Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
production of crops, the signaling of weather change, how long to stay
at sea for purposes of subsistence fishing, the movement of game, or
simply as a means of entertainment. This veneration often runs deep
… As a result, tribes are finding themselves at the forefront of the
renewable energy trend, and, as ancestral stewards of the earth, are
embracing alternative energy resources on their land. 12
Unfortunately, as more and more American Indian tribes have explored the
possibilities of renewable energy development on their lands, the challenges
associated with it have grown increasingly apparent. Within tribes, disputes
can arise over the mere prospect of renewable energy development on tribal
lands. Despite the economic opportunities such development could bring,
some tribe members may staunchly oppose it on the simple basis that tribal
lands are too sacred to be sites of industrial-scale development. 13
Even when the majority of a tribe's members are supportive of a proposed
renewable energy project on tribal land, other complications can muddle
and slow the development process. For example, it is not always clear
to renewable developers with whom they should negotiate the terms of
lease agreements on Indian trust lands. In the United States, title to these
reservation lands is typically vested in the federal government, necessitating
the involvement of government agency officials. Still, how much weight
should tribal input receive in these discussions, and who within a tribe holds
authority to provide it? As one commentator has noted, 14
[W]ithin reservations, the decentralization and dispersal of decision
making authority may cause developers fits. In one case involving
proposed wind energy on an Indian reservation, one project proponent
obtained rights from the local Indian community, another obtained
commitments from the President of the Indian nation for the same
land, and yet another was seeking the same development rights from
influential members of the tribal legislature.
Even in the absence of inner-tribal squabbles or questions of authority,
renewable energy development tends to be more complicated on the reservation
than of of reservation lands. This increased complexity stems in part from the
fact that private developers of off-reservation projects can often more easily
take advantage of subsidy programs that do not apply as readily to indigenous
groups. For instance, as of 2013, some federal tax credit programs aimed at
incentivizing commercial wind energy development in the United States were
arguably more difficult for tribal groups to participate in because tribes are not
federal taxpayers and thus cannot as easily avail themselves of such credits. 15
For tribes located in remote areas, costly expansions of existing high-voltage
transmission lines are also needed to make any major renewable energy project
feasible because the existing transmission infrastructure was not designed with
on-reservation energy generation in mind. 16
 
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