In 1973, it was Project Independence that brought a surge of extraction to Native American reservations to meet the energy demands of the country. Now Project 2025 includes policies with the same end goal in mind.

For Julia Bernal with Pueblo Action Alliance, the story has been replayed time and time again. Native Americans are frequently asked to sacrifice the health of their people, sacred sites and environment in search of the elusive energy independence.

One of these sacred places that Project 2025 calls for developing for energy is the Greater Chaco Region. In particular, it calls for removing a moratorium on oil and gas extraction within a 10-mile radius of Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

While Bernal said the call to rescind the buffer zone wasn’t a surprise, she said doing so would “undermine the trust relationship that the government is mandated to have with sovereign tribes.” 

Native American tribes that consider Chaco sacred, including the Pueblos and the Hopi, were key advocates whose work led to the withdrawal of mineral leasing around the park.

What Project 2025 says about Chaco

The Heritage Foundation, which put together Project 2025, highlights that former President Donald Trump pursued what he called an American energy dominance agenda. But, despite the fact that oil and gas leasing and production surged under President Joe Biden, William Perry Pendley, who authored the Project 2025 section on the Department of the Interior, claims that Biden has illegally waged a war on fossil fuels under the guise of taking action on climate change.

Pendley, who served as acting director of the Bureau of Land Management under Trump, says a future conservative administration should abandon the withdrawal of lands from leasing in the Chaco buffer zone as well as along the Thompson Divide of the White River National Forest in Colorado and the Boundary Waters area of northern Minnesota “if those withdrawals have not been completed.”

While Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, actions that he took during his past term as president, including reducing the size of Bears Ears National Monument in southeast Utah, indicate that he will likely prioritize fossil fuel extraction over sacred sites. In fact, during his previous term, he looked to fast track energy development near Chaco as part of his energy independence agenda.

The creation of the Chaco buffer zone

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced the withdrawal of federal lands from mineral leasing within a 10-mile buffer of Chaco Culture National Historical Park in 2023. Haaland, who previously served as a congresswoman, had been pushing for such protections for years. Chaco is a sacred ancestral land for her people—the Laguna Pueblo. Haaland is the first Indigenous member of a presidential cabinet in U.S. history.

The buffer did not stop all oil and gas development in the area. The withdrawal does not impact existing leases and about 90 percent of the federal land in the San Juan Basin has already been leased.

The withdrawal is also only a temporary measure and will expire after 20 years, though New Mexico’s congressional delegation has introduced legislation to make the withdrawal permanent. Congressional approval is required for permanent withdrawal of lands from mineral leasing.

The buffer zone is contentious for members of the Navajo Nation, including those who live closest to the park.

Chaco is a remote location accessible only by rough dirt roads. Many of the Navajo allottees—who are the closest neighbors to the park—do not have access to clean water or electricity. There’s limited options for economic development, which has led many of the allottees to rely on energy leasing. Some allottees say that while the buffer zone does not include their allotted lands, the checkerboard nature of the area means companies are less likely to develop wells on their allotments.

Still, other members of the Navajo Nation, including three of the Eastern Navajo Agency chapters near Chaco, say that the extractive industries have caused a myriad of health problems as well as public safety concerns.

While the current Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren opposes the buffer zone because of its potential economic impacts on communities like Nageezi, his predecessor, President Jonathan Nez, advocated for the buffer zone as a way to protect sacred sites and the health of Navajo communities.

Bernal, who is a member of Sandia Pueblo, highlighted the temporary nature of the buffer zone and said it does not impede the allottees from developing the resources on their lands.

She said she doesn’t think it will have a huge impact on the fossil fuels industry.

“Development is still happening in that region,” she said.

Bernal has spent about a decade advocating for protections for her ancestral homeland. During that time, she has seen an increase in truck traffic and emissions from the oil and gas infrastructure. She said she can feel the health impacts of that pollution after spending just a few hours in the area. 

Meanwhile, there are people who live right up against well pads and even schools surrounded by oil and gas infrastructure. That has prompted calls from advocates to require setbacks for oil and gas facilities, meaning that those facilities would not be allowed within certain distances of residences, health facilities or schools. State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard has already implemented a moratorium on development of new oil and gas facilities within a mile of schools due to the concerns about how the emissions could harm children. One of the schools frequently cited in those discussions is Lybrook Elementary School, which is located outside of the Chaco buffer zone but still within the Greater Chaco Region.

Ongoing narrative calls for energy independence 

Regardless of who wins the election, Bernal anticipates the advocacy work to protect Chaco will need to continue.

“There’s this continuous and decadal narrative that we have to sever dependence from foreign oil and gas and I think that’s definitely going to be an agenda for either administration,” Bernal said.

That narrative stretches back to the 1970s when advocates say the Four Corners region was declared an energy sacrifice zone.

In 1973, in the midst of an energy crisis, President Richard Nixon announced Project Independence. This called for a variety of things, including prioritizing coal power, expanding oil and gas exploration and reducing household energy consumption in an effort to become energy independent. 

“Let us pledge that by 1980, under Project Independence, we shall be able to meet America’s energy needs from America’s own energy resources,” Nixon said when announcing the initiative.

A decade later, the impacts of extraction in the Four Corners were documented in Bullfrog Films’ The Four Corners: A National Sacrifice Area?  These impacts continue even today. 

A push to develop on Native lands

Project 2025 further calls for a conservative administration to work with Native American tribes to develop energy resources on reservations. Bernal said the United States is recognizing that the majority of existing natural resources are on or near Indigenous lands.

“We encompass a world view and value system that doesn’t commodify our natural resources in a global capitalist sense,” she said. “And so there is fear that the administration will start to really encourage and incentivize that natural resources development on tribal lands.”

There’s been a history of pushes to develop resources on tribal lands, as was documented by Bullfrog Films in 1983.

The Navajo and Pueblo people live with the legacy of extraction, including the impacts of uranium mining. Sacred lands are dotted with abandoned mines and oil wells. The Native people who worked in uranium mines were not told about the dangers until it was too late. Cancer rates soared because of this legacy. 

Bernal said New Mexico is impacted by the “entire fuel chain” from the extraction of resources like oil, gas and uranium to the disposal of nuclear waste.

“There is a lot of concern with a very right political agenda to develop, develop, develop, when we’re already experiencing that legacy from 100 years ago when they first started extracting oil and gas in the state,” Bernal said.