For Immediate Release—April 25, 2025
MEDIA STATEMENT
New York, NY—The Trump administration is exploring ways to expand energy development on public lands by reducing the boundaries of six national monuments in the West, including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, and by significantly accelerating the environmental review process. Both actions would undermine the legally required Tribal consultation process for decisions affecting Tribal lands or areas of historical and cultural significance to Native communities. The following statement from Judith LeBlanc (Caddo), executive director of Native Organizers Alliance Action Fund, can be quoted in full or in part.
“All public lands are Indigenous homelands, and sovereign nations have the right to make decisions about developments impacting their lands. We stand in firm opposition to any policy that ignores Tribal sovereignty and desecrates lands sacred to Native Americans.
The recent actions by the Trump administration to fast-track fossil fuel and mining projects by declaring a false national ‘energy emergency’ would violate its obligation to consult Tribal nations and protect lands with historical and cultural value to Native peoples. By drastically reducing environmental review processes to as little as 14 to 28 days, the administration is sidelining Indigenous voices and undermining decades of hard-fought protections for our ancestral lands. It also denies the democratic right of the general public.
In recent years, we have seen unprecedented progress in Tribal-federal co-management of public lands. The Bears Ears, Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, and Chuckwalla National Monuments are successful partnerships to protect and steward public lands for the benefit of all, but these areas are on the chopping block and at risk of mining and resource extraction. With the stroke of a pen, Trump could reduce these monuments and erase years of progress.
It is a violation of Tribal treaties and Constitutionally-protected rights of sovereign nations, if the current administration moves forward with its development plans for public lands.”
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