[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 204 (Thursday, December 3, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H6096-H6099]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEECH LAKE BAND OF OJIBWE RESERVATION RESTORATION ACT
Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill
(S. 199) to provide for the transfer of certain Federal land in the
State of Minnesota for the benefit of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
S. 199
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 ``Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe
Reservation Restoration Act''.
SEC. 2. LEECH LAKE BAND OF OJIBWE RESERVATION RESTORATION.
(a) Findings.--Congress finds that--
(1) the Federal land described in subsection (b)(1) was
taken from members of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe during a
period--
(A) beginning in 1948;
(B) during which the Bureau of Indian Affairs incorrectly
interpreted an order of the Secretary of the Interior to mean
that the Department of the Interior had the authority to sell
tribal allotments without the consent of a majority of the
rightful landowners; and
(C) ending in 1959, when the Secretary of the Interior
was--
(i) advised that sales described in subparagraph (B) were
illegal; and
(ii) ordered to cease conducting those sales;
(2) as a result of the Federal land described in subsection
(b)(1) being taken from members of the Leech Lake Band of
Ojibwe, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe hold the smallest
percentage of its original reservation lands of any Ojibwe
bands in Minnesota;
(3)(A) the applicable statute of limitations prohibits
individuals from pursuing through litigation the return of
the land taken as described in paragraph (1); but
[[Page H6097]]
(B) a Federal judge ruled that the land could be restored
to the affected individuals through the legislative process;
(4) a comprehensive review of the Federal land demonstrated
that--
(A) a portion of the Federal land is encumbered by--
(i) utility easements;
(ii) rights-of-way for roads; and
(iii) flowage and reservoir rights; and
(B) there are no known cabins, campgrounds, lodges, or
resorts located on any portion of the Federal land; and
(5) on reacquisition by the Tribe of the Federal land, the
Tribe--
(A) has pledged to respect the easements, rights-of-way,
and other rights described in paragraph (4)(A); and
(B)(i) does not intend immediately to modify the use of the
Federal land; but
(ii) will keep the Federal land in tax-exempt fee status as
part of the Chippewa National Forest until the Tribe develops
a plan that allows for a gradual subdivision of some tracts
for economic and residential development by the Tribe.
(b) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Federal land.--
(A) In general.--The term ``Federal land'' means the
approximately 11,760 acres of Federal land located in the
Chippewa National Forest in Cass County, Minnesota, the
boundaries of which shall be depicted on the map, and
described in the legal description, submitted under
subsection (d)(1)(B).
(B) Inclusions.--The term ``Federal land'' includes--
(i) any improvement located on the Federal land described
in subparagraph (A); and
(ii) any appurtenance to the Federal land.
(2) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary
of Agriculture.
(3) Tribe.--The term ``Tribe'' means the Leech Lake Band of
Ojibwe.
(c) Transfer to Reservation.--
(1) In general.--Subject to valid existing rights and
paragraph (2), the Secretary shall transfer to the
administrative jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior
all right, title, and interest of the United States in and to
the Federal land.
(2) Treatment.--Effective immediately on the transfer under
paragraph (1), the Federal land shall be--
(A) held in trust by the United States for the benefit of
the Tribe; and
(B) considered to be a part of the reservation of the
Tribe.
(d) Survey, Map, and Legal Description.--
(1) In general.--The Secretary shall--
(A) not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of
this Act, complete a plan of survey to establish the
boundaries of the Federal land; and
(B) as soon as practicable after the date of enactment of
this Act, submit a map and legal description of the Federal
land to--
(i) the Committee on Natural Resources of the House of
Representatives; and
(ii) the Committee on Indian Affairs of the Senate.
(2) Force and effect.--The map and legal description
submitted under paragraph (1)(B) shall have the same force
and effect as if included in this Act, except that the
Secretary may correct any clerical or typographical error in
the map or legal description.
(3) Public availability.--The map and legal description
submitted under paragraph (1)(B) shall be on file and
available for public inspection in the office of the
Secretary.
(e) Administration.--
(1) In general.--Except as otherwise expressly provided in
this section, nothing in this section affects any right or
claim of the Tribe, as in existence on the date of enactment
of this Act, to any land or interest in land.
(2) Prohibitions.--
(A) Exports of unprocessed logs.--Federal law (including
regulations) relating to the export of unprocessed logs
harvested from Federal land shall apply to any unprocessed
logs that are harvested from the Federal land.
(B) Non-permissible use of land.--The Federal land shall
not be eligible or used for any gaming activity carried out
under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (25 U.S.C. 2701 et
seq.).
(3) Forest management.--Any commercial forestry activity
carried out on the Federal land shall be managed in
accordance with applicable Federal law.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Hawaii (Mr. Case) and the gentlewoman from Puerto Rico (Miss Gonzalez-
Colon) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Hawaii.
General Leave
Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material on the measure under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Hawaii?
There was no objection.
Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, S. 199, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Reservation
Restoration Act, introduced by Senator Tina Smith from Minnesota,
directs the Department of Agriculture to transfer approximately 11,760
acres of Federal land in the Chippewa National Forest to the Department
of the Interior to be held in trust for the benefit of the Tribe.
The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe is a federally recognized Tribe with
approximately 10,660 members with a reservation located within the
National Chippewa Forest in Cass County, Minnesota. The Leech Lake Band
has the largest population of all the Minnesota Tribes yet the smallest
amount of land available for its use.
Much of the Tribe's land was lost when many of its members were
illegally dispossessed of their land via ``secretarial transfers''
during the 1950s. Secretarial transfers were a transaction where the
Department of the Interior approved the sale or transfer of Tribal land
and/or individually owned Indian allotments without the consent of the
Tribe or the individual Indian allottees. This practice resulted in the
Tribe having insufficient land to meet the current needs of its
membership.
The return of the land through S. 199 will assist the Tribe in
rebuilding its land base, enable the protection of sacred sites, and
allow the construction of housing on some of the tracts near the
Tribe's existing communities.
The Tribe intends to respect all existing easements, rights of way,
and other encumbrances on the land and does not intend to immediately
modify the current land uses. Additionally, the land will stay in tax-
exempt fee status as part of the Chippewa National Forest until the
Tribe develops a plan for future economic and residential use.
I want to especially commend the Tribe for working together with
local electric co-ops on a memorandum of understanding regarding some
of the last remaining issues so that we could bring the bill before us
today in a bipartisan fashion.
I want to also extend sincere appreciation to our colleague from
Minnesota (Ms. McCollum) for introducing the House companion of the
legislation, H.R. 733, and for working diligently with the Natural
Resources Committee, the Tribe, and the local interests to ensure that
passage of this bill could become a reality.
Mr. Speaker, I urge quick adoption of S. 199, and I reserve the
balance of my time.
Miss GONZALEZ-COLON of Puerto Rico. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to
the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).
Mr. STAUBER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 199,
legislation that rights a historic wrong made against a Tribe in my
district, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.
Right after I took office, Chairman Jackson and other leaders from
the Leech Lake Band approached me with a longstanding issue. In the
1950s, the Secretary of Agriculture claimed land owned by Leech Lake
under a dubious administrative transfer, ignoring pleas from the Tribe
and upending the Tribal tradition of land ownership.
Landholdings such as these are the foundation of Tribal sovereignty.
Therefore, this wrong had to be righted with an act of Congress that
transfers the roughly 11,000 acres back from the Agriculture Department
to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.
From the first conversation I had with the band, I supported this
land exchange. This acreage was taken from Leech Lake and needed to be
returned. Unfortunately, the legislation itself was flawed. It lacked
any language allowing rural utilities access to longstanding rights of
ways and easements to ensure maintenance for power and other services
can be performed. It is crucial this transfer is done the right way,
meaning electric cooperatives delivering power have the access they
need for maintenance.
Therefore, I worked with the band and the rural electric cooperatives
to achieve a win-win solution. Through a years-long negotiation, I am
happy to see a signed memorandum of understanding between Leech Lake
and the cooperatives delivering service in the area, which include
Beltrami Electric, Lake Country Power, and Crow Wing Power.
After receiving and reviewing the memorandum to accompany the bill, I
supported its passage through the
[[Page H6098]]
House Natural Resources Committee. With it now on the House floor, I
look forward to its passage and the President signing the Leech Lake
Band of Ojibwe Reservation Restoration Act into law.
Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Minnesota (Ms. McCollum), who is the principal introducer of the House
companion bill.
Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I thank my classmate from Hawaii, who is
overseeing this legislation on the floor today. I thank the chairman of
the full committee as well as the subcommittee chair and the members of
the Natural Resources Committee for their unanimous support of H.R.
733, the House companion to S. 199, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe
Reservation Restoration Act.
I want to thank Leech Lake's Tribal leaders personally for entrusting
me with the responsibility of advancing this bill as the sponsor in the
House and introducing the bill in the way they wanted it to be
introduced so that they could have negotiations to move this language
forward. I am proud of the ability that we all had in working together
to make today a reality and that we will be voting on this final
version of the bill.
As I said, it has passed through the Senate, and it passed through
the Senate unanimously. I look forward to seeing this legislation
signed into law.
Join me in voting today to restore the land that was illegally taken
from Tribal nations by the Federal Government during the allotment era.
Today we, collectively--the U.S. Congress--have an opportunity to
correct a past injustice by returning the land to the Leech Lake Band
of Ojibwe that the Federal Government sold without the consent of the
rightful owners, to have it returned to them.
Between 1948 and 1955, approximately 17,000 acres were illegally
transferred by the Department of the Interior. The bill we are
considering today would return more than 11,000 of those acres to the
Tribe. The return of this land from the Forest Service is vitally
important to the Leech Lake Band. They currently own less than 5
percent of the land--5 percent of the land--within the boundaries of
their reservation. This is the smallest percentage of any Minnesota
Tribal nations.
The Chippewa National Forest holds over 75 percent of the land within
their reservation. Tribal leaders at Leech Lake have worked diligently
for many years in partnership with the Chippewa National Forest in Cass
County to identify the illegally transferred parcels of land and to
build local support for this legislation. They have addressed concerns
with the transfer through open dialogue and have created a win-win
situation for everyone involved.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the
gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).
Ms. McCOLLUM. The chairman of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe has sent
a letter that describes the injustices that were done when the land was
illegally taken from Tribal members and the efforts that have gone into
this bill that we will vote on today to create that injustice.
Mr. Speaker, I include this letter in the Record.
LEECH LAKE
BAND OF OJIBWE,
Cass Lake, MN, November 17, 2020.
Hon. Betty McCollum,
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Congresswoman McCollum: I write on behalf of the Leech
Lake Band of Ojibwe to express our thanks to you for
sponsoring H.R. 733, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe
Reservation Restoration Act. H.R. 733 will right a historical
injustice to the Leech Lake people by restoring 11,760 acres
to tribal trust status that the Interior Department illegally
transferred out of trust more than 70 years ago.
Previously, former Congressman Rick Nolan introduced a
similar bill in the 115th Congress. While the identical
companion bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent in
December of 2018, it failed to advance in the House of
Representatives before the end of the session.
In January of 2019, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe asked you
to reintroduce the Leech Lake Reservation Restoration Act to
the 116th Congress. As the former Co-Chair of the
Congressional Native American Caucus, your sponsorship of the
bill helped elevate the national importance of this
legislation and highlighted the historic injustice of the
federal takings of Leech Lake Reservation trust lands.
The Leech Lake Indian Reservation was established through a
series of treaties with the United States and presidential
executive orders from 1855 to 1874. The initial Leech Lake
Reservation consisted or 588,684 acres of the Band's
homelands and included the most valuable red and white pine
in the region. These treaties and executive orders promised
that the reserved lands would be the Band's permanent
homeland.
The United States violated these promises through a series
of federal laws and policies from 1889 to 1911, moving nearly
530,000 acres of our homelands out of trust status. These
federal actions unilaterally sold off large swaths of our
Reservation, and separately established what is now the
Chippewa National Forest, all without consent of the Band.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the federal government, through
unauthorized administrative actions, took approximately
17,000 acres of additional Leech Lake Reservation lands again
without consent of the Band or individual tribal landowners.
In these agency-to-agency transfers, known as ``secretarial
transfers'', the Interior Department illegally transferred
Leech Lake trust lands to the USDA-Forest Service. The
Interior Department put a stop to the illegal transfers in
1955 when Department attorneys acknowledged that the actions
violated federal law. Lawsuits were filed to restore these
lands to trust status in federal courts, but the claims were
time barred. As a result, the only means of achieving justice
for the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe is through federal
legislation. H.R. 733/S. 199 would restore the portion of
these illegal secretarial transfer lands located within Cass
County back to the Interior Department to be held in trust
for the Band.
The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe has worked for many years to
identify the illegally transferred land parcels, build local
support and address any concerns with the bill. When it was
clear the only recourse to recover these lands was federal
legislation, the Band met on several occasions with
leadership of the Chippewa National Forest to discuss the
issue and draft the bill. The bill includes language
consistent with the U.S. Forest Service's mission to adhere
to national and local policies regarding the management of
Federal lands. It directs the Secretary to work with the
Chippewa National Forest Supervisor and the Band to identify
Federal lands in Cass County near concentrations of the Leech
Lake population and tribal government facilities to ensure
that transferred lands address the immediate needs of the
Band and reduce fragmentation of federal land holdings.
In addition, the Band has held several meetings with rural
electric co-ops and other utilities that utilize federal
lands to ensure the bill would protect rights of way on any
transferred lands. Through meeting and open dialogue, we were
able to address the concerns of the ROW permitees and ensure
that access is maintained not only for citizens of our
community relying on these essential utility services, but
also for the companies crossing federal lands.
Thanks to the work in addressing concerns with the Leech
Lake Reservation Restoration Act, the United States Senate
once again passed the identical companion bill to H.R. 733,
S. 199, by unanimous consent in June of 2019. Likewise, the
House Natural Resources Committee approved the bill by
unanimous voice vote on September 30, 2020.
Advancing this bill to final passage in the U.S. House of
Representatives will restore a sense of justice that
generations of our Leech Lake people have been working to
achieve and provide the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe the
necessary land base to combat the housing and homelessness,
longstanding problems that have been highlighted as urgent
needs by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe values your friendship and
dedication to protecting and preserving tribal sovereignty.
We look forward to continuing our work together on this bill
and the many other policy issues facing Indian Country and
our Nation in these trying times.
Sincerely,
Faron Jackson, Sr.,
Chairman.
Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, restoring this land to the Leech Lake
reservation will support Tribal communities while also preserving the
area for public recreation. It will allow the Tribe to consistently
apply their forest management plan across a greater portion of the
reservation. It will also respect all the rights of ways of the utility
permits.
It will be good for Leech Lake Band, good for the forest, and good
for local communities. And it will be good to correct a historical
injustice.
Mr. Speaker, I urge support for S. 199.
Miss GONZALEZ-COLON of Puerto Rico. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such
time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, as was just explained by my colleague across the aisle,
S. 199 would place approximately 11,000 acres of Federal land managed
by the U.S. Forest Service into trust for the Leech Lake Band.
[[Page H6099]]
The Tribe and the lands that would be held into trust under this bill
are located in the Eighth Congressional District, which is represented
by Republican Congressman Pete Stauber. I want to thank Mr. Stauber for
his hard work on this legislation because, without it, we would not be
here today.
After the House companion bill, H.R. 733, was introduced by
Congresswoman McCollum, it was determined that a number of the parcels
affected by the bills had encumbrances, mainly those of public utility
co-ops.
This was, again, another bill that was not properly vetted prior to
introduction by a Member from this district. I truly believe that,
since that time, Congressman Stauber has been a leader in efforts to
bring the Tribe and several utility co-ops together to come to a legal
agreement to resolve those issues with these easements.
We have some concerns regarding the enforceability of this document
but appreciate the willingness of all parties to seek a consensus. I
think that is the important part today, that there is finally a
consensus on this issue. That is a policy the Natural Resources
Committee majority has little interest in pursuing because,
unfortunately, S. 199 does not reflect this improvement in the bill
text. Let's hope the parties will continue to act in good faith despite
this.
I, again, thank Mr. Stauber for his efforts and the members of the
committee who worked across the aisle to make this happen today. I am
pleased he joined our committee during this year. He has been one of
the more active members of the committee during his short tenure.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this valuable
legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case) that the House suspend the rules and
pass the bill, S. 199.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________