Big Pine Paiute Tribe

Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley, doing business as Big Pine Reservation, is a tribally owned federally recognized Indian tribe headquartered in Big Pine, California, that receives federal grants as a prime recipient across environmental protection, education, infrastructure, and energy programs but does not hold federal contracts or IDVs. The tribe operates exclusively in the grant space (102 awards, all as prime recipient with no sub-awards), concentrating on formula grants and project grants from education, environmental, interior, and energy agencies that fund tribal capacity-building and community infrastructure work on the reservation.

The tribe's customer base spans eighteen federal agencies, with significant concentration among the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (19 awards), the Environmental Protection Agency and EPA Region 9 (24 combined awards), the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Public and Indian Housing Office (12 awards), and the National Park Service National Office (7 awards). These top five customer agencies account for approximately 61% of recent awards. The portfolio is grant-dominated with no contract prime or sub footprint.

Recent grant work includes recurring Indian Education Formula Grants to LEAs from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (most recent award July 2026, ultimate completion June 2027); multiple EPA Region 9 project and formula grants for air quality monitoring, capacity-building, and water quality assessment (including $65,000 for ozone and particulate-matter air monitoring under the Inflation Reduction Act running through September 2029, and $106,297 for section 103 air quality program development through September 2026); a $386,587 Bureau of Reclamation grant under the Indian Tribal Water Resources Development, Management, and Protection program (CFDA 15.519) awarded July 2024 for replacement of irrigation-system standpipes and cleanout structures; Department of Energy awards for home electrification and appliance rebates under the Inflation Reduction Act (awarded January 2025, running through December 2029) and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law electric-grid resilience work (awarded March 2024, through April 2032); and National Park Service Historic Preservation Fund Grants-in-Aid for tribal historic preservation office activities (most recent award October 2024, completion September 2026). The tribe received $120,000 in EPA Region 9 cooperative agreement funding for water quality monitoring and staff training (July 2023 award, completion June 2026) and $159,925 in EPA Region 9 project grant funding for multi-media environmental capacity-building and solid-waste administration (awarded October 2022, completion September 2026).

Activity has declined moderately from 2022 through 2026 — six awards in 2022 down to one in 2026 — with only two awards facing ultimate completion in the next twenty-four months. Combined dollars obligated across all 102 awards total $23.1 million, reflecting the tribe's focus on formula and project grants supporting reservation-based environmental management, tribal education, historic preservation, and infrastructure replacement rather than contracted service delivery to federal agencies.