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119-hr-1444119th CongressWALLET

Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act of 2025

Sponsored By: Representative Vasquez, Gabe [D-NM-2]

Introduced

Summary

Settles Zuni Tribe water rights and funds a trust to build and maintain water infrastructure. This bill would ratify a comprehensive agreement to resolve water claims in the Zuni River system and set the rules and conditions for implementing that settlement.

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Bill Overview

Analyzed Economic Effects

4 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 1 costs, 1 mixed.

Funding for Zuni water settlement

This bill would provide large, mandatory federal funding for the Zuni water settlement. The Treasury would transfer $655.5 million to a Settlement Trust Account and $29.5 million to an Operation, Maintenance, & Replacement Trust Account. Those amounts would be adjusted for construction cost changes using the Bureau of Reclamation index (indexing begins January 1, 2022) and stay available until spent. The funds would be used to plan, permit, build, and maintain water projects. The State of New Mexico would also pay $750,000 for monitoring plans and deposit $500,000 into an interest-bearing account to mitigate harm to non-Indian domestic and livestock groundwater rights.

Stronger Tribal water rights and leasing

The bill would make Tribal Water Rights in the Zuni River Stream System held in trust by the United States and protect them from loss by non-use, forfeiture, abandonment, or other operation of law. The Tribe would be able to allocate, distribute, and lease Tribal Water Rights for use on Zuni Lands, and it could lease rights for use off Zuni Lands with the Secretary's approval. Any off-Zuni lease could not last more than 99 years total, including renewals. The bill would also keep Allottee water rights separate and allow Allottees (or the United States as trustee) to have their allottee claims adjudicated in court.

Land protections and trust transfer timing

The bill would withdraw about 92,364 acres around Zuni Salt Lake and the Sanctuary from mining, leasing, and public-land entry and have the BLM manage those lands with strict limits (vehicles only on designated routes, no new wells except emergency replacements, no increased grazing, no new timber sales, and no casual collecting). The Secretary would publish maps and legal descriptions. On the Enforceability Date, the federal government would take the Tribal Acquisition Area into trust for the Tribe, subject to valid existing rights, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs would assume prior agency obligations and give the Tribe amounts that accrue after the trust date. The Enforceability Date itself would require court approval, all parties' signatures, required deposits and State law actions, and if the Secretary does not publish required findings by July 1, 2030 (or a later agreed date), the title would expire and waivers, funds, and some actions could revert.

Limits on U.S. liability without funding

The bill would say the United States is not liable for failing to carry out settlement obligations when Congress does not expressly provide the needed appropriations. Liability protection would apply only when Congress has not provided adequate funding to perform duties under this title.

Sponsors & CoSponsors

Sponsor

Vasquez, Gabe [D-NM-2]

NM • D

Cosponsors

  • Rep. Leger Fernandez, Teresa [D-NM-3]

    NM • D

    Sponsored 2/18/2025

  • Rep. Stansbury, Melanie A. [D-NM-1]

    NM • D

    Sponsored 2/18/2025

Roll Call Votes

No roll call votes available for this bill.

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