Arizona Republicans lose bid to block Grand Canyon monument protections

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit
that Arizona GOP lawmakers brought last year aiming to strike down
former President Joe Biden’s national monument designation near the
Grand Canyon.  

The lawsuit
argued that Biden did not have the power to create the Baaj Nwaavjo
I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National
Monument. They also claimed it harms both the state and local
communities by permanently barring uranium mining — limiting the state’s
potential future revenue — and complicating land development. 

However, Judge Stephen McNamee ruled
that the Arizona Legislature and the other plaintiffs did not have
standing to sue based on their claims surrounding legislative status,
resource injury, impingement of water rights, reduced revenue and
economic development, and increased burdens.

“As no Plaintiff has standing, the
Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over this matter and dismisses
the parties’ complaints,” McNamee wrote in the dismissal.

Senate President Warren Petersen and
former House Speaker Ben Toma, both Republicans, filed the lawsuit last
year, asking the court to declare the monument’s creation unlawful and
set aside its designation. 

They were joined by State Treasurer
Kimberly Yee, Mohave County, Colorado City, the town of Fredonia and a
cattle rancher from northern Arizona.

The cattle rancher claimed the
monument covers a significant portion of his land, exposing him to
“severe regulatory burdens and the threat of criminal penalties for
engaging in everyday conduct” on his ranch.

Although the case has been dismissed,
Petersen said they are reviewing the ruling and will likely file an
appeal. And if the courts won’t do it, he said President Donald Trump
will.

“We are confident this
unconstitutional land grab will be reversed, either by the courts or by
the Trump Administration,” Petersen said in a statement emailed to the
Arizona Mirror.

Trump downsized two national
monuments in southern Utah during his first term: the Grand
Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears. Biden restored protections for both
monuments during his administration.

Supporters are concerned over the possibility of the monument near the Grand Canyon being downsized or reversed. 

Grand Canyon Trust attorney Aaron
Paul said the Trump administration’s actions in its first weeks in
office, including the newly appointed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s order to review all of the country’s national monuments
for potential oil and gas drilling and mining reserves, are cause for
alarm about the future of Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni—Ancestral
Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.

Paul said there is “no doubt” that conversation groups and tribes expect political challenges. 

“I hope that folks who oppose the
monument will come to understand how broad the support is for national
monuments like Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni and that we can move on to
planning the monument management in a productive, meaningful way,” he
said. 

The Grand Canyon Trust recently released the results of a poll on Arizona voters’s support for national monuments. The poll found that 80% of Arziona voters support Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukven, and 88% support the Antiquities Act. 

“This court order is great news for
the remarkable cultural and biodiversity values that the Baaj Nwaavjo
I’tah Kukveni National Monument protects,” Taylor McKinnon, the
southwest director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a
statement. 

“The public supports this iconic
monument and the wisdom of the Tribes who proposed and fought for it,”
McKinnon added. “Any further attacks from uranium industry surrogates or
opponents of public lands will be wildly unpopular and meet fierce
resistance.”

Tribal nations also celebrated the
court’s decision, which protects a culturally significant region held
sacred by multiple tribes in the state.

Havasupai Tribe Chairwoman Bernadine Jones said in a press release that the designation of the national monument was the direct result of tireless advocacy by her tribe and its members. 

The Havasupai Tribe’s land is over
188,000 acres of canyon land and broken plateaus bordering the western
edge of the Grand Canyons’ south rim. Supai, its main village, is
located eight miles below the rim of the Grand Canyon.

“We fought for decades to protect
these lands, and we’re grateful that the source has dismissed the
challenge to those hard-won protections,” Jones said.

The lands of Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah
Kukveni include cultural and sacred places of the Havasupai Tribe, Hopi
Tribe, Hualapai Tribe, Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, Las Vegas Paiute
Tribe, Moapa Band of Paiutes, Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, Navajo
Nation, San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, Yavapai-Apache Nation, Pueblo of
Zuni, and the Colorado River Indian Tribes. 

Native American Rights Fund Deputy
Director Matthew Campbell said in a press release that tribal nations in
the Grand Canyon region have had to fight incredibly hard for the
protections Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni upheld.

Campbell said over and over the
cultural needs and health of Indigenous people in the region have been
“sidelined in order to maximize corporate profits.”

The court’s decision cannot undo the
damage that has already been done, Campbell said, but it does leave in
place some “long-sought protections going forward.”

The monument will protect thousands
of historical and scientific objects, sacred sites, vital water sources,
and the ancestral homelands of many Indigenous communities.

The monument’s name comes from the
Indigenous names the Havasupai and Hopi gave to the area. In the
Havasupai language, Baaj Nwaavjo means “where Indigenous peoples roam,”
while I’tah Kukveni means “our ancestral footprints” in the Hopi
language.

Hopi Tribe Vice Chairman Craig
Andrews said in a press release that protecting the tribe’s homelands
within the national monument represents the resilience of its people.

“These lands preserve our history,
our life, and our future,” he said. “We have lived in this region since
time immemorial and our commitment to protect these lands will extend
forward just as long.”

Paul said the judge’s dismissal is a
victory for the monument because it puts off further litigation and
reassures that the monument can continue protecting what it is meant to,
including the cultural and ancestral sites of the tribal nations.

When the lawsuit was filed,
Republicans called the creation of the monument a “dictator-style land
grab,” and Petersen said that it would wreak havoc on local and state
economies, jeopardize livelihoods and compromise national security.

Paul said the idea behind the
monument designation was a “land grab” has no basis in history or law
because there was “not one square inch of land” that was not already
under federal ownership. 

“The idea that the federal government
took away something from the Arizona Legislature or Mohave County is
just plain wrong,” he added. 

Paul said the lawsuit’s dismissal
shows that the designation of the national monument, which protects the
land near the Grand Canyon, does not harm the Arizona legislator or a
rancher in northern Arizona.