A federal appeals court has sided with Native American tribes in their fight against the federal government over a $10 billion energy transmission line designed to carry wind-generated electricity from New Mexico to customers as far away as California.
The Tohono O’odham Nation — along with the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Center for Biological Diversity and Archaeology Southwest — sued the U.S. Interior Department and then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in 2024. They argued that the agency failed to properly consult with the tribes on a historic property designation for southern Arizona’s San Pedro Valley.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that a lower court erred in dismissing the case last year and ordered the matter to be reconsidered.
The panel concluded the plaintiffs raised a plausible claim that a proper consultation would have resulted in the valley being designated as a…
