Congress did not grant the Secretary of the Interior the authority to change the compromises it negotiated when Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, (ANCSA), in 1971, the State argues in a motion for summary judgment that it filed today (Aug. 1st, 2023) in the U.S. District Court for Alaska.
In the decision challenged by the State, the Interior Department’s Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, Bryan Newland, granted a petition to take lands located in downtown Juneau into trust to create Indian country. The State challenges this action because the Assistant Secretary has–on his own–decided to alter the balance of territorial jurisdiction in Alaska without clear authority from Congress.
Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor remarked: “For decades prior Solicitors concluded that the Lower 48 reservation system did not exist, could not exist in Alaska—that was the compromise made under ANCSA to settle lands claims in the State and give Alaska Natives–according to testimony at the time–more self-determination through the creation of Alaska Native Corporations. The Assistant Secretary’s action to completely reverse historical understanding and policy by creating a reservation in downtown Juneau, Alaska, seems to fly in the face of ANCSA and throws into question what the land claims are in Alaska. To avoid confusion and give certainty to all the parties involved, we need the courts, hopefully the highest Court, to tell us once and for all, what the law actually is.”
The State explains in its motion, “By creating Indian country in Alaska, the Secretary is shifting territorial jurisdiction away from the State and placing it with itself and the Tribe. Within Indian country, Indian tribes have broad authority not only over their own members but over the land and non-members. States, on the other hand, are generally precluded from exercising fundamental attributes of their sovereignty within Indian country. While this may not seem significant here, given that this case is about an unused 787 square foot parcel, there are currently 227 federally recognized tribes in Alaska. That is potentially 227 new territorial jurisdictions.”
When it passed ANCSA, Congress expressly avoided creating a reservation system in Alaska. The Act extinguished Alaska Natives’ aboriginal claims, but in exchange, it authorized the transfer of $962.5 million and 44 million acres of land. Congress also expressly revoked the few reserves/reservations that had been created in Alaska except Metlakatla and provided for the creation of more than 200 State-chartered village and regional corporations, owned and operated by Natives as for-profit businesses subject to State law, the complaint states. This model makes Alaska different than any other state in the United States.
Given this uniqueness, the State’s motion asserts that placing an Alaska Tribe’s lands into trust is a major question for Congress to answer. That only Congress, not a federal agency, can upend ANCSA’s settlement and create Indian country in Alaska.
