Northern Arapaho Tribe

Energize Wind River now has access to a roughly $2 million construction grant that was put on hold by the Trump administration earlier this year.

The office specializes in tribal collaboration and supports conservation on the Wind River Reservation.

Tribal members, law enforcement and state employees talked trainings and a death investigation review with lawmakers.

Tribes around the country receive federal support through the annual Indian Housing Block Grant program, but Trump’s proposed budget would decrease the program’s funding by about 20% next year.

A commitment structure would create a four-year renewable scholarship that would work with other awards to equal tuition and mandatory fees. But figuring out how to cover the costs is still a work in progress.

The new liaison positions will serve as the face of communication when it comes to working with local, state and federal partners and agencies on the issue.

The Wyoming Legislature is considering two bills about sales taxes on the Wind River Reservation. One would return improperly collected online sales taxes to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes, and the other codifies that the state does not collect sales tax from non-tribal members on reservation land.

People who vandalize petroglyphs, pictographs and historical inscriptions would be fined under a bill recently passed by the state Senate. The measure also sets aside funding to survey, document and model all known pictographs and petroglyphs on state land in Wyoming.

An oil company claims it’s not responsible for plugging oil wells on the Wind River Reservation and is taking that claim to federal court.

A University of Wisconsin researcher came across the fossils, still preserved in their burrows, on BLM land near Dubois. He returned there over the years, eventually partnering with the Eastern Shoshone Tribe to bring local middle school students and elders to the site.