tribal consultation – Turtle Talk

Roadless Rule Update: What the Forest Service’s 29 Tribal Consultations Establish, and What Tribes Still Cannot See

September 2, 2026September 2, 2026Wenona Singel

The Forest Service has provided me with useful clarification about the Tribal consultations underlying USDA’s proposed rescission of the 2001 Roadless Rule. But its response also sharpens the fact that as Tribes prepare comments due September 21, USDA’s proposed rule, DEIS, and Tribal Impact Statement rely on information obtained through consultation while the underlying consultation record remains inaccessible for review.

In an August 31 response to my request for consultation records, the Forest Service confirmed that:

The reported 29 consultations were formal government-to-government consultations with federally recognized Tribes;
The number excludes consultations with Alaska Native Corporations, which the agency categorizes as government-to-corporation consultation; and
The August 5, 2025 Tribal Forum was not formal consultation and was not included among the 29 consultations.

Those answers clarify what the number 29 represents. But they don’t disclose which Tribes participated, when the consultations occurred, who attended, what information or recommendations were presented, what materials were exchanged, or how the Forest Service responded.

I requested a consultation log and the associated correspondence, agendas, notes, recordings, transcripts, presentations, and other exchanged materials. The Office of Tribal Relations referred that portion of the request to the Forest Service’s FOIA program.

USDA proposed rule and DEIS relies on the consultation information

This isn’t a situation in which consultation occurred alongside the rulemaking but played no role in USDA’s analysis.

The proposed rule expressly states that its Tribal summary “includes the input received to date through the consultation process.” It uses that information to characterize the overall Tribal response, identify asserted effects of rescission, and describe alternatives proposed by Tribal governments. USDA reports that “the majority sentiment among Tribal governments consulted is opposition” and identifies concerns involving sacred sites, traditional gathering areas, water quality, subsistence resources, governmental capacity, and the transfer of decision-making to future forest-level and project-level processes. The rule also describes consultation-derived proposals for retaining or strengthening roadless protections, establishing a Traditional Homelands Conservation Rule, incorporating Indigenous Knowledge, expanding co-stewardship, and requiring Tribal consent. Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation, 91 Fed. Reg. 53,827, 53,831–32 (Aug. 20, 2026).

The Draft EIS relies on Tribal feedback and consultation documentation more substantively. Its Tribal Rights and Interests analysis uses consultation information to identify affected interests and to evaluate the alternatives through three indicators: access, resource usability, and disturbance. Applying that framework, USDA concludes that full rescission presents the greatest potential for adverse effects on Tribal rights and interests. The Draft EIS also identifies Tribal-proposed management and co-stewardship approaches and then declines to develop them as national rule alternatives, concluding that they are “better addressed through local land management planning or site-specific project level planning than through National Rulemaking.” Draft EIS at 29 and 197-203.

The Tribal Summary Impact Statement is even more explicit. It states that its summary “includes the input received to date through the consultation process” and uses that input to describe Tribal positions, impacts, proposed alternatives, and the matters to which the Forest Service gives an “Agency Response.” Tribal Summary Impact Statement at 2–6.

The economic analysis presents a more limited case. It cross-references the Draft EIS’s treatment of fisheries, wildlife, subsistence, and other ecosystem services, but it doesn’t disclose whether or how consultation information affected its economic assumptions or quantified results. Cost Benefit Analysis at 19-20, 28. That omission may itself be important because the consultation summary identifies Tribal costs that don’t appear in the analysis’s principal quantified categories, including effects on subsistence resources, cultural landscapes, sacred places, treaty resources, and Tribal governmental capacity.

Why access matters legally

Government-to-government consultation is distinct from public notice and comment. Some consultation communications may appropriately remain confidential, particularly where they contain sensitive cultural information, locations of sacred sites, or information a Tribe provided with an expectation of confidentiality. But that doesn’t resolve the public docket issue.

Notice-and-comment doctrine generally requires an agency to disclose the critical factual material on which a proposed rule relies in sufficient detail to permit meaningful comment. The relevant question isn’t whether every consultation communication must be published. It’s whether USDA has disclosed enough of the nonconfidential consultation record to allow commenters to identify omissions, test the agency’s characterization, and respond with contrary or supplementary evidence.

Here, USDA has made its own account of the consultations part of the proposed rule’s public justification, the DEIS’s effects analysis, and the Tribal Summary Impact Statement. Yet commenters cannot determine from the public docket:

which Tribal governments supplied the information being summarized;
whether a stated position was expressed by one Tribe, several Tribes, or a broad cross-section;
whether materially different positions or qualifications were omitted;
whether USDA accurately described the alternatives Tribes proposed;
whether the agency’s response addresses the recommendations actually presented; or
whether information supplied by one Tribe has been generalized to Tribes with different treaties, governments, homelands, resources, and legal interests.

The Forest Service’s own consultation directive underscores that consultation ordinarily generates a broader documentary record. Departmental Regulation 1350-002 calls for documentation that may include invitations and supporting materials, participant information, agendas, minutes or notes, follow-up correspondence, and an explanation of how Tribal input was considered. DR 1350-002 at 11. The existence of legitimate confidentiality concerns doesn’t explain the absence of a basic consultation log or other nonconfidential records.

Executive Order 13175 also requires meaningful and timely Tribal input when federal policies have Tribal implications. It doesn’t itself create a general public access right to every consultation record. But USDA’s reliance on an undisclosed record raises a practical question about whether consultation can be meaningfully evaluated and whether Tribes can correct USDA’s account before the agency acts.

Why access matters practically for Tribes

The Forest Service emphasizes that government-to-government consultation will remain available after the September 21 public comment deadline. That distinction is real, but continued access to a separate consultation process doesn’t replace the present opportunity to comment on the proposed rule and Draft EIS.

A Tribe preparing comments may need the consultation record to determine whether USDA:

accurately represented that Tribe’s statements;
attributed another entity’s position too broadly;
omitted a proposed alternative, condition, or legal objection;
treated opposition to wholesale rescission as opposition to active forest management;
adequately incorporated Tribe-specific evidence into the DEIS;
addressed cumulative burdens on Tribal governments and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices; or
responded to requests for consent, co-management, co-stewardship, or protection at the national or traditional-homelands scale.

Without a consultation log and releasable supporting records, each Tribe can speak for itself, but it can’t readily evaluate USDA’s broader claims about what “Tribal governments consulted” collectively said or what the consultation process established.

The Forest Service’s August 31 response therefore establishes an important but limited fact: 29 formal consultations occurred with federally recognized Tribes. It doesn’t establish which Tribes participated, what they told the agency, how representative USDA’s synthesis is, or how their information and recommendations affected the proposed rescission.

Because USDA has incorporated its characterization of the consultations into the proposed rule, DEIS, and Tribal Summary Impact Statement, access to the underlying nonconfidential record isn’t merely a request for additional background. It bears directly on whether Tribes and other commenters can evaluate the agency’s analysis and respond meaningfully before the September 21 deadline.

Worth a Listen: Michigan Public Radio’s Aug. 27 Stateside episode

September 2, 2026August 31, 2026Wenona Singel

From the Stateside website:

Today on Stateside, we talked to a reporter about how Michigan became a battleground in the development of large scale data centers.

Then, we heard about how researchers from Michigan State University have teamed up with tribal nations in the Great Lakes to find out what trees can tell us about historical land management techniques used by Anishinaabe people.

And a historic preservation officer from the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians discussed how dendrochronology findings affect her work, and shared information about proposed changes from the Trump administration could affect tribal input on historic preservation projects.

GUEST ON TODAY’S SHOW:

Dustin Walsh, Crain’s Detroit Business senior reporter

Patrick Shea, reporter

Mae Wright, tribal historic preservation officer and NAGPRA representative for the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians

Listen here.

Mining Companies are Already Staking Claims on Lands Trump Cut From Bears Ears

September 1, 2026August 27, 2026Wenona Singel

Federal agency leaders and tribal representatives on the Bears Ears Commission stand in front of the newly installed Bears Ears National Monument sign on June 18, 2022. Pictured from left, former Agriculture Department Under Secretary Homer L. Wilkes, Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee Member Christopher Tabbee, Ute Mountain Ute Councilman Malcolm Lehi, Zuni Tribe Lt. Gov. Carleton R. Bowekaty, Hopi Chair Timothy Nuvangyaoma, Navajo Nation Executive Assistant Davis Filfred and BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning. Photo courtesy of the BLM

The Bureau of Land Management began removing the seals of five tribes from the Bears Ears National Monument signs on Wednesday, July 22. President Donald Trump shrank the monument for a second time on July 13 and disbanded the Bears Ears Commission, which consisted of representatives from five tribes. Photo courtesy of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition

On August 14, Earthjustice reported that Kimmerle Mining staked seven mining claims on lands stripped of protection when President Trump issued a proclamation reducing Bears Ears National Monument. Kimmerle Mining recorded the claims on July 14, one day after Trump signed the proclamation. The claims reportedly target uranium, vanadium, copper, and precious metals. The lands aren’t scheduled to reopen to mineral entry until September 11, so these filings show how quickly mining interests are moving to position themselves to benefit. Earthjustice has the details and a map of the claims.

Trump’s proclamation reduced the monument from approximately 1.36 million acres to 121,100 acres, a reduction of more than 90 percent. The proclamation also terminated the Bears Ears Commission, eliminating the formal management role of the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Pueblo of Zuni. Federal officials immediately removed the five Tribal Nations’ seals from monument signs.

The five Tribes of the Bears Ears Commission understand Bears Ears as an interconnected living cultural landscape. Trump’s proclamation instead describes the region as a collection of uranium, vanadium, copper, and other minerals “critical to national security.” The Department of the Interior had promised to meet with the Bears Ears Commission before changing the monument’s boundaries or management, but the Commission reports that no meaningful government-to-government consultation occurred. The Commission had finalized the Bears Ears Resource Management Plan in January 2025, a milestone described as “a historic achievement for the management of Bears Ears National Monument that underscores the power of unity, trust, and shared responsibility in land stewardship.”

Trump’s invocation of national security should be understood within the historical context of uranium extraction in Indian Country. Uranium mining began on the Navajo Nation during WWII to secure fuel for nuclear weapons, and production continued in strength until the 1980s. The mining resulted in Native miners and families experiencing deadly illnesses, contaminated homes and water, and hundreds of abandoned mines. More than 500 abandoned uranium mines remain on or near Navajo lands, and the federal government still has no comprehensive estimate of what completing the cleanup will cost. Members of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s White Mesa community also continue to raise concerns about the uranium mill operating only five miles from their homes and Bears Ears.

The President’s Bears Ears Proclamation invokes national security to promote more uranium mining, despite the fact that the past human and environmental costs of historic uranium mining have never been fully remedied.

Additional Resources

What the Mines Left Behind by Elise Wild for Native News Online (August 21, 2026)

The History of Uranium Mining and the Navajo People, Doug Bruggest, PhD, MS, and Rob Goble, PhD, American Journal of Public Health (Sept. 2022, Vol. 92, No. 9)

Update on Proposed Rescission of Roadless Rule: pdfs of all 2025 Tribal comments are available in Vol. III of the EIS

August 29, 2026August 29, 2026Wenona Singel

Here.

What Tribal Comments Are Telling the CFTC About Prediction Markets

August 25, 2026August 27, 2026Wenona Singel

This is a follow-up to my earlier post on prediction markets and Indian gaming. A subsequent post on key comments submitted by non-Tribal persons and organizations is available here.

Below is a summary that provides a snapshot of the concerns raised by Tribes in their comments submitted in response to the CFTC’s proposed rule.

Taken together, the comments consistently emphasize that the CFTC is considering a federal workaround that could allow companies to offer nationwide sports betting while bypassing the legal framework Congress created for gaming in Indian country.

Recurring concerns raised in Tribal comments include:

IGRA already governs gaming on Indian lands. The CEA should not be interpreted to override, impliedly repeal, or create a workaround around the federal Indian gaming framework Congress established in IGRA.
The CFTC failed to conduct meaningful government-to-government Tribal consultation. Notice-and-comment rulemaking is not a substitute for consultation when a federal action substantially affects Tribal sovereignty, gaming regulation, and Tribal governmental economies.
Sports event contracts are gaming regardless of what they are called. Many commenters argue that the legal analysis should turn on the transaction’s economic function, which is a wager for value on an uncertain sporting outcome and not the label “event contract.”
The proposed definition of when an event contract “involves” gaming is too narrow. Tribal commenters reject an interpretation limited to what determines settlement of the contract and argue that Congress’s language also reaches contracts that functionally relate to or facilitate wagering on gaming activity.
The rule threatens Tribal sovereignty and regulatory jurisdiction. Nationwide mobile sports event wagering could reach Indian lands without Tribal authorization and bypass Tribal gaming regulators.
Prediction markets could undermine Tribal-State compacts. Commenters warn that federally regulated sports event contracts could circumvent bargained-for gaming exclusivity and revenue sharing provisions.
The CFTC should not become a national sports betting regulator. Tribal commenters argue that the CEA regulates derivatives markets, not ordinary sports wagering, and point to the CFTC’s own prior statements that it is not a gaming regulator.
The proposal creates regulatory arbitrage. Functionally equivalent sports wagering could receive substantially lighter federal regulation when offered through a CFTC-regulated exchange, bypassing Tribal and state licensing, taxation, responsible-gaming, and consumer-protection requirements.
The CFTC should prohibit gaming contracts before they reach the market rather than rely on case-by-case review. Commenters object to allowing exchanges to self-certify contracts that may begin trading before the Commission determines whether they are permissible.
Tribal governmental revenues are at stake. Competition from prediction markets could reduce gaming revenues used by Tribal governments for health care, education, housing, public safety, and other governmental services.
Some commenters question whether sports wagers belong within the CEA at all. They argue that sports event wagers lack the hedging or risk management function associated with derivatives and may fail threshold statutory requirements for swaps.
The proposal raises federal trust responsibility and Indian law canon issues. Where federal statutes are ambiguous, commenters argue that the CEA should not be interpreted to silently displace Tribal sovereign, regulatory, or negotiated compact rights.
The rule may be vulnerable under the Administrative Procedure Act. Several comments preserve arguments that the CFTC is reversing prior understandings without adequately addressing congressional intent, Indian gaming law, Tribal sovereignty, and the regulatory consequences of its new approach.
Many Tribal commenters want the proposal withdrawn, not merely improved. The dominant requested remedy is for the CFTC to withdraw the proposed rule or preserve a categorical prohibition on gaming event contracts.

Tribal Submissions

CFTC List of Commenting Tribes with URL links for TT Download

NHPA Section 106 Update: Tribes and Others Can Request Meetings with the OMB’s OIRA Now

August 17, 2026August 15, 2026Wenona Singel

Last Friday we posted on the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation’s move to weaken Section 106’s consultation requirements. We emphasized that the proposed rule, which hasn’t yet been published in the Federal Register, may include a short window of 30 days for submission of comments.

Likely Problems with an Anticipated Short 30-Day Comment Window

Thirty days is notably short, not consistent with best practices identified by EO 13563(2)(b) and EO 12866(6)(a)(1), and unlikely to afford sufficient opportunity for meaningful Tribal participation. Once the NPRM is published, Tribes will need to share the draft with their THPOs, legal counsel, natural resources and cultural staff, executive leadership, and Tribal Council before submitting their comments. The process for Tribal government preparation of comments is profoundly different than national industry associations and corporations, which have dedicated regulatory counsel whose jobs are dedicated to monitoring and immediately responding to federal rulemaking. If ACHP publishes the notice of proposed rulemaking with only 30 days for comments, Tribes and their advocates could consider immediately requesting an extension to at least 60 or even 90 days. The argument would be that given the breadth of the proposed revisions and the consultation and internal review required for affected Tribes, a longer period is necessary to provide a meaningful opportunity for informed comment.

Tribes Can Request a Meeting with OIRA within OMB to Address Changes to Section 106 Now

Tribes and other interested parties don’t have to wait for the comment period to engage. They can weigh in now by requesting a meeting with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within OMB. OIRA review isn’t just an internal federal process conducted behind closed doors. Interested parties, including Tribes, can request meetings while regulatory actions are under review. Regulated industries routinely use these opportunities, and Tribes should know that the same opportunity is available to them. All Tribes should know that they don’t have to wait until the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register to make their concerns known.

The link to request a meeting is here. To request a meeting, you’ll need to provide the Regulatory Identification Number (RIN) for OIRA’s current review of amendments to the Implementing Regulations for Section 106. The RIN is 3010-AA10. OIRA’s role in the rulemaking process is described in EO 12866.

There are no OIRA meetings currently scheduled with Tribes or Tribal organizations regarding its consideration of changes to Section 106 regulations, although the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (NATHPO) reports that they submitted a request for a meeting on August 11. So far, OIRA met with Edison Electric Institute on August 13, and it has meetings scheduled for the Society for American Archaeology, the Wisconsin SHPO, the WA Dept of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, Agora Consulting LLC on behalf of the American Cultural Resources Association, and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers.

A How To Guide for EO 12866 meetings (Meetings on a Regulatory Action under Review with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) is available on the OIRA website here.

ACHP Moving to Dramatically Weaken Section 106 Tribal Consultation

August 14, 2026August 13, 2026Wenona Singel

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation voted 16–5 on July 24 to advance a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would substantially rewrite 36 C.F.R. Part 800, which implements Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Section 106 is a cornerstone provision of NHPA that gives Tribes a formal role in ensuring that federal agencies consider impacts to sacred places, ancestral landscapes, and other historic properties of religious and cultural significance before making decisions that may affect them.

The proposal isn’t yet published in the Federal Register since it’s under OMB/OIRA review, so the formal comment period hasn’t opened. A 30-day comment period is anticipated once the NPRM is published. But a draft redline is available on the War Room page of Cultural Heritage Partners, a law firm that specializes in historic and cultural heritage protection.

The National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers has identified the following areas of preliminary concern on its page dedicated to the planned revisions to Section 106:

Narrowing what qualifies as an undertaking. The proposal would exclude certain state, Tribal, and local actions carried out under delegated federal authority. Other provisions would provide additional grounds for agencies to conclude that federal funding, approval, assistance, or involvement does not trigger Section 106 review. When an activity is treated as outside the definition of an undertaking, the agency generally has no obligation under Section 106 to identify historic properties, consult with affected Tribal Nations, assess effects, or consider ways to avoid or address harm.

Excluding certain natural and cultural places from the definition of historic property. The proposal would generally require a place to be geographically compact and connected to tangible human improvements or specific human activities. It further states that “noncompact, unimproved natural features such as mountains, valleys, bodies of water, or landscapes, including ethnographic landscapes, do not qualify as property” for Section 106 purposes. This could exclude places whose significance arises from continuing religious and cultural practice, subsistence, oral tradition, place names, cultural responsibility, ceremony, and enduring relationships among Tribal people, ancestors, land, water, plants, and animals.

Not every Tribal cultural place can be reduced to a tightly bounded parcel or identified through buildings, archaeological deposits, or other visible physical remains. Some places are understood through relationships among multiple locations, waterways, mountains, gathering areas, travel routes, viewsheds, and ceremonial settings. The absence of tangible human improvements does not make those places less sacred, less culturally significant, or less deserving of consideration.

Reducing Tribal and THPO participation. The draft removes provisions that give Tribes a reasonable opportunity to identify concerns, advise agencies on the identification and evaluation of historic properties, explain how an undertaking may affect those properties, and participate in resolving adverse effects. It also reduces THPO involvement at several stages, shifts more findings and decisions to the agency official, and moves the role of consulting parties toward commenting on an agency-prepared report.

Consultation is not meaningful when a Tribe is presented with a substantially completed agency analysis and given only a limited opportunity to respond. It must begin early enough for Tribal knowledge, concerns, and recommendations to influence identification, evaluation, effects analysis, project alternatives, and the resolution of harm.

Removing recognition of Tribal expertise and legal context. The draft deletes language recognizing the special expertise of Indian Tribes in assessing the eligibility of properties of religious and cultural significance. It also removes express references to the government-to-government relationship, Tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, and the fact that culturally significant places are often located on ancestral, aboriginal, or ceded lands.

Tribal Nations are sovereign governments, not members of the general public or sources of supplemental cultural information. General assurances that the regulations do not alter Tribal sovereignty or treaty rights do not resolve the concern if the operative provisions reduce Tribal involvement or disregard Tribal expertise.

Narrowing the effects considered. The proposal would remove references to indirect and cumulative effects and limit adverse effects to “only those reasonably foreseeable effects that have a reasonably close causal relationship to the undertaking.” It would also remove specific recognition of changes to a property’s use or setting and the introduction of visual, atmospheric, or audible elements as potential adverse effects.

These changes are especially significant for sacred places and cultural landscapes. A place may be harmed through changes to access, setting, privacy, sound, visibility, water, vegetation, ceremonial conditions, or the ability of Tribal citizens to continue religious and cultural practices. Those effects can be profound even when a project does not excavate, demolish, or physically alter the place itself.

Expanding agency control over the process. The draft provides that an agency official “may alter any deadline in this part, to be shorter or longer.” Agencies would also have greater control over the area of potential effects, the scope of identification, agency findings, and the consideration of comments from consulting parties.

The proposal would allow an agency to prepare a consolidated Section 106 report containing its identification, effects analysis, and proposed response before circulating that analysis for comment. This risks transforming consultation from a collaborative planning process into an opportunity to react to conclusions the agency has largely developed on its own.

The draft would also allow an agency official to treat matters addressed only briefly or left unaddressed as intentionally omitted because the agency considered them “comparatively unimportant or frivolous.” That is especially concerning where an agency does not understand or gives insufficient weight to Tribal knowledge, cultural values, or effects identified by a Tribe.

Replacing negotiated outcomes with agency decisions. The proposal would move away from memoranda of agreement and toward agency-issued memoranda of decision. The agency could determine how it will address effects or conclude that “other considerations outweigh” historic preservation concerns. This would allow the agency to consult, decline to secure agreement on how adverse effects will be addressed, and document its own decision to proceed.

Expanding exemptions and procedural off-ramps. The proposal encourages broader use of exemptions and other mechanisms through which categories of undertakings or programs could avoid full Section 106 review. The accompanying notice describes an intent to create additional “on- and off-ramps” and make Section 106 exemptions function more like categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Section 106 and NEPA serve different statutory purposes. A determination that an activity has no significant environmental effect under NEPA does not establish that it cannot affect a historic property or a place of religious and cultural significance to a Tribal Nation.

Making public participation discretionary. The proposal characterizes public comment as “optional, not mandatory” and would largely leave the decision whether to seek public input to the agency official. This would reduce opportunities for affected communities, local governments, preservation organizations, and members of the public to identify properties, raise concerns, and inform agency decisions.

For further reaction and analysis: Earthjustice’s statement calls the proposal a “federal attack” on one of the few laws requiring the government to consult tribes before approving projects; Holland & Knight’s summary walks through the regulatory mechanics and what happens next.

Planned Closure of NARA Regional Archives

July 29, 2026July 29, 2026Wenona Singel

Recent reports indicate that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is moving forward with plans to close several regional archives facilities, including the Chicago Regional Archives and Federal Records Center, the San Francisco (San Bruno) Regional Archives and Federal Records Center, and the Seattle Federal Records Center. Although these closures are underway, little public information has been released about what’s happening.

Last week, three of the nation’s leading archival organizations — the Society of American Archivists (SAA), the Council of State Archivists (CoSA), and the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators (NAGARA) — issued a joint statement expressing alarm about both the closures and the lack of transparency surrounding them. They note that, while NARA has legitimate fiscal pressures and has appropriately transitioned toward electronic records management, permanent archival collections remain physically housed at these facilities and continue to be heavily used by researchers, governments, veterans, students, historians, and the public. The organizations specifically emphasize that NARA has yet to explain how access to these permanent records will be maintained or whether affected stakeholders and Tribal Nations have been consulted.

For all Tribes, these closures would cause serious harms.

Regional NARA facilities contain the documentary record of the federal government’s relationship with Tribal Nations. Depending on the region, these collections include BIA records, treaty implementation files, agency and superintendent correspondence, allotment and probate records, census rolls, Indian boarding school records, land and trust property records, litigation files, maps, photographs, and countless other records documenting the federal trust relationship.

For the Great Lakes, the Chicago Regional Archives are especially significant. Chicago’s NARA facility includes records from Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. Tribes regularly consult these collections to reconstruct treaty history, document reservation boundaries, establish citizenship and ancestry, conduct repatriation research, investigate boarding school histories, support litigation, and preserve tribal history. While NARA has digitized a fraction of these records, substantial portions of these collections remain accessible only through in-person research. A recent statement of the Chicago Area Archivists on the impact of closing NARA Chicago is here.

If these collections are relocated to more distant facilities, the practical consequences would be dire. Increased travel costs, reduced accessibility, and longer wait times would all create barriers for everyone seeking access to records documenting their communities.

In addition, we have little information about where permanent archival collections will ultimately reside, how public access will be preserved, or whether Tribal consultation has occurred. The joint statement issued by SAA, CoSA, and NAGARA specifically calls for consultation with Tribal Nations located near the records held in Chicago and San Francisco because of their unique governmental, cultural, and historical interests.

There’s also an important recent precedent from 2020 and 2021:

In January 2020, OMB announced plans to sell the Seattle National Archives facility. That proposal prompted strong opposition from Tribal Nations, states, historians, archivists, researchers, and members of Congress. Litigation followed, resulting in a preliminary injunction blocking the sale of the facility. Subsequently, the OMB withdrew approval of the closure in 2021, explaining that the process had failed to comply with the Biden Administration’s Tribal consultation policy. OMB concluded that any future effort affecting the facility would have to be preceded by meaningful Tribal consultation and a new administrative process supported by an adequate factual record.

The pleadings, briefing, and other documents from that litigation remain available on Turtle Talk.

At this stage, it’s unclear what opportunities will exist for consultation or public input regarding the Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle facilities. These archives contain irreplaceable records documenting the histories, governments, lands, and legal relationships of Tribal Nations throughout the United States. Decisions about their future shouldn’t occur without transparency or meaningful consultation with the governments whose histories they preserve.

If anyone is aware of additional information regarding NARA’s plans, Tribal consultation efforts, or responses by Tribal governments or organizations, let us know. We’ll share updates as we learn about them.