Williams says the tribe decided to levy the taxes because they have a large remaining tax base in addition to the power companies, and the tribe hoped to force the power plants to challenge the program in court.
This summer the Navajo tribe won a major court victory when a Federal District Court judge in Phoenix upheld the indians' rights to tax non-indians in a suit filed by the owners of the Navajo Generating Station. The Judge side-stepped the issue of alleged violation of the leases, deferring the matter to the Secretary of the Interior. He also dismissed--without prejudice--the suit against the Sulphur Emissions Charge, because it has not yet been approved by the Secretary of the Interior.
The Sulphur Emissions Charge, the first attempt in this country to tag charges on emissions with the hope of providing companies with financial incentives to install clean-up devices, has been awaiting comment by the Secretary of the Interior for the past year and a half, while he considers its potential ramificiations for the Clean Air Act.
The Navajos are fighting a similar court battle in a Federal District Court in a suit filed by the owners and operators of Four Corners Power Plant. If the Phoenix and the Albuquerque decisions conflict, the suits will be appealed to the Supreme Court, which will decide the question of Indians' rights to tax non-indians. Should the Supreme Court rule in favor of the indians, approximately 60% the country's uranium, 30% of the nation's coal, and the significant amounts of the country's oil and gas which are on indian lands could be subject to taxation and increased indian control.
"We are seeking simply to have the Navajo tribe, and any other tribe share equally and fairly in the wealth of its own resources. The consumer has been getting cheap power for too long, and who pays for it? The Indian people." The Indians do not have the management expertise to develop their own resources, Williams says, but there are other ways of being part owners of these activities. The Navajo tribe just recently signed a huge joint venture uranium exploration agreement with Exxon. The agreement, (the first Indian joint venture agreement) gives the tribe equity shares in the extraction of uranium, and increased control in the rate and manner of development, should the tribe decide to develop.
While court battles continue, and the Department of the Interior ponders the ramifications of the Sulphur Emmissions Charge, the Navajos have begun to implement the tax program--authorized by the Phoenix Federal District Court decision. The first collection date has been set for the end of November, and Williams says the tribe expects to receive at least $28 million in the first year of collection--more than half of which will be furnished by the two utility companies. If the companies don't pay, the tribe will either enforce the penalties in the laws, or, ultimately, they have the right to shut down the activities.
Williams says most of the revenue will have to be spent on infra-structure needs, such as sewer lines, housing, roads, electrical lines, which are presently very inadequate. There is also a move in the Tribal Council, she continues, to use part of the money to encourage Navajos to open small businesses on the reservation.
"There are many Navajo businessmen who would like to open small businesses, but are unable to obtain loans from off reservation because it is illegal to come on the reservation and foreclose property. It is up to the tribe to provide a base for business developments which are in line with Navajo cultural values, so that you don't have someone creating a bunch of McDonalds but instead have people serving their own people," Williams adds.
Williams says she velieves more and more young people are leaving the reservation with the goal of getting educated and coming back to help their people.
"A lot of people who left the reservation in my parents generation, left at a time when assimilation was what was sought and strove for. Education meant you could be like a white man. Young people now are brought up proud of their heritage and not punished and spanked in school for speaking their own language like I was and those before me. I think there's a renewed sense among the young people that what we have to preserve is so important for our people, our culture, and ultimately the American system. I think white America has a lot to learn from the Indian people in forging out our future existence on this planet."
"Being here is schizophrenic," she continues, "It is hard here because here are a lot of people here who are dissatisfied with where we are now and where we're going, and in that sense there is some camaraderie here. But although a lot of people may be sensitive, they still don't know what it's like to live in a family torn apart by alchoholism, by social disruption; people who don't have enough to eat, younger brothers and sisters, younger relatives with malnutrition in 1978. People here don't see the tragedy of it and how it can compel some one to try to do something about it."
"Let me tell you a story," she says. "I was home the weekend before I came back to school, and my family wanted me to see a medicine man to have a prayer done before I left. It involved seeking out this medicine man who does this special four part ceremony that uses the earth, the sky, the water, and a member of your family. The purpose of the ceremony is to put you in balance with nature so that in coming back to school your humility and respect for all living existance is heightened and therefore wisdom is more likely to be accorded to you. It was very difficult to find this guy because he lived in one of the temporary camps near the Navajo Generating Station. We had to drive almost clear up to the generating station and through the boom town affiliated with it. It was boom town all the way--transit trailers, new business; fever atmosphere. We drove through the town and back down to the reservation. In the space of 15 miles we came to the camp where this guy and his family lived. It was a very rugged road and we had to use a four-wheel drive to get back into this camp. I had been insulated from extreme poverty before because I lived in one of the settlements. This man lived in a traditional round mud constructed hogan, with no windows, a hole in the roof to let out smoke and let in light, and an old mattress on the floor for a bed. The ceremony he did with me involved my humbling myself before all of nature, and truly feeling, through intensive prayer and meditiation, that all nature, all existence, is interdependant; and man is only one simple humble part of all of it--not the center, not all powerful, but a part of it. I couldn't get it out of my mind that over the next hill was this huge power plant. There these people sit, living a beautiful but very difficult way of life, while 15 miles away the energy interests, some of the most opportunistic enterprises in the world, are exploiting Indians' lands, polluting their lands, yet the Indians share few of the rewards and are powerless to prevent such development."