Justin McAfee / Courtesy
The Newberry Mountains are part of Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. Arizona Republicans are challenging President Joe Biden’s designation in 2023 of 1,500 square miles near the Grand Canyon as a national monument.
Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024 | 2 a.m.
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Visitors look at the awe-inspiring scale and grandeur of the Grand Canyon and likely imagine that the national park is vast and safe for future generations of Americans. But substantial areas of it haven’t been protected at all — until now.
Last year, President Joe Biden invoked his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni — Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. The national monument designation protects and conserves more than 1,500 square miles of the area immediately surrounding Grand Canyon National Park — land that is beloved for its beauty and is sacred to numerous tribal nations and Indigenous people. The boundaries of the monument include areas that go right up to the edge of the canyon, but which are not currently included in the national park designation.
By creating the new national monument, Biden seeks to extend protections north and south on the rim plateau, effectively creating a buffer zone surrounding the canyon, protecting it for future generations.
All of that could change if an effort by anti-preservation extremists in Arizona succeeds.
Last week, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma, the two highest-ranking Republicans in the state legislature, filed a lawsuit challenging the authority granted by the Antiquities Act and Biden’s discretion in designating national monuments.
The Antiquities Act allows the president to set aside “objects of historic or scientific interest” as national monuments, provided the designated land is located on federal property and is “confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”
Despite a century of court cases affirming the president’s authority to create national monuments, the Arizona GOP leaders contend that Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni does not meet the standards required by the Antiquities Act and is instead a ruse to prevent mining in the region.
In a statement, Peterson called the Biden administration’s creation of the monument “incredibly disingenuous” and said it “has nothing to do with protecting actual artifacts.”
The thousands of Indigenous Americans who have called the land home for generations and consider it sacred might disagree.
More than a dozen tribal nations in the Southwest — including the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, Moapa Band of Paiutes, Havasupai Tribe, Hopi Tribe, Hualapai Tribe, Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, Navajo Nation, San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, Yavapai-Apache Nation, Pueblo of Zuni, and the Colorado River Indian Tribes — consider the land within the national monument to be of special historic, cultural and religious significance.
The region is also home to unique landscapes and ecosystems that have inspired spiritual songs and parables that reference sites within the monument, such as Gray Mountain, or Dziłbeeh as it is called by the Navajo; or Red Butte, a sacred site called Wii’i Gdwiisa by the Havasupai, which towers above the southern portion of the monument.
Failing to protect these sites would be akin to allowing a pit mine at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Kaaba or the Temple Mount. It’s simply unacceptable and should not be allowed.
Moreover, by challenging the longstanding interpretation of the Antiquities Act, the GOP leaders’ lawsuit threatens all national monuments established by the act, including Nevada’s Avi Kwa Ame and Basin and Range and national monuments.
Ironically, the case that established the current interpretation involved an Arizona businessman and miner who challenged President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1908 creation of the Grand Canyon National Monument, which was created more than a decade before the canyon received the additional protection of being designated a national park.
While a century of jurisprudence might once have been considered “settled law,” the current Supreme Court’s willingness to overturn decades-old precedent, especially on issues of environmental protection, should raise alarms. Moreover, a 2021 statement by Chief Justice Roberts appears to invite challenges to the current interpretation of the Antiquities Act.
In an unnecessary, unusual and lengthy statement in a case about the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, Roberts said the Antiquities Act lacks “any meaningful restraint,” and thus contains “a power without any discernible limit to set aside vast and amorphous expanses of terrain above and below the sea.” This statement implies that Roberts would vote to overturn the current interpretation of the Antiquities Act, creating opportunities for political, business, ranching and mining interests to leverage short-term profits ahead of long-term cultural and environmental protection, preservation and conservation.
National monument designations are not arbitrary or easily granted; there is a rigorous and detailed process in which the costs, benefits, risks, rewards and concerns of all stakeholders are considered. The federal government has an inherent stake in creating national parks, monuments and wilderness areas because it has a responsibility to ensure that cultural, scientific and natural treasures are retained for future generations of Americans. This is a profound obligation and not one to be taken lightly.
That’s why it is essential for voters to elect congressional representatives who will strengthen the Antiquities Act and further codify presidential authority to establish and maintain national monuments.
Nevadans are fortunate to have delegations in the House and Senate that believe in protecting landscapes that are sacred and beautiful for future generations. All but one of our federal legislators earned a score of 95% or higher on the League of Conservation Voters 2022 legislative scorecard. The outlier, unsurprisingly, is Republican Mark Amodei, who has repeatedly voted against federal protections for numerous places of historic, religious and cultural importance, including voting against the Grand Canyon Protection Act of 2021.
State politics, by their nature, tend to be of the moment, and that’s why the federal government and the presidency has been vested with the power to protect things for Americans yet unborn. We should take that responsibility seriously and pass on to future generations a country which is as pristine as possible and a culture that has kept important sites intact.
