US Interior boss, tribes celebrate 20-year ban on oil drilling near Chaco national park

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — It’s a homecoming of sorts for U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, after her agency spent many months hosting public meetings and talking with Native American leaders about curbing the pace of oil and gas development in the San Juan Basin and protecting culturally significant sites.

Her return to Chaco Culture National Historical Park on Sunday is meant to celebrate the Biden administration’s recent decision to enshrine for the next 20 years what previously had been an informal 10-mile (16-kilometer) buffer around the World Heritage site.

Haaland’s own pueblo of Laguna — about 100 miles to the south — is among those that have fought to protect a broad swath of land beyond park boundaries. Haaland has called Chaco a sacred place that holds deep meaning for Indigenous people whose ancestors called the area home.

“Efforts to protect the Chaco landscape have been ongoing for decades, as tribal communities have raised concerns about the impacts that new development would have on areas of deep cultural connection,” Haaland said in a statement issued earlier this month.

But not everyone is happy.

Navajo leaders have said Haaland and the Biden administration have ignored efforts to reach a compromise that would have established a smaller buffer to protect cultural sites and keep intact the viability of tribal land and parcels owned by individual Navajos for future development.

The region is made up of a patchwork of different ownership. Even though the Biden administration’s withdrawal applies only to federal land, Navajo officials and allotment owners said their interests will now be landlocked.

Navajo President Buu Nygren said in a statement issued Thursday that the weekend celebration was disappointing and disrespectful. It should have been cancelled, he said.

“The financial and economic losses that are impacting many Navajo families as a result of the secretary’s recent land withdrawal are nothing to celebrate,” Nygren said. “As leaders of the Navajo Nation, we support the Navajo allottees who oppose the withdrawal of these public lands.”

Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley said allotment owners were not adequately consulted despite the federal government’s claims.

Industry groups also have backed the Navajos, with some alleging that Haaland has conflicts of interest when it comes oil and gas policy decisions.

A Republican-led U.S. House committee announced just days after the Chaco decision that it would investigate the secretary’s ties to an Indigenous environmental group that has protested fossil fuels.

Still, a coalition of environmental groups and Native American activists who campaigned for the restrictions have lauded Haaland’s order as a first step in protecting cultural sites and the region from pollution and climate change. The coalition also continues to lobby for legislation that would formalize the same buffer around the park, spanning more than 490 square miles (1,269 square kilometers) of federal land.

A study published last fall by the Interior Department shows the withdrawal would not affect existing leases and that much of the area of interest by the industry for future development already is under lease or falls outside the boundary of what would be withdrawn.