Recently, the House of Representatives passed a bill entitled the Native American Energy Act.\u00a0 The Bill seeks, inter alia, to remove government regulations from the development of energy resources on Native American reservations.\u00a0 Its primary impact will be to remove the Bureau of Land Management\u2019s new regulations on fracking.
\nThe Bill came up for vote months after the BLM passed a new rule putting heavier regulations on fracking on federally owned lands and Native American reservations.\u00a0 The new regulations are the first of their kind that the BLM has passed in 35 years.\u00a0 While the BLM was making the rule, it held open discussions with Native American leaders, public entities, and private corporations.\u00a0 The BLM also published four draft rules in effort to help come to a compromise over the best policy regarding fracking on Federal and Native American lands.
\nThe Bill\u2019s report claims that the new BLM regulations on fracking are unnecessary and are beyond the scope of what the BLM\u2019s power.\u00a0 Notably, the Report claims that the BLM wrongly groups lands held by the federal government with lands that the federal government holds in trust for Native Americans.\u00a0 However, prior BLM regulations on fracking applied to Native Americans lands, and the issue was never litigated.\u00a0\u00a0 Additionally, the report claims that the BLM did not adequately consult Native American tribes during the rule making process, a claim that is patently incorrect.\u00a0 Last the report claims that rule will add more paperwork to the fracking process, which will drive energy developers away from dealing on Native American reservations.\u00a0 While it\u2019s true that the new rule will require more paperwork, the amount of additional paperwork is trivial.
\nThe Bill\u2019s chief sponsor in the House, Republican Don Young from Alaska receives most of his campaign financing from the oil and energy industry.\u00a0 He said that \u201cThe Native American Energy Act is critically important to Alaska Natives and American Indians because it levels the playing field for responsible resource development\u2026\u201d\u00a0 The National Congress of American Indians, the Native American lobby has also endorsed the bill.
\nHowever, the view of the White House is skeptical of the new bill.\u00a0 A White House official was quoted as saying ,<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, (the Native American Energy Act) would not ensure adequate development of resources on Indian lands.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Further, it is important to note that while the NCAI gave the bill its approval, the NCAI should not be seen as representative of Native Americans as a group.\u00a0 Most Native Americans live on reservations in extreme poverty without access to a television or internet and were likely not aware that the Bill was being passed or any of its implications.\u00a0 Thus, the NCAI\u2019s approval of the Bill should not be seen as a determinative opinion of the Native American population.
\nAll in all, it will be interesting to see what impact the Bill will have on energy development on Native American reservations.\u00a0 There is a possibility that tribes will promulgate their own regulations, but this creates the risk of self-interested parties creating inadequate rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently, the House of Representatives passed a bill entitled the Native American Energy Act.\u00a0 The Bill seeks, inter alia, to remove government regulations from the development of energy resources on Native American reservations.\u00a0 Its primary impact will be to remove the Bureau of Land Management\u2019s new regulations on fracking. The Bill came up for vote …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7241,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions\/7241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}