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  • 2014-12-11 (xsd:date)
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  • Congress Voted to Sell Apache Land to Foreign Corporation? (en)
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  • On 9 December 2014, social media users began circulating an article titled House Votes to Sell Apache Land to Foreign Corporation, The Tribe Is Furious regarding a trade of federally managed land in Arizona (of cultural significance to the Apache) that had been appended to an unrelated and more urgent bill involving the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA): A more detailed explanation of the controversial measure observed that: Much of the claim was correct at the time it was written: a long-standing effort to pass the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act came to issue on 2 December 2014, when the measure was attached by members of the House of Representatives to a vote on funding for the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA is a United States federal law specifying the budget and expenditures of the United States Department of Defense, and as there was no substantive link between the two measures, their attachment amplified criticism that adding the land swap rider to the NDAA unreasonably suppressed opposition to the former. Native Americans and conservation groups opposed the legislative transfer of land to Resolution Copper Mining, citing both environmental and cultural concerns. Critics of the measure believed the proposed mode of transfer was heavy-handed and unwarranted: Conservation groups also objected to the privatization of public land, especially culturally significant areas: While the land in question in Arizona is culturally significant to Native American groups such as the Apache, it was not tribal land that belonged to them prior to the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act. The proposal also didn't mandate that the land be given to a mining company; rather, it would be traded for several other parcels (which although cumulatively larger in size than the property given up did not include land culturally important to local tribal groups). Nevertheless, use of the areas adjacent to the proposed mining site would likely be disrupted or devalued. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell expressed her disapproval of language in the NDAA that provided for the exchange of a 2,422 acre parcel of U.S. Forest Service land to Resolution Copper Mining, LLC for a number of parcels in Arizona to be managed by the USFS and the Bureau of Land Management by stating: On 5 November 2015, Vermont senator (and Democratic presidential candidate) Bernie Sanders introduced the Save Oak Flat Act (S. 2422), a bill seeking to repeal the authorization and requirement for a land exchange between the Department of Agriculture and Resolution Copper Mining, LLC. No action has yet been taken on that bill. Efforts have since been made to include the Oak Flat area in the National Register of Historic Places, but Republican Rep. Paul Gosar and Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, both of Arizona, have opposed that move and have asserted that such a designation would not necessarily preclude mining activity on the land: Rep. Gosar also maintained in a press release that the land in question has never been a sacred site: (en)
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