Many Native Americans struggle with poverty. Relaxing energy regulations could help.

Burdensome federal energy regulations on reservations could cost U.S. tribes as much as $19 billion in potential wind and solar profits.

A new study published in the journal finds that if regulatory barriers to approving reservations were eased, the influx of wealth and job opportunities from renewable energy projects could reduce the poverty rate among indigenous people Energy of Nature. Around 21 percent natives live in poverty – the most of all minority groups.

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers estimated the net value of wind and solar energy using a combination of off-reservation lease payments paid to landowners and taxes received by local governments. They predict that tribes and their members could earn about the same amount by leasing wind and solar rights to a third-party developer or expanding. According to their current projection of leasing and tax revenues from renewable energy demand projections through 2050, this amount could range from $7 billion to $19 billion, depending on the least and most aggressive wind and solar demand growth scenarios.

According to the study, compared to adjacent unreserved lands, today’s reserves are 46 percent less likely to locate wind farms and 110 percent less likely to locate solar projects. Although the lands given to the Native Americans have historically it was less agriculturally productiveFrom research conducted by Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

However, federal policy continues to pigeonhole Native Americans into agriculture because of how difficult it can be to use the land for any other purpose. From Dawes Act of 1887which divided the communal lands into plots among the natives in an attempt to assimilate them into American society, and later reversed this process by Wheeler-Howard ActIndigenous land policy has been overwhelmingly bureaucratic.

Despite its reversal, the Dawes Act had long-lasting consequences. ANDThe rules of inheritance imposed by law resulted in a phenomenon called fractionation, which requires the division of plots of land among all heirs after the death of the owners. As a result, some plots have hundreds of owners, causing development costs to increase exponentially as the number of owners who had to be contacted for consent increased.

Most energy projects on indigenous lands also require a green light from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. “You typically have to work with a variety of agencies, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” said Sarah Johnston, one of the study’s co-authors, “which, anecdotally, can be quite slow in getting the necessary approvals.” Additionally, the Bureau’s property records are often incomplete, making subdivided land matters even more complicated.

If there were more energy facilities on reservation lands, it would help reduce the percentage of unelectrified tribal communities. In the homes of the Navajo Nation, the largest federally recognized tribe in the United States, 21 percent are without power.

Taken together, removing regulatory barriers would give Native American tribes the opportunity to move beyond the strict contracts they have entered into throughout history, enabling them to generate electricity, wealth, and prosperity for their communities.