WASHINGTON—Sen. John McCain intends to try to hold up two Obama administration nominees because of a dispute over land-swap legislation intended to pave the way for an Arizona copper mine, his spokeswoman said Friday.
McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan confirmed the Arizona senator will oppose the nominations of Bob Abbey as director of the Bureau of Land Management and Wilma Lewis as Interior assistant secretary for land and minerals management when they are voted on by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. She said he intends after that to place holds on the nominations when they come before the full Senate for a final confirmation vote.
Senators often use holds to pressure an administration to cut a deal on an issue of importance to them. While Democrats theoretically have enough votes in the Senate to overcome a hold, it rarely comes to that because the procedural hurdles involved can be so time-consuming party leaders would rather work out a deal.
The mine site near Superior, Ariz., is thought to contain the largest undeveloped deposit of high-grade copper in the world.
The mining project was at the center of a corruption scandal involving former Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., who was indicted last year on an array of federal charges, including conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, insurance fraud, extortion and racketeering. Among other things, Renzi was charged with trying to engineer a swap of federally owned mining land to benefit himself and a former business partner from Sherman, Texas, who also was indicted. The former president of Renzi’s family insurance firm was also named in the indictment.
Renzi and his associates have pleaded not guilty and await trial in federal court in Tucson, Ariz.
McCain told nominees at a hearing this week he wants the administration to take a position on a bill to permit a land swap. The land swap in the bill doesn’t involve Renzi and is backed by other top Arizona Republicans, including Sen. Jon Kyl and Gov. Jan Brewer.
The bill, which was introduced by McCain and Kyl earlier this year, directs the Interior Department to accept a reasonable offer from Resolution Copper Mining for nearly 4,200 acres of federal lands in Tonto National Forest.
In exchange, the federal government would receive nearly 5,600 acres currently owned by Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of international mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP-Billiton. Those acres, which are located in several Arizona counties, include ranchland that would become part of the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.
Administration officials have expressed reservations about the bill, but haven’t taken a formal position on it.
The proposed swap is strongly opposed by environmentalists.
“There are so many problems with this land swap, it’s hard to know where to start,” said Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter. “First off, it’s a huge ripoff of the taxpayers, which is one of the reasons we think they took it to Congress and tried to get it out of the public eye.”
The proposed land swap would include Oak Flat campground, which was put off limits to mining by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It’s a key birding area and is well known for its rock climbing areas. The area is also important to the San Carlos Apache and Fort McDowell Yavapai Indian tribes, which oppose its transfer.
But of most concern to the Sierra Club is that the swap is being proposed before any environmental assessment of the mine’s impacts.
“The bottom line is there’s so much we don’t know about this because they’ve done no environmental analysis,” Bahr said. “They ought to have to answer a whole lot more questions before someone gives them a stamp of approval, and they’ve answered very few.”
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— Associated Press Writer Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report.
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