As a U.S. senator, Ben Nighthorse Campbell was a strong advocate of energy development and American Indian rights.
Indian rights won out Tuesday.
Campbell offered some of the day’s most impassioned remarks at a federal meeting in Denver to study problems of access to tribal lands by energy and power companies.
Campbell said Indian sovereignty must never be compromised to satisfy concerns over rights of way for petroleum pipelines and power lines.
“Tribes feel that once again they have been betrayed by the same kind of Washington sleight-of-hand that has already separated them from most of their resources, their lands, their customs and even their religious practices and families,” said Campbell, a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe.
Campbell was invited to speak at the conference by two of his Washington, D.C., law-firm clients, the Jicarilla Apache of New Mexico and the Southern Utes of Colorado.
At issue is a series of disputes between tribes and energy companies over escalating easement fees. A provision in the recently passed federal energy bill calls for a government study of the issue.
The act requires the U.S Energy and Interior departments to report to Congress by Aug. 7, but Indian advocates say the study is simply a prelude to federal intervention in an issue that they see as purely a tribal matter.
Federal action on establishing rights-of-way fees “would be to revert to 19th-century tactics instead of the proven successful course of tribal self-determination,” said David Lester of the Denver-based Council of Energy Resource Tribes.
Energy companies seek a mechanism that offers “fair and equitable” valuations for access to tribal lands, said Nancy Ives of the Fair Access to Energy Coalition, which includes energy companies, other businesses and consumer groups.
“Currently, negotiations with tribes have resulted in some tribes demanding inflated compensation … up to several hundred times fair market value,” Ives said.
One of the highest-profile disputes concerns payments for 900 miles of natural-gas pipeline owned by El Paso Corp. on Navajo lands in New Mexico and Arizona.
El Paso previously paid $2.2 million a year for the Navajo easement until the lease expired last year. The Navajos now want $22 million a year, while El Paso has offered about $10 million a year in cash and noncash investments.
Staff writer Steve Raabe can be reached at 303-820-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com.
