S.E. RUCKMAN: Reading Between the Lines on the Keystone Pipeline

From the time Barack Obama has been president, he has made a strong showing for Indian people. He’s done it holding summits of tribal leaders in Washington and sat down with Native leaders for face-to-face chats wherein he has committed to bettering Indian Country on his end. Rome was not built in a day and in this case, not in six years, either. But tribes can read intent through actions.

However, a recent State Department report was recently released that found the Keystone Pipeline XL posed no significant environmental impact if it were opened. Cue the flashing red lights. This is indeed the part where I decided to look past the surface of what I was being told so I could get a clearer picture about this proposed serpent that will snake through the heart of Indian Country.

The Trans-Canada pipeline has spawned a whole litter of issues that I don’t want to get into such as the politics of energy.  But what should be of great interest to tribes in South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma is the risk of potential and possibly irreversible consequences if the pipeline is in our backyards.

This pipeline is slated to move 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada through Texas, that little republic which is an ethnographic oddity as a state to have virtually no tribes in it for an expanse so big. Back to the pipeline: We know that the pipeline will move oil strained from the tar sands in Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico.

Environmentalists maintain that the pipeline indeed poses a great threat to our climate.  Greenhouse gases resulting from burning oil gleaned of these revamped tar sands will increase by 17 percent than current levels, it is predicted. Those who want to protect our natural resources say that the down side of the pipeline is fraught with the potential for leaks in the line, oil spills, poisoned ground water, increased greenhouse emissions and will further a dependence on fossil fuels.

On the other hand, it will create jobs (a few thousand for a few years) and generate more gas to export or use. That’s the payoff. Through the lens of his recent State of the Nation speech, Obama pledged to keep climate change a top priority and seek alternative energy sources to boot.  So we must read between the lines what the State Department pipeline report is saying to Indian nations.

Indians are the original environmentalists.  Since 1492 Indian forebears have gone to battle and indeed been chased, jailed and killed for protesting the encroachment of native landscapes. This is not theoretical but factual. As the iron railroad cut across the West, there are historical reports of Indians prying up the railroad ties in an effort to keep their lands pristine.

I don’t want to get off track (pun be gone).

The broader issues of climate change will affect us all at some point. In the meantime, tribes can bring these issues up to the president in the upcoming summits by making it clear that future scarification on the land will bear no lasting fruit but only a temporary fix. For tribes still have to live on these lands however fractionated they have become.

The final decision on allowing the pipeline to cut through our (read everyone’s) country lies squarely in Obama’s lap. It would be unbearably hard to have the sole responsibility of making this decision. But there it is. Tribes can take the recently announced $600,000 in federal grants and quietly work on plans to combat climate change in their jurisdictions. It is but a teaspoon of water to fight a wild fire if his pipeline answer is yes.

The answer in Indian Country is not just more money. It rarely is. Staying silent on issues like these are going against all that the ancestors have ever stood for; the fact that Native people have a mother and she is right below our feet. Tribes may not be able to control what happens to the rest of the country, especially if fracking and other environmental barbarities are allowed, but they can use their individual and collective voices to protect the ground upon which they stand.

I heard Obama pledge a commitment to address climate change on national television. A decision on the pipeline is a good opportunity to judge between what is said to what is actually done. Let’s hope Indian Country is reading between the lines.