{"id":41845,"date":"2024-10-11T12:57:42","date_gmt":"2024-10-11T16:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/?p=41845"},"modified":"2024-10-11T12:57:43","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T16:57:43","slug":"grist-tribal-rights-at-stake-in-heated-presidential-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2024\/10\/11\/grist-tribal-rights-at-stake-in-heated-presidential-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Grist: Tribal rights at stake in heated presidential election"},"content":{"rendered":" \"Shut<\/a>
Native women and Native youth gather on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to call for the closure of the Dakota Access Pipeline on April 1, 2021. Photo by Indianz.Com (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n
What a second Trump presidency could mean for Indigenous peoples<\/div>\r\n
Under the Biden-Harris administration, tribes got more of a say in Congress and tons more funding. A Trump-Vance win could upend that.<\/div>\r\n
Friday, October 11, 2024<\/div>\r\n
By Anita Hofschneider, Grist<\/div>\r\n
grist.org<\/a><\/div>\r\n

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\r\n This story was originally published by Grist<\/a>. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here<\/a>.<\/em>\r\n <\/p>\r\n \r\n

When Indigenous community organizer Jade Begay<\/a>, Tesuque Pueblo and Din\u00e9, found out that Donald Trump had won the election in November 2016, she was en route to Standing Rock from New Mexico to protest the Dakota Access pipeline.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The underground oil pipeline snaking from North Dakota to Illinois had been the target of years of opposition by Indigenous activists like Begay, who had filed lawsuits against the pipeline and then withstood freezing temperatures and armed police to block its construction after their legal challenges failed.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The strength of their resistance had turned Standing Rock into an international symbol of Indigenous activism and resistance. It had inspired a new generation of Native American activists, and helped lead to a 2016 victory by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers<\/a> in the waning months of the Obama administration to delay the opening of the pipeline.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But the moment Begay learned of Trump\u2019s victory, sitting in a ramen shop in Colorado on her way north from New Mexico, she realized that win would be short-lived.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

She was right. On January 24, 2017, just four days after his presidential inauguration, Donald Trump signed an executive order<\/a> to speed up the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline and pave the way for the 1,172-mile pipeline to go online just five months later. The decision set the tone for the Republican presidency: Again and again, Indigenous peoples found themselves scrambling to block decisions by the Trump administration that upended decisions that had been made under Obama\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Native peoples achieved a few scattered wins: The Trump administration recognized seven tribes<\/a>, repatriated Indigenous ancestral remains from Finland<\/a>, and established a task force on missing and murdered Indigenous people<\/a>. But his administration\u2019s record on land and the environment was one in which Indigenous activists were often on the defense.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Trump rolled back the Bears Ears Monument by 85 percent<\/a> to open up the area for drilling, prompting lawsuits from Indigenous-led groups. He pushed forward the Keystone XL pipeline<\/a>, again ignoring Native opposition<\/a>. He sought to open up parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge<\/a> for drilling despite opposition from Indigenous groups such as the Gwich\u2019in Steering Committee and Cultural Survival<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

His border wall construction in Guadalupe Canyon, Arizona, harmed the Tohono O\u2019odham Nation\u2019s 10,000-year-old sacred burial ground<\/a>. His administration sought to remove land from the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe in New England<\/a>, the first such move in several decades since the Termination Era<\/a> <\/em>during which the federal government sought to remove tribal lands and status.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cWorking to protect tribal communities or Indigenous communities during the Trump administration was extremely difficult because the attacks were continuous,\u201d Begay said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Now that Trump is vying for a second term, this time with Ohio Senator J.D. Vance at his side, Native Americans who experienced his first presidency say they expect that a second one would mean more support for fossil fuel projects on reservations.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

That might be good news for the small fraction of the more than 500 federally recognized tribes in the U.S. who choose to allow fossil fuel extraction on their lands. Daniel Cardenas from the National Tribal Energy Association<\/a> said he appreciated the Trump administration\u2019s support for tribes that wanted to pursue oil and gas production, and thought the Biden-Harris administration was too singularly focused on green energy.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But Indigenous environmental advocates, like Gussie Lord, a citizen of Oneida Nation and managing attorney of the Tribal Partnerships Program at Earthjustice<\/a>, felt like they were overwhelmed during the Trump administration as they watched environmental regulations and commitments like the Paris Agreement fall one after the other. To Lord, Trump\u2019s first term was packed with \u201creal backwards-looking actions and a real backwards approach to tribal issues.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\"The\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\tThe key to better climate outcomes? Respecting Indigenous land rights and autonomy.\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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A new conservation study carries important implications for global climate targets.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

\n\t\t\"Grist\"\t\tGrist\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n

In contrast, six days after taking office, President Joe Biden issued a memorandum requiring federal agencies to engage in meaningful consultation with tribal nations. Whereas Trump\u2019s coronavirus relief funding initially delayed funding for tribes,<\/a> the Biden-Harris administration incorporated them more fully into the creation of legislation and budgets, leading to a 50 percent increase in funding for tribal nations compared with the previous four years under Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cThe last four-year period was the most constructive in American history as it relates to the relationship between Native people and the United States government,\u201d said Brian Schatz, the head of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, who helped usher the funding through Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Larry Wright, the head of the National Congress of American Indians<\/a>, hopes that whoever is elected in November continues some of the progress for Indian Country made under the Biden-Harris administration, such as incorporating Indigenous knowledge into environmental reviews; proactively advancing co-stewardship; and setting aside funding for tribes facing forced relocation due to climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Trump hasn\u2019t talked a lot about what specifically he\u2019d do regarding tribes in his next presidency.\u00a0 A spokesperson for his campaign didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment. The 16-page summary of the Republican platform<\/a> on Trump\u2019s campaign website doesn\u2019t include the words \u201ctribe,\u201d \u201cNative,\u201d or \u201cIndigenous.\u201d But it does lay out unambiguously how Trump stands on energy projects.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cCommon Sense tells us clearly that we must unleash American Energy if we want to destroy Inflation and rapidly bring down prices, build the Greatest Economy in History, revive our Defense Industrial Base, fuel Emerging Industries, and establish the United States as the Manufacturing Superpower of the World,\u201d the platform says, capitalization included. \u201cWe will DRILL, BABY, DRILL and we will become Energy Independent, and even Dominant again.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

That commitment to fossil fuel production is sure to deepen the climate crisis, harming Indigenous peoples who are disproportionately likely to experience negative effects of climate change. Tribes living on reservations in the U.S. are more susceptible to heat waves, wildfires, and droughts<\/a> than they would\u2019ve been if they\u2019d been allowed to remain on original lands.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Yet despite the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s climate justice rhetoric, it has pursued fossil fuel production even more successfully than Trump\u2019s did, and oil and gas production has reached record highs<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Many Native Americans feel disillusioned by both parties. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who is president, if it\u2019s a D or an R, they\u2019re not our friends,\u201d Cardenas said.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Biden-Harris administration has also supported extractive renewable energy projects opposed by Indigenous peoples, providing a $2 billion loan for a lithium mine at Thacker Pass<\/a>, Nevada, that\u2019s opposed by multiple tribal nations.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a huge push for domestic sources of critical minerals, which was something that started under the Trump administration but has continued under the Biden administration, and the Biden administration has put a lot of money into it,\u201d Lord from Earthjustice said, adding that that\u2019s a concern given the proximity of such minerals to Native lands.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The vast majority of minerals that are key to the energy transition are found within 35 miles of federal reservation land<\/a>, which means they\u2019re likely to be on ancestral lands taken from Native peoples.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Still, Lord said she\u2019s been happy with the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s efforts to incorporate tribal perspectives in their decision-making compared with the lack of input tribes had under the first Trump administration.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Schatz from the Senate Indian Affairs Committee thinks that voters don\u2019t have the luxury to vote third-party if they care about Native peoples.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cThe difference is stark: One party wants to restore and cultivate self-determination, wants to provide resources for housing and education and health care and natural resource management. And the other party wants to, at best, ignore the tribes, and in many instances, through their right-wing legal machine, do violence to the very foundation of tribal sovereignty,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Wright from the National Congress of American Indians said he understands why some tribal citizens might feel disillusioned. He suggests that rather than voting by party or abstaining from voting, tribal citizens create a \u201csovereignty ticket\u201d to support whichever candidates are more supportive of tribes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cBad people get elected by Native people who don\u2019t vote,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Editor\u2019s note:<\/em><\/strong> Earthjustice is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist\u2019s editorial decisions.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n

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This article originally appeared in Grist<\/a> at https:\/\/grist.org\/indigenous\/second-trump-presidency-indigenous-peoples\/<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org<\/a><\/p>\r\n