MINOT — The activists pushing for President Joe Biden to sign, in the closing days of his administration, a sweeping executive order creating a new national monument out of roughly 140,000 acres of western North Dakota tell us their initiative
is led by our state’s tribes.
They also talk a lot about the importance of tribal sovereignty.
Let’s explore this.
I’m not sure all of the tribes knew they were leading this project. That’s certainly not the impression I got after a discussion with Chairman Mark Fox of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation. “When the entities came before to request support for a national monument, we just thought that would be nice without considering any possible impacts in terms of policy,”
he told me.
“We’re going to reconsider,” he added.
Fox stressed that he and his fellow tribal leaders aren’t necessarily against the national monument concept. He expressed enthusiasm for the new opportunities for preservation and tourism. Fox is concerned about the possibility that the monument could inhibit land use in the area — specifically, energy development, which is of vital importance to the MHA Nation.
“Depending on how large the designation is, it could impact some of our drilling. That’s where we lack clarity,” Fox told me. “We really didn’t have any of that information.”
That’s not a great look for a coalition that has marketed this proposal as a tribal initiative.
What’s also unseemly are aspersions cast at Fox because of his diligence. State Rep. Lisa Finley-DeVille, a Democrat from Mandaree, a member of the MHA Nation, and a spokesperson for the national monument campaign,
told reporter Jeff Beach
“that misinformation is undermining the monument effort, including among tribal leaders.”
“They need to read the proposal,” Finley-DeVille said. “We’re not trying to take anybody’s rights away. We’re not trying to stop oil and gas.”
That’s a tough claim to swallow when your coalition includes the Sierra Club, an organization committed to stopping oil and gas production, but the jab at Fox is what’s notable.
Finley-DeVille often talks about the importance of tribal sovereignty, and I agree with the sentiment, but I’d note that sovereignty is a two-way street. If you only respect tribal sovereignty when tribal leaders take positions you agree with, you’re not respecting tribal sovereignty.
I don’t think Chairman Fox is misinformed. I think his concerns are valid.
“Some entities have used this national monument declaration to stop drilling and stop energy production,” he said, and he’s right. The Biden administration has used these declarations to block or inhibit development around Spirit Mountain, in Nevada, and Bear Ears National Monument in Utah. “We don’t want it stopped at all either for ourselves or the state,” Fox told me.
Finley-Deville says Fox has been misled, but who has been misleading him? Finley-Deville is pursuing a new land declaration of the sort that has been used to block energy development elsewhere while working side-by-side with a deep-pocketed national organization that sees blocking oil and gas development as its mission but expects us to believe that she and her partners are “not trying to stop oil and gas.”
Fox is skeptical. Can we blame him?
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