National Review reported recently that the Biden administration might turn 1.1 million acres of uranium-rich land in Arizona into a national monument. Biden and his entourage will visit the site next week, presumably to create the monument.
The Washington Post reports:
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.
The Senate last week unanimously passed an amendment to bolster U.S. uranium production, which Biden could be asked to authorize later this year in the Pentagon policy bill. America relies on Russia for 20 percent of its nuclear fuel and 50 percent of the natural uranium used in its nuclear reactors, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Biden — who has himself supported domestic-mining initiatives and promised to boost U.S. uranium production — is moving suspiciously fast to designate this national monument in Arizona, which will cut off some of the best uranium resources America has. There’s vast judicial (courts have defended Arizona uranium-mining many times) and now legislative support for uranium mining, which is likely why Biden must wield executive authority to declare the monument. Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts has invited challenges to this authority, which presidents have under the Antiquities Act of 1906, and implied that presidential overreach to declare millions of acres of land unusable or un-mineable is just that — overreach.
(It’s worth noting that the Post’s report on the monument ran next to an article about dependence on Russian uranium, an irony that resembles Biden’s own inconsistencies.)