Blog: Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act of 2022 - Building a Clean Energy Future

On April 26th, Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva introduced the Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act of 2022 (H.R.7580) a bill to modernize and reform the country’s Mining Law of 1872, a 150-year-old hard rock mining law which has remained virtually unchanged since its enactment. HECHO is working closely with Congressman Grijalva’s office to engage our Hispanic Conservation Leadership Council on this bill which would work towards solutions on two of HECHO’s active campaigns - protecting the Grand Canyon Watershed from uranium mining, and saving Oak Flat from a destructive copper mine. 

This is a critical piece of legislation at a time when mining companies are relentlessly trying to encroach on public and tribal lands with inadequate measures to protect against pollution of nearby watersheds in the execution and aftermath of their operations.  

As is the case with the uranium industry’s effort to mine on federal public lands near the Grand Canyon that unnecessarily threatens the region’s booming tourism industry, which itself supports over 12,000 jobs and encourages the protection and preservation of the natural wonder. Concerns about uranium mining near the Grand Canyon are rooted in the poor precedent set by the mining industry regarding extraction and reclamation efforts. Past uranium-mining activities, alone, have had a serious toll across the Colorado Plateau, especially on Native American lands. Estimates suggest that there have been over 1,000 mines and four uranium mills on the Navajo Nation lands alone. Today, more than 500 of those mines have been abandoned by the mining companies that operated them and remain in need of cleanup. In 2008, several U.S. and tribal government agencies identified 29 water sources with uranium levels that exceeded safe drinking water standards in the Navajo Nation. This bill would set clear environmental and reclamation standards as well as establish a Hardrock Mining Reclamation Fund to make industry pay for cleanup of abandoned mine sites. 

This bill creates a more sustainable mining future that protects special places, requires meaningful tribal consultation, and safeguards public health. This is a vital step in recognizing tribal claim over sacred lands coveted by the mining industry as is seen in Oak Flat, Arizona where the Apache are facing destruction of their sacred sites by what would be the largest copper mine in North America. The Apache have lived in the southeastern region of Arizona for millennia and endured genocide, boarding school kidnappings to push cultural erasure, and land theft for generations. The area of Oak Flat is home to rock paintings and petroglyphs of profound significance to the Native American community. For the Apache Tribe and other Indigenous people, Oak Flat is what the Vatican is to Catholics, a deeply spiritual place for community members. In 1852, the government promised to “designate, settle, and adjust their territorial boundaries to adjust for places like Oak Flat which hold such significance.” Unsurprisingly, the treaty wasn’t honored, and these lands’ boundaries were never set. The Apache people have legitimate spiritual and religious claims to the area, and now face continued cultural genocide. 

HECHO thanks the current cosponsors of the bill in the House of Representatives, and Congressman Grijalva for his leadership in working to reverse 150 years of violent extraction practices and outlining a path towards building a clean energy future reinforced by clean domestic supply chains. 

References: 

H.R.7580 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act of 2022. (2022, April 26). https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/7580