T H E R I E R E P O R T | D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 4
Note from the Project Directors Terry Anderson & Dominic Parker
The Hoover Project on Renewing Indigenous Economies (RIE) continues to work toward finding new ways to support economic regrowth in Indigenous communities that are consistent with respecting their cultures. This second 2024 RIE Report updates the progress of the RIE project and shares resources that tribal leaders, scholars, and policymakers can use to rebuild prosperity among Indigenous people. We welcome your input, so please stay in touch at indigenousecon@stanford.edu.
R E C E N T A N D U P C O M I N G E V E N T S
2024 Indigenous Student Seminar
Hoover was proud to host the 2024 Hoover Institution Indigenous Student Seminar, held on the Stanford University campus August 5–9 and directed by Daniel Stewart. The fourth annual seminar brought together 29 participants representing Indigenous communities in the United States, Mexico, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. The attendees engaged in lively discussions with one another, with university professors and industry professionals, and with program alumni Haley Rains and Aldo Aragon in TA sessions. Misty Kuhl gave an inspiring keynote speech, “The Warrior’s Journey,” remarking on her life journey, the obstacles she overcame, and the lessons she learned as she ascended towards her current position as director of the Montana Department of Indian Affairs. In the closing session, the participants reflected on their hopes for renewed prosperity in their communities, offering inspiration to all in the room. Click here to learn more about the 2024 seminar.
University of Wyoming
Indigenous Student Seminar alumnus Daniel Cardenas Jr. hosted Dominic Parker and a group of fellow students and professors at the University of Wyoming’s Native American Education, Research, and Cultural Center in Laramie on October 11. Joined also by RIE contributor Daniel Cardenas Sr., the group met to discuss research on economic development and ways to further connect the RIE program with tribal colleges. The meeting was part of Parker’s visit to campus, hosted by the Economics Department, during which he presented research from his paper “Causes and Consequences of Policy Uncertainty: Evidence from McGirt vs. Oklahoma” at the College of Business.
Native CDFI Network’s Annual Policy Summit
Dominic Parker will join moderator Pamela Boivin for a fireside chat in Washington DC. at the Native CDFI Network’s annual public symposium on December 12. Parker and Boivin will discuss opportunities and obstacles for energy development in Native communities before an audience of bank executives, policymakers, and key industry partners. The goal of the symposium is to advance economic resilience in Indian Country in areas of business and housing development, home ownership, and energy provision. The event, which anticipates 250 participants, will convene at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
2025 Indigenous Student Seminar
Applications for the 2025 Indigenous Student Seminar are open, and we encourage you to help us recruit students. The seminar will take place the week of August 4–8 at the Stanford campus. Applications are due March 5. Click here for more information and to apply.
A L U M N I A N D P A R T I C I P A N T N E W S
Congratulations to James Robinson, a professor at the University of Chicago and contributor to the RIE program, for winning the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics. He is corecipient of the prize, with Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, both at MIT. Professor Robinson’s book written with Acemoglu, Why Nations Fail, helps us understand differences in prosperity across nations and provides explanations for why the economic health of Indigenous people lags behind that of others around the world. Indigenous communities are often governed by a legacy of colonial institutions that were designed to transfer rather than generate wealth. In a talk at the Hoover Institution, Robinson emphasized these factors and drew parallels between institutions governing Indigenous people in North America and Africa. His message aligns with those of the RIE Project: economic prosperity for Indigenous people requires assertion of autonomy from external control alongside the creation of political and economic institutions that limit corruption, provide transparent laws, and reward innovation and entrepreneurship.
Congratulations also to Haley Rains, alumna of the 2023 Hoover Indigenous Student Seminar, who is launching her documentary We Are Not Your Savages. It examines how the myth of the American frontier and its past and contemporary iterations in American film, photography, history, politics, and popular culture contribute to the marginalization of Native American people in Montana and create division among its citizens. Haley is also working toward her next documentary project, But for the Grace of God: Opioids in Indian Country.
R E A D I N G R E C O M M E N D A T I O N
Streamlining Energy Regulations Could Ease Poverty
Indian reservations were often set on lands where agricultural potential is weak, but these lands tend to be windy and sunny and could give Native Americans economic leverage in the growing industry of clean energy. In the paper “Economic Potential of Wind and Solar in American Indian Communities,” published in the journal Nature Energy, Dominic Parker, Daniel Stewart, and coauthors find significant potential but also a sharp disparity: reservation lands are 46% less likely to host wind farms and 110% less likely to host solar farms than adjacent lands with similar suitability. Adding to this striking overall disparity, untapped wind and solar resources are especially abundant in the poorest 25% of reservations, where other income opportunities—from casinos and nearby urban labor markets—are lacking. Eliminating the disparity could generate $50,000 per tribal member in these communities.
The researchers note that one of the biggest barriers facing tribes is the complexity and uncertainty of the permitting process—for building both the facilities and the transmission lines that feed the generated energy into the power grid. The large number of agencies and regulations involved in Indian Country often results in confusion, overlap, and a lack of coordination among agencies. “An earlier study found that 49 regulatory steps were required to develop oil on reservations, compared to four steps for off-reservation projects,” says Parker. “A similar regulatory jumble makes wind and solar projects almost as uncommon as where they are forbidden.” The research is summarized in a range of media, including Tribal Business News, Wisconsin Public Radio, Reason, and Grist.
A Note from the REI Directors on the Administration Transition
As the curtain closes on the Biden-Harris administration, the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued new guidelines for all federal agencies to recognize and include Indigenous knowledge in federal research, policy, and decision making. These guidelines emphasize that Indigenous knowledge embodies Indigenous interaction with the environment but fails to emphasize the human-to-human relationships embodied in Indigenous institutions. In particular, as the Hoover Renewing Indigenous Economies Project emphasizes, tribes thrived because of their property rights, rule of law, and trade. Renewing Indigenous Economies (Hoover Institution Press, 2022) documents that prior to colonialism, Native Americans had well-defined property rights to personal property such as horses and tipis and to natural resources such as salmon streams, clam gardens, and cultivated fields. They traded goods from north of the Arctic Circle to south of the Equator, and their governments were organized around rules that harnessed collective action such as buffalo hunts and individual incentives such as rewarding proficient hunters with more and better meat. It is these Indigenous institutions that the Trump administration needs to incorporate into sustainable economic and environmental policies.
Learn More About the RIE Project
