Feds to Forego $1B, Cost Navajos $194M with Chaco Canyon Mineral Withdrawal

​DENVER – Western Energy Alliance submitted comments to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) regarding a proposed ten-mile zone around the Chaco Culture National Historical Park that would prevent oil and natural gas leasing in the area for the next 20 years. The Alliance’s comments on BLM’s Environmental Assessment (EA) stressed the severe economic impact to members of the Navajo Nation who own energy resources and urged the agency to accept the Tribe’s compromise of a five-mile buffer zone.
 
According to an analysis by Enduring Resources (contained in the docket), the withdrawal would prevent 233 horizontal wells and the production of 86 million barrels of oil and 25.8 billion cubic feet of natural gas, costing the federal government $51 million annually in lost royalties, or $1 billion over 20 years. Navajo mineral owners would lose an estimated $194.3 million over that 20-year period.

“As our economy slides into recession, the people impacted the most are in low-income, marginalized communities like those around Chaco. Despite the injustice of preventing 5,500 Navajos from fully developing their energy resources, the Interior Secretary is moving full steam ahead. The Interior Secretary should not casually dismiss the impacts on Navajo mineral owners and their livelihoods,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Alliance.
 
“The Interior Secretary has chosen to ignore a compromise five-mile buffer democratically adopted by the Navajo Nation. And although buffer restrictions supposedly would only apply to federal lands, the interlocking nature of land and minerals ownership means Navajo allottees would not be able to fully develop their energy. With horizontal drilling, it is impossible to avoid surrounding federal lands when attempting to access pockets of allottee oil and natural gas. Depriving Navajo families of a major source of income is an economic and environmental injustice,” added Sgamma.
 
For more information, please see the Alliance’s letter to BLM.
 
Background

• Congress has not passed legislation to implement a ten-mile buffer (map) around Chaco Canyon despite members of the New Mexico delegation and the chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources introducing the Chaco Heritage Area Protection Act several times since 2019.
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• In January 2020, the Navajo Nation passed a resolution in opposition to the legislation and in support of a five-mile buffer as a compromise.
  
  
• In September 2021, the ten-mile buffer was included in an early House version of the Build Back Better Act. Leaders of the Navajo Nation Council sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi requesting consultation with lawmakers before a vote could take place. The provision was stripped out a short time later.
  
  
• In November 2021 at a White House Tribal Nations Summit, President Joe Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced the Department of the Interior would initiate a 20-year withdrawal of federal lands for oil and natural gas leasing through the federal rulemaking process.
  
  
• A week later, during a visit by Sec. Haaland to Chaco Canyon, the Navajo Nation Council said, “The Biden Administration and Congress did not hear from our Navajo families and made a decision that will affect them with no formal consultation,” according to the Navajo-Hopi Observer.

 

• In a November 2021 letter to Sec. Haaland, Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and Vice President Myron Lizer wrote, “By simply bypassing true and inclusive tribal consultation with the Navajo Nation and our Individual Indian Allottees, the Biden-Harris Administration is markedly undermining the trust responsibility they owe to the Navajo Nation and the 22,000 Individual Indian Allottees impacted by this decision.”

 
A compromise is also supported by members of the surrounding community. In April 2022, the commissioners in San Juan County, New Mexico, passed a resolution opposing Interior’s ten-mile buffer and instead supported the compromise five-mile buffer supported by the Navajo Nation.

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