Federal Indian Law

At Jill Grant & Associates, we promote and defend tribal rights, tribal jurisdiction, and tribal sovereignty.

By assisting tribes with developing, implementing and enforcing their own environmental laws and programs, we provide avenues for tribes to assert sovereignty and jurisdiction over their lands and resources and protect their environments and communities.  By drafting “treatment as a state” (TAS) applications and applications for primary enforcement authority (primacy), we ensure that EPA will recognize the tribal role in environmental protection.  For example, through an application for TAS and primacy for a tribal Underground Injection Control program, we were successful in getting EPA to recognize that tribal jurisdiction under the Safe Drinking Water Act extends to tribal trust and allotted lands (including split estates) outside formal reservation boundaries, 73 Fed. Reg. 65,556 (Nov. 4, 2008), a decision which went unchallenged.

The application of federal environmental laws to Indian country also raises issues as to tribal jurisdiction, which we have negotiated and litigated on behalf of tribes.  For example, we successfully represented tribal intervenors in a case upholding tribal jurisdiction under the Clean Air Act for air quality within reservations, including tribal trust lands.  Arizona Public Service Co. v. EPA, 211 F.3d 1280 (D.C. Cir. 2000), cert. denied sub nom. Michigan v. EPA, 530 U.S. 970 (2001).  Other cases we have litigated to uphold tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction are listed under the tabs for Appellate Litigation and Administrative Law in this section.

Jill Grant, the founding member of Jill Grant & Associates, LLC, has been at the forefront of tribal environmental regulation, and we continue to work vigorously on behalf of tribes today.  We have been assisting tribes with developing their own environmental programs and authorities and asserting their jurisdiction in that context for over 25 years.