National | Politics

Native Sun News: Tribes hit by big cuts in energy assistance fund

Monday, July 9, 2012

The following story was written and reported by Evelyn Red Lodge, Native Sun News Correspondent. All content © Native Sun News.

PINE RIDGE, SOUTH DAKOTA –– Due to federal budget cuts, the Oglala Sioux and other tribes are bracing for the fiscal year 2013 energy assistance season, as well as taking action to change the way their energy assistance budget is formulated.

Many low-income families rely on heating and cooling assistance funds for sustenance.

The need for these funds is especially great on South Dakota’s nine Indian reservations, which are located in some of the poorest counties in the nation.

The Low-Income Energy Assistance Program (LIEAP) federal funds have been cut this year by “more than $1.2 billion across the nation,” said Donna Salomon, Oglala Sioux Tribe public relations coordinator, in a news release last week.

In South Dakota, the program has been slashed by $6.4 million.

“When I first came on board last year, I was surprised to see the huge funding variances between what our tribal families receive and what non-reservation families receive,” said OST’s LIEAP director, Susan Two Eagles

Two Eagles indicated that the formula on which the tribe’s LIEAP budget depends is based upon an agreement with the state that has not been updated since 1994, although previous attempts have been made by the tribe to adjust the formula for the 21st century.

Another OST LIEAP official, Robert Running Bear, said that the 1994 tribal-state agreement needs to be changed.

“Since 1994, our number of applications (for LIEAP funding) has doubled. We are going to negotiate for more funding,” he said.

A meeting with South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard is tentatively scheduled for July 20, according to an email sent to Native Sun News by A. Gay Kingman, executive director of the Rapid City-based Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association.

“All the LIEAP directors presented to the tribal leaders during the GPTCA meeting in late May,” Kingman said in the email. “They gave an extensive report on the disproportionate amount of funding from the state to the Indian tribes. As a result, the GPTCA passed a resolution and directed me to set up a meeting with Governor Daugaard.”

She continued, “The tribal leaders and some of the LIEAP directors will attend the meeting. Each state works differently with the tribes. For example, some of the tribal leaders from North Dakota were present for the (May) meeting, and North Dakota has a better formula for LIEAP with the tribes than South Dakota does.”

(Contact Evelyn Red Lodge at welakota@yahoo.com)