Who holds Minnesota’s land and minerals — and who gets paid to keep the producer waiting
Minnesota is being told a simple story: wilderness or jobs. That story is the product. The real machine is a gate on the ground.
The old empire did not need to keep the deed. It needed a legal person above the worker. Canada still makes officers swear allegiance to a hereditary monarch before they sit. Minnesota does not use that sentence. Minnesota kept the idea underneath it. Minerals are reserved to the state. They are leased, not sold. Five statewide officers approve the lease. Agencies manage the claim. Foundations fund the freeze. A company listed in London and controlled in Chile waits on the other side of the latch. The farmer, the miner, and the child on the Permanent School Fund wait underneath both.
What the state actually holds
Minnesota is the largest single owner of mineral rights in the state — about 24 percent. The Department of Natural Resources manages on the order of 12 million acres of state mineral interests for the Permanent School Fund, the University Fund, and local taxing districts. From 1890 through 2023, mineral leasing generated about $950 million. Most recent school-trust mineral money still comes from iron and taconite, largely royalties from one company’s operations. Nonferrous exploration leases have not produced commercial ore. The Permanent School Fund is now worth more than $2 billion. Statewide distributions run in the $60 million range — tens of dollars per pupil. That is not a rounding error in a classroom. It is also not what a copper-nickel royalty stream would look like if the Duluth Complex ever paid.
The Duluth Complex in the northeast holds the overwhelming share of known U.S. nickel resources and most domestic cobalt, plus a large share of copper. Twin Metals Minnesota wants an underground mine near Birch Lake, outside the Boundary Waters boundary and inside its watershed. Twin Metals is not a Range family pit. It is a subsidiary of Antofagasta PLC, listed on the London Stock Exchange, controlled by Chile’s Luksic family. Hundreds of millions already spent. Lobbyists paid. Jobs promised — on the order of 750 plus spin-offs — if a mine is ever built. Ore is a global commodity. The school trust gets a royalty only if rock comes out and the lease is honored.
In April 2026 Congress used the Congressional Review Act to overturn a 20-year federal mineral withdrawal on about 225,500 acres. Rep. Pete Stauber authored the resolution. It became public law. The federal lock opened. The state lock slammed.
The freeze
On August 18, 2026, Governor Tim Walz issued Executive Order 26-10. No new state nonferrous leases in the Rainy River Headwaters. No state environmental review or permitting while related litigation runs. No cooperation with federal review. Review of some 38 existing leases, including one held by Twin Metals. Draft a permanent statutory ban. The order dies 90 days after he leaves office. He is not on the next ballot. He locked the gate on the way out.
Follow the money — the freeze stack
Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness runs Save the Boundary Waters. Grant records show on the order of $6.6 million across hundreds of awards from more than a hundred funders: Wilderness Society, Patagonia, Manitou Fund, Minneapolis Foundation, GiveMN, donor-advised funds. Give to the Max 2024 alone: more than $600,000. They operate a 501(c)(3) and a 501(c)(4) Action Fund to elect “champions.” Earthjustice sits above them — annual revenue on the order of $171 million — and litigates for Wilderness Society, Center for Biological Diversity, and others. Delay is inventory. Tourism figures they cite become the moral cover for never processing a complete application.
Follow the money — the lease stack
Antofagasta wants the rock. English company law. Chilean family office. Minnesota hole. That is not “the people.” A candidate who only shouts “jobs” and will not name that structure is not working for Hibbing. A candidate who only shouts “wilderness” and will not score the school trust is not working for the kids.
The revolving door
Sarah Strommen is Commissioner of Natural Resources because Walz put her there in 2019. Before the badge she was policy director at Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness — the activist shop that sues to stop the project she now regulates. Friends of the Boundary Waters celebrated the appointment. Then the same agency, under the same governor, froze the permits. You do not need a secret handshake when you hire the plaintiff to run the courthouse.
The five-person latch
Every nonferrous lease needs the Executive Council: governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, auditor, secretary of state. For years those chairs have been aligned. They do not have to take a check from Santiago. They take the political weather the freeze creates — conservation scorecards, partner groups, the same donor class that calls a lock “leadership.”
Amy Klobuchar voted against lifting the federal withdrawal. She calls the Boundary Waters a treasure. She supports “other mining.” After Walz’s order she needed to “take a closer look.” That is the hedge: Range talk for the camera, freeze talk for the donor class, no published number for what the trust forgoes.
Lisa Demuth called the order hostility to Minnesota mining and says she wants mining in the state’s future. Ask her the next sentence: who keeps the residual — Minnesota schools and labor, or a London ticker?
The forgotten owner
School-trust acres inside the Boundary Waters are being sold to the Forest Service for a one-time $20 million to $40 million instead of swapped for ground that can work. A one-time check is how a trustee looks busy while the corpus stays sterile.
Scripture is not confused. “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Stewardship of creation is real. Using creation as a billing code for a permanent lawsuit is something else.
Questions that expose the latch
Who funded your last four years on land and water?
Will you publish, in dollars, the royalties the Permanent School Fund forgoes each year the Duluth Complex sits idle?
Will a DNR commissioner have a cooling-off rule so the plaintiff cannot become the permit boss?
Will a complete application meet a statutory clock?
If Twin Metals cannot meet Minnesota water rules, will you lease to someone who can — or is the answer simply never?
A free Minnesota keeps the Boundary Waters as wilderness because the statute says so. Outside that line, water rules are enforced in writing. The trust is scored. The Council votes on findings, in public. The producer is not the last paid.
The Crown changed its stationery. The gate is in St. Paul.
Phillip C. Parrish
Freedom Talk with Phil
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