Biden will limit new oil and gas drilling at Native American site | Indigenous Rights News

At a White House summit, President Joe Biden will present billions of dollars in new infrastructure and public social and security programs for U.S. tribes.

President Joe Biden will present a plan on Monday to prevent new oil and gas drilling around one of the largest and most valuable sites for Native Americans in the United States.

Biden is directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to begin a process that would prevent oil and gas from being drilled within a 16-kilometer (10-mile) radius of the Chaco National Historic Park, according to a White House note.

The president will attend a summit with more than 570 U.S. tribal leaders in the White House on Monday. The Chaco Canyon oil and gas cuts are part of a broader policy move announced at the meeting, aimed at helping Native Americans.

The policy of drilling oil and gas in the US is growing friction point among industry, indigenous leaders, and environmentalists, the Biden administration seeks to address climate change by limiting fossil fuel emissions while meeting U.S. energy needs.

Chaco Canyon was the center of a thriving Pueblo civilization from the 850s to 1250s. Extracting sandstone and gathering wood over long distances, the natives built large, architecturally complex structures.

“Chaco Canyon is a sacred place that has a profound meaning for the indigenous peoples whose ancestors lived, worked and thrived in that high desert community,” U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.

Haaland, a former New Mexico environmental activist, is the first native in U.S. history to serve as Secretary of the Interior.

Also on Monday, the White House will announce the creation of a Native American Advisory Council to the Secretary of the Interior.

Towns and tribes in Arizona and New Mexico have long raised concerns about the development of oil and gas around Chaco Canyon, threatening sacred and cultural sites, the White House said.

The Chaco Canyon area contains important archaeological finds, one of the most significant signs of Native American culture before European colonization began in the 1500s.

The U.S. Congress has taken several steps in recent years to prevent new leases in the area of ​​oil and gas development.

Now the Department of the Interior will begin removing 20-year-old lands 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the park from new federal oil and gas leases and developments, the White House said.

Biden’s order is not a complete ban on oil and gas drilling in the area. The proposed withdrawal would not apply to individual mineral rights allocations already held by private entities, states, or tribals, according to the White House.

Members of the Navajo tribe, the largest in the U.S., urged federal authorities not to allow individual Navajo to earn a significant source of money by drilling in the buffer zone around the park.

“There doesn’t seem to be a scientific or environmental reason for that 10-mile radius,” Robert McEntyre, a spokesman for the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, told the New York Times.paywall), who first broke the news.

Environmentalists and Native American tribes are concerned about the uncontrolled air pollution and wastewater emissions in New Mexico’s oil and gas development. [File: Charlie Riedel/AP Photo]

“Given the role that oil and gas play in the economy of that area, we shouldn’t have an arbitrary amount that would limit economic opportunities, perhaps the only economic opportunities, in that part of the state,” McEntyre said.

The 12,140-acre (30,000-acre) Chaco Canyon Park was established in 1907 in New Mexico by President Theodore Roosevelt. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987.

Chaco Canyon is considered one of the best places to see the stars in the U.S. for its dark night without light pollution.

Biden has announced plans to invest billions of dollars in new infrastructure and social and public safety programs for U.S. tribes, including measures to implement better federal recognition. historical treaty rights.