CENSORED NEWS

September 29, 2022

Greater Chaco: Biden Attorneys Defend Trump's Illegal Drilling in U.S. Court of Appeals

Greater Chaco Photo Credit Spoken Image

Indigenous and conservation groups to federal court: Protect Greater Chaco region from illegal fracking

10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver hears arguments in lawsuit challenging Trump-era drilling permits in Greater Chaco Landscape

By Jen Dickson, WildEarth Guardians jdickson@wildearthguardians.org

Kyle Tisdel, Western Environmental Law Center tisdel@westernlaw.org

Robyn Jackson, Diné C.A.R.E. robyn.jackson@dine-care.org

Censored News

DENVER—Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit heard oral arguments related to the Trump administration’s illegal approval of more than 370 drilling permits in the Greater Chaco region of northwest New Mexico.

Attorneys with the Biden administration defended the Trump administration’s illegal drilling permits, even as President Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland have embarked on the “Honoring Chaco Initiative,” a new collaborative process to address the need for landscape-level management reforms.

On this day, sixteen years ago, Censored News was born

Tohono O'odham and Mohawk Solidarity: Border summit organizer
Mike Flores, Tohono O'odham, with Mark Maracle, Mohawk.
Photo by Brenda Norrell

Keith Secola and band with Floyd Westerman.
Photo by Brenda Norrell

On this day, sixteen years ago, Censored News was born, when I was censored and terminated as a longtime staff reporter at Indian Country Today. It was the same day that I was enroute to the Indigenous Border Summit of the Americas. Today, we remember powerful words at the border summit.

By Brenda Norrell

Publisher, Censored News

SAN XAVIER DISTRICT, TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION (2006) -- Indigenous at the Border Summit of the Americas opposed a border fence that will separate Indian communities in their ancestral territories and contribute to the Bush administration’s plan for corporate profiteering.

Without compromise, Indigenous called for a halt to the militarization, oppression and psychological terrorism created by the military-industrial complex along the US/Mexico border.

Mohawks from the northern border united with Tohono O’odham from the southern border and demanded a halt to the militarization of their lands by the US Border Patrol, National Guard and federal agents.

Mohawk Mark Maracle, representing the Women Title Holders, said Mohawks from the north are ready to support the Tohono O’odham in the south “by any means necessary.”

Polluting Coal-Fired San Juan Generating Station Shuts Down on Navajo Nation

Polluting Coal-Fired San Juan Generating Station Shuts Down on Navajo Nation

Breaking News: Another polluting coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Nation shuts down, but not before poisoning the air, water and land. While the electricity went to distant cities in the Southwest, and the Navajo government received revenues, Dineh in the region, from Shiprock to Bloomfield, New Mexico, choked on the poisonous air and suffered from widespread respiratory problems from both the coal-fired power plants, San Juan Generating Station and Four Corners power plant (whose dark plume could be seen by astronauts in space). -- Censored News.

Community groups react to San Juan closure

and transition issues

By Duane “Chili” Yazzie, Toohnii Binaneest'a' Altaas'éí Alliance (the varied and many produce grown by river edge peoples), chili_yazzie@hotmail.com

Mike Eisenfeld, San Juan Citizens Alliance, Energy and Climate Program Manager mike@sanjuancitizens.org

Norman Norvelle, former San Juan Generating Station chemist, norvellhome@msn.com

Camilla Feibelman, Sierra Club-Rio Grande Chapter camilla.feibelman@sierraclub.org

James Quirk, Western Resource Advocates, james.quirk@westernresources.org

In 2017, majority owner and operator Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) announced that the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station was too expensive to operate and that the last two of the plant’s four units would be retired in 2022, rather than operating until 2053. On-the-ground communities and advocates had long since called attention to the plant’s expense as well as its damage to health, air and our climate.