Navajo Nation, Gas Company Feud Over Pipeline Renewal

By John G. Edwards, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Oct. 21–The Navajo Nation and El Paso Natural Gas Co., which transports natural gas to Southern Nevada, are at a standoff over the price that should be paid for renewal of right-of-way on the Indian reservation.

The deadline for renewing the right-of-way lease ended. But El Paso said it doesn’t expect an interruption in service to customers, including Southwest Gas Corp., which takes gas for resale to Southern Nevadans.

El Paso would pass on any increased costs to Southwest Gas and other utility customers, who would be expected to pay for the higher costs through higher rates.

The Indian nation is demanding $440 million in compensation over the next 20 years for the 900 miles the pipeline crosses the reservation, but El Paso proposes to pay $200 million.

In a Sept. 29 letter to the Interior Department, Thomas Sansonetti, an attorney for El Paso, complained that the nation wants “several hundred times fair market value” for renewal of the right-of-way agreement. El Paso asked for the Interior Department to decide the dispute.

“With the October 17 expiration of its rights-of-way, this impasse threatens to disrupt El Paso’s pipeline operations and service to millions of customers in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and California,” Sansonetti wrote. “However, the Nation’s unreasonable conditions for consent do not bar Interior’s immediate approval of the application and of El Paso’s rights-of-way.”

He mentioned the nation’s 1868 treaty with the United States, conflict with authority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and “an unlawful exercise over non-Indians and is well beyond the scope of its tribal jurisdiction as defined by federal law.”

Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. considers the right-of-way a matter of Indian sovereignty, and not a matter for the Interior Department to decide, spokesman George Hardeen told the Navajo Times.

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