SEATTLE — Tribal leaders and some state legislators in Washington state criticized Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee in a joint statement Friday after he vetoed a bill that would require improved consultation with tribes about climate investments made under the measure.
Inslee said the bill required tribal consent for some climate projects involving their interest, and does “not properly recognize the mutual, sovereign relationships between tribal governments and the state,” The Seattle Times reported.
National Congress of American Indians President Fawn Sharp, who is also vice president of the Quinault Indian Nation, said in the statement that Inslee “committed the most egregious and shameless betrayal of a deal I have ever witnessed from a politician.”
She added: “After using and exploiting Tribal Nation’s political capital to pass his climate bill, Jay Inslee made the cowardly decision on the day of the bill’s signing to ambush Tribal leaders by suddenly vetoing all Tribal consultation requirements and all protections for Native American sacred sites and burial grounds that his office and the State Legislature had negotiated as a condition of the bill’s passage.”
