[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1575 Introduced in House (IH)]

110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1575

To reaffirm and clarify the Federal relationship of the Burt Lake Band 
    as a distinct federally recognized Indian Tribe, and for other 
                               purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 19, 2007

Mr. Stupak (for himself and Mr. Kildee) introduced the following bill; 
        which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To reaffirm and clarify the Federal relationship of the Burt Lake Band 
    as a distinct federally recognized Indian Tribe, and for other 
                               purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and 
Chippewa Indians Reaffirmation Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds as follows:
            (1) The members of the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and 
        Chippewa Indians, whose historic name is the Cheboigan (or 
        Cheboygan) Band, are descendants and political successors to 
        signatories of the 1836 Treaty of Washington and the 1855 
        Treaty of Detroit. The Band was twice recognized by the United 
        States, on a government-to-government relationship basis, 
        through the execution and ratification of those treaties.
            (2) The 1836 Treaty of Washington provided that the 
        Cheboigan Band would receive a reservation of 1,000 acres on 
        the Cheboigan, within its aboriginal territory, but the United 
        States failed to provide that reservation. The 1855 Treaty of 
        Detroit provided for the withdrawal of unsold lands in 2 
        Michigan townships 35 North and 36 North Range 3 West for the 
        use of the Cheboygan Band, but due to the Federal Government's 
        failure to act, those members who selected allotments within 
        that area were not awarded those individual land holdings until 
        3 years after a special Act of Congress was passed in 1872.
            (3) Between 1845 and 1850 the Band's members used treaty 
        annuity payments to purchase land for the Band in Burt 
        Township, Cheboygan County, Michigan. That land, called 
        Colonial Point, was placed in trust with the Governor of 
        Michigan on the advice of Federal Indian agents.
            (4) During the next 50 years, questions arose regarding the 
        taxability of the property, and the acreage was ultimately sold 
        for back taxes in 1900.
            (5) After the Band was forcibly evicted from Colonial Point 
        and its village was burned to the ground by its new owner, John 
        McGinn, the majority of the Band's families took up residency 
        on nearby Indian Road on lands which other Band members had 
        purchased or received as treaty allotments or homesteads.
            (6) In 1911, the United States filed suit in the United 
        States Federal District Court for Eastern Michigan seeking to 
        regain possession of the Colonial Point Lands (United States v. 
        McGinn, Equity No. 94, filed June 11, 1911). In its complaint, 
        the United States advised the Court that it was suing on behalf 
        of the ``Cheboygan band of Indians [which] is now and was at 
        all the times mentioned in this bill of complaint a tribe of 
        indians [sic] under the care, control, and guardianship of the 
        plaintiff and said band is now and was at all times mentioned 
        in this bill of complaint recognized by the plaintiff through 
        its chiefs or head men which it annually elects.''.
            (7) In 1917, the Federal District Court decided the McGinn 
        case against the United States finding that the language in the 
        Colonial Point deeds did not prevent the Colonial Point land 
        from being taxed.
            (8) Over the next 20 years, members of the Band asked the 
        United States to appeal or otherwise rectify the District 
        Court's decision, but no Federal action was taken. Throughout 
        this period, the United States continued to provide the Band 
        and its members with many of the same Federal services that 
        were being provided to other Indian tribes in Michigan.
            (9) The Act of June 18, 1934 (hereafter in this Act 
        referred to as the ``Indian Reorganization Act''), authorized 
        and directed the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide technical 
        assistance and Federal funds to petitioning tribes to assist 
        them in reorganizing their governments and improving their 
        economies. Members of the Cheboigan Band, as well as members of 
        other landless treaty Tribes in Michigan, submitted petitions 
        to receive that assistance. Similar petitions were also 
        submitted by 4 Michigan bands that still held communal lands. 
        Possession of a tribal land base was a prerequisite to the 
        receipt of most of the Federal funds and services provided for 
        in the Indian Reorganization Act.
            (10) While the Indian Reorganization Act directed the 
        Secretary to assist landless bands, like Burt Lake, and 
        authorized Federal funds to acquire land for landless tribes, 
        no Federal funds were appropriated to acquire new tribal lands 
        for any of the landless bands in Michigan. After struggling 
        with this dilemma, the Bureau of Indian Affairs extended the 
        benefits of the Indian Reorganization Act to only those 4 
        Michigan tribes that had an existing land base on the date of 
        the enactment of the Indian Reorganization Act. Of the Ottawa 
        and Chippewa Tribes who signed the 1836 and 1855 Treaties, only 
        1 group, the Bay Mills Indian Community, was reaffirmed.
            (11) The failure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to grant 
        Indian Reorganization Act benefits to the Cheboigan Band did 
        not terminate the band's government-to-government relationship 
        with the United States, and Congress has never taken any action 
        to terminate Federal acknowledgment of the Burt Lake Band.
            (12) The Bureau of Indian Affairs lacked and lacks the 
        legal authority to terminate a tribe that has been acknowledged 
        by an Act of Congress.
            (13) In recent years, the Federal recognition of the 
        following Michigan tribes, who were also denied the benefits of 
        the Indian Reorganization Act, has been reaffirmed:
                    (A) The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa was 
                reaffirmed by a Memorandum of the Commissioner of 
                Indian Affairs on September 7, 1972.
                    (B) The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa 
                Indians was reaffirmed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs 
                Branch of Acknowledgment on May 27, 1980.
                    (C) The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indian 
                and the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians each had 
                its Federal status reaffirmed by an Act of Congress on 
                September 21, 1994.
                    (D) The Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior 
                Chippewa Indians had its Federal status reaffirmed by 
                an Act of Congress at the request of the Administration 
                on September 8, 1988.
                    (E) The Pokagon Indian Nation had its Federal 
                status reaffirmed by an Act of Congress on September 
                21, 1994.
                    (F) The Huron Potawatomi Nation had its Federal 
                status reaffirmed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs' 
                Branch of Acknowledgment and Research on March 17, 
                1996.
                    (G) The Gun Lake Tribe (Match-She-Be-Nash-She-Wish) 
                had its Federal status reaffirmed by the Bureau of 
                Indian Affairs' Office of Federal Acknowledgment on 
                August 23, 1999.
            (14) The Band has been consistently recognized by third 
        parties as a distinct Indian community since well before 1900.
            (15) All of the Band's adult members are the children, 
        grandchildren, or great grandchildren of Indian persons who 
        resided on or near Colonial Point or Indian Road prior to 1910. 
        Most of the Band's adult members grew up on or near Indian Road 
        or had an immediate family member who did. As the result, the 
        Band's members have maintained very close social and political 
        ties. The Band has its own, well-defined membership criteria, 
        which requires the maintenance of tribal relations.
            (16) The Band's families have and continue to provide 
        mutual aid to each other, visit each other regularly, mobilize 
        to assist each other in times of need, practice traditional 
        arts and crafts, gather for Ghost Suppers, decorate the graves 
        of their ancestors, and participate in other traditional tribal 
        ceremonies and events.
            (17) Since 1829 the Band's members have attended and 
        consistently mobilized to maintain the Indian Mission Church of 
        St. Mary's, first on Colonial Point and later on Indian Road. 
        The Band's members have also worked together to maintain the 
        Tribe's 2 Indian cemeteries. They have also dug the graves and 
        buried their relatives in those 2 Indian cemeteries for almost 
        200 years.
            (18) The Band's members have throughout time made formal 
        and informal decisions for the community. The Band has also 
        organized its own modern tribal government without the 
        assistance of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
            (19) The majority of the Band's elders have a high degree 
        of Indian blood and continue to speak the Ottawa language when 
        they gather with each other. Before World War II, more than 50 
        percent of the Burt Lake families were still speaking the 
        traditional language in their homes, and more than 50 percent 
        of those tribal members who were married were married to other 
        Ottawa and Chippewa individuals.
            (20) There is no evidence that the Band has willfully 
        abandoned tribal relations, nor is there any evidence that the 
        Congress has taken any legal action to terminate its 
        government-to-government relations with the Band.
            (21) Because the Bureau of Indian Affairs failed to review 
        the Band's petition for over 20 years, a percentage of the 
        Band's members enrolled in other Tribes in order to obtain the 
        Federal services, most notably health care and prescription 
        drug assistance, that they were legally entitled to, but denied 
        as members of Burt Lake. This step was often taken on the 
        advice of one or more employees of the Bureau of Indian 
        Affairs. This duel enrollment situation has now created a new 
        problem for the Band's reaffirmation, because the Bureau of 
        Indian Affairs' current regulations prohibit it from 
        recognizing a tribe when a part of the tribe's community is or 
        was enrolled in another federally recognized tribe.
            (22) In September 2006, the Bureau of Indian Affairs denied 
        the Band's petition for reaffirmation even though it found that 
        the Band has been recognized as a distinct tribe by scholars, 
        local and State officials, and other tribes from treaty to the 
        present, and even though it found that the Burt Lake's members 
        still maintain a strong and unique Indian community. In its 
        letter denying the Band's request for reaffirmation, under the 
        section informing the Band of its current options, the Bureau 
        of Indian Affairs stated that ``Congress may consider taking 
        legislative action to recognize petitioners that do not meet 
        the specific requirements of the acknowledgment regulations but 
        may have merit.''.
            (23) Because the Tribe has exhausted its administrative 
        remedies, and because the Bureau of Indian Affairs has found 
        that its regulations prohibit it from reaffirming the Band's 
        government to government relationship through its Office of 
        Federal Acknowledgment, this legislation is both necessary and 
        appropriate.

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

    For purposes of this Act--
            (1) the term ``Band'' or ``Tribe'' means the Burt Lake Band 
        of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians which was previously called the 
        Cheboigan or Cheboygan Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians;
            (2) the term ``Burn Out'' means the destruction of the 
        Colonial Point Indian Village of the Burt Lake Band in 1900;
            (3) the term ``OFA'' means the Office of Federal 
        Acknowledgment, a Branch of the United States Department of 
        Interior's Bureau of Indian of Indian Affairs; and
            (4) the term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary of the 
        Interior.

SEC. 4. FEDERAL RECOGNITION.

    (a) Federal Recognition.--Federal recognition of the Burt Lake Band 
of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians is hereby reaffirmed. All laws and 
regulations of the United States of general application to Indians or 
nations, tribes, or bands of Indians including the Act of June 18, 1934 
(25 U.S.C. 461 et seq., commonly referred to as the ``Indian 
Reorganization Act''), which are inconsistent with any specific 
provision of this Act shall not be applicable to the Band and its 
members.
    (b) Federal Services and Benefits.--
            (1) In general.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
        law, after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Band and 
        its members shall be eligible for all services and benefits 
        provided by the Federal Government to Indians because of their 
        status as federally recognized Indians without regard to the 
        existence of a reservation or the location of the residence of 
        any member on or near any Indian reservation.
            (2) Service area.--For purposes of the delivery of Federal 
        services to the enrolled members of the Band and to other 
        Indians, all of Cheboygan County Michigan, and any area in the 
        State of Michigan that is outside of Cheboygan County, but 
        located within 25 miles of the Tribe's Cemetery at the St. 
        Mary's Indian Mission Church, shall be deemed to be within the 
        Service Area of the Burt Lake Band. Nothing contained herein 
        shall prohibit the Federal Government from providing services 
        to members of the Band who reside or are domiciled outside this 
        Service Area, or from otherwise expanding the Band's Service 
        Area in compliance with applicable Federal law and policy. If 
        any part of the Band's service area overlaps with the service 
        area of another federally recognized Indian tribe, that overlap 
        shall be addressed in compliance with existing Federal policies 
        and regulations.

SEC. 5. REAFFIRMATION OF RIGHTS.

    (a) In General.--All rights and privileges of the Band and its 
members, which may have been abrogated or diminished before the date of 
the enactment of this Act are hereby reaffirmed.
    (b) Existing Rights of Tribe.--Nothing in this Act shall be 
construed to diminish any right or privilege of the Band or of its 
members that existed before the date of the enactment of this Act. 
Except as otherwise specifically provided in any other provision of 
this Act, nothing in this Act shall be construed as altering or 
affecting any legal or equitable claim the Band may have to enforce any 
right or privilege reserved by or granted to the Band which was 
wrongfully denied to or taken from the Band before the date of the 
enactment of this Act.

SEC. 6. TRIBAL LANDS.

    The Secretary shall acquire real property in Cheboygan County in 
trust for the benefit of the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa 
Indians, if at the time of such acceptance by the Secretary, there are 
no adverse legal claims on such property including outstanding liens, 
mortgages or taxes owed. Such lands shall become part of the initial 
reservation of the Band at the request of the Band. The Secretary is 
also authorized to acquire and accept real property in other geographic 
areas into trust for the benefit of the Band and to declare those lands 
to be a part of the Band's Reservation or Initial Reservation to the 
full extent otherwise authorized by applicable law.

SEC. 7. MEMBERSHIP.

    (a) In General.--The initial membership of the Burt Lake Band of 
Ottawa and Chippewa Indians shall consist of persons who can present 
evidence, acceptable to the Tribe, showing that they meet the 
requirements of subsection (b), and persons who meet such other 
requirements as are specified by the Tribe in its Tribe's Constitution 
and Enrollment Ordinance as the same may be from time-to-time amended.
    (b) Membership Criteria.--
            (1) To qualify for membership in the Burt Lake Band of 
        Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, a person must be able to 
        demonstrate through evidence acceptable to the Tribe that the 
        person meets at least 1 of the following requirements:
                    (A) The person descends from one or more tribal 
                members who were domiciled at Colonial Point, Burt 
                Township, Cheboygan County, Michigan before or at the 
                time that the Tribe's village was burned in October 
                1900, as said tribal members are identified in the 
                United States v. McGinn litigation and related 
                documents, the 1950 Albert Shananaquet list of Colonial 
                Point Residents, or both.
                    (B) The person descends from one or more tribal 
                members who are listed on the 1900 and/or the 1910 Burt 
                Lake Township Federal Census, Indian Enumeration 
                Schedule.
                    (C) The person has an Indian ancestor who was, 
                prior to 1910, living in tribal relations with the Burt 
                Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians as the Burt 
                Lake Band is defined in this Act.
                    (D) The person descends from Rose Midwagon Moses.
            (2) In addition to the requirements under paragraph (1), to 
        qualify for membership in the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and 
        Chippewa Indians, a person must be able to demonstrate through 
        evidence acceptable to the Tribe that the person meets all of 
        the following criteria:
                    (A) That the person is in tribal relations with 
                other Burt Lake Band members.
                    (B) That the person's ancestors have lived in 
                tribal relations with other Burt Lake Band members on a 
                substantially continuous basis from 1910 to the 
                present.
                    (C) That the person has a completed tribal 
                membership enrollment file as prescribed by the Tribal 
                Enrollment Ordinance.
                    (D) That the person's membership application has 
                been processed and that the person has been approved 
                for membership in the Burt Lake Band in the manner 
                prescribed by the Tribal Enrollment Ordinance.
    (c) Base Roll.--The Tribe shall provide a copy of the base roll of 
the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians to the Assistant 
Secretary for Indians Affairs not later than 12 months after the date 
of the enactment of this Act. The base roll shall consist of the 320 
persons whose names were listed on the official roll of the Burt Lake 
Band which were members submitted by the Band to the Bureau of Indian 
Affairs' Office of Federal Acknowledgment on May 2, 2005, and shall 
also include the biological sons and daughters who were born to those 
members between the submission of that list and the enactment of this 
Act. The Base Roll shall also include those descendants of Burt Lake 
members who resided at Colonial Point prior to the Burn Out, who--
            (1) meet the enrollment criteria established by this 
        section;
            (2) seek enrollment in the Burt Lake Band not later than 12 
        months after the date of the enactment of this Act; and
            (3) are accepted for enrollment in the Band in the manner 
        prescribed by the Band's Constitution.

SEC. 8. CONSTITUTION.

    The initial constitution of the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and 
Chippewa Indians shall be the constitution which the Band submitted to 
the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of Federal Acknowledgment on May 
2, 2005.
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