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Western States Water Council Water Quality Committee Washington,. DC March 28, 2006 . pending. The General Counsel spent a lot of time in Oklahoma recently. Continuing to work with the states. Meeting in Denver was very productive. We would welcome your thoughts and concerns. Susan Burke: I was at the Denver conference. A great showing of tribal, state, and EP A reps. First of those 3 groups being together on that particular topic. In my first experience in working with T AS in ID, it was a bit difficult. It would have been nice to work with the tribes, EP A, etc., together and let us know the time line, etc. EPA's role in reconciling state water quality standards already in existence with new proposed tribal standards. Dispute resolution was not used. EP A owes a trust role to tribes. What does a state do in that situation. This should be collaborated on. The concept of finding inherent authority for tribes to regulate their water rises to almost a judicial finding. Montana exceptions keep getting eroded. They are not easy to apply. Susan read into the record directly from a report about Montana. If you want to solve the time it takes to do T AS, the inherent authority is a huge issue. Perhaps delegate authority. How to protect the same water. . Paul Frohardt: EP A is in the process of establishing a council to meet with tribes. They recently put out a request for applications to manage that process. The Tribal Water Quality Council has asked WSWC to submit a letter of support for that application. We would need to make a decision today if the Council is to endorse that letter. Stephen Bernath: I would emphasize Susan's remarks. It is not whether a tribe gets TAS or not, it's what happens asa result of it. Where is EPA?We have tribes adopting standards. Brent Fewell: That's a fair question. I should give kudos to Carol Jorgensen. She's spending an enormous amount of time working with the tribes on T AS issues. Denise Keehner: In the tribal area, there are a lot of sensitivities about sovereignty, roles and relationships and I think even us characterizing what were doing as doing an evaluation to determine whether tribes should be treated as a state, even that terminology is not necessarily the terminology that tribes are interested in. There is a fundamental difference. It goes to the magnitude of the different entities involved. Few states are bounded by several entities. Tribes are bounded by several entities. Looking at the whole TAS process, the fundamental recommendation was to take a look at the process and make it more effective and more efficient. Jurisdictional issues are key. We 6 .