Seattle National Archives Closure Would Hurt Northwest Tribal Heritage

The Trump Administration is preparing to shutter the National Archives facility located in Seattle’s Sand Point neighborhood and sell the property to the highest bidder. This plan would hurt Indian Country, particularly Indigenous Americans who seek to prove or confirm their belonging in their Tribal communities.

The Sand Point location is a repository for all federal records generated in the Pacific Northwest, including historical documents relating to the 272 federally recognized tribes in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Notably, “[i]t contains important treaty documents.” As Josh Wisniewski, an anthropologist for the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, explained to the Seattle Times: “You can see an earlier draft of a treaty.”

The facility also includes various federal land, census, and other information that tribes and tribal citizens use to establish or confirm tribal history and heritage. As genealogist and historian Trish Hackett Nicola explains:

Tribal members use these files to establish or keep membership in tribes. Proof of tribal citizenship is used to obtain education funds. Tribal records have been used for retaining fishing rights, as in the Boldt Decision. Native school records from Alaska and Oregon are included in the NARA collections.

The Muckleshoot, Puyallup, and Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribes were quick to denounce the proposed closure and sale. Read Puyallup and Port Gamble’s opposition letters here.

Senators from Washington, Alaska, Oregon and Idaho, and eight of Washington’s ten House Representatives also condemned the proposal, in part because of the negative impacts it would have on Indian Country.

The facility houses records, both archival and in storage, that are vital to...tribal members…

Nor were Native American tribes or Alaska Natives consulted about the proposed relocation of records so important to their sovereignty and history.

This facility’s Textual Research and Public Access Research Rooms...provide in-person access to records of importance on a broad range of issues and topics...including....tribal membership…

Our firm has represented many Indigenous persons who seek Tribal citizenship, and hundreds of Tribal citizens facing disenrollment by politicians in charge of Tribal governments in Washington and Oregon.

The Sand Point location, which is within two miles of our office, is one of those clients’ first stops when seeking to establish or confirm that they belong to their Indigenous communities.

Disenrollees, in particular, travel from throughout the Northwest to Sand Point, at significant expense, to search for federal allotment and other Indian land records; U.S. censuses and Indian rolls; and Indigenous ancestors’ marriage and birth certificates and other vital records. They do so with a proverbial gun to their head, often expected to find such genealogical information within a few weeks.

Moving those records to National Archives storage in Kansas City and Southern California would render that information unavailable to disenrollees when needed the most, as well as other Indigenous Americans who casually seek ancestral information to ascertain or confirm their sense of belonging.

All of Indian Country would suffer if this plan is realized. Please do your part to help preserve our heritage:

1. Email the Office of Management and Budget’s Acting Director Russell T. Vought:  Russell.t.vought@omb.eop.gov.

2. Email the agency proposing the sale, the Public Buildings Reform Board: fastainfo@pbrb.gov.

3. Contact the National Archives via its contact page at https://www.archives.gov/contact.

Gabriel S. Galanda is the managing lawyer of Galanda Broadman, PLLC, in Seattle. Gabe is a descendant of the Nomlaki and Concow Tribes, belonging to the Round Valley Indian Tribes of Northern California.

Trump’s NEPA Rollback Will Hurt Indigenous Communities

By Amber Penn-Roco

President Trump proposes to gut the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”). 

A proposed rule, now published in the Federal Register, suggests significant changes that would narrow the range of projects that would require  NEPA review and impose strict deadlines for the completion of NEPA review.  The changes would also eliminate the need for agencies to consider the “cumulative impacts” of projects, namely: climate change.  The changes would also make it more difficult for affected local communities to comment on projects.

Minority communities would be disproportionately impacted by the proposed changes.  “The most vulnerable communities are going to pay with lives and their health.  They always have,” said Mustafa Santiago Ali with the National Wildlife Federation, previously a senior advisor at the Environmental Protection Agency.  “Moving forward with this is reckless and will endanger the lives of black and brown communities and indigenous communities.  It’s really that simple.”

Historically, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that:

Indigenous peoples of North America are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change.  The most vulnerable industries, settlements, and societies are generally those in coastal and river flood plains; those whose economies are closely linked with climate-sensitive resources; and those in areas prone to extreme weather events.  Nearly all tribes fit into one of those categories . . .

The Intergovernmental Panel found that, in particular, Tribes that rely on fisheries will be significantly impacted by climate change, explaining:

The Environmental Protection Agency predicts that the next 40 to 80 years will see the loss of more than half of the salmon and trout habitats throughout the United States.  These are fish that a large number of tribes rely on for subsistence, cultural practices, and economic development.  Native foods and fisheries are also declining, and tribal access to traditional foods and medicines is often limited by reservation boundaries.  The large role of climate change in separating tribal people from their natural resources poses a threat to Indigenous identity.

Indigenous communities will be disproportionally impacted by any impacts to the environment caused by the rollback of NEPA, particularly insofar as the proposed rule would: (1) eliminate the consideration of climate change impacts; while (2) limiting the voices of local communities. 

That’d amount to a double whammy for Indigenous peoples.

The proposed rule is subject to a 60-day public comment period; public comments must be received by March 10, 2020.  The proposed rule will also be subject to two public hearings, in Denver, Colorado on February 11, 2020; and in Washington, DC on February 25, 2020. 

I strongly urge Indigenous communities and leaders to submit public comments challenging the proposed rule and to ensure Indigenous voices are heard at both of these hearings.

Amber Penn-Roco is an Owner of Galanda Broadman, PLLC.  Amber practices in the firm’s Seattle office.  Amber’s practice focuses on the protection of tribal environmental, natural and cultural resources.  Her practice also includes promoting the economic development of tribes.  She is an enrolled member of the Chehalis Tribe.

Amber Penn-Roco Promoted to Partner at Galanda Broadman

On January 1, 2020, the Galanda Broadman law firm welcomed Amber Penn-Roco into its ownership ranks. Amber’s practice focuses on Indigenous environmental compliance, permitting, and litigation, from the tribal governmental point of view.  She represents Tribes and Tribal citizens throughout the West.

“I am so proud of my work at Galanda Broadman, where I have been allowed to make my passion into a practice,” said Amber. “I am proud to call myself an Indigenous environmental lawyer. I’ve dedicated my practice to the protection of natural and cultural resources and I’m thrilled to continue my work as a partner on behalf of Indigenous peoples.”

Over the last several years, Amber has fought for tribal clients in Washington and Oregon who seek to protect the Columbia River Gorge and Pacific Coast from fossil fuel contamination. 

On behalf of a Treaty Tribe, she persuaded the Columbia River Gorge Commission to uphold a county’s denial of a railroad expansion permit that was being sought to increase fossil fuel cargo in the Gorge.  She also helped the Tribe persuade the Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council to deny a permit that would have allowed Tesoro Savage to transport 360,000 barrels of crude oil each day through the Gorge.

To accomplish these results for her tribal clients, Amber uses federal and state environmental statutes—like the National Environmental Policy Act, federal Endangered Species Act, and State Environmental Policy Act—as well as federal Indian Treaties and tribal environmental laws.

“I have the distinct honor of helping Tribes protect their homelands for sake of the next seven generations,” continued Amber. “I help protect their air, their waters, and their spectacular sacred places.  I am indebted to my tribal clients for the opportunities they have given me.”

Amber also helped 66 Grand Ronde Tribal citizens who directly descend from the Tribe’s Treaty Chief, avoid political disenrollment.  She co-chaired administrative, trial, and appellate litigation that began in 2013 and culminated with a watershed appellate decision in 2016.  That decision required the family to be re-enrolled.  

In recognition of her various professional accomplishments, Super Lawyers magazine has bestowed Amber with its “Rising Star” honor for the last four consecutive years.  During that same timespan, she has served on the Editorial Board for the National Lawyers Guild’s prestigious journal, Review.

In 2016, Amber published “Standing Rock and the Erosion of Tribal Rights” in Review, where she decried that “Tribes are suffering from an onslaught of projects…that imperil their rights and their sacred duty to protect their surrounding natural resources and culture.” She explained:  “A tribe’s rights are often attacked on multiple fronts. Projects that threaten them are often wide-scale and multi-dimensional.  Tribes are often forced into a battle of attrition, in which they must defend their rights before a wide variety of decision-makers.”

In 2018, Amber also published “Trump's Dismantling of the National Monuments: Sacrificing Native American Interests on the Altar of Business” in Review, condemning the Trump Administration’s demolition of Bears Ears and other National Monuments, which are also sacred spaces for many Indigenous peoples.  She excoriated President Trump for his “utter disregard for the preservation of the land and for the recognition of tribal interests,” explaining: “he has proven that when those interests compete with private business interests, he will always protect the businessman, to the detriment of tribal people across the nation.” 

Fearing, as she wrote in 2016, that “Tribes are suffering a death by a thousand cuts”—through battles in sacred places like the Columbia River Gorge, Standing Rock, and Bears Ears—Amber is ever-committed to protecting Indigenous communities from legal, environmental, or cultural harm.

Nine years ago, Amber began her career at K&L Gates, where she represented the Duwamish Tribe, pro bono, in their efforts to seek federal recognition.  She also worked in the Native American Unit of the Northwest Justice Project, helping to provide access to justice to indigent Indigenous populations.  Amber received her law degree from the University of Washington School of Law.

Amber was born and raised in Chehalis, Washington. She is married to David Caverly, a private chef, and she is mother to their baby girl, Lily.  In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking with her dogs, and going to street fairs.  Amber is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation.

Galanda Broadman is an Indigenous Rights Law Firm with seven lawyers, and offices in Seattle and Yakima, Washington and Bend, Oregon and an affiliate in Tucson, Arizona.  In existence since 2010, the firm is dedicated to protecting and defending Indigenous Treaty and sovereign rights, economic interests, and human rights.

“I am excited for my future with the firm and the ability to take a more active role in our team’s practice of law,” concluded Amber.  “And I am excited to help protect Indigenous America against further environmental degradation or cultural destruction.”