Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Natives Aff
Natives Aff......................................................................................................................................................................1
*** Inherency ***...........................................................................................................................................................3
Inherency – No Incentives Now.....................................................................................................................................3
Inherency – No PTC.......................................................................................................................................................4
Inherency – Coal Burning Now......................................................................................................................................5
Inherency – Coal Burning Now......................................................................................................................................6
*** Solvency ***............................................................................................................................................................8
Incentives Key................................................................................................................................................................8
PTC Key..........................................................................................................................................................................9
Solvency – Wind Power................................................................................................................................................10
Plan 1AC.......................................................................................................................................................................11
*** Colonialism Advantage ***...................................................................................................................................12
Colonialism 1AC..........................................................................................................................................................12
Colonialism 1AC..........................................................................................................................................................13
Colonialism 1AC..........................................................................................................................................................14
Colonialism 1AC..........................................................................................................................................................15
Colonialism 1AC..........................................................................................................................................................16
Colonialism 1AC..........................................................................................................................................................17
Colonialism 1AC..........................................................................................................................................................18
Enviro Destruction Native Extinction......................................................................................................................19
Enviro Destruction Native Extinction......................................................................................................................20
Fossil Fuels Native Extinction.................................................................................................................................21
Coal Burning Bad.........................................................................................................................................................22
Natives Key...................................................................................................................................................................23
Natives Key...................................................................................................................................................................24
Native Oppression Spills Over......................................................................................................................................25
Colonialism Impact – Worse than Death......................................................................................................................26
Impact – Biodiversity....................................................................................................................................................27
Sustainable Development Good....................................................................................................................................28
Soft Energy Good – Acid Rain.....................................................................................................................................29
Soft Energy Good – Global Development....................................................................................................................30
Soft Energy Key to Native Survival.............................................................................................................................31
Renewables Ensure Native Survival.............................................................................................................................32
*** Damming Advantage ***......................................................................................................................................33
Damming 1AC – Indo/Pak............................................................................................................................................33
Damming 1AC – Indo/Pak............................................................................................................................................34
Damming 1AC – Turkey...............................................................................................................................................35
Damming 1AC – Turkey...............................................................................................................................................36
Damming 1AC..............................................................................................................................................................37
Damming 1AC..............................................................................................................................................................38
Damming 1AC..............................................................................................................................................................39
Damming 1AC..............................................................................................................................................................40
Yes Global Hydropower................................................................................................................................................42
Yes Global Hydropower................................................................................................................................................43
Modeling.......................................................................................................................................................................44
Hydropower Bad – Natives...........................................................................................................................................45
Hydropower Bad – Warming........................................................................................................................................46
Hydropower Bad – Environment..................................................................................................................................47
Hydropower Bad – Environment..................................................................................................................................48
Environment Impact......................................................................................................................................................49
China – Uniqueness......................................................................................................................................................50
China Specific Impacts.................................................................................................................................................51
Brazil – Uniqueness......................................................................................................................................................52
1
Miami Debate Institute 2008
Natives Aff – Harrigan / Munksgaard
2
Miami Debate Institute 2008
Natives Aff – Harrigan / Munksgaard
*** Inherency ***
3
Miami Debate Institute 2008
Natives Aff – Harrigan / Munksgaard
Inherency – No PTC
Tribes lack tax credit for a tribal-led green energy future.
Rahimi – writer - 2008 (Shadi, “Native company launches wind energy project”, April 11,
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417016)
SAN FRANCISCO - Just as a collective of tribes is pushing for federal legislation in favor of tribal-led wind energy projects, a Native company is posed to
launch an unprecedented effort to help tribes to become principal owners of turbines. The Seattle-based company, Native Green Energy, will debut its first
endeavor in April in Maine, where it has been working with the Passamaquoddy tribe to install two 100-kilowatt turbines that would power 50 homes on a
private grid and allow the tribe to sell back additional energy to private utilities. The company has already won the backing of some state legislatures and
plans next to launch a 2.2-megawatt turbine for a Michigan gaming tribe. ''We're setting out to make a difference in Indian country,'' said company co-
founder Litefoot, a Cherokee musician, actor and entrepreneur. ''We have responsibility from the Creator to take care of this earth and so we are harnessing
these things the Creator has provided to sustain our communities.'' Jon Ahlbrand, company co-founder, said the potential for wind energy is blowing
constantly across Indian country, but there remains a dire lack of suppliers that ''could bridge the gap'' between the private sector market and its renewable
energy demands and tribal governments. ''You can count on your hand the number of existing turbines operating on reservations,'' he said. ''Some of the
winds in the northern
most advantageous markets for wind energy are on trust land or fee land owned by tribes.'' Energy experts say the Dakota
Great Plains alone could meet the nation's entire electrical needs with wind power. But the lack of a
federal tax credit has been thwarting a tribal-led green energy future. Currently, tribes are not entitled to
the tax credits provided to non-Native developers for renewable energy production. And if an outside
company wants to team up with a tribe, they are not provided a full tax credit.
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Miami Debate Institute 2008
Natives Aff – Harrigan / Munksgaard
Coal Plants on Tribal Lands operate under no restrictions dumping millions of tons of CO2
every year.
Earth Island Journal 2006 (“Clear Skies in the Desert,” Summer, Ebsco 21(2)
<http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=3&sid=bd87b7bb-6800-4b3d-8e97-
12e7a3280312%40sessionmgr107>) June 27, 2008
Burning coal pollutes the air. During each year of its operation, the Mohave Generating Station put an average of
40,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, and 10,000 tons of smoke and soot into the air, to blow across the Grand Canyon
and Four Corners country. The plant was one of the largest single sources of airborne sulfur dioxide in the West.
It dumped other pollutants into the air as well; almost 20,000 tons of nitrogen oxides and 2,000 tons of
particulate matter per year, and just under ten million tons of CO2. In the desert Southwest, views of a hundred
miles or more were commonplace as recently as the 1960s. Those views became first rare and then more or less
non-existent. In Clark County near Laughlin, residents complained of "chocolate skies" and sulfur odors when
the wind was light. The plant operated with virtually no emissions controls for the first three decades of its
existence, and an acid haze settled over the desert.
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Miami Debate Institute 2008
Natives Aff – Harrigan / Munksgaard
Coal Factories are having deadly side effects on Tribal lands and communities.
Orion Magazine 1998 (“The Black Mesa Syndrome: Indian Lands, Black Gold,” Summer,
<http://www.shundahai.org/bigmtbackground.html>) June 26, 2008
Today at Black Mesa, buckets the size of a four- story building peel the topsoil off in mile-long strips—a technique called strip mining.
Instead of burrowing into the earth to find the mineral seam, the land over the mineral deposit is removed. Bulldozers shape the underlayers
into enormous slag heaps, workers dynamite the exposed mineral bed, and steam shovels load the coal into massive
transport trucks. By the time the coal is extracted, the land has turned gray, all vegetation has disappeared, the air is
filled with coal dust, the groundwater is contaminated with toxic runoff (sulphates particularly), and electric green
ponds dot the landscape. Sheep that drink from such ponds at noon are dead by suppertime.
Tribal Lands are swindled by unfair contracts and then destroyed by Fossil Fuel Plants
Wilkinson (Moses Lasky Professor of Law, University of Colorado’s School of Law) 2005 (Charles, Blood
Struggle, page 307)
This gigantic scenario would create one of the largest mining complexes in history, a complex rendered even
grander because all the other water and energy projects in the proposed legislation depended on Black Mesa coal
and groundwater. The Hopi (and the Navajo, who owned part of the Black Mesa coal deposit) had enormous
leverage. But the pages of the Indian coal leases, which the tribal councils approved in 1966, hardly evidenced
leverage. Instead, they were financial travesties, unfair transactions that deprived the Hopi and Navajo of tens of
millions of dollars. Among other provision, the Hopi received inadequate payments for the coal and sold their
water for the slurry pipeline at the egregiously low rate of $1.67 per acre foot. In addition to lost revenue, the
Hopi suffered severe environmental consequences. Dynamite and heavy earthmoving equipment gouged
canyon-sized strips on Black Mesa, destroying the landscape and all manner of shrines and archaeological
sites, along with the age-old stories they held. Further, the springs used by the Hope for farming, household
use, and prayer began to dry up in the 1990s. The Peabody Coal Company’s studies deny that its pumping has depleted
the springs, but other analyses show a probable connection between the pumping and the aquifer where the springs originate.
The Hopi way of life depends on the springs, for parched Black Mesa has no year-round streams.
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Miami Debate Institute 2008
Natives Aff – Harrigan / Munksgaard
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Miami Debate Institute 2008
Natives Aff – Harrigan / Munksgaard
Incentives Key
Incentives are key – natives need strong funding mechanisms to develop soft energy
Dean B. Suagee, J.D. – University of North Carolina Law, LLM – American University, University of Michigan
Journal of Law Reform, “Self-Determination For Indigenous Peoples At The Dawn Of The Solar Age”, Spring and
Summer 1992, 25 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 671, Lexis
4. Creation of Appropriate Funding Mechanisms -- Funding mechanisms are critical. Energy efficiency
measures may have very short pay-back periods but they do, nevertheless, require financial outlays.
Pay-back periods for renewable energy systems could range from several years to a decade or two. While such
pay-back periods compare favorably with megaprojects such as hydroelectric dams and coal-fired and nuclear
power plants, energy consumers who lack disposable income typically do not [*743] act on the basis of life-
cycle costing. 332 Mechanisms are needed to make it possible for people to invest in soft-path options
instead of consuming nonrenewable resources. The experiences of the multilateral development banks
demonstrate that financial institutions are needed at the community level to serve as financial intermediaries
between large institutions accustomed to financing megaprojects and end-use consumers/investors whose
aggregate needs compare to the cost of megaprojects. 333 The Solar Energy and Energy Conservation Bank, as
originally created, was designed to help meet this need. 334
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Miami Debate Institute 2008
Natives Aff – Harrigan / Munksgaard
PTC Key
Wind Turbines on Native Lands could Power the Entire Country, but Federal Tax Credits
are Crucial for funding.
Indian Country Today 2008 ( “Native Country Launches Wind Energy Projects,” April 11,
<http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417016>) June 27, 2008
Jon Ahlbrand, company co-founder, said the potential for wind energy is blowing constantly across Indian country, but there remains a dire
lack of suppliers that ''could bridge the gap'' between the private sector market and its renewable energy demands and tribal governments.
''You can count on your hand the number of existing turbines operating on reservations,'' he said. ''Some of the most advantageous
markets for wind energy are on trust land or fee land owned by tribes.''
Energy experts say the Dakota winds in the northern Great Plains alone could meet the nation's entire
electrical needs with wind power. But the lack of a federal tax credit has been thwarting a tribal-led green
energy future.
Currently, tribes are not entitled to the tax credits provided to non-Native developers for renewable energy
production. And if an outside company wants to team up with a tribe, they are not provided a full tax credit.
Making Production Tax Credits Available on Tribal Lands would spur Renewable Energy
Development
Distributed Energy 2005 (Native American Empowerment : A New Frontier for Distributed Energy,” July/August,
<http://www.foresterpress.com/de_0507_native.html>) June 27, 2008
A modification to production tax credits could help. Currently, they aren’t available because as sovereign governments
in and of themselves, tribes don’t pay federal taxes. But they could attract outside partnerships with distributed energy
resources if tax credit rules were changed to allow non-tribal partners to write off the tribe’s portion of the
credits. Under the current structure, partners are restricted to tax credits based upon their percentage of equity. So
a 50% equity would equal a 50% tax credit. Another possibility is a congressional move toward federal renewable portfolio standards that
would offer double credit for new renewable development on tribal lands.
Production Tax Credits are Critical to Tribal Efforts toward Renewable Energy
Spears and Gough (President of the Lower Brule Reservation, Secretary of Intertribal Council On Utilities Policy )
2008 (Pat, Bob, “Drawing on the Sacred Winds,” Solar Today, May/June,
<http://www.solartoday.org/2008/may_june08/sacred_winds.htm>) June 27, 2008
Tribal ownership in large-scale projects will require a sharable production tax credit (PTC), so that tribes
can maintain equity in reservation-based wind projects without losing the federal PTC incentives that help to
lower the cost of power from wind projects. Under present law, in a project where a tribe is an equity partner, the tribe gets the tax
credits in proportion to its ownership interest but cannot use them as a government without a federal income tax liability. full This
situation penalizes private capital seeking to partner with tribes on reservation projects and raises the cost of
power into markets that assume the supplier’s capture of the PTC. Two bills before Congress (HR 1954 and S2520) provide
such a remedy for tribal joint ventures, where the goal is not only to build wind hturbines on reservations, but also to position tribes as full
business partners.
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Miami Debate Institute 2008
Natives Aff – Harrigan / Munksgaard
Native American tribes are now beginning to look much more closely at their renewable energy resources as new
revenue generators. Investments in such areas as ecotourism, biomass power plants, and wind farms have the
potential for producing economic development and jobs for tribal members. In addition, tribes are looking at the
potential for renewable resources to improve their quality of life. This is especially true where there are homes with
no current electricity supply. In addition, the environmental advantages of renewable energy are significant. The
development of renewable resources holds great promise for Native Americans across the land.
Herro – Staff Writer for Eye on Earth – 2007 (Alana, “A COUP for Clean Energy”, World Watch
Institute, Aug 15, http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5298) accessed 6/26/08
According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, tribal lands have the potential to provide more
than 200 gigawatts of wind energy, enough to meet 25 percent of U.S. electricity demand. “Tribes have
the vast wind resources to build sustainable renewable energy economies on reservations to provide jobs
and energy for their young and growing populations,” notes Bob Gough, secretary of COUP and co-developer of the intertribal
plan. He says tribes can help provide a “clean-energy recharge of the ‘National Renewable Energy Grid,’” his
term for the federal power transmission system built off the dams throughout the U.S. West.
Trees, Water & People – non profit organization helping the environment – 2007 (“Tribal Lands
Renewable Energy program”, Trees, Water & People,
http://www.treeswaterpeople.org/tribal/info/tribal_nativeenergy.htm) accessed 6/26/08
In early 2003, the Rosebud Sioux reservation in South Dakota took a huge step toward energy independence for Native tribes by installing a commercial-
scale 750mW wind turbine. This turbine was the first wholly-Native American owned wind power installation in the lower 48 states. Using
renewable energy fits well with Native philosophies of caring for the earth and protecting the
environment for future generations. And especially for Native communities in the American west,
abundant sunlight and wind resources offer huge potential for clean energy. In the Great Plains alone, an
estimated wind resource of over 500 billion kilowatt hours a year* could be harvested—about 14% of the
United States' total electricity production.
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Miami Debate Institute 2008
Natives Aff – Harrigan / Munksgaard
Plan 1AC
Plan –
The United States Federal Government should make businesses operating on Native American lands eligible for
federal production tax credits for energy generated from wind, solar and/or geothermal sources.
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Miami Debate Institute 2008
Natives Aff – Harrigan / Munksgaard
*** Colonialism Advantage ***
Colonialism 1AC
Contention _____: Colonialism
Native lands are the target for disproportionate consumption of fossil fuels. The resulting
pollution and exploitation are a direct form of environmental racism
Tillet 05 (Rebecca Tillett August is a part-time teacher in the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies
at the University of Essex, recently completing her Ph.D. in Contemporary Native American Literature of the
American Southwest, “Reality consumed by realty: the ecological costs of ‘development’ in Leslie Marmon Silko’s
Almanac of the Dead” European Journal of American Culture Volume 24 Number 2, p. 153)
In his study of the understandings of a symbiotic culture-nature relationship among the Western
Apache, Wisdom Sits in Places, Keith H. Basso concludes that ‘the landscape in which people dwell
can be said to dwell in them’.1 It is a disturbing consideration for the tribal peoples of the American
Southwest, who not only constitute a significant proportion of the region’s population (the area is
‘home to the majority of land-based American Indians alive today on the North American continent’),2
but whose lands and extensive natural resources are also being exploited and polluted - through
uranium mining, water pollution and scarcity, stripmining, atomic testing, and nuclear contamination -
at an alarming rate.3 Indeed, the ‘Four Corners’ region, comprising the area where the states of
Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet, has been deemed so polluted by industrial practices
that the federal government has long been attempting to have the region designated as a ‘National
Sacrifice Area’. The situation is significant, since the predominance of Southwestern environmental
hazards and unsafe or unhealthy industrial practices amongst disenfranchised indigenous
communities, whose ethnicity and poverty ensure a lack of social, political, or judicial redress,
suggests a prevalence of environmental racism. In their analysis of the situation - identified as the
‘Political Economy of Radioactive Colonialism’ - Ward Churchill and Winona LaDuke argue that
environmental racism directed at Native American communities is endemic: in 1975 alone, there
were 380 leases for uranium extraction on reserved lands, compared to a total of 4 on all other non-
Native American lands.
Fossil fuel burning sacrifices indigenous peoples at the alter of short-term economic
expediency. This creates a cycle of colonial domination that culminates in destruction
Thomas-Muller (Cree Indian and a Native energy organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network) 2005(
Clayton, Race, Poverty and the Environment, “Cycle of Destruction: Energy Exploitation on Sacred Native Lands”,
December, http://www.urbanhabitat.org/node/307) accessed June 25, 2008.
The link between unsustainable energy consumption in the Americas and the destruction and
desecration of Indigenous homelands and culture is undeniable. As Indigenous peoples, we reject the
proposition that our traditional lands should be sacrificed at the altar of irresponsible energy
policies. Indigenous peoples in the United States, Canada, and throughout the Americas have experienced
systematic and repeated violations by oil, gas, mining, and energy industries of our treaty rights,
particularly those that protect our traditional lands. Oil and gas developments have consistently
violated our human rights and caused unconscionable damage to traditional territories that have sustained
us since time immemorial. In the United States, in contrast to other regions of the world, about 2/3 of all oil use is for
transportation. (In most of the rest of the world, oil is more commonly used for space heating and power generation than for
transportation.) Obviously, a transportation and energy policy that is so heavily dependent upon fossil fuel is unsustainable.
Fossil fuels have a destructive life cycle, which encompasses extraction, transportation of these raw materials via pipeline,
truck, and tanker to refineries, and the processing and shipment of the final product. For the Indigenous peoples
historically traumatized by colonial conquest and subsequent treaty violations, an energy policy
dependent upon fossil fuels creates yet another cycle of destruction characterized by the devastation of
sacred sites, the drying up of aquifers, micro-climate changes, and the poisoning of our air and soil with toxins
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Colonialism 1AC
Acceptance of environmental genocide in the form of the environmental destruction of
native land authorizes the creation of human sacrifice zones and unlicensed killing
Gregory Hooks and Chad L. Smith Gregory Hooks is Professor and Chair of Sociology at Washington State
University. Chad L. Smith recently joined the faculty in the Department of Sociology at Texas State University-San
Marcos. “The Treadmill of Destruction: National Sacrifice Areas and Native Americans”, American Sociological
Review, 2004, VOL. 69 (August:558 575)
The sacrifice of Native American lands: Some Indian lands have suffered such severe and prolonged
environmental degradation that it is beyond current technology to make them safe for human use.
Brook (1998) characterizes the military damage to Indian lands as part of an “environmental
genocide.” Once a locale has been seriously degraded, it often attracts additional pollution (Marshall 1996). Reflecting
their permanent degradation and their purported contribution to the collective good, these areas are referred to as
“national sacrifice areas” (Kuletz 1998) or “human sacrifice zones” (Bullard 1993). The preceding discussion
made conceptual distinctions based on the sources of toxins and the processes through which people come to reside in
proximity to them. We assert that because reservations were forced upon Native Americans and because military activities
pose the gravest danger to them, the experiences of Native Americans are best understood in terms of the treadmill of
destruction. In the ensuing paragraphs we provide justification for this assertion and a historical context for the quantitative
analyses that follow. We anticipate finding that the military systematically used and damaged Native American lands. Our
research hypothesis is shared by the Department of Defense: In order to ensure that it meets its national security mission,
DoD operates and trains on vast amounts of land, including American Indian and Alaska Native lands. Evidence of DoD’s
past use of these lands remains: hazardous materials, unexploded ordnance (UXO), abandoned equipment, unsafe buildings,
and debris. This contamination degrades the natural environment and threatens tribal economic, social and cultural welfare.
(U.S. Department of Defense 2001) The propinquity of military installations to Indian lands is the result of
racism and statebuilding. That is, over the course of the nineteenth century, through a process that
would be referred to as ethnic cleansing in contemporary debates, the United States forced nearly all
562 Native Americans onto reservations located in western states. In the twentieth century the United States became
the world’s leading military power. In doing so, it built a vast military complex in the same western states in which Native
Americans were concentrated.
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Colonialism 1AC
This makes violence inevitable and culminates in extinction
William Eckhardt, Lentz Peace Research Laboratory of St. Louis, Journal of Peace Research, February 1990, p.
15-16
Modern Western Civilization used war as well as peace to gain the whole world as a domain to benefit
itself at the expense of others: The expansion of the culture and institutions of modern civilization
from its centers in Europe was made possible by imperialistic war… It is true missionaries and traders
had their share in the work of expanding world civilization, but always with the support, immediate or
in the background, of armies and navies (pp. 251-252). The importance of dominance as a primary
motive in civilized war in general was also emphasized for modern war in particular: ‘[Dominance] is
probably the most important single element in the causation of major modern wars’ (p. 85). European
empires were thrown up all over the world in this process of benefiting some at the expense of others,
which was characterized by armed violence contributing to structural violence: ‘World-empire is built
by conquest and maintained by force… Empires are primarily organizations of violence’ (pp. 965,
969). ‘The struggle for empire has greatly increased the disparity between states with respect to the
political control of resources, since there can never be enough imperial territory to provide for all’ (p.
1190). This ‘disparity between states’, not to mention the disparity within states, both of which take
the form of racial differences in life expectancies, has killed 15-20 times as many people in the 20th
century as have wars and revolutions (Eckhardt & Kohler, 1980; Eckhardt, 1983c). When this
structural violence of ‘disparity between states’ created by civilization is taken into account, then the
violent nature of civilization becomes much more apparent. Wright concluded that ‘Probably at least
10 per cent of deaths in modern civilization can be attributed directly or indirectly to war… The trend
of war has been toward greater cost, both absolutely and relative to population… The proportion of the
population dying as a direct consequence of battle has tended to increase’ (pp. 246, 247). So far as
structural violence has constituted about one-third of all deaths in the 20th century (Eckhardt &
Kohler, 1980; Eckhardt, 1983c), and so far as structural violence was a function of armed violence,
past and present, then Wright’s estimate was very conservative indeed. Assuming that war is some
function of civilization, then civilization is responsible for one-third of 20th century deaths. This is
surely self-destruction carried to a high level of efficiency. The structural situation has been improving
throughout the 20th century, however, so that structural violence caused ‘only’ 20% of all deaths in
1980 (Eckhardt, 1983c). There is obviously room for more improvement. To be sure, armed violence
in the form of revolution has been directed toward the reduction of structural violence, even as armed
violence in the form of imperialism has been directed toward its maintenance. But imperial violence
came first, in the sense of creating structural violence, before revolutionary violence emerged to
reduce it. It is in this sense that structural violence was basically, fundamentally, and primarily a
function of armed violence in its imperial form. The atomic age has ushered in the possibility, and
some would say the probability, of killing not only some of us for the benefit of others, nor even of
killing all of us to no one’s benefit, but of putting an end to life itself! This is surely carrying self-
destruction to some infinite power beyond all human comprehension. It’s too much, or superfluous, as
the Existentialists might say. Why we should care is a mystery. But, if we do, then the need for
civilized peoples to respond to the ethical challenge is very urgent indeed. Life itself may depend
upon our choice.
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Colonialism 1AC
Morality requires you vote Affirmative – stopping destructive resource extraction on native
land is a deontological imperative that should be bracketed off from utilitarian
considerations
Dean B. Suagee, J.D. – University of North Carolina Law, LLM – American University, University of Michigan
Journal of Law Reform, “Self-Determination For Indigenous Peoples At The Dawn Of The Solar Age”, Spring and
Summer 1992, 25 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 671, Lexis
All over the world, indigenous peoples 16 are fighting for their lives and for their ways of life. 17 Some
indigenous peoples have been engaged in these struggles for hundreds of years, while other peoples, because of
the remoteness of the environments in which they live, have been spared from such struggles until more recent
times. But remoteness no longer ensures protection. The industrialized countries of the world and transnational
corporations now have the technological capability to extract oil from the once untouchable Arctic and
Amazon, to build massive hydropower dams, to rearrange river systems from the tundra to the tropics, and to
clearcut forests virtually anywhere in the world. The governments of the less developed countries also have
access to this brutal technological capability. The economies, the cultures, and the religious world views of
indigenous peoples are based upon the environments in [*679] which they live. 18 The destruction of
these environments renders the survival of these peoples as distinct societies difficult or impossible.
Despite the forces that threaten their survival, however, indigenous peoples in many parts of the world somehow
have managed to carry on. With a total estimated population of some 200 to 300 million, indigenous peoples
constitute about four or five percent of the world's population. 19 Even though indigenous peoples are minority
cultures, 20 they rightly insist that we draw a distinction between them and ethnic or national minorities.
Generally, the distinction reflects the legacy of the age of colonialism. One definition of the term "indigenous"
was proposed by the Special Rapporteur on the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations, who
was appointed under the auspices of the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities: Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical
continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves
distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at
present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future
generations their ancestral territories, [*680] and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence
as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems. 21 Although no
commonly accepted definition of indigenous peoples has yet been fashioned, 22 the Special Rapporteur's
definition includes some of the key concepts that fit most cases. Particularly, it includes the concepts that
indigenous peoples identify themselves as indigenous, that their ways of life are tied to their ancestral territories,
that peoples who are relative newcomers exercise some degree of political domination over them, and that they
are determined to remain distinct peoples. Although some of these factors also apply to many ethnic minorities,
the cultural connection to ancestral lands generally serves to distinguish indigenous peoples from ethnic
minorities. 23 All over the world, indigenous peoples express their connection to their lands and their respect for
the environment in spiritual terms. 24 They provide living proof that it is possible [*681] for human societies to
provide for their needs over countless generations without destroying the ecosystems on which they depend, and
that religious teachings can serve at least as well as science in setting the rules for living in balance with the
natural world. Although some indigenous peoples do not face imminent threats to their survival as distinct
peoples, many do, and the forces that threaten them are largely beyond their control. To a large extent, the
peoples of the industrialized (and industrializing) world have the power to decide whether indigenous peoples
will survive. Utilitarian reasons can be advanced for ensuring indigenous peoples' survival. For instance,
we can learn from their experience in balancing human needs with environmental preservation and from their
knowledge of herbal medicine. To do this, however, we need to take some time to appreciate the subtleties of
teachings which have been handed down over countless generations since mythic time. At another level,
however, one can argue that we should not be governed by utilitarian thinking alone. We should act
instead on principle. Indigenous peoples are part of the human family and we should treat them as
such. We should recognize that they are entitled to human rights under international law as a matter
of principle.
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Colonialism 1AC
The plan promotes a sustainability revolution essential to prevent ecological collapse of
native lands and extinction
Dean B. Suagee, J.D. – University of North Carolina Law, LLM – American University, University of Michigan
Journal of Law Reform, “Self-Determination For Indigenous Peoples At The Dawn Of The Solar Age”, Spring and
Summer 1992, 25 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 671, Lexis
The experience in the United States also provides numerous examples of tribes that have suffered severe
cultural and social disruption because of the decimation of wildlife populations and other profound
changes in the natural environment caused by the dominant society. Part III suggests that the international
recognition of rights will be a hollow success for indigenous peoples unless the industrialized societies also achieve a
transition from environmentally destructive to environmentally sustainable development. In particular, Part III focuses on
energy consumption both in the industrialized societies and in the less developed countries. This Article focuses on energy for
one significant reason. In many parts of today's world, the kinds of environmental damage that threaten the survival of
indigenous peoples are driven by the ways in which the economic engines of the industrialized and industrializing countries
consume energy. Over the past two decades, we have learned new ways to provide the kinds of services and benefits [*676]
that in the past we provided by consuming nonrenewable energy resources. These new ways render the environmental
destruction and pollution of the old ways both unnecessary and unjustifiable. Part III presents an overview of the alternative
energy development scenario, sometimes called the "soft energy path," which is based on energy efficiency and
environmentally sustainable solar and other renewable energy technologies. Taking soft energy paths will not in
itself solve the global environmental crisis, but it is an essential part of the solution. Part IV presents
some observations on critical needs that must be addressed if the vision of a soft-energy future is to become a
reality; to meet these needs will require action at all levels of government, as well as action by international and
nongovernmental organizations. As will be explained in the Article, American Indian governments in the United
States are uniquely situated to help bring about the transition to a soft-energy future. Part IV suggests a few of
the ways in which Indian tribes could use their governmental powers to help realize such a future. The global
environmental crisis is real -- unless we make some fundamental changes in the ways that our global
economy extracts resources from the earth and gives off pollution and wastes, the natural systems that
support human societies will collapse. Even if we do succeed in expeditiously making the fundamental changes that
6
are necessary, there still is no guarantee that we can avoid the widespread collapse of ecosystems. In his bestselling book on
7
the global environmental crisis, Senator Albert Gore includes some indigenous peoples [*677] among examples of
"resistance fighters" who are on "the front lines of the war against nature now raging throughout the world," Senator Gore
8
argues that the global environmental crisis is "rooted in the dysfunctional pattern of our civilization's relationship to the
natural world," in which people have lost their sense of connection to the natural world. He believes that healing the damage
9
we have done to the earth and changing our dysfunctional civilization into one that is based on stewardship rather than
exploitation must be, in essence, spiritual endeavors. Indigenous peoples, where their cultures remain substantially intact,
10
have not lost their spiritual connections to the natural world. Rather, they maintain connections to the natural world. Rather,
they maintain connections to the earth which are fundamentally sacred in nature, and they know a great deal about
stewardship that could be of benefit to the rest of humankind. Over the next several decades, sustainable energy
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technologies will figure prominently in a worldwide social movement -- the "sustainability revolution" --
that will change human life on earth as profoundly as did the agricultural revolution of eight thousand years ago or
the industrial revolution of two hundred years ago. The natural world will be changed profoundly in any event, through
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global warming, the loss of biodiversity, the thinning of the ozone layer, and other global trends that are already underway. If
humankind is to accomplish the sustainability revolution, we need to be able to envision a future world in which we would
like to live and which we would wish for future generations. Our collective vision of a sustainable future also
13
must include room for the remaining indigenous peoples of the world to carry on their ancient cultures
and to decide for themselves how much of the "modern" world to allow into their cultures. In addition to
challenging readers to help make the principle of self-determination a reality for indigenous peoples, this [*678] Article
challenges indigenous leaders, especially those in the United States, to help formulate our collective vision of a sustainable
future and to provide leadership in making that vision a reality. 14 The United Nations has designated 1993 the International
Year for the World's Indigenous Peoples, 15 and this event will provide tribal leaders with opportunities to have their voices
heard. Tribal leaders in the United States should take full advantage of these opportunities and step to the
forefront of the movement to hasten the dawning of the solar age.
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Colonialism 1AC
Renewable approaches to energy on Native American land will redefine colonialist relationships between
Native Americans, corporations, and the federal government while also avoiding environmental catastrophe
Robyn 2002 (Linda, “Indigenous Knowledge and Technology: Creating Environmental Justice in the Twenty-First
Century”, American Indian Quarterly, Vol 26 (2), p 198-220)
As tribes continue to challenge state and corporate power, new definitions of who they are as Indian people and the
role they play economically will emerge. Circular ways of viewing profitable business by utilizing environmentally
sustainable methods will assist in redefining the ways Indian people, corporations, and the state do business and will
redefine relationships between these groups. New and different ways to take what is needed from the environment
without causing total devastation must be examined in the future. Decreasing the environmental deterioration
occurring today will require alternative approaches to economic security through sustainable land use
practices. Sharing the knowledge that American Indian people have in this area will place the focus on cooperation
rather than hierarchical control. Rearranging this focus will have enormous impacts in the area of policy
implementation.
Critical environmental perspectives integrating Native American culture will reformulate power
relationships, sustain the environment, and ensure survival
Robyn 2002 (Linda, “Indigenous Knowledge and Technology: Creating Environmental Justice in the Twenty-First
Century”, American Indian Quarterly, Vol 26 (2), p 198-220)
A critical perspective offers a new frame of reference for policy-making grounded in the doctrines and principles of
many American Indian people regarding the environment. This perspective demands critical thinking about the
policies of both private and public sectors developed by those privileged with power in response to environmental
issues. The critical perspective questions the assumptions upon which current policies are based, examines
traditional solutions, and advocates new ways of thinking about the environment. While not perfect by any means,
this perspective allows for different realities and reciprocal relations of power based on mutual respect and
insists that these different realities should be reflected in decisions and policies made to include Indigenous
peoples. Formulating environmental policies from a critical perspective includes taking into consideration questions
about responsibilities ought to be reflected in the policies adopted by the government, in the private sector, and in
the habits of the population as a whole. As we begin to view our history and future as Native people from a critical
perspective, we can reinterpret the values and validity of our own traditions, teachings, and culture within a
contemporary context. With this in mind there are many things that are possible to share with our global society.
One of the most important of these from a Native as well as a non-Native perspective, is the reestablishment of a
land ethic that is based upon the sound experience of our heritage. Some of these values may be transferable to the
whole of society now that we are beginning a new century. Native philosophies of the land generally demonstrate
an ethic that presents the earth as vital because we are all born on the earth and require its resources for our very
survival. From this perspective it is also possible to see how the relationships that we form with nature are of
essential importance. This is one of the elemental teachings that originate generally from within Native
culture that express our relatedness to nature, creation, and each other. It is important to understand that must
begin, as a global society, to realize this wholeness or relatedness.
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Colonialism 1AC
Native decolonization spills over – paving the way to broader gains
Churchill (Professor of Ethnic Studies at University of Colorado, Boulder, BA and MA in
Communications from Sangamon State) 1996 (Ward, From a Native Son, pg 84-89)
The question which inevitably arises with regard to indigenous land claims, especially in the United States, is
whether they are “realistic.” The answer, of course is, “No, they aren’t.” Further, no form of decolonization has
ever been realistic when viewed within the construct of a colonialist paradigm. It wasn’t realistic at the time to
expect George Washington’s rag-tag militia to defeat the British military during the American Revolution. Just
ask the British. It wasn’t realistic, as the French could tell you, that the Vietnamese should be able to defeat U.S.-
backed France in 1954, or that the Algerians would shortly be able to follow in their footsteps. Surely, it wasn’t
reasonable to predict that Fidel Castro’s pitiful handful of guerillas would overcome Batista’s regime in Cuba,
another U.S. client, after only a few years in the mountains. And the Sandinistas, to be sure, had no prayer of
attaining victory over Somoza 20 years later. Henry Kissinger, among others, knew that for a fact. The point is
that in each case, in order to begin their struggles at all, anti-colonial fighters around the world have had to
abandon orthodox realism in favor of what they knew to be right. To paraphrase Bendit, they accepted as their
agenda, a redefinition of reality in terms deemed quite impossible within the conventional wisdom of their
oppressors. And in each case, they succeeded in their immediate quest for liberation. The fact that all but one
(Cuba) of the examples used subsequently turned out to hold colonizing pretensions of its own does not alter the
truth of this—or alter the appropriateness of their efforts to decolonize themselves—in the least. It simply means
that decolonization has yet to run its course, that much remains to be done. The battles waged by native nations
in North America to free themselves, and the lands upon which they depend for ongoing existence as discernible
peoples, from the grip of U.S. (and Canadian) internal colonialism are plainly part of this process of liberation.
Given that their very survival depends upon their perseverance in the face of all apparent odds, American Indians
have no real alternative but to carry on. They must struggle, and where there is struggle there is always hope.
Moreover, the unrealistic or “romantic” dimensions of our aspiration to quite literally dismantle the territorial
corpus of the U.S. state begin to erode when one considers that federal domination of Native North America is
utterly contingent upon maintenance of a perceived confluence of interests between prevailing
governmental/corporate elites and common non-Indian citizens. Herein lies the prospect of long-term success. It
is entirely possibly that the consensus of opinion concerning non-Indian “rights” to exploit the land and
resources of indigenous nations can be eroded, and that large numbers of non-Indians will join in the
struggle to decolonize Native North America. When you think about these issues in this way, the great
mass of non-Indians in North America really have much to gain and almost nothing to lose, from the success of
native people in struggles to reclaim the land which is rightfully ours. The tangible diminishment of US
material power which is integral to our victories in this sphere stands to pave the way for realization of
most other agendas from anti-imperialism to environmentalism, from African American liberation to
feminism, from gay rights to the ending of class privilege – pursued by progressive on this continent.
Conversely, succeeding with any or even all of these other agendas would still represent an inherently
oppressive situation in their realization is contingent upon an ongoing occupation of Native North
America without the consent of Indian people. Any North American revolution which failed to free
indigenous territory from non-Indian domination would be simply a continuation of colonialism in
another form. Regardless of the angle from which you view the matter, the liberation of Native North
America, liberation of the land first and foremost, is the key to fundamental and positive social changes of many
other sorts. One thing they say, leads to another. The question has always been, of course, which “thing” is to the
first in the sequence. A preliminary formulation for those serious about achieving radical change in the United
States might be “First Priority to First Americans” Put another way this would mean, “US out of Indian
Country.” Inevitably, the logic leads to what we’ve all been so desperately seeking: The United States – at least
what we’ve come to know it – out of North America altogether. From there it can be permanently banished from
the planet. In its stead, surely we can join hands to create something new and infinitely better. That’s our vision
of “impossible realism.” Isn’t it time we all worked on attaining it?
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The exploitation of Native American lands symbolizes the exploitation of their humanity
Bullard (Ware Professor of Sociology and Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center @ Clark Atlanta
University) 2002 (Robert D., “Poverty, Pollution and Environmental Racism: Strategies for Building Healthy and
Sustainable Communities,” Environmental Justice Resource Center, June 2, http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/povpolej.html)
accessed June 26, 2008.
There is a direct correlation between exploitation of land and exploitation of people. It should not be a surprise to anyone to
discover that Native Americans have to contend with some of the worst pollution in the United States. Native American nations have become
prime targets for waste trading. The vast majority of these waste proposals have been defeated by grassroots groups on the reservations. However,
"radioactive colonialism" is alive and well. Winona LaDuke sums up this "toxic invasion" of Native lands as follows: While Native
peoples have been massacred and fought, cheated, and robbed of their historical lands, today their lands are subject
to some of most invasive industrial interventions imaginable. According to the Worldwatch Institute, 317 reservations in the
United States are threatened by environmental hazards, ranging from toxic wastes to clearcuts.
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Coal Mining On Native Lands Destroys The Ecosystem Beyond Repair. This evidence is
incredible.
Winona Laduke, program director of the Honor The Earth Fund “All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life”. South End Press,
2001
Coal strip mining is about as destructive as it gets. There is a term used in the strip mining business for everything that is on top of
the coal, or, perhaps, whatever else it is you want to get from under the ground. That term is “overburden”. That term, in itself, encapsulates the
divergence between industrial development and Native society. Coal strip-mining, whether in Appalachia or on Northern
Cheyenne and Crow territory, is destructive, but in the government’s own research, the more arid the land, the more
damage strip-mining wreaks. According to a 1973 National Academy of Sciences report that sent shivers up the backs of Native people in
coal-rich reservations, “no issue associated with the current energy debate is more in the center of this conflict between demand and conservation
than is the surface mining of coal. Our most abundant domestic fossil fuel is coal, and much of it occurs at depths where it can be mined by
surface methods. Surface mining destroys the existing natural communities completely and dramatically. Indeed,
restoration of a landscape disturbed by surface mining, in the sense of recreating the former conditions, is not
possible”. The problem was so dire, according to the academy, that in those areas receiving little rainfall (i.e. less than seven inches or so), the
academy recommended that reclamation not even be attempted. They noted that, “the coal lands of the western united states are quite
different from others in the nation…The ecological process of vegetative succession, or the orderly process of
community change is extremely slow under such arid conditions. Where natural revegetation of a disturbed site may develop in
five to twenty years on a high rainfall eastern U.S. site, it may take decades or even centuries for natural vegetation to develop
in a desert. The precarious nature of these dryland ecosystems should suggest caution by prudent men in any deliberate disturbance of an arid
site”. The academy suggested that if such lands were mined, it was more feasible to deem the land “National Sacrifice
Areas”. That same year, the government itself issued an urgent warning to arid, coal-rich areas of the West, recommending that reclamation not
be attempted.
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Coal Plants Have Caused Irreversible Damage To Native Lands; Alternative Energy Is Key
to Solve.
Jeff Conant, April 3 , 2007.“Speaking Diné to Dirty Power: Navajo Challenge New Coal-Fired Plant”. Project Coordinator at Hesperian
rd
Foundation Editor, Generation Green Newsletter at Center for Environmental Health Journalism covering environmental and social justice at
Freelance Contributing writer at Clamor Magazine New College of California Boston University
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14435.The Four Corners – A National Sacrifice Area: Even if activists manage to derail the new plant,
the Four Corners region is already “a national energy sacrifice area,” says Mike Eisenberg of the San Juan Citizens Alliance, a
local community group. His group has been protesting the Four Corners power plant and the San Juan generating station, located
within sight of each other just outside Farmington in San Juan County, which are two of the most polluting plants in the western
U.S. American Lung Association figures show that 16,000 people in the county, or close to 15 percent of the population, suffer from
lung disease, most likely from plant emissions. The 2,040 megawatt Four Corners plant emits 157 million pounds of
sulfur dioxide, 122 million pounds of nitrogen oxides, 8 million pounds of soot and 2,000 pounds of mercury a year.
The 1,800 megawatt San Juan generating station releases over 100 million pounds of sulfur dioxide, more than 100
million pounds of nitrogen oxides, roughly 6 million pounds of soot, and at least 1000 pounds of mercury. Add to
this the 18,000 oil and gas wells spread throughout the region and you have “massive cumulative impacts that will
never be reversed,” says Eisenberg. The Navajo Nation seems to have no accesible records of local health impacts. “We don’t have numbers,
because Indian Health Services is notoriously under-funded and isn’t keeping track [of the health impacts]," says David Nez. "But when I was a
kid no one here had asthma. Now lots of kids have it.” CorpWatch calls to reach Indian Health Services for comments were not returned. Dr.
Marcus Higi of Cortez, Colorado, who worked as a physician on the reservation for four years, agrees with Nez. "I've seen the worst
asthma cases out here near the power plants," he said. "A kid would come in, barely breathing. They're basically on
the verge of death." Air pollution is not the only problem. Waste from the area’s two coal mines has destroyed
ground water with high sulfate content that kills livestock, “wiping out ranching as a viable business on this part of
the reservation,” according to Jeff Stant, a consultant with the Clean Air Task Force, a Boston-based non-profit group. Some “70 million tons
of coal combustion waste has been dumped in the Navajo coal mine, making it the biggest dump of mine waste in the country," Stant continues.
"Between this and the nearby San Juan mine there’s 150 million tons of waste sitting there. That’s more fly ash and scrubber sludge than the
entire nation generates in one year.” This waste, heavily laden with cadmium, selenium, arsenic, and lead – byproducts of
coal-burning – leaches into groundwater turning it poisonous to people, livestock, and vegetation. A forthcoming EPA
report released to the national environmental group Earth Justice indicates that groundwater contaminated with coal ash leads to a
cancer risk as high as 1 in 100 – 10,000 times higher than previous EPA estimates. “When you look at the plan for
the Desert Rock plant, one of the first things it says is that the sludge and ash will be dumped back into the mine pit," says Stant, who
directs the Safe Disposal Campaign for the Clean Air Task force. "It’s the same thing the other plants have done, and it’s a disaster.”
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Natives Key
Native American rights are a prerequisite to confronting imperialism, racism, colonialism
and genocide.
Churchill (Professor of Ethnic Studies at University of Colorado, Boulder, BA and MA in
Communications from Sangamon State) 1996 (Ward, From a Native Son, pg 30-31)
The sort of alliance at issue no longer represents, as it did in the past, an exercise in altruism for non-Indians. Anti-imperialism,
opposition
to racism, colonialism, and genocide, while worthy enough to stances in and of themselves, are no longer the
fundamental issues at hand. Ultimately, the same system of predatory goals and values which has so busily and mercilessly
consumed the people of the land these past five centuries has increasingly set about consuming the land itself. Not
only indigenous peoples, but also the land to which they are irrevocably linked, is now dying. When the land itself
dies, it is a certainty that no humans can survive the struggle which confronts us- all of us- is thus a struggle to save our
collective habitat, to mai ntain it as a “survivable” environment, not only for ourselves, but also for the generations
to come. Self-evidently, this cannot be approached either from the posture of the predator or from any other position which allows the predator
to continue with business as usual. At long last, we have arrived at the point where there is a tangible, even overriding,
confluence of interests between natives and non-natives.
The crux of the matter rests, not merely in resistance to the predatory nature of the present Eurocentric status quo,
but in conceiving viable sociocultural alternatives. Here, the bodies of indigenous knowledge evidenced in the context
of Native North America at the point of the European invasion--large-scale societies which had perfected ways of
organizing themselves into psychologically fulfilling wholes, experiencing very high standards of material life, and
still maintaining environmental harmony- shine like a beacon in the night. The information required to recreate this
reality is still in place in many indigenous cultures. The liberation of significant sectors of Native America stands to allow
this knowledge to once again be actualized kin the “real world,” not to recreate indigenous societies as they once were, but to
recreate themselves as they can be in the future. Therein lies the model-the laboratory, if you will-from which a genuinely liberatory and
sustainable alternative can be cast for all humanity. In a very real sense, then, the fate of Native North America signifies the
fate of the planet. It follows that it is incumbent upon every conscious human- red, white, black, brown, or yellow, old or young, male or
female- to do whatever is within their power to ensure that the next half-millennium heralds an antithesis to the last.
Native American’s are key to broadening the prospects of the future of our environment. The inclusion of Native
American’s will shed light to perspectives of other groups who were once excluded.
Camacho (associate professor of political science at northern Arizona university) 1998 (David E.,
Environmental Injustices, Political Struggles: Race, Class, and the Environment, page 205-206)
To corporate executives and government legislators, the vision recounted by Sturdevant is just that: a vision. The point is that corporate
executives and elected officials do not understand the deep, spiritual relationship of the Chippewa to their land. Instead, the corporate-government
misconception is that everyone would like to be wealthy. Existing on a $400 a month, when one could live quite comfortable on corporate dollars,
makes no sense to those who sit in corporate boardrooms. If corporate and government leaders do not understand by now, they probably never will.
But the message is clear. If they could become more accepting of Native American beliefs, perhaps they could learn that when one
is involved with Native American people, there is a spiritual side and interconnectedness with the earth that cannot
be ignored.
Environmentally sustainable development is inseparable from maintaining cultural diversity. Reopening
and broadening the public debate about the economic and environmental future of indigenous peoples would allow
input from groups that are normally ignored in the decisional process. Allowing for the consideration of alternative plans would
offer a different means of economic development in places like northern Wisconsin while challenging the traditional export-based models of
economic development, because mining and oil and gas drilling are extremely capital intensive. That is, if the goal is to provide jobs and a stable
rural economic environment, investing in mining, oil, and gas is exactly the wrong way to accomplish this task. Mining industries that provide
jobs for only a short period of time and that also pollute are a poor investment in the long term. Small, locally owned firms and labor intensive
ventures- such as tribal fish hatcheries, renewable energy, recycling, forest product, and organic farming- would create far more jobs than mining
while contributing to the environmentally sustainable economy. For example, Menominee Tribal Enterprises in Keshena, Wisconsin, received
international recognition for its achievements in sustainable forestry. The Menominee manage 110,000 acres of forested lands and are now an
acknowledged “leader in shelterwood systems for uneven-aged management of white pine, hemlock, and hemlock-yellow birch ecosystems.
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Natives Key
Native Americans are a necessary component to the United States policies, as long as large
corporations continue to take advantage of Native Americans, we will see no progress.
Camacho (associate professor of political science at northern Arizona university) 1998 (David E.,
Environmental Injustices, Political Struggles: Race, Class, and the Environment, page 202)
Native
Even though Native American perspectives are beginning to inform environmental politics and policy to a greater extent, at present,
American philosophies and values are not included in those policy decisions that benefit large
corporations and serve the interests of the state. There is a vast expanse of social distance
between all involved that causes a breakdown in communication as well as misinterpretation of
each other’s actions. This social distance is well illustrated by Walter Bresette, activist and member of the Red Cliff band of Chippewa,
who says that Native Americans and non-native Americans alike are being victimized by large
corporations, which reduce economic options.
As activist and author Al Gedicks writes, “the sooner we stop labeling ‘native issues’ as something we
separate and distinct from our own survival, the sooner we will appreciate the critical
interconnections of the world’s ecosystems and social systems. Environmental concerns can be
absolutely crucial within the context of reservation politics; even before the most hostile of tribal councils, the kind of
“mother earth” that we would make Anglo mining executives or legislators roll their eyes can make all the difference. Corporate
America and the federal government would be wise to realize that there is growing respect for
tribal elders and the “old ways.” Utilitarian business practices and government actions that
benefit all involved cannot be accomplished by ignoring this fact.
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otherwise. Colonialism is historically radioactive. It has a long half-life that continues to poison the relationship between human
beings even generations after the fact. The colonization of the Americas by European imperialism, aided and abetted by the Christian church, continues to haunt this hemisphere. Indigenous
people, who are the survivors of one of the most systematic efforts at ethnic cleansing in the history of the world, remain in the
shadow of what I believe must be named the American apartheid.
In North America, this apartheid accounts for what happened, what is still happening, in Canada. It explains why indigenous communities in the United States
continue fighting in the courts to protect themselves, their treaty rights, the remnants of their ancient homeland.
The fact that indigenous people in both Canada and the United States go to court year after year is testimony to the legacy of the American apartheid. It is
evidence of the toxic effects of colonialism.
Throughout Central and South America, what I describe as apartheid against indigenous people is far more obvious and deadly. In Guatemala alone, thousands of indigenous people have been killed in massacres by state-supported terrorists. In the Chiapas region of Mexico,
indigenous communities remain under the armed occupation of the Mexican military. In both cases, the "crimes" of the indigenous people were to name the American apartheid for what it is, to expose the truth that colonialism and racism in the Americas is ongoing and virulent, and to
demand their basic rights as human beings.
Poverty, illiteracy, disease, hunger, oppression: the truth is just beyond the border. And yet, the life and death struggles of the
indigenous people of the southern hemisphere remain invisible to the majority of North American Christians. Only as if in a
mirage do we catch a glimpse of the suffering that occurs daily in what we, with such casual arrogance, have defined as "our own backyard."
If the North American media pay scant attention to Central and South America, they pay almost none to the original inhabitants of these nations. At best they are only colourful "extras" for
nature specials on the rain forests or the condor, not real people with a legitimate civilization still in peril to colonial greed. For all practical purposes, for all
political purposes, they simply do not exist.
This leads to the second lesson the church must take to heart: our blindness to the American apartheid has consequences. In Canada, those consequences may be measured in both
the human terms of broken relationships and in the monetary terms of a church in bankruptcy. In Alaska they may be measured by the loss of a natural beauty, the Arctic tundra, that
a pathology, which we pass from one generation to the next. A key aspect of this pathology is the inherent inability of the descendents of European colonizers to "see" those they have
colonized. In the North, indigenous communities are still categorized in the most blatant stereotypes. They are dismissed as the historical
leftovers of the Wild West myth created by colonialism as a macho justification for slaughter. In the South, indigenous people are only a backdrop to the "real"
stories, that concern North Americans: the war on drugs, NAFTA, the plight of economic refugees crossing our borders.
In the end, the vast majority of Christians living in the privileged centres of power in this hemisphere have virtually no idea of the suffering of their faceless neighbours living under the American apartheid. Therefore, they are
the consequences come to them in financial, ecological or moral disasters, the blind managers
usually shocked when they discover the implications of this kind of racism. Whether
The pattern of struggle, oppression and denial runs its course through the courts or in the hidden places of the Americas where
indigenous people pay with their freedom, their hopes or their lives because European Americans fear the truth. And eventually, when
the stark light of that truth fades under the shadows of America's guilt, the eyes of the privileged public turn away, the indigenous
long
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Impact – Biodiversity
Indigenous cultures are key to biodiversity
Haller (Professor at the University of Zurich) 2005 (Tobias, Fossil Fuels, Oil Companies, and Indigenous Peoples:
Strategies of Multinational Oil Companies, States and Ethnic Minorities. Page 15)
Our planet is rich in diversity, not only as regards plants and animals but also in human cultures. Of the 6000 peoples, who have their own distinct
culture and language and to whom our planet is home, 4000 to 5000 are supposed to be indigenous peoples according to various definitions and
estimates. This cultural diversity is extremely valuable as it represents diverse identities and ways of life. A large part
of the cultural heritage of humans, the diversity of material culture, music, art, religion and intellectual values can be traced back to
indigenous cultures (Keesing 1981).
Cultural diversity is very closely linked to biodiversity. Areas, which are today characterized by biodiversity and do not
present a monocultural landscape, are frequently indigenous cultural areas. The close connection between cultural and biological
diversity is conspicuous in the field of agriculture. UNCED documents bear out that in this field we are likely to be faced with an immense loss in biodiversity
indigenous peoples play a crucial role in maintaining and
of multipurpose plant species. In this connection it is important to note that
further developing the existing biodiversity. The 20 most important food plants, that compromise 90% of our food intake, are from
areas rich in cultural diversity. Indigenous peoples have maintained and developed the biodiversity of plant species that
provide for human needs. It is vital that we preserve this biodiversity because we have to fall back on the old varieties
conserved by the indigenous peoples in order to develop new resistant varieties for food, medicine and shelter (Mooney and Fowler 1991,
interview with Mooney in Merten 1995). The situation in the case of domestic animals is no different. Many people who describe themselves as
indigenous are traditional with livestock breeders in Africa, Asia and Scandinavia/Siberia (Köhler-Rollefson 1994). Ever since the danger of the
loss of biodiversity in life forms has become general knowledge, there are international discussions, at various political and economic levels, on
how to protect this biodiversity. It is important here to note that the areas where indigenous groups are living, e.g. in rainforest areas,
continue in general to be rich in biodiversity. Two thirds of the countries that are extraordinarily rich in biodiversity as regards plants and
animals are countries equally rich in cultural diversity (Durning 1993:86). This is indicative of the fact that indigenous resource use
systems serve to conserve biodiversity. In fact in some cases they have even contributed substantively towards the creation
of habitats rich in species.
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leading roles in promoting and publicizing the soft energy approach. 259
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Environmental cooperation is the best way to integrate Native values and environmental development
necessary for future survival
Robyn 2002 (Linda, “Indigenous Knowledge and Technology: Creating Environmental Justice in the Twenty-First
Century”, American Indian Quarterly, Vol 26 (2), p 198-220)
We cannot return to a pristine existence, but we can make the best possible use of what we have now. We have an
opportunity as a society to integrate our ways of “doing” to match the patterns and requirements of nature and
natural environment. Cooperation with the environment is one way to integrate Native traditional values and
mainstream concepts of development and future survival. With the assistance of Native traditions and teachings, we
as a society can begin to identify patterns of nature that do work and present us with alternatives to ecological and
global crises.
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*** Damming Advantage ***
Conversely, India's plans for generating hydroelectric power through rerouting several river systems
adds an additional element of instability in relations between India and downstream and upstream
states such as Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.
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Damming 1AC
The plan stops international dam development
Dean B. Suagee, J.D. – University of North Carolina Law, LLM – American University, University of Michigan
Journal of Law Reform, “Self-Determination For Indigenous Peoples At The Dawn Of The Solar Age”, Spring and
Summer 1992, 25 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 671, Lexis
Tribes in the United States, at least today, have the right to decide for themselves whether resources will
be extracted from their lands. 280 In much of the world, however, indigenous peoples either lack legal
recognition of their territories or national governments claim absolute ownership of subsurface [*733]
resources. In these places, governments and transnational corporations scarcely bother to consult with
indigenous peoples or, if they do, consultation tends to be based on the premise that the resources will be
extracted. 281 Some tribes in the United States face essentially the same situation with respect to resources that are
not within official tribal jurisdiction. 282 Extraction of nonrenewable resources is not the only kind of energy
development that inflicts suffering and destruction on indigenous peoples. Large-scale hydroelectric dams
have inflicted great damage too. Although dams usually are considered renewable sources of energy because
they derive power from the hydrologic cycle, when their scale is such that they cause extensive environmental
destruction, they should not be treated as part of the soft energy approach. Indeed, for indigenous peoples,
dam projects may be the most devastating kind of energy development. Examples abound. The dams
and reservoirs on the upper Missouri River in the United States flooded fertile river bottom lands on five
Indian reservations, destroying subsistence agricultural economies and cutting the hearts out of tribal
communities. 283 The dams in the Columbia River basin in the Pacific northwest may cause the extinction of
several species of salmon, fish that are central to the economies and religions of tribes in that region. 284 Examples
are not limited to the United States. [*734] Hydroelectric megaprojects currently threaten indigenous
peoples in many parts of the world. 285 In some cases, indigenous peoples and their supporters have mounted
international campaigns to stop such projects. For example, Kayapo Indian leaders and their allies succeeded in
persuading the World Bank to withdraw its support for a series of dams on the Xingu River in the Brazilian
Amazon. 286 3. A True Story: James Bay II and the Crees of Quebec -- Another current example, the James
Bay hydroelectric project in Northern Quebec, demonstrates that aggressively promoting soft energy
paths in the United States can be a key component of a realistic strategy to stop such megaprojects. 287 In
the 1970s, the province of Quebec and its government-owned electric power authority, Hydro-Quebec,
constructed Phase I of the James Bay project. Construction proceeded over the opposition of the Crees of
Quebec, who continue to carry on their ancient subsistence economy based on hunting, fishing, and trapping. 288
Although the Crees were not able to stop Phase I, their resistance did result in the execution of the James Bay
and Northern Quebec Agreement in 1975, 289 which the Crees understood to give them a substantial role in
determining the course of further development in their traditional homeland. 290 Phase I, also known as the La
Grande Project, is [*735] a complex of dams, reservoirs, and diversion structures through which several major
rivers are diverted into the La Grande River, which flows into James Bay. 291 By drastically changing the wildlife
habitat and destroying much of the riparian habitat, Phase I has devastated the Cree communities of that region.
292
Communities that have lost most of their hunting territories now depend on food from the south, and with the
loss of the resource base that supports their way of life, the people of these communities are unable to carry on
their culture and religion and to transmit them to their children. 293
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Development of renewables on native land will be modeled globally
Dean B. Suagee, J.D. – University of North Carolina Law, LLM – American University, University of Michigan
Journal of Law Reform, “Self-Determination For Indigenous Peoples At The Dawn Of The Solar Age”, Spring and
Summer 1992, 25 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 671, Lexis
These attributes of soft energy paths apply equally to industrialized countries and to the LDCs. The
economies of most industrialized countries are more energy efficient than that of the United States; some analysts have
concluded that energy efficiency is a major factor in the global competitiveness of the Japanese. A substantial body of
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literature indicates that there is a vast potential for energy efficiency improvements in the LDCs and for the use of soft
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energy supply options, especially decentralized, renewable energy systems, in rural areas. A study published by the United
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Nations has concluded that, for rural areas in the LDCs, the use of decentralized, renewable, stand-alone energy systems is
the most realistic strategy to achieve rural electrification. This study also found that the practical effect of choosing a
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strategy for rural electrification based on extending transmission lines from centralized power plants will be that most rural
communities in the LDCs that do not have electricity will never be connected to a power grid. One should bear in mind, of
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course, that the traditional homelands of most of the world's indigenous peoples are located in rural areas of the LDCs.
Through a decade in which the Executive Branch of the United States government has been controlled by administrations that
have demonstrated indifference and hostility toward soft-path options, the United States economy nevertheless has made
substantial progress along several of the soft paths. Progress also has been achieved in the LDCs, some of which have
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adopted innovative programs to spur decentralized, renewable, energy [*740] development. Analysts have recommended
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a variety of ways to speed up this progress. This part of the Article focuses on ways in which tribal governments
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could use their governmental powers to help people in Indian country choose soft energy paths and,
drawing on experiences of the LDCs, suggests some ways in which tribal governments in this country could
help to make soft energy paths viable choices for indigenous peoples and other rural communities in
the LDCs. A. Critical Needs In the United States and other industrialized countries, purchases of end-use energy
benefits are made in markets that are heavily distorted by subsidies and regulation. 323 Governmental institutions
for regulating electricity evolved in tandem with the technologies of centralized power generation and
transmission at a time when electric power was treated as a "natural monopoly." As a result, many of these
institutions have been slow to respond to the range of possibilities offered by new technologies. 324 Unfortunately,
the LDCs have borrowed many aspects of the industrialized world's institutional framework. If widespread
adoption of soft path options is to be a realistic possibility in the near term, concerted measures must be taken to
overcome market distortions and to allow purchasers of end-use energy benefits to make informed decisions
while choosing among a wide range of options. Based on experiences in many LDCs, the United Nations
Department of Technical Co-operation for Development has identified four conditions that must be met if
widespread adoption of soft path options is to be possible in the rural areas of the LDCs: (1) existence of
political will; (2) existence and knowledge [*741] of resources; (3) creation of local technical capacities; and
(4) creation of an appropriate funding system. 325 As presented in this United Nations study, these prerequisites
apply to the use of decentralized renewable energy systems to achieve rural electrification, but meeting these
conditions would also expedite the widespread adoption of nonelectric, renewable energy systems and energy
efficiency measures. Attention to these conditions would expedite the widespread adoption of soft energy paths
in Indian country in the United States as well. 326 1. Political Will -- Political will is needed at all levels of
government. Because energy marketplaces are heavily influenced by governmental policies, policies that
promote conventional energy development will tend to retard soft energy development. 327 In the international
context, considerations of global equity influence political will in a perverse way, as many national
leaders in the LDCs tend to utilize the energy technologies -- particularly large-scale, centralized power
plants -- that they perceive as being favored in the industrialized countries. If national leaders in
industrialized countries were to make soft energy options the priority at home, perhaps national leaders
in LDCs would give more prominence to soft-path options in their own energy strategies. Although
such national leadership is important, local political leadership is also critical. In fact, the movement for
sustainable energy development in both the industrialized world and the Third World is taking place
primarily at the grass-roots level, and tribal leaders in the United States could play leading roles in this
movement.
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Native renewables will be critical to compensate for hydropower failures that will cause
power shortages
Robert Gough, Secretary – Intertribal Council On Utility Policy, “Issues in Tribal Wind Development
in the Context of Tribal, National and International Policy”, Windpower 2001, 6-7-2001,
http://www.montanagreenpower.com/greenpower/pdfs/Tribalwind.pdf
Today, reservation
resources must serve a multiplicity of social, cultural, spiritual and economic needs.
Reservation lands are diverse and varied in their environments (land, water, wind, flora, fauna and other
resources) within relatively fixed, though historically shrinking jurisdictional boundaries. Native communities have
extremely youthful and rapidly growing populations relative to the surrounding non-Native communities. The fixed
resources and growing populations will require creative and expanding opportunities for sustainable
economic development such as renewable energy generation can provide. Tribal governments hold legal authority
for the management of homeland ecosystems and economies, exercised in partnership with various federal agencies under the federal trust
responsibility. Over the past few years, a growing number of Tribes have embraced the prospect of clean, renewable energy generation as a
“no regrets” strategy in the context of climatic change. This presents a viable economic development opportunity that can meet local needs
and be sold into an export market. In the northern Great Plains, the foremost renewable energy opportunity is in wind power, with
hydropower, solar, biomass and geothermal also available. Multiple Benefits of Distributed Tribal Wind Development The
development of even a small fraction of this tribal wind power potential, however, could make a
significant contribution to the energy budget of the entire West and a tremendous contribution to the local
tribal economies, particularly if the Tribe owned all or part of the facility. Management Flexibility: For example, if Tribes in
the Dakotas developed only 1% of the 200 plus gigawatt reservation resource (i.e., 2,000 MW), it could double the power
currently produced by the dams on mainstem of the Missouri River. The Intertribal Council On Utility Policy views
distributed tribal wind generation as having a tremendous potential for providing greater flexibility in
the operation and management of the Missouri River dams by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The dams are
operated for a variety of purposes, such as navigation, flood control, recreation, and species and habitat management, as well
as power production. Having an additional source of power available may allow for greater flexibility in addressing other
priorities. Growing Need for Less Expensive Supplemental Power: The Western Area Power Administration is charged with
the transmission and sale of federal hydropower produced by the Corps of Engineers, which estimates that, due to western
drought and eastern flooding, the Missouri River dams will fall some 4 billion kilowatt hours short of
normal power generation this year. The Corps expects that if Western has to make up that power through the
purchase of supplemental power at 6 cents per kilowatt-hour, the cost will be about $240 million. This single
expenditure represents almost a five-fold increase over the highest cost in recent years. At such prices, a modest
investment in utility scale wind generation distributed throughout the region could provide an economical
alternative source of electrical power. This potential only grows in importance as shifts in precipitation
patterns and reduced mountain snowpack, not inconsistent with long term climate change and variability
scenarios, are likely to result in chronic shortfalls in hydropower production and increased costs in
supplemental electrical power necessary for Western to meet its contractual obligations.
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Damming 1AC
Global nuclear war
Walter Russell Mead, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy – Council on Foreign Relations, New Perspectives
Quarterly, Summer 1992, p. 30
The failure to develop an international system to hedge against the possibility of worldwide depression- will
open their eyes to their folly. Hundreds of millions-billions-of people around the world have pinned their
hopes on the international market economy. They and their leaders have embraced market principles-and
drawn closer to the West-because they believe that our system can work for them. But what if it can't? What if
the global economy stagnates, or even shrinks? In that case, we will face a new period of international
conflict: South against North, rich against poor. Russia. China. India-these countries with their billions of
people and their nuclear weapons will pose a much greater danger to world order than Germany and Japan
did in the 1930's.
indefensible. One or more could be wiped out with a small aircraft, ground-based weapons, truck bombs or even chemical/biological assaults
aimed at the work force. A terrorist assault at Indian Point could yield three infernal fireballs of molten radioactive lava burning through the earth and into the
aquifer and the river. Striking water, they would blast gigantic billows of horribly radioactive steam into the
atmosphere. Thousands of square miles would be saturated with the most lethal clouds ever created, depositing relentless genetic poisons that would kill
forever. Infants and small children would quickly die en masse. Pregnant women would spontaneously abort or give birth to horribly deformed offspring.
Ghastly sores, rashes, ulcerations and burns would afflict the skin of millions. Heart attacks, stroke and multiple organ failure would kill thousands on the spot.
Emphysema, hair loss, nausea, inability to eat or drink or swallow, diarrhea and incontinence, sterility and impotence, asthma and blindness would afflict
hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Then comes the wave of cancers, leukemias, lymphomas, tumors and hellish diseases
for which new names will have to be invented. Evacuation would be impossible, but thousands would die trying. Attempts to quench the fires would be futile.
More than 800,000 Soviet draftees forced through Chernobyl's seething remains in a futile attempt to clean it up are still dying from their exposure. At Indian
Point, the molten cores would burn uncontrolled for days, weeks and years. Who would volunteer for such an American task force? The immediate damage from
an Indian Point attack (or a domestic accident) would render all five boroughs of New York City an apocalyptic wasteland. As at Three Mile Island, where
thousands of farm and wild animals died in heaps, natural ecosystems would be permanently and irrevocably destroyed. Spiritually, psychologically, financially
and ecologically, our nation would never recover. This is what we missed by a mere 40 miles on September 11. Now that we are at war, this is what could be
happening as you read this. There are 103 of these potential Bombs of the Apocalypse operating in the US. They generate a mere 8 percent of our total energy.
Since its deregulation crisis, California cut its electric consumption by some 15 percent. Within a year, the US could cheaply replace virtually all the reactors with
increased efficiency. Yet, as the terror escalates, Congress is fast-tracking the extension of the Price-Anderson Act, a form of legal immunity that protects reactor
the
operators from liability in case of a meltdown or terrorist attack. Do we take this war seriously? Are we committed to the survival of our nation? If so,
ticking reactor bombs that could obliterate the very core of our life and of all future generations
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Modeling
Native energy policies are modeled globally
Dean B. Suagee, J.D. – University of North Carolina Law, LLM – American University, University of Michigan
Journal of Law Reform, “Self-Determination For Indigenous Peoples At The Dawn Of The Solar Age”, Spring and
Summer 1992, 25 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 671, Lexis
Federal policies toward Indian tribes during the "self-determination" era have not been limited to acts of
Congress that are specifically directed towards Indians. Rather, a new federalism has emerged in which many
federal agencies administer programs in ways that recognize the separate sovereign status of tribal governments.
140
In one area in particular -- environmental protection -- recent changes in federal law provide a
model for indigenous autonomy that is promising for indigenous peoples throughout the world. 1.
Environmental Protection in Indian Country -- Federal environmental law in the United States has evolved as a
partnership between the federal government and the states. Federal statutes provide an overall framework, but
state governments assume much of the responsibility for establishing regulatory programs, setting standards,
issuing permits, and taking enforcement action. In the last decade, several major federal environmental laws
have been amended to authorize the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to treat Indian tribes as states for
certain purposes. These laws include the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), 141 the Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA, also known as Superfund), 142 the Clean Water Act
(CWA), 143 and the Clean Air Act (CAA). 144 The implementation of these amendments will require long-term
commitments on the part of both the EPA and those tribes that choose to be treated as states. 145 [*705] The
policy to treat Indian tribes as states under these laws is premised on the principle of inherent tribal sovereignty.
As the EPA has explained in regulations implementing the amendments to the Clean Water Act, the federal
statute does not constitute a delegation of authority from Congress to the tribes. 146 Rather, tribes must have their
own authority to carry out environmental regulatory programs. In light of the fact that many Indian reservations
include substantial areas of non-trust lands, the EPA specifically addressed the issue of whether tribes have the
authority to regulate water quality on non-trust lands within reservation boundaries as an aspect of inherent
sovereignty. The EPA concluded that tribes generally do have such authority. 147 Tribal governments' efforts to
regulate non-Indians within reservation boundaries often encounter resistance. 148 Nevertheless, federal courts
have upheld such efforts in cases in which important tribal interests are at stake. 149 In the environmental
protection context, the federal statutes and implementing regulations have set the stage for tribal authority to
continue to withstand challenge. 150 It is too soon to tell how well this approach will work. There may need to be a
different model for tribes that either do not [*706] choose to be treated as states or choose to assume less than
the full range of responsibilities that states typically perform. Assuming that treatment as states will work for a
substantial number of tribes, successful environmental regulatory programs being carried out by
tribal governments could prove to be invaluable examples for indigenous peoples in other
countries, especially those who also must contend with the presence of nonindigenous people within their
territories.
U.S role in addressing global warming is a model for the rest of the world and increases soft
power.
Zervos and Coequyt – European Renewable Energy Council and Climate & Energy Unit, Greenpeace
USA – 2007 (Arthouros and John, “Increasing Renewable Energy in U.S. Can Solve Global Warming”,
Renewable Energy World, January,
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/infocus/story?id=47208) accessed 6/26/08
It's time for a national plan to address global warming. Such a plan will create jobs, improve the security
of America's energy supply, and protect Americans from volatile energy prices. It will restore America's
moral leadership on the critical international issue of climate change. And real action in the United States
will inspire confidence as the rest of the world negotiates future global commitments to address climate
change. In addition to global warming, other energy-related challenges have become extremely pressing. Worldwide energy demand is growing at a
staggering rate. Over-reliance on energy imports from a few, often politically unstable, countries, and volatile oil and gas prices, have together pushed
energy security to the top of the political agenda, while threatening to inflict a massive drain on the global economy. But while there is a broad consensus
that we need to change the way we produce and consume energy, there is still disagreement about what changes are needed and how they should be
achieved.
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Hydroelectric dams are three and a half times worst for the environment than oil.
New Scientist – 2005 (“Hydroelectric power’s dirty secret revealed”, New Scientist, February,
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7046) accessed 6/28/08
Contrary to popular belief, hydroelectric power can seriously damage the climate. Proposed changes to the way countries' climate
budgets are calculated aim to take greenhouse gas emissions from hydropower reservoirs into account, but some experts worry that they will not go far
enough. Thegreen image of hydro power as a benign alternative to fossil fuels is false, says Éric Duchemin, a
consultant for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "Everyone thinks hydro is very clean, but this is
not the case," he says. Hydroelectric dams produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane,
and in some cases produce more of these greenhouse gases than power plants running on fossil fuels.
Carbon emissions vary from dam to dam, says Philip Fearnside from Brazil's National Institute for Research in the Amazon in Manaus. "But we do know
that there are enough emissions to worry about." In a study to be published in Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Fearnside
the greenhouse effect of emissions from the Curuá-Una dam in Pará, Brazil, was more
estimates that in 1990
than three-and-a-half times what would have been produced by generating the same amount of electricity
from oil. This is because large amounts of carbon tied up in trees and other plants are released when the
reservoir is initially flooded and the plants rot. Then after this first pulse of decay, plant matter settling on
the reservoir's bottom decomposes without oxygen, resulting in a build-up of dissolved methane. This is
released into the atmosphere when water passes through the dam's turbines.
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Environment Impact
Environmental destruction and Global Warming leads to the extinctions of thousands of
species
Reuters 06 (ABC News Online, “Humans Spur Worst Extinctions Since Dinosaurs”, Mar 21, 2006,
www.abc.net.au) June 26, 2008
Humans are responsible for the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs and must make unprecedented
extra efforts to reach a goal of slowing losses by 2010, a UN report has said. Habitats ranging from coral reefs to
tropical rainforests face mounting threats, the Secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity said in the
report, issued at the start of a March 20-31 UN meeting in Curitiba, Brazil. "In effect, we are currently
responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of earth, and the greatest since the dinosaurs
disappeared, 65 million years ago," said the 92-page Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 report. Apart from the
disappearance of the dinosaurs, the other "Big Five" extinctions were about 205, 250, 375 and 440 million years
ago. Scientists suspect that asteroid strikes, volcanic eruptions or sudden climate shifts may explain the five. A
rising human population of 6.5 billion was undermining the environment for animals and plants via pollution,
expanding cities, deforestation, introduction of "alien species" and global warming, it said. It estimated the
current pace of extinctions was 1,000 times faster than historical rates, jeopardising a global goal set at a 2002
UN summit in Johannesburg "to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss".
"Unprecedented additional efforts' will be needed to achieve the 2010 biodiversity target at national, regional and
global levels," it said. The report was bleaker than a first UN review of the diversity of life issued in 2001.
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China – Uniqueness
China is looking to expand their hydropower resources
Paish (senior engineer, energy consultation firm) 2002 (oliver, science direct, “renewable and sustainable
energy reviews: small hydropower”, dec. 2002, www.sciencedirect.com) June 23, 2008
China deserves a special mention when discussing small-scale hydropower. China has 17% of the earth’s
hydropower resource and has installed around 40% of the world’ s small hydro capacity. Since the
establishment of the Peoples’ Republic in 1949, approximately 15,000 MW of schemes less than 10 MW have been
constructed, with more than 80% of this coming on-line since the mid 1970s. Around half (7000 MW) of this
capacity is below 500 kW. The economic small hydro resource in China is estimated to exceed 70 GW . The
Government has major plans for continued rural electrification with small hydro and is perhaps unique in
promoting a national policy which places equal importance on hydro and thermal power, and which devotes
as much attention to small hydropower as to medium and large scale projects. In recent years the rate of
commissioning of new small hydro capacity has been around 1000 W per year, supporting a large network of
factories supplying mass-produced turbines. Small hydro is seen as a key environmentally-sound solution for
improving the economic growth rate in China’s vast rural areas, many of which have rich, undeveloped hydro
resources. As many as 80 million rural Chinese people still do not have access to electricity.
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Damming the Yangtze River is a monumental undertaking, literally and figuratively, and China's Three Gorges Dam
currently stands as a symbol of the country's so-called "economic miracle." The dam, in addition to hydroelectric
power, is responsible for fantastic environmental problems, the displacement of millions of people and plenty of old-
fashioned corruption. As the water rises, a culture and a way of life are being lost.
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Brazil – Uniqueness
Brazil is moving ahead with major hydroelectric projects, despite public opposition
Downie(correspondent, christian science monitor) 08 (andrew, christian scieince monitor, “green critics slam loss of brazils
environmental minister”, may. 23, 2008, http://web.lexis-nexis.com/scholastic) june 26, 2008
As if to underline the conflict between economic development and environmental protection, some 1,000
indigenous Brazilians protested a proposed $6.7 billion dam this week in the Amazonian city of Altamira.
Painted and feathered protesters attacked a electric company official with machetes and clubs after he spoke to the
group Tuesday. Brazil is busy building huge hydroelectric dams, roads, and other infrastructure to boost the
country's sluggish rise as a regional economic power. But its boom means paving, flooding, and stringing power
lines through thousands of miles of pristine jungle. Silva is particularly sensitive to the dam project as it take places
in the remote western Amazon where she was born and raised. A poor rubber tapper from the western Amazon who
only learned to read and write as a teenager, Silva was a powerful symbol of a government that Lula - himself once a
poor, factory worker - hoped would be more representative of this vast and varied nation. But Silva was increasingly
marginalized and resigned citing “the difficulties I have been facing to pursue the federal environmental
agenda.â€Analysts said she had tired of losing recent power struggles with governors and ministers who put
economic development over environmental protection.
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*** Warming Advantage ***
Warming 1AC
Contention ____: The Heat is On
Warming is anthropogenic, and faster than ever, causing massive climate variation
Ross Gelbspan, Washington Post Environmental Editor, 2004 (Boiling Point, p.24-32)
That argument was first answered in 1995 by the world's community of climate scientists when they determined that the warming is,
undeniably, due to human activities. Since that 1995 declaration, a succession of new findings has strengthened the case
for.
human-induced climate change beyond a doubt. This is not the hypothesis of a few researchers. The finding that
human beings are changing the climate comes from more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries reporting to
the United Nations in what is the largest and most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific collaboration in history. In
1988, the United Nations created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to find out why the planet is warming: Was it attributable to the natural variability of the
climate, or was it due to human activities? Seven years later, the IPCC declared that the scientific panel had found-in the conservative language of science a "discernible
human influence" on the climate. After reviewing the scientific literature on climate change, the IPCC found that the heating of the planet was due to the buildup of
greenhouse gases-primarily carbon dioxide from our burning of coal and oil-in our atmosphere. That 1995 consensus declaration was based on a number of findings,
including three critical research efforts. That year, a team of researchers led by Dr. Benjamin Santer of the Lawrence Livermore Lab examined the pattern of heating in the
atmosphere. That
pattern of warming over land and water and warm and cold areas-produced a very specific pattern,
one that matches the pattern projected by computer models of "greenhouse gas," plus sulfate warming. When the
vertical structure of the warming was examined, it was found to be graphically different from the structure
produced by natural warming. A second "smoking gun" was published in 1995 when a team of scientists at
NOAA's National Climatic Data Center verified an increase of extreme weather events in the United States.
They concluded the growing weather extremes are due, by a probability of 90 percent, to rising levels of green-
house gases. Those extremes-which reflect an intensification of the planet's hydrological cycle from atmospheric heating-are not consistent with
natural warming and, instead, resemble the changes that were projected for emissions from fossil fuels. The researchers declared the climate in the
United States is becoming more "greenhouse-like"-with more intense rain and snowfalls, more winter precipitation, more droughts, floods, and heat
waves. It concluded: "[T]he late-century changes recorded in U.S. climate are consistent with the general trends anticipated from a greenhouse-
enhanced atmosphere." A third contribution to our understanding of the global climate appeared that same spring when David J. Thomson, a
signals analyst at AT&T Bell Labs, evaluated a century of summer and winter temperature data. Whereas some
scientific skeptics had attributed this century's atmospheric warming to solar variations, Thomson discovered the
opposite: The accumulation of greenhouse gases had overwhelmed the relatively weak effects of solar cycles on
the climate. He also discovered that since the beginning of World War II, when accelerating industrialization led to a skyrocketing of
carbon dioxide emissions, the timing of the seasons had begun to shift. Since 1940, he wrote in the journal Science, the seasonal patterns "of
the previous 300 years began to change and now appear to be changing at an unprecedented rate." Since the IPCC's 1995 declaration, a
succession of studies has profoundly strengthened the case for human-induced global warming. In 1997, a
research team led by David Easterling of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center found that the nighttime and
wintertime low temperatures are rising nearly twice as fast as the daytime and summertime high temperatures.
Easterling called the findings a "fingerprint" study of "greenhouse warming." That research, based on data from 5,400
observing stations around the world, showed that "[t]he rise in [minimum temperatures] is due to higher humidity and
more water vapor, especially in the winter in northern latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. In an increasingly
`greenhouse' world this is the kind of rise you'd expect to see," Easterling wrote. He added that if the warming were
natural, and not driven by fossil fuel emissions, the high and low temperatures would more or less rise and fall in
parallel. In 1999, a team of British meteorologists studied all the factors that influence changes in the climate-
solar activity, volcanic eruptions, emissions of sulfur particulates, and greenhouse gases. According to an
editorial in the journal Nature, "The researchers' findings were unambiguous: `The temperature changes over the
Twentieth Century cannot be explained by any combination of natural internal variability and the response to
natural forcings alone,' they conclude. Rather, it seems necessary to include some human-induced component in the
climate forcing throughout the century. . . ." "Thus the rise in temperature of about a quarter of a degree since the 1940s
seems to be due mainly to increases in greenhouse gases ... All in all," the editorial concluded, "it seems we can lay to rest the
idea that recent climate warming is just a freak of nature." A year later, Thomas Crowley at Texas A&M University
concluded that 75 percent of the warming of the twentieth century was due to human activities-and that the rate
of warming exceeded any similar time period in the last 1,000 years. The Crowley findings affirmed a groundbreaking study
published two years earlier by a team of scientists who essentially reconstructed the history of the global climate over the previous 1,000 years.
Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters. The
reconstruction involved examinations of tree rings, ice cores, and sediments that contain information about earlier climatic periods. They found that
since the year 1000, the decade of the 1990s was the hottest in history-and that 1998 was the warmest year at least in the millennium. Their research,
captured in a famous "hockey-stick" graph, showed that from about the year 1,000 to the mid-nineteenth century, the climate was actually cooling very
slightly-about onefourth of a degree. But in the last 150 years, beginning with the widespread industrialization of the late nineteenth century, the
temperature has shot upward at a rate unseen in the last 10,000 years. Those studies-which used computer models and physical
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[Gelbspan Continued]
climate "archives"-were corroborated for the first time by direct evidence from satellites in 2001. That year, scientists
studying the escape of longwave radiation from Earth into the outer atmosphere discovered there had been a marked change between 1970 and 1997.
Using data gathered by satellites in those two years, the scientists found that radiation from greenhouse gases had increased significantly over the
twenty-seven-year period. The satellite radiation readings, according to researchers, provided the first direct experimental evidence "for a significant
increase in the Earth's greenhouse effect that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate." Those concerns were heightened in 2000
when scientists determined that the rate of heating had skyrocketed in the latter part of the twentieth century. In early 2000,
scientists declared that the earth's surface is warming at an "unprecedented rate" that was not expected to be seen until
well into the twenty-first century. According to an analysis by a team of climatologists, led by Tom Karl of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, although warming for most of the twentieth century was
progressing at the rate of I 'C per century, that changed in the mid-1970s. Since 1976, the earth has been
warming at a rate of about 3°C per century. Karl speculated that the planet may have experienced a "change
point" at which the rate of warming suddenly accelerated. Said Jonathan Overpeck, director of the University of
Arizonas Institute for the Study of Planet Earth: "There is no known precedent of natural forces that could have given
rise to the temperatures of the last decade." That heating was apparent not only in atmospheric studies but in
measurements of the deep oceans as well. In 2001, two studies indicated that the warming was penetrating to far
deeper levels-with potentially irreversible consequences. That year, two teams of researchers, one headed by
Sydney Levitus of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the other by Tim Barnett of the
Scripps Institute of Oceanography, found that the world's oceans had warmed by about one-tenth of 1 °C down to a
depth of 3,000 meters-almost two miles-in the last fifty years. Said Levitus: "I believe our results represent the
strongest evidence to date that the Earth's climate system is responding to human-induced forcing." Levitus and his
colleagues calculated the average of how much the oceans had warmed by compiling millions of deep ocean temperature measurements from 1948
through 1995. But initially they couldn't say for sure whether the heat came from greenhouse warming or from a natural swing in the climate cycle. To
solve that riddle, Levitus and Barnett each used a different computer model of the earth's climate to simulate how ocean temperature should respond to
current levels of greenhouse gases and other modern atmospheric conditions. The amount of warming predicted by both models matched the warming
that had been physically measured. The Scripps team ran their model with-and withoutthe extra greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols produced by
combustion of coal and oil. "What we found is that the signal is so bold and big that you don't have to do any fancy statistics to beat it out of the data.
It's just there, bang," said Dr. Barnett. He added that the findings "will make it much harder for naysayers to dismiss predictions from climate models."
The findings of the Levitus team also answered a major question posed by "greenhouse skeptics." The skeptics contended that if the climate models
were accurate, the atmosphere should have warmed considerably more than it has. But the findings from deep ocean measurements
showed that a substantial portion of that heat had been absorbed by the world's oceans. "We've shown that a large
part of the `missing warming' has occurred in the ocean," said Levitus, who added: "The whole-Earth system has
gone into a relatively warm state." By 2003, the science had become so robust that even the most conservatively
spoken scientists were adamant about the fact that humans, primarily through their burning of fossil fuels, are
heating the atmosphere. "Modern climate change is dominated by human influences, which are now large enough to exceed the bounds of
natural variability. The main source of global climate change is human-induced changes in atmospheric composition ... Anthropogenic climate change
is now likely to continue for many centuries. We are venturing into the unknown with climate, and its associated impacts could be quite disruptive,"
wrote Thomas Karl and Kevin Trenberth in the journal Science. Putting the various strands of temperature research together, the picture that emerges
is profoundly ominous. It begins with bare physical measurements-independent of computer models. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps in heat.
For the last 10,000 years, the amount of C02 remained constant at about 280 parts per million-until the late nineteenth century, when the world began
to industrialize using coal and oil. Today, that 280 is up to 379 parts per million. That is a level the planet has not experienced for 420,000 years. The
most direct consequence of this buildup of atmospheric carbon is in the relentless rise of global temperatures. Seventeen of the eighteen
hottest years on record have occurred since 1980. The period from 1991 to 1995 constitutes the hottest five-year
period on record. The year 1998 replaced 1997 as the hottest year in human history, and 2001 replaced 1997 as the
second-hottest year. Then 2001 was replaced by 2002. The decade of the 1990s was the hottest at least in this last
millennium. And the planet is heating at a rate faster than at any time in the last 10,000 years. Senior scientist
Tom M.L. Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research put the coming changes in perspective in a
letter to Senators Tom Daschle (D-ND) and William Frist (R-TN) in July 2003: There is only one chance in 100
that the rate of warming will be less than double the warming rate of the last 100 years-and a 99 percent
probability that it will exceed double the past warming rate ... The most likely estimate of warming between
[now] and 2100 is 5.5 degrees F This is five times the warming rate experienced over the past 100 years. At the high
end, there is a five percent chance that the warming could be more than eight times the warming rate of the past
century. Our climate is capable of immense and wildly disruptive surprises. Every day, those surprises seem
progressively more likely than not. Not only are we gambling with our future, we are gambling with our eyes
blindfolded. We can't even read the cards we've been dealt.
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Lack of a production tax credit has blocked the development of soft energy on tribal lands
Rob Capriccioso, Staff Writer – IC Today, “Tribes Look For Federal Wind Energy Incentives”, Indian Country
Today, 4-11-2008, http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417026
Few, if any, tribes have been able to take advantage of the production tax credits offered to date because
many tribes that have been able to create wind energy projects have relied on non-Native developers to help
them get projects off the ground. Under current law, tribes are not entitled to the tax credits provided to
non-Native developers for renewable energy production because tribes have a tax-exempt status. Tribal
energy experts say it's important for tribes to be reaching out to Congress regarding the tax-exempt issue,
since it likely discourages non-Native developers from wanting to work with tribes. Thune's office seems
amenable. ''As a general matter, we know tribes are very supportive of wind energy,'' said Jon Lauck, a senior
adviser to Thune. ''They know this is an area that could jump-start their economies, and we'd like to help
them.'' Recent legislative developments have also made it challenging for tribes to obtain federal wind
energy seed funding. In 2007, Thune proposed the Wind Energy Development Act, which included $2.25 billion
in funding for Clean Renewable Energy Bonds that tribes could have used to fund pilot wind energy programs.
Under Thune's plan, 20 percent of this bonding would have been specifically set aside for tribes; however, the
set-aside did not make it into the current version of the wind energy tax credit legislation, and it was not in the
energy bill that passed last December. Some tribal energy advocates believe supporting new legislation that
promotes Clean Renewable Energy Bonds may be the best hope for tribes that want to receive federal funding to
begin wind energy development. Thune's current legislation proposes $400 million in funding for the bonds,
which energy experts say tribes should be eligible to apply for via the IRS. ''Seed monies would be helpful,''
Renville said. ''But we haven't factored those into our current projects.'' As the Senate and House consider
extensions of the renewable energy tax credit, the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy, which represents 10
tribes, is pushing for legislation that would support tribal wind projects. Officials with the group note that none
of the federal incentives currently in place involving wind energy were designed expressly for tribes, which they
say is ironic since tribes are the only group that the federal government has an explicit trust responsibility to
assist in economic development. ''The federal renewable energy incentives, as designed, are problematic
for tribes, in that they are both insufficient and inappropriate as drivers of tribal development as
presently configured,'' the group noted in a recent policy paper. ''The presently formulated federal
incentives have actually worked as disincentives in the unique context of tribal renewable energy
development.''
This undermines market-wide adoption of renewables because Native lands are a key site
for demonstration
David K. Garman, U.S. Assistant Secretary – Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy – Department of Energy,
“Native American Programs”, 2-25-2004,
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/office_eere/congressional_test_022504.html
The Tribal Energy Program holds great potential for serving both the Department's mission and the Native
American community. While Indian land comprises five percent of the land area of the United States it
contains an estimated ten percent of all energy resources in the United States. Moreover, tribal lands
possess some of the best renewable energy resources in the country. Because most tribal lands are
remote and sparsely populated, they are also considered to be good sites for testing the market
potential of dispersed energy sources such as renewable energy. And renewable energy projects are
considered particularly appropriate on Indian lands because they are generally environmentally benign
and harmonize well with nature. The potential is significant—we estimate, for example, that wind
resources in the Great Plains could meet 75 percent of the electricity demand in the contiguous 48
states. And the need is great—Indian households on reservations are disproportionately without electricity. A
total of 14.2 percent of Indian households have no access to electricity, as compared to only 1.4 percent of all
U.S. households. The Navajo Nation alone accounts for 75 percent of the households without electricity.
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Native renewable projects forge unique linkages and trust that enable technology transfers
and global adoption of soft energy
Dean B. Suagee, J.D. – University of North Carolina Law, LLM – American University, University of Michigan,
“Renewable Energy in Indian Country”, 5-19-1998, http://www.crest.org/repp_pubs/pdf/issuebr10.pdf
Indian Expertise in Developing Countries Many developing countries have little hope of making electric
power available to rural communities except through the use of dispersed renewable energy systems.
These communities provide an enormous potential market for such systems. Where people want renewable
power, they will have to overcome a range of problems centering on the four critical needs mentioned earlier.
Over the next several decades, many interests will converge to address these needs, in part driven by the need to
limit carbon emissions from human activities, the main culprit in climate change. Industrial countries will
insist that developing nations share in limiting emissions, and developing nations will demand help in
gaining access to energy technologies to do so. Indigenous peoples inhabit the rural areas of many
developing countries. Indian tribes and tribal colleges in the United States may be particularly well
suited to transfer renewable energy technologies to indigenous communities, in large part because
of a sense of common experience and, especially with respect to Indian communities in Central and South
America, a measure of shared cultural values. These factors can build trust, an important factor in
introducing new technologies. The experience of Native SUN/Hopi Solar Electric Enterprise suggests
that tribal ventures could be well received in overseas indigenous communities. Native SUN receives
Indian visitors from Central and South America, and they have put on workshops as far away as Ecuador.54 In
the coming decades, tribal ventures that provide technology transfer services could find themselves in high
demand. Tribes also could pursue more conventional ways of entering international markets for renewable
energy products and services. For example, tribally owned business enterprises and enterprises owned by Alaska
Native corporations generally qualify for the minority small business program administered by the Small
Business Administration, commonly known as the "Section 8(a) program."55 Business entities with 8(a) status
can obtain contracts with federal agencies without competition or in a competition limited to 8(a) entities.
Tribally owned 8(a) firms working in renewable energy could use this status to obtain contracts with such federal
agencies as the U.S. Agency for International Development. They could enter into joint ventures with companies
that manufacture products such as PV panels and wind power equipment. Such joint ventures could create
employment opportunities for tribal members, generate income for tribal business entities and their joint venture
partners, and help joint venture partners expand their shares of overseas markets. Partners in joint ventures with
tribal companies will realize financial and competitive benefits common to partnerships with 8(a) firms
generally. Yet tribally owned business entities differ from typical 8(a) firms. By locating manufacturing
facilities on tribal trust land and structuring joint ventures carefully, tribes could bring some significant
advantages to such undertakings. Some of these potential advantages are discussed in the next section.
of carbon dioxide and avoiding the likelihood of global climate change associated with the greenhouse
effect, both the industrialized countries and the LDCs need to shift away from fossil fuels. This means
252
that development must be energy efficient and that the favored options for producing energy must be solar and
other renewable energy technologies. 253
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Warming causes climate oscillations that kill billions, collapse ecosystems and the economy
Lester Milbrath, The Futurist, Climate and Chaos: Societal Impacts of Sudden Weather Shifts, 1994, p. 27-8
Another scenario suggests that there could be an extended period, perhaps a decade or two, when there is an oscillation-type
chaos in the climate system. Plants will be especially vulnerable to oscillating chaos, since they are injured
or die when climate is too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet. And since plants make food for all other
creatures, plant dieback would lead to severe declines in agricultural production. Farm animals and wildlife
would die in large numbers. Many humans would also starve. Several years of climate oscillations could kill
billions of people. The loss of the premise of continuity would also precipitate collapse of world
financial markets. That collapse would lead to a sharp decline in commodity markets, world trade, factory output, retail
sales, research and development, tax income for governments, and education. Such nonessential activities such as tourism,
travel, hotel occupancy, restaurants, entertainment, and fashion would be severely affected. Billions of unemployed people
would drastically reduce their consumption, and modern society's vaulted economic system would collapse like a
house of cards.
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Demonstration Effect
Native American’s are key to solving global warming
Terra Daily 2006 (“More Than 50 Tribes Convene on Global Warming Impacts,” Dec. 06, <
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/More_Than_50_Tribes_Convene_on_Global_Warming_Impacts_999.html> June
25, 2008)
"Native Americans can provide key inspiration regarding global warming and its impact on our world,
unite broad stakeholder support, and demonstrate actions that alleviate global warming impacts," said
Garrit Voggesser, manager of the National Wildlife Federation's Tribal Lands Conservation Program. Native
Americans are critical eyewitnesses to global warming. Among the first to experience the devastating impacts of
a changing climate, Indigenous people are uniquely able to compare what's happening today with
experiences spanning generations of understanding natural cycles and resources. The National Wildlife
Federation is reaching out to those best able to tell the stories and first-hand, on-the-ground accounts about the
impacts to fish, wildlife and natural resources fueled by manmade carbon emissions and global warming. The
conference gathers representatives from more than 50 tribes throughout the Southwest, Northwest, Midwest, and
Alaska - and political leaders, climate scientists, and NGOs - to exchange strategies and solutions to address
global warming
Tribal lands are uniquely key for Alternative Energy use because they have the highest
potential output.
Burke, Sikkema ( Energy Program Manager for the National Congress of State Legislatures (NCSL), Director of
the NCSL’s Institute for State- Tribal Relations) 2007 (Kate, Linda, “Native American Power,” State Legislatures,
33(6), June, 32-35 Ebsco http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=9&hid=2&sid=ed2e3788-84ee-4b12-8b77-
556d49d29e7d%40sessionmgr108 June 25, 2008)
Wind and solar energy especially have great potential on tribal lands. The wind energy capacity on tribal
lands is approximately 14 percent of the annual U.S. electric generation. The solar energy potential is 4.5 times
the annual U.S. electric generation. The two dozen reservations in the northern Great Plains have a
combined wind power potential that exceeds 300 gigawatts--half of the current electrical generation in the
United States
Burke and Sikkema – Energy Policy Specialist and director of NCSL’s. Institute for State-Tribal
Relations – 2007 (Kate and Linda, “Native American Power”, NCSL, June,
http://www.ncsl.org/magazine/articles/2007/07SLJune07_Native.pdf) accessed 6/26/08
POTENTIAL ABOUNDS: Wind and solar energy especially have great potential on tribal lands. The
wind energy capacity on tribal lands is approximately 14 percent of the annual U.S. electric generation.
The solar energy potential is 4.5 times the annual U.S. electric generation. The two dozen reservations in
the northern Great Plains have a combined wind power potential that exceeds 300 gigawatts—half of the
current electrical generation in the United States. New energy projects are popping up all around the country. The Confederated
Tribes of Warm Springs in Central Oregon are on their way to becoming a major energy supplier in the Pacific Northwest. The tribes’ own interest in two
large hydroelectric projects and a biomass project that operates on wood waste from the tribes’ lumber mill. Another project in the works is a large biomass
plant that will use forest waste to generate renewable electricity for more than 15,000 homes. With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, Warm
Springs also is working on a wind energy assessment, and is studying geothermal resources on the reservation. There are more examples around the
country. A wind turbine powers Four Bears Casino near Ft. Berthoud, N.D. The Mohegan Nation in Uncasville, Conn., tapped the Connecticut Clean
Energy Fund to finance two giant fuel cells that use hydrogen and operate like a battery. This cleaner power replaces diesel generators as the source of
emergency power for the tribe’s gambling facility. The tribe plans eventually to go off-grid by adding more fuel cells for their main power source as well.
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Demonstration Effect
Burke and Sikkema – Energy Policy Specialist and director of NCSL’s. Institute for State-Tribal
Relations – 2007 (Kate and Linda, “Native American Power”, NCSL, June,
http://www.ncsl.org/magazine/articles/2007/07SLJune07_Native.pdf) accessed 6/26/08
Developing renewable energy just may be a booming industry for many tribes in Indian Country. More
and more tribes are looking at clean alternative energy sources to power their homes and bring in jobs, all
while respecting Mother Earth’s resources. They are tapping power from solar and geothermal sources,
and from wind, biomass, hydrogen and ocean waves. “Renewable energy has the potential to be as big—
or bigger—a revenue generator for tribes as casinos are for some of them today,” says Lizana Pierce of the U.S. Department of Energy
in Golden, Colo. “Currently, tribal land encompasses about 5 percent of the land in the lower 48 states and contains about 10 percent of all energy resources
— conventional and renewable.”
Natural energy resources are perfect on tribal lands and fit their values.
Burke and Sikkema – Energy Policy Specialist and director of NCSL’s. Institute for State-Tribal
Relations – 2007 (Kate and Linda, “Native American Power”, NCSL, June,
http://www.ncsl.org/magazine/articles/2007/07SLJune07_Native.pdf) accessed 6/26/08
PROTECTING MOTHER EARTH: Using natural resources on tribal lands for power—and to fight
global warming—fits a core value shared among tribes: an innate respect for Mother Earth. Tony Rogers, a
member of the Rosebud Tribe who serves on the Tribal Utility Commission, says the key is to make these energy sources available
to tribal members while maintaining the desire to “protect Mother Earth from the abuse the human race
has done.” Tribal governments, private investors, local governments and utility companies see the benefit
of exploring alternative, clean sources of power. Washington Representative John McCoy says this is an important trend and
one he hopes has sustainability.
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Demonstration Effect
Native Americans are poised to be leaders in Renewable Energy
In these Times 2008 (“Dirty Smoke Signals,” April 28, < http://www.truthout.org/article/dirty-smoke-signals>)
June 26, 2008
In 1988, the grassroots group Dine CARE formed to protect local forests and fight a proposed toxic waste incinerator near Dilkon, a town in
the southwest part of the reservation. ("Dine" roughly means "people," and it is the way Navajo refer to themselves. CARE stands for
Citizens Against Ruining our Environment.) Last fall, the group released a study on renewable energy potential on the Navajo Nation. It
describes "world-class" solar resources in the Arizona side of Four Corners, and reservation-wide "abundance of
moderately to highly valuable solar and wind resources, all largely untapped to date." "The Navajo Nation
is poised to be a leader in renewable energy," says Dailan Jake Long, who grew up near the Desert Rock site and recently
graduated from Dartmouth College. "Solar and wind could supply Navajo homes with electricity without the
negative consequences of Desert Rock."
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Modeling
Native American Pursuits of Alternative Energy Resources are perceived globally.
Indian Country Today 2007 (“ Tribal Energy Organization Wins Worldwide Recognition,” July 11, Lexis <
http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T4037515515&f
ormat=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=26&resultsUrlKey=29_T4037504964&cisb=22_T4037515520&tre
eMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=169235&docNo=50>June 25, 2008)
The Intertribal Council on Utility Policy was recognized on a world-class level for its work In the creation
of a plan to offer clean, renewable energy to tribal reservations and improve economic conditions in
Indian country. The first-ever World Clean Energy Awards were presented June 15 to nine organizations representing countries from
around the world. The awards were presented at the Faktor 4-Festival in Basel. Representatives attended from Abu Dhabi, China, India,
Kenya, Sweden and the Rosebud and Lower Brule Sioux reservations. ICOUP was given a Special Award for Courage for its
work that established the first commercial wind power generation on any reservation with the 750-kilowatt
turbine on Rosebud in addition to a plan that would create wind power energy for the western United States. The
courage award recognized the ICOUP plan that would extend wind power to 3,000 megawatts from tribally owned power turbines on
reservations across the northern Great Plains by 2015. The plan is referred to as Environmental justice Intertribal Wind Power. "We are
honored and humbled for selection by such a distinguished, juried panel of people who are knowledgeable in their field for sustainable
development," said Pat Spears, Enhanced Coverage Linking Spears, -Search using: Biographies Plus News News, Most Recent 60 Days
president of ICOUP. "It is good to be recognized for the feasibility of our project and now to be recognized that this is a viable plan," Spears
Enhanced Coverage Linking Spears -Search using: Biographies Plus News News, Most Recent 60 Days said. More than 75 tribes across the
country have studied or are conducting studies on wind energy for the future development of wind energy. "Along with being humbled and
honored with the nomination, we are pleased to see a grass-roots tribal plan for renewable energy recognized at that world stage level," said
Bob Gough, secretary of ICOUP. "The indigenous peoples in America have understood the value in the face of climate change and
understand a sustained economy based on renewable energy," Gough said. With this worldwide recognition, ICOUP may
become more recognized by people and the plan will have a better chance of becoming reality. Many cities
across the western part of the country have signed on to accept tribal wind power energy.
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Transition to solar and wind energy will be able to stop global warming.
Zervos and Coequyt – European Renewable Energy Council and Climate & Energy Unit, Greenpeace
USA – 2007 (Arthouros and John, “Increasing Renewable Energy in U.S. Can Solve Global Warming”,
Renewable Energy World, January,
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/infocus/story?id=47208)
Renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines, solar photovoltaic panels, biomass power plants, solar
thermal collectors, and biofuels are rapidly becoming mainstream. The global market for renewable energy is growing
dramatically; global investment in 2006 reached US$38 billion, 26% higher than the previous year. The time window available for making the transition
energy companies have plans to build well over 100 coal-
from fossil fuels to renewable energy is relatively short. Today,
burning power plants across the United States; if those plants are built, it will be impossible to reduce
CO2 emissions in time to avoid dangerous climate impacts. But it is not too late yet. We can solve global
warming, save money, and improve air and water quality without compromising our quality of life. Strict
technical standards are the only reliable way to ensure that only the most efficient transportation systems, industrial equipment, buildings, heating and
cooling systems, and appliances will be produced and sold. Consumers should have the opportunity to buy products that minimise both their energy bills
and their impact on the global climate.
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Climate change threatens the basic elements of life for people around the world – access to water, food, health, and
use of land and the environment. On current trends, average global temperatures could rise by 2 - 3°C within
the next fifty years or so, leading to many severe impacts, often mediated by water, including more frequent droughts and floods (Table 3.1). •
Melting glaciers will increase flood risk during the wet season and strongly reduce dry-season water
supplies to one-sixth of the world’s population, predominantly in the Indian sub-continent, parts of China, and the Andes in South
America. • Declining crop yields , especially in Africa, are likely to leave hundreds of millions without the ability to
produce or purchase sufficient food - particularly if the carbon fertilisation effect is weaker than previously thought, as some recent studies
suggest. At mid to high latitudes, crop yields may increase for moderate temperature rises (2 – 3°C), but
then decline with greater amounts of warming. • Ocean acidification, a direct result of rising carbon dioxide levels, will
have major effects on marine ecosystems, with possible adverse consequences on fish stocks. • Rising sea
levels will result in tens to hundreds of millions more people flooded each year with a warming of 3 or
4°C. There will be serious risks and increasing pressures for coastal protection in South East Asia (Bangladesh and Vietnam), small islands in the
Caribbean and the Pacific, and large coastal cities, such as Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Calcutta, Karachi, Buenos Aires, St Petersburg, New
York, Miami and London. • Climate change will increase worldwide deaths from malnutrition and heat stress.
Vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever could become more widespread if effective
control measures are not in place. In higher latitudes, cold-related deaths will decrease. • By the middle of the century, 200 million
more people may become permanently displaced due to rising sea levels, heavier floods, and more intense
droughts, according to one estimate. • Ecosystems will be particularly vulnerable to climate change, with one study estimating that around 15 –
40% of species face extinction with 2°C of warming. Strong drying over the Amazon, as predicted by some climate
models, would result in dieback of the forest with the highest biodiversity on the planet. The consequences of climate change will become
disproportionately more damaging with increased warming. Higher temperatures will increase the chance of triggering abrupt and large-scale changes that
Warming may induce sudden shifts in regional weather patterns like
lead to regional disruption, migration and conflict. •
the monsoons or the El Niño. Such changes would have severe consequences for water availability and
flooding in tropical regions and threaten the livelihoods of billions. • Melting or collapse of ice sheets
would raise sea levels and eventually threaten at least 4 million Km2 of land, which today is home to 5% of the
world’s population. P56
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Yes. Global warming is a complex phenomenon, and its full-scale impacts are hard to predict far in advance. But each year scientists
learn more about how global warming is affecting the planet, and many agree that certain consequences are likely
to occur if current trends continue. Among these:
Melting glaciers, early snowmelt and severe droughts will cause more dramatic water shortages in the
American West.
Rising sea levels will lead to coastal flooding on the Eastern seaboard, in Florida, and in other areas, such as the Gulf of Mexico.
Warmer sea surface temperatures will fuel more intense hurricanes in the southeastern Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
Forests, farms and cities will face troublesome new pests and more mosquito-borne diseases.
Disruption of habitats such as coral reefs and alpine meadows could drive many plant and animal species
to extinction.
Massive extinction of species is dangerous, then, because one cannot predict which species are
expendable to the system as a whole. As Philip Hoose remarks, “Plants and animals cannot tell us what they mean to each other.”
One can never be sure which species holds up fundamental biological relationships in the planetary
ecosystem. And because removing species is an irreversible act, it may be too late to save the system after the extinction of key plants or animals.
According to the U.S. National Research Council, “The ramifications of an ecological change of this magnitude [vast
extinction of species] are so far reaching that no one on earth will escape them.” Trifling with the
“lives” of species is like playing Russian roulette, with our collective future as the stakes.
The worst thing that can happen, will happen, in not energy depletion, economic collapse, limited nuclear war, or
conquest totalitarian government. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired within a few generations.
The one process ongoing in the 1980’s that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species
diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly that our descendants are least likely to forgive us.
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We have all the indicators today of mounting ecological devastation. More than 15,000 species are
threatened with extinction. Global warming is occurring far faster than atmospheric scientists ever
imagined, due directly to carbon dioxide emissions of factories owned by greedy capitalists who do not care what happens to the
environment or whether there is global climate change later on. They care about today, and about today’s profits. So in the name of
exploitation for capitalist profit, we have widespread slaughter of forests around the world. We have pollution of freshwater resources - which comprise just
In America’s new wars (Kosovo,
two percent of the earth’s total water – it is a very small amount to nourish 6 billion people.
Afghanistan and Iraq) we have depleted uranium dust being used in a reckless, devil-may-care manner in such large
amounts that it is already killing not just the so-called ‘enemy combatants’ but also American soldiers by
the thousands. The dust is being picked up and carried by winds around the world, and will gradually
cause thousands more deaths of civilians who will never know what hit them. We are losing our ecological equipoise.
Without ecological equipoise, human beings will not be able to sustain themselves. A Department of Defense report in 2004 predicts
abrupt climate changes within the next ten years leading to ‘catastrophic’ water shortages, wars over fast
dwindling water and energy resources. In addition there is vast erosion of top soils and beaches,
overfishing, global deforestation, freshwater and aquifer depletion, soil salinization, depletion of oil and
minerals, melting ice caps and glaciers and rising sea levels, which threaten to inundate New York, Boston, New Orleans and
many other coastal cities around the globe..
Global warming over the next century could trigger a catastrophe to rival the worst mass extinction in the
history of the planet, scientists have warned. Researchers at Bristol University have discovered that a mere 6 degrees of global warming was
enough to wipe out up to 95 per cent of the species which were alive on earth at the end of the Permian period, 250 million years ago. United Nations
scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict up to 6 degrees of warming for the next 100 years if nothing is done about
emissions of greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, the chief cause of global warming. The Permian mass extinction is now thought to have been
a runaway greenhouse effect and nearly put an end to life on Earth.
caused by gigantic volcanic eruptions that triggered
Conditions in what geologists have termed this "post apocalyptic greenhouse" were so severe that only
one large land animal was left alive and it took 100 million years for species diversity to return to former
levels. This dramatic new finding is revealed in a book by Bristol University's head of earth sciences, Michael Benton, which chronicles the geological
efforts leading up to the discovery and its potential implications. Professor Benton said: "The Permian crisis nearly marked the end of
life. It's estimated that fewer than one in 10 species survived. Geologists are only now coming to appreciate the severity of this global catastrophe and to
understand how and why so many species died out so quickly." Other climate experts say they are appalled that a disaster of such magnitude
could be repeated within this century because of human activities.
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A warming world will accelerate species extinctions and has the potential to lead to the irreversible loss of
many species around the world, with most kinds of animals and plants affected (see below). Rising levels of carbon dioxide have some
direct impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity,76 but increases in temperature and changes in rainfall will have even more profound effects.
Vulnerable ecosystems are likely to disappear almost completely at even quite moderate levels of
warming.77 The Arctic will be particularly hard hit, since many of its species, including polar bears and seals, will be very sensitive to the rapid
warming predicted and substantial loss of sea ice (more detail in Chapter 5).78
1°C warming. At least 10% of land species could be facing extinction, according to one study.79 Coral reef
bleaching will become much more frequent, with slow recovery, particularly in the southern Indian Ocean, Great Barrier Reef and the Caribbean.80
Tropical mountain habitats are very species rich and are likely to lose many species as suitable habitat disappears.
2°C warming. Around 15 – 40% of land species could be facing extinction, with most major species
groups affected, including 25 – 60% of mammals in South Africa and 15 – 25% of butterflies in Australia. Coral reefs are expected to
bleach annually in many areas, with most never recovering, affecting tens of millions of people that rely
on coral reefs for their livelihood or food supply.81 This level of warming is expected to lead to the loss
of vast areas of tundra and forest – almost half the low tundra and about one-quarter of the cool conifer forest according to one study.82
3°C warming. Around 20 – 50% of land species could be facing extinction. Thousands of species may be
lost in biodiversity hotspots around the world, e.g. over 40% of endemic species in some p80
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"Climate change is already having a considerable impact on security," Sarkozy said in his speech to ministers from the 16
economies that together account for 80 percent of the planet's greenhouse-gas emissions -- including Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France,
"Water scarcity and rivalry for farmland
Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the US.
and fishing resources were emerging as "major challenges," he said, pointing to the African example. "In Darfur, we see
this explosive mixture from the impact of climate change, which prompts immigration by increasingly
impoverished people, which then has consequences in war." "If we keep going down this path, climate
change will encourage the immigration of people with nothing towards areas where the population do
have something, and the Darfur crisis will be only one crisis among dozens of others," he stressed. UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon last June was the first to suggest that the Darfur conflict arose "at least in part" from climate change.
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*** 2AC Materials ***
that states are to provide assistance to indigenous peoples to pursue their own cultural development, this program could serve as a model for other nations. The
153
grant program is authorized under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966 and is administered by the National Park Service (NPS). The NHPA 154
is the basic charter for our national historic preservation program. Pursuant to the NHPA, the Secretary of the Interior, through the NPS, has established the
National Register of Historic Places and administers a grant program to states which provides recurrent funding to support State Historic Preservation Officers
155
(SHPOs). The NHPA also established an independent agency, the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation, which is charged under section 106 of [*707]
156 157
the NHPA with reviewing and commenting on proposed federal actions that might affect properties that are listed on or eligible for the National Register of
158
Historic Places. Properties that are important to tribes for religious or cultural reasons may be eligible for the National Register. The Advisory Council's
159
implementing regulations assign the SHPOs a substantial measure of responsibility for carrying out the section 106 process, which is an environmental review
160
and consultation requirement that must be taken into consideration in the preparation of environmental impact statements pursuant to the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA). Thus, as tribal governments become more involved in the NHPA, they are likely to enhance their influence when they participate in the
161
NEPA process as well. Until recently, Indian tribes have virtually been excluded from our national historic preservation program. The NHPA as originally enacted
made no mention whatsoever of Indian tribes, despite their sovereign status and legitimate concern for the subject matter. This oversight is not surprising,
however, given that the NHPA was enacted in the waning years of the "termination" era in federal Indian policy. But, in the 1980 amendments to the NHPA,
Congress added Indian tribes to the list of entities that are to be included in the federally proclaimed partnership for carrying out our national program and 162
authorized the Secretary of the Interior to make grants to tribes. It was not until fiscal year 1990, however, that Congress appropriated funds, and the Secretary,
163
acting through the NPS, finally started making these grants to tribes. [*708] In 1992, Congress enacted amendments to the NHPA which provide a mandate for
164
tribal governments to become full partners in the national historic preservation program. The 1992 amendments direct the Secretary of the Interior to establish a
165
program to assist Indian tribes in preserving historic properties. Each tribe now has the option to assume "all or any part of the functions of a State Historic
166
Preservation Officer . . . with respect to tribal lands." Tribal historic preservation programs, however, will not limit themselves to replicating the established
167
state historic preservation programs. Rather, it is expected that tribal programs, because they will be defined by local tribal priorities, will exhibit a great deal of
variety. As
the tribal programs develop, they will revitalize the national and state programs with which
they will interact. a. Preserving Living Cultures -- Tribal traditions do have historic significance, and all of
today's tribal cultures have deep historical roots in North America. Tribal cultures are dynamic, however, and
most have changed in many ways during the generations of contact with non-Indians. Indian people of today are
not concerned so much with preserving tribal histories for the general good of the larger society. Rather, Indian
people primarily are concerned with the vitality of tribal cultures in today's world. 168 Each tribe has a
wellspring of ancestral wisdom derived from the knowledge, experiences, and values of countless
[*709] generations of ancestors, but it is only by carrying on these traditions in the present that future
generations will have the same opportunity.
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Aff U Helpers
Federal Government is giving Native American tribes monetary assistance in the status quo
New Mexico Business Weekly, 2008
New Mexico Business Weekly, “Senate re-authorizes Native American Housing Program”, Wednesday, May 28, 2008,
http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2008/05/26/daily12.html, Accessed June 26, 2008
The Senate unanimously approved legislation to reauthorize a federal housing assistance program for Native
American communities.
The Native American Housing Assistance and Self-determination Act, originally approved in 1996, channels funds
directly to tribal entities to create and sustain affordable and culturally appropriate housing on Indian reservations
and pueblos.
Under the program, more than $5.7 billion has been provided since 1998 to help Native American families secure
housing through down payment and rent assistance programs, home construction, and rehabilitation through
initiatives such as the Indian Housing Block Grant program.
Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., co-sponsored the original legislation and supported its
reauthorization. Domenici -- a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee -- said the program has helped raise
Indian housing standards in New Mexico during the past decade.
"New Mexico's tribes and pueblos are prime candidates for funds and programs," Domenici said. "Senate approval
of this reauthorization is a necessary step in establishing safer and more modern housing in Indian Country."
The Senate easily passed legislation today that would reauthorize funds through 2017 for federal health care services
for American Indians. It was approved 83-10.
"Today marks a major step in health care for Native Americans. The bill includes several programs that will help
combat the most serious health issues facing American Indians and it contains programs to promote Native
Americans entering the health care field," said Sen. Byron Dorgan
(D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "But we have to remember that this is just a start to the
work that needs to be done to meet and pay for the health care obligations that we have to American Indians and
Alaska Natives."
Additionally, the Senate approved three amendments to the bill. The amendments included a provision relating to
development of innovative approaches, a limitation on funds regarding abortion and technical corrections.
"For years, funding has fallen far below what is required, and to make true progress, the Indian Health Care system
must be fully funded. It's scandalous when our federal government spends almost twice as much per person for
health care for federal prisoners as we do for First Americans," Dorgan said.
The legislation, the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (S. 1200), also includes incentives for encouraging
American Indians to pursue careers related to behavioral health, substance abuse and violence-prevention programs
and expands access to Medicare and Medicaid by allowing third-party reimbursement. It would authorize about $35
billion in spending over 10 years, including $3 billion for fiscal 2008.
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Aff U Helpers
Federal Government has granted Native American Energy Self-Determination Now
Department of Interior 2008, (US Dept of Interior, “DOI Publishes Final Regulations on Tribal Energy Resource
Agreement”, March 10, 2008, http://www.doi.gov/news/08_News_Releases/080311.html, ) Accessed June 26, 2008
WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman today announced that the Interior Department
has published final regulations in the Federal Register implementing Title V of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (P.L.
109-58) regarding Tribal Energy Resource Agreements (TERAs) under the Indian Tribal Energy Development and
Self-Determination Act. The regulations will become effective on April 9, 2008. “The Tribal Energy Resource
Agreement is a major step for tribal self-determination and self-governance that will usher in a new era of tribal
economic development,” Artman said. “It is a new tool for tribes who want to directly manage their energy
resources and develop their renewable and non-renewable energy resources to benefit their communities and the
nation.” TERAs further the goal of Indian self-determination by promoting tribal oversight and management of
energy and mineral resource management on tribal trust lands. With a TERA, a tribe may, at its discretion, and with
the Secretary of the Interior’s review and approval, enter into business agreements and leases for energy resource
development as well as grant rights-of-way for pipelines or electric transmission or distribution lines across its trust
lands. The new regulations are optional for federally recognized tribes, some of whom may choose not or find they
are unable to assume the greater level of oversight and administrative responsibility that TERAs require. The new
regulations, which can be found at 25 CFR Part 224, fully implement the provisions of 25 USC 3504, which lay out
the process by which a tribe can consult with the Interior Department on whether a TERA is a viable means for it to
use for energy development, what the TERA requirements and application consist of, and what the Secretarial
decision-making process is. The regulations also provide for a periodic review of the tribe’s compliance with the
approved TERA’s provisions.
“We stand ready to work closely with any tribe that chooses to establish a TERA with the Interior Department by
ensuring access to the expertise and data necessary for this level of decision-making responsibility,” Artman said. “I
have directed the Indian Affairs Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development to put these resources in place
immediately.”
The IEED intends to hold a national information and discussion session for tribes on the TERA regulations in the
near future with dates, times and location to be announced. The Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development
was established within the Office of the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs to provide high-level support for the
Interior Department’s goal of serving tribal communities. It does so by providing access to energy resources and
helping tribes with stimulating job creation and economic development in their communities.
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Aff U Helpers
Federal Government is giving Native Americans financial self-determination
State News Service 2008
(State News Service-Washington, Lexis-Nexis, “JOHNSON SECURES NEARLY $10 MILLION FOR SOUTH DAKOTA IN LABOR-HHS
FUNDING BILL” June 24, 2008)
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A2: Economy DA
Soft energy is best for growth – fossil fuels are more capital intensive
Dean B. Suagee, J.D. – University of North Carolina Law, LLM – American University, University of Michigan
Journal of Law Reform, “Self-Determination For Indigenous Peoples At The Dawn Of The Solar Age”, Spring and
Summer 1992, 25 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 671, Lexis
For many reasons, choosing soft energy paths over hard energy paths will serve the interests of most
people in the United States economy and worldwide. Hard-path technologies are very capital intensive,
while soft-path technologies are much more labor intensive. Thus, soft paths lead to more
310
employment. Soft paths also tend to cost less, as do energy efficiency measures, especially when cost
accounting is done on a life-cycle basis where the typically high initial costs are offset by savings from low
operating costs later. 311 Accordingly, over the past two decades, soft paths have added much more to new
"supplies" of end-use energy in the United States economy than have hard paths, despite massive
subsidies for hard paths. 312 Because soft-path technologies use locally available resources and employ
people to do work in local economies, investments in soft paths pump money into local economies
while hard-path spending drains money away to other regions and other countries. 313 Money that stays
home can be reinvested in other sectors of the economy. Moreover, because soft-path supplies tend to be
less capital intensive than hard path [*739] supply options, choosing soft paths means that a larger portion of
the total capital available for investment can be invested in other sectors. 314
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HELPING THEIR OWN One-third of the 2.4 million Native Americans living on or near tribal lands live
in poverty. The unemployment rate is double the national average. There are an estimated 18,000 families in the Navajo
Nation alone still living without electricity. “Our hope is that if the tribes choose to develop these
renewable energy resources,” says DOE’s Pierce, “it could enable local economic development and
contribute to additional jobs.” For some tribes, taking on renewable energy projects means helping members
pay for, and in some cases acquire, power. If tribes can generate their own power, they can lower utility bills and bring power to more people.
Energy projects also provide new jobs, and potential profits translate into additional assets for tribes. In some cases not only do tribes benefit, but so do the
areas near the reservation. A handful of tribes supply power to neighboring communities, which can be beneficial for the tribes as well as the surrounding
area.
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A2: Self D DA
Ignoring legitimate concerns for human rights and will perpetuate international conflict on a global scale.
Self determination is a prerequisite for human dignity
Kolodner 94 (Eric, JD NYU Law, “The Future of the Right of Self Determination”, 10 Conn. J. Int'l L. 153, Lexis)
Despite the international community's historical support for self determination, some commentators assert that the
international community should now halt the development of this right and refuse to support self determination
movements. n28 Such a perspective is misguided for two reasons. First, it ignores the legitimate human rights
claims of numerous peoples throughout the world. Second, it will perpetuate domestic and international
conflict. While the era of decolonization might have formally ended, many peoples still suffer under neo-colonial
oppression. n29 Only if the interna- [*158] tional community supports movements for self-determination can it
guarantee the protection of the rights of peoples throughout the world. n30 As Hector Gros Espiell, a U.N. Special
Rapporteur on the right to self-determination, concluded:
The effective exercise of a people's right to self-determination is an essential condition or prerequisite . . . for
the genuine existence of the other human rights and freedoms. Only when self-determination has been
achieved can a people take the measures necessary to ensure human dignity, the full enjoyment of all rights
and the political, economic, social and cultural progress of all human beings. . . . n31
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Self-determination has recently assumed a salience within the international arena: the dissolution of the Soviet
Union; the bloody conflict in former Yugoslavia; the attempted secession of Quebec from Canada; the apparent
settlement between Eritrea and Ethiopia; the partition of Czechoslovakia; and the continued warfare in Sri Lanka
have all implicitly or explicitly raised questions of self-determination. n1 That is, in each of these cases, communities
have demanded a change in their international identities and greater control over their everyday social, economic,
and political lives. Since the end of World War I, the international community has actively emphasized principles of
self-determination. "Perhaps no contemporary norm of international law has been so vigorously promoted or widely
accepted as the right of all peoples to self-determination." n2 Despite historical, legal, and political support for
self-determination movements, however, some observers have recently argued that present global conditions
dictate a restriction on such movements. Citing the importance of regional alliances, they worry that current and
future movements for self-determination portend lengthy and violent conflicts which threaten to embroil all
nations, weaken international cooperation, and undermine recent democratic developments. n3 Such
commentators assert that as the era of decolonization comes to a close and an apparently new era of democracy
surfaces, the doctrine of self-determination should either be relegated to historical "dustbins" or severely limited in
scope. n4 This paper argues that such views derive from an unjustifiably limited conception of self-determination and
a short-sighted perspective on geo-political realities. Rather than abandoning self-determination principles, the
international community must readjust its conception of selfdetermination to address the changing needs of a
post-Cold War world. Part II briefly discusses the history and development of self-determination. Part III then
describes its "external" and "internal" aspects, and addresses the future of the right to self-determination. It argues
that the international community can simultaneously promote human rights and world stability only if it
cautiously supports movements for external selfdetermination and actively encourages movements for
internal self-determination.
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The serious consequences of the international community's refusal to support self-determination movements are also
evident in the former Yugoslavia and Somalia. The failure to promptly address self-determination claims in these
two territories contributed to the conflict in which they are now embroiled. n40 "A failure to respond more quickly,
directly, and comprehensively to self-determination claims in the future will cause more such needless tragedy . . .
ultimately with profound consequences for U.S. interests and American ideals.
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Extinction
Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow – Hoover Institution, Promoting Democracy in the 1990s, December 1995,
http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/di/1.htm
OTHER THREATS This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years
and decades. In the former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily
spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly powerful international crime syndicates that
have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted the institutions of tenuous,
democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life
on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional
threats to security are associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its
provisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, and openness. LESSONS OF THE
TWENTIETH CENTURY The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern
themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do not aggress against
their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically
"cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not
sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten
one another. Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring trading partnerships. In the long
run they offer better and more stable climates for investment. They are more environmentally responsible
because they must answer to their own citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their
environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal obligations and because
their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely because, within their own
borders, they respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the only
reliable foundation on which a new world order of international security and prosperity can be built.
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Kashmir is as unstable as it was when its insurgency originally broke out, violence is
rampant
AFP 2/27 (Tens of thousands hit Indian Kashmir streets in protest,
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jzHRCSdVOoN4swo-6hDP3rzuCtGA)
"Some 40 people were hurt on Friday in clashes, including 15 policemen, across Kashmir," a police officer said,
adding protesters also set fire to a car, and destroyed several security posts. Three Kashmiris have died
this week and nearly 240 have been injured, evoking memories of widespread protests that swept the
region after a separatist insurgency broke out in 1989. Banks, post offices, schools and offices were closed
in Srinagar on Friday and there was little traffic. The unrest was sparked by a state government decision
last week to transfer some land to a Hindu trust for the construction of accommodation for tens of thousands
of Hindu pilgrims making an annual pilgrimage to a mountain grotto. Tensions were still high despite a
promise by the state's chief minister that no construction activity would be permitted until further notice.
Kashmir Valley police chief S.M. Sahai said police were trying to talk to civic leaders in Srinagar "so that normal
situation could be restored as soon as possible." Insurgency-hit Kashmir is held in part by nuclear-armed
rivals India and Pakistan, but claimed by both in full, and has remained a sticking point in negotiations
between the two sides.
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Nuclear conflict will erupt between India and Pakistan if a peaceful solution is not achieved
in Kashmir
Parker 03 (Karen, J.D. Honors, Univ. San Francisco, Diplome, Strasbourg, non-governmental delegate to UN
Commission on Human Rights and its Sub-Commission, “The Right to Self-determination of the Kashmiri People,”
Association of Humanitarian Lawyers, July 24,
The United Nations determined many years ago that the Kashmiri people have the right to self-
determination and set up a plan for realizing this right and resolving what was then a political and military
crisis between India and Pakistan over the disposition of Kashmir. However, this plan has not able to be
implemented and the Kashmiri right to self-determine is as yet unrealized. India and Pakistan have
continued to fight over Kashmir -- a fight that has generated several wars and many military skirmishes
between them. Kashmir situation continues to haunt the world, especially now that both India and
Pakistan have developed nuclear weapons capability. The Kashmiri people continue to suffer from
serious human rights and humanitarian law violations in the course of India’s military actions against
them.
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A2: States CP
Pre-emption:
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A2: States CP
State Government has practically no authority over Native Americans, they are only
subjugated to Federal Authority
US Department of Health and Social Services, 2002
US Department of Health and Social Services, “Tribal Self-Governance Studies”, FAQs, October 2002,
http://aspe.hhs.gov/SelfGovernance/faqs.htm - Accessed June 25, 2008
Federal Government has ultimate authority over Native American in all aspects such as economic, territorial,
and legal rights
Law Library-American Law and Legal Information
<a href="http://law.jrank.org/pages/8749/Native-American-Rights-Federal-Power-over-Native-American-Rights.html">Native American Rights -
Federal Power Over Native American Rights</a>, Accessed June 25, 2008
Although Native Americans have been held to have both inherent rights and rights guaranteed, either explicitly or
implicitly, by treaties with the federal government, the government retains the ultimate power and authority to either
abrogate or protect Native American rights. This power stems from several legal sources. One is the power that the
Constitution gives to Congress to make regulations governing the territory belonging to the United States (Art. IV,
Sec. 3, Cl. 2), and another is the president's constitutional power to make treaties (Art. II, Sec. 2, Cl. 2). A more
commonly cited source of federal power over Native American affairs is the COMMERCE CLAUSE of the U.S.
Constitution, which provides that "Congress shall have the Power … to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,
and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes" (Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 3). This clause has resulted in what is
known as Congress's "plenary power" over Indian affairs, which means that Congress has the ultimate right to pass
legislation governing Native Americans, even when that legislation conflicts with or abrogates Indian treaties. The
most well-known case supporting this congressional right is Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553, 23 S. Ct. 216, 47
L. Ed. 299 (1903), in which Congress broke a treaty provision that had guaranteed that no more cessions of land
would be made without the consent of three-fourths of the adult males from the Kiowa and Comanche tribes. In
justifying this abrogation, Justice EDWARD D. WHITE declared that when "treaties were entered into between the
United States and a tribe of Indians it was never doubted that the power to abrogate existed in Congress, and that in
a contingency such power might be availed of from considerations of governmental policy."
Another source for the federal government's power over Native American affairs is what is called the "trust
relationship" between the government and Native American tribes. This "trust relationship" or "trust responsibility"
refers to the federal government's consistent promise, in the treaties that it signed, to protect the safety and well-
being of the tribal members in return for their willingness to give up their lands. This notion of a trust relationship between Native
Americans and the federal government was developed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall in the opinions that he wrote for the three cases on tribal
sovereignty described above, which became known as the Marshall Trilogy. In the second of these cases, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, Marshall specifically described
the tribes as "domestic dependant nations" whose relation to the United States was like "that of a ward to his guardian." Similarly, in Worcester v. Georgia, Marshall
declared that the federal government had entered into a special relationship with the Cherokees through the treaties they had signed, a relationship involving certain
moral obligations. "The Cherokees," he wrote, "acknowledge themselves to be under the protection of the United States, and of no other power. Protection does not
imply the destruction of the protected."
The federal government has often used this trust relationship to justify its actions on behalf of Native American tribes, such as its defense of Indian fishing and hunting
rights and the establishment of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Perhaps more often, however, the federal government has used the claim of a trust relationship to stretch
its protective duty toward tribes into an almost unbridled power over them. The United States, for example, is the legal title-holder to most Indian lands, giving it the
power to dispose of and manage those lands, as well as to derive income from them. The federal government has also used its powers in ways that seem inconsistent
with a moral duty to protect Indian interests, such as terminating dozens of Indian tribes and consistently breaking treaty provisions. Because the trust responsibility is
moral rather than legal, Native American tribes have had very little power or ability to enforce the promises and obligations of the federal government.
Several disputes have erupted over the relationship between the federal government and Native Americans. Beginning in 1998, beneficiaries of Individual Indian
Money (IIM), which is held in trust by the federal government, brought a CLASS ACTION against the secretary of the interior and others, alleging mismanagement
and breach of fiduciary duties against trustee-delegates of the funds. The case has spawned dozens of orders and rulings by the U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia.
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A2: States CP
Federal plenary power gives Federal government exclusive control of Native Americans
and allows it to preempt any possible state actions
Wilkins 2006(Wilkins, a Lumbee Indian, is an Associate Professor of American Indian Studies, Political Science, and Law at the
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus. He received his PhD from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill in 1990. His
publications focus particularly on Federal Indian law, tribal government and tribal sovereignty.)
David E. Wilkins, American Indian Politics and the American Political System: Second Edition, pg 49
A fourth concept, congressional plenary power, is yet another distinctive feature of tribal-federal relationship that
separates tribal nations from all other racial/ethnic groups in the United States.13Basically put, “plenary” means
complete in all aspects or meanings in federal Indian policy and law. First, it means exclusive. The federal
Constitution, in commerce clause(article 1, section 8, clause 3) vests in congress the sole authority to “regulate
Commerce with foreign Nations, and among several States, and with the Indian tribes.” In other words, the founders
of the American republic believed the power to engage in treaty making with the tribes should rest with the
legislative branch of the federal government, not with the states, which, under the Articles of Confederation, had
retained the right to deal with tribes in their proximity.
Second, and related to the first definition, plenary also means preemptive. That is, Congress may enact legislation
which effectively precludes-preempts-state governments from acting in Indian-relating matters. Finally, and most
controversially, since this definition lacks a constitutional basis, plenary means unlimited or absolute. This judicially
constructed definition(United States v. Kagama, 1886) means that the Congress has vested in itself, without a
constitutional mooring, virtually boundless governmental authority and jurisdiction over tribal nations, their lands,
and their resources. As recently as 2004 the Supreme Court, in United States v. Lara14, held that “ Congress, with
this Court’s approval, has interpreted the Constitution’s ‘plenary’ grants of power as authorizing it to enact
legislation that both restricts and, in turn, relaxes those restrictions on tribal sovereign authority.”15
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The Federal Government has the unique authority over Tribal lands.
Southern Illinois University 1995 (“Native American Sovereignty Takes A Back Seat To The "Pig In The
Parlor:" The Redefining Of Tribal Sovereignty In Traditional Property Law Terms,” Southern Illinois University
Law Journal, Spring , Lexis, 19 S. Ill. U. L. J. 593,
Almost two centuries ago, the Supreme Court assigned a unique political status to the Native American tribes
and their members; n2 since that time the Court has been inconsistent when interpreting powers and rights
affiliated with that status. On the one hand, the tribes are considered sovereigns over their people and their
territories. N3 On the other hand, the tribes are considered domestic dependent nations whose sovereignty is
limited to the extent it conflicts with the overriding sovereignty of the federal government. N4 Tribal sovereign
power is therefore subject to unique limitations, when compared to the traditional sovereign powers of both
the federal government and the states. In addition, the Court has confused the identity of Native American tribes
as distinct political sovereigns with their status as landowners. Most reservations are a "checkerboard of tribal
community land, allotted Indian lands, property held in fee simple by non-Indians, and various roads and public
highways maintained by [local municipalities]." n5 Furthermore, not only tribal members but also non-member
Indians and non-Indians often occupy Indian reservations. This checkerboard pattern of ownership and multi-
cultural occupancy has been used by the Supreme Court in its rationale when mistaking powers which exist by
virtue of a tribe's sovereignty for rights which exist because of a tribe's status as a landowner. Nor has Congress
acted to clarify the dangerously confusing status of tribal sovereignty. Although Native American nations are
labelled as separate and distinct sovereigns, n6 the tribes are subject to the exercise of Congress' plenary
authority over them. n7 Like the Supreme Court, Congress has similarly confused the issue of the scope of
tribal sovereignty, enacting diverse and inconsistent legislation. n8 [*595] In 1887, Congress passed the
General Allotment Act in an effort to assimilate Native Americans into Anglo culture. n9 In 1934, Congress
repealed the Allotment Act via the Indian Reorganization Act to protect tribal rights of selfgovernment. N10 In
1990, Congress amended the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, drawing tribal criminal jurisdictional lines based
on ancestry rather than territorial boundaries. n11
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