Mike Williams Urges Tribal Leaders to Support the Arctic Petition

During the National Congress of American Indians’ (NCAI) Convention in Niagara Falls, NY, Mike Williams, Akiak Native Community Council Member, introduced a statement to the Natural Resources Committee in which he urged tribal leaders to support the Arctic Petition. Mike Williams is the NCAI Alaska Area Vice President and an At-Large Representative on the NTEC Executive Committee.

The Arctic Petition was endorsed and announced on November 28, 2008, [click on date to view] by mayors from cities in Alaska and California, and a number of environmental organizations including Ocean Conservancy, Oceana, and Alaska Conservation Solu-tions. The Petition calls for the federal government to protect the health and welfare of the Arctic and ultimately the world by establishing comprehensive regulations for greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. The petition further raises extensive scientific information on climate change impacts already happening in the Arctic and requests the U.S. EPA to use its authority and act quickly.

• The Petition also:
  · Calls upon the EPA to implement a comprehensive system of greenhouse gas emission regulations to stop global warming and ocean acidification without nega-tively affecting our economy, and thereby protect ing American citizens, the rest of the Arctic, and the world.
  
  · Requests immediate action to adopt these regulations and acknowledge the imperative that the United States work with other countries in an effort to develop an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to a sustainable level below 350 parts per million.
  
  · States that in undertaking these efforts, the United States and other countries must maintain a strong economy by making a strategic transition to renewable energy sources and infrastructure.
  
  · Serves as both a stand alone legal request and a set of public comments for the Massachusetts vs. EPA Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. The Arctic Climate Change Petition complements strategies to pass cap and trade legislation in Congress and furthers the goal of Mayor Newsom’s Climate Protection Agreement.
  
  · The petition describes the impacts climate change is having in the Arctic right now and makes the case that EPA must regulate greenhouse gases using the authority granted it under the Clean Air Act to protect the public health and welfare. The petitioners chose this approach because the authority the Clean Air Act grants EPA is currently the only mechanism through which a federal agency could regulate emissions of greenhouse gases.

The petition complements the current national effort to pass cap and trade legislation through Congress, which NTEC has been engaged over the past two years. As you may be aware, a cap and trade system requires some level of federal agency regulation of emissions in order to establish and enforce an emissions cap. The petition advances the federal government’s regulatory power that can be utilized in a cap and trade system that ultimately gets enacted by Congress. A regulatory and legislative approach will work together putting regulations in place to set emissions limits, and creating a cap and trade system to promote innovation and encourage industries to make decisions about how to meet limits.

The Arctic Petition was initially delivered to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson; however, since then, the Obama Administration has assumed responsibility for national climate change policy and legislation. Mike Williams urges Tribal Leaders to support the petition and to urge EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to take decisive action to regulate green-house gas emissions.

 

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