The Nuclear Energy Institute and the National Mining Association Monday filed a federal lawsuit looking for to reverse the Obama administration's withdrawal of one million acres of public land in Arizona from uranium mining for 20 years.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the persistence of the government's moratorium on new hardrock uranium mining claims on land nearby the Grand Canyon on January 9. The public land at issue is not within the Grand Canyon National Park or the buffer zone caring the national park.
Filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona, the industry claim argues that Salazar "lacks legal authority to make withdrawals of public lands exceeding 5,000 acres." The lawsuit contends that the land withdrawal is an "arbitrary agency action" below the Administrative Procedure Act, and that it fails to fulfill with the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to take the "hard look" at the withdrawal's consequences that the U.S. Supreme Court necessary in a unanimous 1989 decision.
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