CUSHING, OK – MARCH 22: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at the southern site of the Keystone XL pipeline on March 22, 2012 in Cushing, Oklahoma. Obama is pressing federal agencies to expedite the section of the Keystone XL pipeline between Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
A decision on the fate of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline will likely be delayed until after the release of an inspector general investigation into conflict of interest complaints, a process that will take at least until early 2014, The Hill reported Friday., env
The Office of Inspector General is looking into complaints that Environmental Resources Management (ERM), the contractor that prepared the most recent environmental impact statement on Keystone XL, failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest. ERM had previously done work for TransCanada, the company seeking to build the pipeline, and other oil companies that could stand to benefit from it. The connections prompted environmental groups to call for an IG investigation.
A State Department official did not directly respond to The Huffington Post’s request for comment about whether and for how long the IG report may delay a final decision on Keystone XL. The official, who would only comment on background, said that the IG’s review “will provide independent and impartial assessment” of the Keystone XL review process. The department is cooperating fully, the official said, and is “committed to a rigorous, transparent, and efficient federal review of the Keystone XL application.”
But given the attention that the Keystone pipeline has attracted, it is unlikely that the State Department will make a decision on the pipeline before the IG report is finalized. Because the proposed pipeline would cross an international border, the State Department is the agency with the authority to approve or reject Keystone XL.
Before this latest news, the State Department had been expected to issue a final environmental impact analysis on the pipeline sometime this fall. The environmental assessment will inform the State Department’s decision on whether to approve permits for the construction of the pipeline.
Environmental groups cheered the delay, but said they want the Obama administration to reject the pipeline right away. “President Obama doesn’t need to wait for the results of the investigation into Environmental Resources Management,” said Ross Hammond, a senior campaigner at Friends of the Earth. “He has all the evidence he needs to deny the permit right now.”
The IG’s office previously evaluated the department’s handling of Keystone XL in 2011, after environmental groups and some members of Congress raised conflict-of-interest concerns about another contractor working on the project. That evaluationdid not find any significant problems with the State Department’s process.
GRAND RONDE — The education status of Oregon’s Native American youth will be the focus of a new, one-of-a-kind study thanks to a grant from the Spirit Mountain Community Fund.
GRAND RONDE — The education status of Oregon’s Native American youth will be the focus of a new, one-of-a-kind study thanks to a grant from the Spirit Mountain Community Fund.
The Chalkboard Project, a Portland-based education advocacy group, received a $71,000 grant from SMCF to study the state of education among Oregon’s Native American population.
The sweeping study will look into the achievement outcomes of K-12 students, graduation rates and higher education status in eight of the nine federally recognized tribes in Oregon.
This spring, the Chalkboard Project approached SMCF for a grant and SMCF staff saw it as an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed.
“This was an unusual and exciting request for Spirit Mountain Community Fund,” SMCF Director Kathleen George said. “After discovering it and looking into it, we saw that really this would be the first-of-its-kind study in the state.”
The Chalkboard Project, partnering with Pacific Northwest-based consulting firm ECONorthwest, has conducted similar studies — most recently publishing a report on Oregon’s K-12 education system — but none solely focusing on Oregon’s Native American tribes.
The eight tribes involved in the study are spread across Oregon, from Coos Bay to Burns and Klamath County to Umatilla County.
The divergent nature of Oregon’s tribes and its relatively low population has led to the general inattention when education is concerned, George said.
“I think they’re largely out of sight and out of mind for the education leadership of our state,” she said. “Our kids are widely dispersed across the state. You’ll have several hundred Warm Springs kids; maybe a hundred, maybe less in Burns Paiute.”
The Chalkboard Project’s goal for the study is to inform each tribal government on their students’ progress and achievements in the public school system.
Reports will be provided specifically for each tribe, with only data on their students, and a master report will be prepared for Oregon legislators at their 2014 session.
The study is now under way, but sifting through the data to produce quantitative information is where the trouble lies, said Dr. Andrew Dyke, economist with ECONorthwest.
“The big hurdle is figuring out who the population is, because of confidentiality concerns it’s not as simple as going to the tribes and asking who their kids are,” he said. “The next step is to quantify the high level outcomes and take that information back to each tribe for feedback.”
Washington coasts are included in an international coastal cleanup day set for Sept. 21.
The event depends on volunteers for success. They can select from dozens of beaches to help remove marine debris from Cape Flattery to Cape Disappointment.
Volunteers in Washington state will be joined by thousands of volunteers around the world, sharing the common goal of protecting the marine environment.
This is a worthwhile effort supported by individuals, families, nonprofit groups, businesses and government agencies, all under the banner of CoastSavers.
Keeping the beaches clean is more than just an exercise in aesthetics. Plastic debris in the water and on the beach poses a threat to marine mammals and birds. They can be fooled into thinking it’s food, ingest it and then suffer serious consequences, including malnourishment or even death.
Public awareness of marine debris may be at an all-time high in the wake of the March 2011 tsunami that swept an estimated 5 million tons of debris into the ocean from Japan. Some of the debris landing on state beaches since then has arrived from Japan, adding to the importance of these beach cleanups.
Volunteers who aren’t physically capable of patrolling beaches and lifting bags of debris still can help by serving as a registration station beach captain, assisting with registering volunteers and ensuring they fill out the paperwork and follow cleanup protocol.
For information on how to register for the event, what beaches will be cleaned, where to camp and other trip planning tips, go tocoastsavers.org.
Native schools on reservations with limited budgets often struggle to provide healthy, unprocessed and culturally relevant foods for their students. One possible and viable solution to address the severe conditions of poverty, social stress and health and nutrition problems in Native communities and schools is a Farm-to-School program in which local farmers supply produce to the schools directly within in their communities.
Though it may seem like a simple remedy, government regulations stand in the way of small farmers supplying such schools, because before a farmer can sell their wares, they must first gain certification by the United States Department of Agriculture.
The good news is that such an achievement is possible. Thanks to the efforts of the First Nations Development Institute (FNDI), a Navajo community-based charter elementary STAR School and a Navajo Farmer, a successful Farm-to-School program is more than just a theory.
In an effort to create similar Farm-to-School programs in Indian country, the FNDI has released a report that offers guidelines for other schools and farms to achieve success.
The report, entitled “Healthy Foods for Navajo Schools: Discoveries from the First Year of a Navajo Farm-to-School Program,” authored by Shawn Newell of Native American Development Associates, details how such a program, if implemented correctly, would be not only be a successful demonstration for any school wishing to undertake a similar project—but it would also be addressing how such issues as obesity and diabetes could be alleviated.
Dr. Mark Sorensen is the co-founder and Director of the STAR (Service To All Relations) School, an elementary charter school located near the southwestern edge of the Navajo Nation. The school is based on four values: respect, relationship, responsibility and reasoning that are rooted in Navajo Peacemaking, a traditional form of conflict resolution.
Students look how to cook in the Navajo Farm-to-School Program (Courtesy Louva Montour)
According to Sorensen, “The Farm-to-School program was initiated with the help of a grant from the FNDI and was supported from the idea that plants have sustained our families for generations. Our communities are really suffering from not having nutritious food grown locally—our area of the Navajo Nation is considered a ‘food desert’—and kids are not likely to start eating more vegetables unless they are personally involved in growing, harvesting, and tasting the food.”
“Our program involves interaction of students and local farmers as well as developing greenhouses on the school campus, all for the purpose of providing students with healthy, fresh, locally grown vegetables,” Sorensen said.
One of the main challenges, explained Sorensen, is that farmers need to meet the qualifications necessary to supply these foods to schools.
In the report, the author Newell states that creating a successful Farm-to-School program involves traversing a complex and evolving jurisdictional landscape because Federal, State and county regulations define school cafeterias and kitchens as food establishments and are subject to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food code.
This code mandates that such food establishments buy only from an approved source. In order to be an approved source, a farm needs to obtain certification. Unfortunately for small farmers, such certifications are not easy to obtain, the most common is the USDA Good Handling Practices/Good Agricultural Practices Certification or GHP/GAP.
Sorensen says this is the main reason for their efforts. “One of our purposes in this program is to help local farmers develop their food safety practices to the point of being able to regularly supply the school with food. It is to fulfill this purpose that we wrote the Navajo Food for Schools Manual.”
In the meantime, Stacey Jensen (Navajo) the Farm Manager of The North Leupp Family Farms (NLFF) a community-based, non-profit, volunteer- driven farm supporting sustainable agricultural for more than 20 years – says they are working on such certification. In the interim they can’t supply food to the schools.
“We cannot sell our produce to STAR Schools without a certification. We are working and should have it in the next six months. This time next year we should have our 501(c) (3) so we will be able to go after the big grants. The farm is also working to get off our diesel generators this year and become completely solar,” says Jensen.
“This could be the best thing ever, I envision it to be that way but there are regulations and certifications and standards and so forth – which sort of negates our efforts to have this wonderful community come together as farmers and schools and students,” he says. ”It definitely is frustrating at times.”
Though he is frustrated with policy, he loves working with the STAR students and sharing his culture.
“The children are wonderful; I love children especially the STAR School students. I call them STAR kids because they have the philosophy where everything has a relationship to everything else and everything is in a cycle. The kids definitely enjoy it. One child came out that didn’t know where carrots came from until I pulled it out of the vegetable bed for him. You should have seen the expression on his face,” said Jensen.
Louva Montour (Navajo) is the Foodservice Manager/Home Economics Teacher and the Wellness Program coordinator at the STAR School. Montour speaks well of the Farm-to-School program but voices concern as to how government policy keeps locally available, healthy and culturally relevant foods from their school.
“The rules and regulations keep us from doing this program to the extent we want to do this,” said Montour. “We want to work with our own native farmers. That is the whole idea is that we would like our young kids to learn about and appreciate our cultural and traditional foods.”
“Last spring, there was a group of fifth and sixth grade students who went out and planted corn. They also helped with harvest, they brought it back and husked the corn. We made kneeling down bread, which is a Navajo recipe. Another class dried blue corn and later ground the corn. We also save the kernels for stew and we used it for winter food.”
The Navajo Farm-to-School Program emphasizes culturally relevant foods and cooking techniques. (Courtesy Louva Montour)
“We teach a lot of cultural awareness, says Montour. “A lot of students are living in urban areas. They are not living in a ranch or farm setting. This (program) takes them away from their electronic games.”
Montour says that the program also teaches values that the students take away to share with their families. “The kids tell me that because of this, they help out more at home. They help their mother more with cooking. They helped their mom make bread. They use these foods in traditional ceremony and they will tell me they helped out.
Ultimately says Montour, “This is all hands on learning. We have a lot of fun.”
Raymond Foxworth, (Navajo) the FNDI’s senior program officer, told ICTMN how the success of the STAR School and the corresponding manual will serve to guide others in Indian Country.
“Farm-to-school has become an important model in urban areas as one mechanism to increase access to healthy and fresh food for kids. But in Indian country we only have a handful of successful programs and there are a variety of reasons for this. At the STAR School they are overcoming these challenges.”
“Food is an important part of Native identities and is always a part of social gatherings and celebrations,” says Foxworth. “This program really takes steps so that we can begin to ask questions about what we are eating, how the food we eat is prepared and where does our food come from,” he said.
“Moreover, this program starts with our kids so that we can grow future generations of healthy, strong, educated and health conscious Native children.”
Congressional leaders to be briefed on chemical weapons evidence as White House resists comparisons with Iraq war
The briefings with congressional leaders would be given by the secretary of state John Kerry, and secretary of defence Chuck Hagel, officials said. Photo: Reuters
Senior US intelligence officials were seeking to persuade Congress on Thursday that the Syrian government was responsible for chemical weapons attacks, as the White House resisted comparisons with intelligence failures in the run-up to the Iraq war.
Leaders of key congressional committees were due to participate in “unclassified briefing” by telephone on Thursday, amid signs that some of the support for military strikes against Syria is fading.
A separate, unclassified report on the US intelligence assessment is being prepared for release to the public before the end of the week.
The UK released an intelligence assessment on Thursday that said it was “highly likely” that the regime of Bashar al-Assad was responsible for a chemical attack that killed hundreds in a Damascus suburb last week.
However, the document contained few specifics, and failure by the US and UK to say with absolute certainty that the attacks were conducted by the Syrian government have prompted challenging questions in Congress and led to signs of growing anxiety among traditional US allies.
It has also prompted comparisons with Iraq in 2003, when the US launched an invasion on the pretext of weapons of mass destructions that were never found. “As it relates to the situation in Iraq, I don’t agree these are similar situations,” deputy press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday.
“What we saw in that circumstance that an administration was searching high and low to produce evidence to justify a military invasion, an open-ended military invasion of another country, with the final goal being regime change,” he said. “That was the articulated policy of the previous administration.”
Earnest said any strikes carried out by the US and its allies would be “discreet and limited”.
In a sign of the importance the White House is attaching to support from Capitol Hill, the briefings with “congressional leaders and the chairs and ranking members of national security committees” would be given by the secretary of state John Kerry, and secretary of defence Chuck Hagel.
Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice and director of national intelligence James Clapper will also participate in the briefing.
Separately, Obama personally briefed the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, John Boenher. A spokesman for Boenher said in a statement he had raised the question of the legality for any military strike and pressed him to consult further with Congress.
Republican senator Jim Inhofe, the ranking member of armed services committee, said he was opposed to using force in Syria when military resources are depleted and there was insufficient evidence of regional backing. “It is vital we avoid short-sighted military action that would have little impact on the long-term trajectory of the conflict,” he said. “We can’t simply launch a few missiles and hope for the best.”
Obama was criticised for failing to consult Congress sufficiently before air strikes in Libya in 2011. However, there is no sign the White House would seek a Congressional before launching strikes.
In London, prime minister David Cameron laid out Britain’s case for possible military intervention in a parliamentary debate, but doubts remain over whether the House of Commons would approve a joint action with the US. In an attempt to prevent a parliamentary defeat, Cameron committed to a second vote after UN inspectors have completed their report on the chemical attacks in Damascus.
France has also called for a delay to any military action until the UN inspectors complete their work.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, instructed the 20-strong inspection team in Damascus to leave on Saturday, a day before they had expected to leave. Ban also announced the team would report to him immediately on departure.
Military and foreign policy experts were split over whether the US would forge ahead with cruise missile strikes against Syria. Obama, who has long been reluctant to be engaged militarily in the Middle East, is now considering the prospect of taking military action with less international support than George Bush’s 2003 invasion of in Iraq.
However, Earnest, the White House deputy spokesman, seemed to confirm that was a possibility when he was asked whether the US would “go it alone”.
Earnest repeatedly said it was in US “core national security interests” to enforce international chemical weapons norms. “The president of the United States is elected with the duty to protect the national security interests of America,” he said. “The decisions he makes about our foreign policy is with our national security interests front and centre.”
Analysts said that with the Arab League condemning Syria but not backing military action, and no prospect of a UN security council mandate, reluctance on the part of Britain and France could prove a problem for the US.
Michael O’Hanlon, the director of foreign policy research at the Brookings Institution, said fading international support was “regrettable”, the Obama administration was unlikely to pull back from the brink at this stage.
Sean Kay, a Nato expert at Ohio Wesleyan University, said it looked likely that the US would attack Syria with or without the UK. “I think they’re trying to make it clear they’re determined to move forward,” he said.
Many in Washington believe military action is a fait accompli. UN weapons inspections were ordered to leave Syria ahead of schedule on Thursday ahead of schedule amid mounting anticipation of US-led military strikes. But others argue that doubts over intelligence and lack of support from key allies could delay or even lead to the abandonment of military action.
Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, detected that “caution has grown” in the White House over the last 24 hours.
“I think they’ve found over the last couple of days both a lack of support at home, both among the American people and Congress, and then they look internationally and suddenly they don’t feel quite so surrounded by friends,” he said.
Bandow said that an “embarrassing backdown” by the US remained a possibility, and predicted that doubt in Britain, and lack of support elsewhere, would delay any strikes.
Britain’s joint intelligence committee (JIC) concluded it is “highly likely” that the regime of Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapon attacks in Syria. But the assessment was mainly based on “open source” evidence such as video footage of the victims, and a judgment that the opposition does not have the capability to launch such an attack. It described the evidence base of a deliberate attack to clear opposition from suburbs in Damascus as only “limited but growing”.
Chairs and ranking members of key congressional committees, who have been briefed on the intelligence, have endorsed the view that Assad’s forces were responsible for the attack.
But all have stopped short of saying the evidence is unequivocal.
Citing “multiple US officials”, the Associated Press reported on Monday that there were gaps in the US intelligence picture, which was “thick with caveats”.
Greg Thielmann, a former State Department intelligence analyst, said the Syria crisis reminded him of the one preceding the Iraq war. “There are enough similarities that it makes one very nervous,” he said. “This rhymes with what happened over Iraq WMD.”
One of the few voices of caution inside the US intelligence agencies when compiling the infamously erroneous 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, Thielmann said that post-Iraq intelligence reforms give him confidence that the spy agencies are not overstating their case.
But he raised questions about the seeming vagueness in the intelligence. “I would have thought there would be incentives inside the intelligence community to find out what’s going on that the US would have gotten some samples and established a chain of custody,” he said.
Ken Pollack, a former CIA analyst now at the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy, said that with continuing uncertainty over the intelligence picture, and no obvious legal mandate for military action, the US will be desperate to secure more international backing to argue intervention is “legitimate”.
“If the administration can’t even count of the full-throated support of our closest ally, the country that stuck by us even during the worst days of Iraq, that legitimacy is going to be called into question,” he said.
When voters in Colorado and Washington approved the legalization of marijuana possession for adults, it was a policy breakthrough, but there was a problem: the newly approved state laws conflicted with federal law.
Under the Controlled Substances Act, federal law bans marijuana use, so Colorado and Washington were left wondering whether the Justice Department would intervene and block the measures approved by state voters.
Today, as Ryan J. Reilly and Ryan Grim reported, Colorado and Washington got their answer.
The United States government took an historic step back from its long-running drug war on Thursday, when Attorney General Eric Holder informed the governors of Washington and Colorado that the Department of Justice would allow the states to create a regime that would regulate and implement the ballot initiatives that legalized the use of marijuana for adults.
A Justice Department official said that Holder told the governors in a joint phone call early Thursday afternoon that the department would take a “trust but verify approach” to the state laws.
That last part is important. The DOJ is effectively letting the states know that they can proceed on their current course, but if federal law enforcement has reason to believe in the future that Colorado and Washington are failing to be responsible, the feds can revisit the new policy.
In the meantime, though, that means these states — and any others that choose to follow their lead — can move forward on legalization.
After watching the “war on drugs” move in only one direction for the majority of my life, this strikes me as a pretty amazing development. Up until fairly recently, it would have been unimaginable.
The Huffington Post added that Deputy Attorney General James Cole also issued a three-and-a-half page memo to U.S. attorneys outlining eight priorities for federal prosecutors enforcing marijuana laws. These are the areas where prosecutions will continue:
* the distribution of marijuana to minors;
* revenue from the sale of marijuana from going to criminal enterprises, gangs and cartels;
* the diversion of marijuana from states where it is legal under state law in some form to other states;
* state-authorized marijuana activity from being used as a cover or pretext for the trafficking of other illegal drugs or other illegal activity;
* violence and the use of firearms in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana
* drugged driving and the exacerbation of other adverse public health consequences associated with marijuana use;
* growing of marijuana on public lands and the attendant public safety and environmental dangers posed by marijuana production on public lands;
* preventing marijuana possession or use on federal property.
But note that this leaves a whole lot of recreational pot use that federal prosecutors will no longer feel the need to pursue.
FRESNO, CALIFORNIA – On August 22, the Yurok Tribe received some excellent news. A federal court judge acknowledged the biological importance of supplemental water flows for Klamath River salmon. This was a far-reaching legal case between the Bureau of Reclamation, the Yurok tribe, as well as other tribes in the region against central California industrial agriculture.
Yurok tribal members Pete Thompson and Bob Ray cast a drift net into the Klamath River on the Yurok Reservation.
The Yurok Tribe of Klamath, California is the largest federally recognized tribe in California and is the single largest harvester of Klamath River salmon.
The Yurok reservation spans one mile on both sides of the Klamath River for 44 miles. The tribe requested 2,800 cubic feet per second of water flow to be released. This is the same rate of water flow per second that the Yurok fisheries experts defended in their scientific case in a Fresno, California courtroom. Originally the Bureau of Reclamation (at the Yurok tribe’s request) made additional water available in order to avert another fish kill. In 2002 a large fish kill occurred on the Yurok reservation in river conditions eerily similar to this year’s.
Above, Salmon is cooked in a traditional Yurok way. At least 272,000 Fall-run salmon are expected to return to the river.
“In 2002 more than 33,000 Chinook and Coho salmon died before reaching spawning grounds. It was heartbreaking to see the fish floating upside down on the river by the thousands. We learned from that tragedy. This year, when the water temperature was so high, and we knew we were expecting the 2nd or 3rd highest volume of returning salmon predicted in decades, we asked the Department of the Interior to increase water flow. But then the injunction was filed by agribusiness to stop it,”
said Yurok tribal Chairman Thomas O’Rourke, Sr.
In early August, Westlands Water District and San Luis and Delta Mendota Water Authority, which represent a large portion of California’s multibillion dollar agricultural industry, filed suit to stop the water flow from being released.
The Yurok tribe presented key science testimony to the court by two witnesses, Senior Fisheries Biologist Michael Belchik and Dr. Joshua Strange.
“Yurok science of the Klamath River basin is renowned not only in this nation, but abroad. This a western science that allows us to substantiate our claims,”
said Chairman O’Rourke, Sr.
At least 272,000 Fall-run salmon are expected to return to the river this year, almost 1.7 times the number that returned in 2002.
There is also a contingency plan in place. At the first sign that the salmon look diseased or distressed, the tribe will seek to have flows doubled for up to seven days. They will not allow the combination of low, warm river water and inadequate water flows to jeopardize the salmon.
“There is knowledge passed down from our ancestors to take care of our resources so that they will take care of us. We must ensure its continuance for future generations to come. The river is our lifeline,”
TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGAN – Some 400 American Indian tribal leaders and health care professionals are meeting at the Grand Traverse Resort and Spa, owned by the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, at the National Indian Health Board’s 30th Annual Conference.
“We are delighted to have nearly 400 tribal leaders, elders and health care colleagues engaged in the current health care reform issues that impact every single person in our families and communities. From the American Indian and Alaska Native benefits through the Affordable Care Act to the renewal of the Special Diabetes Program for Indians. It is important to be involved and informed on the policies that are improving health care services and accessibility to our tribal members,”
said NIHB Chairperson Cathy Abramson.
“We are pleased to have a number of federal agency representatives here today to provide this information, to answer our questions and to listen to our comments and concerns.”
On Tuesday, conference attendees heard from federal agencies that seek to improve health conditions in Indian country.
Indian Health Service
Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, acting director of the Indian Health Service, who provided an overview of the Affordable Care Act, leading up to the to the October 1st enrollment of the Insurance Marketplace of the Act.
“Meeting with tribes and tribal organizations, such as the NIHB, is a very important part of our agency consultation efforts and IHS’s priority to renew and strengthen our partnership with Tribes. We value our partnership with NIHB as we work together to change and improve the IHS and to eliminate health disparities in Indian country,”
Dr. Roubideaux said.
Department of Veterans Affairs
The Department of Veterans Affairs partnered with NIHB to host the second Native veterans’ health workshop track at this year’s conference.
“We are committed to nurturing an environment that fosters trust and provides culturally competent care for Native American veterans, including creating culturally sensitive outreach materials, incorporating traditional practices and rituals into treatment and ensuring the best possible experience when Native American veterans receive care from the VA,”
said John Garcia, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs at the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
“We at the VA are further committed to working with and for tribal leaders on a nation-to-nation basis to address the many issues being experienced by veterans and their families across Indian country.”
Health Resources and Services Administration, US Department of Health and Human Services
Mary Wakefield, Administrator for the Health Resources and Services Administration said that under the leadership of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, one of the top goals is to improve health equity with Indian tribes.
“We want to eliminate health disparities among American Indians and Alaska Natives. And, we believe we can do that by working toward two other goals – to strengthen the health workforce by expanding the supply of culturally competent primary health care providers in Indian country and Alaska and to improve access to quality health care and services by increasing the number of health care access points,”
Wakefield said.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, US Health and Human Services
Mirtha Beadle, Deputy Administrator for Operations with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in HHS focused her speech on behavioral health issues stating that American Indian and Alaska Natives have the highest level of substance abuse and dependence and unmet need.
“The emphasis is growing on screening and early intervention services. Evidence based practices are an important shift for behavioral health. There is an increased need to focus on bilingual populations in the US. American Indians and Alaska Natives stand to benefit substantially from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act,”
Beadle added.
Office of Personnel Management
Susan McNally, Senior Advisor in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) provided n brief overview of the health plans that OPM directs under the Affordable Care Act. OPM will work with private insurance to offer two state health plans – the Multi-State Plan and the Federal Employee Health Benefits program, which OPM has managed for nearly 40 years.
The 30th Annual Consumer Conference continues today with a keynote address from Gold Olympic Medalist Billy Mills, updates from the Tribal Leaders Diabetes Committees and the Tribal Technical Advisory Committee to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and a panel discussion on the definition of Indian in the Affordable Care Act.
Tony Choate, Director, Chickasaw Nation Media Relations
ADA, Okla. – Musicians Brad Clonch and Jeff Carpenter, better known as the Native American band Injunuity, have inked a record deal with an Arizona company.
Phoenix-based Canyon Records and Injunuity came to agreement almost a year ago. Canyon will release the band’s independently produced third compact disc Fight For Survival. The 2010 release won the band Songwriters of the Year honors at the Native American Music Awards or “Nammy.” Nammy awards are the equivalent to mainstream music’s Grammy Awards.
“They (Canyon) are one of the largest distributors of Native American music nationally and internationally,” Clonch said. “They took the album and are redesigning the artwork. They are reproducing the recording tracks to give it more of a flare that they are accustomed to in terms of the Native flute. We signed on with them a year ago in October and they’ve been reworking Fight For Survival over the last year,” he added.
“Instead of Jeff and me selling CDs out of the trunks of our cars, it will be released to stores. Our music will be available in many locations. People will know ‘hey, here’s this new sound, this new band,’ ” Clonch said.
The musicians are expecting release of Canyon’s version of Fight For Survival soon and with it they expect to become busier performing at Native American festivals and venues nationally and internationally.
Not that they aren’t already busy.
In fact, Clonch, who plays Native flute and is an accomplished pianist, and Carpenter, a multi-talented guitarist and saxophone player, recently ventured to Switzerland for a Native American concert known as Apache Moon. They departed Oklahoma in July and returned home about a week later.
Each raves about the experience, the welcome they received and how they were able to do radio and television interviews to inform people about their music, Chickasaw history and culture.
The festival’s organizer, Davide Buzzi, is interested in Native American music and culture. He organized the festival in Semione, Switzerland, approximately 10 years ago. Both musicians said the opportunity to visit with Europeans and share what it means to be Native American was exciting. Both work for the Chickasaw Nation. Carpenter is Chickasaw and Clonch is Mississippi Choctaw.
“There are still a lot of stereotypes about Native Americans, especially (in Europe),” Clonch said. “A lot of them think we still live on reservations, ride horses, and live in teepees. It’s actually very cool. Instead of them coming to America, we traveled to Europe to share our culture with them.” The pair explained to European media while some tribes did live in teepees, the Chickasaws lived in villages comprised of a summer home and winter home made of mud huts with a thatch roof.
“We were able to educate them on that and show them it’s not always what Hollywood portrays,” Clonch explained. “We were able to teach them some Chickasaws words and we sat down for many interviews where we talked about the Chickasaw Nation, how it was removed from the ancestral home lands and how it has thrived and continues to thrive in Oklahoma.”
With a newly-released fourth CD titled Spirits, a recording contract, and interest in the group spreading globally, Injunuity hits the road again in September.
A two-day festival celebrating Native Americans is held annually in Tuscumbia, Ala. Injunuity will make its sixth appearance there in as many years.
“That festival is probably one of the biggest reasons we still exist,” Carpenter notes with a big smile. “The reception we get out there was just unbelievable.”
“When you go to an area where people don’t experience (Native music) every day, they are just in awe of it,” Clonch said.
To learn more about the band and performance dates, visit www.injunuity.net.
