Rosebud Sioux Tribe gets nearly $8 million from federal program that South Dakota shunned

Back in late Auguest, Bluestem had republished a South Dakota Searchlight article Noem rejects more than $70 million in federal funds for energy and environmental programs.

Sad.

Now the Searchlight has pointed out in a quick read one of the advantages of tribal sovereignty.

Tribe gets nearly $8 million from federal program that state shunned
by Searchlight Staff

A Native American tribe in South Dakota will receive a nearly $8 million grant from a federal program that state government declined to apply for.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that the Rosebud Sioux Tribe has been selected to receive a $7.88 million Climate Pollution Reduction Grant. The tribe will use the money to install electric-vehicle charging stations, purchase electric buses for transit routes and purchase and operate a heavy-duty EV garbage truck.

“This is a great opportunity for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe,” said Ivan Crow Eagle, the tribe’s environmental director, in a news release from the EPA.

States and major cities were also eligible for grants. South Dakota and Sioux Falls chose not to apply. A Sioux Falls official said at the time that the grants “have numerous requirements that would ultimately take away the focus from the city’s current and planned sustainability efforts.” A spokesman for Gov. Kristi Noem’s administration said more federal spending would make inflation worse and said the federal dollars would come with “strings attached.”

Rapid City obtained a $1 million planning grant but was not awarded an implementation grant.

The Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s grant is from the latest phase of nearly $5 billion in total awards by the program. The grants are funded by the Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed in 2022.

Grants for tribes and territories were awarded following a review of 110 applications that requested a total of more than $1.3 billion.

This South Dakota Searchlight article is republished under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Photo:  Rosebud Sioux Tribal Headquarters in Rosebud. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight).

Related posts

• South Dakota's Kristi Noem not alone: states pledged hundreds of troops and spent millions to help Texas at the border so far this year
•  Grumpy cats: South Dakota Republicans criticize program that provided $3.8 billion to state 
• South Dakota News Watch: How South Dakota spent $14 billion of federal pandemic relief 

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Comments

[Glen Tomkins]

Any country larger than Monaco needs local and regional govt underneath the national govt, but our states, as currently constituted, are an awful way to meet that need.

Substituting metro areas for the states as the regional govts would be an obvious improvement, but leaves open the question of what sort of regional govt should replace the states outside metro areas.

Well, maybe we have an answer to that question. Give as much as possible of that land back to the tribes to govern.