We’re passing along this Solidarity Call To Action from stopline3.org aboout frontline Indigenous members of the three tribes that would be most impacted by a proposed fossil gas plant in 1842 and 1854 treaty territories. The deadline to submit comments is midnight today (Sunday).
As our shared climate rapidly continues to destabilize, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Utilities Service is still considering Dairyland Power Cooperative’s request for a $350 million public loan and permits to build Nemadji Trail Energy Center (NTEC). Life on Earth cannot afford a large new $700 million gas-fired power plant just off the coast of Gitchi Gami(Lake Superior – so much of our planet’s surface freshwater) within 1842 Ceded Territory.
In solidarity with Indigenous rights and sovereignty, directly threatened by this project, please ask USDA to deny the NTEC loan.
What began as a bad, environmentally unjust idea in 2017 has become untenable today, given the rapid escalation of climate change. The NTEC proposal has also become absurd in light of billions of dollars in loans the RUS is awarding now under the Inflation Reduction Act for clean energy projects.
As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stated in 2022, NTEC’s greenhouse gas emissions would cause an estimated $2 billion in climate damages through 2040. The EPA has also said, “Because methane is both a powerful greenhouse gas and short-lived compared to carbon dioxide, achieving significant reductions would have a rapid and significant effect on atmospheric warming potential.” Meanwhile, the climate crisis is already taking heavy tolls on lands, waters, and traditional lifeways for Indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes region and around the world.
Beyond the planetary heating that demands denying this loan outright, NTEC dismisses numerous other significant threats to Indigenous rights and sovereignty, including:
- Dismissing the relevant Treaties.
- Failing to obtain full Free, Prior and Informed Consent.
- Violating the recently-returned resting places of Anishinaabe people who have already been forcibly displaced by industry.
- Fueling the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.
- Further exploiting an area already overburdened with dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure and legacy pollution.
- Disproportionately harming Tribal lands and people downwind of NTEC.
- Refusing to conduct a full environmental impact study, despite proximity to the Great Lakes.