This bill, the Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement Amendments Act of 2025, changes parts of the Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act of 2010. It renames and refines references to the MR&I "System" to MR&I "Projects." It repeals the original MR&I System section and creates a new MR&I Projects Account inside the Crow Settlement Fund. The bill directs the Secretary to manage, invest, and distribute the Fund and to let amounts remain available until spent, withdrawn, or reverted. It creates a separate Crow CIP Implementation Account (a nontrust, interest-bearing account) to be managed by the Secretary and used to carry out section 405. The MR&I Projects Account must be used first for tribal on-Reservation water infrastructure work (planning, permitting, design, engineering, construction, reconstruction, replacement, rehabilitation, operation, or repair of water production, treatment, or delivery infrastructure, including domestic, municipal, or wastewater), and to meet environmental law requirements for those activities. After the Tribe gives written notice that on-Reservation MR&I projects are complete, remaining MR&I Project funds may be used to purchase on-Reservation land with water rights. The bill says title, control, and operation of projects built with MR&I Projects Account funds remain with the Tribe and that the Federal Government has no obligation to pay for operation, maintenance, or replacement of any MR&I Project. It updates several section numbers and other technical references, extends one Yellowtail Dam time period from 15 to 20 years, and requires indexing adjustments for MR&I Project deposits based on the Bureau of Reclamation Construction Cost Index-Composite Trend. It also authorizes transferring funds from existing joint signature accounts (the CIP Account and MR&I Account) into the new accounts.
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