A New TERA: Why It’s Time to Revisit Tribal Energy Resource Agreements
“Black Elk mourned that a dream died in the snow at Wounded Knee. It is up to us to do the next thing: to dream a new one . . . .It is not about the heart that was buried in the cold ground of South Dakota but rather about the heart that beats on—among the Dakota, to be sure, but also among the Diné, Comanche, Ojibwe, Seminole, Miwok, Blackfeet, and the other tribes around the country.”
When the coronavirus pandemic swept across the country, it hit communities of color disproportionately hard. American Indians were no exception. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Covid-19 infected American Indians and Alaskan Natives at a rate 3.5 times that of their Caucasian counterparts. These communities were also four times more likely to be hospitalized and 2.6 times more likely to die from Covid-19. At an early point in the pandemic—May 18, 2020—the Navajo Nation had the highest per capita infection rate in the country. By that same date, American Indians living in Wyoming accounted for more than 30% of the state’s positive Covid-19 tests and over half of the Covid-19 related deaths, despite making up only 3% of the state’s population. In New Mexico, although constituting only 9% of the population, American Indians accounted for 60% of the state’s Covid-19 cases. In fact, early in the pandemic, “[i]f Native American tribes were counted as states, the five most infected states in the country would all be
native tribes.”
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