Senate Resolution 482--Recognizing the 50th Anniversary of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and the Lasting Impact of That Act on the State of Alaska and Alaska Native People

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I mentioned that I came to the floor to speak about a significant matter for Alaska. It is a significant milestone for my State. Just 2 days from now, on December 18, we will mark the 50th anniversary of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act being signed into law by President Nixon back in 1971.

For those who are not familiar with Alaska's history, ANCSA, as we call it, is one of the foundational laws for my State. It settled aboriginal land names. It chartered hundreds of Alaska Native corporations to own lands and to empower their Alaska Native shareholders.

Now, this structure is very unique. I think most of us think about a corporation and you think about an IBM or a General Electric, but an Alaska Native corporation and the shareholders who are part of them are very, very different from the corporate structure that most know.

This approach that was arrived at with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was new. It was a clear, clear departure from the reservation model in the lower 48. It ushered in a new level of economic self-determination through private land ownership.

Alaska Native leaders took a look at the reservation system that was throughout other parts of America, and in most of them--not all, but most of them--decided on another path, saying: That is not the route that we would take.

They wanted to manage their lands, manage their resources on their own terms, and to have greater economic prosperity and independence.

So in Alaska, we have 229 Tribes in the State, and, as someone who comes from a State where you do have many Tribes, I think it always gets people's attention when I say we have about 40 percent of the Tribes in the Nation that are located in Alaska.

ANCSA established more than 200 village corporations along with regional and urban corporations. And under this settlement, Congress transferred some 44 million acres of land in Alaska to the private ownership of these newly created corporations. They also appropriated $962 million in compensation. So there was the transfer of ownership, as well as the conveyance of dollars.

So as shareholders, the Alaska Native people would then be able to decide for themselves how to use, how to protect, and how to guide development of their lands and their resources. As Marlene Johnson put it, ANCSA meant that Alaska Natives ``were able to surround and put their arms around the land that belonged to their forefathers and will belong to their grandkids,'' and she said, ``That is really important.'' It really is.

Today the economic success of ANCSA is as self-evident as it is self- determined. ANCSA has positively impacted not just Alaska Native people but Alaska as a whole. ANCs, as we call them, have become key economic drivers, creating jobs and industry in Alaska but also across the country and even around the globe.

ANCs consistently rank as the top 10 Alaska-owned businesses by gross revenue, and many of the largest office buildings and employers in Anchorage and Fairbanks and Juneau are home to ANCs.

They also provide important services for their people, like scholarships and cultural stewardship, often through their nonprofit foundations. Because of ANCSA, significant investments have been made in real estate, construction, tourism, workforce development, professional services, and so much more.

We have also seen the very clear benefit of resource development. We see this up in the NANA region with the Red Dog Mine. We are hoping that can be replicated at prospects like Donlin Gold in the Calista region. Revenue sharing--very, very unique within ANCSA--revenue sharing with village corporations and leadership in the area of cultural resource protection--we see that down in the southeast region. These are just a few of the examples of where ANCSA really got it right.

As we look back at ANCSA, we recognize that there were many, many people who helped to make it happen--not just President Nixon, as I mentioned, the congressional delegation, of course, but more importantly, the many strong Alaska Native leaders, like Emil Notti, Etok Edwardsen, and John Borbridge, among many, many others.

We are fortunate that some of the key ANCSA advocates are still with us today, but, sadly, many of the visionary leaders who were so instrumental in the negotiations have passed on, and there are far too many to mention here, but I will share the story of one of them.

Don Wright, this individual right here, was born in Nenana back in 1929. He is shown here with Ted Stevens, over to the right. This is Don's wife Carol, and this is the Senator from Vermont, Senator Stafford.

Don was known for his charisma and his skill as a negotiator and a political leader. Many Alaska Natives at the time were just very, very personally invested in this effort, and he was one who really led in this. He personally contributed to the advocacy effort, both in time and money. Don led that, along with others.

He and others spent nights sleeping on the streets here in Washington, DC, or in the Halls of Congress. They maxed out credit cards to pay for the long trips all the way from Alaska to come here to DC to the Capitol. Don once paid the way for 20 Alaskans to travel with him to lobby for the legislation. He was really all in. He fought tirelessly to secure Native land rights.

He was president of the Alaska Federation of Natives when ANCSA actually became law. He was able to meet with President Nixon in 1971 to encourage passage of the bill and was truly a driving force behind the effort.

He framed it well by saying that year:

The President and the Congress must decide whether this last chapter is to be written in dignity or dishonor.

I think, thanks to Don Wright and many other Native leaders, it was written in dignity.

I am really very, very humbled by all of the incredible people who helped shape ANCSA, many of whom I am fortunate to know and to call my friends. It is a privilege to be able to honor and thank them here on the Senate floor for their fortitude, their determination, and their perseverance.

I remain unwavering in my commitment to help today's leaders as we continue to improve ANCSA and ensure that the Federal Government upholds its promise to Alaska Native people.

Now, we say around here all the time that there is no law that we have written and passed that is perfect, and ANCSA is certainly no exception. It is really a living document, if you will, still changing, still evolving. There are gaps; we recognize that. There are shortcomings, and we still have unfinished business, important issues that we have to resolve. One of these is recent, unfortunately, and it does not involve amending ANCSA, but, instead, it calls for flexibility for the unique corporations it created.

After the COVID pandemic struck our country, those of us in Congress came together. We were seeking to pass the CARES Act to provide relief across the spectrum. As part of that--and I was really very pleased to be able to be part of that effort that was able to dedicate significant funding for Tribes and Tribal entities. It was $8 billion that was dedicated for Tribes, Tribal entities, including ANCs.

But ANCs' eligibility for that funding was quickly challenged despite the very clear intention here in Congress. The case ultimately went to the Supreme Court. It wasn't decided until June 25 of this year, when they ultimately prevailed.

As a result of that litigation, ANCs received their allocations under that CARES funding, but they only recently received this. So they got the litigation through, and they received their allocation but very late. But now we have a new problem. The new problem is, that CARES Act money needs to be spent by December 31--a matter of a couple weeks. That is just not right. That is not fair here. It is clearly not long enough to be able to responsibly utilize these very important funds, and it is really not fair as a result of the litigation they faced.

So the congressional delegation--Senator Sullivan, Congressman Young, and I--is seeking to extend the deadline through the end of next year. We are basically saying: Look, fair is fair. ANCs should have the time that they need and that others had.

While the Senate has agreed to pass a broader bill that includes this extension, it is stalled over on the House side and really has left us with no clear path forward, even at this very late hour. So that is something I am asking my colleagues and the administration for their support on in gaining this flexibility.

Another top priority for me is something that was left out of ANCSA all those years ago. Five communities in Southeast Alaska were missing from its text and therefore unable to create what we call urban corporations. Today, this is a 50-year injustice for these five Alaska Native communities of Haines, Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, and Tenakee. I have had the privilege to live in Wrangell and to be born in Ketchikan, so these are communities that are pretty close to my heart.

The situation in terms of being left out was challenging enough. It is not made easier by their location in the Tongass National Forest. But I would remind the Senate that they and their ancestors lived in this area. They took care of these lands long before the Federal Government came along and made the designation of a national forest.

That nearly all of their region has since been taken and classified as a Federal forest is no reason to refuse to acknowledge and work with us on this. So I have recently reintroduced legislation to allow those five southeast communities to receive their rightful land entitlements under ANCSA.

I would urge my colleagues, take a look at this. Recognize that this is a matter of the Federal Government making good on its promise to thousands of Alaska Natives. I would ask that you would join me and Senator Sullivan and Congressman Young as we work to advance this bill into law, as we, again, continue to address unfulfilled promises within ANCSA.

A third matter is a provision in ANCSA that, quite honestly, is just outdated, no longer needed.

Congress, in trying to do the right thing, required village corporations to take a portion of the lands they received under ANCSA and give them to the State of Alaska to hold in trust for future community needs.

Fast-forward some 50 years, and many of these lands are simply being held in trust now even though they are not needed for municipal purposes and quite likely will never be. It is just time to end that requirement and enable the village corporations to receive these lands back if they so choose.

We also have to remember that this is a land settlement, but it is not fully implemented. Keep in mind--it has been 50 years now. It is a land settlement that hasn't been implemented fully after 50 years. A total of 5.5 million acres are still under interim conveyance, and another 1.5 million acres remain unconveyed from the original entitlement.

We have to provide the resources to the Department of the Interior to complete this very important work.

There are at least four more issues that we need to help resolve as well that I will mention.

The first here on this list is really concerning to me, and it is actually really very devastating when you think about it. This is the matter of contaminated lands. This problem is not only not going away, it is getting worse.

It really pains me to say, but significant lands in Alaska, including formerly used defense sites, were contaminated. The Federal Government knew they were contaminated, but they were still conveyed to the ANCs as contaminated lands, and the government is saying: OK. This is part of your land settlement. We are going to give you these lands, but you can't use these lands because they are contaminated.

There are horrible consequences that we are seeing to this. We have clusters of illnesses, cancer. I just had a report that was presented to the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention just this past week. This is causing real suffering, true consequences, death in these communities.

It is no fault of the people who live there and received these lands in settlement from the Federal Government. It is a Federal responsibility for us to take care of this, so we have a plan we have-- we have a plan in the sense that we have identified where these contaminated lands are, but what we need is a comprehensive plan in terms of the action, what we are actually going to do to clean up the land and make it right and make it right as soon as possible.

Another issue that we need to resolve is the issue of ``afterborns.''

The day that ANCSA became law, December 18, 1971, was kind of an arbitrary deadline, if you will, for Alaska Native people to be included in its benefits. So if a Native person was alive on the date of enactment, December 18, 1971, they were included as an eligible shareholder in the ANCSA corporation that aligned with their traditional Tribal homelands. But if a Native person, even from the same family--same area, same family--if they were born after December 18, 1971, they were not included, and they did not receive shares in any Native corporation. So what you had, you created two distinct classes of Native people. You had original shareholders and nonshareholder descendants--they call them afterborns--who were effectively disenfranchised from the benefits that Congress intended for them.

There was a past amendment to ANCSA that dealt directly with this issue but didn't sufficiently solve this problem. This was an effort that we advanced several years ago, a decade or so. Congress has allowed ANCSA corporations to open enrollment to descendants through an affirmative vote of their current shareholders. As a result, what we have seen is that about 5 regional corporations have opened enrollment, and about 5 of the more than 200 village corporations have done the same. Unfortunately, so many of these small village corporations that want to open enrollment simply can't afford this process. It is a relatively complicated process.

This is a problem that we are probably going to have to address legislatively--not by directing Alaska Natives on what to do but by providing some support and resources so that they can make that choice at their discretion.

One of the more significant promises made to Alaska Native people dealt with the issue of subsistence.

In Alaska, subsistence is hunting, it is fishing, and it is gathering. It is inextricably tied to Native culture. It is food security for places where grocery stores simply don't exist, or if they do exist, the food is so expensive that the average family can't afford it. So this is, again, something where we need to find fair solutions for Alaska Native subsistence rights.

The last issue I will bring up today is something too significant not to acknowledge. ANCSA was meant to be a fair and just settlement, accomplished rapidly, with certainty and in conformity with the real economic and social needs of Native people without litigation. Congress wrote that into ANCSA itself. Yet, in reality, ANCSA severed Alaska Tribes from the Tribal land base.

While many Alaska Native people are owners in Native corporations that manage Native traditional homelands, Alaska Tribal governments were not a consideration in the law. Alaska Tribes, whose collective aboriginal land rights led to the creation of ANCSA, were left without a viable resource stream to effectively govern. They, too, need tools and resources to create opportunities, and that is also an issue that we must consider in going forward.

But all of this--all of this--requires education and understanding. That is going to be key, and that has been, unfortunately, lacking-- severely lacking--as we have seen, repeatedly, misguided attacks from Members here in Congress against ANCSA and its corporations. I will tell you, it is hard to express how frustrating that is, how infuriating these attacks truly are. But one additional benefit of this 50th anniversary is the opportunity that it provides us to help Congress, to help the administration, to help, really, the American public understand ANCSA and the promises that were made within that settlement act.

Alaska Pacific University and the Wilson Center's Polar Institute have held a series of events that are free for anyone who wants to learn and understand more about ANCSA. The Ted Stevens Foundation is developing a documentary on this. Indian Country Today, First Alaskans magazine, Alaska Public Media, and the Anchorage Daily News, among others, have all published long-form articles, exploring ANCSA's history, its meaning, its impacts, and its future. So I would encourage folks to take a look at that.

I think it is also important to remember that, while ANCSA's passage ushered in a period of self-determination and self-governance for Alaska Native communities, it provided opportunities for these communities to really look to the future. In short, ANCSA was designed to address the past by looking to the future.

At the annual meeting of the Alaska Federation of Natives, which, I mentioned, just took place earlier this week, I reflected and recognized the generation of Alaska Native leaders who fought for the passage of ANCSA. It was their efforts that helped pave the way for the many Alaska Native youth who may be watching back in Alaska, across the country, and maybe even around the world. I want them to know about the work that was done to pass this historic law and how it is appreciated. As I reflect here today on the passage of this important law, I am hopeful about what ANCSA will represent for our Alaska Native youth in the future.

My colleague Senator Sullivan and I have introduced a resolution to ensure that the U.S. Senate recognizes the 50th anniversary of ANCSA. Our resolution acknowledges the incredible accomplishments that Alaska Native people have made through their ANCs over these past 50 years. There are many successes to acknowledge and to celebrate, but in its text, we also reflect on the work that is left ahead and the promises left unfilled--the promises the Federal Government has made to Alaska Native people that must be honored.

So I thank Senator Sullivan for standing with me to submit this important resolution, which acknowledges the tenacity of the Alaska Native people and the success of ANCs over the past 50 years. I know that the dean of the House, Congressman Young, joins with us in acknowledging this golden anniversary.

I would certainly encourage all of those who have had an opportunity to hear my comments--I know my colleague Senator Sullivan is going to speak later as well--to just take a bit of time to better understand this foundational law for Alaska Natives' self-determination.

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