Gerald H. Hawkins, Individually and as a Trustee of the CN Hawkins Trust and Gerald H. Hawkins and Carol H. Hawkins Trust, et al. v. Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior, et al.

The United States is the owner of certain instream water rights within Oregon’s Upper Klamath Basin. The federal government holds these water rights in trust for the benefit of the Klamath Indian Tribes. In 2013, the Tribes and the federal government entered into a Protocol Agreement, which establishes a process by which “calls” for the implementation of the water rights are to be placed with Oregon’s Water Resources Department. Among other things, the Protocol provides that, if “the Parties cannot agree on whether to make a call, either Party may independently make a call and the other party will not withhold any required concurrence or object to the call[.]” The D.C. Circuit held below that Petitioners—a group of landowners and livestock producers whose lands and businesses have been devastated by the Protocol-authorized implementation of the Tribes’ instream water rights—lack standing to challenge the Protocol. Regardless of the Protocol, the D.C. Circuit reasoned, the federal government has no authority to countermand the Tribes’ preferred management of trust assets. In so holding, the D.C. Circuit parted company with decisions of this Court, as well as of other circuit courts, which have repeatedly affirmed the federal government’s paramount authority in managing Indian trust property. The question presented is: Does the federal government possess final decision-making authority over the management of water rights held in trust for an Indian tribe?