Matthew L.M. Fletcher

5Qs for Fletcher on Haaland v. Brackeen & LDF v. Coughlin

June 23, 2023Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From U of M law school, here.

An excerpt:

ICWA was always a part of my scholarly agenda, largely because ICWA is such an important part of virtually every Native person’s personal history. My writing partner and spouse Wenona Singel can trace the removals of her ancestors from the 1830s all the way to the 1970s. Our children are the first generation of children in her family to not be removed since the 1830s. I began to focus on the constitutional defense of ICWA intensely after a 2013 Supreme Court decision, Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, where the Court questioned the constitutionality of the Act. Within a couple years, constitutional challenges to ICWA were swarming the courts. Occasionally joined with Singel, who was using other media to tell her family’s story, I began to write systematically on each constitutional issue in an effort to push back on the narrative that ICWA was somehow constitutionally suspect. I focused on congressional Indian affairs powers, anti-commandeering and federal preemption, equal protection, and non-delegation.

This Land Special Brackeen Decision Episode

June 23, 2023Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

Opinion here.

SCOTUSBlog Recap of Arizona v. Navajo Opinion

June 23, 2023Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

Opinion and stuff here.

SCOTUS Rejects Navajo Nation’s Water Rights Trust Claim 5-4

June 22, 2023Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion in Arizona v. Navajo Nation.

Background materials here.

New Scholarship on Air Regulation in Indian Country

June 22, 2023Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Jonathan Skinner-Thompson has posted “Tribal Air,” forthcoming in the Arizona State Law Journal, on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Prevailing approaches to addressing environmental justice in Indian Country are inadequate. The dual pursuits of distributive and procedural justice do not fully account for the unique factors that make Indigenous environmental justice distinct—namely, the sovereign status of tribal nations and the ongoing impacts of colonization.

This article synthetizes interdisciplinary approaches to theorizing Indigenous environmental justice and proposes a framework to aid environmental law scholars and advocates. Specifically, by centering Indigenous environmental justice in terms of coloniality and self-determination, this framework can better critique and improve environmental governance regimes when it comes to pollution in Indian Country.

This article tests that framework on air regulation in Indian Country. Although many consider the Clean Air Act a regulatory success story, air pollution still disproportionately harms American Indians and Alaska Natives. To that end, Tribal Air offers a comprehensive account of air regulation in Indian Country, including a more detailed analysis of tribal air quality laws. It then applies theories of settler colonialism and instruments of self-determination to the implementation of the Clean Air Act in Indian Country. Together these concepts aspire towards an anti-colonialist purpose and offer important ways to achieve Indigenous environmental justice.