The Energy Optimist Episode 8: In Our Lifetime: Tribal Energy Sovereignty and Equity

Episode Show Notes

Key Takeaways

1. Among the energy challenges Tribal communities face are lack of electricity (14% of Native Americans that live on reservations don’t have electricity yet); lack of energy infrastructure; higher electricity rates than non-Native customers; and limited access to the grid.
2. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) made $35 billion available for electrification projects in Tribal and Indigenous communities.
3. Commercial readiness deposits, a requirement of any entity that wants to enter the interconnection queue, disproportionately hinder electrification projects by Native Tribes by requiring significant upfront funds before Tribes can access their federally awarded money. 
4. The Indigenous Power Light Fund for Energy Sovereignty was conceived to provide a reliable source of gap funding for Tribes, and has filed a petition with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to defer commercial readiness deposits for Tribal clean energy projects.
5. Chéri Smith defines energy equity as ensuring Tribal Nations have a seat at the table and an equitable voice in decisions about energy in our country and how electricity infrastructure is built. Energy equity also includes fair access to resources and opportunities, and the U.S. government upholding their treaty responsibilities. She defines energy sovereignty as the right that tribes have as sovereign nations to control their energy resources, land, and water; to make their own energy decisions; and to develop energy according to their needs and cultural values.

Resources and Further Readings

1. Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy
   • The Alliance is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization offering no-cost capacity-building support to tribes through four key pillars – built on a strong foundation of Native American culture and values.
2. American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE)
   • The American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) is a 501(c)(3) national nonprofit organization that unites finance, policy and technology to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy economy.
3. Covenant Tribal Solar Initiative
   • The Covenant Tribal Solar Initiative supports Native American tribes in their efforts to use clean energy as a regenerative tool to diminish poverty, mitigate climate change, and foster a return to economic self-reliance.
4. Delve into Interconnection
   • The Energy Optimist Episode 7: Interconnection Policies—The Electric Grid’s “Rules of the Road” 
   • Connecting to the Grid, an overview of IREC’s interconnection work
   • See Why State Interconnection Rules
   • BATRIES: Storage Interconnection Reform
   • Interconnection is Broken: Radical Rethinking Is Needed to Achieve Clean Energy Goals
5. Climate United
   • Climate United is a national coalition of nonprofits investing in solutions that tackle our nation’s toughest economic and environmental problems.
6. Navajo Power Home Program
   • Navajo Power Home is a next-generation utility provider that was established in 2021 with the vision of bringing the power of the sun to all homes on Navajo and Hopi Nation that are seeking good quality, consistent and reliable electricity service. 
7. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
   • FERC is an independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission of natural gas, oil, and electricity. FERC also regulates natural gas and hydropower projects. 
8. Indigenous Power Light Fund for Energy Sovereignty
   • The Indigenous Power & Light Fund (the “Fund”) is a targeted philanthropic investment initiative established by the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy in partnership with the Lemelson Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and other leading philanthropies.
9. Tribal Energy Equity Summit
   • The Tribal Energy Equity Summit brings together leaders from both Tribal and Federal governments, along with tribe-supporting organizations, for multiple days of meaningful and effective dialogue about clean energy siting, interconnection, and other critical considerations affecting a just transition.
10. Voices from the West
    • As part of Voices from the West, “The Nature Conservancy interviewed leaders from Tribal and Indigenous communities to learn about their experiences with energy development. The report provides a perspective on the importance of including Tribal voices in planning for energy and infrastructure.”

Episode Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the Energy Optimist. I’m your host, Gwen Brown, Vice President of Communications with the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (or IREC), an independent nonprofit that’s been building the foundation for the rapid adoption of clean energy and energy efficiency for more than 40 years. 

Each episode, we tackle a thorny energy policy challenge in bite-sized interviews with leading experts. If you’re totally new to energy policy, we’ll demystify it for you. If you’re a seasoned practitioner, we’ll hopefully leave you with renewed optimism to keep doing the work to improve our energy system—because hope is the fuel for change.

Picture this: As the sun goes down, so does your main source of light. You don’t have the option of just flipping a switch to turn on the lights in your home, so everything from household chores to your kids’ homework becomes harder or impossible after the sun sets. 

I could be describing life a century ago before electricity became widespread. But this is the current reality for certain communities living in America. Specifically, 14% of Native Americans living on reservations, still do not have electricity today in 2025. 

This podcast explores energy policy and the energy landscape in the U.S. And an understanding of the American energy landscape is incomplete without an understanding of how energy resources and services differ geographically and between different groups. 

Native Americans face significant and unique inequalities with regard to energy access and affordability. To understand some of the electricity policy reasons for these current realities, it is helpful to take a step back in time. 

Electricity first started to become available in American cities in the late 1800s, following the establishment of the first electric generating station in New York City by Thomas Edison in 1882.

By around 1900, the modern vision for regulating electric utilities began to emerge.  

But, building out electric infrastructure to sparsely populated rural areas was still prohibitively expensive and utilities had little incentive to expand their grids beyond urban and suburban areas. By the mid-1930s, almost 90% of farms in America still lacked electricity. 

In 1935, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order to create the Rural Electrification Administration to address this. A year later Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act, which provided financing to build transmission lines to bring electricity to these rural areas.

In less than twenty years after the passage of that Act, electricity had reached 80% of farms. That’s a pretty remarkable achievement and the Rural Electrification Act is one of the most foundational acts in the history of the electric grid. 

But this foundational act has a dark side. Not all rural communities were included in these investments. Specifically, Native American communities were largely left out of the investments of this Act and were not connected to the grid. 

That, in addition to the broader scope of significant historical discrimination against Native Americans, contributes to the unequal access we see today in terms of energy for Native communities. 

In addition to being more likely to lack electricity access altogether, Tribes face many other challenges related to electricity, including much higher utility rates leading to significant energy burdens (that is, the percentage of income spent on energy costs), as well as older grid infrastructure, and more frequent power outages. 

Not only are Native American tribes still confronting these inequalities, they also face unique barriers to developing clean energy projects that could help them have greater control over their energy costs and resources. Fortunately, a number of groups are doing incredible work to address these injustices and ensure that Tribes can access the benefits of clean energy.  

One of those groups is the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy, founded by today’s guest, Chéri Smith in 2016. In today’s discussion, we’ll explore some of the energy challenges faced by Native American tribes and efforts in progress to build a brighter future and help Tribes own their own clean energy systems. 

Chéri is a 25+ year veteran of the renewable energy sector. She leverages her vast knowledge, experience, network, and relationships to support tribes in their self-determined pursuit of renewable energy as a means to diminish poverty, protect the earth from climate change, and restore economic prosperity and true sovereignty. 

Just a few of the highlights of Chéri’s career include leading workforce development and training for SolarCity and Tesla, where she coordinated all community, academic, and government stakeholders in the massive effort to identify and train a diverse and inclusive team of over 1,400 employees at a 1GW solar manufacturing plant in Buffalo, New York, as well as thousands more at Tesla’s Battery Gigafactory in Nevada, the largest factory in the world.

Prior to that, Chéri worked in private practice for several years, providing technical workforce consulting services for colleges/universities and governments, as well as several U.S. Department of Energy SunShot initiatives. She also served as Director of Education and Outreach for the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE).

For listeners’ awareness, this interview was recorded in early January 2025 prior to the change in presidential administrations, so the conversation does not reflect new federal policies that have been emerging since that time.

Gwen: Thank you so much for being with us today, Chéri. I’m really excited for our conversation. 

Chéri: Well, thanks for having me, Gwen. I am so honored and delighted to be here. I’m Chéri Smith. I’m the founder, President, and CEO of the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy. I descend through both my mom and my dad from the Mi’kmaq Nation of so-called Maine and the Canadian Maritime Provinces. I am also of European descent. 

Gwen: Can you tell us more about your work at the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy, how you came to found the organization, and the big picture of what issues your organization is tackling? 

Chéri: Our mission is supporting the self-determined efforts of Native American tribes and Alaska Native villages to pursue a clean energy future—whatever that looks like for them.

The reasons that tribes pursue clean energy are varied, but they generally center around energy freedom–being free from the colonial construct of traditional fossil-fueled energy. Or they’re focused on climate change resilience and mitigation. Or economic development and job opportunities. Or all three and more. 

So the organization that is now known as the Alliance grew out of the organization Covenant Tribal Solar Initiative that I established back in the 2015–2016 timeframe while I was working at SolarCity. And it was during that time that I was serving on a board at Penn State and met a colleague there who was a professor of architectural engineering. He had been visiting the Northern Cheyenne tribe for many years.

Then one day in 2015, this tribe made a momentous decision. They signed a resolution forsaking forever coal and making a commitment to pursue clean energy. This followed two generations of battling Arch Coal, who in 1973, came to town and essentially swindled them out of their mineral rights. And had been trying to develop a large open cast mine and associated railroad on their homelands. 

And it stood to disturb so many acres of sacred sites and homelands. The Cheyenne believe, as many tribes do, that the blood, sweat, and tears of their ancestors are in this land. 

The tribe is one of the poorest in the nation, and mining this coal and setting up operations would mean jobs. But it also would mean desecrating the earth and causing all kinds of other issues.

A young woman named Vanessa Braided Hair, who founded an organization with her dad, Otto, called EcoCheyenne, did a grassroots effort to educate the entire reservation across 450,000 acres, five districts, and all the Tribal members [about] the negatives of this coal development.

And so this, this resolution was signed. I got this call from my colleague at Penn State who said, “This tribe has been saying no to coal for so long. Can SolarCity help give them something to say yes to?”

So I went to Lyndon and Pete [Rive]¹ who said, “Yeah, go.” Through our Give Power Foundation, which was at SolarCity at the time, we went and did a demonstration project on the home of a Tribal elder. And some amazing and spiritual things happened. The community came to understand the literal and figurative power of solar energy to eliminate financial burden and to generate electrons in a self-determined way. 

I myself had some pretty deep experiences that I certainly can’t explain in a short time with you, but suffice it to say that it was the first time I had ever seen what we call energy poverty.

You know, I grew up in a suburban area in New England. I visited the Tribal community of my great-grandmother as a kid, and it was very different than the Plains. What I saw was abject poverty and third-world conditions. If I were to describe this place: homes that were poorly constructed, houses with inefficient heating systems and no insulation, the unemployment rate [at] 80%, and the average lifespan under 60 years old, because of diabetes and alcoholism and all the things that come with living in a food desert, right?

I was stunned. What impacted me the most was the high cost of energy being charged to these Tribal members–double or more what non-Natives were paying for the same electrons down the same lines, simply because they were Native, was shocking to me. 

At the time I was working with the Cheyenne on another big demonstration project, Solar City was merging with Tesla. When I conceived of the idea for the nonprofit, I took some time to get my ducks in a row, and I left Tesla. I gathered a team of friends in the industry, including the gentleman who was a professor at Penn State, and I founded an organization called Covenant Tribal Solar Initiative. We worked for several years and did demonstration projects with the Cheyenne and other tribes. 

When the Biden administration came into office and I got a call from our old friend, Jigar Shah,² who said that the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act] was going to include tremendous resources for Tribal clean energy, I was floored. I actually cried on that phone call. And [Jigar] said, “Can you help us get the word out to Indian country about what is in this bill?” 

That’s when I knew we as an organization had to pivot away from our demonstration phase years. There’s still value in that, and a subset of colleagues working with me back then spun off and continued to do that sort of work. But my gut was that my organization needed to become what is now the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy and respond with a really robust set of resources and a highly qualified team of subject matter experts. And that’s what we did. 

Gwen: That’s incredible. Thank you so much for walking us through all the phases that led you to where you are today. You’ve already talked a bit about some of the experiences that you’ve observed on Tribal lands and just the really significant challenges that tribes are facing when it comes to energy. Recognizing that there is a huge amount of diversity in Tribal nations, and certainly not all of them are facing the same things, could you give our listeners a big-picture overview of what are the common challenges that Tribal communities are facing in terms of energy access and affordability? 

Chéri:  It’s 2025, and in our country right now, 14% of Native Americans that live on reservations don’t have electricity yet. That is thousands of people that don’t have electricity yet. When I say that to people, they look at me like, “No, that can’t be right.” Well, it can be right. 35,000 households on Navajo [lands] alone don’t have electricity. Our friends and colleagues at the Navajo Power Home program [are] pretty quickly electrifying homes, but we still have that issue and it’s not just Navajo. It’s in the Plains, it’s other places in the Southwest, where the infrastructure just stopped because the only humans that were living further out were Natives. 

So in different regions of the country, especially the Northern Plains, the Southwest, and really rural areas of our country, in the middle especially (not exclusively, it happens in other parts of the country as well), we see this energy poverty. And not just the lack of access to electricity, but the disproportionate burden that the costs of energy mean for families.

In these areas, many tribes are served by rural electric cooperatives. And those co-ops charge rates to Native members—not all of them, but many of them. We see it in Montana, North Dakota, the Southwest—where cooperative utilities will charge Native people living on a rez double or more what non-Native people are paying for the same electrons down the same lines.

And people look at me and the first thing they say is, “That can’t be true. That must be illegal. How do people get away with that?” And the answer is because it’s complicated. The standard answer that we get from these utilities is, “It costs us more to get the power out there. Well, no, it doesn’t. The answer from FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) has been, “The co-ops manage; the boards set the rates.” 

The reason I founded this organization in the first place was that point right there: people are suffering because of this policy, this practice, and its blatant discrimination.

How that plays out in real life is that a family already stricken by poverty, in a community that has 80% unemployment, is in the dead of winter, for example in Montana or North Dakota, gets an $800 or $900 electric bill. And they have to make that decision of whether to heat or eat. Most of the time, they make a decision to feed themselves and the family, and their power will get shut off due to non-payment. 

And that doesn’t happen in other areas of the country. Where I live, the utility can’t shut power off to a home that shelters an elder, someone who’s sick, or an infant. But in these areas, it happens. It happens right now in 2025. The power gets shut off and then these co-ops demand a $1,000 reconnect fee or another ridiculous amount like that. This family would have paid their electric bill had they had that sort of money lying around. 

And people resort to things like burning trash. Wood is scarce. They burn furniture or tires indoors to keep warm, which has impacts on health, of course, and it’s dangerous. And when they run out of things to burn, human beings freeze to death due to exposure to cold in their own homes in the winter. And due to exposure to heat for lack of air conditioning in the Southwest, in these blazing summers that are a result of climate change.

This sounds like it can’t be true, but it is. And it’s my personal mission to address this. And I’ve made it a mission of the Alliance, and our donors are supporting legal support to investigate these rules and how this inequity, this massive injustice and inhumane situation, could be true.

Gwen: That is devastating. I think so many Americans are unaware of the fact that Tribal Nations are facing these kinds of circumstances, even in the modern era.

Chéri: Yeah, and as far as general energy challenges, many Tribal communities, because of their rural locale are serviced by our grid—which is, as you know, multiple grids—it is antiquated. And the Tribal communities are the lowest priority. They’re the first to lose power and the last to be reconnected. 

And so perishable foods and things go bad. Just in Hopi alone, I hear stories. You have to go three hours to get perishable food or to get meat. They store these foods in freezers. And when the power goes out for four or five days, you lose all that perishable food. So folks are running around divvying it up among Tribal members, trying to preserve it, save it, and have it eaten. But it’s a devastating situation. And so there’s inadequate energy infrastructure. That is a challenge. 

And then, when tribes go to pursue development of their own energy infrastructure, things like limited access to the grid come into play. Insufficient access to capital is a major problem. 

And this combination of systemic barriers and historical inequities is creating this environment where achieving energy stability and having even just affordable energy is a giant hurdle for most tribes in rural areas. 

Gwen: Wow. Thank you for shining a light on that. Clean energy projects require more than just funds. They require technical expertise, permitting and site development, and a lot of other work that goes into getting a project off the ground. Can you talk a little bit about how the Alliance helps tribes address these other needs of clean energy projects? 

Chéri: Sure. So the Alliance was formed to provide no-cost services to tribes to help them develop their capacity to plan, develop, and manage clean energy projects. There are over 574 federally recognized tribes and many more that are not recognized. Most tribes don’t have the capacity to even know which grants to apply for. So that’s why we exist. 

We are 100% philanthropically funded. We do not run on federal funding ourselves. We help tribes to procure federal funding. I specifically structured us in a way that we wouldn’t run on federal funding because we don’t want to be subject to the volatility of elections, for example. It’s also our belief that in order for us to affect the change we need to in Washington, we need to be considered peers with our federal colleagues. We’re grateful for the great relationships that we have in our federal agencies. We can’t really do that if we’re functionaries of government and being paid to do work for the Feds.

These services that we offer are no cost. Our donors pay us to do this work and our team of subject matter experts—engineers, electricians, financial experts, policy experts, construction experts, and everything in between. 

We have a network of preferred energy service providers and developers, and anyone operating in the clean energy space that is needed to develop and deploy clean energy projects. We vet them and we put them through an intensive interview process and we put them through cultural training called Pathways to Trust. 

We do our best to create this pool of providers that we have confidence can be in right relation with tribes, that will not act in an exploitive way—either on purpose or by accident, because most people who haven’t been exposed to Native communities don’t understand that it’s not business as usual. You don’t walk into a tribe and pitch your services to them like you do another business. It is very unique. We recognize that and the tribes recognize that, and they’re grateful for the support of the Alliance as a buffer between these non-Native entities. Many of them are good and well-intentioned. We’re identifying those and we’re we’re maintaining a catalog of those providers and we’re introducing them to tribes and bringing them in on these projects. It’s all about removing barriers and supporting the tribes in developing their own capacity to develop their energy infrastructure going forward.

Gwen: Incredible. Thank you for walking us through that. In September of 2024, your organization launched something called the Indigenous Power and Light Fund [for Energy Sovereignty], which is a fund that aims to fast-track Tribal clean energy projects by financing some of the upfront costs that might not be addressed by federal funding. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about this initiative and what challenges it’s trying to solve? 

Chéri: Yes. The Indigenous Power Light Fund for Energy Sovereignty was conceived to provide a reliable source of gap funding for Tribal clean energy projects, because the money that the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act], for example, made available—and other programs under the Investing in America compendium of legislation of the Biden administration—they all have an asterisk, which is, “we’ll pay for 80% of this project, but you need to cover 20%.” There’s a match. And the pre-development costs are not generally covered by these grants. Pre-development costs for things like feasibility studies, environmental studies, engineering studies, and interconnection studies, all of that are not covered.

And many grants, if not most, require that you complete that stuff before you can even apply for the money. I liken it to the feds inviting the tribes to a dinner and saying, “Here’s the menu. Here’s $75. Have dinner.” And when you open the menu, everything on it is $100. And, by the way, you can’t even come into the restaurant if you don’t have that $25. You can’t even open the menu.

I don’t want to diminish the efforts of the Biden administration to move billions of dollars into Indian country, but there’s definitely a catch with any administration making clean energy funding available. And funding in general to tribes always has that kind of catch.

So this [Indigenous Power and Light] fund was established to be able to fill the gap. Right now, our goal is to reach $100 million by the end of 2025. We have one-third of the money raised and we’re going to start accepting applications within the next several weeks. 

Starting off, the fund is straight-up grants, no strings attached grants. We will also be offering loans. Eventually, we believe the fund will become a Native CDFI [Community Development Funding Institution] and be able to offer other flavors of investment and accept different types of investment as well. But for now, it’s a grant-making fund. 

Our partners at the Lemelson Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation, joined us in establishing the fund, and we have many other donors that have stepped up since and given seven-figure donations to this fund. They truly believe that it’s absolutely the right thing to do, given that our energy infrastructure was largely built on the backs of Native Americans, and definitely on our lands.

And it’s a way for some of the wealth that was accumulated due to the extraction or the stealing of lands, for example, it’s a way to give back just a little bit of the wealth that was made because of that. 

Gwen: Wow. That sounds like a really incredible initiative and I’m really excited to continue to follow all the grants and loans that the fund makes, and the projects that are possible as a result of it.

Chéri: Yeah. We’re excited. 

Gwen: Another thing I’d like to explore is a petition that the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy has filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or FERC. You’re asking the Commission to change some requirements for Tribal Nations that are seeking to develop and deploy energy projects on Tribe-controlled lands. Can you talk about what that petition aims to change and why?

Chéri: Great question. Our petition to FERC is specifically designed to address commercial readiness deposits, which are a requirement of any entity that wants to enter the interconnection queue.³ 

And you might be wondering what commercial readiness means, right? What is commercial readiness? 

So the intent of the order, FERC Order 2023, which mandated commercial readiness deposits was a good one. It was designed to stop speculative projects from clogging up the queue. 

Because developers would come in and submit applications for queue positions and not really ever intend to develop all of them but were just kind of speculating. And that clogs up the queue. And every time one of those speculative projects falls out of the queue, the whole queue has to be restudied again for its impact on the grid. 

So this is frustrating and expensive, and we get it. But our argument here is that tribes are not speculating. When tribes put forth a project, there are indicators—indicia of readiness—that are not like what a developer’s indicia of readiness are. 

When a tribe is proposing a project, it is always after intense thought and buy-in by the community, and resolutions being signed, and money being spent on some of those feasibility-type activities. Our argument is that as sovereign nations, we’re not speculating and you can’t lump us into the same category as developers who have deep pockets and can afford these exorbitant fees. 

So we’re asking for a deferment of these fees to the point where we’ll pay deposits that are lesser when we have secured our financing for projects. And we’re asking for a deferment of the deposit and the withdrawal penalty requirements that disproportionately affect Tribal nations.

These deposits are hefty. They impose significant financial burdens on tribes working to develop clean energy projects on their own lands, and they ultimately hinder progress. 

I’ll give you an example of the Hopi Nation, which Chairman Nuvangyaoma of the Hopi Nation has given me permission to talk about because he wants society to understand the systemic barriers that tribes face when trying to develop their own energy programs and infrastructure.

The Hopi Nation sits on land that has been occupied by Hopi people for millennia. And in the last two centuries, electrical infrastructure has been built right over their homelands. 500 KV lines⁴ run right overhead, but they’ve never been allowed to access them. They don’t get the benefit of electricity from them.

And with the closing of the Kayenta Mine and Kayenta Generating Station, the Hopi lost about 85% of its annual revenue, in the form of lease payments and jobs. 

And so this 400-megawatt utility-scale [solar] generating plant that Hopi has planned is designed to replace that revenue. And it’s designed to allow this tribe to participate in wholesale energy markets and to sell power. And use their lands in that way and have a return, and also benefit from lower energy costs. 

So in the case of Hopi, they made it to the first place in the interconnection queue, and the commercial readiness deposit that was requested was $7.5 million. $7.5 million, in comparison with the Hopi nation’s annual budget of $16 million, is pretty close to half. As the chairman is fond of saying, “Am I supposed to cut ambulance service or education or senior services to pay this $7.5 million? No, that’s ridiculous.” 

So a group of concerned allies got together and we tried to raise this $7.5 million from philanthropy. But when it comes time for you to pay your deposit, you’re only notified 30 or 45 days in advance. Philanthropy can’t move that fast.

So the tribe was able to secure a $7.5 million letter of credit from a wealthy tribe who stepped up to help. We thought we were home free, and submitted that to APS, Arizona Public Service, and to FERC [Federal Energy Regulatory Commission]. We got a letter back that said, “Sorry, this tribe is not listed on Standard and Poor’s or Moody’s. And so it doesn’t qualify.” 

And that’s an issue we have, as far as the color of the money. It’s something we’ll address. But in that moment, the tribe was left with no choice. They were going to lose that first-place position in the queue. So they had to seek a letter of credit from a commercial bank. And that commercial bank wants an exorbitant fee to do that. So now we’re diminishing the equity that the tribe has in the project. And the whole point of developing clean energy on Tribal lands is that, whenever possible, the tribe should own it.

And so here you have one example of the hindrance that that commercial readiness deposit causes. 

Gwen: On the one hand, it’s so demoralizing to hear that these kinds of barriers are stopping such important projects. But on the other hand, I’m really excited to see this petition from your organization. What are the next steps? When do you expect to hear? Do you have thoughts on how it will go? 

Chéri: Yeah, so it’s important to note that because of this petition—and I have to give kudos to our colleagues at FERC—Chairman Phillips⁵ himself has visited Tribal communities who are facing these challenges with these exorbitant deposits. He’s met with us and many tribes. We’ve come to his office. We’ve met with all the commissioners. They’ve been so open to understanding and learning about why tribes are different, why is the indicia different, why we are not speculating. And Nicole Sitaraman and her team at the Office of Public Participation have been amazing. 

This petition has resulted in the first-ever official Tribal consultation on an electricity matter in our country’s history. So even if it wasn’t successful, it was successful to raise awareness of the challenges. And we have cautious optimism that the petition will be successful and that there will be a consideration for the sovereign nature and the lack of speculation that tribes enter into these queues with.

Gwen: The examples that you’ve just given and the overview that you’ve talked about, in terms of some of the challenges that Tribal communities are facing when it comes to energy, they tie into two terms that I think are pretty central to the work that the Alliance is doing: Tribal energy equity and Tribal energy sovereignty. For listeners who might not be as familiar with those concepts, can you provide an overview of what energy equity and energy sovereignty mean to you, and what your vision is for those terms? 

Chéri: This is a really good question, I’ve never been asked to define the difference. [The terms are] really closely related. 

I think if I were to explain the difference in what I believe they mean, equity is about ensuring that Tribal Nations have a seat at the table where the decisions are being made about energy in our country. 

Like we said earlier, our nation’s grid was built on the backs of Native Americans. There are Natives alive in this day, Tribal elders that I’ve spoken to, who remember their parents warning them that if they saw someone from the electric company, they needed to run because there was a price put on the scalps of Native Americans to clear them from land. That still lives in the memory of people alive to this day. 

So when you talk about equity, tribes deserve a seat at the table. If or no other reason than that, right? They’re sovereign nations. We deserve a seat at the table. We deserve an equitable voice in how the electricity infrastructure that is going to power us going forward in society, is built.

It’s also about fair access to resources and opportunities. The Biden administration and Secretary [of the Interior] Haaland made it their mission to make sure that resources like we’ve never seen before have been made available to tribes. Upholding trust responsibilities and treaty responsibilities has been something that has been at the forefront of this administration. It’s never been before. And so that’s equity. 

And that these resources and opportunities aren’t devised by feds who aren’t Native. They reflect the unique needs and the individual context of the tribes they’re meant to support.

Energy sovereignty, on the flip side, is the right that tribes have as sovereign nations to make their own energy decisions; to control their energy resources–their land, their water–and to develop energy according to their needs and their cultural values.

Our mission is to support the self-determined efforts of tribes to develop clean energy. I’m fond of saying, “How can we be sovereign if we’re dependent on outsiders for our energy—or any other resource?”  We’re not, we’re not sovereign. 

Our friend and colleague Pilar Thomas, who’s an energy attorney from the Pascua Yaqui Nation, and she’s been a Fed and she was integral in the setup of the Office of Indian Energy, says to me, “Don’t say energy sovereignty,” because she doesn’t believe that will happen in our lifetime. She prefers the term energy self-determination. 

I believe both are possible and that there are some tribes that in my lifetime will achieve energy sovereignty, to be completely self-reliant for their own energy. 

Achieving both equity and sovereignty is necessary to lead to true self-sufficiency and resilience like we had before colonization.

Gwen: It’s really devastating to think about some of the experiences that Tribal communities have faced. But I am heartened to know that organizations like yours are trying to remedy these historic injustices. It’s definitely a long road. 

What’s in store for your organization in the coming year? Do you have any exciting things that you’d like to share with our listeners? 

Chéri: Yeah, we have, we have three flagship events now. The first is our Tribal Clean Energy Finance Forum being held in March. We have our third annual Tribal Energy Equity Summit that is coming back to the Mille Lacs tribe’s property, the Intercontinental in St. Paul, and that will be happening the week of May 5th. And our third annual Tribal Energy Technology Symposium at RE+⁶, which is the largest clean energy event in North America. So those are our three flagship events. 

We host those events to give opportunities for members of the energy industry to interact with tribes and to learn about the tremendous opportunities that exist to partner with tribes in clean energy development.

If you look at all the lands left in our country to develop—utility-scale especially—there’s not much land left. And a lot of it is Tribal land. Tribes can be amazing partners and have so much to offer. We can help to remove some of the mystery and ensure mutually respectful and understanding, symbiotic relationships between Native and non-Native entities for the purposes of profitable projects for both parties. And also for purpose: to advance clean energy in Tribal communities means so many things. It’s climate resilience. It’s economic development. It’s jobs. And it’s a clean, regenerative energy that’s in line with the Native ethos of protecting and preserving the earth. 

Gwen: That’s really exciting. I hope I can maybe make it to one of those events in the coming year. 

Chéri: Yes, please. You have an open invitation, Gwen.

Gwen: Fantastic. Thank you so much. 

I was really interested to read about the Tribal Energy Equity Summit in particular. It sounds like the prior Tribal Energy Equity Summits have had some really exciting impacts and I’d love to ask you briefly about that. What came out of those first two, and what are you hoping for in the coming summit that you’re holding?

Chéri: The impacts of the first two energy summits have been amazing. They have led to a coalition of federal, state, and Tribal governments working together and having dialogue about all of the things that have occurred in the history of our country, how energy development in the United States has impacted tribes, and what we can do to move forward from the injustices of the past and be in mutually beneficial relationships going forward.

I tend to open our events by saying, “None of us in this room were responsible for these things that happened in the past, but we’re all responsible if we’ve learned about the inequities and the injustices and we don’t do anything about it moving forward.” 

And so these events are so collaborative and we really strive to have less “talking heads” and more of everyone on the same plane and interacting and conversing rather than just PowerPoints. And they’re really inspiring. 

The Equity Summit specifically is really designed for the Tribal leaders. The focus is on them. It’s humbling for non-Native colleagues in the Fed, state governments, and industry to come. They come away with such a profound understanding of how we got here and how they can do their part to make things better going forward. 

Gwen: Wow. Fantastic. And that’ll be in, in May in St. Paul, Minnesota? 

Chéri: Yes. 

Gwen: Awesome. Well, we’ve had such a fantastic conversation today. I’ve really enjoyed learning more about some of the issues that you’re working on and all of the exciting activities and programs that you have. I’d like to end with what we ask all of our guests, which is “What gives you hope?” I know all of us working in the energy trenches recognize there are daunting issues that we are facing, and I think it’s important to take a moment to step back and think about the positive things that we’re seeing. So I’d love to hear what makes you hopeful. 

Chéri: Well, what gives me hope and inspiration every day are the tribes. They remind us every day that we’ve been here since time immemorial and we’re not going anywhere. And this too shall pass. And we are resilient. And we will survive. 

Tribes especially are familiar with administration changes. The Western government that’s been foisted upon them in order to get federal recognition is fraught with administration changes and the fallout from that. And so, I’m not going to say that tribes aren’t worried about what happens to all the progress we’ve made in the Biden administration, but they just look forward and say, “Yes, we’ll get through this too. We always do.” 

So we draw on that. Our team draws on the strength, especially of the elders. That’s what gives us hope to know that we’ve survived a lot worse.

And then Mother Earth. She is the utmost resilient being. If we destroy the environment and it’s not habitable for humans, she will go on. She will take over and rebound very quickly. I know that’s kind of funny to think about, that if humans are so foolish that we annihilate ourselves, that the Earth will persist. But she will. 

Gwen: Well, thank you so much for that. I have to say for myself, I feel a renewed sense of hope to hear about some of these great projects that your team is working on, and I’ll be excited to continue to follow them. 

Thank you so much for your time, attention, and thoughtfulness in all that you’ve shared. I really appreciate your joining us today. 

Chéri: Thank you so much, Gwen. It’s our honor and pleasure. Thank you.