Grand Canyon

1219 belated, along with yosemite and yellowstone iconic? nat am?

better

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) has introduced a bill to permanently ban new uranium mining near Grand Canyon National Park, reports KJZZ. It’s a companion to a bill that the House of Representatives passed in October on a vote of 236 to 185, per GovTrack, with nine Republicans joining the Democratic majority in favor of the ban.

My hot take:So far, as the Bulletin of the Union of Concerned Scientists notes, the White House backs expanded uranium mining in the U.S. But attention on this move to protect the Grand Canyon (a feel-good-about-America issue if ever there was one) could help it break through Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ken.) blockade of nearly 300 bipartisan bills in the Senate. Why? Because support for environmental and climate action continues to rise among some important Republican voter groups already critical of the Trump administration’s rollbacks and climate denial, according to an October survey by the Pew Research Center, including Millennials, Generation Z, and “GOP women.”