The diversified Alaska Native investment corporation Bristol Bay Native Corporation was among nearly 20 American Indian Tribes and Alaska Native entities that received more than $2.5 million from a U.S. Department of the Interior Indian Affairs grant program for developing Tribal energy resources.
Bristol Bay Native Corporation received $300,000 for the Electric Utility Collaboration: Developing Capacity Amongst Small Microgrids in Bristol Bay project through the Tribal Energy Development Capacity Grant Program, a release said.
“These grants will assist Tribes in building capacity to manage energy development in their communities. As we look to a sustainable future, it is important that Tribes can regulate and benefit from energy development in their communities,” Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland said in the release. “By empowering Tribes to build this capacity, we are supporting Tribal sovereignty and economic development and helping make lives better for people in Tribal communities.”
Tribal Energy Development Capacity Grants are awarded through a competitive process for projects in two categories: development activities such as developing the legal infrastructure to create a Tribal energy business and regulatory activities, such as “developing or enhancing tribal policies, codes, regulations or ordinances related to energy resources,” the grant website said.
“These important grants provide Tribes with the opportunity to receive financial assistance to evaluate the energy and mineral resource potential of their lands,” Trina Lock, acting Bureau of Indian Affairs deputy bureau director for trust services, said in the release. “In past years, these grants assisted Tribes with forming an intertribal energy agency to improve electric service to Alaska villages and conducting feasibility studies to establish Tribal utility authorities in California, Florida and Oklahoma.”
Projects funded in the past include $125,000 for conducting a study on forming a regional energy authority in the Native Village of Kiana, Alaska, past-funded information said.
Newland is a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community (Ojibwe), according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. From 2009 to 2012, he was a counselor and policy advisor to the assistant secretary of the Interior.
