Does 'Native' Now Mean 'Balkanize' in America?

By John Dendahl, 4/9/2006 8:34:43 PM

Why aren't we focused on giving all American citizens equal standing, as Dr. Martin Luther King argued?

Congress has under consideration the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005. This legislation panders to a small, narrow interest to create yet another citizen group with special status. The dismal model for the Hawaiian bill is the special status of American Indians.

Rather than move backward with the Hawaiian bill, Congress should engage serious discussion leading toward normalizing citizenship for Indians.

One hears from those wanting to go the opposite way that other countries and the United Nations are considering special status for "indigenous" populations.

This isn't Latin America, and it isn't the United Nations. This is the United States, Ronald Reagan's "Shining City," doubtless history's leading accomplishment in assimilating peoples from all over the world into a culture intended to respect all and favor none. One need look no farther these days than our sometimes ally, France, to get a notion of America's greatness.

Yet the special status accorded Indians, amid enough fine quotations from statesmen to fill volumes, is largely a failure when measured by any reasonable standard of social progress. Their unclear status as both wards of the state and "sovereign" people have done much to foster myriad social pathologies.

In many instances, Indians' special status has led to conflicts with other Americans over rights to which we are all entitled. An ongoing dispute here in the Southwest is a prime example.

For more than 50 years, El Paso Natural Gas Company has operated pipelines crossing some 900 miles of the Navajo Nation's reservation. These deliver natural gas produced in New Mexico, Texas and other areas to millions of consumers in western states, including Navajos and other Indians. Royalties are earned by Navajos and other Indians for gas produced on their lands, and some are employed by EPNG and the producers.

EPNG's 20-year right-of-way agreement with the Navajos expired in mid-October. Renewal has been under negotiation for the better part of two years. Compared to the high end of prices paid for perpetual, not 20-year, easements across non-Indian lands, EPNG's offer is some 50 times above the market. The Navajos want 100 times, and the parties are about one-quarter of a billion dollars apart.

Why should anyone other than EPNG and the Navajos care? Because, for one thing, right-of-way prices become part of the cost paid by all served consumers — a wealth transfer to the Navajos as to which the consumers have no voice other than EPNG.

Another reason — interesting in any debate about Indians' status — is that the Navajo position has hints of treaty noncompliance.

The Navajos' 1868 treaty with the United States obligates them not to "oppose the construction of ... works of utility or necessity which may be ordered or permitted by the laws of the United States." The same treaty section obligates the government to "pay the tribe whatever amount of damage may be assessed by three disinterested commissioners" appointed by the President.

The pipeline is a work of utility ordered or permitted by federal law. In view of the impasse, EPNG has petitioned the U.S. Department of Interior, the Navajos' trustee, to renew the right-of-way.

That EPNG has negotiated with the Navajo Nation is, in itself, a gesture of especially good faith. Some would argue that EPNG and Interior could have bypassed Navajo leaders altogether, completed the renewal, and left the amount of payment to the three commissioners contemplated by the 1868 treaty. There seems no credible chance that this route would have brought the Navajos anything close to EPNG's offer, so consumers, including some Navajos and other Indians, would be better off with lower natural gas costs.

Reservation activities such as gambling, avoidance of state taxes on retail sales to non-Indians, and others also point to special advantage inconsistent with a uniform standard of citizenship.

My 800-pound gorilla nominee here is Indian religious claims intended to trump use of public lands by the rest of us. This issue raised its head again just weeks ago when a New Mexico Indian pueblo sued the U.S. Forest Service to void a permit for a new chairlift in a ski area that has operated for 57 years. Where is the crèche-busting ACLU when we need it?

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, has the attention of Congress on his Native Hawaiian legislation. That makes this the perfect time to commence an earnest discussion as to how we achieve equal standing among all American citizens — none superior, none inferior, and all celebrated as individuals.

Lifelong New Mexican John Dendahl is a retired executive and political leader and a member of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii Advisory Board.