That book I started reading, Lauren Redniss' Oak Flat: A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West, couldn't, alas, be more timely. Or out-of-timely. Among the outgoing (fingers crossed!) Trump administration's efforts to rush or jam through changes the Biden administration won't be able to change are assorted moves of environmental plunder. You've heard about their proposed sale of rights to the Arctic national wildlife refuge, but the news just broke today (for me at least) that they're trying to do in Oak Flat, sacred to the Apache in Arizona, too.
Last month tribes discovered that the date for the completion of a crucial environmental review process has suddenly been moved forward by a full year, to December 2020, even as the tribes are struggling with a Covid outbreak that has stifled their ability to respond. If the environmental review is completed before Trump leaves office, the tribes may be unable to stop the mine.
“The Trump administration is cutting corners and doing a rushed job just to take care of Rio Tinto,” said the Democratic Arizona representative Raúl Grijalva. “And the fact they are doing it during Covid makes it even more disgusting. Trump and Rio Tinto know the tribes’ reaction would be very strong and public under normal circumstances but the tribes are trying to save their people right now.”
