U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Wednesday publicly accepted an invitation from an Arizona lawmaker to visit the area proposed for a new national monument around the Grand Canyon.
It marks the first time the Biden administration has agreed to visit the area since the issue was raised last week.
Specifics are slim but Congressman Raúl Grijalva invited the Interior secretary during a Natural Resources Committee hearing.
"I would love nothing more than to travel to the Grand Canyon, I know it’s a sacred place for many tribes and I appreciate it being so important to you as well. So yeah, we would love to visit and we will work on that," she said.
More than a dozen tribes that who make up the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition called on the Biden administration last week to designate more than 1 million acres around the national park as a protected monument. This would protect the area from further mining.
