March, 13 2012, 04:32pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Tel: (520) 623.5252,Email:,center@biologicaldiversity.org
Grand Canyon Uranium Mining Ban Defended in Court by Havasupai-Environmental Coalition
Mining Threatens Water, Wildlife, Sacred Lands
WASHINGTON
Arizona's Havasupai Tribe and conservation groups filed legal papers on Monday to defend the U.S. Department of the Interior's 20-year ban on new uranium mining claims across 1 million acres of public lands adjacent to the Grand Canyon.
The Havasupai Tribe, Grand Canyon Trust, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club and National Parks Conservation Association filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit filed last November in U.S. district court in Arizona by uranium prospector Gregory Yount. The motion seeks to defend Interior's decision to protect the Grand Canyon's springs and creeks, wildlife and vistas from new uranium-mining pollution; the interveners are represented by public-interest law firms Earthjustice and Western Mining Action Project.
"The Havasupai Tribal Council and the Havasupai people strongly support the Department of the Interior's January 2012 decision to withdraw 1 million acres of public lands from new mining claims," said Matthew Putesoy, Sr., Havasupai tribal vice chairman. "The Havasupai Tribe has long opposed mining on our aboriginal lands because of the threat uranium mining poses to our traditional uses, practices, sacred places, and to the plants, wildlife, air and water."
Ted Zukoski, Earthjustice staff attorney who is representing the groups in the lawsuit, said: "The lands surrounding the Grand Canyon are full of natural beauty. The life-giving waters and deer, elk, condors, and other wildlife found there deserve protection from the toxic pollution and industrialization threatened by large-scale uranium mining. We intend to defend these lands from this ill-considered attack by the uranium industry."
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued the 20-year ban in January; it prohibits new mining claims and mine development on existing claims without valid permits. Mr. Yount's lawsuit alleges that the Interior Department's exhaustive, 700-page evaluation of environmental impacts was inadequate.
In the past month, two similar suits were filed by mining and uranium-industry trade associations. The groups filing Monday plan to intervene in those cases also.
"The Grand Canyon is an icon across the globe, a biodiversity hotspot and the economic engine for a whole region," said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Interior's decision to protect it from toxic uranium-mining pollution was undeniably the right one, and we'll vigorously defend it."
Uranium pollution already plagues the Grand Canyon and surrounding area. Proposals for new mining have prompted protests, litigation and proposed legislation. Because dozens of new mines threaten to industrialize iconic and sacred natural areas, destroy wildlife habitat and pollute or deplete aquifers, scientists, tribal and local governments and businesses have all voiced support for the new protections enacted by Interior.
"We are pleased the Obama administration took the action necessary to protect Grand Canyon National Park, as are the many visitors, businesses and organizations, local governments and Native American tribes who care about the park and the surrounding public lands," said Sandy Bahr, Sierra Club's Grand Canyon chapter director. "The Sierra Club is proud of its 100-plus year history of acting to protect the Grand Canyon, and we will continue this work by doing all we can to ensure that uranium mines are not allowed to contaminate the groundwater and threaten streams and drinking water."
One of the great symbols of the American West, the Grand Canyon was first protected as a national monument by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908, and is surrounded by millions of additional acres of public lands that include wilderness areas, two national monuments, lands designated to protect endangered species and cultural resources, and ponderosa pine forests. The canyon area is also home to the Havasupai, Kaibab Band of Paiutes, Hualapai and Navajo tribes. The greater Grand Canyon region attracts about 5 million tourists and recreationists per year. The Grand Canyon has been designated a "World Heritage" site.
"Tourism, not mining, is the mainstay of the region's economy," said David Nimkin, Southwest regional director of National Parks and Conservation Association. "Millions enjoy the Grand Canyon each year and power the economic engine for much of the Southwest's tourist industry. The last thing visitors want to find when visiting the Grand Canyon is industrial development and uranium mines."
Interior's study of the mining timeout was released in October 2011. It showed that without a withdrawal in place, 26 new uranium mines and 700 uranium exploration projects would be developed, resulting in more than 1,300 acres of surface disturbance and the consumption of 316 million gallons of water. Under the ban, existing mining continues, but present mine operations are projected to have about one-tenth of the surface impacts and one-third the water usage of a no-withdrawal alternative over a 20-year period. With new uranium mining, the increased potential for depletion and contamination of aquifers could pollute springs and seeps, resulting in uranium levels twice as high as EPA drinking standards, endangering public health and wildlife, and compromising the values of the tribes who consider the springs sacred.
Water utilities in Arizona, California and Nevada have expressed serious concerns about possible contamination of the Colorado River if uranium mining is permitted around the Grand Canyon and the potential devastating effect it could have on the 25 million people in their states that rely on water from the Colorado River for drinking and agriculture.
"Uranium mining imposes well-documented and unacceptable risks to the people and natural resources of our region," said Grand Canyon Trust program director Roger Clark. "The lawsuit demonstrates how little industry cares -- in the face of thorough impact studies, and massive local, tribal, economic and public sentiment against new mining -- about the many negative consequences associated with rampant industrialization of Grand Canyon's watersheds."
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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As Ramadan Begins, Ilhan Omar Introduces House Resolution to Condemn Islamophobia
"In order to confront the evils of religious bigotry and hatred, we must come to understand that all our destinies are linked," said Omar, a former refugee from Somalia and one of two Muslim women in Congress.
Mar 23, 2023
Joined by Democratic House colleagues and activists outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday—the first full day of Ramadan—Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar announced a new resolution condemning Islamophobia and commemorating the recent anniversary of the 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand mosque massacre.
Omar's office said the resolution—which is co-sponsored by more than 20 House Democrats—"comes after continued violence and threats made against religious minorities, particularly Muslims," while adding that the March 15, 2019 murder of 51 Muslim worshippers at the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch by an Australian white supremacist "was a stated source of inspiration for mass shootings in the United States."
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Omar said:
As we begin the holy month of Ramadan, we must reaffirm that all people of faith should have the right to worship without fear. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, anti-Muslim hate crimes and attacks are at an all-time high. The attack in Christchurch, motivated by an extremist ideology of white supremacy, anti-Muslim hate, and the so-called replacement theory resonates deeply for Muslims in nearly every corner of the globe.
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Robert McCaw, director of government relations at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also spoke at Thursday's event, saying that "it is with a heavy heart that CAIR welcomes Omar's resolution," which "recognizes the threat posed by rising global Islamophobia to American Muslims and Muslims in other countries across the world, as well as the threat white supremacism poses to all people."
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The House GOP, which now narrowly controls the chamber, voted last month to remove Omar from the foreign affairs panel. Just before the vote, the congresswoman said that Republicans "are not OK with having a Muslim have a voice on that committee."
Omar's new federal resolution stood in stark contrast with Texas state Rep. Tony Tinderholt's (R-94) vote against a legislative resolution celebrating Ramadan.
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"Texas and America were founded on Christian principles and my faith as a Christian prevents me from celebrating Ramadan," Tinderholt added.
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Two days after President Joe Biden's administration rejected a petition asking federal regulators to use their authority to lower the astronomical price of a lifesaving prostate cancer drug developed entirely with public funds, petitioners on Thursday filed an administrative appeal.
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In their appeal, the petitioners wrote: "The petition focused on a single issue: the reasonableness of charging U.S. cancer patients three to six times more than residents of other high-income countries for the drug Xtandi."
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"If you consider both of these requests together, a petition to exercise the government's march-in or other rights in the Xtandi patents has been pending before the federal government for more than four years," Thursday's appeal states. "The HHS petition was filed 16 months ago."
It continues:
The petitions were filed with the DOD and HHS instead of the NIH because the NIH has repeatedly demonstrated its unwillingness to even acknowledge that the Bayh-Dole Act includes an obligation to make products invented with federal funds 'available to the public on reasonable terms.' This is demonstrated by a track record of dismissing multiple requests to use the government's Bayh-Dole safeguard to address pricing abuses and access restrictions, including those concerning the federal government's march-in rights under 35 USC § 203, and the federal government's global royalty-free license, under 35 USC § 202(c)(4). There are also extensive email records between Mark Rohrbaugh, currently NIH special adviser for technology transfer who is a long-time agency official, and lobbyists for drug companies and university rights holders, obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, which not only express opposition to any safeguards regarding unreasonable pricing but organize public relations efforts against using a march-in request to address the pricing of products.
"HHS chose to assign to the NIH the evaluation of our petition regarding Xtandi," says the appeal. "We request HHS to consider this appeal directly, and not assign NIH to review its own decision. The latter would be tantamount to no review at all."
Since Bayh-Dole was enacted in 1980, "march-in rights have never been used... and NIH has repeatedly rejected the idea that affordability is a reasonable term," The American Prospectreported Wednesday. With Xtandi, "advocates thought they found the perfect test case for a new administration that paid lip service to lowering prescription drug costs."
As The Levernoted on Wednesday, the NIH's decision this week was consistent with Biden's track record:
Biden was vice president when the Obama administration rejected congressional Democrats' demand that the government use the same power to lower the skyrocketing prices of medicine in America.
As a senator in 2000, Biden was one of just eight Democrats who helped pharmaceutical lobbyists kill a measure spearheaded by Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) and then-Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have reinstated the Reagan-era requirement that drug companies sell medicines developed with public money at a reasonable price.
That requirement was repealed by the Clinton administration in 1995, following pressure by drugmakers.
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As the attorney general of California in the summer of 2020, "Becerra demanded the Trump administration use existing law to lower the price of medicines that were originally developed at taxpayer expense," The Lever reported. "As a member of Congress in 2016, Becerra signed on to a letter to the Obama Department of Health and Human Services calling on officials to broadly use 'march-in rights' to lower the cost of prescription drugs—including 'specialty drugs, like those to treat cancer, which are frequently developed with taxpayer funds.'"
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"Yet again, the constitutionality of the CFPB has been upheld, as it has been time and time before," said Warren.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the bureau Thursday in a case stemming from a debt collector's attempt to avoid a subpoena from the CFPB in 2017.
A lower court ruled in the case in August 2020 that the bureau's funding structure is constitutional, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said last year in the case set to be heard by the Supreme Court that the funding violates the Constitution's appropriations clause and the separation of executive and legislative powers.
The CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve rather than through appropriations voted on annually by lawmakers.
Writing for the three-judge 2nd Circuit panel that voted unanimously in favor of the bureau, Judge Richard Sullivan noted that the justice system "has consistently interpreted the appropriations clause to mean simply that 'the payment of money from the Treasury must be authorized by a statute,'"—which doesn't apply to the CFPB since it receives no funding from the U.S. Treasury Department.
An upcoming ruling by the Supreme Court that supports the 2nd Circuit's finding would "mark a major win for everyday consumers impacted by abusive fees, predatory lenders, and corporate greed," said government watchdog Accountable.US.
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