H.R. 1444 — Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act of 2025

This section establishes the purposes of the title: to settle all water rights claims in the Zuni River Stream System in the State for the Tribe and the United States acting as trustee for the Tribe; to authorize, ratify, and confirm the Agreement among the Tribe, the State, and other parties to the extent it is consistent with the title; to direct the Secretary to execute the Agreement and take any other actions necessary to carry it out; and to authorize the funds needed to implement the Agreement and the title.

This section defines key terms used throughout the title, including the Zuni water rights adjudication in United States v. A&R Production, et al. (Civil No. 01–CV–00072, including subproceeding Civil No. 07–CV–00681), the May 1, 2023 Settlement Agreement and any conforming amendments, 9 trust allotment parcels on Zuni Lands and 6 trust allotment parcels off Zuni Lands, the Zuni Tribe Settlement Trust Fund established under section 105(a), Zuni Lands as trust or tribally owned land in New Mexico at the time a motion is filed for entry of the partial final judgment and decree, and the Zuni River Stream System as the surface water drainage basin identified in the district court’s May 21, 2003 order.

This section ratifies and confirms the Agreement, as modified by this title, and authorizes the Secretary to execute the Agreement and any Secretary-signed attachments or later modifications that are consistent with this title and do not require additional congressional approval under section 2116 of the Revised Statutes (25 U.S.C. 177) or other applicable federal law. It also requires the Secretary and the Tribe to comply with the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and other applicable federal environmental laws in implementing the Agreement, while making the Tribe responsible for preparing necessary environmental documents and the Secretary responsible for independently evaluating them. The section specifies that the Secretary’s execution of the Agreement is not a major federal action under NEPA and provides that compliance costs are paid from Trust Fund deposits, except for federal approval or review costs and inherently federal functions, which remain the Secretary’s responsibility.

This section authorizes the Zuni Tribe to allocate, distribute, and lease Tribal Water Rights for use on and off Zuni Lands, subject to the Agreement, this title, applicable Federal law, and approval by the Secretary of the Interior. It sets a maximum lease term of 99 years, including all renewals, for off-reservation use, and incorporates the first section of the Act of August 9, 1955 (25 U.S.C. 415), the Long-Term Leasing Act, as governing leasing authority. It also provides that the Tribal Water Rights are held in trust by the United States on behalf of the Tribe, are not subject to loss through non-use, forfeiture, abandonment, or other operation of law, and may not be permanently alienated. As background, 25 U.S.C. 415 generally authorizes leases of restricted Indian lands for specified purposes with Secretarial approval, and this section applies that leasing framework to Tribal Water Rights.

This section references the Secretary of the Interior’s existing authority under the first section of the Act of June 24, 1938 (25 U.S.C. 162a) to manage, invest, and distribute the Zuni Tribe Settlement Trust Fund in a manner consistent with federal Indian trust fund law. It establishes the Zuni Tribe Settlement Trust Fund, to remain available until expended, and creates 2 accounts within the fund: the Zuni Tribe Water Rights Settlement Trust Account and the Zuni Tribe Operation, Maintenance, and Replacement Trust Account. The section directs the Secretary to deposit into the fund the amounts made available under section 106(a), together with any investment earnings, including interest, earned on those amounts. This section makes $50 million of the trust fund, including investment earnings, immediately available to the Tribe on deposit for specified pre-enforceability uses, including developing economic water development plans, preparing environmental compliance documents and engineering designs, establishing and operating a water resource department, installing groundwater wells on Zuni Lands, making urgent irrigation repairs, acquiring land and water rights or water supply, and developing water measurement and reporting plans. It also authorizes the Tribe to withdraw amounts from the fund under either a Tribal management plan approved under the American Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act of 1994 or an approved expenditure plan, and requires that withdrawn amounts and any earnings be used for the purposes described in the title. The section authorizes the Secretary to take judicial and administrative actions to enforce approved plans and ensure compliance, and preserves judicial review only under the Administrative Procedure Act.

This section provides mandatory appropriations of $655.5 million for deposit in the Zuni Tribe Water Rights Settlement Trust Account and $29.5 million for deposit in the Zuni Tribe Operation, Maintenance, and Replacement Trust Account, with both amounts available until expended, withdrawn, or reverted to the general fund of the Treasury. It also requires those amounts to be adjusted upward or downward for ordinary construction cost fluctuations and unforeseen market volatility, using the Bureau of Reclamation Construction Cost Index-Composite Trend and other construction cost repricing determined by the Secretary, with the indexing period running from January 1, 2022, until the funds are deposited. In addition, this section requires the State to contribute $750,000 for monitoring plans and $500,000 to an interest-bearing account to mitigate impairment to non-Indian domestic and livestock groundwater rights resulting from new Tribal water use.

This section requires the Zuni Tribe and the United States, acting as trustee for the Tribe, to waive and release claims relating to water rights in the Zuni River Stream System in exchange for recognition of the Tribal Water Rights and other benefits in the Agreement and this title. The waiver covers claims the Tribe or the United States asserted or could have asserted on or before the Enforceability Date, including claims for water rights not recognized in the Agreement and this title, and claims for damages, losses, or injuries arising from interference with, diversion of, or taking of water rights, including related injury to land, against any party to the Agreement. This section also requires the Tribe to waive and release claims against the United States, including any agency or employee, for water rights first arising before the Enforceability Date. As background, the provision is part of a tribal water rights settlement and bars claims relating to foregone benefits from non-Indian water use, failures to provide municipal, rural, or industrial water delivery systems, irrigation project construction and operation, irrigation maintenance, dam safety improvements, litigation over tribal water rights, and the negotiation, execution, or adoption of the Agreement and this title. This section makes the waivers effective on the Enforceability Date and preserves specified claims and rights. The Tribe and the United States retain claims for enforcement of, or post-Enforceability Date claims relating to, water rights recognized under the Agreement, this title, or the Partial Final Judgment and Decree in the adjudication; water quality claims under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act; rights to use and protect water rights acquired after enactment; damage to land or natural resources not caused by loss of water rights; any rights not specifically waived; and losses outside the Zuni River Stream System. This section further provides that nothing in the Agreement or this title alters governmental sovereignty or jurisdiction, limits the United States’ authority to carry out activities authorized by law under the environmental statutes listed, affects the United States’ trustee responsibilities to the Tribe or other Indian tribes, or confers jurisdiction on any State court to interpret Federal environmental law or determine Federal duties under that law.

This section provides that the benefits under this title fully replace, substitute for, and satisfy any claim the Tribe waives and releases against the United States under section 107(b).

This section establishes the enforceability date for the Zuni Tribe water rights settlement as the date the Secretary publishes a Federal Register finding that six conditions have been met: the settlement agreement has been amended to conform with the title, executed by all parties including the United States, approved by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico through a Partial Final Judgment and Decree, and fully funded through the appropriations deposited in the Zuni Tribe Water Rights Settlement Trust Account and the Zuni Tribe Operation, Maintenance, & Replacement Trust Account; the State has provided its required funding and enacted legislation allowing leases of Tribal Water Rights for up to 99 years, including renewals; and the Tribe and the Secretary have executed the waivers and releases.

This section provides that the title does not waive the sovereign immunity of the United States, does not quantify or diminish any land or water right or claim of any Indian Tribe, band, Pueblo, or community other than the Tribe, and does not affect any provision of law or regulation in effect on the day before enactment regarding pre-enforcement review of any Federal environmental enforcement action. This section also establishes that, in the event of a conflict between the Agreement and this title, this title controls.

This section provides that nothing in the Act or the Agreement affects the rights or claims of allottees, or of the United States acting as trustee for allottees, to water rights or damages relating to land allotted by the United States. It also requires that, whether an allotment was patented under section 1 of the Indian General Allotment Act (25 U.S.C. 331) or section 4 of that Act (25 U.S.C. 334), allotment water rights be adjudicated separately from tribal water rights and excluded from the Partial Final Judgment and Decree. As background, the Indian General Allotment Act authorized the allotment of tribal lands to individual Indians. Thus, allotment water rights adjudicated separately under this section are not subject to the restrictions or conditions that apply to tribal water rights, except that if an allotment governed by the Indian General Allotment Act becomes Zuni Lands, the associated water rights become subject to the restrictions and conditions on tribal water rights under the Act and the Agreement. Finally, this section permits allottees, or the United States as trustee for allottees, to assert water rights claims in the Zuni River Stream System.

This section limits the Federal Government’s liability for failing to carry out any obligation or activity authorized by this title, including any obligation or activity under the Agreement, unless Congress expressly provides adequate appropriations to carry out the title’s purposes. (Thus, the title may not be implemented without specific congressional funding.)

This section revises the definitions applicable to the Zuni Salt Lake and Sanctuary by incorporating the existing definition of “casual collecting” from 16 U.S.C. 470aaa, defining “Federal land” to mean any Federal land or Federal interest in land within the sanctuary boundary and any land or interest acquired by the Federal Government after enactment within that boundary, and defining the “Zuni Salt Lake and Sanctuary” as approximately 217,037 acres in the State, as depicted on the June 17, 2024, “Legislative Map for Zuni Tribe Water Settlement,” consisting of private, Tribal trust, State, and Bureau of Land Management-managed lands protected by New Mexico Office of the State Engineer Order No. 199 (July 5, 2023) because of their historical and cultural significance.

This section withdraws approximately 92,364 acres of Federal land in New Mexico from entry, appropriation, or disposal under the public land laws; location, entry, and patent under the mining laws; and disposition under mineral and geothermal leasing and mineral materials laws, effective on enactment, and applies the same withdrawal to additional Federal land described in section 201(2)(B) when that land is acquired by the Federal Government. It reserves the withdrawn land for the protection of the Zuni Salt Lake and Sanctuary, the quality and quantity of water resources that supply the lake, and cultural resources or values associated with the sanctuary.

This section directs the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, to manage the Federal land withdrawn under section 202 in accordance with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, in consultation with the Tribe, to protect the Zuni Salt Lake and Sanctuary, the quality and quantity of water resources that supply the lake, and associated cultural resources and values. It also imposes specific land-use restrictions on the withdrawn land, including limiting motor vehicle use to designated routes except for administrative or emergency purposes, prohibiting new water wells and the extension or expansion of existing wells after enactment except for replacement wells if an existing well fails, prohibiting any increase in existing permitted grazing use, barring new rights-of-way or leases except for geophysical, geologic, or hydrologic operations limited to research or monitoring or for regional scientific study, prohibiting the sale or free use of timber, and prohibiting casual collecting.

This section directs the Secretary of the Interior, on the Enforceability Date, to take into trust for the Tribe all right, title, and interest of the United States in the land identified on the map as the “Tribal Acquisition Area,” subject to valid existing rights and the requirements of the section. As background, trust land is held by the United States for the benefit of a tribe and is generally subject to federal Indian land management rules rather than ordinary federal land disposal rules. This section also provides that land taken into trust remains subject to existing contracts, leases, permits, and rights-of-way unless the holder requests earlier termination under existing law, and it requires the Bureau of Indian Affairs to assume the prior land management agency’s benefits and obligations under those arrangements. It further directs the Bureau of Indian Affairs to disburse to the Tribe any amounts accruing to the United States after the trust transfer from sales, bonuses, royalties, or rentals related to the land, in the same manner as amounts received from other land held in trust for the Tribe. This section establishes rules for personal property and improvements on the transferred land. Improvements that are personal property under state law remain the property of the holder and must be removed within 90 days after the underlying right, contract, lease, permit, or right-of-way expires, unless the Tribe and the holder agree otherwise. Any such property left on the land after the 90-day period becomes the Tribe’s property and may be removed or disposed of at the Tribe’s discretion, and the holder is liable to the Tribe for the costs of removal and disposal. This section terminates the withdrawal of federal land under section 202 for the land described in the Tribal Acquisition Area when that land is taken into trust. It also provides that any water rights associated with the transferred land shall be held in trust for the Tribe but shall not be included in the Tribal Water Rights. This section further requires the Secretary, when the Tribe acquires any land shown on the map as a “Potential Future Acquisition Area,” to take legal title to that land into trust for the Tribe, provided the land is free of liens, encumbrances, or other infirmities and there is no evidence of hazardous substances or other environmental liability on the land.

This section directs the Secretary, as soon as practicable after enactment, to prepare maps showing the land withdrawn under section 202 and the land taken into trust under section 204, and to publish in the Federal Register a notice containing the legal descriptions of that land. It provides that the published maps and legal descriptions have the same force and effect as if they were included in the title, while allowing the Secretary to correct clerical and typographical errors. It also requires that copies of the maps and legal descriptions be made available for public inspection in the appropriate Bureau of Land Management offices.