Arizona Republicans challenge Biden’s designation of a national monument near the Grand Canyon
The Arizona Legislature’s top two Republicans challenged Democratic President Joe Biden’s creation of a new national monument last summer just outside Grand Canyon National Park, saying he exceeded his legal authority in making that designation under a century-old law that allows presidents to protect places considered historic. or culturally important. In a lawsuit filed against Biden on Monday, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma alleged that Biden’s decision to designate the new monument under the Antiquities Act of 1906 does not limit was to the preservation of objects of historical or scientific value and was not limited to “the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”
The monument designation helps preserve 4,046 square miles just north and south of Grand Canyon National Park. The monument, called Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, made a decades-long vision for Native American tribes and environmentalists a reality. Republican lawmakers and the uranium mining industry that operates in the area had opposed the designation, touting the economic benefits to the region while arguing that the mining effort is a matter of national security.
“Biden’s maneuver is incredibly unfair because it has nothing to do with protecting actual artifacts,” Petersen said in a statement. “Instead, it aims to end all mining, ranching and other local uses of federal lands that are critical to our energy independence from hostile foreign nations, our food supply and the strength of our economy.”
The White House and the U.S. Department of the Interior declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Mohave County and the communities of Colorado City and Fredonia in northern Arizona have also sued the Biden administration as part of the challenge.
The lawsuit says Mohave County and Colorado City will see a loss of tax revenue due to reduced mining activity and that the land use restrictions resulting from the monument designation will reduce the value of surrounding land, including State Trust Land , which provides income to benefit Arizona’s public schools and other beneficiaries.
The Home Office, in response to concerns about the risk of water pollution, imposed a 20-year moratorium on new mining claims around the national park in 2012. There are no active uranium mines in Arizona, although the Pinyon Plain Mine, just south of Grand Canyon National Park, has been in development for years. Other claims are allowed. The federal government has said nearly a dozen mines in the area that have been withdrawn from new mining claims could still open. Just days after Biden made the designation in northern Arizona, a federal judge in Utah dismissed a lawsuit challenging the president’s restoration of two sprawling national monuments in the state that were downsized by then-President Donald Trump.
The judge said Biden acted within his authority when he issued proclamations in 2021 restoring the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. Both monuments are on land that is sacred to many Native Americans.