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This story was originally published by Northern Journal.
This story was produced as part of the Pulitzer Center’sStoryReach U.S. Fellowship. It’s the third in a series about access to commercial fisheries in rural Alaska; readPart OneandPart Two.
Nathaniel Herz
Northern Journal
METLAKATLA, ALASKA — Across Alaska’s coastline, from the Indigenous communities of Bristol Bay to the Tlingit and Haida villages of the panhandle, rural harbors that once bustled with commercial fishing boats now sit unused and empty.
Abandoned boats covered with mold and algae line the shores of one Southeast town; others have seen their fleets sold off and relocated.
In the Indigenous village of Metlakatla, though, it’s a different story.
Fishing vessels pack the downtown harbor on Annette Island, which sits just off the coast at Alaska’s southernmost tip. Huge seiners, with onboard cranes to reel in fish-laden nets, loom over the docks, with many more slips filled in by smaller gillnetters. Fathers and grandfathers still fish with sons and grandsons.
Experts and industry players disagree about the exact reasons for the decline of commercial fishing in the rest of rural, coastal Alaska — with some blaming state policies and others pointing to global market trends.
In Metlakatla, local leaders say their success in sustaining their fishing culture stems from the community’s unusual history.
In the 1970s, the village stayed out of a land claims settlement between Alaska Natives and the federal government — a deal that could have brought cash in exchange for ceding Metlakatla’s reservation and residents’ collective right to pull fish from the waters off their shores. All the other Native reservations in the state were terminated.
As a result, Metlakatla is the only Native community in Alaska that manages its own commercial fishing harvest. The right to earn a living from the ocean waters surrounding the island is tied to tribal membership and can’t be sold off to outsiders — as happened in other rural and Native communities across the state.
Elsewhere, Native residents of coastal villages and cities might have to pony up $100,000 or more for a permit to access state-managed commercial fisheries just offshore. Meanwhile, any Metlakatla tribal member with a boat and $25 can buy a permit and cast their net in the Indigenous-managed fishery that extends 3,000 feet around Annette Island.
“It’s 100 percent of the reason why we’re not down to one boat,” said Albert Smith, Metlakatla’s mayor.
The island fishery sustains the largest tribally managed salmon harvest in the United States. The 1,600-person community has dozens of active commercial fishing vessels, which harvested more than 1.3 million salmon in 2024, according to the most recent tribal data available.
The community stands today as a kind of experiment. Its fishery represents an alternate reality that could have unfolded in rural Alaska if more communities had the same opportunities to access nearby waters — or had state policymakers not chosen to privatize commercial harvest rights in the rest of Alaska’s big salmon fisheries, as they did in the 1970s.
Metlakatla’s narrative is a “direct refutation” of the argument that coastal Alaska Native villages are to blame for the loss of their fishing industries, said Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, who once represented Metlakatla in the state House and several years ago pushed an unsuccessful bill to boost access to rural commercial fishing careers.
In Metlakatla, “every slip in the harbor is full — high schoolers are deckhanding for their uncle, their dad, their best friend’s dad,” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “I think it’s a fascinating case study.”
Local leaders say they’ve still had to fight to sustain Metlakatla’s fleet and its tribal fishery.
The community is now in the midst of a six-year legal effort to expand the waters available to tribal members, which leaders say could help solidify the future of Metlakatla’s fishing industry. But its federal lawsuit faces opposition from Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration, competing fishermen and even neighboring Indigenous people.
‘We’re the salmon people’
The Metlakatlans left northern British Columbia in the late-19th century amid conflicts over land ownership.
Residents secured an invitation to America from President Grover Cleveland and members of Congress at the behest of William Duncan, a charismatic Anglican minister. Duncan had worked with the region’s Indigenous Tsimshian people to establish the original Metlakatla in British Columbia, which he envisioned as a model Christian community.
After a mass migration in canoes and other vessels, the new Metlakatla was built 70 miles away on Annette Island, just across the international border in Alaska, where residents eventually built an enormous church.
A cannery served as a market for residents’ ancestral fishing tradition, which the tribe has described as a “bedrock of the Coast Tsimshian culture and way of life.” A presidential proclamation from Woodrow Wilson in 1916 subsequently set aside the 3,000-foot strip around the island exclusively for use by the village’s fishermen.
For decades afterward, Metlakatla’s commercial fleet harvested both inside and outside the exclusive zone.
Skippers of today, who are mostly men, learned to fish from their fathers, who learned from their fathers and grandfathers before them.
Fishing is “one of the few things that remain unbroken from our forever history,” said David R. Boxley, a Metlakatla artist who served on the village’s tribal council until recently.
“That’s our culture, even though it’s changed in how we do it,” he said. “It’s as old as our people. We’re the salmon people.”
Tribal fishery ‘saved our butts’
In 1971, Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which came with a painful tradeoff.
Newly formed, Indigenous-owned corporations would receive a total of $1 billion and some 45 million acres — roughly 10 percent of the state. In exchange for that money and property, Alaska’s Indigenous people would give up claims to larger swaths of traditional lands, and those that had reservations would surrender them.
Most Alaska Native groups didn’t have reservations at the time, so they had little choice but to participate in the settlement.
Metlakatla had one of only 23 reservations in Alaska and exclusive fishing rights to boot, so it had more to lose. It may have also had less to gain, because the community’s emigration from Canada made its Alaska land claims less certain.
Some in Metlakatla wanted to pursue the payout anyway, according to Boxley.
But elders whose parents and grandparents had been through the exodus from the original village site in British Columbia saw their sovereignty as priceless, he explained.
“We’d already lost a Metlakatla,” Boxley said. “We had to build two communities — one was basically taken from us. Why would we do that again?”
The other 22 reservations in Alaska were dissolved as a result of the settlement. Today, only Metlakatla’s remains.
A few years after the other tribes settled, in an effort to prevent overfishing and make the industry more profitable, the state of Alaska established its “limited entry” program. The system capped the number of skippers in each commercial fishery and transformed fishing from a public right to a private privilege, one available only to those who could afford or inherit a permit. And since the supply of permits was limited, they became valuable commodities.
Commercial fishing permits can now be bought and sold on the open market, in some cases fetching six-figure prices. And over the years, residents of many rural and Indigenous communities have sold their permits to people from Alaska’s larger cities and towns, and from other states.
Rural fishermen also moved out of villages and took their permits with them. And those forces conspired to hollow out rural, coastal communities economically — even as Alaska lawmakers have done little to stem the tide.
In Metlakatla, though, tribal members don’t need those expensive permits to pursue a commercial fishing career. While many fishermen in the village have purchased them anyway — allowing harvests both inside and outside the 3,000-foot zone — other Metlakatlans fish only inside that exclusive strip.
Even top fishermen who roam well beyond Annette Island say that the tribal fishery has helped sustain them in lean years — particularly by providing lucrative catches of sea cucumbers and clams, which are harvested in underwater diving gear and fetch high prices in Asia.
“We’ve had terrible seasons seining,” said longtime Metlakatla fisherman Daniel Marsden, 48, referring to the technique of catching salmon with a huge, circular net. “And we go diving, and that saved our butts.”
A lawsuit to expand fishing rights
While commercial fishing remains vibrant in Metlakatla, the community’s fish processing plant is another story.
The business was long an economic mainstay for the village, providing local jobs and revenue for the tribal government.
But beginning in the 1990s, falling seafood prices challenged its profitability, and since 2018, it’s processed only small amounts of fish.
Today, the cavernous waterfront processing buildings, with peeling white paint, operate at a fraction of their capacity.
Most fishermen who live in Metlakatla and dock their boats in the village harbor sell the salmon they harvest not to the tribally owned plant, but to processing businesses in Ketchikan, 15 miles north. The tribal plant currently lacks the equipment it needs to handle the large volumes of salmon netted by Metlakatla’s fleet, Smith explained.
If more of Metlakatla’s up-and-coming fishermen could harvest farther from the island without having to buy expensive state permits, he added, their catch could be large enough to justify reinvesting in the tribally owned plant.
The 3,000-foot strip around Annette Island, local leaders argue, is no longer the community’s breadbasket. It’s become a “cage” holding back the village’s fleet, according to one longtime fisherman, Edward Gunyah.
To break out of that cage, Metlakatla filed a lawsuit.
Nearly six years ago, the tribe entered a complaint in federal court, asserting that the state of Alaska’s limited entry permit program was illegally barring Metlakatlans from harvesting in areas they were entitled to fish.
The tribe argues that an 1891 federal law granted it the right to enough fish to make the village self-sustaining — which should allow members to harvest anywhere within roughly a day’s travel from the reservation. The suit doesn’t seek to expel other skippers from the disputed waters, only to allow Metlakatla residents to fish there without buying pricey state permits.
“Congress intended to give the community an opportunity to prosper by accessing the fisheries in the waters surrounding the Annette Islands,” the tribe said in its amended complaint.
State and tribal opposition
Metlakatla’s attorneys filed the 2020 lawsuit in federal court on Aug. 7 — a yearly community holiday commemorating the 1887 arrival of the village’s advance party at Annette Island.
Since then, Metlakatla has won preliminary victories as the case has wound through rounds of lower court decisions and appeals.
But it has also faced strong opposition — from the state government, the fishing industry and other tribes.
“We’re going to see this through to the end,” Doug Vincent-Lang, Alaska’s fish and game commissioner, told a group of Ketchikan fishermen in 2024, according to a recording obtained by Northern Journal and APM Reports.
A win by Metlakatla, he said, would invite efforts from other tribes “that don’t have a treaty, or want to expand what they consider their rights to fish outside the state regulatory environment.”
“We’re not against Metlakatla,” Vincent-Lang said in an interview. “We support their right to fish in their tribal waters. It’s just when you start fishing outside of those waters, there’s treaty implications and everything else that comes into play. How do you account for that? It’s just all kinds of questions that come up.”
A trade group representing Southeast Alaska’s fleet of seine boats supports the state’s position.
Some of the group’s members are concerned about the potential for the lawsuit to expand Metlakatlans’ fishing rights in a way that increases competition, said Tom Meiners, who leads the group’s board.
“We don’t see the need for the island fishery to be expanded,” Meiners said, noting how numerous Metlakatla fishermen already have state permits and wouldn’t directly benefit if the tribe wins.
Meanwhile, nearly five years into the litigation, a group of other Southeast Alaska tribal governments, the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida, filed their own motion to dismiss Metlakatla’s case.
The request, ultimately rejected by the judge, said Metlakatla’s Tsimshian residents were descended from Canadians and were infringing on traditional Tlingit and Haida harvest rights and tribal property.
The fight against the lawsuit, particularly by the state and the other tribes, has deeply frustrated Metlakatla’s leaders and allies, who say the village has long contended with hostility to its unique fishing rights. They also say that both written and oral tradition reflect the longtime presence of Tsimshian people on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border before it was established, with traditional names for Southeast Alaska sites derived from Tsimshian names.
“We should be working together” against factory fishing boats that accidentally harvest salmon, and against out-of-state commercial permit holders, said Boxley, the former Metlakatla tribal council member. He added: “That’s who’s devastating the fishery. Not us.”
‘Control our own future’
After five years of the lawsuit ping-ponging between lower and appeals courts, a decision on the expansion of Metlakatla’s tribal fishing rights could come as soon as this year.
Smith, the mayor, said a victory could help rev the village’s processing plant back to life.
“The vision is to see it going full-fledged again,” he said.
While awaiting a decision, the tribe leased a corner of the plant to a start-up, Circle Seafoods, that is testing a new concept for fish processing. Rather than trying to fillet and pack the whole summer salmon harvest in a single frenetic push of a few weeks, Circle freezes fish whole, then thaws and cuts them in batches throughout the rest of the year.
The tribe is interested in replicating the idea because it could sustain a year-round workforce in the village, Smith said. Meanwhile, Annette Island Packing Co., which is owned by the tribe, recently launched a line of freeze-dried salmon pet treats. They’re branded as Ksa Hoon — “just fish” in Sm’algyax, the Tsimshian language.
Operating at full capacity, the plant could churn out profits that the tribe could use to diversify — investing and expanding into other businesses such as ecotourism, Boxley said. He described the lawsuit as aligning with Metlakatlans’ decision a century ago to move from Canada to Alaska, where tribal members would have more autonomy.
“We did all this to be in control of our own future,” Boxley said. “That’s why we came here.”
This story was produced as part of the Pulitzer Center’sStoryReach U.S. Fellowship. It was reported and edited by Northern Journal and APM Reports.
The post ‘The salmon people’: How Alaska’s only Native reservation saved its fishing culture appeared first on ICT.
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Before wildfire season begins again, Indigenous fire keepers gather to share knowledge
(indiginews.com)
Sheresa Brown, a 31-year-old Lytton First Nation member, is a field technician and archaeology monitor with the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council. She spoke at the Salish Fire Keepers Society’s 2026 spring gathering in March. She is pictured here on her ancestral homelands in Lytton First Nation on March 30. Photo by Aaron Hemens
Aaron Hemens and Santana Dreaver, The Narwhal’s 2026 Indigenous Journalism Fellow, attended the Salish Fire Keepers Gathering on March 17 and 18. This is the first of two stories about the gathering, published in partnership with The Narwhal.
In 2022, one year after wildfire tore through the Village of Lytton, a blaze broke out at the nearby Stein Valley Nlaka’pamux Heritage Provincial Park.
The site, co-managed by Lytton First Nation and the “B.C.” government, contains pictographs, petroglyphs and culturally modified trees, along with more important cultural sites.
So the BC Wildfire Service called in Sheresa Brown, a 31-year-old Lytton First Nation member who works as a field technician and archaeology monitor with the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council. When fires happen near registered archaeological sites, Brown works with BC Wildfire Service crews and structural protection specialists to safeguard cultural heritage.
“I was all for it,” Brown says. “But I wanted to do it in the right way.”
To avoid the pictographs washing away from firefighting efforts, Brown outlined a 75 to 100 metre buffer zone around the cultural site.
Sprinklers were set up around the buffer zone, and crews watched as the sprinklers stopped the flames from reaching the pictographs.
“That really helped me confirm that this was a good idea,” she said.
In other wildfires, she has helped to determine which registered archaeological sites are within a fire’s boundaries and are along its projected path, directing crews where to work. For example, she will advise where heli-pads can be constructed to avoid cutting down culturally modified trees, and will guide where hoses can be laid to protect artifacts — such as arrowheads — on the ground.
“We make sure that everything is done in a very respectful way,” she said.
Sheresa Brown, a field technician and archaeology monitor specializing in cultural values and site preservation with the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council, is pictured in Lytton First Nation territory on March 30, in an area impacted by the 2025 Izman Creek fire. Photo by Aaron Hemens
Brown was one of more than a dozen experts and technicians drawn from the realm of Indigenous fire stewardship — from researchers to Indigenous land managers and fire practitioners — who gave panel talks at the Salish Fire Keepers Society “Reigniting The Land” spring assembly on March 17 and 18. Around 100 people attended in-person in Tk’emlúps (Kamloops) in Secwepemcúl’ecw, with more tuning in virtually.
The panel discussions ranged from protecting cultural heritage sites and values in the event of wildfire, to the experiences of Youth engaged in cultural burning and different approaches to land management post-wildfire.
While honouring the work of their ancestors and the efforts by Indigenous fire keepers in recent decades, the gathering also gave insight into the role that Indigenous Youth are having in the future of fire stewardship and emergency response.
Resources around building capacity for community-based fire stewardship and emergency response initiatives were also highlighted, and there was dialogue in bridging opportunity gaps between BC Wildfire Service and Indigenous communities.
“We need to collaborate with our people. We need to share. We gotta look at those imaginary lines and get rid of those, and work together,” said George Campbell, a Nlaka’pamux Nation member from the Boothroyd Indian Band, who is a wildfire officer for the Fraser Fire Zone for BC Wildfire Service’s Coastal Fire Centre.
George Campbell, right, a Nlaka’pamux Nation member from the Boothroyd Indian Band and wildfire officer for the Fraser Fire Zone for BCWS’s Coastal Fire Centre, is pictured during a prescribed burn in his home community in May 2024. Photo by Aaron Hemens
Fire Keepers Society brings nations together to share knowledge
Comprised of Elders, Youth, knowledge holders and fire keepers from Salish communities — including the Nlakaʼpamux, syilx, Secwepemc and Stʼatʼimc Nations — the Fire Keepers Society is a grassroots initiative that started in 2016 as a means to promote awareness around culturally prescribed burns throughout the province.
The society annually hosts a spring and fall gathering, where they aim to build connections between Indigenous nations by sharing knowledge, and promoting and supporting fire stewardship opportunities in different communities.
“We as nations, need to be working together,” said Tiffany Traverse, a Secwepemc Nation member who serves as one of the society’s board of directors.
“We have shared territories. We have shared family members and family lineages.”
Salish Fire Keepers Society founding members Craig Shintah, left, and Joe Gilchrist, were honoured with a blanket ceremony that was led by the Stʼatʼimc Bear Dancers group during the opening of the group’s 2026 spring gathering on March 17. Photo by Aaron Hemens
Fellow board director Darian Edwards, a Stʼatʼimc Nation member from Tsʼkwʼaylaxw First Nation, said that the society is looking to build support and create opportunities for Indigenous Youth around fire stewardship initiatives in their respective communities.
“Youth are going to be taking over the work. They are going to be stewarding our lands after us,” said Edwards.
A century of fire suppression
Before settler colonialism outlawed the use of fire on the land through legislation such as the provincial Bush Fire Act of 1874, Interior Salish Nations had been prescribing fire to the land for thousands of years.
Burn cycles were designed to nurture/support certain landscapes and ecosystems, often to sustain diversity for hunting areas and to promote the growth of berries and medicinal plants — which all supported various ceremonial purposes.
This work of regular burning ultimately helped to maintain the ecological health of the land by limiting overgrowth and mitigating fuels.
However, settlers and their rapid fire suppression practices effectively removed fire from the ecosystem in the last century. This has resulted in the spread of trees across landscapes that were not historically forested, all of which has led to the accumulation of wildfire fuels and debris across landscapes.
“Those managing forestry are not aware of the historical ecology of our lands and how they were changed through a century of fire suppression and how they were afforested,” said Jennifer Grenz, a Lytton First Nation member who is a restoration ecologist and assistant professor at the University of British Columbia.
In the past, she noted, “so much of our territories didn’t have trees all over them.”
“They were not meant to be these high-density, single or two species tree plantations that they were transformed into,” she said.
Jennifer Grenz, a Lytton First Nation member who is a restoration ecologist and assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, speaks at the Salish Fire Keepers Society’s 2026 spring gathering in March. Photo by Aaron Hemens
Grenz made the comments during her panel presentation on the restoration work she conducted following the 2021 McKay Creek wildfire that broke out near Lilloet in St’at’imc territory.
Last summer, four years after the fire, she and a team of researchers found that burned landscapes are at risk of invasion by fast-growing, fire-prone invasive species of grasses.
However, they also identified historic berry-gathering areas that had once been cultivated and maintained by Indigenous people.
These sites were sprouting in locations that were impacted by the fire, and did not see any human intervention efforts post-fire.
“Several areas have managed to survive being forested for tree plantations and these mega-fires to remind us of these very large areas that people created — that our people created,” she said.
While many of these areas are recovering on their own post-fire, she noted that “those are the first places that we’re seeing tree planting occurring.”
“The provincial government is going in and planting on top of these areas,” she said.
“This is where I really feel like there’s a really important piece for us to take back greater territorial land management, and find these areas and assert them, as these are our historic berry gathering areas, food areas. And we don’t want to find trees planted on top of them.”
Grenz said that Indigenous communities know that the mega-fires of today “are not our fires.”
“This is just a totally different level of trying to figure out what to do next,” she said.
‘It’s really important to expose our Youth to this work in a good way’
During a panel discussion led by three Indigenous Youth, Skuppah Indian Band member Amber Wilber from the Nlaka’pamux Nation said that there’s a lot of trauma in her community around fire, especially among Youth.
Skuppah Indian Band is located just two kilometres south of the Village of Lytton, which was the site of a devastating wildfire that swept through the area in 2021 and burned down 90 per cent of the village. Nearly five years after the fire, communities in the area, such as Lytton First Nation, are still in the process of rebuilding their homes and infrastructure.
An aerial view of the Village of Lytton in Nlaka’pamux Territory on March 30. Photo by Aaron Hemens
“I’d love to see that fear of fire shift to a respect for fire — learning that fire can be a tool that we can use to manage our land, and help bring balance to it, instead of something to be feared,” said Wilber, who is in her second year working with the BC Wildfire Service.
Wilber said growing up, she used to watch from inside her family home as her dad and grandpa burned patches of land outside to support berry harvesting. She would later help her uncle with fuel management work — it was her uncle who taught her that the practice is “an important tool that brings balance to the ecosystem.”
“Not only when it comes to fire prevention and fire management, but also, creating balance in an ecosystem for birds, for elk as well, in our local area. Making way for them to travel through our forests, and giving birds good nesting places,” Wilber explained.
“We also use fuel management and cultural burning in our area as a way to knock down the tick population, because they can be quite pesty in the spring.”
Indigenous Youth panelists speak at the Salish Fire Keepers Society’s 2026 spring gathering’s opening day on March 17. From left to right: Santana Dreaver, a Saulteaux and Plains Cree journalist who works with The Narwhal and IndigiNews; Takoda Castonguay, the assistant executive director of Oskâpêwis Gladue Services from the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation; and Amber Wilber, a Skuppah Indian Band member working with BC Wildfire Service. Photo by Aaron Hemens
She described this experience as a young person practicing and revitalizing fire stewardship knowledge in her community as “eye-opening.”
“It’s really ignited a connection to the land in a way that I don’t think I ever would’ve gotten anywhere else,” she said.
“It’s very unique, and it makes me have a lot of appreciation for traditions and cultures. It makes me feel connected to my ancestors in a big way.”
She advised Indigenous Youth to get involved in cultural burning “in any way you can” — from listening to family members, to seeking out fire keepers in their communities.
For the more seasoned fire keepers in the room, she encouraged them to involve their Youth in burns, no matter the size of the fire.
“Bring them out, even if it’s just a small job,” she said.
“It’s really important to expose our Youth to this work in a good way. And let them see your mistakes as well. … Later on, they’ll have that experience, too. They’ll have more grace for you and understanding. It’ll help them feel a little more humanized as well.”
A workbook to educate on cultural burns
Last summer, the First Nations’ Emergency Services Society (FNESS) and the Indigenous Leadership Initiative (ILI) released their “Worksheets To Create A Cultural Burn Pathway” workbook, which is both a physical and digital resource designed to guide Indigenous Nations in creating cultural burn programs within their community.
The workbook is the product of multi-years of community based-research, where more than 50 Elders and knowledge keepers were consulted, with additional input coming from gatherings and workshops.
Jaci Gilbert, a prescribed fire specialist with FNESS from the Secwépemc and Tsilhqot’in Nations, contributed to the workbook and gave a presentation about it during the Fire Keepers’ gathering.
“The aim of the workbook is to help nations navigate cultural burning with the impacts of climate change. We are not seeing the indicators that we’re used to, or seeing them at different times that don’t align with our burn windows,” said Gilbert.
“We hope that this workbook will help nations do burning in this new time.”
The workbook is divided into seven worksheets. The ILI, however, recognizes on their website that, “cultural fire is culture and location specific. So instead of a prescriptive approach, each worksheet poses a set of questions and prompts that can be answered collectively.”
Around 100 people attended in-person, with more turning in virtually, for the Salish Fire Keepers Society’s 2026 “Reigniting The Land” spring gathering in Tk’emlúps (Kamloops) in Secwepemcúl’ecw on March 17 and 18. Photo by Aaron Hemens
Amy Cardinal Christianson, a Cree-Métis senior fire advisor for ILI, helped lead the development of the workbook.
She appeared virtually at the gathering, and said that the workbook has been used by Indigenous land guardian programs, such as the Kainai Nation’s (Blood Tribe) fire guardian program.
“It’s a really easy resource to use for communities. It also talks a lot about the importance of governance,” said Christianson.
She said that Indigenous fire stewardship is not just limited to culturally prescribed burns.
“Yes, culturally burning – but it can also be firefighting; emergency response; post-fire recovery,” she said.
“It’s any activity where Indigenous people are asserting their jurisdiction and exercising their rights related to fire on the land.”
The post Before wildfire season begins again, Indigenous fire keepers gather to share knowledge appeared first on Indiginews.
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Last month, President Trump sat alongside executives of the largest tech companies in the country as they pledged to pay a fair share of the energy costs of their data center buildout. “Data centers … they need some PR help,” Trump said at the gathering. “People think that if the data center goes in, their electricity is going to go up.”
It’s not an entirely unfounded assumption.
As the tech industry has funneled billions of dollars into the AI boom over the last several years, it has simultaneously been expanding its fleet of computing powerhouses, which require vast amounts of energy to run. These facilities have been cropping up all over the country, from rural communities in eastern Pennsylvania to the cities of northern Utah.
This boom coincides with a dramatic rise in U.S. electricity prices, driven by inflation and the rising cost of adapting to wildfires, hurricanes, and other extreme weather. But these massive facilities have also strained the grid — and in some cases — contributed to rising prices. For instance, last year, an independent monitor for PJM, the grid operator that serves 13 northeastern states and Washington, D.C., projected that powering data centers would result in higher electricity generation costs, which would ultimately be passed on to consumers. And in cases where the buildout hasn’t yet led to price hikes, utilities and grid operators expect that it’s just a matter of time if tech companies follow through on their plans. Indeed, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimates that with data center electricity demand expected to double in the next five years, wholesale power prices could rise by as much as 50 percent.
Residents picket DTE Energy in Detroit, opposing the electric utility’s plan to provide power for a proposed $7 billion data center in rural Michigan. Jim West / UCG / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
At a time when the cost of living has become untenable for many Americans, and consumers are setting aside ever greater shares of their income to pay energy bills, the possibility of further rate hikes to line the pockets of tech companies has prompted a massive backlash across the country. The White House gathering of tech executives appeared to be a response to the backlash. On March 4 at the event, they signed onto the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge.”
The pledge itself has few specifics or teeth. It’s a voluntary agreement by several prominent tech companies — including Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon — to secure their own power for data centers, pay for any powerlines or other infrastructure that utilities may need to build to move that power, and hire locally from the communities they build in. While in theory the agreement could help prevent Americans from having to bear the cost of the data center expansion, the White House hasn’t set up oversight mechanisms to ensure that they do. Several consumer and environmental advocates called the agreement “meaningless,” “unenforceable,” and ultimately, “nonsense.”
The United States has become ground zero for the global data center boom. The rapid buildout has left developers, tech companies, and the utility industry scrambling to secure more power. As a result, the wait for a data center to connect to the grid can be years in many parts of the country. Hyperscalers — companies that operate large data centers and provide vast computing power — have been trying to get around these wait times by signing long-term power purchase agreements with solar developers, building their own natural gas plants, and even retrofitting jet engines to generate electricity.
“Every single data center in the future will be power limited,” said NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang last year. “We are now a power‑limited industry.”
Outside of the White House, utilities, local regulators, and lawmakers have also been proposing various solutions to address the community backlash and allow for the continued building of more data centers. Some have implemented measures requiring data centers to pay the costs of generating and moving the electricity they use. Others have suggested that data center developers install solar and battery systems on-site, or that rates should be frozen for residents while utilities figure out how to handle the additional costs. And at least 11 states are considering legislation to temporarily ban new data centers while their impact on electricity prices and other concerns are addressed.
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, second from right, speaks during a news conference in November to announce Google’s $40 billion investment in Texas at the Google Data Center in Midlothian.
Chitose Suzuki / The Dallas Morning News via Getty Images
“You’re seeing states try to move quickly,” said Meghan Pazik, a senior policy associate in Public Citizen’s climate program. But “every state’s going to have a different approach to how far they want to go on data centers.”
Many states are utilizing additional tariffs for data centers and other customers that pull large amounts of power from the grid. These facilities — referred to as “large load customers” — are required to pay more to make up for the added infrastructure costs that come with supplying them, as well as the risk if they end up walking away from the project, which would leave consumers on the hook for the investments. More than 30 states have proposed or implemented measures of this sort.
Some hyperscalers are changing their approaches, too. In Minnesota, Google inked a deal with Xcel Energy, the state’s largest investor-owned utility, to bring 1,900 megawatts of clean energy onto the grid. The company is fully funding wind turbines, solar panels, and battery storage, as well as the costs of grid infrastructure upgrades to serve its data centers. And in Louisiana, Meta signed a deal with Entergy to help fund the construction of seven natural gas plants, more than 200 miles of transmission lines, and battery systems, among other infrastructure upgrades.
A recent report from the Searchlight Institute, a policy think tank, argues that this piecemeal approach to regulating the tech industry misses an opportunity to fund a large-scale upgrade of the grid. Although the surge in demand has largely been framed as a looming crisis, the report contends that the boom also creates a rare policy window: a chance to modernize the country’s electrical system and make long-delayed investments needed for the clean energy transition.
High voltage power lines run through a sub-station in Miami, Florida in January. Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Utilities make roughly $35 billion in investments in transmission infrastructure every year — far short of what’s actually needed. Electricity demand is projected to double or triple in the next 25 years. The Searchlight Institute report proposes creating a dedicated grid infrastructure fund to accelerate the expansion. Under the plan, hyperscalers would pay into the fund in exchange for speedy connections. Money from the fund would be directed to utilities and other companies to build out the system, prioritizing clean energy along the way. And consumer and environmental advocates, along with other policymakers, would oversee the process to ensure funds are being distributed equitably and serve the needs of the public.
Such a mechanism would ensure increased investments in clean energy, rather than the natural gas projects many tech companies are currently backing, while protecting consumers from increases in electricity prices.
“The hyperscalers need power,” said Jane Flegal, a senior fellow at the Searchlight Institute and author of the report. “They have a ton of capital. And rather than letting them continue to cut these one-off deals with utilities, we’ve got to find a better way to take advantage of the potential upside here and avoid the downside of them basically building a secondary grid behind the existing grid that benefits only them.”
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Data centers are straining the grid. Can they be forced to pay for it? on Apr 6, 2026.
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Amelia Schafer
ICT
RAPID CITY, S.D. – Allison Renville, a Native American running for South Dakota governor, is pulling out of the race.
Renville, Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota, announced in a press release on Feb. 27 that her campaign will be “dissolving,” citing financial uncertainty.
“Running for public office should not require personal wealth or access to elite networks. What I’m going through is just like every other American.” Renville said in the statement. “When candidates with lived experience of housing instability and working-class struggles can’t sustain campaigns, it proves the system is not designed for the common person.”
Although publicly suspending her campaign, Renville has yet to file to officially dissolve her candidacy, according to the South Dakota Secretary of State’s website. The deadline to do so is April 28 for independent candidates.
Through her public Facebook page, Renville has openly discussed financial struggles facing her and her family, ultimately causing her to dissolve her campaign.
Renville’s campaign was centered on her support for strengthening public institutions, tribal sovereignty, governmental transparency and access to healthcare.
The post Allison Renville announces she’s ending South Dakota gubernatorial campaign appeared first on ICT.
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‘A different set of rules’: Thermal drone footage shows Musk’s AI power plant flouting clean air regulations
(grist.org)
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company is continuing to fuel its data centers with unpermitted gas turbines, according to a Floodlight visual investigation. Thermal drone footage shows xAI is still burning gas at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi, despite a recent Environmental Protection Agency ruling reiterating that doing so requires a state permit in advance.
State regulators in Mississippi maintain that since the turbines are parked on tractor trailers, they don’t require permits. However, the EPA has long required that such pollution sources be permitted under the Clean Air Act.
Any exemption for these machines “could leave these engines subject to no emission standards at all,” the agency wrote in a January final ruling.
However, thermal images captured by Floodlight — and analyzed by multiple experts — show more than a dozen unpermitted turbines still spewing pollutants at the plant nearly two weeks after the EPA’s recent ruling.
“That is a violation of the law,” said Bruce Buckheit, a former EPA air enforcement chief, after reviewing Floodlight’s images and EPA regulations.
Thermal drone footage shows unpermitted turbines operating at xAI’s gas plant in Southaven, Mississippi, nearly two weeks after the EPA ruled such turbines require permits before they can run. (Evan Simon / Floodlight)
xAI, which is seeking permits for dozens more turbines in Southaven, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The EPA, which under Trump has initiated a record low number of enforcement actions, declined to answer questions about the turbines at Musk’s AI facilities and referred to local authorities on permits.
The first and only public hearing on the matter is scheduled for February 17, and the public comment period is still open.
The Trump administration has made AI a priority, but as data centers proliferate across the country, regulators are struggling to keep pace with the industry’s increasing reliance on custom-built power sources and their public health impacts on surrounding communities. And Southaven, where state regulators are at odds with federal guidance, is a prime example.
xAI parked 27 unpermitted turbines in the suburban city of Southaven, Mississippi, to power the company’s nearby data center. Evan Simon / Floodlight
The turbines there help power Grok, the company’s controversial chatbot, and emit harmful pollutants linked to health problems such as asthma, lung cancer, and heart attacks.
“The risk of living next to this type of power plant is well documented,” said Shaolei Ren, a University of California, Riverside associate professor who specializes in the health impacts of data centers. “From the health perspective, we know that this is not good.”
Southaven residents have voiced concerns for months over the noise and pollution emanating from the 114-acre site that is largely hidden from public view — a site xAI is looking to expand.
“For them to be releasing so much pollution in such a populated area, not to mention that there are at least ten schools within a two-mile radius of the facility, is really concerning,” said longtime resident Shannon Samsa. “It’s horrifying to me that we’re allowing this in our community.”
From Memphis to Mississippi
The Southaven turbine cluster is part of xAi’s rapidly growing footprint along the Tennessee-Mississippi border. That expansion began in the spring of 2024 in South Memphis, next to historically Black neighborhoods, with the construction of Colossus 1, which the company touted as the world’s largest AI supercomputer.
The Southern Environmental Law Center released thermal images in April revealing that xAi had been operating more than 30 unpermitted gas-powered turbines at that site.
“We were hopeful that the health department would step in,” said Patrick Anderson, a senior attorney at the SELC. “That never happened.”
County officials in Tennessee maintained the turbines did not require a permit despite longstanding EPA policy that they do. In July, amid local pushback, the county permitted 15 turbines for use at Colossus 1.
On January 15, the EPA reiterated its decades-old policy that such machines need a permit. By then, xAi had already built a second data center in the area, Colossus 2. To power it, the company parked 27 turbines just across the stateline in Southaven, Mississippi, a diverse suburb of Memphis with higher-than-average levels of air pollution.
“When you’re talking about these turbines, think of the jet engine,” said Buckheit.
Thermal drone imagery captured by Floodlight in late January shows some of the 15 permitted turbines operating at xAI’s Colossus 1. Evan Simon / Floodlight
Despite the EPA’s recent directive, Floodlight’s thermal imagery — analyzed by multiple experts — shows 15 unpermitted turbines in operation at Southaven. Public records obtained by Floodlight show 18 of the 27 turbines have been used since November, at least.
“One might easily have expected, since this has been going on for some months, at least [issue a] stop work order,” said Buckheit, who served during the Republican administrations of Gerald Ford and George W. Bush. He also said the EPA could refer the case to the Department of Justice.
“But apparently that didn’t happen.”
xAI’s gas plant in Southaven, Mississippi, has been operating unpermitted turbines since at least November to power the company’s nearby datacenter, according to documents obtained by Floodlight. Evan Simon / Floodlight
Playing by a different set of rules
An EPA spokesperson did not answer Floodlight’s questions relating to its enforcement options, instead saying, “EPA does not approve the operation of gas turbines at facilities, that would be the state or local air permitting authority.”
Air permits are traditionally handled by state agencies. However, according to its own website, the EPA is responsible for making sure these agencies comply with federal regulations and “generally will take enforcement action” if a state government fails to “take timely and appropriate action.”
xAI “violated the Clean Air Act the first time, and now they’re gonna copy and paste and do it again,” said Anderson. “I maybe had some naive hope that the regulators who are most in the day-to-day business of implementing the Clean Air Act in Mississippi would do the right thing.”
In response to Floodlight’s questions, a spokesperson from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality said the EPA’s recent rule leaves permitting decisions to state authorities.
“The turbines currently operating at the Southaven facility are classified as portable/mobile units under state law and therefore remain exempt from air permitting requirements during this temporary period,” they said. “Nothing in the EPA’s January 15 rule altered that determination under Mississippi regulations.”
An asthmatic, Krystal Polk said she was forced to empty out the home that’s been in her family for generations and cancel her plans to retire there out of concerns for her health after xAI began operating gas powered turbines directly across the street from her property. Evan Simon / Floodight
Longtime resident Krystal Polk said she had no idea xAI was coming to Southaven until black fences were set up across the street from her house. The area, she said, was once quiet and serene, with an abundance of wildlife, but is now bombarded by ceaseless noise and pollution.
“I do feel like xAi is playing by a different set of rules,” she said.
An asthmatic, Polk said she was forced to empty out the home that’s been in her family for generations and cancel her plans to retire there out of concerns for her health.
“We are a casualty of the whole data center race,” she said. “I feel that my voice doesn’t matter.”
The spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality said the agency takes public concern around emissions, noise, and overall quality of life seriously, and though the turbines — in their view — do not require permits, all “applicable air quality standards still apply.”
Krystal Polk’s family home (foreground) sits directly across the street from xAI’s gas plant in Southaven, Mississippi. Evan Simon / Floodlight
AI’s increasing thirst for fossil fuels
Despite lofty sustainability goals put forward by industry leaders, data centers across the country are increasingly turning to fossil fuels to power the AI boom by using custom-built power plants like the ones seen in Southaven.
Roughly 75 percent of this power comes from natural gas, according to a recent report by CleanView, which tracks clean energy and data center projects.
“Nearly every project we reviewed mentions renewables, hydrogen, or nuclear in its public announcements,” the author wrote, but renewables aren’t scheduled until 2028 or later.
And “nuclear is a decade away,” he said.
Now, xAI is seeking to expand in Southaven, applying in January for a permit to operate 41 turbines at the site.
The facility could emit more than 6 million tons of greenhouse gases and over 1,300 tons of health-harming air pollutants every year, according to xAI’s permit application. That would make it among the largest fossil fuel power plants in the state. The company also purchased property in Southaven for a third data center that, when completed, will make the Colossus cluster — spanning Memphis to Southaven — one of the largest data center complexes in the world.
Shannon Samsa, a physician’s assistant, had hoped to raise a family in Southaven, but the presence of xAi’s gas-powered turbines has made her and her husband reconsider. Evan Simon / Floodlight
“It would be devastating,” said Samsa, the Southaven resident. “No community in their right mind would want something like this in their backyards.”
Samsa, a physician’s assistant, had hoped to raise a family in Southaven, but the presence of xAi’s gas-powered turbines has made her and her husband reconsider. She has helped collect more than 1,000 signatures for a petition demanding Mississippi authorities shut down the plant.
“I don’t want my children to be growing up around such massive amounts of air pollution,” she said. “I don’t want them to have to live in a place where their health and their overall well-being are not considered over economics.”
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘A different set of rules’: Thermal drone footage shows Musk’s AI power plant flouting clean air regulations on Feb 21, 2026.
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Kevin Abourezk
ICT
MINNEAPOLIS – The metallic rattling of jingle dresses broke the cold winter air Sunday as Native dancers and singers gathered in a residential street before the memorial for Renée Good.
More than a hundred people gathered for a round dance to honor Good, a 37-year-old writer and mother of three who was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Jan. 7 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross.
The ceremony then moved to the site of the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who was shot multiple times and killed by two immigration agents on Jan. 24 about a mile-and-a-half from where Good was killed.
“We’re here to stand with the immigrants and anyone that’s affected by ICE and what this administration has been doing to the United States,” said Star Ishkode Downwind, a Red Lake Nation activist.
Sharyl WhiteHawk, Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe, sang and offered a prayer.
“The spirits said, ‘Sing this song before you do your prayers. The times that are coming are going to get really hard and the people are going to need strong prayers,’” she said. “I think that’s appropriate for today.”
Women laugh following a round dance and prayer ceremony held at the site of Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Native activists hosted the event to honor the lives of Renée Good and Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
A woman walks to the site of Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Native activists held a ceremony to honor the lives of Renée Good and Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
A woman hands out tobacco to participants of a ceremony held at the site of Renée Good’s killing in Minneapolis. The event was meant to honor the lives of Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
Native youth hold posters at the site of Alex Pretti’s killing by federal agents in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Native activists held a ceremony to honor the lives of Pretty and Renée Good, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
Women take part in a ceremony held on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, at the site of Renée Good’s killing in Minneapolis. The event was meant to honor the lives of Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
A woman burns sage to purify, or smudge, participants of a ceremony held on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, to honor the lives of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
Women take part in a ceremony held on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, at the site of Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis. The event was meant to honor the lives of Renée Good and Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
Women take part in a ceremony held on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, at the site of Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis. The event was meant to honor the lives of Renée Good and Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
A dancer unloads her car before a memorial at the site of Renée Good’s killing in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Native activists held a ceremony to honor the lives of Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
Two women prepare to take part in a round dance in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Native activists held a ceremony to honor the lives of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
Women take part in a round dance in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, before the site of Renée Good’s killing. Native activists held a ceremony to honor the lives of Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
Women take part in a round dance in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, before the site of Renée Good’s killing. Native activists held a ceremony to honor the lives of Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
A woman takes part in a round dance in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, before the site of Alex Pretti’s killing. Native activists held a ceremony to honor the lives of Renée Good and Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
Women dance before the site of Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Native activists held a ceremony to honor the lives of Renée Good and Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
A woman dances during a round dance held before the site of Renée Good’s killing in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Native activists held a ceremony to the honor the lives of Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents.(Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
A man hoists the American Indian Movement flag before the site of Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Native activists held a ceremony to honor the lives of Renée Good and Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
People waved signs that read: “ICE Out.” “No One is Illegal on Stolen Land.” Others wore jackets with patches that read “American Indian Movement” and “ICE Out of Mni Sota Makoce.” Women wore red ribbons skirts embroidered with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives symbols including red hands. Others wore red shawls.
Nicole Matthews, chief executive officer of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, said the shawls were meant to represent solidarity and raise awareness of the epidemic of violence against Native people.
“We are here in solidarity to bring healing, to be with our community and to also say, ‘No more,’” she said. “We want ICE off our streets. We want our neighbors to feel safe to come out of their homes.”
Tara Geshik, secretary-treasurer of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, spoke about Good and Pretti and about the need to honor their memories with acts of justice and kindness.
“Both gave this city, this community, this state, gifts that will not fade,” she said. “May their names be carried in prayer and their memories kept in our heart. May we live in a way that honors them with compassion, justice and unity.”
The event ended in front of a donut shop and thrift store where Pretti was killed. A drum group sang the AIM song during which the jingle dress dancers war whooped and those in attendance shouted in affirmation.
A woman stands at the site of Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. Native activists held a ceremony to honor the lives of Renée Good and Pretti, who were killed by federal agents. (Kevin Abourezk / ICT)
Lesley, a Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe woman, told ICT that she danced Sunday to honor Pretti, who worked at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs hospital, where her father received treatment.
“He could’ve been one of my dad’s nurses,” she said. “Who else would stand up and do these things?”
The post Honoring Renée Good, Alex Pretti with ceremony appeared first on ICT.
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21
Amelia Schafer
ICT
Jose Roberto “Beto” Ramirez found himself sitting in the back of a blacked out Ford SUV, his hands cuffed behind his back as immigration agents mocked and teased him Thursday morning.
The 20-year-old was forcibly detained by ICE agents despite being a United States citizen and a Red Lake Nation descendant.
It had been less than 24 hours after immigration agents shot and killed a 37-year-old mother on the southside of Minneapolis, near a historically significant neighborhood for Indigenous peoples to be in community, sparking protests across the nation.
Ramirez was on his way to his aunt Shawntia Sosa-Clara’s house in Crystal, Minnesota, from McDonald’s when he noticed he was being tailed by a blacked out SUV.
With Renee Good’s death in the back of his mind, he began to panic.
Filled with anxiety, he called his aunt for advice. She told him to pull over at a nearby grocery store and wait for her.
In the HyVee grocery store parking lot, a video from Sosa-Clara’s Facebook shows agents striking Ramirez multiple times on his head and face and dragging him out of his aunt’s vehicle.
Ramirez said his phone was slapped out of his hand by an agent before the agent began to repeatedly strike him on his face and neck.
“I was complying with them and they just started acting crazy,” he told ICT. “They were trying to make it seem like I’m some kind of murder, like I did something wrong.”
Ramirez said multiple times he tried informing the agents he was a US citizen and a descendant of a federally recognized tribe, but his words fell on deaf ears, he said.
“I felt like I was kidnapped,” he said.
It’s been more than 24 hours since his detainment, Ramirez still had bruises on his wrists and the back of his neck. His handcuffs were too tight, he said, and every time the agent’s vehicle breaked he’d be sent flying forward, further tugging on the handcuffs.
Once he arrived at the B.H. Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Ramirez said he had to wait more than three hours outside in the cold. The only available bathroom, a porta potty, was locked. He had no access to food or water and his sweatshirt had been ripped when he was dragged out of his aunt’s car.
Once he was inside, agents questioned him, he said. They told him he had allegedly assaulted an officer who had since been sent to the hospital and that charges against him were pending. He was told he’d be sent to federal prison for this and that he’d ruined his life, he said.
At no point was he informed of why he was trailed by officers or apprehended.
As of Friday, no assault charges have been filed against Ramirez. ICE has not responded to ICT’s requests for comment regarding why Ramirez was detained.
Other community members have reported agents stopping them without reason and requesting identification.
Friday morning, on the southside of Minneapolis, Rachel Dionne-Thunder, who is Plains Cree and the co-founder of Indigenous Protectors Movement, said ICE agents stopped her and questioned her near the Powwow Grounds coffee shop.
Dionne-Thunder said she locked her vehicle doors when agents approached her and knew from prior Know Your Rights training that she did not need to comply with agents’ orders to show her ID or exit the vehicle.
“They don’t give you a reason [why they’re stopping you],” she said. “They just do it… They arrest and then they ask questions later.”
Several Native community members exited the coffee shop and came towards Dionne-Thunder’s car, after which the agents got back in their vehicles and left.
In a Friday press conference with Dionne-Thunder, community leaders, and The Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors, which is a coalition of urban Native organizations, they urged ICE to leave the city and stop harassing the Indigenous community. The group said that a task force of on-the-ground organizers will be patrolling the community to ensure safety.
Nearly a day after he was freed and bruises remaining from detainment, Ramirez says he’s still shocked by Thursday’s events.
“I’m nervous to go out now,” he said. “My auntie [Sosa-Clara] especially, she’s really traumatized. I feel bad that I involved her but calling her, I felt safe. She’s my go-to person. She doesn’t even want to go outside. She doesn’t want to send her kids to school.”
Ramirez said while he was waiting in the Whipple building, he met with a public defender and was released not long after.
Eventually Ramirez was released around 5:33 p.m. Central Time, a little over six and a half hours after he was initially detained.
“I thought I was going to be locked up for weeks,” he said. “They told me they were sending me two hours away to Sherbourne County.”
At home, he was greeted by his little cousins, aunts and uncles.
“There’s a lot of things going through my mind,” he said. “It was a crazy experience.”
Editor’s note: ICT identifies Ramirez as a descendant of the Red Lake Nation because his maternal great-grandparents were both enrolled members of the Red Lake Nation.
The post ‘I felt like I was kidnapped’: Ojibwe man recounts ICE detainment appeared first on ICT.
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On Friday morning, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that would get the Department of Energy out of the business of energy standards for mobile homes — also known as manufactured homes — and could set the efficiency requirements back decades.
Advocates say the changes will streamline the regulatory process and keep the upfront costs of manufactured homes down. Critics argue that less efficient homes will cost people more money overall, and mostly benefit builders.
“This is not about poor people. This is not about working people,” said Melanie Stansbury (D-NM), who grew up in a manufactured home, on the House floor before the vote. “This is about doing the bidding of corporations.”
The average income of a manufactured home resident is around $40,000 and they “already face disproportionately high energy costs and energy use,” said Johanna Neumann, senior director of the Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy at Environment America. That, she said, is why more stringent energy codes are so important. But the Energy Department, which oversees national energy policy and production, didn’t always have a say over these standards.
Starting in 1974, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, became tasked with setting building codes for manufactured homes. But HUD last updated the relevant energy efficiency standards in 1994, and they have long lagged behind modern insulation and weatherization practices. So, in 2007, Congress assigned that task to the Department of Energy. It still took 15 years and a lawsuit before President Joe Biden’s administration finalized new rules in 2022 that were projected to reduce utility bills in double-wide manufactured homes by an average of $475 a year. Even with higher upfront costs taken into account, the government predicted around $5 billion in avoided energy bills over 30-years.
At the time, the manufactured housing industry argued that DoE’s calculations were wrong and that, regardless, the upfront cost of the home should be the primary metric of affordability. Both the Biden and now Trump administrations have delayed implementation of the rule and compliance deadlines, which still aren’t in effect.
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This house legislation would eliminate the DoE rule and return sole regulatory authority to HUD. Lesli Gooch, CEO of the Manufactured Housing Institute, a trade organization, describes it as essentially a process bill aimed at removing bureaucracy that has stood in the way of action.The paralysis is because you have two different agencies that have been tasked with creating energy standards,” Gooch said. “You can’t build a house to two different sets of blueprints.”
Jake Auchincloss, a democrat from Massachusetts, agreed and called the move “common-sense regulatory reform” in a letter urging his colleagues to support the bill. Ultimately 57 democrats joined 206 republicans in voting for the bill — and it now moves to the Senate, where its prospects are uncertain.
If the bill becomes law, however, the only operative benchmark would be HUD’s 1994 code and it could take years to make a new one. While more than half of the roughly 100,000 homes sold in the U.S. each year already meet or exceed the DoE’s 2022 efficiency rules, ACEEE estimates that tens of thousands are still built to just the outdated standard.
“Families are struggling,” said Mark Kresowik, senior policy director at the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and he does not expect HUD, under Trump, to move particularly quickly on a fix. “I have not seen this administration lowering energy bills.”
For now, though, it’s the Senate’s turn to weigh in.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Mobile homes already have huge utility bills. Congress may make it worse. on Jan 9, 2026.
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The Miccosukee Tribe blocked Alligator Alcatraz. Then Trump blocked a bill to return their land.
(grist.org)
On Thursday, Republicans in the House failed to override President Donald Trump’s first two vetoes in office: a pipeline project that would bring safe drinking water to rural Colorado, and another that would return land to the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians in Florida. Their inability to block the president’s move signals their commitment to the White House over their prior support for the measures.
The Miccosukee have always considered the Florida Everglades as their home. So when Republicans in Congress voted to expand the tribe’s land base under the Miccosukee Reserved Area Act – legislation that would transfer 30 acres of land in the Everglades to tribal control – the Miccosukee were thrilled. After years of work, the move would have allowed the tribe to begin environmental restoration activities in the area, and better protect it from climate change impacts as extreme flooding and tropical storms threaten the land.
A portion of the Miccosukee Indian Reservation in Florida’s Everglades known as a tree island, Thursday, July, 11, 2024. Rebecca Blackwell / AP Photo
“The measure reflected years of bipartisan work and was intended to clarify land status and support basic protections for tribal members who have lived in this area for generations,” wrote Chairman Cypress in a statement last week. “Before the roads and canals were built, and before Everglades National Park was created.”
The act was passed on December 11th, but on December 30th, President Donald Trump vetoed it; one of only two vetoes made by the administration since he took office. In a statement, Trump explained that the tribe “actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected,” after the tribe’s July lawsuit challenging the construction of “Alligator Alcatraz”, an immigration detention center in the Everglades.
“It is rare for an administration to veto a bill for reasons wholly unrelated to the merits of the bill,” said Kevin Washburn, a law professor at University of California Berkeley Law and former assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs for the Department of the Interior. Washburn added that while denying land return to a tribe is a political act, Trump’s move is “highly unusual.”
When a tribe regains land, the process can be long and costly. The process, known as “land into trust” transfers land title from a tribe to the United States, where the land is then held for the benefit of the tribe and establishes tribal jurisdiction over the land in question. When tribal nations signed treaties in the 19th century ceding land, any lands reserved for tribes, generally, reservations, were held by the federal government “in trust” for the benefit of tribes—meaning tribal nations don’t own these lands despite their sovereign status.
Almost all land into trust requests are facilitated at an administrative level by the Department of Interior. The Miccosukee, however, generally must follow a different process. Recognized as a tribal nation by the federal government in 1962, the Miccosukee navigate a unique structure for acquiring tribal land where these requests are made through Congress via legislation instead of by Interior.
“It’s ironic, right?” said Matthew Fletcher, a law professor at the University of Michigan. “You’re acquiring land that your colonizer probably took from you a long time ago and then gave it away to or sold it to someone else, and then years later, you’re buying that land back that was taken from you illegally, at a great expense.”
While land into trust applications related to tribal gaming operations often meet opposition, Fletcher says applications, like the Miccosukee’s, are usually frictionless. And in cases like the Miccosukee Reserved Area Act which received bipartisan support at the state and federal levels, in trust applications are all but guaranteed.
On the House floor on Thursday before the vote, Florida’s Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz said “this bill is so narrowly focused that [the veto] makes absolutely no sense other than the interest in vengeance that seems to have emanated in this result.” The bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida, did not respond to requests for comment. In July last year, Gimenez referred to the Miccosukee Tribe as stewards of the Everglades, sponsoring the bill as a way to manage water flow and advance an elevation project, under protection from the Department of Interior, for the village to avert “catastrophic flooding.”
“What you’re asking is for people in the same political party of the guy who just vetoed this thing to affirmatively reject the political decision of the President,” Fletcher said.
The tribe is unlikely to see its village project materialize under Trump’s second term unless the outcome of this year’s midterms invites a Democratic-controlled House and Senate. Studies show that the return of land to tribes provides the best outcomes for the climate.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The Miccosukee Tribe blocked Alligator Alcatraz. Then Trump blocked a bill to return their land. on Jan 9, 2026.
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Hoopa Tribe, BIA Contribute $20K Reward in Cold Case for Native Woman Missing for Over Three Decades
(nativenewsonline.net)
The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to the location of Andrea “Chick” White, who has been missing for more than three decades.
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