Indian Tribal Energy Development and Self-Determination Act Amendments of 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, section 202(b) of S. 245, the ``Tribal Biomass Demonstration Project Act,'' amends the Tribal Forest Protection Act of 2004 (TFPA) to include new authority that directs the Secretary (of Agriculture or the Interior) to enter into a minimum number of contracts or agreements with Indian tribes to enable the tribes to carry out various activities on Federal land. Unlike the current TFPA, which is discretionary, the Secretary must enter into agreements with tribes under this new authority. These activities will benefit the Indian tribes that enter into the agreements as well as the surrounding communities, and they will promote healthy forests to stem the plague of wildfires afflicting many Western communities, tribal and non-tribal alike.

As an initial matter, Section 202(e) requires the Secretary to consult with tribes and tribal organizations in developing the eligibility criteria and to make the criteria public within 120 days of enactment. It is critical that the Secretary meet this deadline to ensure that tribes are able to submit applications for projects in the remainder of fiscal year 2019.

As provided in the bill, in evaluating tribal projects, the Secretary is directed to weigh several factors. Given the severe impact of wildfires over the past decade, the importance of one of the factors, improving the forest health of Federal land, cannot be emphasized enough. For example, in August of 2015, two wildfires burned more than 255,000 acres of the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington State. The fires burned nearly 20 percent of the reservation land base and more than 800 million board feet of timber, making it the most damaging fire event in history in terms of board feet of timber lost on any Indian reservation. As noted in a November 8, 2015, column in the Seattle Times by then-Colville Chairman Jim Boyd and the Gentlelady from Washington, the Honorable Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the damage to the Colville Reservation was amplified because major fire-suppression resources were tied up suppressing fires on undermanaged areas of nearby National Forest land, leaving the Colville Reservation with little protection. The Secretary should, accordingly, give strong weight to tribal proposals that will improve the forest health on Federal land and protect tribal lands.

Finally, Section 202(b) requires the Secretary to incorporate, at a tribe's request and to the maximum extent practicable, the tribe's on- reservation management plans in the contracts or agreements under which the tribe will perform the activities on Federal land. The requirement that on-reservation management plans be incorporated into tribal activities on Federal land is an extension of what Congress has already required. For example, since its enactment in 1976, Section 202(b) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act has required the U.S. Forest Service to coordinate the lands use plans for National Forest System lands with tribal management practices.

As highlighted over the years in numerous Committee on Natural Resources hearings, tribal land management practices are widely acknowledged as more flexible and as having forest health outcomes superior to those in effect on non-tribal Federal land. The Committee on Natural Resources examined this at an April 10, 2014, oversight hearing on tribal forest management. Compared to federal land managers, tribes find increased forest management efficiencies in the tiered environmental compliance afforded by tribal Integrated Resource Management Plans and the limitation on third party appeals in Bureau of Indian Affairs forestry regulations (which are incorporated into tribal forest management plans). These and other on-reservation management practices could and should be included in agreements under Section 202 at a tribes' request.

On a final note, nothing in the TFPA or the amendments made to the TFPA under Sec. 202 of S. 245 provide, or imply a provision, for tribal management of non-tribal interests in Federal land (and non-tribal users of such land) beyond the specific forest management-related functions set forth in the Act.

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