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After spending the 1970s developing the institutional capacity to effectively govern their resources, energy tribes now demanded that federal law recognize their authority to make development decisions. This final chapter documents, once again, the pivotal role the Northern Cheyenne tribe played in this process. With Ronald Reagan’s massive budget cuts forcing tribes to look increasingly to private-tribal partnerships to extract their minerals and secure revenue, the Northern Cheyenne executed a 1982 agreement with the Atlantic Richfield Company. Federal officials, however, were reluctant to approve the deal because it did not conform to the 1938 Indian Mineral Leasing Act, exposing how embedded notions of Indian inferiority continued to hinder tribal development. In response, the Northern Cheyenne, the Council of Energy Resource Tribes, and their allies within the federal government and the energy industry, pushed to change the law. The result was the 1982 Indian Mineral Development Act that authorized tribes to enter into whatever type of resource development agreement they desired, subject only to final federal approval. This new law reversed the historic roles of federal and tribal governments, giving energy tribes primary authority to determine the fate of their resources.

After successfully defending the Northern Cheyenne and Crow Reservations from non-Indian mining, American Indians launched a national campaign to prepare similarly situated energy tribes for the coming onslaught in energy demand. This chapter details those efforts that began with Northern Cheyenne and Crow leaders helping to organize a regional coalition of tribes to fight federally planned development on the Northern Plains. From this defensive alliance, energy tribes then turned to exploring options to mine their own minerals. They worked with federal agencies charged with expanding domestic energy production in the wake of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo and consulted energy experts familiar with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Ultimately, tribes nationwide formed the Council of Energy Resource Tribes to provide a unified Indian voice to federal energy policymakers, lobby for federal aid in developing tribal resources, and share information about energy development. After much confusion as to CERT’s primary purpose – including whether it was a cartel-like “Native American OPEC” – the organization evolved into a professional consulting firm that both worked with individual tribes to pursue specific mining projects and lobbied the federal government for beneficial grants and policies.

Sadly, just as energy tribes secured recognition of their sovereign rights to control resource development, the market for Indian energy collapsed. This Epilogue explains the changes in international energy markets that produced a glut of cheap foreign oil in mid-1980s, making investment in tribal-led energy projects uneconomical. It also updates readers on the fitful attempts by the Northern Cheyenne, Crow, and Navajo to establish mineral revenues amid fluctuating energy markets, and details the intense intra-tribal debates over resource development that continue to divide these communities. Despite these setbacks, however, the book concludes on a hopeful note, describing subsequent changes to federal law that continue to expand tribal control over reservation resources. The last anecdote offers CERT Chairman Peter MacDonald’s 1982 farewell address as an opportunity to summarize the energy tribes’ momentous efforts. These groups mobilized a defense of the homeland, developed the institutional capacity to regulate energy development, and secured legal authority over reservation resources. Only the successful execution of that authority to alleviate suffocating poverty remains.