The Alliance
in the News

In November 2019, the late Grand Chief Joseph Tokwiro Norton sent New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio a letter: the Champlain Hudson Power Express—a 339-mile-long mostly subaqueous transmission line that would deliver 1,250 megawatts of Canadian hydropower to Manhattan—crossed stolen Mohawk land. If his First Nations Reserve, Kahnawà:ke, wasn’t included as a partner, they would block it, and New York wouldn’t be able to buy the project’s power. Nearly a decade later, Norton’s demand has been realized. This May, when the Champlain Hudson Power Express comes online, the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke will co-own up to 49% of the Canadian segment. It’s a significant deal: the line will deliver up to 20% of New York City’s power and offer Kahnawà:ke unprecedented equity in a major American clean energy infrastructure project.

Washington State awarded a number of tribes almost $18 million for clean energy projects — from solar installations to electric fishing and research boat conversions. It is one of the alternative funding sources as tribes and tribal economic development ventures scramble to fill a void following the withdrawal of some $1.5 billion in federal dollars. We’ll get an update on where clean energy infrastructure and development trends are headed in the absence of any new federal money.

Haskell Indian Nations University and the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy have launched a fellowship aimed at strengthening tribal leadership in renewable energy development and governance. The Tribal Energy Leaders Fellowship (TELF), housed at Haskell in Lawrence, Kan., will provide tribal leaders with more than 100 hours of training on federal Indian energy policy, renewable energy technologies and project finance. Faculty from Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, will contribute to the curriculum alongside Indigenous scholars and practitioners.

The Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy (ATCE) is an Indigenous-led nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing energy sovereignty and equitable clean energy development for Native American communities across the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. At its core, the Alliance supports Tribes’ self-determined transition to clean, regenerative energy systems as a pathway to climate resilience, economic opportunity, and sovereignty.

With help from Congress, the Donald Trump administration stripped some $1.5 billion in federal funds previously promised to tribes. A lot of the funding was in the form of contracts for clean energy manufacturing and development — new money doled out three years earlier as part of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. And a new analysis by the Brookings Institution identifies three funding and policy changes, including reductions in SNAP and Medicaid, that negatively affect Native Americans.

NAFOA, founded as the Native American Finance Officers Association, and the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy (Alliance) today announced a strategic partnership to host back-to-back conferences at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada, from April 27-30, 2026. The collaboration offers Tribal leaders, finance officers, and energy decision-makers an unprecedented opportunity to participate in two valuable convenings in one location.

Back in 2021, Winter Storm Uri resulted in more than 240 deaths in Texas as freezing temperatures shut down gas power plants and pushed the state’s independent electricity grid to the brink of collapse. It was an example of a worst-case wintertime scenario for the power sector — and of how fossil fuel resources, often touted for their reliability, can falter when they’re needed most.

Donica Brady has worked as a security guard, a school bus driver, and a fabricator of corrugated metal and bridge girders. But her favorite job has been helping to bring solar panels and batteries to tribal communities struggling to pay their utility bills. “I grew up in a single-parent home,” said Brady, an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. ​“My mom sometimes had to choose which bills to pay. One of the highest bills here is electricity.”

Timothy Nuvangyaoma, the outgoing chairman of the Hopi Tribe, has been appointed vice president of tribal engagement at the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy, the organization said.