Nuclear Industry Sues to Reverse Grand Canyon Uranium Land Withdrawal

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.

Uranium Ban at U.S. Grand Canyon Pits Tourism Against Mining

An Obama administration ban on new uranium mining near the Grand Canyon, the second most-visited U.S. national park, has touched off a argue over jobs from mining and tourism in a state that relies on both industries.The ban “comes at the cost of hundreds of high-paying jobs and approximately $10 billion worth of bustle for the Arizona economy,” Arizona Governor Janice K. Brewer, a Republican, said in a statement.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who sign the 20-year ban yesterday at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, said it was part of an effort to maintain the $3.5 billion spent by guests to the national park each year.

“Tourism, leisure are extremely much a part of job creation of the United States,” Salazar said. “The jobs associated to the Grand Canyon are not jobs that can be export anywhere, those are truly American jobs.”The ban will avoid new uranium and other hard-rock mining on about 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon National Park, which was visited by 4.5 million people in 2010, second to the Great Smoky Mountains. Previously accepted mining and new projects on claims and sites with accessible rights will be allowed, potentially leading to development of as many as 11 uranium mines, according to a declaration from the Interior Department.

Lawmakers push to lift northern Arizona uranium-mining ban

Arizona and Utah lawmakers touted a Senate bill Wednesday that would open additional than 1 million acres in the northern part of Arizona to new uranium mining the Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act would avoid the Department of the Interior from banning new uranium mines on the land, saying mining can bring hundreds of millions of dollars per year into local economies with minimal environmental risk.

The bill is a response to a provisional ban on new mines in the so-called Arizona Strip federal lands next to Grand Canyon National Park a ban that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said he would like to extend for 20 years the department is at present studying the possibility John McCain, R-Ariz., said the ban sets a precedent that the Interior Department can modify land-use agreements without congressional consent he said the Interior Department breached an agreement it complete with Congress through the Arizona Wilderness Act of 1984, which specifies uses of the Arizona Strip.

“I don’t know if any of my colleagues were consult before this decision was made, but I sure as hell wasn’t,” said McCain, the major sponsor of the bill he was joined Wednesday by Republican lawmakers from the two states the Republicans’ measure is the conflicting of a House bill introduced this spring by Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson his bill, the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act, would block additional uranium mining operations in the Arizona Strip.