobbying firms and the concentration of lobbying in one place: the presidency. The article offers a K-Street perspective on Congress’ abdication, the destruction of the administrative state, and the rise of a corrupt personalist regime.

The president and a handful of lieutenants have seized full control over policies once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies, including hyperspecific issues like tariff rates, high-skilled visa fees and funding freezes. Trump’s gravitational pull has forced CEOs to act as their companies’ top lobbyists, plying the president with gifts and concessions to secure their policy priorities. [emphasis mine]

Let’s pause here for clarification. These policies were not just “once considered the remit of Congress and experts at agencies.” They are lawfully the remit of Congress, but Congress remains supine or, worse, bent over and taking it. Meanwhile, the administration is ridding itself of all those pesky experts at the agencies and conducting sloppy and unlawful “reviews” of its own, as the Department of Agriculture recently did with the Rainy River watershed withdrawal.

Politico puts it more politely than I ever could, but the thrust of the reporting here is no less troubling. As Sam Bagenstos remarked yesterday, “per [Politico], the lobbyists are basically treating Article I as dead.”

The new dynamic has transformed the business of Washington influence, shutting out many veteran lobbyists and excluding even longtime experts from the most important policy fights in Washington. With Congress and the agencies often sidelined, outside lobbying firms and in-house specialists — many with decades of policy experience and cross-party relationships — are declining in importance….

The legislative branch is losing importance as Republicans — in charge of both chambers — take their cues from the White House to a degree that’s unprecedented in modern politics.

“Congress has basically taken itself out of the equation,” said Rich Gold, a Democrat who heads lobbying and law firm Holland & Knight’s public policy and regulation group. “There is a perception that Democrats have not fought back, and Republicans have basically ceded all their authority to the president.”

The same is true at federal agencies, which once operated more independently but are now closely responsive to the president himself.

From K Street’s point of view, there’s only one lever consistently worth pulling — and it sits in the Oval Office.

But rest assured: the lobbying world is adapting.

Despite the upheaval on K Street, Washington’s lobbying sector is on track to earn more money than in any year since 2010, adjusted for inflation — driven by corporations’ mix of enthusiasm and concern about what Trump is doing.

That revenue is flowing away from established firms with policy expertise and robust networks of cross-party contacts, and toward a handful of rising firms able to open the Oval Office door.

The Bernhardt Group is, of course, one such firm.

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AI, GDP, and the Singularity

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas published this chart of AI Scenarios back in June. I came across it for the first time today.

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AI, GDP, and the Singularity

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas published this chart of AI Scenarios back in June. I came across it for the first time today.

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AI, GDP, and the Singularity

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas published this chart of AI Scenarios back in June. I came across it for the first time today.

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AI, GDP, and the Singularity

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas published this chart of AI Scenarios back in June. I came across it for the first time today.

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AI, GDP, and the Singularity

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas published this chart of AI Scenarios back in June. I came across it for the first time today.

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The Boundary Waters Litigation is on Hold, Again.

I’ve been traveling for the past week or so, and haven’t had a chance until this morning to publish these latest filings in Twin Metals v. US. (For background, see this, this, this, and this, among many other posts.)

As those who have been following the case are aware, in March of 2025, just a month after he was sworn in, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum did an about-face and joined the plaintiffs (a foreign mining company with plans to mine nickel and copper and on the edge of the Boundary Waters). At the time, the parties requested that this case be put on hold, or held in abeyance. A group of small businesses and non-profits involved in the case as Defendant-Intervenors that I have been calling the Civil Society group did not join the government in that request.

The motion for abeyance granted (back in July), Burgum and the mining company’s lawyers and lobbyists then had 90 days to find a way around the provisions and protections put in place by the Biden administration. Those 90 days have nearly come and gone. So on October 1 they requested and on October 7 the court granted another 180 days.

90 days was not enough time to do all they had to do. Pete Stauber failed to smuggle a Boundary Waters blowout sale into the budget bill, but Interior managed to revoke the legal opinion that recognized the federal government’s authority to say “no” to the mining company. (That legal work had mostly already been done by solicitor Daniel Jorjani in the first year of the first Trump administration.)

Now Doug Burgum and the mining company lawyers and lobbyists need to find a way to revive the Chilean conglomerate’s cancelled leases and do something about the preference right lease applications that the previous administration denied. That will ultimately require doing something about the 20-year Rainy River watershed mineral withdrawal, which Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins claims a “review” determined to be unnecessary.

The federal government is currently shut down and the case in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is now on hold until April, 2026. For the sake of good housekeeping, here are the court documents.

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The Boundary Waters Litigation is on Hold, Again.

I’ve been traveling for the past week or so, and haven’t had a chance until this morning to publish these latest filings in Twin Metals v. US. (For background, see this, this, this, and this, among many other posts.)

As those who have been following the case are aware, in March of 2025, just a month after he was sworn in, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum did an about-face and joined the plaintiffs (a foreign mining company with plans to mine nickel and copper on the edge of the Boundary Waters). At the time, the parties requested that this case be put on hold, or held in abeyance. A group of small businesses and non-profits involved in the case as Defendant-Intervenors that I have been calling the Civil Society group did not join the government in that request.

The motion for abeyance granted (back in July), Burgum and the mining company’s lawyers and lobbyists then had 90 days to find a way around the provisions and protections put in place by the Biden administration. Those 90 days have nearly come and gone. So on October 1 they requested and on October 7 the court granted another 180 days.

Antofagasta and its lawyers appear to have realized a while ago that they are unlikely to prevail in a court of law, so the company has been seeking delays at the DC Circuit while looking for political answers to its problems. This is a theme I’ve been trying to stress in my posts on this subject (e.g., this one, from 2023).

90 days was not nearly enough time to do all they had to do. Consider just a couple of highlights (or lowlights) from this past summer. Pete Stauber failed to smuggle a Boundary Waters blowout sale into the budget bill, but Interior managed to revoke the legal opinion that recognized the federal government’s authority to say “no” to the mining company. (That legal work had mostly already been done by solicitor Daniel Jorjani in the first year of the first Trump administration.)

Now Doug Burgum and the mining company lawyers and lobbyists need to find a way to revive the Chilean conglomerate’s cancelled leases and do something about the preference right lease applications that the previous administration denied. That will ultimately require doing something about the 20-year Rainy River watershed mineral withdrawal, which Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins claims a “review” determined to be unnecessary.

The federal government is currently shut down and the case in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is now on hold until April, 2026. For the sake of good housekeeping, here are the court documents.

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The Boundary Waters Litigation is on Hold, Again.

I’ve been traveling for the past week or so, and haven’t had a chance until this morning to publish these latest filings in Twin Metals v. US. (For background, see this, this, this, and this, among many other posts.)

As those who have been following the case are aware, in March of 2025, just a month after he was sworn in, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum did an about-face and joined the plaintiffs (a foreign mining company with plans to mine nickel and copper and on the edge of the Boundary Waters). At the time, the parties requested that this case be put on hold, or held in abeyance. A group of small businesses and non-profits involved in the case as Defendant-Intervenors that I have been calling the Civil Society group did not join the government in that request.

The motion for abeyance granted (back in July), Burgum and the mining company’s lawyers and lobbyists then had 90 days to find a way around the provisions and protections put in place by the Biden administration. Those 90 days have nearly come and gone. So on October 1 they requested and on October 7 the court granted another 180 days.

90 days was not enough time to do all they had to do. Pete Stauber failed to smuggle a Boundary Waters blowout sale into the budget bill, but Interior managed to revoke the legal opinion that recognized the federal government’s authority to say “no” to the mining company. (That legal work had mostly already been done by solicitor Daniel Jorjani in the first year of the first Trump administration.)

Now Doug Burgum and the mining company lawyers and lobbyists need to find a way to revive the Chilean conglomerate’s cancelled leases and do something about the preference right lease applications that the previous administration denied. That will ultimately require doing something about the 20-year Rainy River watershed mineral withdrawal, which Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins claims a “review” determined to be unnecessary.

The federal government is currently shut down and the case in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is now on hold until April, 2026. For the sake of good housekeeping, here are the court documents.

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The Boundary Waters Litigation is on Hold, Again.

I’ve been traveling for the past week or so, and haven’t had a chance until this morning to publish these latest filings in Twin Metals v. US. (For background, see this, this, this, and this, among many other posts.)

As those who have been following the case are aware, in March of 2025, just a month after he was sworn in, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum did an about-face and joined the plaintiffs (a foreign mining company with plans to mine nickel and copper and on the edge of the Boundary Waters). At the time, the parties requested that this case be put on hold, or held in abeyance. A group of small businesses and non-profits involved in the case as Defendant-Intervenors that I have been calling the Civil Society group did not join the government in that request.

The motion for abeyance granted (back in July), Burgum and the mining company’s lawyers and lobbyists then had 90 days to find a way around the provisions and protections put in place by the Biden administration. Those 90 days have nearly come and gone. So on October 1 they requested and on October 7 the court granted another 180 days.

90 days was not enough time to do all they had to do. Pete Stauber failed to smuggle a Boundary Waters blowout sale into the budget bill, but Interior managed to revoke the legal opinion that recognized the federal government’s authority to say “no” to the mining company. (That legal work had mostly already been done by solicitor Daniel Jorjani in the first year of the first Trump administration.)

Now Doug Burgum and the mining company lawyers and lobbyists need to find a way to revive the Chilean conglomerate’s cancelled leases and do something about the preference right lease applications that the previous administration denied. That will ultimately require doing something about the 20-year Rainy River watershed mineral withdrawal, which Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins claims a “review” determined to be unnecessary.

The federal government is currently shut down and the case in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is now on hold until April, 2026. For the sake of good housekeeping, here are the court documents.

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The Boundary Waters Litigation is on Hold, Again.

I’ve been traveling for the past week or so, and haven’t had a chance until this morning to publish these latest filings in Twin Metals v. US. (For background, see this, this, this, and this, among many other posts.)

As those who have been following the case are aware, in March of 2025, just a month after he was sworn in, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum did an about-face and joined the plaintiffs (a foreign mining company with plans to mine nickel and copper and on the edge of the Boundary Waters). At the time, the parties requested that this case be put on hold, or held in abeyance. A group of small businesses and non-profits involved in the case as Defendant-Intervenors that I have been calling the Civil Society group did not join the government in that request.

The motion for abeyance granted (back in July), Burgum and the mining company’s lawyers and lobbyists then had 90 days to find a way around the provisions and protections put in place by the Biden administration. Those 90 days have nearly come and gone. So on October 1 they requested and on October 7 the court granted another 180 days.

90 days was not enough time to do all they had to do. Pete Stauber failed to smuggle a Boundary Waters blowout sale into the budget bill, but Interior managed to revoke the legal opinion that recognized the federal government’s authority to say “no” to the mining company. (That legal work had mostly already been done by solicitor Daniel Jorjani in the first year of the first Trump administration.)

Now Doug Burgum and the mining company lawyers and lobbyists need to find a way to revive the Chilean conglomerate’s cancelled leases and do something about the preference right lease applications that the previous administration denied. That will ultimately require doing something about the 20-year Rainy River watershed mineral withdrawal, which Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins claims a “review” determined to be unnecessary.

The federal government is currently shut down and the case in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is now on hold until April, 2026. For the sake of good housekeeping, here are the court documents.

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David Bernhardt Sets Up His Own Shop to Lobby (indirectly) For Twin Metals

I missed this June Politico story about David Bernhardt breaking with Brownstein Hyatt and setting up his own lobbying shop at 1455 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, just a block away from the White House. The former Secretary of the Interior, who oversaw Trump’s first assault on the Boundary Waters, will now run the Twin Metals lobbying game.

The most recent Senate lobbying disclosures show Brownstein Hyatt filing a termination report on July 16, after collecting $110,000 for lobbying the Senate, House, and the Department of the Interior on behalf of Twin Metals in the second quarter of this year.

Just one day before that, on July 15, the Bernhardt Group LLC filed a new registration, to lobby — not directly for Twin Metals, but for Brownstein Hyatt “obo” (on behalf of) Twin Metals LLC. The Bernhardt Group has the same arrangement “on behalf of” other Brownstein clients, including Barrick Gold, USA Rare Earth, Bakelite, Denver Water, and the Central Arizona Water Conservation District.

In these cases, the Bernhardt Group LLC will lobby for a lobbying firm on behalf of the lobbying firm’s clients. I suppose “subcontractor” is the charitable term here.

Former Brownstein lobbyists with a Twin Metals track record, including Kate Gonzales, William McGrath, and Luke Johnson, will lead the Bernhardt Group’s lobbying effort for their former lobbying firm on behalf of Twin Metals. Their declared focus will be “mine leasing issues.” The Group billed $40,000 in the second quarter for its work.

In 2023, Bernhardt wrote a self-promoting book all about accountability and the “failing” administrative state. So it’s a little odd to see the former Secretary of the Interior’s new lobbying firm enclosed like a Matryoshka doll within another lobbying firm — an arrangement that should raise serious questions about public accountability and what people like Bernhardt call the DC swamp.

Maybe this is just another small reminder that David Bernhardt and the America First crowd were never talking about public accountability; they are complaining that sometimes the DC bureaucracy cannot be brought readily to heel.

For years, this crowd has worked behind the scenes to discredit the very idea of American government while exerting power within it and influence over it; now they are also dismantling the parts that stand in their way, so that their clients and cronies can strip, hoard, and sell our natural resources, our public lands, and other public goods.

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Doug Burgum Now Has 90 Days to Hand Over the Boundary Waters to a Foreign Mining Company

For background, see this post.

This per curiam order dropped yesterday. The case before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is held in abeyance until mid-October. The Court deferred to the Agency.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum now has 90 days to act on the findings of an “agency review” of the Twin Metals matter.

According to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, the review was already “complete” by June 13th, which just happened to be one day after the Senate struck Stauber’s Boundary Waters giveaway from the budget bill (see the 13 June update to this post).

No surprise, Interior already determined (only a fool would think it had not decided well in advance of the review) that the 20-year Rainy River watershed mineral withdrawal put in place by the Biden administration was unnecessary.

Here is the order.

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I am coming around to Brad DeLong’s view that Chaos Monkey is in charge.

I was going to write about the specious reasoning behind the copper tariffs announced earlier this week, but now, having read a little more about it, I hesitate even to call it reasoning. I am tempted to say that the story Howard Lutnick is telling about “the idea” of “[bringing] copper production home” by imposing tariffs on imports is an example of magical thinking, but that would imply that the idea is a serious idea, that it involved actual planning or something that can actually be called thinking, and also that that thinking carries some charm. It shows none, except perhaps as an arbitrage opportunity.

For similar reasons I resist even the Globe and Mail’s characterization of this idea of a concept of a plan as a “pipedream.” Dreams, including those from the pipe, can be illuminating; this is smoke and mirrors. What we’ve got here is at best a travesty of industrial policy, a tout, a vulgar ruse, flattery, hype, and bluster instead of responsible government.

The idea of a concept of a plan is unworkable in the short term for everyone but the commodity traders, confusing and offensive to trading partners like Chile (the source of around 65 percent of US copper), and (I’ll wager) the smart people are just politely hedging — and trying to cover their bets and not draw ire — when they say they are cautiously optimistic or taking a wait-and-see attitude.

I am more and more inclined lately toward the view of Brad DeLong, who, writing about a different subject (armaments to Ukraine), says that what we are seeing on nearly every front is not policy or ideas; it’s chaos monkey:

The absence of even a pale shadow or a bad approximation to a coherent policy process under Trump’s administration renders both allies and adversaries unable to predict American actions. That undermines global stability. In the world of international relations, predictability is not a luxury but a necessity. Nations calibrate their own policies, investments, and security arrangements based on expectations about the behavior of others—particularly when it comes to a superpower like the United States.

…when American foreign policy becomes a function of—I was going to say “presidential whim, as it has under Trump”, but that is wrong, isn’t it? That imposes more structure on the process than it in fact has. Chaos monkey is the only term even half-adequate. And so the result is a kind of international vertigo….

The net effect is a world system where trust erodes and the risk of miscalculation—and thus catastrophe—increases.

Postscript, 13 July 25: Krugman makes a similar point in this post: “I Don’t Disapprove of Trump’s Strategy, Because He Doesn’t Have One.” Correct. I balk a little at the final clauses of his final sentence: “there clearly isn’t a strategy, just the prejudices of an ignorant man and his enablers.” Sure, Trump demonstrates prejudice and ignorance in nearly all that he does, and having grown up in the New York area, I recognize his flavor of prejudice and ignorance; but prejudice alone doesn’t account for the trouble he’s making. After all, Prejudiced Ignoramus would offer a little more predictability and consistency — a little more structure, to use DeLong’s word — than Chaos Monkey. 

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