This article was originally published in Crosscut on June 29, 2021.
by Manola Secaira / June 29, 2021
Tribal consultation has long been a problem on Washington’s renewable energy plans, which can encroach on ancestral cultural sites and food access.
When green energy projects bloom across Washington, many are on cultural sites important to tribes in the region. The Yakama Nation’s director of natural resources feels torn about the increasing number of windmills and dams in his tribe’s ancestral territories. While Phil Rigdon (Yakama) supports the pursuit of greener energy sources, he has also been part of the tribe’s opposition to these developments when they negatively impact cultural sites. Their concerns are not often heard by developers.
“When people talk about green energy and energy development, we want to make sure that it’s not going to be … on the backs of our people like it has been,” says Rigdon. “We want to be part of the green, but we don’t want it to be at the continued degradation of our treaty rights, and our access to foods, and our responsibility to our way of life.”
These concerns were a driving force for members of the Yakama Nation when they decided to support the state Climate Commitment Act, Senate Bill 5126, which would establish a cap-and-trade system in Washington and direct money raised through the act toward projects to reduce carbon emissions — including investments in green infrastructure projects. Key to the act was a tribal consultation requirement for projects paid for by the bill, which Rigdon and other supporters hoped would protect tribal lands into the future.
On May 17, Gov. Jay Inslee signed the Climate Commitment Act but vetoed the portion calling for tribal consultation. In a letter to tribal chairs in Washington, Inslee explained his concern that the terms of this portion of the bill were overly “undefined and broad,” and that while he supported the need for tribal consultation, the terms as stated differ “from our current government-to-government approach, and does not properly recognize the mutual, sovereign relationship between Tribal governments and the State.”