The Biden administration may get involved in a lawsuit of high-profile which involves an Southeast Alaska Native community that’s fighting Republican Governor. Mike Dunleavy’s administration over its rights to fish.
The U.S. Department of Justice stated in a statement late on Tuesday that it was looking into submitting a “friend-of-the-court” brief in the ongoing dispute with the State Department and Metlakatla Indian Community, a tribal government.
A three-year old Metlakatla lawsuit, brought by the tribe’s government against the Dunleavy administration concerns the amount of fishing rights that were granted to the members of the community.
The Justice Department didn’t say which side it would be on in the case.
However, it is worth noting that the Biden administration has launched an action in the name of Alaska which it claims is intended to safeguard the rights of subsistence fishermen from rural areas within Southwest Alaska. In its Tuesday filing, it identifies it as the government of federally-owned entities being involved within the Metlakatla lawsuit due to the fact that they are an “trustee of the tribe’s federally reserved tribal fishing rights, and has the general trust obligation to safeguard and preserve the rights of those.”
An Justice Department spokesman, Matthew Nies was unable to discuss the matter, as did a spokeswoman of the U.S. Department of the Interior who’s lawyers are listed in the Biden administration’s file.
Metlakatla located in the south of Alaska’s Panhandle, is an one and only Indian reservation within the state. It was established through an act of Congress in 1891 following the Indigenous Tsimshian inhabitants of British Columbia resettled there at the request of the president Grover Cleveland.
In 1916 an executive proclamation issued by Woodrow Wilson, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the reservation stretches 3,000 feet beyond the shoreline. The proclamation also gave Metlakatlans the exclusive right to fish caught there.
The subject of the case is whether the Metlakatlans are able to fish beyond the limit of 3,000 feet without having to be subject to its “limited access” program which demands commercial fishermen be issued state-issued permits. The 2020 year “in reaction to an attempt by Alaska to bind the Metlakatlans to its restricted entry policy,” the community sued the state in federal court, based on the findings of an appeals panel of the federal government.
The the Alaska-based U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick ruled for the state in the case, Metlakatla Indian Community appealed. Metlakatla Indian Community appealed.
A panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was in favor of the community in 2012 and confirmed the decision it made in february. The court said that the 1891 congress legislation granted fishermen from the community the non-exclusive right to fish beyond the limits without permits from the state and in “waters in which they have historically fished.”
The case has been transferred before the court of appeals to determine exactly what areas these traditional fishing grounds comprise.
This Biden administration’s five-page report this week requests U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason, who’s taken this case after Sedwick and asked Federal officials until January. 12 to decide if it wants to take part as an “amicus or curiae” or as a friend or a friend of court. The procedure for making this decision, according to the filing stated was “recently established” and “involves various different levels of scrutiny.”
Metlakatla’s Mayor, Albert Smith, said he is pleased by the federal government’s involvement and said the issue is about keeping Metlakatla’s image as a fishing community.
Others rural Indigenous groups that do not own their fishing rights have experienced dramatic declines in the ownership of permits and participation in the restricted entry system.
However, Metlakatla’s fishing tradition and the federally-authorized tribes’ fishing rights have prospered.
“It’s been an extended time since the federal government coming in,” Smith said. “I think it would have been nice to have happened a bit earlier however, they’re coming into the picture now, and we’re thankful and hopeful.”
In a written statement in a prepared statement, a spokesperson from the Alaska Department of Law said her agency hopes it will be able to convince the federal government that upon looking into the matter, “will come to support the state’s view” and that the Metlakatla people “lacks the legal basis to claim that their members have an off-reservation right to fish.”
“This implies that just as every else Alaskan, Metlakatla Indian Community tribe members will be governed by laws that guarantee the sustainable yield from our fisheries, including commercial fishing,” said the spokesperson, Patty Sullivan.
Should the Biden administration files a brief on behalf of Metlakatla this would represent the third time in more than a year that federal government has taken on against the state for the rural fishermen.
The Biden administration in the year 2000 filed a lawsuit against the state regarding who holds the authority to regulate the salmon harvests in Southwest Alaska’s Kuskokwim River. Many villages along the River depend upon salmon to feed their families in a remote area where food prices are high.
In the midst of record low salmon runs and a sluggish economy, the federal government declared only residents living in rural areas were allowed to harvest salmon in a stretch of 180 miles the river within the Federal wildlife sanctuary. In the same period the state issued orders that permitted subsistence harvests within the same region by all Alaskans and not only rural residents.
The issue is centered around conflicting interpretations of the famous Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act that Congress approved in 1980.
The Biden administration as well as The Alaska Federation of Natives, or AFN argue that under the act the federal government has the power to regulate fisheries in the controversial section of Kuskokwim.
The lawsuit has become an area of contention in both the Dunleavy administration and tribes, and AFN has stepped in to the case on behalf of the Federal government’s behalf.
AFN is keeping a close eye on the Metlakatla case and the possibility for Biden administration’s involvement according to Nicole Borromeo, its in-house attorney.
“We’re studying the filings and are taking an extremely serious interest in the way DOJ moves forward,” she said.
Fishermen outside the reservation who must be subjected to Alaska’s commercial permits program, are monitoring the situation, said Justin Peeler, a board member of the Southeast Alaska Seiners Association, an important trade organization.
“It could have a major impact on fisheries,” Peeler said. Anyone who has the Southeast Alaska fishing permit, Peeler said, “should be watching this extremely closely.”
Nathaniel Herz welcomes tips at natherz@gmail.com or (907) 793-312. The article originally appeared within the Northern Journal, a newsletter by Herz. Sign up here.
