Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) promised to take legal action against President Joe Biden’s “extreme government overreach” of seizing almost a million acres of land from Coconino and Mohave Counties to designate as a new national monument near the Grand Canyon.
According to Petersen, Republicans “[w]ill use all legal options available to protect Arizona from this unacceptable and unconstitutional dictator-style land grab.”
Petersen also said that this new national monument designation presumably breaches the Statehood Enabling Act.
The Arizona Statehood and Enabling Act of 1999 is an act to protect the permanent trust funds of the State of Arizona from erosion due to inflation and modify the basis on which distributions are made from those funds.
“This federal overreach is completely unacceptable and unconstitutional and likely violates the Statehood Enabling Act,” Petersen said.
The Arizona Sun Times reached out to Petersen for comment as well as what legal actions will be taken and how this monument designation violates the Statehood Enabling Act.
A spokesperson for Petersen, Kim Quintero, told The Sun Times that the original statement is all she could currently provide but that she “will send out press release updates on this matter as they become available.”
The Senate president said that Biden’s actions are a political stunt in his 2024 re-election campaign for President of the United States and that this is not how the government should function in Arizona or in the U.S.
“Biden’s action is clearly a political stunt. He wants to appeal to his radical environmental base but it will ultimately pose destructive consequences for Arizonans. The Biden administration circumvented Congress and provided very little notice or opportunity for public comment before seizing the land. This is not how government should function within Arizona or the United States. Frankly, we don’t need or want the federal government coming in and dictating to Arizonans how to protect Arizona. We know better than Washington what is best for our lands and our citizens,” Petersen said.
On Monday evening, Republican lawmakers held an emergency joint committee meeting where they formally voted to oppose Biden’s designation of the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.
The Biden Administration claims that the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument protects thousands of sites that are sacred to the Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Paiute, Navajo, Yavapai-Apache, Zuni and Colorado River Indian Tribes.
According to Petersen, Biden’s monument designation will hurt the state’s economy and national security and will devastate critical industries like mining and cattle ranching.
Biden officially designated the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon a National Monument during an Arizona trip on Tuesday.
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Hannah Poling is a lead reporter at The Ohio Star, The Star News Network, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahPoling1. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Warren Petersen” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 3.0. Background Photo “Joe Biden” by Joe Biden.
