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The wheels of the legal system continue to grind in a lawsuit filed earlier this year by the state of Alaska, challenging whether the federal government can designate new parcels of land as Indian Country.
Last week, Attorney General Treg Taylor (R-AK) asked the U.S. District Court of Alaska for a summary judgment in its lawsuit against the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Tlingit and Haida, the regional tribal government for Southeast Alaska.
In January, Assistant Secretary of the Interior Bryan Newland (Ojibwe) granted Tlingit and Haida’s request to take a small parcel of land in downtown Juneau into trust.
A.G. Taylor says Asst. Sec. Newland didn’t have the authority to do that because the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act doesn’t allow new trust land to be created in Alaska.
The settlement created Native Corporations that were given cash and legal title to 44 million acres of land.
And although the piece of land in question is tiny – less than 800 square feet – the state says if it remains in trust, it creates the equivalent of a reservation, which the Claims Act sought to prevent – a huge issue in a state with more than 200 tribes. Two other tribes, Ninilchik and Fort Yukon, have land-into-trust requests pending, as well as Tlingit and Haida.
The state’s request for a summary judgement is a pretrial motion, in which the judge can decide some issues and set others aside for later.
For now, both parties are submitting written arguments to the court.
A spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Law says there may be oral arguments at some point.
Tlingit and Haida says putting land into trust gives it economic benefits and access to federal and tribal programs
Courtesy School for Advanced Research
Earlier this month, the School for Advanced Research was awarded two grants from the Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS) for initiatives by SAR’s Indian Arts Research Center (IARC).
SAR received a grant of almost $50,000 for the IARC’s project to improve the stewardship of its collection of over 12,000 items of Indigenous Southwest art and history.
SAR also received an IMLS National Leadership Grant for Museums of approximately $175,000 for the IARC’s creation of the Indigenous Collections Care Guide.
The guide will provide museums with a framework to re-center collections stewardship practices around the needs and knowledge of Indigenous community members.
At the conclusion of the project, 175 tribal community representatives and museum professionals will have had a voice in the development of the guide, which will be made freely available for tribal community representatives and museums of all sizes.
Courtesy Bishop Paiute Tribe / Facebook
The Bishop Paiute Tribe, which is located at the foot of the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains in Bishop, Calif. and is the fifth largest tribe in California, is celebrating a newly installed 49 kW DC system as part of the tribe’s overall sustainable energy plan.
It seeks to improve energy efficiency for reservation residents through the addition of renewable energy resources.
The project was installed in part with funding from the California Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing (SOMAH) Program at Coyote Mountain Apartments, an affordable housing and sober living facility.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held August 9.
The project is the first SOMAH Program incentivized installation to be completed within a tribal reservation in the state.
The more than $180,000 system is projected to save the 24 households almost $500,000 on their energy bills over the lifetime of the system.
California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Commissioner John Reynolds shared his enthusiasm about the completed project.
“I congratulate the Bishop Paiute Tribe and GRID for completing the first tribal solar project under the SOMAH Program. This is exactly the kind of community-based and community-led solar project we need more of, and as the Public Utilities Commission considers ways to improve the SOMAH Program in the future, I hope we hear from tribes and organizations like the ones here today about what we can do to make sure solar reaches everyone.”
The solar project is a partnership between the Bishop Paiute Tribe Community Development Department and GRID Alternatives’ Inland Empire office.
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