Mt. Taylor Protected After Years of Struggle

Guest Post by Nadine Padilla. She is an organizer for the Sacred Alliance for Grassroots Equality (SAGE) Council.

The New Mexico Cultural Properties Review Committee has unanimously decided to place Mt. Taylor permanently on the State Register of Traditional Cultural Properties.  This designation follows a year-long battle between private landowners, who say the designation will affect development that may occur on their lands, and Native American tribes, who honor Mt. Taylor as a sacred place central to the cultures and livelihoods of Native Americans.

The permanent designation of Mt. Taylor as a Traditional Cultural Property is the culmination of hard work for five tribes acting on behalf of all tribes in the southwest and the residents of New Mexico.  The five nominating tribes, Acoma Pueblo, Laguna Pueblo, Zuni Pueblo, and the Hopi and Navajo Nations began the application process over a year ago in order to protect Mt. Taylor from renewed uranium mining interests.  This designation will ensure that the public has the opportunity to give proper comment on any new mining proposals that are within the TCP boundary.

The Cultural Properties Review Committee was under great pressure and received over 6,000 letters and emails concerning the nomination.  The letters were 4 to 1 in favor of the nomination.  The CPRC should be commended for their continued service in protecting New Mexico’s greatest treasures.

Mount Taylor is a stratovolcano in northwest New Mexico, northeast of the town of Grants.  It is the high point of the San Mateo Mountains and the highest point in the Cibola National Forest.

Editor’s Note:  SAGE Council’s Nadine Padilla, who is of Navajo descent and grew up near Grants, remembers that being close to the sacred mountain was integral to every important moment of her childhood, including her coming-of-age ceremony at age 13.

Borrowed Time: Predatory Lenders vs. Native Americans

When President Barack Obama comes to New Mexico on Thursday, he’ll apply the considerable power of his presidency to the problem of credit card consumer abuse.

In a speech at Rio Rancho High, Obama will endorse current federal legislation that would force the powerful credit card companies to outlaw sudden interest rate hikes, unfair penalties and hidden fees while prohibiting them from giving cards to anyone under 21.

This consumer advocacy is welcome, coming from the only people with the power to actually make the hugely profitable industry retract apparently arbitrary policies that hurt millions of Americans.

But the shameful practices of the credit card companies are just one leg of a sticky web of predatory lending practices that include car title loans, payday loans and tax refund anticipation loans.

That point is borne out shockingly in a new report that says New Mexicans living in counties with high Native American populations paid more than $12 million in fees in 2005 to obtain tax refund anticipation loans, or RALs. The loans, which are unregulated in New Mexico, can carry interest rates of up to 500 percent.

The report, Borrowed Time: Use of Refund Anticipation Loans Among EITC Filers in Native American Communities, was done by the Colorado-based First Nations Development Institute and the Center for Responsible Lending.