Republican Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar has introduced bills in the U.S. House of Representatives that would nullify two national monuments in the state.
The legislation would rescind former President Joe Biden’s 2023 declaration of the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni–Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.
A second Gosar bill would nullify the Ironwood Forest National Monument in southern Arizona, which was declared by former President Bill Clinton in 2000.
The nearly 190,000-acre area is a biologically rich swath of the Sonoran Desert northwest of Tucson.
Both Biden and Clinton used the 1906 Antiquities Act in making the federal designations.
Gosar says the monuments lock up federal lands and prevent mining, energy development and other uses that fuel the economy.
“The Antiquities Act was never intended to be a tool for radical environmentalists and their political cronies in Washington, D.C. to block access to America’s abundant and much-needed resources,” Gosar said. “Thankfully, the Trump administration is reconsidering both of these national monuments as executive abuses under the Antiquities Act.”
Biden designated the nearly million-acre Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni–Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument in part to block expanded uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. The monument also encompasses lands that are culturally significant to numerous tribes including the Havasupai, Navajo and Hopi.
Tribal leaders and environmental advocates have fought uranium mining in the area for years. The Pinyon Plain Mine, located less than 10 miles from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, is currently the only active uranium mine within the monument lands.
“Both monuments enjoy deep public support for safeguarding things like cultural sites, globally unique biodiversity, and the Grand Canyon’s precious water,” says Tayor McKinnon, Southwest director with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Gosar’s bills mark a new low in his career of servicing industry’s interests over the public’s.”
