![]() Jeff Flake - who had himself worked as a lobbyist for a Rio Tinto subsidiary - to attach a last-minute rider to the National Defense Appropriations Act, the “must-pass” military funding bill signed in 2014 by President Obama. One of the biggest recipients of Rio Tinto campaign donations in Congress was then-Arizona Sen. Rio Tinto spent years lobbying Congress for a bill that would give Oak Flat to them as private land, a maneuver that would circumvent Eisenhower’s mineral withdrawal. ![]() Eisenhower, recognizing its natural and historical significance, issued an order withdrawing it from mineral extraction.īut Eisenhower wasn’t anticipating the huge power that money plays in our contemporary politics. It has even been specifically protected from mining for more than a half-century, when President Dwight D. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and contains the “best set of Apache historic sites ever documented,” according to one tribal historian. This is federal land, managed by the U.S. The saga of Oak Flat shows how none of our public lands can ever be fully safe, when monied interests have such power in our politics. ![]()
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