The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for the federal government to transfer thousands of acres of national forestland containing a Native American sacred site to a copper-mining company.
The justices left in place a lower-court decision that allows the transfer of land in central Arizona known as Oak Flat. The land, which has great spiritual value to the Western Apache Indians, sits on the world’s third-largest deposit of copper ore.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, whose rulings have long supported Native American rights, called the court’s refusal to review the case a “grievous mistake — one with consequences that threaten to reverberate for generations.”
