Greetings Relatives/Frens,
On Oct. 8, the Navajo Nation Council’s Resources & Development Committee takes up the proposed Energy Policy that President Ben Shelly is using to coercise the Council into approving before he signs off on Council Delegate LoRenzo Bates’ proposed legislation for $1.4 m. for Navajo Transitional Energy Company, which the Council created to negotiate the purchase of the BHP Billiton coal mine.

And it’s pretty well known here at the nation’s capital in Window Rock, Ariz., that the RDC Chairperson Katherin Benally is no fan of Shelly. But then again, it’s all politics. The Council approved Benally’s earlier version of a Bond Financing Package that was for about $155 m., which Shelly vetoed in July. Benally latest Bond Plan is about $220 m. and when it went before the Council’s Naa’biki’yati Committee on Sept. 30, the Committee tabled it after about nine hours of debate and directed that the projects that would be financed by the $220 m Bond Package should be reviewed and perhaps amended. And so perhaps Benally will be making a visit to Shelly, who shamelessly admitted during a press conference on Oct. 4 that he plays the political game of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch your back.” Shelly wants his back scratching to be the Council’s approval of the Energy Policy. In return, Shelly said he wouldn’t veto the $4.1 m. for NTEC.

According to Shelly, the Energy Policy would allow him to move forward with his “Coal Train”, develop a coal sequestration plant at the defunct coal-fired Desert Rock generating station in T’iistoh Sikaad, N.M., which is south of Shiprock, NM., sell coal from the coal mine that the tribe buys from BHP, and hand over federal envrionmental protection to the Navajo Environmental Protection Office, which is headed by his politcal appointee, Stephen Etcitty, who believes in what Shelly wants him to belive in and that’s environmental exploitation and more is better. Etcitty was part of Shelly’s negotiating team for the Navajo Generating Station lease renewal, one of the three tribal representations invited by Salt River Project, which owns and operates NGS for the other owners, to develop an alternative federal EPA plan to reduce NGS’s pollution, and one of the creators of the Energy Plan.

The RDC is scheduled to convene at 10 a.m. in the Council Chamber in Window Rock, Ariz., on Oct. 8.

Another item on the RDC’s Oct. 8 proposed agenda that has drawn public interest is a Report on homesite and grazing issues.

HERE IS THE WEB ADDRESS FOR THE PROPOSED ENERGY POLICY:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7xhIWpNuJXibC1PY2Rjc2p1NUk/edit?usp=sharing

HERE IS WEB ADDRESS FOR THE PROPOSED $4.1 MILLION FOR NTEC
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7xhIWpNuJXiRjJaV0RFZXNVajA/edit?usp=sharing

HERE IS THE WEB ADDRESS TO THE RDC PROPOSED AGENDA FOR OCT. 8:

HERE IS THE WEB ADDRESS FOR THE FIRST CULTURAL MEETING OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATION FOR NAVAJO GENERATING STATION, WHICH IS OCT. 30 IN FLAGSTAFF, ARIZ:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/making-change-street-newspaper/generating-station-kayenta-mine-complex-ngs-kmc-project-cultural-meeting/10151908957374887

THIS IS THE WEB ADDRESS FOR THE 22ND NAVAJO NATION COUNCIL, WHERE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE ON PROPOSED LEGISLATION AND COMMITTEE MEETINGS.
http://www.navajonationcouncil.org/index.html

THIS IS THE WEB ADDRESS FOR COUNCIL’S COMMITTEE MEETINGS THIS WEEK: