Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill to allow
five Southeast Alaska communities to finally be allowed to form urban
corporations under the terms of 1971's Alaska Native Claims Settlement
Act, the Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition
and Compensation Act. I am joined in sponsoring this bill by my Alaska
colleague, Senator Dan Sullivan.

At the very beginning of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of
1971 there are a series of findings and declarations of congressional
policy that explain the underpinnings of this landmark legislation. The
first clause reads: ``There is an immediate need for a fair and just
settlement of all claims by Natives and Native groups of Alaska, based
on aboriginal land claims.'' The second clause states: ``The settlement
should be accomplished rapidly, with certainty, in conformity with the
real economic and social needs of Natives.''

Unfortunately 44 years have passed since the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act became law and still the Native peoples of five
communities in Southeast Alaska: Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg,
Tenakee and Haines--the five ``landless communities''--are still
waiting for their fair and just settlement.

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act originally awarded $966
million and 44 million acres of land to Alaska Natives and provided for
the establishment of Native Corporations to receive and manage such
funds and lands. The beneficiaries of the settlement were issued stock
in one of 13 regional Alaska Native corporations--12 based in Alaska.
Most beneficiaries also had the option to enroll and receive stock in a
village or urban corporation or group.

For reasons that still defy explanation, the native peoples of the
``landless communities,'' were not permitted by the Act to form village
or urban corporations. These communities were excluded from this
benefit even though they did not differ significantly from other
communities in Southeast Alaska that were permitted to form village or
urban corporations under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. For
example, the Ketchikan area had more Native residents in 1970, than
Juneau, which was permitted to form the Goldbelt urban corporation, or
Sitka that formed the Shee Atika urban corporation. This finding was
confirmed in a February 1994 report submitted to the Secretary of the
Interior at the 1993 direction of Congress. That study was conducted by
the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of
Alaska.

The native peope of Southeast Alaska have recognized the injustice
of this oversight for more than four decades. An independent study
issued two decades ago confirms that the grievance of the landless
communities is legitimate. Legislation has been introduced in the past
sessions of Congress to remedy this injustice. Hearings have been held
and reports written. Yet legislation to right the wrong has inevitably
stalled out.

I am convinced that this cause is just, it is right, and it is about
time that the Native peoples of the five landless communities receive
what has been denied to them for so long.

The legislation that I am introducing today would enable the Native
peoples of the five ``landless communities'' to organize five ``urban
corporations,'' one for each unrecognized community. These newly formed
corporations would be offered and could accept the surface estate to
23,040 acres of land--one township as granted all other village
corporations in Southeast. Sealaska Corporation, the regional Alaska
Native Corporation for Southeast Alaska, would receive title to the
subsurface estate to the designated lands. This version of the
legislation has been modified to guarantee that the lands to be
conveyed may include subsistence sites, aquaculture sites,
hydroelectric sites, tidelands, eco-tourism sites and surplus federal
properties to help satisfy any compensation requirement.

It is long past time that we return to the Native peoples of
Southeast Alaska a small slice of the aboriginal lands that were once
theirs alone.

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