National Park and Wilderness Waters Protection Act
Have a question about what this bill does? Ask in plain English; the answer is drawn from the bill's actual text and official record, and it'll tell you when something isn't in the text rather than guess.
National Park and Wilderness Waters Protection Act
Withdraws federal lands within the Rainy River Drainage Basin in Minnesota from all forms of: (1) entry, appropriation, or disposal under the public land laws; (2) location, entry, and patent under the mining laws; and (3) operation under the mineral leasing and mineral material laws.
Deems the approval of any lease or permit in the Basin involving activities related to mineral production to be a major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. Requires an environmental impact statement conducted for such an action to include consideration of any potential impacts to units of the National Park System (NPS) or land in the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) located in the Basin. Conditions the issuance or renewal of any such lease or permit on a requirement that the permittee or lessee seasonally monitor water quality throughout the Basin. Requires all mining activities to be suspended if any mining related contamination is detected in any NPS unit or NWPS land in the Basin until all contamination has been remediated.
Bars a federal agency from approving any mining related activities in the Basin until the entity holding a lease or permit for that activity has submitted: (1) an acceptable contamination remediation plan, and (2) a full reclamation and performance bond sufficient to return the affected area to its original condition and treat any potential contamination for 50 years following the conclusion of any mining activities.
Exempts existing sand, gravel, and granite operations in the Basin.
Referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.
- Introduced in House Formatted Text PDF Formatted XML
Cite this page
U.S. Congress. (2026). H.R. 1796: National Park and Wilderness Waters Protection Act. 114th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/114-HR-1796/
"H.R. 1796: National Park and Wilderness Waters Protection Act." 114th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/114-HR-1796/.
H.R. 1796, 114th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/114-HR-1796/.
[H.R. 1796: National Park and Wilderness Waters Protection Act](https://openamerica.io/bill/114-HR-1796/)