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On Saturday, hours after U.S. forces in Caracas killed at least 80 people and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump sounded less like a wartime commander than a developer surveying a newly acquired property. The country’s future, he told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort, belonged to “very large United States oil companies,” which would soon be pumping “a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.”
The land in question includes the largest proven oil reserves on Earth — at some 300 billion barrels, roughly 17 percent of global totals. But after years of political turmoil and U.S. sanctions, Venezuela accounts for barely 1 percent of global crude production. “It’s true that they know the oil is there,” said Samantha Gross, the director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at Brookings. “But the above-ground risks are huge.”
Chevron is the only major U.S. firm still operating in Venezuela, after other oil giants pulled out in 2007 when former President Hugo Chávez nationalized the industry. By continuing to operate as a minority partner under the state oil company’s terms, Chevron preserved its infrastructure, personnel, and legal foothold — giving it geopolitical leverage in the ongoing tug-of-war between the United States, China, and the Maduro government. “We play a long game,” CEO Mike Wirth explained in November at a U.S.-Saudi investment summit in Washington.
Today, Chevron is uniquely positioned in the aftermath of the invasion: Its leadership and board have long orbited Republican circles, with deep ties to the Trump administration and a history of big GOP donations. “Chevron’s in [Venezuela],” Trump said on Saturday, but “they’re only there because I wanted them to be there.” The company did not respond to requests for comment.
President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, from Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday, January 3, 2026. Molly Riley / The White House via Getty Images
When Trump returned to office, his administration revoked Biden-era licenses that had allowed the oil major to operate in Venezuela despite the sanctions. Though told to stop producing by April, the company made no attempt to wrap up contracts, pull out personnel, or wind down supply chains. Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American energy program at Rice University, said in March that it appeared “Chevron is very confident it can obtain an extension.”
Behind the scenes, executives were busy meeting with Trump and top officials, spending almost $4 million on lobbying in the first half of the year to keep their Venezuelan foothold alive. In March, Wirth joined Trump in the Oval Office, hashing out how to tweak or extend Chevron’s license. The president finds Wirth’s TV appearances entertaining, regularly calling him after cable news appearances. The CEO followed that blitz up with private sit-downs with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and staffers from the National Security Council, making the case for his company’s continued presence in the country.
By July, the gamble had paid off. The administration issued a new license, letting Chevron resume operations in Venezuela. As it did so this fall, the company saw record-breaking production and earned $3.6 billion in its last reported quarter. Though Venezuela accounts for just 100,000 to 150,000 barrels daily — a sliver of Chevron’s production — that oil is heavy, the kind the company’s Gulf Coast refineries are designed to process. Having access to Venezuelan crude can help those facilities run more efficiently, increasing supplies and reducing costs.
Read Next
Trump invaded Venezuela to restore an oil industry he helped destroy
Just before Chevron celebrated its renewed lifeline, it scored another victory: After years of wrangling with the Federal Trade Commission, it finally acquired Hess Corporation, one of the biggest independent oil producers in the United States. Last year, the agency had banned CEO John Hess from joining Chevron’s board as part of its anti-trust review, alleging that he had colluded with OPEC representatives to fix oil prices.
That victory, however, did not occur in a vacuum. The Hess family is a major donor to the Republican party, and contributed more than $1 million to Trump’s first inauguration. (Chevron, for its part, donated $2 million to the president’s 2025 ceremony.) Hess — whom Trump has called “a friend of mine for a long time” — petitioned the FTC to revisit its decision. The agency later reversed course, unlocking the deal. On July 18, Chevron officially closed its $53 billion merger, and Hess took his seat on the board.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with John Hess, CEO of Hess Corp., as he delivers remarks before signing a series of bills related to California’s vehicle emissions standards on June 12, 2025. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
This bought Chevron’s entry into what many analysts call the decade’s most consequential oilfield, in Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbor. In 2015, Exxon Mobil announced a huge reserve off the tiny country’s shoreline. That discovery catapulted Guyana — a nation of fewer than one million people — into the petroleum spotlight. Hess’ 30 percent stake in the project was a key part of Chevron’s recent acquisition.
Thanks to Trump, one of the largest remaining political obstacles to the Guyana project was just removed. Maduro had challenged Guyana’s control over the offshore area. Venezuela has periodically claimed the territory since the 1960s under a long-running border dispute. As production in the region ramped up in 2019 and as Venezuela’s own industry faltered, Maduro escalated his attacks, sending naval ships into Guyanese waters and vowing Venezuela would take “all necessary actions” to stop its development — rhetoric remarkably similar to what Trump used to justify his own actions against Maduro this week.
But though Trump claims he spoke with oil companies before and after the invasion, taking over the Venezuelan government may have been more than the industry bargained for. “There aren’t oil companies just running to get rid of tens of billions of dollars right now to rebuild the Venezuelan industry,” David Mares, the former Institute of the Americas Endowed Chair for Inter-American Affairs at the University of California-San Diego, told Grist. “It’s not even clear there’s a legitimate government in place to make the contracts they sign for legal.”
Then there’s the question of Venezuela’s tangled debt. Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the state oil company, has racked more than $150 billion in liabilities over decades of defaults and expropriations. Creditors — from energy companies like ConocoPhillips to so-called “vulture funds” that bought defaulted contracts at deep discounts — have pursued arbitration against the country, and won court rulings for damages that remain unpaid. China has been the country’s largest foreign lender, loaning it more than $60 billion over the years. Only some of that has been repaid, mostly in the form of oil exports. As Mares notes, “As soon as Venezuelan oil starts to flow, some of those claimants can attach the proceeds, and they’re going to demand their money back.”
Read Next
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Experts warn that returning to even modest levels of production would require upgrading Venezuela’s aging infrastructure, a process that would require massive investment and political stability — conditions that have eluded Caracas for years and seem unlikely to materialize anytime soon. “There is no realistic prospect of immediately increasing Venezuela’s crude output,” Gus Vasquez, the head of oil pricing in the Americas for commodity markets analyst Argus Media, wrote in an emailed statement. “Venezuelan oil infrastructure would take years and possibly hundreds of billions to bring up to something close to its former capacity. Repairing refineries would be even harder.”
Chevron’s existing assets give the company a very different calculus than newcomers would face. But the timing could not be worse: Global crude oil prices have steadily declined over the last several years, recently dropping below $60 a barrel — approaching the break-even point for many American operators. That’s been driven by global supply surpluses and by weakening demand, as renewable energy prices drop. “I think what we’re seeing is that the days of the oil and gas industry being the growth engine of economies is well behind us,” said Trey Cowan, an oil and gas energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Despite these structural shifts, Gross notes, “Trump has a very old-school way of thinking about resource economics,” as a blunt lever of power. As companies like Chevron have found, aligning with his priorities can bring financial and regulatory advantages, even if they are not supported by broader market conditions. This week, the company’s stock jumped 6 percent.
On TruthSocial on Tuesday, Trump announced that Caracas would be “turning over” between 30 and 50 million barrels of “Sanctioned Oil.” that will then be sold. “[T]hat money will be controlled by me,” he wrote. Trump hopes to lower oil prices to $50 a barrel, which would squeeze shale producers and destabilize the U.S. oil industry. On Wednesday, the Department of Energy issued a brief announcement elaborating, as Chevron entered talks with the administration to increase its operations and resell oil to other refiners. The statement declares the U.S. will sell the sovereign nation’s crude on the global marketplace, and describes the proceeds as going to “U.S. controlled accounts at globally recognized banks,” an unusual setup that bypasses the U.S. Treasury. The money is vaguely promised to serve both Americans and Venezuelans, and the arrangement will be indefinite. “You’re going to see, probably, a growth in Chevron activities there quickly,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said on Thursday.
Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into the Trump administration’s communications with oil companies, which they claim occurred 10 days before the invasion, while Congress was not briefed. “The suggestion that taxpayers could pay the cost of rebuilding Venezuela’s oil infrastructure raise serious concerns about how the Trump Administration engaged with the oil companies prior to his decision to use military force,” they wrote. Gross says to the extent Trump can be described as a populist, it is largely a performance — one “he might play on TV” — but she added that typically, “when you see populist governments take over oil industries, it doesn’t usually turn out well.”
In all the turmoil, what no one appears to be asking is what is good for Venezuela. “The saddest part of this is that unwinding the Maduro regime does not seem to be a part of what Trump policy is aiming for,” said Cynthia Arson, former director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center’s Latin American Program. In its statements after the strike, the White House has largely overlooked questions about a democratic transition, sidelining concerns about human rights abuses and the treatment of political prisoners.
Even when oil starts flowing, a new Venezuelan government will likely struggle to meet public expectations while attracting foreign investment. Before Chávez, the country’s oil contracts typically gave the government around 50 percent of revenue, helping fund social programs and the middle class. U.S. oil majors, by contrast, often offer royalties around 12 percent.
The contrast highlights just how fragile and uncertain the path ahead is: Years of economic collapse, which have driven millions abroad, have left those remaining struggling with profound political and social upheaval that can’t be solved by oil alone. “If good things happen, they’re going to take time,” Gross said. “Bad things could actually happen pretty quickly.”
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How Chevron played the long game in Venezuela on Jan 9, 2026.
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Graham Lee Brewer
Associated Press
An important cultural site is close to being returned to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians after a city council in North Carolina voted unanimously Monday to return the land.
The Noquisiyi Mound in Franklin, North Carolina, was part of a Cherokee mother town hundreds of years before the founding of the United States, and it is a place of deep spiritual significance to the Cherokee people. But for about 200 years it was either in the hands of private owners or the town.
“When you think about the importance of not just our history but those cultural and traditional areas where we practice all the things we believe in, they should be in the hands of the tribe they belong to,” said Michell Hicks, principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. “It’s a decision that we’re very thankful to the town of Franklin for understanding.”
Noquisiyi is the largest unexcavated mound in the Southeast, said Elaine Eisenbraun, executive director of Noquisiyi Intitative, the nonprofit that has managed the site since 2019. Eisenbraun, who worked alongside the town’s mayor for several years on the return, said the next step is for the tribal council to agree to take control, which will initiate the legal process of transferring the title.
“It’s a big deal for Cherokees to get our piece of our ancestral territory back in general,” said Angelina Jumper, a citizen of the tribe and a Noquisiyi Initiative board member who spoke at Monday’s city council meeting. “But when you talk about a mound site like that, that has so much significance and is still standing as high as it was two or three hundred years ago when it was taken, that kind of just holds a level of gravity that I just have no words for.”
In the 1940s, the town of Franklin raised money to purchase the mound from a private owner. Hicks said the tribe started conversations with the town about transferring ownership in 2012, after a town employee sprayed herbicide on the mound, killing all the grass. In 2019, Franklin and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians created a nonprofit to oversee the site, which today it is situated between two roads and several buildings.
“Talking about Land Back, it’s part of a living people. It’s not like it’s a historical artifact,” said Stacey Guffey, Franklin’s mayor, referencing the global movement to return Indigenous homelands through ownership or co-stewardship. “It’s part of a living culture, and if we can’t honor that then we lose the character of who we are as mountain people.”
Noquisiyi is part of a series of earthen mounds, many of which still exist, that were the heart of the Cherokee civilization. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians also owns the Cowee Mound a few miles away, and it is establishing a cultural corridor of important sites that stretches from Georgia to the tribe’s reservation, the Qualla Boundary.
Noquisiyi, which translates to “star place,” is an important religious site that has provided protection to generations of Cherokee people, said Jordan Oocumma, the groundskeeper of the mound. He said he is the first enrolled member of the tribe to caretake the mound since the forced removal.
“It’s also a place where when you need answers, or you want to know something, you can go there and you ask, and it’ll come to you,” he said. “It feels different from being anywhere else in the world when you’re out there.”
The mound will remain publicly accessible, and the tribe plans to open an interpretive center in a building it owns next to the site.
The post A town in North Carolina is returning land to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians appeared first on ICT.
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Man who held himself out as Native American activist sentenced to 46 years for serial rapes
(ictnews.org)
Martha Bellisle
Associated Press
SEATTLE — A man who held himself out as a Native American activist was sentenced Wednesday to 46 years in prison for drugging and raping women in a case that inspired calls for changes in Washington state law to prohibit defendants who represent themselves from directly questioning their accusers.
Redwolf Pope, who had apartments in Seattle and Santa Fe, New Mexico, was arrested in 2018 after guests at his Seattle apartment gave police videos from his iPad that showed him raping several women who appeared to be unconscious, court documents said. Police also found a secret camera in Pope’s bathroom that was used to capture video of women in the shower.
“I’ve had the horror of witnessing the scale of violence Pope inflicted on multiple women over many years. It will never leave me,” Erica Elan, a survivor who discovered the hidden cameras and video evidence of the crimes, said in a news release.
The Associated Press generally does not identify victims of sexual abuse except in cases where they publicly identify themselves or share their stories openly.
Pope, 49, was found guilty of rape and voyeurism by a Santa Fe jury in 2020. He was sentenced to four years in prison, with credit for over two years already served. Pope claimed that encounter was consensual.
After his release from prison, he was extradited to Washington state to face charges from incidents that occurred in 2016 and 2017. He pleaded not guilty and represented himself during his September trial, cross-examining one of his victims for multiple days.
The jury found him guilty on Sept. 3, 2025.
Survivors have called on the Washington State Legislature to change laws that allow defendants who represent themselves to directly cross-examine their victims. They want lawmakers to update the Crime Victim Bill of Rights to provide an alternative to cross-examination of victims by perpetrators serving as their own lawyer.
They want judges to have the ability to allow an accuser to be cross-examined by a court-appointed designee rather than by a self-represented defendant.
“We must refine the outdated systems that cause further harm to survivors in their pursuit of justice,” Elan said.
Pope, who has claimed Western Shoshone and Tlingit heritage, is an activist who has appeared as a spokesperson for the Seattle-based United Indians of All Tribes Foundation. His LinkedIn page lists him as an attorney who has worked for the Tulalip Tribal Court for over a decade.
But his heritage and resume came under scrutiny after his arrest. While he received a law degree from Seattle University, the Washington State Bar Association previously confirmed he was not a licensed lawyer, and the Tulalip Tribes said he never worked as an attorney there.
Several tribes with Tlingit and Shoshone members also have said they’ve found no record of Pope’s enrollment, though it’s unclear whether he has claimed membership to any particular tribe.
Abigail Echo-Hawk, the executive vice president of the Seattle Indian Health Board and an advocate for Native women’s rights, has said Pope created a “false identity and posed as a Native man to infiltrate Native communities and prey upon our Indigenous women.”
Echo-Hawk, who is a national leader in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls crisis and advocate for victims of sexual violence, said Pope not only inflicted harm until he was caught, but “was allowed to take advantage of our legal system and continue to traumatize his victims for years after.”
The post Man who held himself out as Native American activist sentenced to 46 years for serial rapes appeared first on ICT.
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Last Updated on January 9, 2026 Onondaga Lake, located in Upstate NY, has long been recognized as one of the most polluted lakes in North America. Now, the county plans to open a $100 million aquarium on its polluted shores, partly funded by Honeywell, the very corporation whose toxic waste contributed to the ecological disaster […]
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Kevin FrekingAssociated Press
WASHINGTON — The House refused Thursday to override President Donald Trump’s veto of two low-profile bills as Republicans stuck with the president despite their prior support for the measures.
Congress can override a veto with support from two-thirds of the members of the House and the Senate. The threshold is rarely reached. In this case, Republicans opted to avoid a fight with the president in an election year over bills with little national significance. The two vetoes were the first of Trump’s second term.
One bill Trump vetoed was designed to help local communities finance the construction of a pipeline to provide water to tens of thousands in Colorado.
The other designated a site in Everglades National Park as a part of the Miccosukee Indian Reservation. On the Colorado bill, 35 Republicans sided with Democrats in voting for an override. On the Florida bill, only 24 Republicans voted for the override.
The White House did not issue any veto threats prior to passage of the bills, so Trump’s scathing comments in his veto message came as a surprise to sponsors of the legislation. Ultimately, his vetoes had the effect of punishing those who had opposed the president’s positions on other issues.
The water pipeline bill came from Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a longtime Trump ally who broke with the president in November to release files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The bill to give the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians more control of some of its tribal lands would have benefited one of the groups that sued the administration over an immigration detention center known as ” Alligator Alcatraz.”
Florida officials didn’t disclose funding request for ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ facility, lawsuit says
Republicans take sides
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said leadership was not urging — or “whipping” — members on how to vote. He said he would personally vote to sustain the vetoes and the president’s message opposing the bills “sounded very reasonable to me.” He said he understood the concerns of the Colorado lawmakers about the veto and would work to help them on the pipeline issue going forward.
Boebert said she has been talking to colleagues individually about overriding Trump’s veto, but wasn’t sure about hitting the two-thirds threshold. Some colleagues “don’t want to go against the president,” she said.
On the House floor, Boebert told colleagues that the communities targeted through the bill could see the cost of their drinking water triple without the legislation.
“This bill makes good not only on a 60-year plus commitment without wasting hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local and federal investments, but it also makes good on President Trump’s commitment to rural communities, to Western water issues,” Boebert said.
When asked by a reporter if the veto was in response to her signing a discharge petition to release the Epstein files, she said, “I certainly hope not.”
Trump did not allude to Boebert in his veto of her legislation, but raised concerns about the cost of the water pipeline, saying “restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the Nation.”
Rep. Jeff Hurd, another Colorado Republican, also urged colleagues to override the veto, saying the vote was not about defying Trump but defending Congress.
“If Congress walks away from a 60-year commitment mid-project, then no Western project is truly secure,” Hurd said.
The Florida legislation had been sponsored by Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez, whom Trump has endorsed. In his veto message, Trump was critical of the tribe, saying, “The Miccosukee Tribe has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected.”
Before the House voted to pass his bill, Gimenez said it would simply allow an inhabited tribal village to be included in the Miccosukee Reservation, empowering the tribe to manage water flow into the Everglades and raise structures within the camp to prevent flooding. He did not speak on the floor prior to the vote.
Instead, Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida urged colleagues to vote to override.
“This bill is so narrowly focused that (the veto) makes absolutely no sense other than the interest in vengeance that seems to have emanated in this result,” Wasserman Schultz said.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Nebraska, said he would vote to override the president’s vetoes.
“They passed unanimously,” Bacon said of the bills. “And I don’t know if I agree with the explanations for the veto.”
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-New York, said she would vote to sustain the vetoes.
“My constituents want me to stand with Trump,” Malliotakis said.
The post House refuses to override Trump veto of a bill for Miccosukee lands appeared first on ICT.
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The middle-of-the-night kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro shocked the world on Saturday. Military helicopters bombed Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, as U.S. special forces breached Maduro’s residence, captured him, and flew him to New York to stand trial on unproven charges of narcoterrorism. President Donald Trump has offered several justifications for Maduro’s ouster, including the collapse of Venezuela’s oil industry. But the very conditions Trump has been pointing to were exacerbated by the actions of past U.S. presidents — including Trump himself. If the Venezuelan oil industry is in tatters, it’s at least partially because of U.S. policies dating back at least a decade.
On Wednesday, Trump’s Department of Energy put out a “fact sheet” stipulating that the U.S. is “selectively rolling back sanctions to enable the transport and sale of Venezuelan crude and oil products to global markets.” This outcome is doubly ironic because U.S. sanctions are one of the reasons the Venezuelan oil industry is diminished in the first place. The announcement also states that the U.S. will market Venezuelan oil, bank the proceeds, and disburse the revenue “for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people at the discretion of the U.S. government.”
Maduro first drew the ire of President Trump in 2017 after the Venezuelan government stripped powers from the opposition-controlled legislature and violently suppressed mass protests. Trump responded by imposing sanctions on Maduro, several senior officials, and Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, significantly broadening the targeted sanctions that the Obama administration first imposed in 2015. Speaking to reporters at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, that August, Trump said he would not rule out a “military option” in Venezuela.
Two years later, after Maduro secured a second term in a contested election, the Trump administration dramatically escalated its pressure campaign, announcing a full oil embargo on the country. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces a kind of heavy crude used to make diesel fuel and petrochemicals. At the time, the United States received roughly 40 percent of Venezuelan oil exports. The embargo severed not only that trade but also exports to European Union countries, India, and other U.S. allies. Suddenly, Venezuela was largely cut off from global markets.
By the time sanctions kicked in, Venezuela’s oil production was already slipping. Low oil prices in the early 2010s caused instability for an industry that had long been plagued by mismanagement, corruption, and underinvestment. But the sanctions delivered a devastating blow.
Read Next
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“When they cut off the ability of the government to export their oil and access international finance, it was all downhill from there,” said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, an economic policy think tank. “It was economic violence to punish Venezuelans.”
Even as global oil prices rose again, the sanctions had limited Venezuelan exports and prevented the country from rebuilding its oil sector. With few buyers and little access to financing or technology, oil output collapsed by nearly 80 percent by the end of the decade, compared to its 2012 peak. Most of those sanctions remained in place under the Biden administration, and experts say the cumulative effect was the near-total collapse of Venezuelan oil production — damage that President Trump is now using as justification for his military strike against the country this week.
While the Trump administration’s precise motivations are not entirely clear, the president has described Venezuela’s oil industry as a “total bust” in interviews following the U.S. capture of Maduro.
“They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been pumping and what could have taken place,” Trump said on Saturday. He added that U.S. oil companies will spend billions of dollars to “fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”
But there are few signs that oil companies are eager to return. For one, prices are hovering around $60 a barrel, which is roughly the breakeven point for many companies. And without political stability, oil majors are unlikely to commit the billions of dollars necessary to restart production in Venezuela’s oil fields. The Trump administration has reportedly scheduled a meeting with oil companies for later this week to discuss a possible reentry. For now, Chevron is the only U.S. company with active operations in the country.
The sanctions reshaped the global flow of oil. When the U.S. banned Venezuelan oil, the U.S. Gulf Coast refiners who specialize in heavy crude turned to new suppliers in Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina. Elsewhere, countries that had depended on Venezuelan oil increasingly turned to Russia. Other oil-producing countries also increased their production to make up for the declining exports from Venezuela.
The sanctions also had ripple effects far beyond the oil sector. By cutting off Venezuela’s ability to access international finance, they dealt a huge blow to an economy highly dependent on imports. Unable to borrow, the country struggled to purchase basic necessities such as food and medicine. At the same time, the oil embargo blocked the export of its most profitable asset. The result was a stranglehold on the country’s economy that drove poverty and deaths. Patients with HIV, diabetes, and hypertension were not able to access life-saving drugs. One study at the time estimated that some 40,000 additional deaths could be attributed to the economic conditions caused by the sanctions.
“When you can’t get the things that you need to produce electricity and clean water, all kinds of diseases get worse,” said Weisbrot.
Even before the latest attacks against Venezuela, the United States’ sanctions against the country were described as “economic warfare” by a former United Nations rapporteur and other international law experts. While it’s unclear how the Trump administration plans to proceed, restoring the semblance of a functional economy in Venezuela and undoing the damage of past U.S. policy may take decades.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump invaded Venezuela to restore an oil industry he helped destroy on Jan 8, 2026.
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This story was originally published by the Nevada Current.
Jeniffer Solis
Nevada Current
Tribes across the West have worked with states to protect the Colorado River and conserve enough water to raise elevations in the river’s two largest reservoirs, Lakes Powell and Mead, a move that has helped states during critical droughts.
Now tribes want to make it clear that any future agreements on how to manage the river’s water must include their input and an acknowledgment that they intend to develop their water rights.
“It’s high time that tribes begin to really begin to flex their sovereignty,” said Mike Natchees, a member of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee.
The Ute Indian Tribe holds significant senior water rights, including 500,000 acre-feet in the Green River basin in Utah, but faces challenges with unused water flowing downstream due to lack of infrastructure and funding.
“It just continues to flow downstream. We are uncompensated for it. It is undeveloped. And again, that is unacceptable for the Ute Indian Tribe,” Natchees said.
That sentiment was shared among representatives for dozens of tribes who spoke at the Colorado River Water Users Association conference at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in December.
Western states that rely on the Colorado River have less than two months to agree on how to manage the troubled river. The seven Colorado River Basin states — Arizona, California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming — have until Feb. 14 to reach a new water sharing agreement before current operating rules expire at the end of 2026 —or the federal government will step in with their own plan.
But the Ute Indian Tribe, whose reservation is located in Northeastern Utah, emphasized that any new agreement will have a significant impact on tribes across the Colorado River basin.
One of the biggest disagreements between the Upper and Lower Basin states is over which faction should have to cut back on their water use during dry years. Historically, Lower Basin states have used nearly all their 7.5 million acre-feet Colorado River allocation under current Colorado River guidelines, compared to the 4.5 million acres-feet used by the Upper Basin states.
Natchees said the impact of water cuts to tribes in the Upper Basin have not been discussed enough during negotiations, adding that he hopes tribes will one day have a seat on the Upper Colorado River Commission, an interstate water administrative agency that represents Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.
“The bottom line is that the Lower Basin is just simply over allocated. They’re overusing and they’re doing it with no regard to anyone in the Upper Basin, which feeds their system, and that needs to change,” Natchees said.
Tribes have continued to be a part of the solution when it comes to conservation on the river, said President of the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe, Jonathan E. Koteen.
In 2025, the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe signed an agreement to conserve 13,000 acre-feet of water to bolster elevations in Lake Mead, and contributed additional water savings through its ongoing seasonal fallowing agreement with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
Those water savings helped California reach its goal of conserving 1.6 million acre-feet in Lake Mead a year ahead of schedule.
“Tribal inclusion must be formal, meaningful and permanent. Tribes are not new participants. We are original stewards of the river, and our voices must be part of shaping the future family,” Koteen said.
Conservation efforts by tribes have also been innovative, said Koteen. The Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe secured funding to line the Reservation Main Canal, reducing seepage and improving efficiency for water deliveries to large portions of the Yuma Project Reservation Division.
Another example of an innovative solution was when the Jicarilla Apache Nation entered a landmark 10-year water-sharing agreement with New Mexico and The Nature Conservancy in 2023 to lease up to 20,000 acre-feet of its Colorado River water annually, supporting endangered fish habitat and water security for the state by strategically releasing water into the San Juan River.
“It’s increasing water security for the state of New Mexico, allowing the state to meet its obligations under whatever framework that we end up coming up with in post 2026, so it’s a great project,” said Jenny Dumas, the water attorney for the Jicarilla Apache Nation.
But Dumas emphasized that not every tribe can replicate such an agreement, and every tribe has their own unique needs that must be considered when settling on a new water sharing agreement.
Councilmember for Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Conrad Jacket said the tribe’s Bow and Arrow Farm is a major economic driver. While tribes in California, like the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe, are able to reduce crops for payment, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe can not.
“This year, we did have to cut back,” Jacket said. “And that’s not good on our part. That is not good on all this whole region’s part.”
Instead, the tribe would benefit more from flexible tools that allow the tribe’s water to be set aside in good water years, while contributing to additional release in dry years.
Tribes said they were committed to helping states reach a seven-state consensus on how to share the river’s water, in order to stabilize the river and secure their rights.
During the conference, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, the Gila River Indian Community and the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, which manages the Central Arizona Project, signed a major proclamation to work together to protect the Colorado River.
The Colorado River Indian Tribes is Arizona’s largest and most senior Colorado River water rights holder.
“All of us who live in Arizona, native and non-native alike, are connected by water, for without water, there is no life. And it is that common thread that binds us, which has us here today, pledging to work together for the greater good of all who live in Arizona,” said Colorado River Indian Tribes Chairwoman Amelia Flores.
The post Tribes stake their claim on the Colorado River, and help conserve it appeared first on ICT.
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Environmental crime prevention is moving into the diplomatic mainstream (commentary)
(news.mongabay.com)
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Pauly Denetclaw
ICT
In 1994, the federal government undertook the Northwest Forest Plan in an effort to protect the endangered Northern Spotted Owl. The entire plan revolved around protecting the old growth trees that the endangered birds made their nests or roosted in.
“When you manage for a singular species, there’s usually side effects for other species that were unintentional,” said Cody Desautel, executive director of the Colville Tribes.
As has become all too common, tribal leaders, whose nations have stewarded the Northwest forests for millenia, were not consulted or even privy to the conversations in 1994. Tribal leaders in the Pacific Northwest are ensuring that doesn’t happen again as the plan gets updated and amended. They are also advocating for co-land management.
“When we look at people that are doing positive management that’s benefiting species — that’s happened in Indian Country,” said Desautel. “You should have your best managers at the table giving recommendations and suggestions about what management of federal land should look like because what we do benefits not just the tribes but all of the constituents of this country, these states and the species that exist there.”
The lack of consultation with tribal nations isn’t limited to the Northwest Forest Plan but is another example of how Indigenous perspectives have been left out of important federal amendment and plan processes. Historically, the U.S. Department of Interior’s 2007 Interim Guidelines, which acted as a drought contingency plan for the Colorado River, also didn’t include tribal leaders — even though 10 tribes collectively hold 20 percent of the river’s water rights.
Tribal consultation is required under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriaction Act, and through former President Bill Clinton’s Executive Order 13175-Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments.
There are a number of issues with the tribal consultation process. Two of them are that consultation doesn’t require consent of tribal nations, and that if tribes don’t respond to a “reasonable and good faith effort” to engage, the federal government’s obligation is considered fulfilled.
The Northwest Forest Plan, which provides management direction for nearly 25 million acres managed by the federal government, is up for renewal and there are three main stages that must be completed. This time around, the U.S. Forest Service has made an effort to consult with tribal leaders but having them at the table during decision-making would be more impactful, according to members of the Intertribal Timber Council, a national consortium of almost 60 tribal nations committed to improving the management of natural resources.
“You just don’t make all the decisions then come to our tribal communities and expect that we’re just going to go along,” said Phil Rigdon, superintendent of the Yakama Nation’s Department of Natural Resources.
During this process, tribal leaders have been advocating for co-land management, like being able to set the management standards for old-growth forests known as Late Successional Reserves, and removing bureaucratic barriers like the “Survey and Manage” step that delays action.
“It (management standards) still doesn’t account for succession through time. We know that forests aren’t static. We think tribes should have the ability to continue to do that management, to set up what that next cohort of (old-growth forests) will be,” Desautel said. “The ones we have now won’t be there forever. We should have others coming up with the right age, and structured demographics, so that we always have that type of habitat in place.”
Currently, tribal nations aren’t part of the land management team for the Northwest Forest Plan. Essentially, tribal leaders are brought in as consultants who give their expertise but ultimately have no decision-making power in the Northwest Forest Plan.
“Our goal is that co-stewardship will lead to a place where we’re part of the team, working with our federal partners, working with the Forest Service and with anybody else to find the right solutions — to do the right (work) on the land and treat (it) in the manner that we should. Hopefully the Northwest Forest Plan will move into that direction,” said Rigdon, who also serves as vice-president of the Intertribal Timber Council.
The Regional Interagency Executive Committee, that governs the Northwest Forest Plan, doesn’t include tribal nations. The committee does include a representative from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a federal agency tasked with protecting trust assets of American Indians and Alaska Natives. However, the agency has been mired in scandal from losing tribal funds to officials lining their own pockets.
Tribal nations retained their hunting, fishing and gathering rights, ratified through treaties – the highest laws of the land. In exchange for ceded territories, many tribal nations retained their inherent right to hunt, fish and gather on their ancestral lands.
“As you create a plan, that treaty has to be part of your thoughts and not just something that is secondary,” Rigdon said.
Bureaucratic barriers
The Northwest Forest Plan includes a “Survey and Manage” procedure. It requires the Forest Service to survey nearly 400 different species in old-growth forests, before any management actions can take place in that area, and could limit any action based on the findings.
This procedure was created to protect rare species in old-growth forest habitats. However, none of these species are listed as endangered, but there is limited knowledge of them, according to a preamble in the 2012 U.S. Department of Agriculture Planning Rule.
“A number of tribes have said they would like to see the elimination of the Survey and Manage protocols, because they delay action,” said Calvin Mukumoto, executive director of the Intertribal Timber Council. “There are mechanisms in the 2012 Planning Rule that allows them to look at species of concern so you don’t have to go out and survey and manage everything before you make plans.”
The other issue in the Northwest Forest Plan are land allocations, which were created to meet the habitat requirements of the northern spotted owl, marbled murrelet, and salmon. Each land allocation comes with its own unique management standards and guidelines. The extra regulations, especially land allocations close to sovereign lands, hinder a tribe’s ability to manage their own land.
“Land-use allocations are overly prescriptive in their requirements, and we should be looking at ecological-based approaches,” Mukumoto said.
For example, extra regulations in Riparian Reserves, a land allocation that creates a protective buffer along streams, lakes and wetlands, delay the thinning of forests or prescribed burns. One way to protect sovereign lands from devastating wildfires is to control the amount of fuel in nearby federally managed forests.
Dense forests lead to high rates of tree mortality. Dead trees, dry leaves, fallen pine needles or dry grass can fuel wildfires, which is a concern for many tribal nations in northern California, Oregon and Washington.
“They (tribal nations) are concerned about some of the riparian barriers and other restrictions within close proximity of tribal communities because of the fire danger that’s out there from lack of action,” Mukumoto said. “I think they’d like to see more active management, not necessarily just timber production, but active management that reintroduces fire into these ecosystems to reduce vegetation.”
The amendment process has five main stages. The Regional Interagency Executive Committee has completed the third phase and is moving into the fourth, where the draft record of decision and final environmental impact statement will be published. Then, the objection process will begin – offering one last public comment period before the amendment is signed and approved.
Intertribal Timber Council members and staff remain hopeful that the new amendments will acknowledge and honor treaty rights, traditional ecological knowledge and, in a just world, include co-management with tribal nations.
“In my experience working with tribes, is that they believe in holistic management that respects all the parts in the forest and wants to maintain complexity, but seeks balance,” Mukumoto said.
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This story was originally published by South Dakota Searchlight.
Meghan O’Brien
South Dakota Searchlight
NORRIS, South Dakota — As the last round of students filters in from the school van to the main hallway, Principal Brian Brown greets each student by name, with a high five and an “I’ve been waiting for you all morning.”
After students arrive, they’re served breakfast, and Brown leads a boys’ group and girls’ group in singing Lakota songs to get the day started.
This is the morning routine at Norris Elementary, part of the White River School District in rural southwestern South Dakota. The school borders the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, and serves about 50 students from kindergarten through fifth grade who are predominantly Native American.
Norris is an unincorporated community in Mellette County, one of the most impoverished counties in the state. About a third of the students are raised by their grandparents, Brown said.
“We’ve still got kids that live in houses with no running water,” he said. “So, we have our struggles, we have our hardships.”
Three years ago, barely half of the school’s students were coming to class regularly. That struggle is common for schools serving Native American students in the state, according to data from the state Department of Education. Last school year, nearly half of Native American students were chronically absent, more than double the statewide rate.
But now, Norris’ attendance is above 90 percent. That’s higher than both the district and state averages. It’s been achieved by engaging one-on-one with students and families and implementing Lakota language and cultural programming.
The improvement is a source of pride for Brown and his staff.
“We can do it,” he said. “We can be successful, we can show people that we care about school and that we want to be the best that we can be.”
South Dakota Secretary of Education Joseph Graves has noticed the improvement. He said keeping students engaged through culturally relevant lessons and communication is an important part of replicating what’s happening at Norris.
“But it’s also that leadership, those people who are willing to make that happen, engage with kids,” Graves said. “You put those two together and it’s proven to be a very strong factor in the success.”
Graves said he wants to keep watching the school, to see if the trend continues and if it leads to increased proficiency and graduation rates.
The geographic isolation at Norris makes it difficult to hire and recruit teachers and staff. Two teachers are in dual-grade classrooms, the school’s head custodian and office administrator are also the school’s bus drivers, and Brown steps in at lunchtime to help serve food.
“We kind of have to make and manipulate our own resources just to get the kids what they need,” Brown said. “It’s been challenging, but then also, it’s been eye-opening to address the needs of the kids out here at Norris.”
Norris is one of many schools across the state trying to fill teaching positions. As of July, there were 144 open teaching positions, according to data from Associated School Boards of South Dakota.
A part of Brown’s morning routine is checking in with teachers during breakfast to ask which students they haven’t seen yet. If they aren’t there for roll call, Brown hits the road for a home visit.
He would’ve been doing that on a recent morning, he said, if he wasn’t talking to a reporter.
“I probably would’ve already went out this morning, and probably would have went and visited at least two houses this morning to parents and say, ‘Hey, how’s it going? What do you need? How can I help you?’” he said.
It’s not just about getting the kids to school. It’s about them wanting to come to school, Brown said.
In a small community, it takes everyone to keep students involved, said Wendy O’Brien, who teaches fourth and fifth grade at Norris.
“If you get the community members involved, and they come into the classroom and see what the kids are doing, I think they’re more supportive,” she said.
She wants students to form habits of good attendance. It’s especially important for students in her two-grade classroom.
“When they miss school, they miss learning,” O’Brien said. “Working with two grades, you don’t have time to reteach lessons.”
It’s also important to make the kids feel seen, Brown said. After taking over as principal in 2022, Brown, who works to preserve Lakota language, songs and philosophy, started finding ways to include Lakota culture in the school day.
Now, the morning announcements are followed by a group of students leading the school in Lakota songs. He also teaches Lakota studies to each grade once a week, and started the school’s first traditional Lakota drum group: the Black Pipe Singers.
“When children know their identity, they know who they are, where they come from, they will excel better academically and in basic life skills,” Brown said.
It’s one of the ways he can set students up for success before they get to high school, where more than one-third of Native American students in public schools don’t graduate, according to recent state data.
Brown calls the habits learned in elementary school the “bread and butter” of a student’s academic journey.
“It’s important to go to school every day, be on time, do the best that you can and work hard,” he said. “It promotes a more successful life for the children, and that’s what we try to establish here at Norris.”
The post ‘We can do it’: A rural school near two reservations nearly doubles its attendance appeared first on ICT.
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