ANWR Drilling Would Destroy Gwich'in Tribe
Kucinich gave the following speech in Congress on December 18, 2005:
In an unusual Sunday session, during debate on H. Res. 631, a motion to suspend the rules to speed up passage of a number of bills before close of the first session of the 109th Congress, Congressman Kucinich said:
"Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts [Mr. McGovern] for yielding me this time, and I continue invoking this question about rules and the climate that exists in this House where on one hand we feel we can come together on some things by unanimous consent and by facilitating the work of this House, and sometimes it is the right thing to do; and other times on rules we understand, and we are still waiting for a rule which would facilitate including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in a Defense appropriations bill, and that would be a distortion of the purpose of the rules of the House.
"It leads to the greatest fears of the American people that they cannot get an up-or-down vote on something of a critical policy nature which relates to not only the past but the future of this country.
"I want to say that as we stand here in this season of peace and goodwill towards all, we need to reflect on how rules create a climate that can either achieve peace or go in the opposite direction. I agree with my colleague from Massachusetts that war is an issue here.
"Now, there are some who say we are not in Iraq for oil. I would take issue with that. The drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge makes the connection between war and energy policies and exploitation. I would suggest we need to move to a new paradigm, where we can achieve peace through alternative energies through wind and solar and geothermal and biomass and green hydrogen, where we can achieve peace through conservation.
"Yet today, through a change in the rules, we will see a bill brought before us that will enable drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It is not only not necessary that we do that, because we all understand that this is a nonrenewable source of energy, there is an endpoint, but we also need to understand there are moral implications. There is a moral dimension to the plan to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This plan will lead to the destruction of the humble, natural way of life, the religion, the culture and the health of the Gwich'in Tribe, which for more than 20,000 years has lived on their ancestral lands in harmony with the natural world.
"Now, many of us observed our religious traditions today. Every day the Gwich'in observes their religious traditions in the Arctic in harmony with the natural world. The drilling for oil in the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge called by Gwich'in the sacred place where all life begins will disrupt the caribou calving grounds, and it will lead to long-term decline not only of the herd but of the Gwich'in Tribe, which depends on that porcupine caribou for its survival.
"We cannot minimize this. The Gwich'in have a basic human right to survive. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
"Well, the bill to drill in the Arctic Refuge will deprive the Gwich'in of their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Christian teaching tells us to do unto others as we would have them do unto ourselves. We learn from other spiritual insights that what we do unto others we actually do to ourselves.
"We cannot in the consciousness of the true American spirit, of everything this country is said to stand for from its inception, return to a history of exploitation of native peoples any more than we could return to a history of slavery or a history of exploiting women where women had no rights.
"We must take our stand now. Now we have to change the path we are on by changing who we are. When we perpetrate acts of violence unto others, we are damaging ourselves as humans. We cannot do this to the Gwich'in Tribe. We cannot do this to the Arctic Refuge because it will destroy the land, it will destroy their herd, it will destroy the Gwich'in Tribe, and another part of the true America will die.
"Mr. Speaker, we must not only be in the search for alternative energy, we must begin a search for an alternative way to live. We have to escape this cycle of destruction. It is time for us to reconcile nature.
"Here we are in a season of peace and goodwill towards all. We must begin today to find a new path to peace on Earth with our native brothers and sisters, with the Gwich'in and with ourselves.
"I would respectfully suggest to my friend [Mr. McGovern], this isn't about returning to just riding bicycles. This is about getting off a treadmill, a treadmill of dependence on oil, which leads us inevitably to war, which leads us to the destruction of the global climate, which leads us to separation from each other.
"We are in a moment right now where we are going to determine the future of this country and we cannot maintain our economic power in the world if we continue to rely on oil, because it is a nonrenewable source of energy. That is why drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge is a false solution, in addition to being a violation of the human rights of the Gwich'in. There is no need to distort what this debate is about.
"You know, we are in Iraq because of oil. We are not signing the Kyoto Climate Change Treaty because of oil. We ought to realize this world is interconnected and interdependent, that we are one with the world. The sooner we understand that, the sooner we end this separation, which puts us in a position where we have our troops right now in the Middle East at war. We need to change our direction."
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