To whom may a Tribe appeal a decision made before the AFA or an amendment to the AFA or compact is signed?
25 C.F.R. § 1000.432
in effectEffective: 2024-07-01(a) Title I-eligible PFSA pre-award disputes. For Title I—eligible PFSA disputes, appeal may only be filed with IBIA under the provisions set forth in 25 CFR 900.150(a) through (h), 900.152 through 900.169.
(b) Other pre-award disputes. For all other pre-award disputes, including those involving PFSAs that are not Title I-eligible, appeals may be filed with the bureau head/Assistant Secretary or IBIA as noted below. However, the Tribe/Consortium may not avail itself of both paths for the same dispute.
(1) Bureau head/Assistant Secretary appeal. Unless the initial decision being appealed is one that was made by the bureau head (those appeals are forwarded to the appropriate Assistant Secretary—see § 1000.433(c) of this subpart), the bureau head will decide appeals relating to these pre-award matters, that include but are not limited to disputes regarding:
(i) PFSAs that are not Title 1-eligible;
(ii) Eligibility for the applicant pool of self-governance Tribes;
(iii) BIA residual functions;
(iv) Decisions declining to provide requested information as addressed in § 1000.172 of this part;
(v) Allocations of program funds when a dispute arises between a Consortium and a withdrawing Tribe; and
(vi) Inherently Federal functions.
(2) IBIA appeal. The Tribe/Consortium may choose to forego the administrative appeal through the bureau or the Assistant Secretary, as described in the paragraph (b)(1) of this section, and instead appeal directly to IBIA. The standard of review for such IBIA appeals will be an “abuse of discretion” standard.
Source: eCFRURL: https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2024-07-01/title-25.xmlFetched: 7/26/2026