U.S. House panel holds hearing on tribal land ruling
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WASHINGTON -- On the eve of a presidential gathering with tribes from around the country, the Obama administration has detailed its support for congressional action to reverse a Supreme Court ruling that denied the Narragansett Indians a special status for land they own in Charlestown. At the same time, however, Connecticut's attorney general warned a key House committee that legislation to undo the Carcieri v. Salazar decision would inflame tensions between tribes and their neighbors in many states and municipalities around the country. The clashing testimony before the House Natural Resources Committee was the latest chapter in the dispute between the Narragansetts and the state of Rhode Island over land-use issues -- a long-running battle that took on broader implications with last winter's Supreme Court ruling. "The court's decision hinders fulfillment of the United States' commitment to supporting tribes' self-determination by clouding -- and potentially narrowing'' federal power to hold tribal land in trust," Donald Laverdure, the deputy assistant interior secretary for Indian affairs, told the committee. Laverdure said the case will spark costly lawsuits and prevent third-party developers from proceeding with -- or securing loans for -- projects on Indian land. "There is a problem here that needs to be fixed,'' Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters Tuesday, referring to the high court's ruling that the Narragansetts were not entitled to have a parcel of their land taken into federal trust -- a status that removes a tribe's land from the reach of state and local taxes and law. Governor Carcieri, local officials and members of the Rhode Island congressional delegation have expressed concern that the tribe would use trust status as a pathway to casino gambling. The tribe has long asserted, however, that it wants to build housing on the land in question. In any event, the decision in the Rhode Island case has stirred strong feelings among Indian tribes and their neighbors across the country, prompting proposals by powerful legislators to reverse its effects. "This decision strikes at the heart of tribal sovereignty,'' said Democratic Rep. Nick J. Rahall II of West Virginia, the chairman of the Resources Committee. Rahall expressed support for two versions of the legislation to roll back the Supreme Court decision. But like his Senate counterpart, Indian Affairs Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., Rahall has no timetable for committee action on the legislation to reverse the Carcieri decision, he said in an interview. Arrayed opposite the White House and powerful congressional figures, however, are House and Senate members and other officials who support the Carcieri decision. Rhode Island Democratic Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, though sympathetic to tribal concerns, has said that legislation to reverse the Carcieri decision will not clear without some kind of accord to accommodate the concerns of the Rhode Island congressional delegation. Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal offered a strong defense of the Carcieri ruling Wednesday, saying that it accepted the "plain language'' of a landmark 1934 law that granted federal land trust status only to those tribes already recognized by the government. He opposed bills that would offer land grant status to tribes recognized after 1934. (The Narragansetts were not recognized until the 1980s.) Blumenthal called for the repeal or the "drastic'' reform of the mechanism by which the federal government takes tribal lands into trust. "The current system is lawless, without standards, without guidelines'' in the way that it gives the Interior secretary "unbridled authority'' to remove Indian-owned lands from state and local tax rolls and land-use regulations, Blumenthal said. Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, who was not present at the hearing, sent written testimony. If Congress is inclined to restore the Interior secretary's power to take land into trust for tribes recognized after 1934, Lynch requested that Congress consider that Rhode Island and many other states have resolved previous claims in good faith, and those claims should be honored. The testimony came as President Obama prepared to meet hundreds of tribal leaders from around the country at a day-long gathering at Interior Department headquarters a few blocks from the White House. The original version of this story was posted at 6:06 p.m. 
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We are talking about a law telling a people how to they can use land that they were on before white people knew it existed, but are not free to use this land because according to the law, these people were not recognized before the 1980's as a tribe. They existed as a tribe well before any white man ever knew about this land. But in our audacity and arrogance, they do not have the right to be covered by a law because they are not formally recognized by the government as a tribe.
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Blumenthal is a tool of the Pequots and Mohegans. Protection of their duopoly is his primary concern.
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Blumenthal is a tool of the Pequots and Mohegans. Protection of their duopoly is his primary concern.
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these people found them selves in the 80"s where were they from 34 to 80? they want the land for housing,they went that route before. they started to build and the money disappeared.this sounds like a dem vote grab to me.
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