Tribes with territory in Washington could soon get representation on the state Natural Resources Board—but just how that will look isn’t a sure bet.
The original version of SB 5838 would have added a single seat to the Board for a representative of all federally recognized tribes in Washington. The six-person body guides the Department of Natural Resources’ policies.
Under the first version of the bill, all federally recognized tribes with territory in the state would nominate a potential representative, and the governor would ultimately choose the person to fill the seat.
“We've been stewards of the lands since time immemorial,” Swinomish Tribal Senator Jeremy “J.J.” Wilbur told a legislative committee. “We also have a great working relationship with DNR over the years and adding a seat with a tribal voice at the table will help to improve the decision-making at the DNR level.”
Paul Jewell, government relations director for the Washington State Association of Counties, told the same committee his organization isn’t opposed to tribal representation but has concerns, especially about whether adding a tribal member might divert the board from prioritizing revenue state trust lands generate for counties.
“Generally, we're supportive of diverse viewpoints. That may be a very good thing for some of the work the board does, but where the trusts are concerned, their intended purpose, their intended purpose cannot be disrupted,” Jewell said. “As the fiduciary of state forest lands, DNR is obligated to act in the county's best interests and no one else's. That's the deal.”
In the state Senate, the bill was amended to add two seats, one for tribes east of the Cascades, one for tribes west of the Cascades. It passed the Senate Feb. 11 on a party-line vote, with all 30 Democrats in favor and all 19 Republicans opposed.
The measure now sits in the House of Representatives’ Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources, where a new amendment from the committee chair, Rep. Kristine Reeves (D-Federal Way), would bring the number of new seats back down to one. However, instead of all tribes nominating representatives for the governor to pick from, every four years, tribes east and west of the Cascades would alternate between making nominations.
The committee was set to make its recommendation on the bill Tuesday, Feb. 24 but deferred action instead.
Jarred-Michael Erickson, chairman of the Confederate Tribes of the Colville Reservation, previously testified to the legislature in support of the measure, and he spoke with SPR’s Owen Henderson about the bill, as well as other policy priorities he and the Colville Tribal government are pursuing.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. It was recorded prior to the introduction of Rep. Reeves' amendment.
OWEN HENDERSON: From natural resources to health policy to energy, tribes in the Northwest and across the U.S. work and maintain government-to-government relationships with states and the federal government on a variety of issues affecting tribal citizens and land.
I'm joined now by Jarred-Michael Erickson, the chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, to share his perspectives on some of these topics.
Chairman, thank you so much for your time this morning.
JARRED-MICHAEL ERICKSON: Glad to be here, thank you.
OH: So just to jump right in, you've already testified to the Washington Legislature this session on a bill that would add tribal representatives to the state board of natural resources.
That bill has now been updated to specify there should be two new seats, one for tribes from the west side of the state and one for tribes from the east side.
Yours and other tribes already do that government-to-government work with Washington and co-manage lots of lands. Walk me through where you stand on this legislation.
JME: Yeah, so this won't get rid of the consultation requirements for each tribe in their respective areas, treaty areas or their tribal trust areas. Just being in those conversations in those rooms and educate the people in those seats as well, I think it's important.
So having their representation from both east and west side is important because our issues are the same in some regards but different in others. So I think having their representation from the west side gives a perspective that I don't necessarily have on all issues and then vice versa here on the east side.
OH: Yeah, you weren't exactly shy during the public testimony about, kind of, throwing the Confederated Colville Tribes hat in the ring, so to speak, to put a representative on the board. Tell me a little bit more about what makes y'all specifically qualified to weigh in on these matters.
JME: Almost all tribes are natural resource-based tribes, right? But we're, well, one, we have the biggest reservation in Washington state. Two, we have 39 million acres we cover when it comes to things that deal with natural resources and agricultural resources up into Canada, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington.
So we have a big area we cover, and we have a lot of great expertise. Our natural resource programs with 500, 600 employees. Our fish and wildlife program alone is, I think, close to 180 now.
We have a lot of expertise. I was a biologist before I was on council. I know that realm.
My dad was a silviculturist and forester, so I know that pretty well.
I think we'd have good representation on that board, just knowing we know a lot of the issues we work with. A lot of reintroduction of species like lynx, more recently, on our reservation antelope. We do a lot with forestry and wildfire management. You name it, we pretty much cover it.
So I think we'd be a good candidate for it no matter who that is at our tribe.
OH: Aside from state-level policies, you've also been advocating for policy changes at the federal level. One of those bills has to do with purchased and referred care improvement in the Indian Health Service. First, do you mind setting a bit of a baseline and explaining how healthcare through IHS is supposed to work, and then we'll talk a little bit about this bill.
JME: When you go to IHS, you're not able to do everything within our clinics, our facilities. A lot of those are referred out to specialty care. Those services are referred out to these other providers to help get that done.
Those will be paid after the procedure, whatever the individual's getting seen for, but those bills haven't been getting paid. I mean, I've had my own personal experiences of not getting my bills paid and going to collections, whether they're not supposed to go to collections at all, period.
But they do, and then there's no reimbursement or process that we've had to get people's money back if they have paid them when they've gone to collections or if they had to pay them out of pocket themselves to be reimbursed.
So we're trying to make it law to require that and then not to be reported to any credit bureaus, credit agencies. So it ends up impacting people's credit negatively and then increasing higher interest rates when they're going for a home loan, a vehicle loan, or a personal loan, right?
Then they're getting higher interest rates on those and paying more. So not only are they paying more on bills they shouldn't be having to pay, but they're also paying more money down the road when it comes to higher interest rates.
OH: And so it sounds like the bill that you're advocating for would make those changes, would tighten that up and ensure that folks are actually getting the money to pay for the care that they need. Is that correct?
JME: Yeah, and so it's been such a struggle with our membership and they've been frustrated at us when it was out of our control, being we were a direct service tribe before. So we finally got those services taken over on October 1st, 2025 here.
We 638-ed our facility, so it's under our control now. But the biggest thing that we saw was that there was over $40-million-worth of carryover due to PRC money specifically for bills that haven't been paid. And so it's no wonder people were upset and people, I'm sure, passed away, had other things that could have been more preventable happen because things were left unchecked, unseen.
Some people didn't want to go because they're worried their bills wouldn't get paid. So there's a lot of preventive stuff that could have happened too that wasn't being done.
And so it doesn't matter who you are, where you're at in the government, where you're at in the tribe, we're all being seen by the same people, the same clinics, and just not having our bills paid. The federal government's responsibility is to pay those and provide that health care.
OH: Yeah, you mentioned earlier the 638 process. And just to clarify for listeners, that is when a tribe takes over the operation of health clinics from the Indian Health Service and then provides the care to their own membership.
Changing topics. The Confederated Colville Tribes recently got some air time for the microgrids that are coming to the reservation. Tell me a little bit about this project.
JME: So we've been pushing towards energy sovereignty and this is kind of one of those first steps. So we have our communities that are impacted a lot here by natural disasters, including wildfire, wind storms, ice storms. And so one of our communities, Inchelium community in particular, has a lot of issues with power outages.
They're on Avista and sometimes there's outages that have lasted a week. And so these microgrids help. We're hoping to get some of our smaller communities online, but the main thing is having access to gas, any direction from Inchelium.
If the gas station isn't running, it's 30, 45 minutes anywhere to even get to a gas station or a store. So these microgrids will help keep those essential services online and running while the outage is going on. And then also they can produce power to even put back into the system potentially and sell back.
So we're going to be putting solar on our government center, as well as potentially covered parking, which will also help with snow removal, but also produce power. We've done some EV chargers already, and so the microgrid is kind of the next step of work on helping with our government services as well for the same purposes. We've had fires burn right around the government center and knock power out for an extended period of time.
Might not be, you know, crazy long because they're usually pretty good about getting power back on in a timely manner, but for the longer outages we have had, we want to make sure our members aren't impacted, at least not if they can. So that's kind of the first step with these microgrids.
OH: You used the term energy sovereignty. Do you mind explaining that for me?
JME: There's all forms of sovereignty. Financial sovereignty has been a big thing for us as a tribe. We've been pushing towards energy, that’s a big one as well.
I mean, we have the two biggest hydropower facilities in the country on our reservation, yet we still have high electric bills for our elders. Some might be homes that aren't energy efficient, but $500 a month on a fixed income for an elder is just unacceptable for them to pay towards. So we're trying to figure out how we can acquire, potentially acquire utilities and also build our own infrastructure out.
Microgrids is a part of that, but we're looking into microhydro, solar, and different other energy forms to help feed our grid. And then try to help our membership kind of keep their costs down as much as we can, but also the fact that we're not relying on anyone else for our power needs is the whole point. So we're not at someone else's mercy.
OH: Chairman Jarred-Michael Erickson, thank you so much for your time this morning.
JME: Thank you. Appreciate it.
