Class I Air Quality

Examining Tribal Control

• Jurisdictional concern: tribe, state, federal relationship
• Tribes retain inherent sovereign powers (Worcester v. Georgia)
• Trust Doctrine-holds government accountable 
• Fiduciary Duty to tribes-award to mismanagement of resources.

What is Class I?

• Highest pollution control.
• Air shed maintenance.
• Government/Government
• 1990 Amendment to Clean Air Act
• Designated National Parks/Forests

Untitled Slide

Class I Reservations

• Northern Cheyenne 1977
• Confiderated Salish/Kootnai 1982
• Assiniboine/Sioux Tribes 1984
• Forest County Potawatomi 2008
• Spokane Reservation 1991

Yavapai-Apache Reservation Arizona

• Request submitted 12/7/1993
• Designted 11/1/1996
• Reversed 8/10/1998
• 9th Circuit Court per Arizona
• Phoenix Cement Plant-burning tires for fuel

What does Class I Provide

• Protection of air surrounding tribal lands.
• Lowering increments of pollutant.
• Stakeholder seat at the table.
• Notification of application for pollution to states.
• Review of permit and comments during negotiation.

Dispute with Permit

• Class I tribe advantage
• Supersede tribe without
• US Environmental Protection Agency Review
• "Treat Tribes As States"
• Land defined prior to Allottment Act 1887

Untitled Slide

“The State received the EPA’s unpublished decision granting the Tribes "Treatment As State” status at a 6 p.m. meeting on December 9, 2013. The changes put forward by the EPA would not go into effect until this decision is published in the Federal Register. It is outrageous to me that a regulatory agency has proposed changing jurisdictional boundaries established by history and the Courts. I have asked the Attorney General to challenge this decision and defend the existing boundaries of the reservation.”



Gov. Mead

Why now?

• Cultural protection?
• Environmental concern?
• Government to Government?
• Comment period