ROCK AND
A HARD PLACE
the United States.
“Coal is the way we’ve been
taking care of our people,” said CJ
Stewart, the Crow senator. Yet his
people continue to struggle with
poverty and an unemployment
rate he suggested is upwards of 50
percent. “And the U.S. cries over
its 8 percent,” he said.
In June, the U.S. government
approved a deal between the Crow
and Cloud Peak Energy, a Wyoming
company that’s moving to increase
its coal exports to Asian markets.
The tribe now has the green light to
lease its rights to an estimated 1.4
billion tons of coal, more than the
U.S. consumes annually. The deal
could be worth at least $10 million for the Crow over the first five
years. Cloud Peak has also pledged
to give preference in hiring, training and promotion to qualified Native Americans, as well as annual
scholarships to local native students. A spokesman for Cloud Peak,
Rick Curtsinger, said the company
is continuing to work through an
agreement with the tribe.
Crow Nation chairman Darrin
Old Coyote testified in July before the U.S. House Committee on
Natural Resources that the deal is
largely dependent on the fate of
coal exports through the North-
HUFFINGTON
02.09.14
west. Such significant coal development, he said, has “unlimited
potential to improve the ongoing
substandard socioeconomic conditions of the Crow people and
the surrounding communities in
southeastern Montana.”
“Given our vast mineral resources, the Crow Nation can, and
should, be self-sufficient,” he said.
Also in the heart of the Powder River Basin, and also saddled
with high unemployment, are the
Northern Cheyenne. The tribe
“M y mom didn’t believe in
food stamps. We lived on
what we caught. Now we
have no choice. We have
to go to the grocery store.”
has a long history of resisting coal
development due to perceived environmental health risks. But like
the Crow, the Northern Cheyenne
are also recognizing an increasingly tough economic reality.
“We’ve got a lot of coal underneath our land,” said Tom Mexican Cheyenne, director of the
Northern Cheyenne’s community
health department, who made
clear that he did not speak for the
tribe. “There’s a split — some on