Press Release
For Immediate Release
Tuesday, July 09, 2003
Contacts:
Anna M. Frazier
(928) 309-8718
E-mail: frazierann1@hotmail.com
Lori Goodman
(970) 259-0199
E-mail: kiyaani@frontier.net

Dilkon, Arizona (Navajo Nation) -- Dine Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, a confederation of Navajo organizations, strongly supports Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr. in his continued opposition to the Senate Energy Omnibus Bill which if passed, will let the federal government "reign environmental havoc on Indian lands."

The bill will waive federal liability on environmentally ruinous energy projects on lands held in trust by the government for the use and benefit of Indian tribes. For the Navajo, the nation's largest and energy richest tribe, S. 14 will be particularly devastating.

Dine CARE opposed the energy bill from the time it was first conceived in secrecy by Vice President Richard Cheney to its present version as co-sponsored by Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell.

"The Senate's Energy Omnibus Bill places a finger on, and tips the scales of, environmental justice which greatly impacts Indian Country," according to Dine CARE Vice President Earl Tulley, "I am impressed that the Navajo Nation President was able to see the hands of injustice placed on this bill," continued Tulley.

"This just continues a trend of the government evading its trust responsibility," said Dine CARE Coordinator Anna Frazier, who cited a recent Supreme Court decision that reversed lower courts' charges of collusion between the secretary of the Interior and the Peabody Coal Company. Peabody Coal has extracted coal from Navajo lands for years; paying royalties set by the US government well below fair market value, and now wants to increase its use of local drinking water from 4,400 acre-feet per year to 5,700 acre-feet for a slurry line to distant power generating stations.

"It is important for native communities to unite and oppose this legislation", said Mr. Tulley. "We cannot afford to be idle as President Bush opens the gate on what remains of the last frontier for Richard B. Cheney and his gang."

Ms. Frazier continued, "Only if federal and corporate liability issues are ultimately legislated or decided in favor of the Navajo people will harmony be restored and beauty reign in Dine Bi Keyah. However, Senator Campbell's bill would move in the opposite direction," she said.

Mr. Tulley echoed President Bush's recent comments made during his trip to Africa, where the president stopped short of an apology for slavery, "'One of the largest migrations of history was also one of the greatest crimes of history.' The Senate's passage of the Energy Omnibus Bill would continue corporate America's migration and create a stage for the greatest crime in history to continue the rape of our mother earth."