The Ute Indian Tribe issued a press release following the Supreme Court’s decision against the Navajo Nation in a water rights court case with the state of Arizona and Department of the Interior. The Tribe places the blame on the Biden Administration due to the Administration’s petition of the Supreme Court to overturn a court decision that had ruled in favor of the Navajo Nation. “We need to see the Biden Administration for what it is — hypocritical and no friend of Indian tribes,” stated Julius T. Murray, III, Chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe’s Tribal Business Committee. The Tribal Business Committee noted the hypocrisy between the Biden Administration campaign pledge to Indian Nations during the 2020 presidential campaign and the Biden Administration’s action in litigating aggressively to terminate any federal trust responsibility to Indian tribes in the Navajo case. The Ute Tribe makes their concerns and opposition clear in the press release which states that the 2023 Navajo case now leaves Indian water rights unprotected.
