The U.S. Forest Service has told a federal court it is not sure when it could approve a land swap allowing Rio Tinto Plc to develop the Resolution Copper mine in Arizona, a surprising reversal that boosts several Native American groups opposed to the project.
The complex case involves a long-running conflict between a mining company hoping to supply more than a quarter of U.S. copper demand for the green energy transition and Indigenous groups seeking to preserve Arizona's Oak Flat campground, a site of religious importance that would be destroyed by the mine's construction.
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