JEAN CHARLES CHOCTAW NATION

As climate relocation becomes the reality for many vulnerable communities around the country, the federal government must take the measures needed to make the resettlement of the Jean Charles Choctaw Nation right, both to protect the Tribe’s cultural survival and to make meaningful the Biden Administration’s commitment to climate justice for the many communities who will require relocation assista. [...] 8 which replenish the land surrounding the Isle, contributing to flooding, erosion, and saltwater intrusion on the Isle.63 The greatest state-induced changes to the landscape, however, came from the aggressive expansion of the State’s oil and gas industry.64 Since the discovery of oil and gas in the early 1900s, the oil and gas industry has dredged canals on the Louisiana coastline for access to d. [...] The Tribe’s NDRC grant proposal described the New Isle as a pilot site for climate change relocation and innovation.120 Officials from HUD and the Rockefeller Foundation, which also financed the NDRC grants, noted the plan’s green and climate resilient design, coupled with the Tribal-led process, when awarding the grant.121 OCD was aware of the importance of disaster resilience in the resettlement. [...] As Tribal members continue to flee, it harms the entire Tribe’s sense of community, which has been “physically and culturally [] torn apart with the scattering of members.”156 In approaching the State, the Tribe made it clear that the purpose of the NDRC application was “for a Tribe-led resettlement” to reunite the Tribe.157 The original goal of the proposal was to design the resettlement around e. [...] 18 community center that would serve both “as an anchor and gathering place for the tribe”161 and as an integral component of the disaster-resilience of the community.162 The community center was “extremely important to the community for commerce and for the preservation and invigoration of culture” and as a symbol of “the presence of the tribal heritage.”163 The original Resettlement Program also.