AZ Senate leader urges Burgum to reverse Biden-Obama 'land grabs' on uranium sites
Arizona's Senate president will urge Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to undo former President Joe Biden's "land grab" in the Grand Canyon State that he said wrongly cordoned off nearly 1 million acres in the state for future energy exploration.
State Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, said in a letter to President Donald Trump's new Cabinet official – and obtained by Fox News Digital – that he will take swift and sweeping actions like undoing certain national monument designations to "Make America Energy Dominant Again."
"On his first day in office, President Trump directed you and the rest of his cabinet to immediately identify and rescind all agency actions that impose an undue burden on the development of domestic energy resources like critical minerals and nuclear energy resources," Petersen wrote.
Biden's proclamation making 900,000 acres near the Grand Canyon the "Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni" or "Ancestral Footprints National Monument" nixed any exploration of what scientists believe is more than 300 million pounds of uranium, according to Petersen.
Undoing that "land grab" would both make the U.S. less reliant on foreign uranium and be a potential energy source breakthrough.
Notably, during Trump's first administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions looked into allegations of a "racketeering scheme" involving Russian entities trying to forward Moscow's energy goals within the U.S., in relation to the sale of the company Uranium One to Russian energy giant Rosatom – in what Trump called the "Real Russia Story" of the 2016 election cycle.
In 2017, Hillary Clinton maintained allegations of Clinton or Clinton Foundation involvement in the Uranium One situation were "debunked repeatedly."
According to the left-wing Center for American Progress, the Biden administration issued protections for 28 million acres in Alaska to keep them from the reach of oil and gas interests, as well as 625 marine acres along coastlines for similar reasons.
"Virtually all of the uranium used in America comes from foreign powers," Petersen wrote, adding that former President Barack Obama also enacted a ban on domestic uranium mining during his term.
"President Biden's action made this prohibition permanent," he said.
In 2018, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case in which the Ninth Circuit ruled against the GOP and mining interests as they hoped to nix the ban – announced by then-Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar as a block on new mining on federal lands near the Grand Canyon for 20 years.
Petersen estimated the uranium beneath Ancestral Footprints is equivalent to 13 billion barrels of oil in an area the size of Rhode Island – and that he and other Arizona officials have fought such "land grabs" for more than a decade.
As leader of Arizona's upper chamber, Petersen said the feds already own nearly half of the land in his state. The newest national monument does nothing to protect the Grand Canyon, as critics reportedly claimed.
Included among the justifications for the new monument, he said, was the protection of the northern grasshopper mouse, which can reportedly carry fleas infected with the plague.
Petersen told Fox News Digital on Monday that the previous administration "trashed the Constitution to steal land and critical resources from Arizonans" and that he led the fight against such "generational theft" from the people of Arizona.
"I look forward to working with the Trump Administration to reverse the rampant federal overreach and allow Arizona to regain control over its Tenth Amendment rights."
"We know President Trump and Secretary Burgum will help make Arizona great again as our state and nation heal from the unconstitutional onslaught of the previous administration."
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Submit an Opinion Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent. We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
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