In a win for opponents of Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 pipeline, the Michigan Supreme Court vacated a key permit last week for a proposed project that would replace a segment of the pipeline running underneath an environmentally-sensitive area of the Great Lakes, finding that a state commission did not examine the full scope of possible harm to the environment. Following the 6-1 decision…
Source
When Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a one-year pause on data center construction on July 14, making New York the first state to pump the brakes on the AI infrastructure boom, tribal nations had already enacted their own moratoriums for months without waiting for a governor’s signature. The Seminole Nation passed its own moratorium in Oklahoma in March. The Tonawanda Seneca Nation sued over a facility in…
Source
The United States turned 250 this year, and the document officiating its birth, the Declaration of Independence, is famous for its opening lines proclaiming the nation’s freedom from England and the rights of men. But Rebecca Nagle, a journalist and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, frames the document differently, describing it as a list of grievances growing in ascending order, where Native people…
Source
Every Fourth of July, the Declaration of Independence is the cornerstone of the U.S.’s celebrations. It’s read aloud in radio, television, and public celebrations. But it carries a contradiction expressed through a slur that Native people have never been able to ignore — a scathing reference to “merciless Indian Savages.” Even as the framers promised a nation of equality and liberty for all…
Source
“On July 4th, 1776 … the United States became the greatest force for freedom, justice, equality, and prosperity in the history of the world,” President Donald Trump declared in a promotional video for the Freedom 250 campaign, the administration’s flagship initiative commemorating the U.S.’s semiquincentennial. Among the centerpiece events planned for the nation’s 250th birthday celebration was an…
Source
Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy of Alaska has ordered state lawmakers to attend special legislative sessions over the summer and pass lucrative tax breaks for Alaska LNG, a proposed massive fossil gas export terminal on the Cook Inlet with an 800-mile pipeline across pristine wildlife preserves and much of the state. With plans to export liquified “natural gas,” or LNG, to Asia…
Source