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American Indian Move 

Support of a strong 

My name is Thomas Pearce. 

I am here today to speak on behalf of the American India 

old yesterday, we have members in all 50 states and 10 a 

Country. I am the Co-chairman of the American Indian M 

home to the Pokagon Potawatomi Band of Indians . 

Our great Chief Seattle of the Duarnish Nation once 

like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and re 

distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man 

to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. 

ent Statement in 

lean Power Plan 

Movement, our organization turned 46 years 

tive chapters across the country in Indian 

vement of Indiana and Kentucky which is 

`Thbe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, 

ret is useless. Your time of decay may be 

hose God walked and talked with him as friend 

e may be brothers after all. We will see. 

The Chief went on to say "the Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth" 

In Kentucky and Indiana we watch in horror as our sacre 

torn apart by Mountaintop Removal and in Indiana we ai 

destroy the things that are most sacred to us. Coal minin 

our sacred archaeological sites and burial mounds becau 

support a strong Clean Power Plan that will begin to pros 

communities and reduce the need to burn coal and fossi 

aid ancient Appalachian Mountains are being 

e watching the devastation of strip mining, 

operations in both states routinely demolish 

e they stand in the way of "progress". We 

ide protections for our most sensitive 

fuels. 

Kentucky and Indiana are inundated with "old dirty coal lants", such as the Elmer Smith plant in 

Owensboro KY. These plants are putting poisonous mer ury, arsenic, and other toxic metals into our 

sacred Ohio River. It is our hope that you will write a pla that will force Elmer Smith to clean up its act. 

All of our waterways are sacred. We need a plan that will force these old outdated coal plants to shut 

down and stop putting mercury and other poisons into our waterways. Waterways the fish we depend 

on live in. 
All across Indian Country we are being negatively impacted by climate change. In White Earth Minnesota 

climate change is threatening our most sacred resource. Our Mahnomen or wild rice is dependent on 

clean fresh water that is dependent on winter to provide much needed snow and Ice to our rivers, 

streams, and lakes. Across the Southwest drought is wreaking havoc on every aspect of the 

environment, our forests, our rivers, our air, and most importantly our people. In the Northwest 

wildfires are ravaging the lands of our relatives along the Pacific coast. In the artic life as our people 

know it is vanishing forever as we watch the polar ice caps melt and the animals our people depend on 

die away. 

Just two days ago President Obama said that the wildfires of the Northwest were as a result of drought 

that has been brought on by climate change. The 400 Square miles burned are our forests, the animals 

losing their habitat are our animals, the planet being destroyed is our planet. When will it stop? We 

cannot afford to burn one more pound of coal. The balance of our future is at stake. 

We need a strong climate plan that will protect Indian Country and all of our lands that have been taken 

from us as a result of an occupation that is now 500 years old. No treaties ever made with us have been 

honored. It is our hope that America will at least enter into a treaty with the earth, a treaty that 

promises to stop destroying our mother earth and one that promises to preserves our ways of life. 

Indian Country has bourn the brunt of America's energy addiction long enough. Our lands have been 

blown up by nuclear bombs and it has been poisoned by coal, uranium, and Iron ore mining long 

enough. The Navajo, The Crow, and the Paiute strip mined and homes to massive coal burning power 

plants. Buried under coal ash, our waters poli.. , ed bc,•ond belief, our people struggle to maintain our 

national sovereignty. 

This is after all our land and you are merely visitors to it. We cannot continue to sit and watch while Tar 

Sands are ripped from under our First Nations 13rothers and Sisters in the North, nor will we allow those 

pipelines to carry it to cross our lands to the t:outh. We cannot allow our lands to be used for the 

destruction of our very way of life. We will be active in opposing any and all forms of mining, pipelines, 

or power plant construction that destroys our lands. So we respectfully ask that you impose a clean 

power plan that puts an end to the environmeital genocide that America has wrought on this land. A 

land that was once a paradise is rapidly becoming a wasteland of America's making. Indigenous people 

believe that when we travel to a place we s:lould leave it better than we found it. We have the owner's 

manual to this hemisphere we know how to walk on this land in a way that does not destroy it. We are 

asking that you learn how to better walk upon this land so that you do not harm it. 

Remember "the earth does not belong to 11`, we belong to the earth". 

Thank you.