Remember Campaign 2008? Then Presidential candidate Barack Obama was making repeated trips to the Big Sky State hoping to defeat Hillary Clinton in the final primary of the season. The Crow Tribe eventually adopted Obama as an official member of the tribe.
Well, maybe the Crow Tribe should give a call to their adopted son, now President Barack Obama. Especially considering the fact that his very own Administration is hindering efforts to get a $7 billion project up and running for the economically depressed Crow Indian Reservation.
Here’s what the AP reported earlier this week:
Leaders of the Crow Tribe warned Wednesday that a $7 billion coal-to-liquid fuels plant proposed for the Montana reservation could founder unless the federal government throws more support behind the industry.
Crow Chairman Cedric Black Eagle said a perceived anti-coal attitude in Washington, D.C., is scaring off potential plant investors.
A federal tax credit for coal-to-liquids recently expired. Unless the political climate for coal improves, Black Eagle said, the tribe could be forced to suspend its project, which has been billed as a means to pull the rural reservation out of poverty.
So here you have an Indian Reservation looking for a way to create jobs, get their economy off the ground, and build a cleaner coal plant- and the feds are nowhere to be found. Let’s just say that the Crow Tribe’s adopted son, President Obama, appears to be very far off the reservation, at least on this issue.
As another side note, the AP also reported in the story that no coal-to-liquids plants have been built in the US. Of course, that depends on how you define “coal-to-liquids,” but I seem to recall a trip I took nearly 10 years ago visiting a coal gasification plant outside Bismarck, ND. Why are we still talking about this kind of development in Montana, when North Dakota did it decades ago?