Jim Woods, Senior Advisor for Tribal Policy
EPA Senior Advisor Jim Woods (right) with Billy Frank, Chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. Photo courtesy of Tony Meyer.
Jim Woods, a member of the Makah Tribe, is currently Region 10’s Senior Tribal Policy Advisor. Jim is in the Office of the Executive and works directly for the Regional Administrator. As a member of the Executive Team, Jim serves as a senior advisor on formulating and implementing Region 10’s programs and initiatives related to EPA’s National Indian Policy.
Jim serves as the senior liaison between tribes and the Regional Office and communicates tribal perspectives and needs, trust responsibility, sovereignty, treaty rights, self-governance to senior EPA management. One of his primary responsibilities is promoting effective and meaningful government-to-government consultations and communication with the tribes of the region.
For many years, Jim worked closely with natural resource issues affecting freshwater and marine ecosystems on and adjacent to the Makah Reservation (including the usual and accustomed hunting and fishing areas). Before serving the Region as STPA and until recently, Jim led the Sustainable Resource Management Division for the Makah Fisheries Management Department. There he managed the Tribe’s environmental programs and projects that directly involved work with EPA. He also acted as an environmental & marine policy advisor to the Makah Tribal Council.
Jim has also has worked on numerous projects nationally in such areas as air quality and watershed planning, resource protection and restoration.
Jim has held the following national positions:
- Chairman, Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary’s Intergovernmental Policy Council;
- Chairman, National Tribal Air Association (NTAA) Executive Committee;
- Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee’s Tribal Seat on Ocean Policy, appointed by Carlos M. Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce;
- Washington State Governor’s Oceans Policy Workgroup; and
- Air Quality Instructor - Northern Arizona University Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals.
Jim’s work is focused on environmental policies that may reflect on Indian Country, the better health of Native Peoples and the natural resources that are important to the livelihood, culture and better health of tribes.
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