President Trump’s sweeping tax bill is on its way to his desk for a signature after House Republicans passed the legislation with a vote of 218-214 on Thursday. As the administration celebrates, many Americans are contemplating its effects closer to home. With deep cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, and renewable energy projects, the bill is likely to have a devastating effect on low-income and rural communities across the country.
But while Republican governors in states that rely on those programs have largely remained silent about the bill’s effects, tribal leaders across the country are not mincing words about the upcoming fallout for their communities.
“These bills are an affront to our sovereignty, our lands, and our way of life. They would gut essential health and food security programs, roll back climate resilience funding, and allow the exploitation of our sacred homelands without even basic tribal consultation,” said Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson, president of the Tlingit and Haida in Alaska, in a statement. “This is not just bad policy—it is a betrayal of the federal trust responsibility to tribal nations.”
Tribes across the country are particularly worried about the megabill’s hit to clean energy, complicating the development of critical wind and solar projects. According to the Department of Energy, tribal households face 6.5 times more electrical outages per year and a 28 percent higher energy burden compared to the average U.S. household. An estimated 54,000 people living on tribal lands have no electricity.
Under the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, the Biden administration opened up new federal funding opportunities, increased the loan authority of theTribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program, and created new tax credits for wind energy, battery storage, large-scale solar farms, and programs to repurpose lands harmed by environmental degradation for related energy projects. When signed into law, Trump’s new bill will largely dismantle these programs.
Historically, tribes have had limited access to capital to fund clean energy projects. Through the IRA, new projects were driven by tribes to address community and infrastructure needs on their terms. According to tribes and energy advocacy groups, these projects not only help build energy infrastructure for each tribal nation but also create jobs, boost local economies, and affirm sovereignty.
Dr. Crystal Miller, a member of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, heads government affairs and policy at the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy, underlines the existential outcomes for tribal communities. “It is extremely life or death if you’re talking about clean energy projects, in particular solar, which provide energy to homes, provide heat to homes that wouldn’t have it without because they don’t have lines run to their community,” she said.
Prior to the House vote, the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy, was part of a broader group that sent letters to Congress warning of the bill’s consequences for tribes, treaties, and domestic energy priorities. These “are not only economic but also environmental and humanitarian,” they wrote after the Senate narrowly approved the bill 51-50 earlier this week, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.
Miller pointed out that tribes weren’t consulted on the terms of the bill headed to Trump’s desk, yet they will be forced to live with the consequences. Tribal leaders across the United States warned the legislation could jeopardize projects critical to their communities energy needs: A tribal village in Alaska’s attempt to curb high electricity costs by establishing a tribal utility; the Cheyenne River Sioux’s efforts to navigate long, harsh winters in South Dakota; and California tribes’ development of microgrids to offset power outages due to wildfires. The Hopi Tribe in Arizona said the sovereign nation’s microgrid would fail after a historic transition from coal.
Tribal leaders also warned there could be widespread job losses across the 574 federally recognized tribal nations, an outcome at odds with Trump’s economic promises. “When we talk about bringing jobs back to America and keeping them here domestically, that also includes tribal nations,” Miller said.
Dr. Kimberly Yazzie, a Diné professor at the University of British Columbia whose previous research focused on tribal clean energy development, called the legislation a big setback — though not entirely unexpected. “Tribes have been presented with challenges in the past hundred years and this is a challenge we’ll have to face,” she said. “It will come down to the tribal, entity, and individual level, and how they want to best move forward.”
