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Are Native American voters divided over energy politics? This is Trahant Reports.

It’s tempting to think of Indian Country as a “singular” voice. The vast majority of Native Americans agree that the United States should live up to its treaty promises. Most of us think that tribes are the best mechanism for governing our lands and people. Add it up and it shows that if we all vote together, our voices will represent a powerful bloc.

Except, that is, when we disagree.

This should not be a surprise. The phrase “tribal politics” earns an instant nod from folks who understand that Native people have the same divisions — philosophical, tribal, and familial — that surface in any governing structure. Generations ago this was an easy problem to resolve: Leaders who found themselves in a minority, just left camp, and followed their own path. Today tribal people who have different ideas about the future, live and work in the community and use elections to determine the governing coalition.

Perhaps the greatest division within Indian Country is the debate about the environment and the extraction of natural resources. There are Native people on all sides of this question.

The Crow Nation in Montana recently furloughed some tribal employees, blaming Obama’s ‘war on coal.’ Crow is rich with coal — one estimate shows a reserve of 17 billion tons — and it is the primary source of tribal revenue as well as jobs for more than 13,000 tribal members.

While Obama might get the blame, the coal industry has been collapsing on its own. Its use as an energy source in the United States is being replaced by natural gas which is cheaper and cleaner.

The coal industry hopes to fix this by shipping more U.S. coal to China. There is a plan to build a huge terminal in Washington state. If completed, this would be the biggest coal export terminal in North America and account for nearly 500 sailings of ships transporting coal to Asia.

Northwest tribes are adamantly opposed to the terminal. Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby told The Seattle Times: “Coal is black death … There is no mitigation.” He and other tribal leaders say that the project would be a clear violation of treaty fishing rights.

All this comes at a time when there is a worldwide push to leave coal and other carbon-based resources in the ground. It’s one way to hit the UN targets limiting C02 emissions. New data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says nearly 90 percent of the world’s coal is “unburnable.” Coal is considered the most polluting type of fossil fuel.

So the tribal bets on coal are coming at a bad time, both in terms of market-prices and meeting international agreements  to reduce emissions. Neither the Congress nor a future president can change these facts . Markets are not going to suddenly come back for coal — and the rest of the world has already decided  about the future of energy.

I am Mark Trahant reporting.

 

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 Commentary by Mark Trahant

Short takes: Republicans debate poverty, State of the Union

 

Republicans debate poverty, this week’s State of the Union, and President Obama’s last year in office. This is Trahant Reports.

GOP candidates for president gathered in South Carolina last week to talk about poverty in America. It was an event sponsored by the Jack Kemp Foundation. Kemp, who died in 2009, was a quarterback for the San Diego Chargers and the Buffalo Bills. He entered politics running for Congress in 1970 and described himself as a “bleeding heart Conservative.” He was no stranger to Native American issues, at one time promoting a tax-incentive for reservations and Alaska Native villages called “Promise Zones.” His ideas never become law but he did continually raise issues about equality within the Republican Party. So how are Kemp’s ideas received in today’s conservative era?

Well, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is a huge fan and helped organize the poverty conversation. In one of his first speeches, Ryan said, “There are the millions of people stuck in neutral: 6 million people who have no choice but to work part time, 45 million people living in poverty. Conservatives need to have an answer to this–because we do not write people off in this country. We just don’t.”

The conversation in South Carolina, however, was less inspiring. Candidates promised more of the same Republican ideas: Turn more federal programs over to the states, always a problem for tribal governments, and reject any national increases minimum wage. And, of course, repeal the Affordable Care Act.

TUESDAY is President Barack Obama’s last State of the Union. He will outline his vision for his final year in office. This will be an interesting speech. He’s facing a Republican-controlled Congress, so it’s not likely that any new legislation will be serious. But it will be the ideal time for him to reflect on his two terms in office. Agree or not with his politics, Obama has been remarkably successful. He entered office when the country’s economy was collapsing, the worst crisis since the Great Depression, and fighting two wars. Then Obama has reshaped the health care system, improving the funding for the Indian Health Service, And, he worked with other nations to forge a climate change plan. That’s a lot for nearly 8 years.

One of the First Lady’s guests at the State of the Union will be Lydia Doza representing the “Generation Indigenous” initiative. The Alaska Native works to get more young women involved in the STEM fields, or, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. One of the cool things she does is teach others how to “code, the tool to write formulas that make computer programs work.

You have to say that Generation Indigenous represents much of this president’s commitment to Indian Country. He really sees an opportunity to improve the lives of young Native Americans and is using the weight of his office to make things happen. Many suspect that this is something that Barack and Michelle Obama will continue to do after they leave the White House.

And that date is coming fast. Next January a new president will take office with new priorities. It will be interesting to see how much of Obama’s initiatives become permanent, such as Indian health funding through the Affordable Care Act ir the annual White House government-to-government meeting with tribal leaders. Obama will be gone, but these issues ought to be at least topics during the 2016 campaign from both Democrats and Republicans.

I am Mark Trahant reporting.

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It’s easy to get confused by this year’s campaign for president. This is Trahant Reports.

So if you get information from watching television or from Internet rumblings, you might think Republicans are driving toward a massive victory.

And why not?

Donald Trump packs thousands of people into every one of his rallies and the television ratings for G.O.P. debates are ginormous.

The problem with that narrative is that it misses the demographic shift that’s been occurring in America.

Any Republican candidate for president starts off in a deep hole.

Why? When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 the population of the United States was 80 percent white. Today it’s about 63 percent white.

One demographic profile of voters by The National Journal shows how dramatically the country changed since Reagan’s landslide. He won with the support 56 percent of white voters in 1980. But in 2012 Mitt Romney earned 59 percent of white voters and still lost by 4 percentage points.

The country’s diversity trend is just beginning. The U.S. Census reports that American Indians and Alaska Natives grew at 1.4 percent since 2013, compared to 0.5 percent for whites.

Even more diverse than millennials are those younger than 5 years old. In 2014, this group became majority-minority for the first time and in 13 years the majority of new voters will be people of color, in twenty-five years a majority of all voters.

So here’s the deal: ignore every poll you see that compares one Republican versus one Democrat. In our system, you have to think instead: Which states?

And it’s in these state contests where the American Indians and Alaska Native voters are becoming more important, especially as part of a coalition.

Nevada is a good place to start examining these trends. In 2012, Nevada voters were about 65 percent white. Next year’s voters are projected to drop to about 60 percent.It’s possible to build a winning coalition made up of  some white voters (a third or so) plus significant majorities from Latino, African American, Asian American and Native Americans.

Other states where such coalitions are possible: Alaska, Arizona, Wisconsin, and, eventually, Oklahoma.

What’s striking about this election so far is that the Republican candidates are not even trying to build a coalition with minority voters.

As we enter 2016, yes, it’s going to be a crazy year with all sorts of scenarios possible ranging from fights at the conventions to third-party runs. Sure, it’s even possible, that one of the Republican candidates will whip up magic and unite a coalition of voters. But that would take words designed to reach consensus with the new majority of voters. One of the candidates will have to recognize that the road to the White House is red, brown, black and young.

I am Mark Trahant reporting.