Aspaas

This case involves a protracted dispute between Arizona Public Service Company (“APS”) and the Navajo Nation over whether the Navajo Nation can regulate certain APS employment policies affecting the hiring of Navajos who wish to work in APS’s Four Corners Power Plant. The plant is operated on tribal trust land in northwestern New Mexico that APS leased from the Navajo Nation in agreements that required the Department of Interior’s approval. See 25 U.S.C. § 415 (providing for the Secretary of Interior’s approval of Indian leases). The plant is owned by a consortium of utility companies and is run by APS.

After the Navajo Nation Supreme Court ruled that APS’s anti-nepotism policy violated the Navajo employment discrimination laws, APS filed this suit in district court against Navajo officials challenging the Navajo Nation’s authority to regulate APS’s employment policies at the plant. APS chiefly contended that the Navajo Nation had waived its right to regulate employment practices at the plant pursuant to the express terms of leases executed prior to the enactment of the Navajo law at issue, the Navajo Preference in Employment Act (NPEA), 15 Navajo Trib.Code (NTC) §§ 601 et seq.…