Equal Rights to Tribal Trust Lands

Floor Speech

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government has an obligation to equally protect the rights of all 573 federally recognized Tribal nations.

Since the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, those rights have included the ability to have lands placed into trust. The intent of the original Indian Reorganization Act was clear: to restore and to protect Tribal homelands for all sovereign Tribal nations.

Congress clearly did not intend to limit this right based on the date of a Tribe's recognition. After all, Tribal nations did not get to decide when the Federal Government would give them the recognition they were due. But in 2009, the Supreme Court ruling in a case of Carcieri v. Salazar called into question whether Tribes recognized after 1934 should have equal rights to trust land.

Tribal leaders united to ask Congress for legislation to fix this problem, to right this wrong, and I am honored to have worked hand in hand in a nonpartisan fashion with my good friend, Congressman Tom Cole, to lead that effort.

Tomorrow the House will vote on H.R. 375, a clean legislative fix that is necessary to ensure that we are fulfilling one of our country's most sacred obligations. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support a clean Carcieri fix.

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