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Trump's pick to lead DEA withdraws from consideration; Report: NYS hospitals' operating margins impact patient care; Summit County, CO aims to remain economically viable in warming climate; SD Gov. sets aside 2026 budget funds for new education savings accounts.

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GOP Senators voice reservations about Kash Patel, Trump's FBI pick. President Biden continues to face scrutiny over pardoning his son. And GOP House members gear up for tough budget fights, possibly targeting important programs.

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Residents in Colorado's rural communities face challenges to recycling, climate change and Oregon's megadrought are worrying firefighters, and a farm advocacy group says corporate greed is behind high food prices in Montana.

Alaskan Tribeswomen Tour Arizona to Protect Their Arctic Heritage

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Friday, May 19, 2017   

PHOENIX – Alaska Natives are touring the Southwest this week, drumming up support for a bill in Congress to ban oil and gas drilling in parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Two women from the Gwich'in tribe spoke in Tucson yesterday and will speak in Phoenix today. They're showing a short film about the battle to save their ancestral homeland on the wildlife refuge, and the Porcupine Caribou herd that sustains it.

Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, says her people have been fighting off development for 28 years, because the herd is central to their way of life.

"Just like the Native Americans with the buffalo, they have that spiritual and cultural connection," she says. "That's that same connection that we have to the Porcupine caribou herd. The Gwich'in Nation used to migrate with the caribou herd for over 20,000 years. What befalls the caribou, befalls the Gwich'in."

House Resolution 1889, the Udall-Eisenhower Arctic Wilderness Act, would designate 1.5 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness, protecting it from extractive industries.

But, opponents are pushing Senate Bill 49, the Alaska Oil and Gas Production Act, which would allow drilling on 2,000 acres of the refuge.

The Phoenix event is at noon at the Burton Barr Public Library.

Arizona State Rep. Sally Ann Gonzales, a member of the Pascua Yaqui tribe, says sacred tribal lands everywhere should be protected.

"We're part of Mother Earth," she says. "The people from the Arctic, they depend on the Caribou and they live off of the earth. And so, we stand with them in trying to stop anything that would further harm their environment."

The Gwich'in Nation says the proposed drilling site would disrupt the caribou herd's migration and calving.


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