Marcus Levings can see gas flares across the western horizon from his front porch on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, where energy companies are drilling into the rich Bakken shale formation, one of the largest domestic oil and gas discoveries in the last 30 years.

But the night sky remains dark on the reservation, said Levings, who is chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes — the Mandan, Arikara and Hidatsa peoples.

A maze of bureaucratic delays and legal entanglements has kept the 11,000-member community from realizing much of its potential as an energy producer, Levings told the Senate Indian Affairs Committee yesterday. Consequently, an estimated 4 billion barrels of oil reserves remain out of reach.

“The light to the west stretches across the horizon,” said Levings, who is also a board member of the Denver-based Council of Energy Resource Tribes. “My elders see this day in and day out, but they say ‘Chairman, I signed my lease … but I’m never going to see royalties, I’m going to die before I see royalties.’ That’s our frustration.”

For the rest of the story visit, Tribal leaders urge energy policy reforms for Indian country