Southern Ute Tribe Secures Historic Energy Agreement With Interior Department
By Gabriel Pietrorazio | KJZZ
Earlier this month, a tribe from the Four Corners region has inked a historic deal with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum advancing the Trump administration’s “Unleashing American Energy” agenda.
The Southern Ute Indian Tribe in southwest Colorado sitting above the border of New Mexico has entered the first-ever TERA — or Tribal Energy Resource Agreement — more than two decades after Congress enacted the law.
This allows the nearly 1,500-member tribe to handle its own business — without obtaining expressed permission from the feds to lease energy projects and issue right-of-ways on the 700,000-acre reservation near Durango.
Doing so is supposed to streamline the process by reducing delays.
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