"Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Thursday announced she will reverse a 1975 policy giving the Bureau of Indian Affairs final authority over tribal water plans.

In the 1975 memo, then-Secretary Rogers Morton gave Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendents and local authorities veto power over any new ordinances or codes regulating tribal water use. In the announcement, Haaland described the memo as an unnecessary extra procedural hurdle that has created decades of confusion in relations between tribes and the federal government.

The majority of tribal constitutions include no requirement for secretarial approval, and those that do still have the option to amend them to remove those requirements."

Zack Budryk reports for The Hill April 7, 2022. [2]