The movement to protect sacred sites is once again drawing attention in the nation’s capital as President Donald Trump and his administration push to open more federal lands to development.

At a hearing last Thursday, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum confirmed that he’s been looking at energy development at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. He has already met with leaders of the Navajo Nation to discuss a buffer zone that currently restricts oil and gas drilling on public lands around the sacred site.

“One of the first groups that came to visit me as Secretary of Interior was the Navajo,” Burgum said at the hearing before the House Committee on Natural Resources. “And the Navajo felt that they weren’t consulted — particularly related to the buffer zone and the impingement on Navajo allottee rights relative to the buffer zone around Chaco.”

The buffer zone, which was put in place by the Joe Biden administration, does not prohibit drilling on lands allotted to approximately 4,000 Navajo citizens. Still, Navajo leaders say communities near Chaco have been hindered by the broader ban on development.

“Our homes, our roads, and our ability to thrive are now locked behind a decision we were not included in,” Navajo Nation Council Delegate Brenda Jesus said after meeting with Burgum in Washington, D.C., in April.

But while Burgum has already sat down with Navajo officials, other tribal nations have felt left in the dark. Last month, Pueblo tribes who support the development ban in Chaco Canyon were invited to a consultation about the buffer zone — but not with the leader of the Department of the Interior, the federal agency with the most trust and treaty responsibilities in Indian Country.

Instead, the Pueblo tribes were told to meet with the Bureau of Land Management, a sub-agency of Interior. And they were given only 20 days notice of the consultation about an area that plays an important role in their cultures and histories.

“The BLM’s consultation process must honor the government-to-government relationship and provide adequate time for proper tribal input,” Governor Charles Riley of the Pueblo of Acoma said in response to the hastily-called meeting.

“Our ancestors built Chaco over a thousand years ago, and Pueblo people have been its stewards ever since,” Riley continued. “Any decision affecting this sacred landscape requires the full participation and consent of tribes.”

Adding to the slight was the fact that the BLM meeting was scheduled to take place virtually, instead of face-to-face with Pueblo leaders. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-New Mexico) pushed Burgum to engage in more meaningful ways with Indian Country.

“I want you to commit to sending somebody with decision-making authority to conduct in-person, individual tribal consultations with each tribe that has an interest in Chaco Canyon,” Fernandez said at the hearing last week. “Can you commit to that?”

“Absolutely,” Burgum responded.

Fernández pointed out that New Mexico is home to significant oil and gas development. But she said that drilling can occur without harming public lands around the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in the northwestern part of the state.

“We understand the importance of all the resources,” Fernández said. “We believe in wind energy and solar energy, but we also depend on oil and gas.”

“And you can drill a molecule away from Chaco Canyon and get a return on your investment and not destroy irreplaceable cultural sites,” Fernández told Burgum.

“I think what we are looking for is not, don’t drill it all in northwestern, New Mexico, but don’t do it where there are sacred, protected sites that can never, ever be replaced,” Fernández said of lands held sacred by Pueblo peoples.

New Mexico’s all-Democratic delegation to Congress has long supported a ban on development around Chaco. Shortly before Navajo leaders met with Burgum in D.C. in April, the lawmakers announced the reintroduction of the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act, a bill that would make the 10-mile buffer zone permanent.

“Pueblo and Tribal leaders have fought to protect the sacred and ancestral lands of Chaco Canyon for generations, and the United States government must step up to ensure these lands remain protected,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-New Mexico), who serves on the House Committee on Natural Resources along with Fernández.

But Democrats are currently the minority party in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Republican lawmakers have made it clear that they are fully behind the Trump administration’s efforts to increase energy development on public lands.

“Unleashing American energy and mineral production, increasing public access and streamlining onerous permitting processes will provide for the security and wellbeing of our country as we responsibly steward our resources,” Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Arkansas), the chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, said at the hearing.

In January, Rep. Eli Crane (R-Arizona) introduced H.R.606, the Energy Opportunities for All Act. The bill states that Public Land Order No. 7923, the one that established ban on development around Chaco Canyon, “shall have no force or effect.”

“I support the Navajo people having a say in how their land and minerals are developed,” Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said in support of the measure. “In this case, the Navajo allottees have an important right to have their voices heard.”

Despite Navajo leadership aligning themselves with Republicans when it comes to Chaco, not everyone has been on board. When Crane’s bill was considered during the last session of Congress, a Navajo leader from a community near the area testified in opposition to development on the lands.

“There are nearly 40,000 wells across the Greater Chaco Landscape,” Mario Atencio, who was serving as a leader for the Torreon/Starlake Chapter of the Navajo Nation, said at a hearing in July 2023. “The vast majority of federal lands are already leased for extraction.”

And before Nygren took office as the tribe’s youngest president in January 2023, the executive branch of the Navajo Nation government had supported the buffer zone around Chaco. Public Land Order No. 7923 was issued in July 2023.

“Pueblos and Tribes, including the Navajo Nation, worked for decades to establish these protections,” noted Acoma Governor Riley. “The Navajo Nation before their change in position, at the outset, worked closely with the All Pueblo Council of Governors, to provide crucial support, recognizing the profound cultural significance of Chaco Canyon.”

At last week’s hearing, Burgum did not give an indication on when his department might make a decision on the buffer zone around Chaco Canyon. But in response to questions from Fernández about another sacred site, he voiced support for the Democratic lawmaker’s efforts to require foreign corporations to pay royalties for development on public lands.

“Absolutely would support it,” Burgum said of the proposed legislation.

But Burgum went even further than Fernández — and asserted that “foreign adversaries” should not be able to develop certain kinds of American resources at all.

“I don’t think we should be allowing foreign adversaries to mine critical minerals in our country,” said Burgum.

Fernandez pointed out that foreign interests are behind a massive copper mine being proposed at Oak Flat in Arizona. She has supported legislation that would block the controversial project, which even U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch said would turn the sacred area “into a massive hole in the ground.”

The mine at Oak Flat is being developed by Resolution Copper, which is owned by two foreign corporations, Rio Tinto Group of Australia and the United Kingdom and BHP of Australia. The largest shareholder in Rio Tinto is Aluminum Corporation of China Limited, which is an arm of the government of China, whom President Trump has repeatedly accused of engaging in practices that have harmed America’s economy.

“So we will work with you to see if we can stop that,” Fernández told Burgum of the development at Oak Flat.

Burgum, however, has no authority over Resolution Copper. Oak Flat falls within the Tonto National Forest so the Department of Agriculture is overseeing a land swap that would see the mining site, which totals 2,422 acres, turned over to the foreign interests.

“We fully expect Resolution’s copper to be exported to China, which poses a national security threat,” said Chairman Terry Rambler of the San Carlos Apache Tribe.

The San Carlos Apache Tribe, along with the Apache Stronghold, a non-profit, have been litigating to stop the copper mine at Oak Flat. Despite Gorsuch’s rebuke, his fellow justices on the Supreme Court dealt a major setback to the movement by refusing to hear the case last month.

“The Trump Administration’s Oak Flat appraisal concludes that Resolution’s copper will be exported to southeast Asia,” Rambler said. “It’s clearly in the best interest of the United States to withhold publication of the Resolution environmental report at least until there is a change in the ownership of this project to companies that are not reliant on China for more than half their business.”

The Department of Agriculture previously told the Supreme Court that it plans to conduct the land swap as soon as possible. The final environmental impact statement for the Resolution Copper project is expected to be published by the end of this week, on June 20.

However, in response to concerns raised by the San Carlos Apache Tribe, a federal judge on June 6 ordered the federal government to wait at least 60 days before turning over the land at Oak Flat. Rambler said his people intend to keep fighting in court.

“The two-month window provides the tribe an opportunity to file an amended lawsuit challenging the legality of the pending environmental report and request an injunction to stop the land exchange until the merits of our case are settled,” Rambler said.

The land swap at Oak Flat was authorized by Congress despite widespread opposition from Indian Country, Justice Gorsuch noted last month.

“Just imagine if the government sought to demolish a historic cathedral on so questionable a chain of legal reasoning. I have no doubt that we would find that case worth our time,” wrote Gorsuch, who was nominated to the bench by President Trump.

Fernández and other Democrats have supported legislation known as the Save Oak Flat From Foreign Mining Act to rescind approval of the land swap. The bill was most notably championed by late Congressman Raúl Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona who passed away on March 13 following a battle with cancer.

The Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act has been introduced as H.R.2861 in the House and S.1411 in the Senate.

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