“Today we stood up in court for that right, determined to stop those who think that our place of worship can be treated differently simply because it lacks four walls and a steeple.” of Apache Stronghold said in a statement released after the hearing. “Oak Flat is where my people have come to connect with our Creator for millennia, and we have the right to continue that sacred tradition,” Wendsler Nosie Sr. They gathered Monday at a community arts center in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. The court later agreed to let the larger panel hear the case.Īpache Stronghold members traveled from Arizona for the hearing, stopping at cities along the way to draw attention to the case. demand, adding up to $1 billion a year to Arizona’s economy and creating thousands of local jobs.Ī smaller 9th Circuit panel previously ruled 2-1 that the federal government could give the Oak Flat land to the mining company for the project. It says the project has the potential to supply enough copper to meet up to one-quarter of U.S. Rio Tinto has headquarters in Australia and the U.K, while BHP is based in Australia. Resolution Copper, a joint venture of global mining firms Rio Tinto and BHP, has said it continues to address concerns raised about the project, but noted there is significant local support for the mine. The swap would give the mining company 3.75 square miles (9.71 square kilometers) of national forest land in exchange for eight parcels it owns in other parts of Arizona. The land transfer was a last-minute provision included in a must-pass defense bill in 2014. Pepin argued that the act of Congress that approved the exchange giving the Oak Flat to Resolution Copper land supersedes the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prevents government agencies from placing a “substantial burden” on the practice of religion. government attorney Joan Pepin told the judge Tuesday that the Forest Service expected the environmental analysis could be republished as early as this spring, setting in motion the land swap, which would have to be completed within 60 days. “A win for Apache Stronghold will be a win for people of all faiths.”īut U.S. “We asked the court today to recognize the obvious - that when the government destroys a sacred site, religious liberty law has something to say about it,” Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the nonprofit legal institution Becket Law, said in a prepared statement distributed after the hearing in Pasadena, California. federal government plans for a land swap that will allow Resolution Copper to build the mine will destroy the land in eastern Arizona known as Oak Flat, “barring the Apaches from ever accessing it again and ending their core religious practices forever,” said attorney Luke Goodrich, arguing for the group Apache Stronghold. A Native American group that’s trying to stop an effort to build one of the largest copper mines in the United States told a full federal appeals court panel Tuesday that the project would prevent Apaches from exercising their religion by destroying land they consider sacred.
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