16. Department of the Interior · Minor
Facilitate fossil fuel and mineral development on Indian lands
Printed page 537 16. Department of the Interior
“End the war on fossil fuels and domestically available minerals and facilitate their development on lands owned by Indians and Indian nations.”
What has happened
- Partially done
Interior approved the nation's first tribal energy resource agreement, with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, letting the tribe "enter into and manage energy-related leases, rights-of-way, and business agreements without obtaining approval from Interior for each lease, right-of-way, or agreement" — the agreements have been available since 2008 and this is the Department's first approval. Interior has also revised the orphaned-well plugging guidelines (2025-07-17) and expedited tribal broadband (2025-09-08), and SO 3418 lists the 2019 "Contractibility of Federal Functions for Oil and Gas Development on Indian Lands" order's subject-matter among its energy priorities. One agreement with one tribe is a piece of "facilitate their development", not the whole; Interior says it is "actively working to increase participation".
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
The instrument here is the tribal energy resource agreement, authorized in 2005 and never once used until 2026.
- Action
- expand
- Object
- Fossil fuel and mineral development on Indian lands
- ID
- 1523