Native American Indians get more rights

(11-28) 11:11 PST Washington (AP) --

Ahead of a meeting Friday between President Barack Obama and hundreds of Native American leaders, the administration unveiled new rules for tribal lands that officials say will expedite home building and energy development.

The proposed changes — the first of its kind in 50 years — would open the door to badly-needed housing development on reservations, and for wind and solar energy projects that tribes have been eager to launch.

The plan gives Obama another boasting point for this week's meeting with leaders of the 565 federally-recognized tribes at the White House.

The president has appointed Native Americans to high level positions in his administration, signed laws to improve health care and law enforcement for Native Americans and resolved a long running lawsuit over royalties for minerals on tribal lands.

The Obama administration has held a number of meetings with tribes on the subject and provided draft proposals to leaders as the rules were being rewritten. Land on American Indian reservations cannot be bought and sold because it is held in trust by the federal government on behalf of the tribes. If a tribe or tribe member wants to build a house on it or use it for multifamily housing, a business or industry, the Interior Department must approve a "lease" of the land or mortgages.

The proposed changes would set time limits for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to approve such leases. Residential leases, subleases and mortgages would have to be approved in 30 days; leases for commercial or industrial development must be approved in 60 days. If the bureau does not meet the deadlines, leases would automatically be approved. Currently, there are no time limits.

The proposed rules apply only to land development and not to oil and gas and mining leases.

The administration has been pushing for renewable energy projects and working to advance solar and wind projects on public lands. It has given priority to 18 projects, including the Moapa Solar Project, which will be built mostly on Moapa Band of Paiutes tribal lands in Nevada.

Developing wind and solar energy projects has drawn interest from tribes around the country, Dossett said. Tribes can partner with companies and sell the energy produced back to power grids.

Willie said the changes should also help tribal members get mortgages more quickly. Under the current rules, government approval of mortgages can take two months to two years. With that kind of delay, getting the banking industry to see tribal members as a profitable market can be difficult, Willie said.

The rules will be open for public comment for 60 days beginning Tuesday. The administration also plans additional meetings with tribes on the proposed changes

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/11/28/national/a095132S23.DTL#ixzz1f3VK6rHb

Republicans Pass a Jobs Bill

Republicans said they wanted to pass H.R. 1904 because it was a jobs bill for Arizona. The Republicans stated the bill would create 500 jobs and up to 3,000 jobs later. The crux of the bill is that Arizona sells some federal  Indian land in exchange for a larger plot of non-federal land. The rights to the sold Indian land would go to two foreign countries, Britain and Australia and they would get the rights to the largest amount of copper known in the northern hemisphere. The issues about where the copper will be processed and whether the US had workers for this mine were poorly addressed. The large foreign mine operations will be digging over 7,000 feet below the surface. There was no mention as to how far down they could go (I assume to the center of the earth) and there was also no mention as to how far they could tunnel.
As a jobs bill, this seems pretty poor for the US, since I doubt we have 3,000 copper miners to fill these jobs. I assume foreign workers will come and get the jobs created. In addition, these foreign countries have the technology to use robots and exclude workers. There were no provisions in the bill that humans had to be employed. There was also no mention in the bill that the US got any of the copper profits over the many years to come. The Republicans did state the US has no facilities to process the copper, so all of the processing jobs will be abroad.
Oh, and the Indians who live on the land will not be consulted until after Congress gave the OK to go ahead with the project.
If we imagine that all was well with this bill and 3,000 jobs would be created, the jobs would not appear for years. we need jobs now. In one to three years, we should be in a recovery and all of this loss of our precious mineral resource will be too late to fit the alleged plan.
The Republican bill passed and now sits in the Senate.
Clearly, this was a payola scam on the American people.