House Natural Resources Committee hearing on tribal co-management of lands shadowed by oil-hungry GOP

By Miguel M. Mulford Last updated Mar 10, 2022

Credit: Getty Images

Representative Raúl Grijalva hailed the hearing as “a long overdue hearing” between the indigenous community and the government, although many Republicans did their best to spoil the opportunity.

Mar 10, 2022 7:08 a.m. PST

by April Siese, Kos daily staff

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the The Natural Resources Committee held a landmark hearing on Tuesday opening a dialogue between Indigenous leaders and the government regarding co-management of land. Entitled “Review of the History of Federal Lands and the Development of Tribal Co-Management”, one would think that the main priority of the hearing would be to discuss the many ways the government has wronged Native tribes and taken their lands away from them. by violent means. . Not so for many oil-and-gas-hungry Republicans, who used the hearing to criticize President Joe Biden and demand that fossil fuels keep flowing in the wake of the US invasion. Ukraine by Russia.Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, who chairs the committee, kicked off the meeting by calling it “long overdue” and praising a potential partnership between government and tribes. “Through tribal co-management, we can make Indigenous voices heard while continuing to meet our obligations to protect the climate and conserve federal lands,” the Democrat said.Republican Representative Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, who spoke immediately afterwards, criticized the committee for not addressing “the energy crisis”. Westerman said, “I would consider it a dereliction of duty to have a hearing and not talk about it. The energy policy that this country currently has is unreliable, it is unreliable in a technological sense, it is unreliable in terms of where the energy comes from, it is not affordable and it is not It’s certainly not clean or as clean as it could be if we were really serious about energy policy.The panel ranking member might have been right – had he chosen to focus on a bigger push towards renewables. Instead, he repeatedly took the opportunity to question whether the Southern Ute Tribe President Melvin J. Baker wants to mine his own fossil fuels or “get more oil and gas from hostile countries like Iran or Venezuela.”

It should be noted that Westerman has received donations of people employed by Cox Oil, Murphy Oil, Hilcorp Energy, Arnold Oil Company of Austin and the National Mining Association, not to mention his constant shilling for the oil and gas industry. He was not the only Republican to prioritize polluters over the much-needed work needed for fairer management of public lands, with the Indigenous community in the lead. Rep. Blake Moore of Utah desperately wanted to know how the so-called suspension of oil and gas drilling wreaked havoc on Native Americans. Moore has received donations people employed by Utah Rural Electric, Saudi Aramco and Origin Creek Energy. An individual from Koch Industries also donated $250 to Moore, because of course they did. Moore has a record of co-sponsoring legislation that pushes for more fossil fuel production, including sponsorship of the recent US Energy Independence from Russia Act presented last week.There were a few GOP members who actually understood what their constituents cared about when it came to co-management of land, including Rep. Jay Obernolte of California, who discussed the much-needed maintenance at Joshua Tree, and Rep. Don Young from Alaska. , who asked National Park Service Director Chuck Sams explains how the agency could work better with native tribes. The time spent on the topic in question led members to reflect on how co-management of land could not only help the environment, but better educate the government on the multifaceted significance of land stolen from Native Americans. However, no policy allowing the tribes to reclaim these lands was discussed.The Honorable Carleton Bowekaty, Pueblo Lieutenant Governor of Zuni, co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribe Coalition, marveled that lawmakers were even willing to host a discussion on equitable land management. “Today, instead of being removed from a landscape to make way for a public park, we are being invited back to our ancestral lands to prepare them and plan for their resilient future,” Bowekaty said. “We are being asked to apply our traditional knowledge to natural and man-made ecological challenges.” These panelists present — and many members of the Natural Resources Committee hope — that this is just the beginning of legitimate land justice and recognition of the country’s true history of displacement of Native Americans through colonization.In his introductory remarks, grijalva says he plans to “introduce a resolution formally recognizing the federal dispossession of these lands from Indigenous communities and calling on the federal government to include tribal governments and Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge in the management of these lands. Grijalva said he is working with the Government Accountability Office to review how co-management land partnerships work between tribes and federal land management agencies and plans to introduce legislation with New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich that “would better protect tribal sacred sites”.

land management natural resources

House Natural Resources Committee hearing on tribal co-management of lands shadowed by oil-hungry GOP

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