Interior Deputy Solicitor Reverses Obama-Era Opinion On Alaska Native Lands

On June 29, 2018, Department of the Interior ("Interior") issued a public notice withdrawing an opinion issued January 13, 2017 by Interior's then-Solicitor, Hilary Tompkins, which concluded that Interior retains the authority to acquire land into trust for Alaska natives.

Interior's now-withdrawn 2017 opinion found that Section 5 of the Indian Reorganization Act ("IRA") provided specific authority for the Secretary of the Interior to accept Alaska lands into trust for Alaska natives. The 2017 opinion was the culmination of several decades of debate and litigation over the issue, including a 1978 Interior memorandum finding that it would be an "abuse of the Secretary's discretion" to take land into trust on behalf of Alaska Native tribes. The 1978 memorandum was based on an interpretation of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act ("ANCSA"), a statute drafted to settle all land claims by Alaska Natives, and concluded that ANSCA revoked the Secretary's authority to take Alaska Native lands into trust.

In 2001, Interior issued final regulations that implemented the findings of the 1978 memorandum by not allowing lands to be taken into trust for Alaska Natives, except in the case of the Metlakatla Indian Community in Southeast Alaska, which was established by Congress in 1891 and is the state's only remaining reservation, as the Metlakatla chose not to give their lands up for payment under the ANCSA, as other Alaska Native tribes had. In 2006, four Alaska Native tribesthe Akiachak Native Community, Chilkoot Indian Association, Tulusak Native Community, Chalkyitsik Villageand one Alaska Native Individual, filed suit against Interior, arguing for their right to have land taken into trust on behalf of Alaska Natives, alleging that ANCSA's exception for Alaska tribes was...

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