Issue Position: Sealaska

Issue Position

Sealaska Land Bill

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 Native Regional Corp., which represents Natives 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. That promise has never been fulfilled. This amount was far less land than the corporation should have received based on the Native population of Southeast and compared to how other Native regional corporations were treated in the lands settlement. To fulfill the promise made in ANSCA, Sen. Murkowski, along with Sen. Mark Begich and Rep.Don Young, in 2007 and again in 2009, introduced legislation to correct the shortcomings in the original land selection and conveyance process.

Crafting a bill involving land use in the Tongass is a complex undertaking. Sen. Murkowski believes it is important that the U.S. government fulfills its commitment to the Native people of Southeast Alaska, while also protecting the reasonable 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 land that the federal government is already obligated to convey. Under the terms of a revised Senate bill unveiled in June 2010, Sealaska will likely harvest 39,000 fewer acres of old-growth timber in the region than the corporation is free to do under the original 1971 act. The revised bill continues to allow Sealaska to diversify into businesses outside of traditional timber or mineral extraction by awarding the corporation "future" sites for renewable energy, transportation and tourism development. The revised bill, however, reduced the number of future sites, increased provisions to guarantee public access to economic development and future sites and reduced the number of additional "sacred, historic and cultural" sites that the corporation could receive. The June 2010 bill also removed timber sites from northern Prince of Wales Island from consideration of selection and made a host of other technical changes to the bill.

Despite the changes, there remain concerns among some in Southeast with the bill. Since it did not pass in the 111th Congress, Sen. Murkowski has committed to holding a new round of town meetings in early 2011 to gather additional suggestions on the legislation before reintroducing the bill in the 112th Congress. Sen. Murkowski now hopes to work out a final compromise on a revised Sealaska bill by late winter 2011, the 40th anniversary of the passage of ANCSA. If Sealaska is forced out of the timber harvesting business, the loss of volume could undermine the economics of all timber support firms, threatening all timber harvesting in the nation's largest national forest. While Sen. Murkowski is open to considering further Southeast legislation in 2011, including the so-called landless Natives bill, fixes to the Native veterans allotment program, the Alaska Mental Health Trust land exchange, creation of an Alaska State Forest and additional fishery and environmental conservation set asides, she believes that the Sealaska bill needs to pass quickly to set the stage for future Panhandle lands legislation.

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