Biden to create new Grand Canyon national monument to block mining

President Biden is leaning toward designating a vast area near the Grand Canyon as a national monument to safeguard it from uranium mining, according to five people familiar with the plans.

Leaders of local tribes and environmentalists have spent years lobbying to protect areas near the park from potential uranium mining, which they say would threaten aquifers and water supplies. They have asked Washington to double the protected area around the canyon by including 1.1 million acres of public lands in a Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument.

Biden is doing a tour through Arizona next week. The White House previously announced that the president would make climate change and his environmental agenda a focus of his stops on the tour.

Federal officials have started telling tribal and environmental groups to be available for a potential Grand Canyon announcement early next week, which would fall during Biden’s travel, said four of the people, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an announcement not yet public.

“No decisions have been made,” White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan said in an email. “But I can tell you that President Biden has conserved more land and water in his first year than any president since JFK, and his climate protection record is unmatched.”

Advocates have been lobbying for a monument designation in part to honor long-standing Native American connections to the Grand Canyon. For the Havasupai Tribe, Baaj Nwaavjo means “where tribes roam,” and for the Hopi Tribe, I’tah Kukveni means “our ancestral footprints.” Other tribes, including the Hualapai, which means “people of the tall pines,” also have advocated the designation.

“This monument will show that we are beginning to protect the lands of the world,” Dianna Sue WhiteDove Uqualla, a Havasupai Tribal Council member, said in a July statement anticipating the decision and provided by a coalition of monument advocates.

They have proposed that the new monument consist of three big sections, two of them on the park’s northern border and the third to its southeast, according to maps provided by advocates. The maps show that most of the uranium claims, including six existing mines, would be in the biggest section northwest of the park, part of a remote area called the Arizona Strip known for ponderosa pine forests, grassy meadows and few tourists.

Federal officials have not yet made clear the borders they will set for the designation, the people said. But two said Biden officials in recent weeks have signaled support for the proposal. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland visited the land near the Grand Canyon in May, the type of visit that often is a precursor to a presidential proclamation.

Uranium mining interests have voiced opposition to the proposal, as have some ranchers in southern Utah who graze their cattle in the winter on public lands that are part of the proposed new monument area.

Proposed protections for Grand Canyon spark fight over uranium mining

Industry officials said they will explore ways to fight the decision. They said it would lock up some of the country’s highest-grade uranium deposits at a time when such fuel would be useful to the country’s clean energy and geopolitical goals. Russia provides more than 20 percent of U.S. nuclear fuel, and Congress is actively exploring new laws to boost U.S. uranium production and enrichment in response to Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

In an email, Curtis Moore, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development for Energy Fuels — one of the few uranium miners with operations in the United States — blasted the decision as making “zero sense.”

He said it contradicts several of the administration’s stated policies, including “supporting clean energy production and punishing Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.”

Monument advocates have said only 1.3 percent of U.S. uranium reserves are in the Grand Canyon region.

Biden administration officials have said they are trying to prioritize new domestic mining for the materials to support clean energy development. But so far, Biden has made much more progress toward his conservation goals.

That includes several announcements just this year — often in partnership with Native Americans — to advance his pledge to protect 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. The president has said he is committed to protecting wildlife and limiting the sources of planet-warming emissions in proclamations this year to protect a former military training and testing site in El Paso called Castner Range, the area around the Avi Kwa Ame (ah-VEE-kwah-may) sacred tribal site in southern Nevada, and U.S. waters in the Arctic Ocean.

The announcement would help kick off an effort to promote Biden’s climate agenda, including progress from last year’s major climate-spending law, the Inflation Reduction Act. Biden is planning a three-state tour, with other stops in New Mexico and Utah, to talk about billions of dollars of investment that the law has prompted manufacturing companies to commit to making equipment that produces cleaner energy.

Arizona has become a major focus for Biden and other Democrats as they have gained ground politically in the state. The state has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of their big spending bills, with more than $8 billion in planned investment in a giant battery factory and other manufacturing developments, especially near Phoenix, according to the advocacy group Climate Power, which tracks such announcements.

The state also has experienced several emergencies related to climate change this year. It set heat records with temperatures above 110 degrees throughout July and has fought several neighboring states over water rights for supplies available from the shrinking Colorado River during an extreme drought across the region.

Although tribes and conservation advocates have long been concerned about mining near the Grand Canyon, the ongoing water crisis had led them to put more emphasis on several streams in the proposed monument that could be vulnerable.

Environmental groups point to a Colorado College poll from this year that showed vast support among Arizonans for action on conservation and water protections. That includes 62 percent support for legislation to permanently ban new mining on public lands surrounding the canyon.

In 2012, the Obama administration blocked new mining on federal land in the area for 20 years. The Trump administration then unsuccessfully proposed reopening the land to new uranium mining in 2020. The 20-year ban expires in January 2032, leading advocates to call for permanent protections.

A coalition of several tribes, including the local Havasupai and Hopi, have advocated for Biden to make a national monument designation under the 1906 Antiquities Act. Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Arizona’s two senators — Mark Kelly, a Democrat, and Kyrsten Sinema, an independent — have pushed legislation to make the moratorium permanent but have faced opposition in the Republican-controlled House.

Joshua Partlow and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez contributed to this report.