Remembering 2011 Milestones
October 12th: Senators and Congressmen Introduce the Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Mike Lee (R-UT) and U.S. Congressmen Trent Franks (AZ-02), Rob Bishop (UT-01), Jeff Flake (AZ-06), Paul Gosar (AZ-01), David Schweikert (AZ-05) and Ben Quayle (AZ-03) today introduced the Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act of 2011. This legislation will stop the U.S. Department of the Interior from banning mining in a vast area of Arizona, and killing jobs in the uranium mining industry.
In a recent letter to Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, several members of Congress wrote in protest of the Secretary’s proposed one million acre withdrawal of mining rights. The members stated the withdrawal has nothing to do with protecting the Grand Canyon environment but is actually ‘de facto wilderness’ for a region that conservationists previously agreed would remain accessible to the mining industry. The Interior Department’s own environmental study on the proposed withdrawal found ‘no conclusive evidence’ that modern-day mining operations in this area are harming the Grand Canyon watershed.
The Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act of 2011 would uphold the historic agreement embodied by the Arizona Wilderness Act of 1984 (AWA) that designated parts of the Arizona Strip as Wilderness and restored other lands to reasonable and safe uranium mining uses. The letter points out that the AWA “expressly refrained from banning mining on the Arizona Strip.”
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“After having his ‘wild lands’ policy resoundingly rejected by Utahns and other state and local officials, Secretary Salazar appears intent upon using whatever authority he can claim to lock up lands in the western states,” said Senator Lee. “The withdrawal of one million acres of mining rights also reneges on a compromise between the federal government and the mining industry negotiated in good faith almost thirty years ago, setting an unwelcome precedent that could have future negative consequences. This legislation will stand as yet another rebuke of the administration’s relentless pursuit of federal land grabs and reinforce the message that the people, not federal bureaucrats, should be the final authority on what happens to land within their state’s borders.”
On Twitter
SenMikeLee
Obama Administration announced today that they are killing more #jobs by banning uranium #mining in Arizona: http://ow.ly/8nlZf #salazar
SenLeeComs
LEE: Obama “has proven incapable of using even the slightest bit of common sense when it comes to lands policy” http://bit.ly/xb04Tc #utpol
SenLeePressSec
Just visited the Morgan County News. They’ve been in operation since 1923! http://pic.twitter.com/ig8Fbipi
SenLeeResearch
In 2011, the govnt spent $175k studying how cocaine affects quail mating habits: http://thedc.com/t5Cu1w #thisisyourquailondrugs #tcot #tlot
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