The Republicans keep breaking their own record for awfulness and destruction.
Last month, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar cheered environmentalists and fans of the great outdoors with his extension of a moratorium on uranium mining near the Grand Canyon for another six months. But now House Republicans are aiming to use the Interior Department appropriations bill to try to reopen the areas around the park to mining interests.
Salazar announced in June that he was extending the prohibition on mining on roughly 1 million acres of land near the canyon through the end of the year, a moratorium he put in place in 2009. [...]
The appropriations measure, from Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, would reverse Salazar's decision and again make it possible to mine near the park. It's one of dozens of anti-environmental riders tacked onto the Environment and Interior appropriations bill that the House is debating this week.