A group of Donald Trump advisers is reportedly looking to privatize Native American reservations in a bid to harness the fossil fuels that reside therein. Not only is this a controversial idea, but it also butts up against the months of Standing Rock protests that saw major developments this weekend.

The Trump administration could wreak havoc on the Obama directive to halt Dakota Access pipeline construction, and one clue that this may happen arrives in a Reuters report, which contains statements from two top Trump advisers who believe a “suffocating federal bureaucracy” should no longer have any say over tribal lands. These 56 million acres contain approximately 20% of the nation’s oil and gas reserves along with a hefty amount of coal. The advisers express hope that full cooperation will be possible:

The group proposes to put those lands into private ownership — a politically explosive idea that could upend more than century of policy designed to preserve Indian tribes on U.S.-owned reservations, which are governed by tribal leaders as sovereign nations. The tribes have rights to use the land, but they do not own it. They can drill it and reap the profits, but only under regulations that are far more burdensome than those applied to private property. “We should take tribal land away from public treatment,” said Markwayne Mullin, a Republican U.S. Representative from Oklahoma and a Cherokee tribe member who is co-chairing Trump’s Native American Affairs Coalition. “As long as we can do it without unintended consequences, I think we will have broad support around Indian country.”

It’s not likely that this plan would draw widespread tribal support, since privatization would stomp all over issues of sovereignty and self-determination. Reuters also spoke with the Indigenous Environmental Network’s Tom Goldtooth, who confirms that spiritual leaders would be opposed to the “commoditization of the nature, water, air we hold sacred.” Such a move would fit into Trump’s plan to eliminate regulations and favor increased reliance on fossil fuels, but it also edges right into treaty-violation land, which sparked much of the Standing Rock conflict.

Sunday afternoon saw the denial of an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline. This victory, however fleeting, followed months of protests by the Sioux and their supporters to protect sacred sites and the water supply for millions of people. In response, the defiant owners of the pipeline refused to stop drilling, which is why the water protectors (and the thousands of veterans who support them) aren’t budging from the encampment.