Sen. Murkowski Wins Senate Approval Of Statehood, Native Corporation Land Conveyance Acceleration Bill
Washington, D.C. - Saying it has taken far too long for Alaska and Native corporations to gain full title to lands promised them at both Statehood and during the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski late Sunday pushed legislation through the Senate designed to complete the conveyance of pending land claims within the next five years.
"It's been 45 years since Statehood, 33 years since passage of ANCSA and the repeal of the (Alaska Native) Allotment Act. Yet under current law and procedures we are at least 20 years from seeing these conveyances complete and some estimates are that it might take 85 years or longer for Alaskans to gain the land that is rightfully theirs.
"Thus it is good news, indeed, that the Senate has taken the next step to streamline the conveyance process so we can get this done before the end of the decade," said Murkowski after the Senate approved the senator's Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act (S. 1466) on a unanimous vote. The bill now heads to the House for its consideration, hopefully later this fall.
Murkowski, joined by Sen. Ted Stevens, earlier in the 108th Congress had proposed legislation designed to speed up the conveyance of federal lands to the state and Alaska Native Corporations - an attempt to complete the transfer of all of Alaska's Statehood selections before the 50th anniversary of Statehood in 2009. The bill includes a number of other technical changes to solve a host of land conveyance problems in the state.
The bill is intended to lay out a blueprint for the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to complete the surveying and final title transfer of 89 million acres, 60 million of the state's outstanding 104-million-acre Statehood entitlement and the remaining 29 million acres of the 44 million acres given to Alaska Native Corporations under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The bill also includes measures that will assist in completing the transfer of some 2,500 Native allotment parcels claimed under terms of the 1906 Alaska Native Allotment Act.
The bill was modified extensively by Murkowski to address concerns raised by Alaskans during an Anchorage field hearing on the measure in August 2003 and a Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests Washington, D.C. formal hearing on Feb. 12, and suggestions made by Democratic staff and environmental groups. Some of the provisions in the bill and modifications made to it include:
- The bill will continue to help speed conveyances to the State, but its language was changed to limit the scope of discretion to the Secretary of the Interior by identifying specific lands to be conveyed in several provisions.
A provision in the original bill that allowed closed mining claims to be conveyed to the state was deleted at the request of environmental groups that argued it could have increased the size of the state's overall Statehood entitlement.- A provision in the original bill that allows the University of Alaska system to select the federal reversionary interest in its own properties remains, but an additional provision that would have allowed the university to select reversionary interests in properties owned by nonprofit groups was deleted.
- It continues to attempt to solve the problem of outdated withdrawals that preclude mineral development on millions of acres of public lands. The bill now rather than immediately opening all lands to all public land laws, gives BLM 18 months to prepare recommendations to Congress on lands, which can be opened. The report will consider comments.
- It clarifies the rights of miners' to convert from federal to state mining claims without jeopardizing ongoing mining operations. Properly maintained federal claims will continue to be excluded from conveyance.
- The bill sets up a process where BLM will have broader authority to solve land claim disputes and give it the right to confer with land owners to get land transferred more quickly. It also sets up a timetable for the state and Native corporations to submit final conveyance priorities.
- The bill gives the Secretary of the Interior authority to establish an Alaska field office at the Office of Hearings and Appeals and to staff it with Administrative law Judges and members of the Interior Board of Land Appeals. The goal is to speed up the slow pace of hearings in Alaska of all types of appeals.
- To address environmental concerns a provision that would have waived a 69,120-acre limitation on conveyance of lands within pre-ANCSA refuges was dropped, as was a provision to allow the conveyance of subsurface estates to regional corporations, and a provision involving Kaktovik lands.
- A provision involving Native regional corporation selection rights was changed so that an additional 200,000 acres can be conveyed immediately. The goal to establish a final entitlement for regional corporations was not achieved because there was disagreement about what final acreage amounts were fair.
- The bill has completely revised a title recovery section so that procedures similar to an existing court-approved settlement process for title recovery from the State of Alaska can be used for title recovery from ANCSA corporations.
- To ease environmentalist concerns a provision was added that allows Native corporations and allotment applicants to adjust the boundaries of an allotment claim only if the relocation would not create a future problem for Conservation System Unit managers.
- And the bill has removed proposed new deadlines affecting allotment applications, a key issue for many Native allotment holders.
Murkowski said the measure, while greatly simplified from its original version, still should accomplish its main goal of helping the federal government complete conveyances of most all of its outstanding land conveyances by the end of this decade.
"Alaskans have waited for two generations to obtain the land we were promised at Statehood. Hopefully that long wait is now at an end," said Murkowski after she succeeded in getting the bill waived from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and then approved on the Senate floor. Additional funding to speed the pace of surveying and conveyance has already been proposed in the federal budget for next year to implement the terms of the bill.