An eager reader notes that tribes in North Dakota face conflict over Il Duce’s fossil-fuel impulses. In one corner, we have Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman maintaining his opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline:
The leader of the Standing Rock Sioux is urging President Donald Trump to reconsider his push for completion of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline.
Tribal spokeswoman Sue Evans says Chairman Dave Archambault requested a meeting with Trump in a letter sent Wednesday, warning that relations between the new administration and the Native American community have “gotten off on the wrong foot.” It’s not clear if Trump has received the letter [link added; “Tribal Leader Asks Trump to Reconsider Pipeline Action,” AP via Bismarck Tribune, 2017.01.26].
In another corner, the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation are among tribes across the nation who are hoping Trump’s impulses will turn to ripping up regulations that choke drilling and mining on reservations:
Now, with U.S. President Donald Trump in office and oil prices rising, their frustration is fueling a renewed push to streamline approvals for drilling and mining on Indian reservations.
Clearing regulatory hurdles for a single project on tribal lands can take as many as 50 steps, compared to a half dozen for oil wells on private property. The process can take three times as long to complete, according to tribal leaders, lawyers specializing in Native American issues, oil company executives and federal regulators.
…Back in Fort Berthold, MHA Nation Councilman Fred Fox said he felt it was time for Washington to hand more responsibility for tribal lands back to the tribes. They should not be managed as U.S.-owned “public lands,” he said, but rather as sovereign Native American nations.
“We have ancestors that owned these lands,” he said, looking out over a snow-covered settlement in the White Shield section of the reservation. “Let us collect our own taxes. Let us create economic viability for our people. Let us create the regulatory system” [“Red Tape Chokes off Oil Drilling on North Dakota’s Reservations,” Reuters via WDAY, 2017.01.27].
Hmm… pipeline protestors, you may have a case that the President is breaking the law with his order on the Dakota Access pipeline. But you may need to move your water-protection protests upstream and challenge the fellow tribal members who see a different path to cultural reawakening through the money they can make producing the Bakken oil that the Dakota Access pipeline would carry.
The job creation could also occur with regard to safety for the pipelines, if not environmental monitoring as well. That would boost the effort for clean water and safer pipelines.
If you don’t want to mine or drill on Native lands, there is the opportunity to become a site for gathering wind and solar energy for the grid-at-large…and/or to become a location for storing energy (if they ever get that figured out). Sustainable methods for energy efficiency would be another.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tribes-insight-idUSKBN13U1B1
Let’s steal more from poor Mr Lo and privatize reservations so koch bros can have the oil and minerals. They prolly need more money.
If this article is accurate: “MHA Nation has collected about $1 billion in oil money since the fracking bonanza took off in 2008, but life for most tribe members has only gotten bleaker since then.”
“… when it comes to the vast majority of the tribe’s 14,000 members, tribal authorities have managed to piss away the benefits of the area’s unprecedented and ridiculously lucrative oil boom.
Blessed with oil-and-gas-rich shale formations underlying Fort Berthold, the MHA government collects about $25 million in royalties a month. All in all, the tribe has collected about $1 billion in oil money since the fracking bonanza took off in 2008.”
The corrupt tribal government is not helping their own people: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/the-oil-boom-is-ravaging-an-indian-reservation-in-north-dakota-1124