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- By Chez Oxendine
- Food | Agriculture
Federal support for tribal forestry could fall short of Indian Country priorities if either of two proposed Farm Bill packages moves forward unmodified.
The House’s 2026 Farm Bill vehicle, H.R. 7567, expands tribal eligibility for a number of forestry related programs, but stops short of broader self-determination authority and doesn’t fully resolve limits on how tribes can use revenue from forest restoration work. The Senate’s companion bill, the Agriculture Act of 2026, does not include House language that would make permanent a self-determination (or “638”) contracting authority for Tribal Forest Protection Act projects.
As written, both bills would fail to close important gaps in tribal forestry policy that make it difficult for tribes to build consistent and long term capacity for restoration and cultural programs, according to Cody Desautel, executive director for the Intertribal Timber Council.
“They look like they’ve gone backwards from what was in the House version from 2024,” Desautel told Tribal Business News.
The Farm Bill is one of the few recurring legislative vehicles through which Indian Country can secure durable tools for forest management. The last Farm Bill passed in 2018, and the eight‑year delay has left tribes waiting for updates to programs that affect wildfire response, shared stewardship and federal‑tribal partnerships.
Desautel spoke with Tribal Business News about the gaps he sees in the 2026 Farm Bill drafts, the status of tribal forestry authorities and the challenges of advancing tribal priorities in a long‑delayed legislative cycle. This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
What specific changes are missing from the current bills?
We were hoping for a fix for the Good Neighbor program. Right now, tribes can’t spend money made from projects on federal lands adjacent to tribal lands — that’s what the Good Neighbor program is, doing work on those federal lands to keep nearby state or tribal lands safe. If a tribe makes money from those projects, they can’t put that money back into another Good Neighbor project, since the adjacent land isn’t technically in their jurisdiction. It would be easier if we had congressional language that said tribes and counties are eligible to expend program revenues consistent with what states have under Good Neighbor agreements. I think that one is in the House version, but I don’t think it is in the Senate version.
The 2018 Farm Bill created a pilot allowing tribes to use 638 self-determination contracts for certain Tribal Forest Protection Act projects. What is the status of that authority in the current bills?
There was a pilot project in the 2018 Farm Bill, and it was specifically for Tribal Forest Protection Act projects where tribes had the authority to administer and manage those projects, and funding to build capacity for them.
With a lot of the shared stewardship agreements that seem to be a priority under this administration, having a mechanism like 638 contracting that is familiar to tribes would help a lot. We were hoping that might be extended to other USDA authorities, like Good Neighbor agreements or (broader) management of programs and services within USDA. Instead, the Senate version doesn’t include it at all.
Why does the distinction between project-level and broader 638 authority matter?
With 638 contracting authority for Tribal Forest Protection Act projects, it’s at the project level. You have additional funding, but you need more capacity because (the work) is outside your typical reservation trust workflow. That funding isn’t consistent — because it’s based on a project and not something longer term — so it’s hard to build and keep that capacity.
If we could do more programmatic work, that would help tribes build capacity and be a known source of support for the Forest Service. Tribes are well situated to do some things, but project‑level work does not give us sustainability or guarantees needed to build and maintain larger programs.
What would a more durable model look like?
Something more programmatic, like five‑ to ten‑year agreements that give tribes enough room to (build capacity).
Were tribes hoping the Farm Bill would expand self-determination tools beyond the Tribal Forest Protection Act?
Yes, that was the hope. The Tribal Forest Protection Act pilot program is useful, and we use that authority. The 638 agreement we arrived at within USDA gave tribes the ability to contract those projects and have funding to perform that work.
We were hoping to have similar expanded authorities to use 638 in other cross‑boundary and coordinated shared stewardship programs.
The last Farm Bill passed in 2018. How has the long delay affected efforts to advance tribal forestry priorities?
It limits one of the tools we typically use to advance tribal authorities. It’s a legislative mechanism we see on a regular interval, so we put a lot of work into talking with Congress about it. We have not had that opportunity over the last several years.
There are a few things we have worked on, but individual bills always have gaps. Sometimes it is easier to get broader language into big spending bills.
Do you feel Congress is listening to Indian Country’s concerns, even if those priorities have not made it into the current bills?
I think so. We spend a lot of time in DC, and Congress asks us to testify a lot. They genuinely have interest in what Indian Country has to say.
We have good examples of forestry and fire management successes. But this bill is overdue, and it is probably going to be more conservative because they want to make sure they have the votes to get it to the finish line.
What happens next for these priorities as Congress continues to work toward a final Farm Bill? You’ll continue to push for these provisions, right?
Yes, we’ll still ask for them. In 2018, the forestry provisions were controversial, so the intent was to pull them out. Once we saw the final version, which came a week after we got home and right before Christmas, it surprised me they moved it that fast. It had all the tribal asks.
Still, midterms are coming up, and it doesn’t look like this will (get through Congress) before that, and then we have to revisit everything. But whether or not we get everything we want, we’re going to keep asking and try to make incremental progress, giving Indian Country more authority and making some temporary pilot authorities permanent.
