Here is this opinion [the earlier opinion on Blue Tee’s motion as well as the rest of the briefs are here]. The district court dismissed the Quapaw Tribe’s claims against the government.
Environmental
Democracy Now Story on the Alaska Native Suit on Climate Change
Attorney Stephen Susman helped file a groundbreaking lawsuit earlier this year on behalf of 400 Inupiat villagers in the Alaskan town of Kivalina who are being forced to relocate because of flooding caused by global warming. The suit accuses twenty oil, gas and electric companies, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips and Peabody, of being responsible for emitting millions of tons of greenhouse gases causing the Arctic ice to melt.
Rob Porter: “American Indians and the New Termination Era”
Rob Porter has a new article in the Cornell Journal of Law & Public Policy, “American Indians and the New Termination Era.” From the article:
I will first examine some of the legal and policy trends in America’s treatment of Indians that are currently taking place. For several years now, I have thought that the study of America’s so-called Indian law is completely predictable and intellectually moribund. Recently, however, there have been competing developments emanating from the Supreme Court and the Congress–for example the recent decision in United States v. Lara and the development of the Self-Governance Program–that offset my concerns that a neo-termination policy has fully emerged. Examining the current policy trends and predicting where things are headed presents an interesting forensic examination.
Secondly, because I am generally an optimist and believe that there must be a silver lining somewhere within these antagonistic developments, I will examine what I perceive to be the opportunities that lie in the current policy landscape. These may not be intuitive assessments for anyone who genuinely believes that the Self-Determination Policy is really working. But opportunities do exist, and they should be better understood in order to seize upon them.
Lastly, I will examine this whole policy quandary from a normative perspective. For the entirety of American history, the United States has basically approached policy questions involving the Indians from one simple perspective –” what do we do with them?” Well, the other side of that policy question is rarely asked, which is, “what do we Indians want for ourselves?”
This is an important question to answer as Native peoples take more control over our own lives. But the question is more difficult than one might think. There is very real tension for Indians in this day and age between choosing the easy path towards living the good life as a member of American society, or choosing the traditional and more difficult path of struggling to preserve life as free and distinct peoples and nations. Compounding the difficulty of this choice is the fact that, because of our inherent differences and generations of colonization-induced social and cultural change, Indians today see the world through very different lenses. Understanding what exactly is happening to us, much less being able to respond coherently, makes the goal of formulating Indigenous survival strategies especially challenging.
1836 Treaty Tribes Comments on State Water Legislation
LA Times: Badlands Revert Back to Oglala Lakota?
From the LA Times:
BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK, S.D. — The southern half of this swath of grasslands and chiseled pink spires looks untouched from a distance. Closer up, the scars of history are easy to see.
Unexploded bombs lie in ravines, a reminder of when the military confiscated the land from the Oglala Sioux tribe during World War II and turned it into an artillery range. Poachers who have stolen thousands of fossils over the years have left gouges in the landscape. On a plateau, a solitary makeshift hut sits ringed by empty Coke cans and shaving cream canisters. It is the only remnant of a three-year occupation by militant tribal activists who had demanded that the land be returned.
Now the National Park Service is contemplating doing just that: giving the 133,000-acre southern half of Badlands National Park back to the tribe. The northern half, which has a paved road and a visitor center, would remain with the park system.
(H/T Patrick O’Donnell)
Klamath Tribe v. Pacificorp Cert Petition
Karuk Wins Salmon Ad Case
Here is the opinion.
News coverage from Indianz:
The Karuk Tribe of California won its free-speech lawsuit over a salmon advertisement that was rejected by a a public transit agency in Oregon.
The tribe and an environmental group called Friends of the River wanted to place the Salmon for Savings ad on Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) buses. It was rejected because TriMet said it was not a commercial ad or a public service announcement. But Judge Henry C. Breithaupt of the Oregon Tax Court said the policy violated the U.S. and Oregon constitutions. The ad promotes the removal of dams in the Klamath River Basin to restore salmon runs.
Get the Story:
TriMet loses case over its ad rejection (The Oregonian 6/4)
Tax Court upholds tribe in lawsuit against Tri-Met (AP 6/3)
Press Release: Judge Rules Against TriMet in Free Speech Case over Klamath Dams Ad (IndyBay Media 6/3)
Related Stories:
Karuk Tribe sues over rejected salmon advertisement (2/21)
Challenge to Ho-Chunk Trust Acquisition Rejected
In Sauk County v. Dept. of Interior, the Western District of Wisconsin rejected NEPA and constitutional challenges to the Department’s decision to take land into trust (non-gaming purposes) for the benefit of the Ho-Chunk Nation.
Written Testimony in Senate Hearing on DOI Backlogs
From the Senate Indian Affairs Committee website:
THE HONORABLE CARL J. ARTMAN
Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior
Washington, DC
THE HONORABLE ROBERT CHICKS
Mid-West Area Vice President, National Congress of American Indians; President, Stockbridge Munsee Band of Mohican Indians
Bowler, WI
THE HONORABLE GARY SVANDA
Council Member, City of Madera
Madera, CA
MR. DOUG NASH
Director, of Indian Estate Planning and Probating, Institute of Indian Estate Planning and Probate
Seattle, WA
New Jersey v. EPA: Industry En Banc Petitions Denied
Here is the order-denying-rehearing-en-banc-petitions-05-1097.
Appellate Court Rejects EPA, Industry Bid To Overturn Mercury Ruling
A key appellate court has rejected EPA and utility industry requests to rehear and overturn a ruling from a three-judge panel vacating the agency’s clean air mercury rule (CAMR), leaving supporters of the contentious rule with the option to either abandon it altogether or appeal the case up to the Supreme Court.
Environmentalists, however, doubt that the government will appeal the ruling to the high court, but leave open the option that industry may. “I would be astounded if the Solicitor General’s office walked this dog up to the Supreme Court’s steps to soil those grounds. The utility industry on the other hand follows different public health practices,” John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a May 20 statement.
Turtle Talk 
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