Manuel Lujan: “I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is significant, but simple. My amendment does not…”

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is significant, but simple. My amendment does not kill this project. As offered, it simply asks the Congress to respect the religious and sacred sites of our tribal brothers and sisters. This bill does little, if anything, to offer protection to the sacred sites in the area and does not offer true tribal consultation to the tribes. We all know that consultation occurs before, not after, decisions have already been made. The tribes in this area believe Resolution Copper's block cave mining method will have negative impacts on their sacred, cultural, and traditional sites in the area. {time} 1430 Again, this amendment will not kill this project. It would show respect and offer protections to both surface and subsurface sites in the proposed land conveyance. More specifically, my amendment states that ``The Federal land to be conveyed may not include any Native American sacred or cultural site, whether surface or subsurface.'' This amendment would merely offer a basic level of respect for many religious and cultural sites to the many tribes in the region. As our good friend, Congressman Kildee, reminds us daily, we have a trust responsibility to our tribal brothers and sisters, and those who oppose this responsibility will dismantle it piece by piece with a scalpel and not all at once with an axe. This is what we're seeing today, Mr. Chairman. In its current form, H.R.…”