Overview

• The Supreme Court declined to hear Apache Stronghold’s appeal under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, leaving intact lower-court rulings that approved the 2014 land swap.
• Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented, warning that the court bypassed consideration of Oak Flat’s deep spiritual importance to Western Apache ceremonies.
• Resolution Copper, owned by Rio Tinto and BHP, plans to extract an estimated 40 billion pounds of copper from the site, projecting $1 billion in annual economic benefits for Arizona and thousands of jobs.
• Critics say the project will destroy Oak Flat by creating a two-mile-wide, 1,000-foot-deep crater on land sacred for rituals such as sweat lodges and Sunrise Dances.
• The U.S. Forest Service has issued a 60-day notice to republish its environmental impact statement, a required step before finalizing the land transfer and mine development.