Why can’t Puyallup Tribe and Tacoma stand together on climate change? 3 letters: LNG
On a day when the need for teamwork and collaboration were stressed, it was hard to miss the sizable fracture.
Tuesday, the Puyallup Tribal Council and the Tacoma City Council each considered resolutions declaring climate change an emergency.
There were notable differences between the two resolutions, but the timing, at least, was intentional, Puyallup Tribal Council member Annette Bryan said.
“We’re hoping these two resolutions, passed on this same day encourage other regulatory agencies and other jurisdictions to pass these resolutions as well,” Bryan told a group of gathered reporters after a special meeting held at Chief Leschi School.
It’s important for the Puyallup Tribe and Tacoma, among others, to work together, Bryan added, “because we share the same climate, and we share the same area.”
That might be true, but when it comes to liquefied natural gas, the tribe certainly appears to be occupying lonely territory.
In some ways, Tacoma and the Puyallup Tribal Council stood together Tuesday.
In other ways, the tribe stood decidedly alone.
For those playing at home, the fracture between the tribe, the city and others, including state regulators, is about fracking fossil fuels and their role in the port’s future, and it’s not going away.
Intentional or not, that fact was on full display again and again on Tuesday — which also happened to be the same day the Puget Sound Clean Energy Agency signed off on an air permit for Puget Sound Energy’s liquefied natural gas facility.
Importantly, it marked one of the project’s final construction hurdles.
Late Tuesday, the tribe issued a press release blasting the Puget Sound Clean Energy Agency’s permitting decision, vowing to review it and take “appropriate action.”
“This morning, the Puyallup Tribal Council took the extraordinary step of declaring a climate emergency,” the release read in part. “ It is no small irony that one of the greatest regional threats to our climate won approval by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency on the same day.”
But back to the resolutions for a moment, and the key differences between the tribe and the city.
Perhaps most glaring, there was the tribe’s ceremony itself.
It was notable that the Puyallup Tribal Council’s vote, purposefully held in front of Chief Leschi students packed inside the school’s gymnasium, was a stand-alone event, while the Tacoma City Council was scheduled to vote on its climate emergency resolution later in the day.
Though there’s little question that the relationship between the tribe and the city is better now than it’s been in the past, the separate actions and pronounced juxtaposition served as just one example of two governments acting in climate concert, while playing different tunes.
“I think that one of the reasons we’re not standing with the city and and passing a joint resolution ... is because they are permitting the liquefied fracked gas plant on the Tacoma Tideflats,” Bryan said when asked about the fossil fuel elephant in the room.
“We are absolutely opposed to that plant,” Bryan added.
The two governments, she noted, were passing “different resolutions.”
That’s undoubtedly true.
Spread over five pages, the climate emergency resolution the Puyallup Tribal Council unanimously voted in favor of Tuesday cuts to the chase and pulls no punches.
It intentionally calls out the threat of fossil fuels, again acknowledging the tribe’s continued opposition to the PSE’s planned liquefied natural gas facility on the Tideflats.
In the newly passed resolution, the tribe also promises to “prohibit siting and expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure under its jurisdiction,” transition tribal facilities and vehicles away from fossil fuels by 2035, and establish a sustainability manager position.
The city’s resolution, meanwhile, expected to pass Tuesday evening, is equally lengthy while striking a much more bureaucratic tone.
Largely in alignment with a recent report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the city’s resolution promises studies, training and a host of legitimate action items.
Tacoma City Councilmember Ryan Mello told KNKX it will result in the city having a “laser focus” on addressing climate change.
“It directs the city manager to redevelop our environmental action plan with the goal in mind to reduce greenhouse gases in a much more urgent time frame,” Mello told KNKX environmental reporter Bellamy Pailthorp.
It’s worth noting that both resolutions were spurred, at least in part, by recent youth-led climate strikes and continued calls for action — including specific demands.
This week, both efforts were applauded by some of the activists leading those charges, while clear distinctions were also made.
350 Tacoma, a local climate action group, heralded Tacoma’s resolutions as important, making it perhaps the first of its kind in the state.
The group also noted via press release, however, that “the demand to halt fossil fuel expansion remains for another day.”
The fight will continue, in other words, and Tuesday provided some of the clearest evidence to date of how the sides are shaping up.
It’s the tribe and environmental activists in one corner, and everyone else somewhere else.
After again stressing the need for collaboration between tribes and local governments to fully address climate change, Bryan returned to the massive sticking point.
Specifically, Bryan mentioned the tribe’s effort to halt construction of PSE LNG facility, including ongoing call for an supplemental environmental impact study, which she says the city isn’t helping.
When it comes to LNG, Tacoma, Bryan said, “says it wants to consult with the tribe … but they’re not hearing us.”
“We cannot stand with the city of Tacoma at this time,” Bryan told The News Tribune.
On Tuesday, that was literally and figuratively the case.
Despite repeated calls for collaboration, it was as hard as ever to envision a happy ending.
This story was originally published December 11, 2019 at 6:10 AM.
