Look West: Public lands and energy news from the Center for Western Priorities
** Radiation compensation act expires as interest in uranium mining surges
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Thursday, June 13, 2024
Navajo miners near Cove, Arizona in 1952. Source: Photo by Milton Jack Snow ([link removed])
85-year-old Jim Fisher has a lung illness ([link removed]) thanks to his years underground mining uranium in Utah. He’s one of thousands of workers who mined, milled, or transported uranium during the Cold War. The U.S. has paid out more than $2.6 billion ([link removed]) in compensation to these former workers, as well as those exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons testing, thanks to the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act.
But Congress allowed the program, known as RECA, to expire on June 7 ([link removed].) , leaving thousands of people like Jim without access to compensation for radiation-related illnesses. The Senate passed legislation to reauthorize RECA in March, but House leadership refused to follow suit, citing its costs ([link removed].) .
Meanwhile, lawmakers are eager to expand nuclear energy ([link removed]) , which is breathing life into the domestic uranium industry. Congress recently banned the import of Russian uranium and appropriated $2.7 billion ([link removed]) to expand domestic uranium fuel production, with a focus on building out uranium processing capacity. These changes are already leading to a surge in uranium mining ([link removed]) on the Colorado Plateau, despite the low grade of domestic uranium ore ([link removed]) .
Jim Fisher's son, Race, is working in ([link removed]) a recently reopened uranium mine in Utah. The company that owns the mine says that uranium mining is much safer now due to increased safety regulations. But it still carries health risks ([link removed]) , like exposure to radioactive gases and carcinogens.
“Regulations are not perfect at preventing potential harm,” Amber Reimondo, energy director at the Grand Canyon Trust, told the Salt Lake Tribune ([link removed]) . “We have to be careful about assuming that because a regulation is there or that it exists that there’s nothing to worry about.”
Over 100 local leaders support Public Lands Rule
Over 100 Western U.S. county commissioners, mayors, and council members sent a letter ([link removed]) to the Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday thanking them for the recent finalization of the Public Lands Rule ([link removed]) . The signers include officials from Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah.
The letter, addressed to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, states ([link removed]) : “The below listed local elected officials, who represent communities across the Western U.S., are writing to commend you for the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) final Public Lands Rule which will provide a more balanced approach to public lands management for the West. Doing so will protect some of our communities’ important wildlife habitat, treasured recreation areas, critical water resources, and Indigenous cultural sites.”
** Quick hits
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No cars, no crowds: 100 years of solitude in the New Mexico wilderness
New York TImes ([link removed])
Wyoming will pay $300,000 to fight EPA pollution regulations
E&E News ([link removed])
Seeing smoke in the Southern California mountains? It may be a prescribed burn
Los Angeles Times ([link removed])
Environmental Defense Fund to study effects of artificially cooling earth
New York Times ([link removed]) | E&E News ([link removed])
Lawsuit targets Colorado oil and gas drilling permits
E&E News ([link removed])
Why oil companies are raking in record profits
CNN ([link removed])
Feds signal deference to Wyoming, dilution of protections, on migration routes
WyoFile ([link removed])
Foraging on public lands is becoming more limited
New York TImes ([link removed])
** Quote of the day
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” Put simply, neither the State, the Governor, nor the State Land Department believes that designation of the Ancestral Footprints Monument injures Arizona.”
—Arizona State Attorney General Kristin Mayes, E&E News ([link removed])
** Picture This
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@Interior ([link removed])
Gold Butte National Monument is a remote and rugged desert landscape in southeastern Nevada, where dramatically chiseled red sandstone, twisting canyons and tree-clad mountains punctuate stretches of the Mojave Desert.
Photo by Bob Wick /@blmnational ([link removed])
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