Department of Interior

WLNS: Gov. Snyder/AG Schuette Opposes Lansing Casino Proposal

Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

Here.

And here’s the letter:

Eitrem 0207121

An excerpt:

Governor Rick Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette put their opposition of the proposed Lansing casino in writing Monday. Their letter was addressed to the chairman of the Sault Saint Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians.

For the casino to even become a reality in the first place it needs to be approved by the federal government. The tribe has to ask the U.S. Department of Interior to take the land into trust and make it tribal land, then it would be eligible for gaming.

One issue facing the proposal to build a casino in Lansing is the fact that there are already 3 off-reservation casinos in the state.

The final decision would come from the federal government, but one expert says the opposition from state leaders could make this all a bit more difficult.

“The governor role I think can potentially be huge in that politics is everything when it comes to off reservation gaming,” said Matthew Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at MSU.

The letter made public from the governor and attorney general to the Sault St. Marie Chippewa Indian tribe has Fletcher a bit surprised.

“That’s pretty tough…tough talk,” said Fletcher.

In the letter it flatly says they oppose the opening of the casino.

“If this was a different world and the Governor supported this, it would put pressure on the Department of Interior to act quicker. It would make the other tribes back down,” said Fletcher.

Fletcher says the Department of Interior will listen closely to what the governor has to say and his opposition could cause a great delay in moving forward.

“This is a chunk of land that is right in the heart of the state’s capital and certainly the state is going to have say in what happens when that land completely leaves the state’s jurisdiction,” said Fletcher.

Suit for Royalties in Southern Ute Well Dismissed under Rule 19

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the materials in Three Stars Prod. Co. v. BP America (D. Colo.):

DCT Order Dismissing under Rule 19

BP America Rule 19 Motion

Three Stars Response

BP Reply

Proposed Leasing Regulation Changes

Kate Fort1 Comment

The Department of Interior announced a proposed rule on leasing reform today. A number of documents accompanied the announcement. Here is the press release. Here is the proposed rule. Here is a chart comparing the new rule with the old, and here is a question and answer document from Interior.

Long Term Plan to Build and Enhance Tribal Justice Systems

Adrea Korthase1 Comment

Earlier this month the DOI and DOJ released the Long Term Plan to Build and Enhance Tribal Justice Systems. An excerpt:

Central Themes of the Tribal Justice Plan
The following major themes emerged from consultation and public comment:

  • Establishing alternatives to incarceration should be the major focus.
  •  The Tribal Justice Plan should be implemented in consultation and collaboration with Tribal Leaders and should be flexible enough to allow tribes to develop strategies tailored to their specific public safety needs and tribal history and culture.
  • The Tribal Justice Plan should coordinate federal, tribal, state and local government resources to support operations, programming in tribal justice systems, and critical infrastructure issues with tribal correctional facilities, fully mindful of the sovereign status of tribes in these coordination efforts.
  • There should be greater coordination between DOJ and DOI with respect to awards for grants that may be used to construct tribal correctional facilities and multi-purpose justice centers (which may be provided by DOJ) and P.L. 93-638 contracts and self-governance compacts for funding operations (provided only by DOI). The Departments are committed to addressing the issue of coordination to address this and other issues related to detention in Indian country.

Additional links can be found at NCAI.

Interior Letter Rejecting Habematolel Pomo Upper Lake Gaming Compact

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Big news.

Here: TribeUpperLake081710

Onion: Interior Employee Caught Embezzling 50,000 Wolves

Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

From the Onion:

BILLINGS, MT—In what is being called the largest wildlife embezzlement scheme in more than 40 years, Department of Interior employee Stephen Kendrick, 48, was caught Monday diverting large sums of wolves from Yellowstone National Park into an offshore Cayman Islands reserve. “We initially became suspicious when we noticed an unusually large surplus of elk this year,” said Jon Jarvis, director of the National Park Service. “After a closer look, it was clear someone was skimming wolves off the top. We should have known. On his salary there was no way he could have that many wolves.” This is the largest wildlife misappropriation in the United States since 1968, when the FBI closed down several Chicago pet stores that had illegally obtained more than 300,000 cottontail rabbits in the nation’s biggest-ever bunny laundering scam.

WSJ on Off-Reservation Gaming

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From the WSJ:

The Obama administration may make it easier for Indian tribes to build casinos on land far from their reservations, a move likely to spur a wave of new casino development.

The Interior Department, which runs the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is reconsidering a Bush administration directive requiring that off-reservation casino sites be within commuting distance of the reservation. Many tribes, struggling with high unemployment and poverty on their reservations, are looking to casinos for jobs and other economic benefits.

Casino Applications

See where tribes have filed applications for off-reservation gaming.

“It’s an important issue. It’s a controversial issue and they’re rethinking it,” George Skibine, a deputy assistant secretary at the bureau, said in an interview last week. He added he expected a decision on whether to change the policy “fairly soon.”

Some governors, including Democrat David Paterson of New York and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, have come out in favor of certain projects in recent months.

Continue reading →

Onion: Dept. of Interior River Count Comes Up One Short

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Onion:

WASHINGTON—Officials at the Department of the Interior scrambled this week when their annual tally of the nation’s rivers repeatedly came up one short. “Okay, let’s start again—we have the Ohio, and then there’s the Mississippi, the Missouri…” said frantic Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes shuffling through a clutter of maps on his desk. “Wait, a river’s the one that flows toward the ocean, right? Or is that a tributary? Jesus, are rivers and tributaries the same thing?” Until the missing river turns up, DOI officials are advising all citizens to remain vigilant and immediately phone the department’s National River Hotline should they encounter any unusual bodies of water. 

Podcast on the History of the Department of Interior: “Sick Man” of American Government

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Thanks to Legal History Blog for this one (the “sick man” line is from that blog):

Patricia Limerick
Parks and Politics: Saving the American Environment
The University of Colorado, Boulder
July 22, 2008
Running Time: 51:41 (click here to find the play button)


Bureaucrats, University of Colorado professor of history Patricia Limerick argues, are often the most overlooked (at best) or reviled (at worst) of government officials, but they wield tremendous powers that shape Americans’ daily lives. Nowhere is this more true than in the bureaucracy of the U.S. Department of the Interior. A wide-ranging agency charged with both protecting land and promoting its use, the Department of the Interior implements federal law over millions of acres of land and mediates the claims of environmental, mining, foresting, farming, and ranching interests, among others. Bureaucracies like the Department of the Interior may be boring, Limerick argues, but historians cannot ignore their impact on the development of the American West.

Senate Republicans Block No. 2 Interior Nominee

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From the NYTs:

For the first time, Senate Republicans blocked a nominee of the Obama administration, mounting a filibuster against the appointment of David Hayes to be deputy secretary of the Interior Department in a dispute over oil and gas leases in Utah.

An attempt to force a final vote on Mr. Hayes’s nomination fell short of the required 60 votes Wednesday morning as Republicans stood nearly united against Mr. Hayes, a former Interior Department official during the Clinton administration.

Republicans were rallied to oppose the nomination by Senators Robert Bennett of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Senators said the cancellation of 77 oil and gas leases near federal parks in Utah showed the Obama administration was not taking the nation’s energy needs seriously.

“This is denying access to domestic oil and gas resources and making us more dependent on foreign oil and I think that is a really terrible idea,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.

Democrats said Mr. Hayes had nothing to do with the oil leasing decision and that Republicans were impeding Democratic efforts to make changes at the Interior Department, where some officials in the oil leasing branch were accused of corruption during the Bush administration.

“This was a tired vote of bitter obstructionism,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement issued after the vote. “It may be uncomfortable for some to watch us have to clean up mess after mess – from corruption to lawbreaking – that is the previous administration’s legacy at Interior, but to cast a vote against such a qualified person is the height of cynicism.”* * *