Gabe Galanda to Reprise "Finding a Cure" to Disenrollment Lecture in Tucson

Gabe Galanda will reprise his lecture, "The American Indian Disenrollment Epidemic: Finding a Cure," in Tucson this Friday, January 30 at 2:30 PM, as a part of the Arizona Law Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program's "Practicing Law in Indian Country" speaker series.

Gabe will speak from a similarly titled forthcoming  Arizona Law Review article, whereby he and Ryan Dreveskracht explain that over the last two centuries of American Indian policy:

• Federal ideas of membership and exclusion have supplanted inherent indigenous values of kinship and inclusion, by design for colonialist purposes.
• Tribal enrollment, and in turn disenrollment, have been designed and perpetuated by the United States to further the dispossession of Indian lands and resources—to advance Manifest Destiny.
• Removing Indians from federal or tribal rolls has closely correlated to the pro rata or per capita distribution of tribal communally held lands, monies and other assets, as a mode of Indian assimilation and tribal termination.
• Indian disenrollment—which must be distinguished from the sovereign power to set limits on citizenship—is not a matter of inherent tribal sovereignty; disenrollment is instead a federal plenary power that has been delegated to tribes.

Gabe recently foreshadowed the paper, and otherwise decried disenrollment as a colonial and wholly non-indigenous construct, in an Indian Country Today column.

Gabriel “Gabe” Galanda is the Managing Partner at Galanda Broadman. He is a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. Gabe can be reached at 206.300.7801 or gabe@galandabroadman.com.

Tribal Per Capita Poverty--How About Disenrollment Bankruptcy?

“In November, a [Las Vegas] Review-Journal reporter and photographer encountered one of the disenrolled, 52-year-old Darla Hatcher, sleeping with her meager belongings in front of an upholstery shop in the homeless corridor.

By way of introduction, she gestured toward nearby tribal land and said: “I am a disenrolled Paiute.’”

Thanks to some wonderful scholarship by Seattle lawyer Greg Guedel about the socioeconomic impacts of tribal per capita monies, The Economist has cast a bright light on the topic.  Guedel's research found that:

From 2000-2010, gaming Tribes in the Pacific Northwest that did not issue per capita payments to their members did better in reducing poverty rates than the gaming Tribes that issued per capita payments.

In other words, tribal per capita monies are not alleviating Indian poverty; they are exacerbating it.

Indeed, the apportionment of tribal communal assets and distribution of those assets to individual tribal members is, by the United States' design, a mode of tribal termination and Indian assimilation. See Tribal Per Capitas and Self-Termination ("Tribal per capita payments are a creature of the United States and its Indian termination policies.").  This dynamic dates back to the mid-1800s, although we as American indigenous people act oblivious to that genocidal reality.

To be sure, tribal per capita distributions are presently catalyzing the most severe form of Indian poverty: Disenrollment and exile from one's tribal community--and at epidemic levels.

As Professor David Wilkins explains:

Disenrollment takes an obvious financial toll . . . But it also can psychologically devastate former members.

“’It leaves them in a tenuous place of being betwixt and between,’ he says. ’They know they still are what they are claimed not to be. I just feel for them.’”

Surely other Indians feel for their brothers and sisters who have been spiritually, financially and otherwise bankrupt through disenrollment.  Right?

Gabriel “Gabe” Galanda is the Managing Partner at Galanda Broadman. He is a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. Gabe can be reached at 206.300.7801 or gabe@galandabroadman.com.

Hopi Challenges EPA’s Approval of Navajo Coal-Fired Power Plant

By Amber Penn-Roco

On August 8, 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved an Air Quality Implementation Plan, allowing the Navajo Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant located on the Navajo Reservation, to continue operating until 2044. The Plan required the Station to either close one of its three generators, or reduce output by an equivalent amount, by 2019. The Plan would not require the installation of any other emission controls until 2030.

EPA’s approval is controversial for several reasons. First, the Station “is the largest coal-fired power plant on the Colorado Plateau and one of the ten biggest polluters in the country.” Second, the public is concerned by the Station’s proximity to the Grand Canyon—it is located only 12 miles away—and because the Station “impacts visibility at 10 other national parks and wilderness areas.” Finally, many believe the EPA’s approval of the Plan was premature and allows for operations extending too far into the future—potentially until 2044. (Although, the Station site lease with the Navajo Nation is set to expire in 2019, the renewal of which will require the completion of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that will look closely at the potential impacts of the Station and surely ignite even more controversy.)

EPA’s approval set off a flurry of litigation. Four separate Petitions have been filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, requesting that the court review the Plan, pursuant to the Clean Air Act. The Petitions were filed by the Hopi Tribe, a collection of environmental groups, including the National Parks Conservation Association, the Sierra Club, the Grand Canyon Trust, the National Resources Defense Council, the Black Mesa Water Coalition and the Diné Citizens Against Ruining the Environment and two private individuals. The Navajo Nation has intervened in the proceedings. Last month, the cases were consolidated.

This litigation will pit conflicting tribal interests against each other. On one side, the Navajo Nation, which has obvious financial interest in the success in the Station. Both the Station and the Kayenta Mine, which supplies the Station, are located on the Navajo Reservation, providing jobs, lease income, royalties and taxes to the Navajo Nation. On the other hand, you have the Hopi Tribe, which is protecting its environmental interests. During the public comment process, the Hopi expressed concerned with the air quality and visibility on the Hopi Reservation and indicated that the EPA should have provided more detail on the specific emission controls that the Station will be required to use. It is particularly interesting that the Hopi has filed a Petition for Review, even though the Hopi also has an economic interest in matter; the Kayenta Mine is actually located on the reservation lands of both the Navajo Nation and the Hopi, providing the Hopi with similar forms of revenue that are enjoyed by the Navajo Nation.

Which tribal or environmental interests will prevail? The opening briefs, which are due at the end of the month, should shed some light on the interests and arguments of the parties.

Amber Penn-Roco’s practice focuses on tribal sovereignty issues, including environmental issues, economic development, and complex Indian Country litigation. Her experience also includes work on transactional matters, including entity formation, environmental compliance and permitting.  She is an enrolled member of the Chehalis Tribe.