—He spoke, they asked—
Shirley: State of Nation focuses
on Navajo economy

By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — President Joe Shirley Jr. was at the Navajo Nation Council Chamber nearly the entire day on Monday answering to Council delegates while giving his quarterly state of the nation address.

In his state of the nation address, the president announced that the Navajo Nation has entered into an interim agreement with El Paso Natural Gas Company for the rights-of-way that the company is seeking for a pipeline on Navajo land and should be concluding negotiations soon.

The details of the economic terms for each right-of-way transaction should remain confidential, Shirley said. “But I am at liberty and pleased to report that the annual payments required by the various new right-of-way agreements are much greater than the royalties and taxes that the Navajo Nation received from Peabody’s Black Mesa Mine,” he said.
Shirley said that El Paso attempted to ask Senator Pete Domenici to introduce an amendment that would have ignored the right of Native nations to withhold consent to grants of easements through tribal land, but that the senator refused.

“At the same time, El Paso was formally urging the Secretary of the Interior to grant it a right of way for all of its pipelines in Navajo country for even less consideration than it had paid for those rights when the agreements were originally executed,” Shirley said.

He added that El Paso conducted a “smear campaign” against the Navajo Nation falsely stating to members of Congress that the nation threatened to turn off gas supplies to southern California, including military bases in the region.
The nation’s lawyers presented detailed legal and factual position papers to the federal government which ultimately convinced the Departments of Interior and Energy that the law did not need to be changed, Shirley said.

Concerning the nation’s ongoing gaming initiatives, Shirley said that financial feasibility studies have been completed for three sites in Arizona and two in New Mexico. He also said that the controller and the gaming enterprise are seeking various options to finance the development of additional casinos.

Shirley further announced that the Navajo Nation placed its excess gaming devices into a pool and invited other Arizona gaming tribes to bid on them. Agreements with Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, Tohono O’Odam Nation and the Gila River Indian Community will result in more than $130 million to the nation over the next 18 years, he said.
“This approach guarantees a future source of revenue for the Navajo Nation as well as flexibility to seek loans for other casino developments,” Shirley said.

The president called the Desert Rock Energy Project — which began 22 years ago — “the most important economic, environmental, and energy challenge that the Navajo Nation has every undertaken.”

He said that even though the state of New Mexico has no jurisdiction over Navajo lands or the nation’s decision to develop energy projects, his staff held two meetings with New Mexico Environmental Secretary Ron Curry “to educate the state on technical issues regarding the project, and to answer his questions.” The meetings came about because the issuance of a federal air quality permit for the project has been pending for almost five years.

He said that Desert Rock “will be the cleanest pulverized coal-fired power plant in the United States,” and that each month the project is delayed, the nation loses $5 million in direct benefits.

Shirley reported that on July 3, “the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality Control Program issued its first Clean Air Act Title V operating permit to the Navajo Generating Station located in LeChee chapter.” The permit, valid for five years, will be enforced by the Navajo EPA.

The Navajo Nation is the first Native nation to obtain the authority to issue such permits, he said.

Shirley noted that the Navajo area was involved in the national salmonella outbreak that is affecting people in 43 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. He said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was continuing its investigation into the salmonella Saintpaul outbreak Monday in Gallup, Shiprock and Crownpoint areas.
He said that Navajo community health representatives and staff from Northern Navajo Medical Center “were instrumental in solving the mystery through painstaking legwork in the early weeks of the outbreak. Our CHRs tracked down people who fell ill and determined what and where they had eaten to help figure out that the source of illness was salmonella.”
Shirley said that the executive branch has identified the Navajo Nation’s Bureau of Indian Affairs budget priorities for fiscal year 2010.

“Because of this, I believe we are well prepared to advocate for our funding priorities,” Shirley said.

The president said that the first priority is public safety and justice, second priority is economic and community development, third is education, fourth is natural resource management and fifth is human services.

The executive branch has also developed strategic goals and guiding principles, which will guide the development of its fiscal year 2009 comprehensive budget, Shirley said. Priority areas for the strategic plan are in education economic development, community and infrastructure development, information technology, law enforcement, veterans’ affairs, elderly care, youth development and intergovernmental relations.

The president also spoke about the Utah Navajo Trust Fund, which provides resources for Utah Navajo citizens. The state of Utah is giving up its role as trustee of the fund and Shirley mentioned that the Navajo Nation must consent to the designation of a new trustee for the fund.

After delivering the state of the nation, the president and Vice President Ben Shelly stayed for a few hours of questions and comments — stopping for the Council’s lunch break — before Shirley took two hours to respond to each delegate who spoke. After Shirley’s response — which was almost entirely in Navajo — more delegates took the opportunity to publicly question the president, who stayed until after 8 p.m.