Coal Road to China with Jan and Harold Hoem and Alaina Buffalo Spirit

Donations will be accepted to help cover transportations costs of the speakers who will be coming in from Montana.

Alaina is also a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and a member of the Northern Plains Resource Council as well (https://www.northernplains.org).

Also, after/below the flyer I've included some additional information passed on from Jan, Harold and Alaina.  Seems Wyoming and Montana are marshaling there forces to get coal out of the Powder River Basin and there's much ado out there about Lummi.

So please, come and give Jan, Harold and Alaina some sorely needed support!

Alaina went into Crow country yesterday where a hearing sponsored by the Crow and Montana's new Senator Steve Daines ®, pro-coal folks.  She felt very unsafe the whole time, but passed out packets of information (which she said she'll email to me today) giving a different story.  Everything said there was pro-coal.  Tim Fox, Montana's attorney general who will probably get a $1million slush fund to contest Washington and Oregon's resistance the the coal export terminals, was also there, as well as Jason Small and Darrin Old Coyote.  There's a write up in today's Billings Gazette that you can pull up which includes an interview of Alaina, and she was on state-wide tv last night.

Some of things Alaina and others are up against out there can be read at:http://billingsgazette.com/news/government-and-politics/indian-coal-economy-has-suffered-because-of-epa-regs-tribes/article_03ca1060-23f9-5eff-bb21-58935095b670.html

Alaina's testimony:

 

Chairman Barrasso and Senators of the Indian Affairs Committee,

My name is Alaina Buffalo Spirit.  I am an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe and a landowner near Birney on the southern end of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation.  I am also a member of Northern Plains Resource Council.

Thank you for allowing me to submit my perspective on coal development in Indian Country today.  Today’s Field Hearing has a small number of hand-picked witnesses.  I am afraid those witnesses will not truly represent the will of Native peoples, and especially the will of my people, the Northern Cheyenne.  In particular, I would like to emphasize that Jason Small does not speak officially for the Northern Cheyenne.

It is true that the Northern Cheyenne have a weak economy right now, and it is true that we need to work to build a stronger, more resilient economy.  But coal cannot bring prosperity, and it will harm our people.

The 57 Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians passed a resolution in 2012 stating that they oppose export of coal from Montana and Wyoming through the Pacific Northwest.  The Lummi have formally asked that the government reject the permit to construct the Gateway Pacific Terminal because it would violate their treaty rights, disrupt their economy, and damage sacred lands.  The Northern Cheyenne people have never said they want coal to come to their reservation.  We are surrounded by coal mines and coal plants, and have seen only a worsened economy and destruction of our homeland.

For the record, I am submitting the resolution of the 57 Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, a letter from the Lummi Nation to the Army Corps of Engineers requesting that the GPT not be constructed, and two guest editorials published in the Billings Gazette last Saturday, April 4, 2015.