MISSOULA, MONTANA –– Indian tribes bear the brunt of climate change, but they also hold the keys to stem global warming, experts said at the Society of Environmental Journalists 20th Annual Conference in Missoula, Montana, Oct. 13-17. “Climate change is having the worst impact on people who did not set the energy policy,” said Alexis Bonogofsky, senior coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation’s Tribal Lands Conservation program. The people of more than 535 federally recognized and other tribal governments have suffered from a “massive lack of federal oversight” of energy resources development, she said. That development in the form of oil, gas, coal and uranium extraction has left Super Fund sites around Indian country. Meanwhile, tribal households pay significantly more in home energy expenses than most other Americans, and the money paid to energy providers leaves the reservations because most utilities are owned by non-tribal entities, according to NWF. Fossil Fuel Projects Damage Resources
About 40 percent of the United States’ coal comes from eastern Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, which the federal government has long-since dubbed a national sacrifice area, panelists noted. Among other environmental impacts, coal bed methane thumpers scare elk and sage grouse both sacred and sustenance sources to the people of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation located 15 miles from there. “Native Americans don’t have a lot of time to sit and talk about climate justice,” said Northern Cheyenne tribal member Gail Small, executive director of the Northern Cheyenne Native Action non-profit. “The crisis that we’re having means you have to look at what can be done on a small scale as well as looking at the global level.” The component of fossil fuel in climate change has affected not only mining locations and utility rates but also snow packs, water supplies, fishing stocks, and forest health, all vital to land-based indigenous cultures, leaders at the conference said. However, native traditions, sovereign legal standing and reservation renewable energy reserves strengthen the tribes’ hand in both mitigating and adapting to the rising pressures from greenhouse gas generation, according to panelists. “We’re moving into a new era of sovereignty opportunities for tribes to take control over their own resources,” Bonogofsky said. The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation has refused to sacrifice tribal values for profits from coal strip mining on its lands, recently establishing a Class I air shed under EPA standards that require the nearby coal mining and refining operations to comply with the strictest federal legal controls. “We need to look at keeping coal in the ground,” Small said. Compensating land holders for not mining is an alternative that environmental lawyers are pursuing, she said. “We have to be creative,” she added. Lower Brule tribal member Pat Spears, president of Intertribal COUP (Council On Utility Policy) congratulated the Northern Cheyenne on the Class I Air Quality designation, adding, “Leaving coal in the ground makes much sense: It filters our water, it is the organs of our grandmother, the liver and the kidneys.” Intertribal COUP represents South Dakota tribes, Wyoming’s Northern Arapaho, and Nebraska’s Omaha tribes, but Northern Cheyenne’s location is within the same Lakota Territory once left to tribes by treaty, Spears observed. “We’re the sway vote in this climate debate that’s going on,” Spears said during the panel entitled Energy Issues on Tribal Lands. “The call amongst our people is to help grandmother earth,” he added. Tribes Can Grow Their Own Green Energy
Studies show 90 cents of every dollar tribes spend on energy immediately leaves tribal communities, according to Intertribal COUP. To build tribal economies, the organization has been working for access to the power grid that will allow wind generation from reservations to feed into the electricity mix. The first tribal wind farm was at the Campo Kumeyaay Nation in California, which has targeted 2020 for 20 percent of the tribe’s energy to come from renewable energy sources. Intertribal COUP cut its teeth on the wind generators at Rosebud Sioux Reservation, KILI Radio windmill on Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation, and the turbine at Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara Reservation at Ft. Berthold, two in South Dakota and one in North Dakota. Now its 15 tribal government members are going for more. “We have one-quarter of the energy capacity in this country,” Spears said. “We want to use the transmission system to distribute wind energy, and we want to do it as an intertribal alliance, because if you do this on a larger scale, it makes it cheaper for community wind.” Intertribal COUP also advocates for funding regimens that would allow tribes to access subsidies and bonding for energy development that are available to private or other governmental utility developers. When a U.S. Department of Energy Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) report came out in August saying that tribes could only provide a small fraction of the wind energy feasible for the grid, Intertribal Coup filed comments to substantiate that tribal governments had the potential for greater capacity. Spears said Indian country needs to build to take advantage of U.S. President Barack Obama’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Target for Federal Operations, announced in October 2009. The directive calls for federal green power purchases to reduce global warming, based on the fact that the U.S. government is the single largest energy consumer in the national economy. We don’t want wall-to-wall wind turbines,” Spears said. But he added, several conventional power plants proposed for the Northern Plains have been postponed indefinitely due to “serious trouble trying to feed the monster” of fossil fueled energy production. “We’re putting pressure on the coal and fossil fuel boys. We’re not going to just sit by,” Spears said. Intertribal COUP uses scientific studies from foundations and academia as fodder for its arguments in government-to-government negotiations between tribes and federal energy clientele, he noted. The organization’s scheme is to use smart-grid power-source switching to emphasize wind power, using Missouri River hydropower as a back-up for higher demand, and opting for coal-fired electricity only as a last resort. That is the opposite of the current paradigm. Tribes are preparing to negotiate with WAPA in the next round of five-year power contracts, he said. Community wind production is just one part of Intertribal COUP’s plan to make Indian country the leader in clean energy production for the global climate’s sake. Energy efficient housing, such as construction with high-insulation-value straw bales is another. Southwestern tribes have additional potential for solar power generation. According to NWF, tribal lands have the capacity to power the country 4.5 times over with solar energy. Clean energy can help protect natural heritage and stabilize climate change, while it creates employment, analysts conclude. Several federal agencies offer grants for tribes and reservation businesses to install green technology, according to NWF. Addressing Obstacles for Tribal Management
“With 95 million acres of land under their management and centuries of experience conserving the natural world, Indian tribes can play a significant role in protecting natural resources from climate change and coping with a warmer world,” said Steve Torbit, director of NWF’s Rocky Mountain Regional Center, based in Boulder, Colo. His remarks addressed the release of his organization’s report entitled, “The New Energy Future in Indian Country: Confronting Climate Change, Creating Jobs, and Conserving Nature”. It was released in collaboration with Intertribal COUP, National Tribal Environmental Council, and Native American Rights Fund. “The vast potential on tribal lands to generate clean energy from renewable resources means that Indian tribes can help to provide for their own energy needs, generate clean power for a new energy future in Indian country, and put America on the path to energy independence, said Bob Gruenig, senior policy analyst of National Tribal Environmental Council. However, many obstacles remain for tribes that decide to go into green energy generation. Among them are: heavy reliance on insufficient federal funding, little to no equity in production, no access to renewable energy tax credits, state taxes on fee-land facilities, no reservation taxation power, and long distances from transmission lines. Obama admitted this in his November 2009 address to leaders at the Tribal Nations Conference. “Up to 15 percent of our potential wind energy resources are on Native American land, and the potential for solar energy is even higher,” he said. “But too often, you face unique hurdles to developing these renewable resources. “We’re streamlining and expediting the permit process for energy development and transmission across tribal lands,” he promised. “We are securing tribal access to financing and investments for new energy projects,” he added. (Talli Nauman is the co-director of Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness. Contact her at talli@hughes.net).