EHL has written the federal government asking that environmental safeguards be strengthened if private lands are transferred into tribal control.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs may take non-reservation lands into "trust" for tribes. When it does so, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires disclosure of proposed uses, and mitigation considered for impacts to wildlife habitat. The public can comment. However, once the land is transferred, the original use can abruptly change, rendering the entire NEPA process meaningless, and with no further opportunity for public review at the federal, state or local levels.

This occurred in 2003, when the Pechanga tribe received land near Temecula critical for wildlife movement between the Santa Ana and Palomar Mountains. The NEPA document said there would be "no impacts." However, within a few years, a golf course was constructed (which fortunately probably maintains the linkage).

EHL neither supports nor opposes the transfer process as a whole, but has suggested remedies so that potential harm to our threatened wildlife does not escape NEPA review.