Permanent Grand Canyon Mining Ban Advances to the Senate

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

The Grand Canyon region is no place to mine uranium. Indigenous tribes and nations have long known this and the Havasupai Tribe has led the decades-long campaign to protect the region — their homeland — from uranium mining. In 2021, that hard work is bearing fruit.

In the span of just two weeks, the Grand Canyon Protection Act, a bill that would make permanent a current temporary mining ban on about 1 million acres of public lands near Grand Canyon National Park, has been introduced in both chambers and passed out of the House. 

ABOUT THE BILLS
H.B. 1052, the House version of the Grand Canyon Protection Act ›
S. 387, the Senate version of the Grand Canyon Protection Act ›

Mining interests hold over 600 active mining claims around the Grand Canyon, apparently still counting on the day when the temporary ban will be lifted, especially after they lobbied the Trump administration and Congress for millions of taxpayer dollars to pay them above market price for uranium mined from U.S. soil.

But the bottom line is our country doesn’t need to mine uranium around the Grand Canyon. Only 0.2 percent of identified uranium resources are located on public lands protected by the temporary mining ban here. And industry itself has admitted that the entire state of Arizona holds just 2.2 percent of all reasonably assured uranium resources in the country.

Take action. Urge your senators to support, co-sponsor, and push for a committee hearing for the Grand Canyon Protection Act ›

Quick progress

Just a week after the Grand Canyon Protection Act was introduced in the House by Arizona Congressman Raúl Grijalva and 15 original co-sponsors, including four more members of Arizona’s congressional delegation, representatives O’Halleran, Gallego, Stanton, and Kirkpatrick, Arizona senators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly introduced their own version of the bill in the Senate.

In announcing the Senate bill, Sinema and Kelly pointed to the fact that the Grand Canyon welcomes over 6 million visitors a year, contributes $1.2 billion to local economies, and supports over 12,500 jobs in the region, which underlines the fact that tourism, not mining, drives northern Arizona’s economy.

On Friday, February 26, 2021, the 102nd anniversary of the creation of Grand Canyon National Park, the House passed Congressman Grijalva’s bill with bipartisan support. This is an exciting step forward to permanently protect the Grand Canyon region and its precious waters from the threat of uranium contamination. Now the focus turns to the Senate.

What to expect in the Senate

While things moved quickly through the House, the first thing we can expect in the Senate is for things to slow down a bit. The house bill was able to move quickly as “unfinished business,” which essentially means that because this bill had passed through in the House in 2019 and 2020, House leadership permitted the bill to skip yet another committee hearing and instead move straight from introduction to the House floor for a vote.

Unlike the House bill, the previous version of the Senate bill did not get a committee hearing in the last Congress, so the next step will be for the Senate version of the Grand Canyon Protection Act to get a hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. A committee hearing is a chance for senators of both political parties to call witnesses to provide expert testimony around different aspects of the bill. The bill may be amended during this process before it is voted on by committee members and sent to the Senate floor for debate and a vote. 

Contact your senators

Exactly when a Senate committee hearing will be held is unclear at this stage, but rest assured, we’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, you can help permanently protect the Grand Canyon from the threat of new uranium mines by contacting your senators. Either thank them if they’re already listed as a sponsor or co-sponsor of the Grand Canyon Protection Act, or ask them to support and co-sponsor the bill.