The Interior Department released hundreds of heavily redacted documents on Monday from a two-week review in February. These records contain action plans for national monuments and mineral withdrawals across the U.S. to accelerate President Donald Trump’s American energy agenda.
“This is over-redacted in a way that is almost laughable,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the nonpartisan Center for Western Priorities. “Clearly, they don’t want to say what they’re up to.”
None of the 468 pages reveal any recommendations for several national monuments of cultural significance to tribes scattered throughout the Southwest.
The Trump administration has been eyeing to shrink large swaths of federally protected lands to expedite the extraction of oil, gas and critical minerals — including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, Chuckwalla in California as well as Arizona’s Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni that former President Joe Biden designated in 2023.
In a statement, the Interior Department told KJZZ these internal working documents contain “a large amount of pre-decisional and deliberative information,” which it argues is shielded by law.
“It seems like you’re having it both ways,” added Weiss. “Either you had to have action plans completed in 14 days, or they drafted up a bunch of deliberative action plans and didn’t actually finish them.”
The federal agency would not disclose when its final plans will be released.
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Beyond being seen and heard in the negotiating room where water decisions are handled, tribes are also having to navigate unprecedented institutional shifts from the Biden administration back to Trump that, in turn, potentially hinder their sovereignty.
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Navajo tribal officials announced the first steps in restoring some land previously used for uranium ore mining on the Navajo Nation.
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While opponents – like the San Carlos Apache Tribe and nonprofit Apache Stronghold – claim things are moving too quickly, the Superior Community Working Group has met to address possible mitigations and benefits each quarter for the last seven years.
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President Donald Trump is looking to reopen Alcatraz Island, which once housed 19 Hopi men who didn’t want their children going to Indian boarding schools.
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Scottsdale Recovery Continued is receiving nearly $500,000 from the state to support Native American victims of fraudulent sober living homes.