 The action brought national scrutiny on the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and demonstrated the power of Indigenous rights in environmentalism.Copper Range Mine Company's copper mine in White Pine, Michigan, had been an employer of thousands in the Upper Peninsula until massive layoffs in the early 1990s that put the region into economic despair.In Wisconsin, several Ojibwe bands were battling to stop sulfide mining at the proposed Crandon mine with newfound political power stemming from the Walleye War.