On behalf of the National Congress of American Indians and the Intertribal Transportation Association, Hobbs Straus advocated for the adoption of legislative language and to increase IRR Program funding and expand transportation programs available to tribes in the SAFETEA-LU highway authorization.
Tribal Environmental Programs, Laws & Regulations
- Provide counsel on tribal environmental programs to protecting and preserving the natural environment and to maintain sovereign governmental authority over tribal lands.
- Assist tribes in developing tribal environmental, natural resources and cultural and historic preservation laws and regulations.
- Assist tribes to develop regulatory programs within the framework of federal laws that authorize the Environmental Protection Agency to treat tribes in the same manner as states.
- Provide counsel to tribes to develop laws to establish environmental review processes under tribal law.
- Assist tribal officials and staff to write the statutory text to implement tribal values in a manner consistent with federal law and the federal-tribal government-to-government relationship.
- Work with tribal government agencies to carry out rulemaking to implement tribal environmental laws, including the development of administrative law enforcement mechanisms.
- Conduct workshops on environmental and cultural preservation issues for tribal government officials and staff, and for the tribal membership.
- Draft and negotiate various kinds of environmental agreements and compacts with both federal and state government agencies.
- Draft and update tribal environmental, natural resources and cultural and historic preservation codes and develop, administer and enforce tribal environmental protection programs.
