They just don’t care what the people want.
No matter how much the overwhelming majority of Americans (including most Arizonans) makes it clear that efforts to sell off public lands and open previously protected areas to mining and other development are wildly unpopular, a hard-core group of lawmakers makes it a priority to do exactly that.
The latest tool in the hands of the would-be land grabbers is an arcane piece of federal law called the Congressional Review Act, which has been weaponized to allow Congress to disapprove regulations. From its inception in 1996 until last year, it was relatively rarely used. But in this term, Republicans have taken a far broader view of the Act’s scope, using it to reach backward and invalidate rules that were never submitted to Congress because, by longstanding practice, the issuing agency had not considered the rules to be subject to Congressional disapproval.
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In almost all instances, this tool has been used to toss out environmental protections. The most controversial and, we believe, outrageous case to date occurred last month, when the Senate voted 50-49 to invoke the Congressional Review Act to overturn a 20-year ban on mining on more than 225,000 acres of National Forest upstream of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota.
Calling the vote “a reckless assault on one of America’s last wild places,” the Center for Western Priorities wrote, “The Senate just overrode the voices of hundreds of thousands of Americans who spoke up to protect the Boundary Waters, all to benefit a Chilean mining company that plans to ship its product to China.”
We agree. And use of the CRA is moving much closer to home.
When Congress returns from its recess the week of May 11, the House is expected to take up a proposal to use the CRA to roll back the management plan for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, using this expansive — and dubious — interpretation of the act.
Such a rollback would ignore and invalidate decades of community input, and put the protection of the monument’s 1.9 million acres at risk.
It also would likely be a precursor to a similar assault on other national monuments, perhaps most notably our precious Ironwood Forest National Monument right here in Pima County.
That monument currently borders the Silverbell copper mine, and the mine has made it clear it’s interested in expanding into some of the lands currently within the borders of the monument.
Also at risk: Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni — Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, designated in 2023 by President Biden.
In times like this, it’s important that Southern Arizona can count on its congressional delegation to do the right thing, not misuse an obscure law to rip beloved public lands out of the hard-fought protected status they currently have.
It’s doubtful that Rep. Juan Ciscomani has polled his 6th Congressional District to get an accurate read on his constituents’ sentiments on this issue. He may not want to know. That way, it would be easier to do the administration’s bidding and vote to open Grand Staircase-Escalante to development.
His vote will be pivotal.
In the coming week, Ciscomani will be back in the district. While we don’t expect him to hold an open town hall, we urge his constituents to let him know however possible how they feel about this issue.
It would be wrong, and politically deadly, for him to become one of the members of Congress who disregards public sentiment on public lands — the lands that belong to all of us.
