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Southern Ute says it will use TERA; witnesses urge SPEED Act changes to protect tribal commenting rights
Summary
Southern Ute Council member Andrew Gallegos told a House subcommittee the tribe expects Interior approval of a TERA application soon and supports SPEED Act measures to streamline reviews; lawmakers raised concerns that draft SPEED Act language requiring public comments to be "substantive and unique" could unintentionally preclude multiple tribes making similar substantive comments.
Andrew Gallegos, a council member of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, told the House Natural Resources subcommittee that his tribe submitted a Tribal Energy Resource Agreement (TERA) application and expects Interior approval in the near term. Gallegos described how the HEARTH Act and TERA authorities are intended to let tribes approve some land uses and leases without individualized BIA review, and he said Southern Ute has used these authorities and regulatory work to allow residential, agricultural and renewable energy leases on reservation land once federal approvals were in place.
Gallegos urged the committee to pass the SPEED Act to reduce duplicative federal reviews and provide clearer, more predictable NEPA timelines for actions affecting tribal trust lands. He said the SPEED Act's presumptions and shortened challenge windows would help financing and project timelines.
Ranking Member Leger Fernandez and other lawmakers pressed witnesses on a drafting issue in the SPEED Act language: as written in committee discussion, a public comment must be both "substantive and unique" to preserve judicial review rights. Fernandez said that requirement could unintentionally bar tribes or multiple local stakeholders from seeking review when several parties raise the same substantive concern (for example, multiple neighboring tribes noting the same impact to a shared water resource). Gallegos and other witnesses said the bill's intent is to limit out‑of‑area challengers, not local or neighboring tribal voices, and recommended rewording to preserve substantive local comment rights while limiting duplicative form letters from outside parties.
Gallegos framed broader reform as an assertion of tribal self‑determination: "If the tribe wants to regulate and oversee compliance, that makes us more sovereign," he told the subcommittee. He and other witnesses recommended targeted statutory fixes, expedited fee‑to‑trust timelines for energy projects, and measures that let tribes assume permitting authority appropriate to their capacity.
The subcommittee did not take a legislative vote; members asked witnesses to submit written follow‑up and set a deadline for members' questions and responses to the hearing record.
