Cheyenne and Arapaho Citizens Vote a Three-Year Data Center Moratorium on Tribal Land

The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes held their annual Tribal Council meeting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, October 3, 2026 at the Respect Gym in Concho, Oklahoma. The Tribal Council is not a board. Under the Tribes’ 2006 Constitution it is every member of the Tribes aged eighteen and older, and the Tribes’ own description of the branch lists its powers: to set policy, to approve the annual budget, and to authorize the Governor to enter into treaties, compacts or any contract. Item 4 of 17 on the published agenda was Tribal Council Resolution No. 100326ATC-004, posted and published on September 2. Its operative text says the Tribes “shall impose a Moratorium on the Construction of new Data Centers until a Tribal Council Resolution is enacted that safeguards Tribal members and the general public,” and that the moratorium “will be in effect for three years beginning on the day October 3, 2026,” which computes to October 3, 2029.

The recitals explain why it was brought. The resolution states that the tribal administration “is considering a plan to construct a Data Center on Tribally owned land, trust and non-trust,” that a data center can use 50 megawatts of power and about 300,000 gallons of drinking water a day, and that non-disclosure agreements “are not in the best interests of the Tribes.” Those are the resolution’s figures, not PSV findings. On the result, the Tribal Council had not posted a signed and certified copy when this brief was written, so the tally comes from secondary reporting: Oklahoma City’s News 9 reported 351 votes cast, 261 for, 83 against and 7 abstaining, which computes to about 74 percent in favor. News 9 also reported that Governor Reggie Wassana told the meeting nothing had been signed, that a feasibility study had been planned, and that he disputed the water figure, saying a closed-loop design would use far less. One wrinkle in the records: the agenda lists the item as a resolution “to declare No Data Centers on C&A Tribal lands,” while the resolution itself is titled and written as a moratorium.

Tribal land can look like a faster path for a data center: large tracts, a single sovereign counterparty, and a permitting track that does not run through a county commission. In PSV’s read, this vote shows the limit of that idea. The opposition that has stalled projects in counties and cities came from inside the tribal government’s own structure, and it arrived through a body with more direct authority than a planning board. The same Constitution that lets the Governor negotiate also says the Tribal Council authorizes him to enter any contract, and the Tribal Council is the membership. A developer who has an executive branch that wants the deal does not yet have the counterparty.

It is not an isolated record. The Osage Nation Congress lists ONCA 26-70, introduced September 25, 2026 by Congresswoman Angela Pratt, as an act to require any entity of the Osage Nation government considering approving hyperscale data centers within the Nation’s boundaries to obtain the approval of the Osage Nation Congress. As of October 4 the Osage legislation page showed only the original version of that bill, so it is a pending measure, not law. Some coverage described it as a consultation requirement; the title on the Nation’s own record says approval. Two different tribal governments, two different mechanisms, one common thread: decisions about data centers are being pulled out of a single office and into a wider vote. The NDA recital matters too. It puts a recorded objection to confidential site searches in a governing document, days after Amazon published its own pledge to stop using nondisclosure agreements with government agencies.

The artifact is an authority map for one site. Inputs: the tribe’s constitution and the published description of each branch’s powers; the resolutions and legislation pages for the last three years, including meeting agendas and any pending measure that touches data centers, water, energy or leasing; the land status of the parcel, whether trust, restricted or fee, from the title work; any letter of intent, option or confidentiality agreement already signed and who signed it; and the public statements of the officials involved. Output: a one-page table naming each approval the project needs, the body that grants it, the document that says so, the date that body next meets, and whether any adopted or pending measure blocks or conditions the approval. For this site, the first row would read: Tribal Council Resolution 100326ATC-004, construction of new data centers, in effect from October 3, 2026.

The reviewer is the head of development with counsel who practices federal Indian law, and the approval gate is that no diligence budget, deposit or public announcement goes out until that table is signed off. An assistant is useful for the reading: pulling every resolution and bill that mentions the relevant terms, lining up what a signed document says against what the governing documents allow, and flagging where two records disagree, as the agenda title and the resolution title do here. It should not decide whether a signature binds a sovereign government or whether a moratorium reaches a given parcel. PSV promises no entitlement or leasing outcome from this.