The United States is the largest energy market in the world and is undeniably addicted to energy consumption. Our economy is one based on the burning of dinosaurs and wasteful production systems, or, in other words, oil. The United States allows addictions to overtake common sense and a good portion of human decency. The United States even allows oil-based fertilizers and herbicides to be slathered on our food crops. This is a country with the largest disparity of wealth between rich and poor of any industrialized country in the world, where economic power is clearly translated into political power. As Lee Raymond, ExxonMobil CEO and Chairman of the Board remarked, "Energy is the biggest business in the world, there just isn't any other Industry that begins to compare." Energy companies have immense influence in public policy and often flaunt their violations of the law and modesty.

On March 24, 1989 Exxon Valdez spilled 11,000,000 gallons of crude oil, and in 1993 only two of twenty-eight species that were almost obliterated by the accident are recovering. ExxonMobil has thus far wiggled out of paying the $5 billion fine levied against the corporation for its negligence, and seeks to reduce the fine to $25 million, or $17.5 million less than Lee Raymond made in 2002. Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old corporate alma mater, is the happy recipient of a $1.7 billion no bid contract in addition to hundreds of millions in no-bid contracts to keep Iraqi oil flowing.

The unequal allocation of power is reflected in the relationship between the United States and Native America. Much of the United States "domestic" energy resources originate in Native America. As a consequence, Native America suffers from disproportionate extraction of non-renewable resources on tribal lands and the resulting disastrous toxic and environmental effects. For decades, uranium mining has laid to waste vast areas of land and aquifers in the Northwest and Southwest. There are over 1,100 abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Reservation, increasing the contamination of an arid region. Tribal lands are also targets for coal development, hosting four of the ten largest coal strip mines in the United States Proposed huge coal methane developments would contaminate the groundwater of enormous regions including the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. Over the years, tribes have been inundated by major dam projects ranging from the Columbia River in the Northwest to the Great Plains and on into James Bay in the North. Native villages and tribes are also deeply affected by oil development proposals for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Gwich'in) and massive nuclear waste dump proposals at Yucca Mountain (Western Shoshone) in Nevada.

At the same time, energy resource royalties have fed many tribal treasuries, and the aggressive push for funding under federal energy bills ensures more access, and faster access.