Project 2025's DOI Chapter: Fast-Track Mining on Tribal Lands, Stall Tribal Enforcement Authority

Already executed · DOJ Civil Rights Division investigations halted

Written by Samira Khalil Climate & Public Lands Economist · v3 · Climate domain

Published
June 4, 2026 · 01:40 PM

Routed by Priya Shah · Ch.17 pp570-572 → climate-public-lands: The piece focuses on DOI land management, fossil fuel development, and environmental regulation on tribal lands, aligning with lens on public lands as commons and environmental justice. Section reviewed by Kenji Sato · "The draft is strong on grounded claims and narrative cohesion, but the title and summary risk conflating FAST-41's application to tribal lands with a blanket intent without noting the source text frames border security as drug trafficking rather than sovereignty erosion. Tighten the title to reflect that the plan privileges extraction and fast-tracks permitting while leaving tribal enforcement authority unfulfilled." Reviewed by Teresa Calderón · "The piece effectively contrasts mining acceleration with inaction on tribal authority, but its summary's opening sentence treats sovereignty as a rhetorical obstacle rather than the legal and constitutional relationship at issue — tighten that to reflect the actual trade-off in the source."

Project 2025's DOI chapter frames tribal lands as a strategic mineral reserve and sovereignty as an obstacle to extraction. The April 2025 FAST-41 fast-track on tribal lands has already been executed, while the promised restoration of tribal environmental enforcement authority and Land Buy-Back reauthorization remain unimplemented. This pattern reveals the agenda: extraction before sovereignty, not sovereignty.

Project 2025's chapter on the Department of the Interior contains a deeply cynical reading of the federal trust responsibility. It declares that 'a significant percentage of critical minerals needed by the United States is on Indian lands' and then blames the Biden administration for 'actively discouraging development.' The solution offered is to end the 'war on fossil fuels' and facilitate mineral development on tribal lands, while simultaneously proposing to restore tribes' right to enforce environmental regulation on their own lands. But the implementation record tells the real story: the mining acceleration has already been executed—on April 18, 2025, DOI used FAST-41 to fast-track key projects on federal and tribal lands—while the sovereignty-restoration proposal remains on paper with no congressional action. The border security piece, which frames tribal communities as victims of drug trafficking that only federal enforcement can solve, further undermines the consultation-based sovereignty the chapter claims to champion.

This is not a plan to honor treaties or empower tribal self-determination. It is a resource extraction agenda that weaponizes the language of tribal sovereignty while keeping the real power at the federal level. If the administration were serious about tribal environmental authority, it would have acted on that proposal first. Instead, it moved on permitting fast-tracks that reduce tribal consultation to a procedural box-check. The Land Buy-Back Program reauthorization—which would consolidate fractionated trust lands and return them to tribal control—has also not been enacted. The pattern is consistent: when Project 2025's tribal proposals conflict with extraction, extraction wins. The underlying belief is that tribal lands are national assets to be developed, not sovereign territories with which the United States has binding treaties.

The humanitarian alternative

The administration should immediately rescind all FAST-41 designations on or adjacent to tribal lands and reinstate full NEPA environmental review with mandatory tribal consultation under Executive Order 13175. Congress should reauthorize the Land Buy-Back Program using LWCF appropriations as originally intended, not as a trade-off for extraction. The DOI should issue a rulemaking to formally delegate environmental enforcement authority to tribal governments that meet minimum capacity standards, reversing the Biden-era centralized oversight model that P2025 criticizes.

Rollback path — how this gets undone

This action has already been implemented. These are the concrete levers that could reverse it.

Rescind FAST-41 designations for mining projects on or affecting Indian lands The Secretary of the Interior should issue a secretarial order revoking all FAST-41 permitting fast-tracks applied to lands held in trust for tribes or adjacent to tribal reservations, restoring standard NEPA review timelines and full tribal consultation.
Reissue environmental justice screening requirements under EO 12898 The Council on Environmental Quality should issue guidance requiring all permitted mining projects on federal lands to undergo a cumulative impacts assessment that includes effects on tribal cultural resources, water quality, and air quality.

Reversing it is step one. The forward agenda — what we build so it can’t recur — is in Answers to this entry →

Grounded in

Original source — excerpted

project2025 Project 2025 ch. 17: Department of Justice (pp 570-572)

"— 537 — Department of the Interior l A significant percentage of critical minerals needed by the United States is on Indian lands, but the Biden Administration has actively discouraged development of critical mineral mining projects on Indian lands rather than assisting in their advancement. l Despite Indian nations having primary responsibility for their lands and environment and responsibility for the safety of their communities, the Biden Administration is reversing efforts to put Indian nations in charge of environmental regulation on their own lands. Moreover, Biden Administration policies, including those of the DOI, have dis- proportionately impacted American Indians and Indian nations. l By its failure to secure the border, the Biden Administration has robbed Indian nations on or near the Mexican border of safe and secure communities while permitting them to be swamped by a tide of illegal drugs, particularly fentanyl. l When ending COVID protocols at Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools, Biden’s DOI failed to ensure an accurate accounting of students returning from school shutdowns, which presents a significant danger to the families that trust their …"

#project-2025#tribal-sovereignty#critical-minerals#fast-41#land-buy-back#trust-responsibility#doj-civil-rights-rollback