Coverage of tribal natural resources is supported in part by Catena FoundationTuesday marks the deadline to comment on a Trump administration proposal that could roll back a two-decade ban on mineral leases — including oil and gas drilling — around a UNESCO World Heritage Site in New Mexico.
Chaco Culture National Historical Park is so high-profile that it even appears in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. The 920-page blueprint, in part, instructs President Donald Trump to "abandon withdrawals of lands from leasing."
The Bureau of Land Management wants to repeal a Biden-era 10-mile buffer zone that encompasses more than 336,000 acres. Rich in oil and gas, at least 40,000 wells already dot this region, known as the Greater Chaco Landscape.
Less than 10% of that area almost butting up against park boundaries — which has cultural ties to the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe and 19 pueblos of New Mexico — remains untouched by those extractive industries today.
"What we are fighting for is the last — right now — unleased federal lands," said Marissa Naranjo, who is from Santa Clara Pueblo and deputy director of the nonprofit Sovereign Energy. "The Department of Interior has changed in recent decades to transition back to an energy dominance agenda."
As part of this rapid seven-day scoping review, the BLM is asking whether it should repeal the mineral leasing withdrawal area altogether or shrink the size of the Chaco buffer zone by essentially cutting it in half.
The BLM will not decide how to proceed until it finishes drafting an environment assessment following this brief comment period that is federally mandated under the National Environmental Policy Act.
No matter that outcome, Pueblo Action Alliance executive director Julia Bernal, who is Yuchi and from the Sandia Pueblo, contends this aggressive timeframe "is not sufficient enough" for all parties involved.
Bernal thinks affected tribes may be forced to reply with less thorough technical comments about this proposal due to time constraints, while the federal agency limits the amount of input it can gather ahead of "such a colossal decision."
Then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who is from the Laguna Pueblo, ordered the BLM in 2021 to create the Honoring Chaco Initiative — an ongoing regional conversation between her agency with pueblos and tribes to develop "a broader cultural approach to all land management decisions."
That federal effort preceded the Interior Department enacting Public Land Order No. 7923 in June 2023. The withdrawal followed about eight public meetings and a 150-day comment period for the Biden administration proposal to protect Chaco.
"Even when tribes lead, engage and help shape the process over many years — at this point — there's no guarantee that those outcomes will be respected," added Naranjo, "as we're seeing by the seven-day public comment. It could set the tone for how sacred sites and public lands are treated nationwide."
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