Congress’ push to accelerate energy and infrastructure projects has raised questions about how faster reviews would affect tribes’ ability to protect culturally significant land and waters.
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026, S. 5653, proposes to shorten reviews, expand electric transmission and limit legal challenges. Sponsors say the legislation would encourage capital investment and lower energy costs.
But Wizipan Garriott, president of NDN Collective and a Rosebud Sioux Tribe citizen, argues that genuine reform should give tribes greater authority over development and provide the resources they need to participate effectively.
Garriott spoke with Tribal Business News last week, before Senate negotiators released a substitute amendment Saturday that would drop a federal takeover provision affecting tribal historic preservation programs and revise consultation procedures. In a joint statement Sunday, 11 tribal organizations said the revisions failed to resolve their concerns and urged Congress to delay the bill or remove its historic preservation provisions.
Garriott’s comments address the original bill, but the priorities he outlined remain central to the debate over faster project approvals and tribal sovereignty. Here are five key takeaways.
Tribes should help shape permitting legislation.
Garriott criticized how the bill was developed, saying tribal leaders and policy experts should have been involved in drafting changes affecting their governments and cultural resources.
“The bill was drafted without the input of tribal leaders. It was drafted without the input of tribal policy experts,” he said.
He described the process as taking place “in secret, in the dark” and argued that closer scrutiny would reveal problems extending far beyond Indian Country.
“The more and more that people see what’s actually in there, the more that they see that it’s a bad deal not only for American Indians, but for all Americans,” he said.
The senators’ subsequent announcement said the proposed amendment incorporated feedback received from tribes since the bill’s September introduction.
Consultation gives tribes a way to hold federal agencies accountable.
A central concern for Garriott is Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. The review process requires federal agencies to consider effects on historic properties and consult tribes about places of religious or cultural significance, including those outside reservation boundaries.
Garriott said the law matters because it creates an enforceable obligation. Tribes can challenge an agency’s failure to follow the required process.
The federal government has “an actual legal duty that is actionable, that you can take to court to hold the federal government accountable to consult with Indian tribes,” he said.
He argued that the original bill would undermine those protections by changing how preservation law is implemented. For Garriott, the consequences extend beyond the time agencies spend reviewing projects: They concern whether or not tribes retain an effective way to hold agencies to their consultation obligations.
Reform should give tribes greater decision-making authority.
Garriott acknowledged that permitting processes need reform. But he urged Congress to consider the legislation with tribal policy experts involved.
“The smart thing to do would be to go back to the drafting board,” he said.
His preferred approach would go further than consultation, which gives tribes a role in federal reviews without necessarily giving them authority to stop a project. Garriott wants tribes to have the power to consent to projects on tribal lands or within their traditional treaty territories.
A tribe should have “the ability to exercise the power of consent to actually say yes or no to that project moving forward,” he said.
Faster reviews require investment in tribal preservation offices.
Garriott said Congress could improve project reviews by addressing the limited resources available to tribal historic preservation offices, known as THPOs.
He rejected complaints that the offices are unresponsive or take too long, calling those criticisms “blatantly untrue and unfounded.” People making those spurious claims should examine the resources the offices receive, he said.
“THPOs are offices that are severely underfunded,” Garriott said. “They are understaffed. They have an incredible amount of work that they have to do.”
The work requires several kinds of expertise. Staff may need archaeological and historical training alongside tribal cultural knowledge. Their responsibilities can include field surveys and handling funerary remains, he said.
Garriott described the ability to perform both archaeological and tribal cultural work as “a unique skill set.” Adequate funding and staffing, he said, would be among the most consequential improvements Congress could make to the review process.
Tribal sovereignty must not be traded for political or business compromise.
Garriott said support for the original bill from Democrats with records of backing tribal sovereignty had disappointed many in Indian Country. He urged tribes to hold lawmakers accountable to their stated commitments, regardless of party.
“You can’t support tribal sovereignty here and then not support tribal sovereignty over there,” he said. “You have to be consistent, and you have to stick to your values.”
For Garriott, that accountability includes candor about competing priorities.
“If people value profit or business over tribal sovereignty, then they need to be honest about that and not talk out of both sides of their mouth,” he said.
