Two weeks ago theHouse Subcommittee on Indian, Insular, and Alaska Native Affairs conducted a hearing entitled: “Inadequate Standards for Trust Land Acquisition in the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.”
The Majority Staff Memo focuses on several processes on the taking of land into trust for tribes that worry some critics, including the practice of so-called “reservation shopping,” i.e. taking land a considerable distance from a reservation and putting it into trust, sometimes for casinos.
Defenders of the process say that 90 percent of tribal fee-to-trust applications are within or adjacent to existing reservations. The great majority are tribes wanting to consolidate their interests. They also point out that many thousands of acres have been removed from trust status.
The Majority Staff Memo asserts that the Secretary of the Interior has almost limitless power to take land into trust, limited only by the 2009 Carcieri v. Salazar Supreme Court ruling.
