Yes, oil prices are slightly down, but that is only because Joe Biden continues to dip into the dwindling supply in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. So you can expect the average price at the pump, which even as it now stands is still much higher than you paid before Biden’s ascent, to spike again.
While it would run counter to the environmental partners of the administration, the solution would be to extract more energy from the land under our feet. That means drilling for natural gas and oil. And if one believes the mainstream media, one would think that the people of the nation have cried out in unison to halt drilling and projects such as the Dakota Access Pipeline. And politicians and activists both abroad and at home are all too happy to save the planet, even at the expense of average people everywhere.
I have long said that if government decisions haven’t hit you yet, don’t worry, the government will get around to it sooner or later. And now, it has gotten around to members of the Navajo Nation.
Fox News reports that the administration is getting ready to finalize a rule from the Department of the Interior that would create a 20-year moratorium on oil and gas leasing in a 10-mile radius of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park. The moratorium was announced in 2021. Some 336,000 acres would be off-limits to exploration and extraction and came at the behest of some tribes, Democratic politicians, and environmental activists. While this is good news for the Patagonia and North Face set, it is not good news for tribal members who own royalties on those lands.
Delora Hesuse is a member of the Navajo Nation who heads up a group of people who have owned the land for generations from an allotment from the federal government itself. That land is leased to the oil and gas companies. The Biden rule would prohibit resource development on the land, which means the tribal members who own it will not be able to collect royalties from that activity. Heuse said to Fox News, “We’re not destroying anything — we are Native Americans ourselves. Nobody is destroying the park…oil companies sure aren’t destroying the park. And they have new technology…It just seems like [the administration is] listening more to the environmentalist people.”
Keep in mind that the land in question is not in the park. It is around the park. It is private land, not public land. I remember environmentalists making this argument when I lived in oil and gas country. At the time, their gripe was that they did not want to hike a trail or take a river trip and see any evidence of energy activity, no matter how small or distant. And of course, this dovetails nicely with the idea of preventing climate change, forcing people to drive EVs, and the Paris Accords.
Related: You Won’t Believe Who’s Giving Up on Green Energy
Technically, the rule does not affect land owned by tribal members. But when it comes to energy, there is a difference between surface activity and mineral activity, and there have occasionally been conflicts between surface rights and mineral rights. With the onset of horizontal drilling, those conflicts can be resolved, and the resources on tribal land can be reached without impacting the actual property. Or the rig can be on tribal land and access the oil or gas on adjacent federal land. But as Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and Vice President Myron Lizer wrote to the administration last year, in order to access the resources, the drilling may have to cross lines between native and non-native land. So the land in question essentially becomes closet space, and the Navajo people who need those royalties face even more poverty. But the environmental lobby will be happy. And of course, if Greta ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
This was a calculated move by Biden’s Department of the Interior. On one hand, it gets another swing at kneecapping the oil and gas industry. On the other hand, it also gets to claim that it is respecting native sovereignty. Except that it isn’t. It is economically harming the tribal members who live on those lands.
Sovereignty means more than being able to say “this is our lands, these are our laws and these are our traditions.” Those things are a part of sovereignty, but sovereignty also means having the ability to chart one’s own course and determine one’s own future. And the Biden administration, like others before, is denying that sovereignty, supposedly for the greater good.
There is an old saying among tribal members that BIA actually stands for Boss Indians Around. And while the BIA is its own bureau altogether, it is a part of the Department of the Interior, and that department exercises a large amount of control over many parts of the American west. Including the Navajo Nation, no matter how much the government claims to respect its sovereignty.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member