The saying "hypocrisy knows little bounds" is on full display in Washington, DC this week as lobbyists for some Native American tribes and tribal casinos work the halls of Capitol hill in a last ditch effort to remove language from a Defense Department spending bill that would create thousands of jobs in Arizona. The language in question would allow copper mining in a desolate area in Arizona by swapping nearly 5,000 privately held acres of land in exchange for 2,400 currently held by the federal government.
There is no debate about the economic value of the land swap. Allowing mining will produce $60 billion in economic activity and create over 4,000 jobs. Despite a U.S. Forest Service study showing that no Native American lands or sacred sites are affected by the mine or the land swap, lobbyists for some tribes are demanding removal of the language. They claim the land in question was used to collect acorns and other medicinal plants by local tribes but the nearest reservation is over 20 miles away. Incredibly, the same groups making these claims lobby on behalf of a tribe in Alabama looking to build a casino smack dab on top of an ancient Indian burial site.
Among those lobbying against the language is the Mapetsi Policy Group, a small lobbying firm filled with liberal former government officials from the Obama administration and Capitol Hill. The Mapetsi Policy Group represents the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama and their efforts to allow a $250 million casino expansion project on top of the ancient burial lands of the Muscogee Nation tribe. Unlike the Arizona project, the casino expansion truly affects sacred Native American land as over 60 grave sites have been desecrated by the casino project.
Likewise, the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA), a coalition of Indian tribes with casino ownership, supports the Poarch Creek casino expansion and is demanding that the Arizona language be stripped from the bill. It is clear that these groups care more about who is paying their lobbying fees that about protecting Native American history and culture.
Federal land grabs have decimated large swaths of areas in the West from productive economic activity. The Arizona language will produce thousands of well paying jobs while protecting the Native Americans. This effort not only creates jobs, it exposes the agenda of the Beltway Bandits that prowl the halls of the U.S. Capitol. Congress should ignore their last ditch efforts to stop job creation.
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