What’s in It for the Indians?
So Bush and his oil company cronies finally got their chance to take a bite out of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Their tactics were predictable. Stick it in as part of the budget so there can be no filibuster. With the few extra Republican heads in the Senate after the 2004 election, the count was getting much closer. The coalition of the opposed - Democrats except for the Louisiana oil friendly Breaux, moderate Republicans and the one Independent, could only be overcome if one more Democrat would switch and support oil, resulting in a 50-50 tie which Dick Cheney could break with his vote. The Republicans got two Democrats to switch, both from Hawaii, senators Inouye and Akaka.
I watched on C-Span as Hawaii Senator Inouye said he had to change his vote because the Indian Tribes in Alaska asked him to. I asked myself, why would the tribes be in favor of oil drilling in their pristine environment? What is in it for them? Jobs? Some royalties? Money to be made off the pipeline workers? I found it hard to believe that Indians would be that short-sighted.
After doing some checking into this, I found what I expected. Convoluted politics and self-interested dealings by people in positions of power are again screwing indigenous people, not just in Alaska, but also in Hawaii. When oil companies swooped in on Alaska North Slope oil in 1971, they negotiated one of the biggest screwings of indigenous people in US history, resulting in the vast majority of Indian land being sold for very little money, in the belief they were going to get rich off their share of the oil revenue. That did not happen of course, except maybe for some self-interested insiders who maneuvered themselves into positions of power which they used more for their own benefit and that of the oil powers than for the benefit of all the Indians.
Both the native people with stronger cultural links to the sea and those with stronger links to the land are largely in agreement in opposition to drilling in ANWR, but those in control of the corporation which supposedly speaks for them are in favor of drilling for their own personal gain. These pro-drilling advocates have been working behind the scenes with the oil companies to influence the Hawaiian Senators to vote to allow the drilling.
We on the mainland are not much aware of the indigenous people of Hawaii. But their situation today is not much different from that of mainland Indians in the 1800s. They are in the way of the "progress" of the non-indigenous power people of Hawaii, the ones who see to it that Inouye and Akaka get elected, who want to take the land of the indigenous people, subject them to their control and give them as little of value as possible in return. This effort goes by the name of the Native Hawaiian Federal Recognition Bill and has been sought by the Hawaiian Senators for several years. They have not been able to get enough support for passage, because allowing the screwing of indigenous Hawaiians has not been of interest or value to mainland Senators -until now.
In return for switching their votes to allow drilling, the Hawaiian Senators have secured the support of the oil drilling advocates for the effort to Federalize the indigenous Hawaiians, something that would have happened long ago if there was any reason to believe there was oil under Hawaiian land. A key player in this making this link work is a young woman with family ties to the indigenous peoples of both States, who has used those ties to start a non-profit advocacy organization supposedly working for the good of the indigenous Hawaiians, but according to this investigative report by Anne Keala Kelly, she was also a paid lobbyist for the oil drilling advocates.
Senate Democrats tried valiantly to stop the drilling authorization, pointing out that no oil would be seen from this project for ten years and the amount realized will be so small that the time and money would be better spent working on conservation, efficiency improvements, alternative fuels, and drilling in less sensitive areas like the deep Gulf and other areas of the North Slope. Senator Kerry perhaps put it best when he said we cannot drill our way out of our energy problems, we need to invent our way out.
There is still a theoretical prospect of negotiating the removal of the drilling authorization as part of the final budget approval process, but, with the Hawaiian defections, the Republicans seem to have the numbers.
Estimates of the oil in affected field range from is 5.6 to 15 billion barrels, which calculated at a US usage of 20 million barrels a day means the new supply would last the US from 9 months to a little over 2 years. This does not discount for the oil that will be spent developing and harvesting the ANWR oil, so true net yield will be much less. But for oil industry supporters, this is not so much about the ANWR oil as about a principle - that nothing on earth should be a refuge from the commercially sacred need to drill for more oil.
I watched on C-Span as Hawaii Senator Inouye said he had to change his vote because the Indian Tribes in Alaska asked him to. I asked myself, why would the tribes be in favor of oil drilling in their pristine environment? What is in it for them? Jobs? Some royalties? Money to be made off the pipeline workers? I found it hard to believe that Indians would be that short-sighted.
After doing some checking into this, I found what I expected. Convoluted politics and self-interested dealings by people in positions of power are again screwing indigenous people, not just in Alaska, but also in Hawaii. When oil companies swooped in on Alaska North Slope oil in 1971, they negotiated one of the biggest screwings of indigenous people in US history, resulting in the vast majority of Indian land being sold for very little money, in the belief they were going to get rich off their share of the oil revenue. That did not happen of course, except maybe for some self-interested insiders who maneuvered themselves into positions of power which they used more for their own benefit and that of the oil powers than for the benefit of all the Indians.
Both the native people with stronger cultural links to the sea and those with stronger links to the land are largely in agreement in opposition to drilling in ANWR, but those in control of the corporation which supposedly speaks for them are in favor of drilling for their own personal gain. These pro-drilling advocates have been working behind the scenes with the oil companies to influence the Hawaiian Senators to vote to allow the drilling.
We on the mainland are not much aware of the indigenous people of Hawaii. But their situation today is not much different from that of mainland Indians in the 1800s. They are in the way of the "progress" of the non-indigenous power people of Hawaii, the ones who see to it that Inouye and Akaka get elected, who want to take the land of the indigenous people, subject them to their control and give them as little of value as possible in return. This effort goes by the name of the Native Hawaiian Federal Recognition Bill and has been sought by the Hawaiian Senators for several years. They have not been able to get enough support for passage, because allowing the screwing of indigenous Hawaiians has not been of interest or value to mainland Senators -until now.
In return for switching their votes to allow drilling, the Hawaiian Senators have secured the support of the oil drilling advocates for the effort to Federalize the indigenous Hawaiians, something that would have happened long ago if there was any reason to believe there was oil under Hawaiian land. A key player in this making this link work is a young woman with family ties to the indigenous peoples of both States, who has used those ties to start a non-profit advocacy organization supposedly working for the good of the indigenous Hawaiians, but according to this investigative report by Anne Keala Kelly, she was also a paid lobbyist for the oil drilling advocates.
Senate Democrats tried valiantly to stop the drilling authorization, pointing out that no oil would be seen from this project for ten years and the amount realized will be so small that the time and money would be better spent working on conservation, efficiency improvements, alternative fuels, and drilling in less sensitive areas like the deep Gulf and other areas of the North Slope. Senator Kerry perhaps put it best when he said we cannot drill our way out of our energy problems, we need to invent our way out.
There is still a theoretical prospect of negotiating the removal of the drilling authorization as part of the final budget approval process, but, with the Hawaiian defections, the Republicans seem to have the numbers.
Estimates of the oil in affected field range from is 5.6 to 15 billion barrels, which calculated at a US usage of 20 million barrels a day means the new supply would last the US from 9 months to a little over 2 years. This does not discount for the oil that will be spent developing and harvesting the ANWR oil, so true net yield will be much less. But for oil industry supporters, this is not so much about the ANWR oil as about a principle - that nothing on earth should be a refuge from the commercially sacred need to drill for more oil.
posted by Tom Blake | 1:54 PM
1 Comments:
Excellent article. I didn't expect to read anything new on this controversy that has been going on for so many years, but your research does put a new slant on it. I especially liked your ending sentence indicating that it's not about oil, it's about power.
John from Phoenix
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