Winter at the #NoDAPL encampment in North Dakota. Photo by Gyasi Ross
Republican president-elect Donald Trump is choosing his Cabinet and all of his important picks support energy development, including on tribal lands. Gyasi Ross (Blackfeet), the editor at large for Indian Country Today, warns of the battles ahead with Scott Pruitt, Rick Perry and Ryan Zinke in charge:
Make no mistake: Donald Trump’s Administration is coming for Indian Country—we’re suddenly big targets on his radar. We haven’t had quite this big of a place on the national and international stage in a long time. It makes sense—Native communities have about 25% of the nation’s on-shore oil and gas reserves and developable resources and this upcoming administration is oil-thirsty. And they’re coming for what Tribes have; Dakota Access was the warm-up. Trump’s line-up of cabinet nominees tells us that his Administration is coming squarely for Native land and Native natural resources. Rick Perry, who sits on the Board of Directors for the Energy Transfer Partners (the company that owns the Dakota Access Pipeline), was nominated as the Energy Secretary. Trump also nominated Scott Pruitt to be the new head of the EPA; Pruitt said that “hydraulic fracking, a technological innovation that has done more to reduce carbon emissions in this country than any other technological advancement of our time.” No really—that’s what he said. He also wrote a letter to Obama In 2012, Pruitt and Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal wrote a letter to President Obama asking to eliminate a Bureau of Land Management proposal that requires oil companies to disclose the chemicals used in fracking operations on Native American land. These cats want to separate Native people from our lands and mineral resources. It’s westward expansion, manifest destiny! Again.Read More:
Gyasi Ross: No Peace for Our Time: Trump Is Coming For Indian Country’s Land and Resources (Indian Country Today 12/14)
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