Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI (for herself and Mr. Begich):

S. 730. A bill to provide for the settlement of certain claims under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, the Tlingit and Haida people, the first people of Southeast Alaska, were perhaps the first group of Alaska Natives to organize for the purpose of asserting their aboriginal land claims. The Native land claims movement in the rest of Alaska did not gain momentum until the 1960s when aboriginal land titles were threatened by the impending construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline. In Southeast Alaska, the taking of Native lands for the Tongass National Forest and Glacier Bay National Monument spurred the Tlingit and Haida people to fight to recover their lands in the early part of the 20th century.

One of the first steps in this battle came with the formation of the Alaska Native Brotherhood in 1912. In 1935, the Jurisdictional Act, which allowed the Tlingit and Haida Indians to pursue their land claims in the U.S. Court of Claims, was enacted by Congress. After decades of litigation, the Native people of Southeast Alaska received a cash settlement in 1968 from the Court of Claims for the land previously taken to create the Tongass National Forest and the Glacier Bay National Monument. Yes there was a cash settlement of $7.5 million, but the Native people of Southeast Alaska have long believed that it did not adequately compensate them for the loss of their lands and resources.

When the Native people of Southeast Alaska chose to pursue their land claims in court they could not have foreseen that Congress would ultimately settle the land claims of all of Alaska's Native people through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, ANCSA, of 1971. Nor could they have foreseen that they would be disadvantaged in obtaining the return of their aboriginal lands because of their early, and ultimately successful, effort to litigate their land claims.

The Claims Settlement Act imposed a series of highly prescriptive limitations on the lands that Sealaska Corporation, the regional Alaska Native Corporation formed for Southeast Alaska, could select in satisfaction of the Tlingit and Haida land claims. None of the other 11 Alaska-based regional Native corporations were subject to these limitations. Today, I join with my Alaska colleague, Sen. MARK BEGICH, to reintroduce legislation to right this wrong.

For the most part, Sealaska Corporation has agreed to live within the constraints imposed by the 1971 legislation. It has taken conveyance of roughly 290,000 acres from the pool of lands it was allowed to select under the 1971 act. As Sealaska moves to finalize its land selections, it has asked the Congress for flexibility to receive title to slightly different lands that it was not permitted to select under the 1971 legislation.

The legislation we are introducing today will allow Sealaska to select its remaining entitlement from outside of the withdrawal areas permitted in the 1971 legislation. It

The legislation we are introducing today will allow Sealaska to select its remaining entitlement from outside of the withdrawal areas permitted in the 1971 legislation. It allows the Native Corporation to select up to 3,600 acres of its remaining land entitlement from lands with sacred, cultural, traditional or historical significance throughout the Alaska Panhandle. Substantial restrictions will be placed on the use of these lands.

Up to 5,000 acres of land could be selected for non-timber or mineral related economic development. These lands are called ``Futures'' sites in the bill. Other lands referred to as ``economic development lands'' in the bill could be used for timber related and non-timber related economic development. These lands are on Prince of Wales Island, on nearby Kosciusko Island.

Sealaska observes that if it were required to take title to lands within the constraints prescribed by the 1971 legislation it would take title to large swaths of roadless acres in pristine portions of the Tongass National Forest, the original selection areas containing 112,000 acres of old-growth timber. The lands it proposes to take for economic uses under this legislation are predominantly in roaded and less sensitive areas of the Tongass National Forest, meaning that under this bill Sealaska likely will select roughly 39,000 fewer acres of old-growth than otherwise might be the case. In the process it will at most select 9 percent of the second-growth, leaving the U.S. Forest Service hundreds of thousands of the 428,972 acres of second-growth in the forest. It will be selecting about 28,570 acres of second-growth, leaving the Forest Service more than 88 percent of the second-growth in the forest for it to use to promote a ``young''-growth strategy in our Nation's largest national forest.

The pools of lands that would be available to Sealaska under this legislation are depicted on a series of maps referred to in the bill. It must be emphasized that not all of the lands depicted on these maps will necessarily end up in Sealaska's ownership. Sealaska by this legislation will not receive title to lands in excess of its remaining acreage entitlement under the 1971 legislation and this legislation does not change that entitlement total, still to be finalized by the Bureau of Land Management.

Now this legislation has traveled a long path, one that has seen it change substantially to meet a variety of concerns. Early in the 110th Congress, Alaska Congressman DON YOUNG in 2007 introduced H.R. 3560 to address these issues. Later in September 2008 I introduced legislation similar to, but somewhat different from that bill to give all parties time to thoroughly review the measure. In 2009, I reintroduced the bill after Sealaska and the communities of Southeast Alaska worked collaboratively in good faith to identify issues that may arise from the transfer of lands on which those communities have relied on for subsistence and recreation out of the Tongass National Forest and into Native corporation ownership. Throughout 2009 and into 2010, I and my staff held 12 town meetings in Alaska to collect comments on the bill, and made modifications to it in response to the comments we received. When the bill did not advance in 2010, my staff again held two town meetings and other briefings this winter to gain additional comments and suggested changes in the bill. It is after these comments, and following email and letter suggestions from a variety of sources, that I and Senator BEGICH now move to reintroduce a new version of this bill. It will be somewhat different than a new bill also being introduced today by Congressman YOUNG in the House, a bill more similar to his original bill from 2007.

The legislation we are introducing today in the 112th Congress is different from the original bill in numerous respects. In some cases, the lands open to Sealaska selection have changed from those that were available in the first House bill to accommodate community concerns. For example, this bill reduces the selection pool to about 79,000 acres. It allows for timber land selections in North Election Creek, Polk Inlet-McKenzie Inlet, near Keete, at 12 Mile Arm, at Calder, all on Prince of Wales Island, at several sites on Koscuisko Island and on northern Kuiu Island. These sites are far different than in 2009 since following comments, all of the areas on northern Prince of Wales involving Red Bay, Buster Creek and Labouchere Bay have been deleted from the bill to meet the concerns of Port Protection and Point Baker residents. Also a large 12,462-acre parcel in the Keete area also was removed to accommodate environmentalist concerns. This bill also makes a series of map changes in these parcels, removing 745 acres at Karheen Lakes on Tuxekan Island to protect fisheries, and removes timber lands around Halibut Harbor and Cape Pole on Koscuisko Islands to also protect fishermen and boaters.

Concerning Future sites, this bill keeps 30 sites, specifically dropping the 30-acre Dog Cove site, near Naha, north of Ketchikan, as a result of State and community concerns and imposing a restriction against development for 15 years of a proposed geothermal site at Pegmatite Mountain, 25 miles north of Tenakee on Chichagof Island. That restriction allows the possibility of a renewable energy site to serve Hoonah and Pelican and perhaps Tenakee, if other projects can't first be completed to provide lower-cost power to those communities. The bill already has removed several dozen Future sites that had been proposed since 2007.

The bill in a change from the 2009 version includes a number of conservation areas, totaling 151,650 acres, to help protect fisheries and karst formations on Prince of Wales, Kupreanof, Kuiu and Sukkwan and Goat Islands. The conservation areas, first proposed after public comment in spring 2010, remove no timber lands from the current timber base, but do provide added protections to key fishery habitats such as those around Sarkar Lakes, Eek Lake, Bay of Pillars and Lovelace Creeks. Further to protect fisheries, this bill, as sought by many fishermen, imposes an 100-foot setback requirement for any timber lands conveyed to Sealaska from timber operations around class 1-A fish streams for 5 years--plenty of time for the State of Alaska to consider whether it needs to make any changes in its current State Forest Practices Act setback requirements.

The bill retains a series of changes made in the bill in the past to solve concerns over any unintended consequences that the bill might cause concerning the definition of Indian country in Alaska. It removes all sites from possible conveyance in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. It removes any presumption that any site qualifies as a sacred, cultural, traditional or educational site in Southeast, returning the nomination process for all such selections to the regulations that covered such selections immediately following the 1971 act's passage. And the bill incorporates a host of changes sought by governments, the state and a wide variety of groups and individuals to clarify language and solve concerns over everything from public access guarantees to access rights by bear guides. The bill maintains public access rights to all 17(b) easements and guarantees public access to all timber lands.

Sealaska also has offered a series of commitments to ensure that the benefits of this legislation flow to the broader Southeast Alaska economy and not just to the Corporation and its Native shareholders. The biggest is that all revenues will need to be shared under Section 7(i) of ANCSA with all other Native shareholders statewide.

We all hope that after 40 years that this measure can advance to passage this Congress and resolve the last land entitlement that Southeast Alaska's more than 20,000 Native shareholders have long had a right to receive. It is impossible to expect Alaska's Native corporations to provide meaningful assistance to Alaska's Native community if they continue to be denied the lands that Congress intended them to receive to utilize to provide economic benefits for the Native peoples of the State. I hope this measure can pass and become law before the 40th anniversary of the claims settlement act in December of this year. Justice delayed truly is justice denied.

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