Nicholas Decker

The green groups saw that making themselves the face of opposition to a bill to unleash clean energy wasn’t working, so they latched onto tribal objections to some historic preservation changes as a more sympathetic face of opposition. Those concerns *really are* more concerning in my view, but the good news is the managers’ amendment addressed some of those concerns and earned the bill some tribal support. There appears to be active disagreement as to whether the new consultation rules give the tribes a stronger or a weaker hand because it depends to an extent on whether you think rulemaking Trump is doing will stick. But in response to the bill gaining some tribal support, the greens have *escalated* their historic preservation demands — calling for sweeping changes to the bill that have nothing whatsoever to do with tribal issues and simply make it harder to do anything near any old building anywhere in the country. Greens of course do not in general have much respect for tribal sovereignty. They like consultation rights that can serve as an impediment to development, but never defer to tribal rights to opt into or promote development. They are no more authentic allies to the cause than they are authentic allies to clean energy, they are hardline anti-growth organizations that will always find a way to get to “no” on whatever issue — hence the minute the tribes score a win they dramatically expand their preservation asks. They are right to identify the tribes as a sympathetic face of opposition but are trying to hang unrelated poison pills on that hook.