Congressional Bill H.R. 165 Signed into Law

In H.R. 165, “restricted fee status” is a special legal status for the Wounded Knee land:

• The Oglala Sioux Tribe and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe keep full ownership (title stays in the tribes’ names, not the U.S. government).
• The land becomes part of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and is under the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s civil and criminal jurisdiction.
• It cannot be sold or otherwise transferred without the consent of both Congress and the tribes.
• State and local governments cannot tax it.
• The tribes do not need Interior Department approval for how they use it, as long as they follow their 2022 covenant about keeping it as a memorial/sacred site. In general, “restricted fee” Indian land is tribally owned land that is protected by federal restrictions on sale and taxation and treated much like trust land under federal Indian law, while leaving legal title in the tribe rather than the United States.

H.R. 165 covers one specific tract of land at Wounded Knee:

• About 40 acres on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Oglala Lakota County, at Rural County Road 4, Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
• The law defines it as including the surface, subsurface, mineral estate, and any improvements on those acres.
• It is a segment of the December 29, 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre site and is shown as the “Area of Interest” on a map titled “Wounded Knee Sacred Site and Memorial Land,” dated October 26, 2022. The public text of the act does not list detailed parcel IDs beyond this description and map reference.

To implement H.R. 165, the Secretary of the Interior must, within 365 days of enactment:

1. “Complete all actions, including documentation and minor corrections to the survey and legal description” needed so that the approximately 40 acres at Wounded Knee are legally held by the Oglala Sioux Tribe and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in restricted fee status; and
2. “Appropriately assign each applicable private and municipal utility and service right or agreement” for that land (for example, existing power, water, or road service agreements). Once these steps are complete, the land is subject to federal Indian‑country law, to the tribes’ 2022 covenant on its memorial/sacred use, remains subject to existing easements, and cannot be used for gaming.

The act’s purpose is both legal and historical:

• Historically, it responds to the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, in which U.S. Army troops killed hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children. The site is of deep cultural and spiritual importance to the Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes. In 2022, the tribes jointly bought part of the massacre site and signed a covenant to maintain it as a memorial and sacred site without commercial development or gaming.
• Legally, H.R. 165 directs that this roughly 40‑acre portion of the massacre site be converted from ordinary tribal fee land into protected “restricted fee” reservation land. That status prevents state/local taxation, restricts sale or transfer without tribal and congressional consent, places it firmly under tribal jurisdiction, and locks in its use as a non‑commercial memorial and sacred site. In short, the act formally protects part of the Wounded Knee Massacre site in law as a permanently safeguarded tribal memorial and sacred place.

H.R. 165 gives the Secretary of the Interior up to 365 days from enactment to complete the transfer to restricted fee status. Since the President signed the bill on December 19, 2025, the statutory deadline for finishing all required actions (survey/legal-description corrections and utility/right assignments) is December 19, 2026. The Secretary may complete the work sooner, but not later than that date under the act.

The Oglala and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes are two Lakota tribes within the Great Sioux Nation:

• Oglala Sioux Tribe (Oglala Lakota Nation): A Lakota tribe whose homeland is the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, created from part of the former Great Sioux Reservation. Pine Ridge lies in southwestern South Dakota and extends slightly into northwestern Nebraska, with tribal headquarters in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. The Oglala Sioux Tribe is the sovereign government for this reservation.
• Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe: A Lakota tribe made up of four bands—Mnicoujou, Oohenumpa (Two Kettle), Itazipco (Sans Arc), and Siha Sapa (Blackfoot). Its homeland is the Cheyenne River Reservation in central/north‑central South Dakota, covering most of Dewey and Ziebach Counties, with headquarters in Eagle Butte, South Dakota. Both are signatories to the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty and are among the constituent tribes of the Great Sioux Nation.