Landless Natives

Welcome everyone, I have taken it upon myself to attemp to contact Senator Murkowski, Don Young via the Committee on Natural Resources, and this is the replies that I have received.

Murkowski (copy and paste from email)

Dear
James:

Thank you for contacting me to express
your concerns about a Sealaska land conveyance bill. I appreciate your
comments and a chance to respond to your concerns.

Congress approved the Alaska Native Claims Settlement
Act (ANCSA) nearly four decades ago in an effort to settle the aboriginal land
claims of Alaska Natives. Under a complicated land conveyance formula contained
in the 1971 bill, the Sealaska Corp., which represents Native Alaskans
throughout Southeast Alaska, was entitled to receive about 375,000 acres of the
16.9 million acre Tongass National Forest to help improve the livelihoods of
their many shareholders.

Unfortunately, that promise has never been
fulfilled. Sealaska Corp. received far less land than it should have
received based on the Native population of Southeast and compared to how other
Native regional corporations were treated in the lands settlement. Along with
Senator Mark Begich and Representative Don Young, in 2009 I introduced
legislation to correct the shortcomings in the original land selection and
conveyance process to fulfill the promise made in ANCSA.

In the 112th Congress, I have introduced revised
legislation that would allow Sealaska Corp. to complete the land
selection promised to its shareholders nearly 40 years ago. The measure seeks
to complete the aboriginal land selections, while also protecting the
rights of other Alaskans who have grown to depend on Southeast lands for their
livelihoods. The Sealaska bill is intended to reduce environmental impacts to
Southeast Alaska and does not provide additional acreage
beyond the initial obligation of ANCSA.

Under this new revised bill, Sealaska Corp. would
select from among 79,000 acres on Prince of Wales and Koscuisko Islands to
complete its land entitlement. While a large portion of Sealaska's land
selections will be designated for timber harvesting, some 4,000 to
5,000 acres will be set aside for ecotourism and other non-timber,
non-mineral economic development. Another 3,600 acres of Sealaska's selection
will be set aside as sacred, cultural, historic and educational
sites. This bill allows Sealaska to select about 7 percent of the
second-growth timber in the Tongass, or about 39,000 fewer acres of old-growth
timber than it otherwise could have selected under ANCSA.

This revised Senate bill makes a series of changes
from previous bills, requiring a 100-foot buffer along class 1A streams to
protect fish habitat, removing timber lands on southern Koscuisko Island
to protect fisherman anchorages. It removes a proposed Future Site at Dog
Cove near Ketchikan and prohibits development of another renewable energy site
at Pegmatite Mountain for 15 years to attempt to address Tenakee residents
concerns, as well as a number of language changes to address public concerns.

I took great care to fulfill the promises made
to Sealaska Corp. shareholders, while at the same time attempting to
protect the concerns of all Southeast residents who utilize the Tongass for
everything from subsistence to fisheries to recreation. I know that
reaching a consensus on this bill will be difficult since every acre in the
Tongass is subject to competing demands, but despite these challenges, these
revisions address the vast majority of the concerns expressed by Prince of
Wales Island and other Southeast communities.

I appreciate your comments and will keep them in mind
as congressional consideration of this topic moves forward. Again, thank
you for contacting me.





United States Senator
http://murkowski.senate.gov



Don Young Office (copy and paste from email)

James,

Thanks
for your email. The Committee on Natural Resources staff forwarded your email
to me to respond.

First,
let me begin by saying that passage of H.R. 1306 is a priority for Congressman
Young and has been for a number of years. There is no doubt that righting this
injustice is long overdue. Past legislative attempts have failed for a variety
of reasons outside the control of the Southeast Alaska Native villages.

Adding
to the legislative difficulty is a change to the Rules of the House that took
effect when the 112th Congress convened in January 2011. As you may know, this
change was a ban on earmarks in legislation. Under House Rule 21, clause 9, an
earmark is defined as:
“a
provision or report language included primarily at the request of a Member,
Delegate, Resident Commissioner, or Senator providing, authorizing or
recommending a specific amount of discretionary budget authority, credit
authority, or other spending authority for a contract, loan, loan guarantee,
grant, loan authority, or other expenditure with or to an entity, or targeted
to a specific State, locality or Congressional district, other than through a
statutory or administrative formula driven or competitive award process.”

Unfortunately,
previous versions of the Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities
Recognition and Compensation Act would be considered earmarks under this
definition. As a result, significant changes had to be made to the bill that
would ensure Congressman Young did not break the rules of the House. In
addition, any legislation that does contain earmarks isn’t eligible for
consideration.

As
a result, as currently written, H.R. 1306 would recognize the five communities
in question as Alaska Native Villages, pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act, allow them to fro Urban Corporations and choose the surface
estate to approximately 23,000 acres of forest lands, and convey the subsurface
estate of that land to the Sealaska Corporation. However, the new Urban
Corporations would not receive a lump sum payment of start-up funds.

Nevertheless,
Congressman Young is committed to finding a path forward on the legislation and
will push to have a hearing on the bill, hopefully, in the 112th Congress.
However, there is a chance that at the definition of the term “earmark” may
change when the 113th Congress convenes in January 2013, and that would afford
us the ability to revert back to the bill with a more favorable compensation package.

Best, Erik

Erik J. Elam
Legislative Director
Office
of Congressman Don Young
Congressman
for All Alaska
2314
Rayburn House Office
Building
Washington D.C.
20515
Phone:
(202) 225-5765
Fax:
(202) 225-0425

Scholarship

Hello everyone,

This is a very important topic, it is dealing with the camps scholarship. I would like to ask the camp to give input on the following, and if you have other points to make please do so.

• Point system - what do you think the best point system should be
• Membership requirement - should this be there or should we except all native members or not
• Streamlining - is it really necessary to find even more ways to shorten the application
• Other - with what you know or don't know give any other opinions you may have on this topic

My Opinion: I think that

1. the camp should choose a set number of scholarship awards per year to give and a total dollar amount per award $300.00, $500.00 and so on.
2. divide that number in two for how many to give out per semester
3. the total points given to an applicant is the percentage of the total to be allotted that person.
4. I personally do not think it should be a requirement to be a member. We are here to help the native community not just the membership. Otherwise that is like saying KIC medical is just for it's members and no one else.
5. Streamline the application is not necessary. The applicant only has one page to fill out that is it. The rest is in my opinion the bare minimal.

Ketchikan Indian Community

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Welcome

Welcome to Alaska Native Brotherhood & Alaska Native Sisterhood Local Camp 14 Blogging Site.

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