Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Joins with Allies in People’s Climate March in D.C. and Commits to Long-Term Fight to Resist Threats to Environment

Eagle Butte, SD — April 28, 2017: This week, Harold Frazier, Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, is in Washington, D.C. to join allies from across the nation in the People’s Climate March on April 29, 2017. Chairman Frazier will carry the message to Washington, D.C. and beyond that the Lakota people of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe will continue to resist federal and corporate efforts to violate the Tribe’s treaty rights and to do harm to the environment in the name of profit.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe is at the frontline of the current environmental crisis facing our nation. The federal government has approved test drilling for nuclear waste storage and fracking-style uranium mining in the Tribe’s treaty lands and aquifer. The Keystone XL pipeline has been approved to cross within two miles of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. And the Tribe continues to fight the Trump administration and big oil in the Dakota Access Pipeline litigation federal court—a fight that is still very much alive.

Although the Tribe exhausted its emergency efforts to convince the courts to stop the flow of oil in the Dakota Access litigation and has therefore voluntarily dismissed the appeal related to that effort, the merits of its environmental claims, its treaty claims, and its religious freedom claims have yet to be decided by the trial court. The Tribe believes its pending claims in the Dakota Access litigation are strong and the Tribe is committed to this fight and the fights on the horizon for the long term.

Chairman Harold Frazier expressed his hope that the People’s Climate March on April 29 will unite Native and non-Native people at this crucial time in history: “My people will never stop fighting to protect our lands and this earth. But we can’t do it alone. I look forward to joining our non-Native allies in the People’s Climate March. Trump and big business should beware because together I know we will beat DAPL, Keystone, uranium mining, and every threat to Grandmother Earth. ”

Remi Bald Eagle, Intergovernmental Affairs
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
(605) 218-0011

Darcy Totten
Founder, Activism Articulated
512.577.3107