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Will Keystone XL Pipeline Pump Sexual Violence Into South Dakota?

Mary Annette Pember, Indian Country Today Media Network

The human devastation wrought by the economic energy boom in the Great Plains region may get worse for Native women. This nightmare, according to Keith Darling-Berkus has created a culture of misogyny in which sexual violence—including rape, sex trafficking and domestic assault—are normalized. It has been described as “a male-dominated dystopian nightmare.”

That description is especially ominous for Native women, who are 2.5 times more likely to be victims of sexual violence than women of other races. The perpetrators of this violence are overwhelmingly non-Native.

Native advocates are predicting a similar fallout for women in South Dakota if the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline is approved. TransCanada plans to house pipeline construction workers in three rural man-camps located close to reservations in South Dakota. Each camp will house approximately 1,000 workers.

Both law enforcement officials and native and women’s rights advocates cite the emergence of these ‘man-camps’—temporary housing for transient workers—as major contributors to a rise in violence against all women wherever they are established.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney for South Dakota, Kevin Koliner, Native women comprise 40 percent of sex trafficking victims in the state.

Although some research links the recent oil boom to the emergence of a culture of misogyny in North Dakota, Native-women advocates maintain that the Great Plains of North and South Dakota present fertile ground for such a culture to take hold. They note, for instance, that South Dakota is considered by some men to be a sex tourism destination.

“They come in the fall for pheasant hunting season and in summer for the Sturgis Bike Rally,” says Susan Omanson, executive director of BeFree58 Ministries, a non-profit in Sioux Falls serving survivors of sex trafficking.

Sexual violence, including prostitution and trafficking, are firmly imbedded in the culture and economy of South Dakota .

“Pheasant hunting and the bike rally are economic sacred cows in South Dakota and few residents will dare criticize the industries for fear of losing that influx of cash,” notes Chamberlin, South Dakota-based journalist Maria Burch who has covered the area’s economy for several years. “Most folks around here have to work two or three jobs in order to make ends meet. The income from hunting is very important.”

Revenue from pheasant hunting and the Sturgis Bike Rally represent a significant portion of income for many residents. In Tripp County alone, a popular destination for pheasant hunting, hunters spent copy1.3 million in 2011, according to South Dakota Game Fish and Wildlife Agency. Overall, the state agency reports that hunting pumps $66 million into the state. According to a survey conducted by the Sturgis Rally Department, the overall economic impact of the annual motorcycle rally was over $800 million in 2012.

Although most hunters and bikers in the area are well-behaved, there is a dark side to both those activities, according to U. S. Attorney Brendan Johnson, who says, “Wherever you have a large gathering of men, you have a strong opportunity for prostitution and sex trafficking.”

Advocates for victims of trafficking and prostitution note that there is a strange allure in South Dakota for those looking to purchase commercial sex. “There is a wild west, lawless atmosphere that attracts some visitors to our state,” says Burch. “Not much has really been done to discourage that perception.”

Carmen O’Leary, executive director for the Native Women’s Society of the Great Plains, adds that long-standing prejudice against Native people in the Dakotas contributes to a laissez-faire attitude by the public and law enforcement when it comes to pursuing perpetrators of sex crimes against Native women.

Not surprisingly, she says, the safety of Native women doesn’t figure very prominently in economic development projects in the region.

Although the proposed pipeline promises a huge economic boost for the state, South Dakota is totally unprepared for the hidden social and human costs, says Faith Spotted Eagle, Ihanktunwan (Yankton) and member of the Brave Heart Society. She and other pipeline opponents point to the impact of man camps and boomtown mentality on women in the Bakken oil region of North Dakota.

“The attitude [in the Dakotas] seems to be that the lives of a few Indian women are a small price to pay for economics,” says an advocate who asked not to be identified for fear of negative reaction from her board of directors.

In 2013, The Polaris Project, a non-profit organization combating sex trafficking, ranked South Dakota last in the U.S. in its efforts to enact a basic legal framework to combat trafficking.

Arrests for sex trafficking in South Dakota have overwhelmingly been prosecuted under the federal trafficking law. U.S. Attorney Johnson has made the prosecution of these crimes a priority. After an undercover operation during the 2013 Sturgis Bike Rally, his office prosecuted nine men for sex trafficking. Victims ranged from 12 to 15 years of age.

South Dakota passed a law specifically outlawing human trafficking in 2011. In Sioux Falls, one person has been charged under the state law so far, according to Sam Clemons, Public Information officer for the Sioux Falls Police Department. The dearth of law enforcement in much of rural South Dakota only adds to the problem, notes Burch. “Police are spread pretty thin out here,” she says. She thinks that encourages a sense of impunity in men looking to purchase sex. Burch says some of the patrons of the ultra-expensive hunting lodges come to the area with an outsized sense of entitlement.

Nancy Niles of the Oglala Lakota tribe and former resident of Sturgis agrees that tourism promoters often sell South Dakota with romanticized notions of the Wild West associated with the gold rush and pioneer days, where anything goes. “Prostitution at the rally has become normalized,” she says.

Niles lived in Sturgis for 25 years and raised her family there. During that time she says she watched her country town turn into a thick clot of leather and t-shirt shops, strip clubs and a main street that allows public drinking. Commercial sex workers are brought into the city for the rally, according to Niles.

“People got angry with me when I began to call attention to the prostitution that takes place during the rally,” she says. “People prefer to keep their heads in the sand in order to protect the economic injection that the rally brings.”

The hard-partying, anything-goes atmosphere creates a hostile environment for all women in the area.

Niles and her husband recently moved to Nebraska for their retirement. “I could no longer stand to let my taxes go to support this kind of activity,” she says.

Man camps versus tourism

The male tourists who can afford to stay at an upscale, all-inclusive hunting lodge or bring their bikes on extended visits to the bike rally represent a different demographic than those who will be drawn to work on the Keystone pipeline and live in man camps.

“A lot of these guys who come here to work and live in the man camps are on their last dime. They don’t have a whole lot to lose,” notes Sadie Young Bird, executive director of the Ft. Berthold Coalition Against Violence in North Dakota. Indeed, ABC News recently aired a story calling attention to the large increase of registered sex offenders who have relocated to the Bakken oil region.

Marla Bull Bear, executive director of the Native American Advocacy Program in Winner worries about the close proximity of the proposed man-camp in Colume, 10 miles from Winner. Winner is the town closest to the Rosebud Reservation and has a substantial Native population.

Bull Bear’s organization conducts activities designed to divert youth toward healthy traditional Native ways such as a horse camps and coming of age ceremonies.“ Due to poverty and family dysfunction, many of our youth are so vulnerable. They could present easy targets for sex traffickers,” she says.

“Youth in our groups tell us about girls who simply disappear and end up working in the commercial sex industry. Sex trafficking is already here,” she notes.

Jess Keesis, the mayor of Winner, knows first-hand about the rowdy tendencies of men who work in the oil fields, but he believes the camps that will house the pipeline workers will be different. “I’ve worked in the Alaska oil fields and seen oil booms–this won’t be anything like that,” he says.

According to Keesis, the pipeline construction will be far more short-lived than an oil boom and won’t have long-term negative effects on the community. He estimates that it will take about 14 months to complete the pipeline.

Faith Spotted Eagle, however, describes this attitude as terribly shortsighted. “If a woman is brutalized by a pipeline worker, you are talking about a lifetime of impact.”

She bemoans the sense of powerlessness expressed by communities that will be affected by the pipeline. “The average person thinks they can’t stand up to TransCanada. We have internalized this economic-predator thinking that resembles Stockholm syndrome. Since we feel powerless about corporations taking over our communities, we end up siding with these predators.”

For Spotted Eagle, women who suffer from the fallout of economies such as oil are more than unavoidable externalities. “These women have names; they are our sisters, our daughters, our mothers.”

Tribes and Snohomish County working together on Sustainable Land Strategy

Terry Williams introduces USDA Deputy Under Secretary of Agriculture Butch Blazer at the Jan. 23rd presentation of the SnoCo SLS. Photo: Andrew Gobin

By Andrew Gobin, Tulalip News

Over the last three years the Snohomish County Sustainable Land Strategy (SLS) has gained national attention for innovative planning to preserve and protect both agricultural interests and the county watershed. What started as a small project now will drive national agriculture policy. Collaborators of the SLS met with United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Deputy Under Secretary for Natural Resources & Environment, Arthur “Butch” Blazer, on January 23^rd to discuss the progress of the SLS so far and their future plans. Historically, Snohomish County and area tribes have a reputation for innovative strategic planning, yet this is the first strategy that is beneficial to everyone’s interests.

The SLS is a collaborative project between the Tulalip Tribes, the Stillaguamish Tribe, and Snohomish County that “balances the need to restore vital salmon habitat while also protecting the viability of local agriculture,” according to Snohomish County’s brochure on the SLS. Salmon and farming are noted as having key roles in the history and economy of the county and can both be protected through the SLS.

Qualco Energy is one example of a collaborative effort to protect salmon habitat without burdening or infringing on agriculture. The energy company, located a few miles southwest of Monroe, is a non-profit partnership comprised of the Tulalip Tribes, Northwest Chinook Recovery, and the Sno/Sky Agricultural Alliance. In February of 2008, after 10 years of planning and research, Qualco installed an anaerobic digester that converts cow manure into energy and natural gas. Cow manure has devastating impacts on salmon habitat and typically has to be hauled away or diverted to a lagoon. Now, the manure can go right to a digester, keeping it out of the watershed without incurring time and monetary costs to farmers.

“Local communities are also happy with the reduced agricultural smells, now that the waste goes to the digester and isn’t sitting in open lagoons,” added Qualco Vice President Daryl Williams, a Tulalip tribal member who also works for the Tulalip Tribes Natural Resources department.

The Qualco example also demonstrates the support the SLS has from the state legislature. The land on which the project is located is an old dairy farm donated to the project by the state. State permitting laws were changed for the project in order to allow the project to expand to food waste, now allowing the Qualco digester to run 30% food waste without need a solid waste permit.

Co-Facilitator of the SLS, Dan Evans, said, “When you bring together the tribes and agriculture, you have tremendous bandwidth. With that, you have the key to push things through legislation,” referring to the political influence of the SLS.

That political momentum has caught the attention of the USDA, which only adds to it.

“The primary purpose I am here is to listen. This presentation is material I can take back with me [to Washington DC] and help you continue doing what you’re doing on a national policy level,” said USDA Deputy Under Secretary Butch Blazer.

The SLS has the potential to expand to other counties; Skagit and King are currently expressing an interesting in developing their own SLS.

In addition to peripheral county influence, the SLS is a gateway for future innovation in the fields of sustainable land use and clean, renewable energy.

Inherent Sovereignty Declaration Sets Tone for Fed. Rec. Conference

Gale Courey ToensingLeaders and representatives of 29 indigenous nations that are not acknowledged by the federal government participated in a pipe ceremony and signing of a Declaration on the Exercise of Inherent Sovereignty and Cooperation on the first day of a conference called Who Decides You're Real? Fixing the Federal Recognition Process at Arizona State University. — Gale Courey Toensing
Leaders and representatives of 29 indigenous nations that are not acknowledged by the federal government participated in a pipe ceremony and signing of a Declaration on the Exercise of Inherent Sovereignty and Cooperation on the first day of a conference called Who Decides You’re Real? Fixing the Federal Recognition Process at Arizona State University.

Gale Courey Toensing, ICTMN, 1/27/14

A unique direct action took place on the first morning of a recent conference on federal recognition: The panel discussions stopped for almost two hours while everyone participated in a ceremony for the signing and witnessing of a declaration asserting the inherent sovereignty of indigenous nations.

The conference, called “Who Decides You’re Real? Fixing the Federal Recognition Process,” was held January 16-17 at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Close to 200 tribal leaders and representatives of both federally recognized and “unrecognized” indigenous nations, attorneys and consultants specializing in the Federal Acknowledgement Process (FAP), and federal officials attended. The discussion focused on the challenges faced by unrecognized tribes under what everyone agrees is a “broken” federal recognition process and ways to fix it.

The conference took place in the midst of a reform effort by Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn and other Bureau of Indian Affairs officials that has been called “the most dramatic, bold proposal made in the federal acknowledgment area in probably the last 20 years.”

“This conference is timely to talk about what those proposed changes are and also to help those people who are struggling through the system,” said Frank Ettawageshik, former chairman of the Little Traverse Band of Odawa Indians and co-chair of the conference with Rev. John Norwood, tribal councilman and Principal Justice of the Tribal Supreme Court of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation.

Ettawageshik and Norwood conducted the pipe ceremony that accompanied the signing of five original copies of the Declaration on the Exercise of Inherent Sovereignty and Cooperation by 29 tribal leaders. The leaders brought with them resolutions from their councils authorizing the signing. Everyone else present then signed five copies of witness sheets.

The key idea, Ettawageshik said, is that federal recognition is about two sovereigns negotiating diplomatic relations. “The relationship between the federal government and an indigenous nation isn’t a one-way street. We need to recognize each other,’ he said. “But I’ve often pointed out that if we as tribes in the U.S. define ourselves as having to have federal recognition in order to be a member of this group then what we’ve done is abdicated our role as a sovereign, we’ve abdicated the role of deciding with whom we will have diplomatic relations. In other words, are we indigenous nations going to recognize each other? We need to be thinking that through. And one of the ways we do that is by signing accords or agreements or treaties with each other, which is acknowledging each other.”

That was the concept behind the Declaration on the Exercise of Inherent Sovereignty and Cooperation, which was Ettawageshik’s brainchild during conference planning sessions with Norwood and co-chairs Patty Ferguson-Bohnee, a citizen of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe and director of the Indian Legal Program at the College of Law and attorney Judy Shapiro.

“Conferences generally present a series of panels or talking heads one after the other talking about ideas. That’s an important exchange but there’s something to be said for talking about something and then doing it. That helps cement the ideas and gets you moving in their direction.”

The Declaration is written in the style of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other international documents with a series of statements “honoring,” “building,” “expressing,” “desiring,” and so on, to the final statement, which says, “[W]e pledge, affirm and proclaim: To work with each other to exercise our inherent sovereignty as governments, to protect individual and common human rights, and to seek social justice. The dust and spirits of our ancestors that make up our cultural and national roots are deep in the waters and soil of this land, nurtured by the gifts of Mother Earth. As we stand on this land, we drink together from the waters of knowledge, we breathe the air of freedom and wisdom, and we bask in the light of cooperation and compassion. We assert these for our children’s children and beyond. We carry many lessons from our ancestors, and we share in the collective wisdom and experiences that they have entrusted to us to provide for our coming generations.”

Special engraved pens were given to everyone to sign the Declaration and embossed copies of the document were distributed. The five original copies will be preserved in different parts of the country.

“We wanted to make a memorable event that people could participate in and remember,” Ettawageshik said. From all accounts, the organizers succeeded.

Developing A Taste For Geoduck In The Northwest

Michael Gifford, chef at Seattle's How To Cook A Wolf, shows off a geoduck he's preparing. | credit: Ashley Ahearn — Michael Gifford, chef at Seattle’s How To Cook A Wolf, shows off a geoduck he’s preparing. | credit: Ashley Ahearn

By Ashley Ahearn, OPB

The Locavore movement is thriving in the Northwest — with one big exception. When it comes to Puget Sound geoduck clams, the shellfish industry and local chefs are still trying to create a demand for them at home.

Geoduck clams from Washington state are prized in Asia, creating a lucrative market for the Puget Sound region’s tribal and commercial shellfish harvesters. But two months ago, China banned all shellfish imports from most of the West Coast after finding high levels of arsenic in a sample from Washington. The move has hit Washington hard, particularly the geoduck industry.

And that has the industry turning to local chefs to help boost demand close to home.

Local chef Michael Gifford remembers his first experience with geoduck clams. He got his first taste at a sushi restaurant soon after he moved to Seattle from New Jersey.

“I was like, wow, I’ve never seen this before. It’s really unique. We’re very fortunate here to have this product,” Gifford says.

These days Gifford is the chef at the Seattle restaurant How To Cook A Wolf, where geoduck clams make regular appearances on the menu. He extolled the virtues of the region’s largest clam recently while preparing geoduck crudo, or in the raw.

“This is going to get a little raunchy. As you can see the geoduck is a very phallic looking animal,” he said, standing in the stainless steel kitchen as two large clams sat on a shelf nearby, their foot-long siphons draping down.

“So what we do is we bring them in, let them relax a little bit, let them go down and get out to its natural length,” Gifford quips. These necks can stretch to a meter in length.

Gifford is ready to remove the skin from a geoduck’s neck. Credit: Ashley Ahearn.

Gifford places the clams into boiling water, then into ice water to “shock them.” This process makes it easy to remove the outer skin of the geoduck.

When these filter-feeders are burrowed in the sand and mud of Puget Sound, their outer skin gathers more arsenic and other trace metals than does the rest of their body. The Washington Department of Health confirmed this in December, when it went back and tested more than 50 geoduck clams after China instituted its ban. The skin of every single clam had amounts of arsenic that exceed levels that China has deemed safe for human consumption.

The clams’ other body tissue types — those found in the neck, the mantle and the gut ball — were OK in all but one sample tested by the Washington state agency.

Bill Dewey is with Shelton, Wash.-based Taylor Shellfish Farms, which bills itself as the largest producer of geoducks in the United States. He says the company has had more testing done on several different kinds of shellfish it sells, including geoduck. The levels of metals are all very low, but they’re there.

“You will see arsenic, cadmium, selenium, all sorts of different metals some good for you some not good for you in all your shellfish,” Dewey says.

The Washington Department of Health rigorously tests shellfish for biotoxins and bacteria that can make people sick immediately. But it doesn’t regularly test for metals. Past tests from the DOH have shown metals in shellfish at levels below public health concerns. As with all seafood, it’s a question of how much shellfish you eat.

As Michael Gifford slices pearly strips of flesh off of the neck of a geoduck clam, it’s hard to think of anything other than the next step in his recipe.

He’s finely mincing Fresno chili peppers and celery. Then he smears a green stripe of avocado puree onto the plate. Finally, Gifford arranges the silken white, paper-thin strips of geoduck in ruffles.

“So then, the real fun. We’ll dress it with some nice olive oil. Little bit of lemon. We use fleur de sel, a very nice sea salt,“ Gifford says. “It’s not full of brine, but you’re getting that hint of the ocean.”

For centuries native Americans harvested geoducks from the tideflats of Puget Sound. (The word “geoduck” comes from the Nisqually word “gweduc,” meaning “dig deep.”) These were the biggest clams to be found — weighing as much as 16 pounds or more. Northwest Indians ate them fresh or smoked. By the late 1800s the region’s white settlers came to consider them a delicacy. But by the mid-20th century geoducks had all but disappeared from area beaches. To prevent the clams from becoming extinct, the government made it illegal to sell geoduck clams in restaurants and markets.

In the 1970s scuba divers discovered that geoduck clams hadn’t actually been harvested to extinction. They were bountiful in the deeper waters of Puget Sound. But by then, few Northwesterners had an interest in dinning on them in area restaurants. But the story took a different turn in Asia. An intense marketing campaign popularized them in Asia — especially among the newly rich Chinese — causing the price to soar. They’re an especially popular delicacy around the lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year), which takes place this year on Jan. 31.

A geoduck crudo prepared by chef Michael Gifford. Credit: Ashley Ahearn

Though the clams are popular abroad, local markets are still growing. Bill Dewey says for the past decade or so, Taylor Shellfish has been actively promoting geoduck to restaurants around the Northwest. There are now close to 20 restaurants in Seattle with geoduck on the menu.

Geoduck can sell for close to $100 per pound in China, while Seattle restaurants pay around $20 per pound. The domestic market isn’t making up for the industry’s losses abroad.

Read: How To Cook A Geoduck

Dewey says his company has had to cut back. “We did our best through the holidays to keep people employed, but ultimately it’s gone on long enough that we’ve had to lay some people off,” Dewey says. Taylor has laid off 14 people and estimates its losses at upwards of $1 million.

The Chinese ban is affecting others, too. Divers with the Suquamish and other tribes have been out of work for weeks, losing thousands of dollars every day. The Department of Natural Resources is out close to $1 million in revenue from geoduck harvested on state lands.

Dewey says he’s optimistic that China might lift the ban soon.

For now, geoduck may be a tough sell for most Northwest diners. But if more chefs like Michael Gifford have their way with this quirky clam, the future might look a little more delicious.

Katie Campbell contributed to this report. Toni Tabora-Roberts produced this story for the web.

NCAI’s State of Tribal Nations Address Set for Jan. 30

Source: Native News Online

WASHINGTON – Each year, the President of the National Congress of American Indians presents the State of Indian Nations address to members of Congress, government officials, tribal leaders and citizens, and the American public. The speech outlines the goals of tribal leaders, the opportunities for success and advancement of Native peoples, and priorities to advance our nation-to-nation relationship with the United States.

The State of Indian Nations address will occur the following morning after President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address before both chambers of Congress.

NCAI President Brian Cladoosby will deliver the State of Indian Nations live from the Knight Studios at the Newseum in Washington, DC.

Brian Cladoosby serves as the 21st President of NCAI. In October 2013 at NCAI’s 71st Annual Convention, he was elected to serve his first term as President of the organization. He is currently the President of the Association of Washington Tribes and has previously served as an Area Vice President on the NCAI Board. Brian Cladoosby has served on the Swinomish Indian Senate, the governing body of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, since 1985. He has served as the Chairman of the Swinomish Indian Senate since 1997.

Immediately following, Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) will provide a Congressional Response. The floor will then be opened up to questions from press, the live audience, and those watching

WHAT:

2014 State of Indian Nations address

Delivered by President Brian Cladoosby

WHEN:

Thursday, January 30th

EVENT SCHEDULE

9:30am – Doors Open

10:15am – Doors Close

10:20am – Invocation

10:30am – State of Indian Nations

11:00am – Congressional Response

11:15am – Question & Answer Session

11:45am – Closing Remarks

WHERE:

Knight Studios

Newseum

Washington, DC

*Use the C Street Entrance

Fixing old water and gas pipelines would create far more jobs than building Keystone XL

By Brendan Smith, Kristen Sheeran and May Boeve, GRIST

In the coming months, President Obama will decide whether to approve the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport crude tar-sands oil from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. We know that the pipeline would greatly aggravate climate change, allowing massive amounts of the world’s dirtiest oil to be extracted and later burned.

The payoff, say supporters such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is a job boom in construction industries, which are currently suffering from high unemployment. Earlier this month, Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue called on the president “to put American jobs before special interest politics.”

If you believe headline-grabbing challenges such as Donohue’s, the president is painted into a corner on the KXL pipeline — trapped by a stagnant economy and an ailing environment.

The president knows KXL’s jobs promises are way overblown. In July, he explained it this way to The New York Times: “Republicans have said this would be a big jobs generator. There is no evidence that is true.” The most realistic estimates, said the president, show that KXL “might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline, which might take a year or two.” And after that, “we’re talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 jobs in an economy of 150 million working people.”

Still, even a few thousand construction jobs can’t be dismissed out of hand, in an industry where nearly a million people are estimated to be out of work. Those jobs would put food on the table and pay mortgages. They would alleviate a lot of pain, even if only temporarily. As a country, we’re still hungry for jobs. It seems as if we’re collectively out on the street and KXL is the only offer that has come along.

But that’s not actually the case.

According to “The Keystone Pipeline Debate: An Alternative Job Creation Strategy,” a study just released by Economics for Equity and Environment and the Labor Network for Sustainability, targeted investments in our existing water and natural-gas pipeline infrastructure needs along the proposed five-state corridor of the KXL pipeline would create many more long-term jobs than Keystone XL, both in absolute terms and per unit of investment.

We can create far more jobs in the construction industry and do it right in the regions that would stand to benefit from the KXL pipeline. We can get beyond the zombie jobs-vs.-environment debate that keeps rearing its ghoulish head, putting people back to work without breaking the climate. We can do all this by tackling the national crisis of aging infrastructure — repairing things such as crumbling water mains and leaking gas lines that are critical to our communities and our economy.

The data from the report are straightforward and compelling. Meeting the $18 billion in needed water and gas line repairs would support:

– More than 300,000 total jobs across all sectors

– Nearly five times more jobs, and more long-term jobs, than KXL

– 156 percent of the number of direct jobs created by Keystone XL per unit of investment

All of this necessary infrastructure work can be financed, as the report describes, just by closing three federal tax breaks fossil fuel companies enjoy for drilling and refining activities. So the tax loopholes that would help subsidize the KXL pipeline could instead fund many more longer-lasting jobs repairing existing water and gas infrastructure.

To be clear, natural gas has serious negative impacts to communities and the environment. Fracking, the now commonly used process of extracting shale gas from deep underground, releases 30 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional drilling and is poisoning water supplies across the country. But we still need to fix leaks in our existing natural-gas pipelines, which are contributing significantly to climate change. Shoring up those pipelines will also protect communities and businesses that rely on gas now, as we transition to cleaner energy.

Damage caused by leaking and unsafe gas pipelines cost governments across the country more than $450 million between 1984 and 2013. The American Society of Civil Engineers, in its latest Infrastructure Report Card, recently gave the country a D+ on energy infrastructure, and a D on drinking-water and wastewater infrastructure. If we don’t get our act together, we’re going to see more devastating explosions like the one that tore through San Bruno, Calif., a few years ago.

What’s curious is that many of the politicians and lobbying groups who have touted the KXL pipeline as a source of jobs have opposed legislation to invest in job-creating pipeline infrastructure programs. Yet when it comes to job creation, infrastructure improvements beat out KXL by a country mile. KXL has become a litmus test for being pro-job, but one that’s far detached from reality and that’s drawing attention away from effective ways to get people back to work.

Meanwhile, environmentalists, frequently excoriated as “job killers,” are becoming a strong collective voice for investment in infrastructure and other things our country really needs. They are increasingly working with organized labor to develop concrete alternatives to jobs that may destroy the environment.

If job creation is our primary goal, then politicians should pivot away from the Keystone XL pipeline and toward repairs to existing pipeline infrastructure. This is how President Obama — and the whole country — can get out of the Keystone jam.

Brendan Smith is a former construction worker and cofounder of the Labor Network for Sustainability.Kristen Sheeran is an economist and director of the E3 Network.

May Boeve is the executive director of 350.org.

Marysville schools’ info fair & kindergarten registration kick off Jan. 25

Source: Marysville Globe

MARYSVILLE — The Marysville School District’s annual information fair and kindergarten registration kickoff will take place this year from 9-11 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 25, at the Totem Middle School cafeteria, located at 1605 Seventh St.

New kindergarten parents will be able to meet with staff members from their children’s schools, and to register their children for the 2014-15 class. Interpreters will be on site to assist parents who speak Spanish or Russian.

Parents should bring their children’s birth certificates, as well as their health and immunization records. Registration documents are now available on the Marysville School District’s website at www.msvl.k12.wa.us.

Staff will be on hand to help you locate your child’s neighborhood school, which you can also find out ahead of time by calling the MSD Service Center at 360-653-0835, or by logging onto www.msvl.k12.wa.us.

Registration will continue at your neighborhood schools, beginning on Monday, Jan. 27, for the 2014-15 school year.

District partners whose representatives are set to attend the information fair include ECEAP, the Marysville Library, the city of Marysville Parks & Recreation Department, the PTSA and Special Education PTSA, the Marysville YMCA and more.

Federal Recognition Process: A Culture of Neglect

Gale Courey Toensing, ICTMN

The Shinnecock Indian Nation was petitioner number 4 on the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ list of tribes seeking federal recognition in 1978 soon after the agency established the seven criteria for recognition.

Thirty-two years and $33 million later in June 2010, the BIA acknowledged the Shinnecock Nation as an American Indian tribe with a government-to-government relationship with the United States’ and whose members are eligible to receive health, education, housing and other services provided to federally recognized tribes – services the federal government is obligated to provide as a debt owed to the Indigenous Peoples in exchange for the loss of their lands.

Three or four days after receiving federal recognition, the tribe got another letter from the BIA, Lance Gumbs, former Shinnecock council chairman, said. “It was an internal memo from inside the Office of Federal Acknowledgement and this memo said the Shinnecock Tribe is indeed a tribe and they should be recognized expeditiously in this process,” Gumbs said. “And that letter was dated from 1979.”

The Shinnecock Nation’s experience in the BIA’s Federal Acknowledgement Process (FAP) is not unique; it’s typical of a process that’s been described as broken, long, expensive, burdensome, intrusive, unfair, arbitrary and capricious, less than transparent, unpredictable, and subject to undue political influence and manipulation. It reflects a culture of neglect on the part of the federal government, indigenous leaders and others involved in recognition efforts say.

On January 16 and 17 close to 200 tribal leaders and representatives of both federally recognized and “unrecognized” indigenous nations, attorneys and consultants specializing in the FAP, and federal officials gathered at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law for a unique conference called “Who Decides You’re Real? Fixing the Federal Recognition Process.”

“The recognition process is a broken system that needs to be reformed,” Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and newly elected president of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), said in his opening remarks at the conference. Cladoosby said he told Interior Secretary Sally Jewell recently to fix the broken process. “I said, ‘Take the 19th and 20th century rules and regulations that are paternalistic and fit them for the Natives that we have today,’” he said. The federal acknowledgment process is critically important, Cladoosby said. “Put simply, federal acknowledgment empowers tribes to govern and provide the services and stability their people need in order to preserve their culture. The failure to acknowledge a historical tribe is a failure of the trust responsibility and contributes to the destruction of tribal culture.”

The conference focused on the challenges faced by unrecognized tribes and covered all aspects of federal recognition, including its history, the administrative process, current issues, and proposed new rules and regulations that would reform the process – a discussion presented by the BIA’s Deputy Assistant Secretary Larry Roberts. Several tribal leaders, like Gumbs, and tribal representatives told their tribes’ stories.

The BIA’s own numbers tell its story. Since 1978 when the FAP was established 356 “groups” have sought federal acknowledgment. Of that number, 269 have not submitted documented petitions. Of the 87 that have submitted documented petitions, the agency has resolved 55 and 19 have been resolved by Congress or other means.

“Resolved” doesn’t mean the groups were given federal acknowledgment. Of the 55 resolved, 17 were acknowledged and 34 were denied. The remaining four had their status “clarified” by other means.

Although the number of unrecognized tribes was not pinned down at the conference, the Government Accountability Office identified approximately 400 non-federally recognized tribes in a study it conducted in 2012 on federal funding for unrecognized tribes. The study found that 26 non-federally recognized tribes received funding from 24 federal programs during fiscal years 2007 through 2010. Most of the 26 non-federally recognized tribes were eligible to receive this funding either because of their status as nonprofit organizations or state-recognized tribes.

State recognition didn’t help two Connecticut tribes – the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation (STN) or the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nations (EPTN) – hold on to their status as federally recognized tribes. Ruth Torres, an STN citizen, described the campaign of political influence that ultimately resulted in the unprecedented reversal of both tribes’ federal acknowledgment. She talked about a cluster of events in May 2005 that worked in concert toward reversal of the tribe’s federal status: an appeal of the Final Determination by then Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (now a senator), the hostility toward the tribe expressed by residents at a town meeting in Kent where the tribe has a 400 acre reservation – all that remains of approximately 2,500 acres set aside for the tribe in 1736 – and a House Committee hearing called “Betting on Transparency: Toward Fairness and Integrity in the Interior Department’s Tribal Recognition Process” that featured some of the most zealous opponents to federal recognition, Indian gaming and Indian country in general in politics.

“Betting, it was called,” Torres pointed out. “Now tell me, what do you think was the motivation for the political influence exerted on the FAP?” Federal recognition gives tribes the right to conduct Class III gaming, but contrary to popular belief, STN, like the majority of other tribes, filed its petition years before the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) was enacted in 1988, Torres said. The IGRA launched Indian gaming on the path to becoming the $27 billion industry that it is today, but along with its success came a backlash of political opposition that effectively put the brakes on federal recognition.

STN had been in the FAP process since 1981 and by the mid-1990s it became clear – just as it did to the Shinnecock Indian Nation, Torres said – that the tribe needed a financial backer and it entered into a casino deal with Fred DeLuca, owner of the Subway chain, and a group called Eastlanders. The investors spent around $22 million on the process, Torres said. Nonetheless, the political opponents were successful in overturning the tribe’s recognition and even in influencing a federal judge who denied the tribe’s appeal of the reversal in part because he said he believed federal decision makers who said they were not influenced by the frenzy of political pressure that was brought to bear upon them.

The Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe’s story is one of the saddest tales of federal government neglect and bureaucratic rigidity.

In 2008, the Bush administration issued proposed negative findings to both the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe and the Biloxi, Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees, Inc. (BCCM). Members of both tribes are descendants of the historical Biloxi, Chitimacha, Choctaw and other tribes and subgroups.

Pointe-au-Chien proved it had been identified as an American Indian “entity” since 1900, the Bush Interior Department said, but it hadn’t submitted a membership list or demonstrated that it was a distinct community or had political entity before 1830.

Pointe-au-Chien is a traditional community whose members survive on sustenance fishing and hunting in their coastal Louisiana territory. But the tribe’s land has been washing away for decades in the erosion of thousands of square miles of coastal wetlands. The erosion is caused by salty water from the Gulf of Mexico flowing into the fresh water marshes because levees built for navigation along the Mississippi River since the beginning of the 20th century prevent mud and silt from cyclically rebuilding the marshes and coastal bottom. Add to that environmental disaster the devastation wreaked on the Louisiana coast by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.

The tribe notified the Coast Guard that it’s sacred sites were in danger from the oil and needed protection, Patty Ferguson-Bohnee, a Pointe-au-Chien tribal member and director of the Indian Legal Clinic at Arizona State University, said. “At one point in the process, the federal government said, ‘We cannot consult with you because you’re not a federally recognized tribe,’” Ferguson-Bohnee said. Even when the remains of Pointe au Chien ancestors were found, the tribe could not access them for reburial because it lacks federal acknowledgment. The tribe also lacks the means to hire experts to bolster its petition for recognition. And without drastic wetlands restoration efforts by the federal government the tribe’s remaining lands continue to disappear.

For Gumbs, the federal recognition process “consumed all of my adult life – 32 years,” he said. “When we started this process [in 1978] it should have been a relatively fair and equitable process. Instead it turned into a test of strategy and will. We went from playing checkers to playing chess…We had to think of the next three moves, four moves that we were going to make in response to how they [the Office of Federal Acknowledgement] were treating us. They had a complete disregard for the criteria [for federal acknowledgment] as they were written and they would change the rules right in mid-stream.”

You can’t have tribes stuck in the process for 30 years, Cladoosby said. “That’s just unacceptable. No one should have to wait 30 years to be told that the federal government is going to recognize them. The process is broken. It needs to be fixed.”

UN Special Rapporteur Meets with Leonard Peltier in Prison

Leonard Peltier has been in prison for 37 years

Levi Rickert, Native News Online

COLEMAN, FLORIDA – On Friday January 24, 2014, United Nations Special Rapporteur, Professor James Anaya visited United States Penitentiary Coleman 1 in Florida, to meet with American Indian political prisoner Leonard Peltier. Professor Anaya was accompanied by Leonard “Lenny ” Foster, member of the Board of Directors of the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), Supervisor of the Navajo Nations Correction Project, and Spiritual Advisor to Mr. Peltier for nearly 30 years.

The historic, nearly four hour meeting began around 9 am. While the discussion Friday morning was meant to focus on executive clemency for Leonard Peltier, the conversation touched on many subjects, as Mr. Peltier was eager to hear the Special Rapporteur’s perspective on the worldwide condition of indigenous peoples.

In a trial that is widely recognized as a miscarriage of justice, Leonard Peltier was convicted in 1977, in connection with a shootout with US Government forces, where two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and one young Indian man lost their lives. Every piece of evidence to convict Mr. Peltier has been since proven false.

Professor Anaya is currently serving his second term as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People. In September 2012, following a series of consultation sessions with Indigenous Peoples throughout the United States, the Special Rapporteur produced a “ Country Report on the Situation of Indigenous Peoples In the United States of America” (A/HRC/21/47/Ad)].

In the report, Professor Anaya called for freedom for Leonard Peltier, and stated: “Pleas for presidential consideration of clemency…have not borne fruit. This further depletes the already diminished faith in the criminal justice system felt by many indigenous peoples…”

The effort to engage the United Nations Special Rapporteur in the struggle to address justice for Mr. Peltier began in 2008, during a discussion between Lenny Foster and Alberto Salomando, former attorney for the IITC. Following the visit Lenny Foster stated: ‘The visit today by U.N. Special Rapporteur James Anaya to Leonard Peltier in prison is very significant and historic for us. We thank him for working..to make this possible. This will support efforts for Executive Clemency for Leonard Peltier and promote reconciliation and justice in this case.”

Leonard Peltier said Friday “if the Constitutional violations that took place in my trial are allowed to stand, it will set precedence for future trials, and jeopardize the freedom and constitutional rights of all Americans.”

Also in attendance of the meeting Friday were: David Hill, Director of the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee (ILPDC), Peter Clark, ILPDC Chapter Coordinator and Unoccupyabq.org member.

David Hill stated “that Americans can no longer afford to tolerate this miscarriage of justice and we shall make every effort to bring these judicial violations to the attention of all Americans, as well as internationally.”

NCAI President Commits To Strengthening Partnership With Boys And Girls Clubs Of America

Source: NCAI Press Release

WASHINGTON, DC – Swinomish Tribal Chairman and President of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) Brian Cladoosby had the chance to meet with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and members of the Tulalip Tribe to discuss the importance of supporting Native youth through positive youth development programs. The Boys & Girls Clubs in Indian Country serves over 85,000 Native youth in over 200 clubs nationwide in Indian country. After the meeting with Tulalip Tribe – the 6th Tribal Club – and Tulalip Chairman Mel Sheldon, President Cladoosby said:

“What an inspiration to see the incredible work of the Boys and Girls Clubs! There is nothing more important than supporting young people and encouraging them to make positive decisions. I am excited to continue working with the Clubs on bringing education, career, and healthy living choices to Native youth and the children of all communities.”

Providing opportunities for the next generation is the greatest responsibility of this generation. With that duty in mind, President Cladoosby has focused on education and Native youth in his first months at NCAI. He and the organization are committed to strengthening the partnership between NCAI and the Boys and Girls Clubs.

Boys & Girls Clubs in Indian Country began over 20 years ago and has grown dramatically ever since. Under the leadership of Brian Yazzie, the National Director of Native American Services for Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Boys & Girls Clubs offer multiple programs specific to tribal communities. These programs include the On the T.R.A.I.L. (Together Raising Awareness for Indian Life) to Diabetes Prevention Program which provides youth with tools to prevent type 2 diabetes through self-esteem and prevention activities. The T.R.A.I.L program has served nearly 12,000 Native youth in 85 tribal communities. Robbie Callaway, of FirstPic, Inc. who was instrumental in beginning the Boys & Girls Clubs in Indian Country initiative stated:

“President Cladoosby and NCAI’s support for Boys & Girls Clubs in Indian Country has the ability to help increase opportunities for Native youth across the country and create sustainable programs throughout Native communities.”

NCAI has a long history of working hand in hand with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, including the passage of a resolution in 2004 endorsing a permanent endowment for the Boys and Girls Clubs for their work in Indian Country. FirstPic, Inc. has worked with Boys & Girls Clubs of America and NCAI throughout this initiative to implement high quality programming for Native youth. Executive Director Jacqueline Pata sits on the Native American Advisory Council for the Clubs and has made the partnership between NCAI and the Boys and Girls Clubs a priority for the organization.