Arizona’s elected leaders, Treasurer Kimberly Yee, Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma, are suing the Biden Administration for what they say is a violation of the Antiquities Act, with the creation of the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.
The complaint, filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, attempts to reverse Biden’s confiscation of nearly a million acres of land within Coconino and Mohave Counties, now designated as a “national monument.” The complaint demands judicial intervention to stop what the leaders call an “unlawful land grab.”
Biden created the new monument last year, which comprises over 900,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in Mohave County and Coconino County in Northern Arizona.
The elected leaders say that in doing so, President Biden isolated tens of thousands of acres of state trust lands, causing economic harm to the beneficiaries, primarily K-12 education in Arizona.
The parties argue the Biden Administration’s land seizure is a violation of the Antiquities Act. This limited statute Congress enacted in 1906 allows Presidents to reserve small tracts of federal land to protect historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, or other objects of historic or scientific interest.
Under the Act, the president is to reserve “the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.” The coalition asserts this did not happen, and the guardrails Congress established to create a check on the President’s power have been violated.
“We must protect the value of state trust lands for the future of Arizona. This unlawful land grab by the Biden Administration will directly affect Arizona’s economy and the livelihoods of our citizens,” said Yee. “The Federal Government needs to compensate the permanent school fund for the tens of thousands of trust land parcels left economically isolated by the stroke of the pen by President Biden. This big hand of government will hurt our K-12 education beneficiaries the most.”
“This federal confiscation promises to wreak havoc on our local and state economies, jeopardize the livelihoods of our citizens, and compromise national security, all in an attempt to score cheap political points with radical environmentalists,” said Petersen. “Biden’s maneuver is incredibly disingenuous, as it has nothing to do with protecting actual artifacts. Instead, it aims to halt all mining, ranching, and other local uses of federal lands that are critical to our energy independence from adversary foreign nations, our food supply, and the strength of our economy. Needless to say, I’m incredibly disappointed our Attorney General has once again failed to carry out the duties of her office in defending our state against this reckless federal overreach and is instead showing her complicity with Biden’s extremist agenda. Nonetheless, we look forward to prevailing in court and for the president’s abuse of power to be reined in.”
The monument designation prohibits further use and development of the BLM land which surrounds the state trust land, even though those lands are available for the mining of important natural resources, such as uranium, that financially benefit Arizona’s state and local governments and schools.
“The suit affirms that Congress passed the Antiquities Act to protect just that: antiquities. It did not pass the law to allow the Biden Administration to declare every inch of federal land a monument,” said Yee.
Yee and the Arizona State Legislature through Toma and Petersen are also joined in the lawsuit by Mohave County and the towns of Colorado City and Fredonia.