Martin Michaels
The Ihanktonwan Oyate-Yankton Sioux General Council passed two key resolutions on April 4 and April 15 opposing TransCanada’s proposed $7.6 billion Keystone XL pipeline. Representing roughly 170,000 people, the Sioux council opposition adds to the growing public opposition to the proposed pipeline that would carry roughly 800,000 barrels of tar sands oil, 1,700 miles from Alberta, Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
The Native News Network reported earlier this month that the Sioux General Council resolutions decry recent State Department consultations that tribal leaders believe have been forced upon their groups.
The Ihanktonwan’s April 4 resolution rebuffed 159 consultations cited in the State Department’s Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement as “gross misrepresentations” and stated that “Nation to Nation,” consultation only occurs on Ihanktonwan homelands and with the General Council.
The more recent April 15 resolution cites the International Treaty To Protect The Sacred From Tar Sands Projects, which was initiated between the Ihanktonwan and the Pawnee Nation, and signed by seven other Indigenous Sovereigns in the U.S. and Canada in January. Tribal leaders claim that the proposed project would violate this treaty and tribal land sovereignty.
According 2010 U.S. Census, the Sioux number roughly 170,000 and live mostly on reservations and communities in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana and Nebraska. Like environmental groups, the Sioux have opposed the Keystone XL pipeline on environmental grounds.
The Sioux vote came ahead of a public State Department hearing held this week in Grand Island, Neb. Roughly 1,000 people, most standing in opposition to the project, came to voice their opinions on the controversial issue.
Faith Spotted Eagle, of the Yankton Sioux in South Dakota, said her people, “reject this intrusion of any threats to our land, water and children.” Some vowed to take up non-violent acts of civil disobedience if the pipeline is approved by the State Department and the Obama administration.
Abbie Kleinschmidt, 54, of York, Neb., said she was prepared to stand in front of TransCanada’s bulldozers in Nebraska if the pipeline is given the green light. “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said. “But it’s our job, our duty, to take care of this land.”
Supporters and opponents of Keystone have traded blows in recent months as the Obama administration continues to weigh the impact of the pipeline. A report published on Tuesday by a coalition of environmental groups estimated that the pipeline will carry and emit the equivalent of at least 181 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year.
This counters the State Department analysis claiming the project wouldn’t significantly add to global climate change.
Representatives from 350.org, a leading environmental advocacy group, have gone so far as to claim that Keystone is a make or break decision in the battle to curb global warming. In 2011, James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and one of the country’s foremost climate scientists said that if completed, Keystone XL would be “essentially, game over for the planet.”