Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Reservation Restoration Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I thank my classmate from Hawaii, who is overseeing this legislation on the floor today. I thank the chairman of the full committee as well as the subcommittee chair and the members of the Natural Resources Committee for their unanimous support of H.R. 733, the House companion to S. 199, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Reservation Restoration Act.
I want to thank Leech Lake's Tribal leaders personally for entrusting me with the responsibility of advancing this bill as the sponsor in the House and introducing the bill in the way they wanted it to be introduced so that they could have negotiations to move this language forward. I am proud of the ability that we all had in working together to make today a reality and that we will be voting on this final version of the bill.
As I said, it has passed through the Senate, and it passed through the Senate unanimously. I look forward to seeing this legislation signed into law.
Join me in voting today to restore the land that was illegally taken from Tribal nations by the Federal Government during the allotment era. Today we, collectively--the U.S. Congress--have an opportunity to correct a past injustice by returning the land to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe that the Federal Government sold without the consent of the rightful owners, to have it returned to them.
Between 1948 and 1955, approximately 17,000 acres were illegally transferred by the Department of the Interior. The bill we are considering today would return more than 11,000 of those acres to the Tribe. The return of this land from the Forest Service is vitally important to the Leech Lake Band. They currently own less than 5 percent of the land--5 percent of the land--within the boundaries of their reservation. This is the smallest percentage of any Minnesota Tribal nations.
The Chippewa National Forest holds over 75 percent of the land within their reservation. Tribal leaders at Leech Lake have worked diligently for many years in partnership with the Chippewa National Forest in Cass County to identify the illegally transferred parcels of land and to build local support for this legislation. They have addressed concerns with the transfer through open dialogue and have created a win-win situation for everyone involved.
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Ms. McCOLLUM. The chairman of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe has sent a letter that describes the injustices that were done when the land was illegally taken from Tribal members and the efforts that have gone into this bill that we will vote on today to create that injustice.
Mr. Speaker, I include this letter in the Record. LEECH LAKE BAND OF OJIBWE, Cass Lake, MN, November 17, 2020. Hon. Betty McCollum, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Congresswoman McCollum: I write on behalf of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe to express our thanks to you for sponsoring H.R. 733, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Reservation Restoration Act. H.R. 733 will right a historical injustice to the Leech Lake people by restoring 11,760 acres to tribal trust status that the Interior Department illegally transferred out of trust more than 70 years ago.
Previously, former Congressman Rick Nolan introduced a similar bill in the 115th Congress. While the identical companion bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent in December of 2018, it failed to advance in the House of Representatives before the end of the session.
In January of 2019, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe asked you to reintroduce the Leech Lake Reservation Restoration Act to the 116th Congress. As the former Co-Chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus, your sponsorship of the bill helped elevate the national importance of this legislation and highlighted the historic injustice of the federal takings of Leech Lake Reservation trust lands.
The Leech Lake Indian Reservation was established through a series of treaties with the United States and presidential executive orders from 1855 to 1874. The initial Leech Lake Reservation consisted or 588,684 acres of the Band's homelands and included the most valuable red and white pine in the region. These treaties and executive orders promised that the reserved lands would be the Band's permanent homeland.
The United States violated these promises through a series of federal laws and policies from 1889 to 1911, moving nearly 530,000 acres of our homelands out of trust status. These federal actions unilaterally sold off large swaths of our Reservation, and separately established what is now the Chippewa National Forest, all without consent of the Band.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the federal government, through unauthorized administrative actions, took approximately 17,000 acres of additional Leech Lake Reservation lands again without consent of the Band or individual tribal landowners. In these agency-to-agency transfers, known as ``secretarial transfers'', the Interior Department illegally transferred Leech Lake trust lands to the USDA-Forest Service. The Interior Department put a stop to the illegal transfers in 1955 when Department attorneys acknowledged that the actions violated federal law. Lawsuits were filed to restore these lands to trust status in federal courts, but the claims were time barred. As a result, the only means of achieving justice for the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe is through federal legislation. H.R. 733/S. 199 would restore the portion of these illegal secretarial transfer lands located within Cass County back to the Interior Department to be held in trust for the Band.
The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe has worked for many years to identify the illegally transferred land parcels, build local support and address any concerns with the bill. When it was clear the only recourse to recover these lands was federal legislation, the Band met on several occasions with leadership of the Chippewa National Forest to discuss the issue and draft the bill. The bill includes language consistent with the U.S. Forest Service's mission to adhere to national and local policies regarding the management of Federal lands. It directs the Secretary to work with the Chippewa National Forest Supervisor and the Band to identify Federal lands in Cass County near concentrations of the Leech Lake population and tribal government facilities to ensure that transferred lands address the immediate needs of the Band and reduce fragmentation of federal land holdings.
In addition, the Band has held several meetings with rural electric co-ops and other utilities that utilize federal lands to ensure the bill would protect rights of way on any transferred lands. Through meeting and open dialogue, we were able to address the concerns of the ROW permitees and ensure that access is maintained not only for citizens of our community relying on these essential utility services, but also for the companies crossing federal lands.
Thanks to the work in addressing concerns with the Leech Lake Reservation Restoration Act, the United States Senate once again passed the identical companion bill to H.R. 733, S. 199, by unanimous consent in June of 2019. Likewise, the House Natural Resources Committee approved the bill by unanimous voice vote on September 30, 2020.
Advancing this bill to final passage in the U.S. House of Representatives will restore a sense of justice that generations of our Leech Lake people have been working to achieve and provide the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe the necessary land base to combat the housing and homelessness, longstanding problems that have been highlighted as urgent needs by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe values your friendship and dedication to protecting and preserving tribal sovereignty. We look forward to continuing our work together on this bill and the many other policy issues facing Indian Country and our Nation in these trying times. Sincerely, Faron Jackson, Sr., Chairman.
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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, restoring this land to the Leech Lake reservation will support Tribal communities while also preserving the area for public recreation. It will allow the Tribe to consistently apply their forest management plan across a greater portion of the reservation. It will also respect all the rights of ways of the utility permits.
It will be good for Leech Lake Band, good for the forest, and good for local communities. And it will be good to correct a historical injustice.
Mr. Speaker, I urge support for S. 199.
Miss GONZALEZ-COLON of Puerto Rico.
Mr. Speaker, as was just explained by my colleague across the aisle, S. 199 would place approximately 11,000 acres of Federal land managed by the U.S. Forest Service into trust for the Leech Lake Band.
The Tribe and the lands that would be held into trust under this bill are located in the Eighth Congressional District, which is represented by Republican Congressman Pete Stauber. I want to thank Mr. Stauber for his hard work on this legislation because, without it, we would not be here today.
After the House companion bill, H.R. 733, was introduced by Congresswoman McCollum, it was determined that a number of the parcels affected by the bills had encumbrances, mainly those of public utility co-ops.
This was, again, another bill that was not properly vetted prior to introduction by a Member from this district. I truly believe that, since that time, Congressman Stauber has been a leader in efforts to bring the Tribe and several utility co-ops together to come to a legal agreement to resolve those issues with these easements.
We have some concerns regarding the enforceability of this document but appreciate the willingness of all parties to seek a consensus. I think that is the important part today, that there is finally a consensus on this issue. That is a policy the Natural Resources Committee majority has little interest in pursuing because, unfortunately, S. 199 does not reflect this improvement in the bill text. Let's hope the parties will continue to act in good faith despite this.
I, again, thank Mr. Stauber for his efforts and the members of the committee who worked across the aisle to make this happen today. I am pleased he joined our committee during this year. He has been one of the more active members of the committee during his short tenure.
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