Oversight Committee Leaders Seek Answers on Proposed Historic Site Listing for Oak Flat

Statement

Today, Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (R-AZ), House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on the Interior Chairman Cynthia Lummis (WY-At large) sent letters to Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior Sally Jewell, requesting documentation related to the process for listing Oak Flat as a national historic site. An excerpt from the letter is below:

"The Committee is concerned that this designation undermines the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange Act of 2014. The Act facilitated a land transfer to allow for the development of a copper mine in the area that would create roughly 4,000 new jobs and generate $60 billion for Arizona's economy. The Administration's designation appears to be incompatible with that plan. Moreover, the claim that the land should be protected as a sacred Apache Indian site has been most notably disputed by local Apache historian Dale Miles. Mr. Miles recalled that a copper mine shaft was built on the property in 1970 without any claims that the land was sacred." Today, Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (R-AZ), House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on the Interior Chairman Cynthia Lummis (WY-At large) sent letters to Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior Sally Jewell, requesting documentation related to the process for listing Oak Flat as a national historic site. An excerpt from the letter is below:

"The Committee is concerned that this designation undermines the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange Act of 2014. The Act facilitated a land transfer to allow for the development of a copper mine in the area that would create roughly 4,000 new jobs and generate $60 billion for Arizona's economy. The Administration's designation appears to be incompatible with that plan. Moreover, the claim that the land should be protected as a sacred Apache Indian site has been most notably disputed by local Apache historian Dale Miles. Mr. Miles recalled that a copper mine shaft was built on the property in 1970 without any claims that the land was sacred."

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