The Muscogee National Council unanimously approved a resolution Saturday opposing aluminum smelters, including a large, controversial project intended for Inola.
The 16-member legislative body approved the legislation 15-0 without debate.
Rep. Anna Marshall introduced the bill. It calls out a contested, $4 billion facility planned for the city of Inola, which is located within the tribe’s reservation and near its border with Cherokee Nation. The legislation says the smelter, which processes raw materials into aluminum metal, would pollute the air, contaminate water, harm wildlife and disrupt the area’s energy grid.
“Oklahoma’s winds will carry pollution to Claremore, Pryor, Broken Arrow, Tulsa and Coweta,” the legislation reads. “Regional air quality degradation will affect the health and quality of every living thing across Northeast Oklahoma.”
Marshall said she’s concerned about the impacts a smelter would have on the region’s agriculture, air and water as the state experiences ongoing heat and drought.
“(Inola residents) have been accustomed to going at their own pace,” Marshall said. “And if you have a smelter that is going to come in, it’s going to change every dynamic of that community, from the water quality to the air quality, even to the culture of what that town has been or is.
“You can’t buy air and you can’t grow more water.”
The project was announced in May 2025 for the Port of Inola, aided by $500 million in federal funding and a $255 million state incentive package. Estimates suggest the facility will use 1,000 megawatts of continuous energy. Gov. Kevin Stitt said it will create 1,000 direct and 1,800 indirect jobs.
In January, the project was announced as a joint venture between Emirates Global Aluminum, an aluminum company based in the United Arab Emirates, and the Chicago-based Century Aluminum Company. If constructed, it would reportedly be the first primary aluminum smelter built in the U.S. in 50 years, and would serve as the largest primary aluminum site in the country.
U.S. President Donald Trump has supported the project on social media, in addition to state officials like Stitt.
But it has also faced opposition from the City of Inola, which instated a 60-day moratorium on the smelter late last month, and Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who filed a lawsuit to prevent its construction.
And now, Muscogee Nation is taking formal action.
Marshall said the nation wants to meet with the City of Inola and its residents, the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency. She said the next steps involve informing those residents of the Muscogee Nation’s support.
“We want the people of Inola to know that the (Muscogee) Nation stands with them, not behind them … and that we are going to do our darndest to – whatever that takes – to be able to make sure that this smelter does not exist in our territory, in our reservation,” Marshall said.
In Oklahoma, many tribal nations are limited in their oversight of environmental regulations due to 2005 legislation authored by late Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, which requires tribes to receive permission from the state to administer EPA regulations on reservation land.
This story was produced as part of a partnership between the Tulsa Flyer and KOSU.