A recent decision by a district court in Minnesota, Izaak Walton League v. St. Clair,¹ has brought again to national consciousness the anomalous exemption granted to mining activities² in the Wilderness Act of 1964.³ That exemption,⁴ allegedly inserted into the Wilderness Act by former Rep. Wayne Aspinall as the price of reporting the bill out of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs,⁵ has been viewed with alarm by environmentalists, but has not heretofore been the subject of reported litigation.⁶

St. Clair made national headlines⁷ because sweeping language in the section of the opinion entitled "Conclusion" apparently struck down the entire mining activities exemption, and perhaps other provisions in the Wilderness Act that limit the absolute protection of the wilderness character of designated areas:⁸