A new UW-Madison study predicts Native American communities will miss out on billions of dollars of economic impact from the clean energy transition if existing disparities persist.
Profs. Dominic Parker and Sarah Johnston led a team of researchers in analyzing the potential income that renewable energy projects could provide to tribal groups, recently publishing their findings in the journal Nature Energy.
Parker, a professor of agricultural and applied economics, says this report is the first “comprehensive analysis” of such potential benefits, along with the regulatory barriers standing in the way.
They found that Native American reservation lands are 46% less likely to host wind farms and 110% less likely to host solar farms than “otherwise similar” adjacent lands, according to the university. This disparity exists even as wind and solar resources “are especially abundant” in the poorest 25% of reservations, researchers found.
Using energy demand modeling through 2050 and other data, the researchers found tribes would lose out on more than $19 billion in lease and tax earnings between now and then under a scenario of “high electrification and future reliance on renewables” to meet energy demands. Under a low-electrification future, that future would still be $11.6 billion.
By comparison, the equivalent estimate for tribal casino earnings through 2050 is $67 billion, the release notes.
Researchers found the “complexity and uncertainty” of the permitting process for clean energy projects and transmission lines is a major barrier to developing them. Parker notes 49 regulatory steps were required to develop oil projects on reservations, compared to just four steps for projects elsewhere, according to an earlier study.
“This regulatory jumble makes energy projects almost as uncommon as where they are forbidden, such as in public parks, forests and wildlife refuges,” Parker said.
At the same time, reservation land is often divided up into more ownership parcels than non-reservation land due to historical land allotment policies, the release shows, adding complexity to the process for obtaining land leasing agreements for projects.
Because reservation land has an average of 14 owners for a 160-acre parcel, a 5,000-acre wind farm built on 32 parcels would need to get the agreement of 448 owners to secure a land lease. This makes it “very difficult” for Native Americans living on reservations to pursue renewable energy developments, Parker says.
Study authors say allowing tribes to “implement their own goals” without regulatory steps required by federal and state law would make it easier for tribes to pursue renewable energy developments.
“Rolling back the red tape will be critical so that tribes interested in development can realize the economic potential of their own resources,” Parker said. “The key is to avoid green colonialism by not pressuring uninterested tribes while at the same time making it feasible for those wanting the income.”
See the release.
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