The Obama administration announced two major actions on Friday to broaden dialogue between federal agencies and Indian tribes when it comes to protecting their lands and siting energy projects.
First, the Interior Department scheduled a major round of meetings to sit down with tribes around the country to discuss how energy projects affect their communities, along with other federal decisions affecting their lands and treaties.
The outreach comes as the administration struggles to deal with ongoing opposition in North Dakota over the Dakota Access oil pipeline being built near Indian lands, which the tribe in question says threatens its supply of drinking water. The administration halted the project after a federal judge ruled it could go forward. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals later took up the case and halted the project while it reviews the details of the case.
“We understand that Tribal Nations’ voices must be heard, in a timely and meaningful way, with regard to federal decisions that could affect their treaties, homeland, environment, cultural properties and sacred sites,” read a letter addressed to the tribes sent by officials from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Departments of Justice and Interior.
The administration announced six meetings on those topics to be held beginning Oct. 25 in Seattle.
The Interior Department, in a separate action, also took the major step Friday of re-establishing a government for native people in President Obama’s home state of Hawaii.
“Today is a major step forward in the reconciliation process between Native Hawaiians and the United States that began over 20 years ago,” said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. “We are proud to announce this final rule that respects and supports self-governance for Native Hawaiians, one of our nation’s largest indigenous communities.”
Both actions immediately drew the ire of congressional Republicans as disengenuous and unconstitutional.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah, said the Obama administration “has never cared about consulting local communities or native tribes,” responding to the meetings announcement.
He said tribes have had nothing but complaints for the administration when it comes to consultation over energy. “Over the past eight years, tribes and Alaska natives have documented the lack of consultation in the proposed hydraulic fracturing rule and the new offshore air rule respectively,” Bishop noted.
He said tribal consultation “is always good enough when a project is denied, but never good enough when a project is approved.” He explained that “meaningful consultation becomes meaningless when it’s selectively applied to advance a political agenda in the White House as they’ve once again pursued here.”
On the Hawaii decision, Bishop was more blunt: “This rule is unconstitutional and the executive branch is making up the rules as they go.”
“It’s another example of this administration exerting power they were never given in the first place,” Bishop scolded. “Congress needs to put an end to this executive abuse by establishing a consistent and transparent framework for the recognition of native groups.”
Jewell said the administration heard from “thousands of voices from the Native Hawaiian community,” while “the public testified passionately about the proposal” during the two-year decision-making process.
