To say that Joe Biden’s plan to forcibly shift American drivers to electric vehicles is unpopular would be an understatement. EVs are sitting on showroom floors across the country because too many people simply don’t want them. But irate drivers who love their gas-powered cars aren’t the only people who are unhappy. Making those EVs requires a lot of lithium and that means drilling new lithium mines. But lithium is scarce and much of it that’s been identified is sitting in tribal lands, some of which are considered sacred by the natives. Now they’re letting the government have a piece of their mind and some are building coalitions to oppose the new mining projects.  (Associated Press)

The room was packed with Native American leaders from across the United States, all invited to Washington to hear from federal officials about President Joe Biden’s accomplishments and new policy directives aimed at improving relationships and protecting sacred sites.

Arlan Melendez was not among them.

The longtime chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony convened his own meeting 2,500 miles (4,023 kilometers) away. He wanted to show his community would find another way to fight the U.S. government’s approval of a massive lithium mine at the site where more than two dozen of their Paiute and Shoshone ancestors were massacred in 1865.

Some tribal leaders are reportedly quite happy with the Biden administration because the White House agreed to a twenty-year ban on drilling for oil and natural gas on tribal lands. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, since Biden is always ready to ban fossil fuel drilling whenever possible.

But when it comes to lithium, all of that goes out the window because its part of the green energy crusade. Tribal leaders whose lands sit atop lithium deposits claim that meetings with federal officials have been little more than window-dressing. They say the concerns they have raised have been ignored and the comments they submitted were not included in the decision-making process. Mining operations are moving forward and their efforts to block the projects in court have largely come up short.

We previously covered the fight being waged by the Western Shoshone and Paiute indigenous tribes in Nevada and Oregon. Lithium mining is moving forward on their lands despite the fact that the bodies of their ancestors remain there from a major battle in the 1800s. Environmentalists have joined their cause because of endangered species living in the area. But their complaints to the federal government have fallen on deaf ears.

Unfortunately for the tribes, that’s how business is done in modern liberal politics. If someone is hoping to drill for oil or natural gas, you can get those projects shut down in a heartbeat if there’s so much as a single sage grouse spotted within one hundred miles. Offshore drilling can be halted with a few cries of “save the whales.” But if the project being undertaken is intended for “green energy” to appease the climate goddess, the response quickly changes to “screw the whales.” We have wind farms to put up. And if a few endangered eagles get chopped up in the blades, that’s just the price of doing business. Now we need lithium to make EV batteries and China controls most of it. That means somebody is going to have to make a sacrifice and it certainly won’t be the climate warriors. If your ancestors’ bones wind up going into a new car battery, so be it.