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King County, Washington, called for more studies saying the rail system is “not built to handle the weight of mile-long oil and coal trains. This stresses an already dated infrastructure and increases the risk of potentially catastrophic derailments.” Photo credit: KingCounty.gov
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.
