Pueblo leaders want in-person consultation as BLM reconsiders Chaco oil ban

Pueblo leaders want Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and other federal decision makers to visit Chaco Canyon in person before the Bureau of Land Management considers revoking a 20-year oil and gas drilling ban surrounding the national historical park.

Picuris Pueblo Lt. Gov. Craig Quanchello had a message for President Donald Trump at a Friday news conference on the oil and gas drilling ban.

“You once said that leadership is measured by what we choose to protect,” Quanchello said. “Today, we are asking to protect a place older than the idea of America itself. Chaco Canyon region carries 10,000 years of human memory; 10,000 years of science, spirituality, astronomy, governance and engineering.”

The ban on oil and gas drilling and other mineral development on federal lands within a 10-mile radius of Chaco Culture National Historical Park was enacted in 2023 under former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. The Trump administration has prioritized domestic energy production and is reconsidering multiple mineral withdrawals across the nation, including the Chaco Canyon region withdrawal.

Tribal leaders received letters from the Bureau of Land Management in October notifying them that the Trump administration would begin tribal consultation as it considers whether to revoke the ban, leave it in place or make the buffer zone smaller. The Interior Department did not immediately respond Friday to emailed questions about the letters.

The October letters were ill-timed, according to Quanchello, because they came during the federal government shutdown and December is a holy month and a season of transition for many pueblos.

“And the government knows that, and they take advantage of that,” Quanchello said.

The All Pueblo Council of Governors, which represents 19 New Mexico pueblos and one pueblo in Texas, is calling on the Trump administration to suspend the revocation process, conduct in-person government to government consultations and meet with pueblo leadership at Chaco Canyon, said Quanchello, who serves as vice chair on the council.

In 2019, former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt met with pueblo leaders at Chaco Canyon when the push for putting more protections in place around the Chaco region was ongoing.

“Our message resonated, and it helped delay harmful decisions and reaffirmed that nothing replaces on the ground conversation,” said Santa Ana Pueblo Gov. Myron Armijo.

The group of pueblo leaders was joined by Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján and Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico. The state’s all-Democratic congressional delegation supports legislation that would make the protections surrounding Chaco permanent.

“We heard today in our meeting with pueblo leaders that there has not been meaningful consultation between the administration, the secretary of the Interior and these leaders,” Heinrich said. “That’s not acceptable.”

The Navajo Nation set itself apart from other Native American tribes when it sued over the ban in January, taking issue with the tribal consultation process. The lawsuit was paused in July to see if the Interior Department overturns the buffer zone on its own. Some Navajo land allotment owners, who own mineral rights to land that checkerboard federal lands surrounding Chaco, have also taken issue with the buffer area, protesting when it was first enacted.

But former Navajo Nation Council Delegate Daniel Tso was at Friday’s news conference in support of maintaining the buffer zone.

“When you get to be gray-haired like me, you don’t worry about what’s going to happen in your life,” Tso said. “You worry about your grandchildren and their children and their children, and that’s why we want this mineral withdrawal area to remain in place.”

Cathy Cook covers the federal government for the Albuquerque Journal. Reach her via email at ccook@abqjournal.com.