Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05360/USCOURTS-caDC-13-05360-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 4, 2016 Decided July 1, 2016

No. 13-5360

AKIACHAK NATIVE COMMUNITY, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

v.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND SALLY 

JEWELL, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR,

APPELLEES

STATE OF ALASKA,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:06-cv-00969)

J. Anne Nelson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the 

Attorney General for the State of Alaska, argued the cause 

and filed the briefs for appellant. 

Elizabeth Ann Peterson, Attorney, U.S. Department of 

Justice, argued the cause for federal appellees. With her on 

the brief were John C. Cruden, Assistant Attorney General, 

and William B. Lazarus, Attorney. 

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Heather R. Kendall-Miller argued the cause for tribal 

appellees. With her on the brief were Matthew N. Newman, 

Richard Guest, Lloyd Benton Miller, Hollis L. Handler, and 

Goriune Dudukgian.

Before: TATEL, BROWN, and MILLETT, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge BROWN.

TATEL, Circuit Judge: In 1971, after decades of conflict, 

the United States finally settled land claims staked by 

descendants of Alaskan aboriginal tribes. The U.S. 

Department of Interior had long interpreted this settlement to 

bar it from taking land into trust for Indian tribes in Alaska. In 

this case, several Alaska Native tribes sued the Department, 

challenging the regulation implementing that prohibition. 

After the district court held that Interior’s interpretation was 

contrary to law, the Department, following notice and 

comment, revised its regulations and dismissed its appeal. The 

State of Alaska disagrees with both the district court and 

Interior, and now seeks to prevent any new efforts by the 

United States to take tribal land in trust within the State’s

borders. Unfortunately for Alaska, which intervened in the 

district court as a defendant and brought no independent claim 

for relief, the controversy between the tribes and the 

Department is now moot. We therefore dismiss Alaska’s 

appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

I.

Like many Alaska Native tribes, the three tribes that 

initiated this litigation—Akiachak Native Community, 

Chalkyitsik Village, and Tuluksak Native Community—live 

in small villages reachable only by air and water. Compl. 

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¶¶ 24, 30, 41. These tribes, together with the Chilkoot Indian 

Association (collectively “Akiachak”), sought to persuade the 

Department of Interior to take certain land into trust—a form 

of restricted land ownership under which the United States 

possesses legal title to land for the benefit of Indian tribes. Id. 

¶¶ 29, 36, 40, 42. They believed that trust status would 

“ensure [the] protection” of these lands “for future

generations of tribal members,” id. ¶ 40, as well as allow 

them to “assert undisputed jurisdiction over [these] lands” and 

obtain federal enforcement of ordinances banning alcohol 

sales, id. ¶ 35.

Akiachak, however, faced a significant barrier to this 

course of action: the Department of Interior had long 

maintained that it was legally barred from procuring trust land 

in Alaska. See 25 C.F.R. § 151.1 (1980) (establishing that the 

Department of Interior’s land-into-trust regulations “do not 

cover the acquisition of land in trust status in the State of 

Alaska, except acquisitions for” one tribe lacking aboriginal 

claims). By filing this lawsuit, Akiachak set out to change 

that.

Some background is necessary to understand the basis for 

Akiachak’s claim to relief. Acquisition of Indian trust lands 

by the U.S. government has a long history. The Indian 

Reorganization Act of 1934 (IRA) authorizes the Secretary of 

the Interior to acquire trust lands, 25 U.S.C. § 465, and

designate new Indian reservations, id. § 467. The IRA 

considers Alaska Natives to be Indians for purposes of the 

Act, id. § 479, but originally excluded Alaska, then a territory, 

from the trust acquisition provision, Indian Reorganization 

Act of 1934, Pub. L. No. 73-383, § 13, 48 Stat. 984, 986. In 

1936, Congress extended the IRA’s trust authority to Alaska 

and authorized the Secretary to designate as reservations land 

that had been allocated for Indian use under prior statutes and 

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executive orders, Act of May 1, 1936, Pub. L. No. 74-538, 

§§ 1, 2, 49 Stat. 1250, resulting in the designation of seven 

reservations and the acquisition of several other properties in 

trust, Akiachak Native Community v. Salazar (Akiachak I), 

935 F. Supp. 2d 195, 198 (D.D.C. 2013). Six decades later, in 

1994, Congress added an antidiscrimination provision that 

prohibited the Department of Interior from “classif[ying], 

enhanc[ing], or diminish[ing] the privileges and immunities 

available to a federally recognized Indian tribe relative to the 

privileges and immunities available to other federally 

recognized tribes.” Act of May 31, 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-

263, 108 Stat. 707, 709 (codified at 25 U.S.C. § 476(g)). 

But these ownership schemes left unresolved many

outstanding land claims by Alaska Natives based on 

aboriginal rights, that is, “possessory rights of Indian tribes to 

their aboriginal lands . . . extinguishable only by the United 

States.” Oneida Indian Nation of New York v. Oneida County, 

414 U.S. 661, 667 (1974). After Alaska became a state in 

1959, this potential for outstanding aboriginal claims limited 

the U.S. government’s ability to transfer land to the new state 

under the Alaska Statehood Act. Conflict over the State’s land 

selections prompted Congress to pass the Alaska Native 

Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) in 1971. “[D]esigned to 

settle all land claims by Alaska Natives,” ANCSA

extinguished aboriginal claims and revoked all designated 

reservations, except for one: the Annette Island Reserve 

inhabited by the Metlakatla Indians, who, as immigrants from 

Canada, had no aboriginal claims to Alaska lands. Alaska v. 

Native Village of Venetie Tribal Government, 522 U.S. 520, 

523–24 (1998); Federal Appellees’ Br. 8. In exchange, Alaska 

Natives received approximately 44 million acres of land and 

$962.5 million, to be distributed through corporations owned 

by Alaska Native shareholders. Venetie, 522 U.S. at 524 

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(citing 43 U.S.C. §§ 1605, 1607, 1613). Congress declared 

that the settlement 

should be accomplished rapidly, with certainty, in 

conformity with the real economic and social needs 

of Natives, without litigation, with maximum 

participation by Natives in decisions affecting their 

rights and property, without establishing any 

permanent racially defined institutions, rights, 

privileges, or obligations, without creating a 

reservation system or lengthy wardship or 

trusteeship, and without adding to the categories of 

property and institutions enjoying special tax 

privileges or to the legislation establishing special 

relationships between the United States Government 

and the State of Alaska[.]

43 U.S.C. § 1601(b). Following ANCSA’s passage, Congress 

repealed other statutes governing procurement of land for use 

by Alaska Natives, including the 1936 amendment 

authorizing the Secretary to designate reservations in Alaska. 

Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, Pub. L. 

No. 94-579, § 704(a), 90 Stat. 2743, 2792. Importantly,

however, Congress never repealed the IRA’s Alaska trust 

provision.

In 1978, a tribe’s request to take certain land into trust

spurred the Department of Interior to determine ANCSA’s 

effect on its authority to acquire trust lands in Alaska. 

Concluding that “Congress intended permanently to remove 

from trust status all Native land in Alaska except allotments

and the Annette Island Reserve,” Memorandum from Thomas 

W. Fredericks, Associate Solicitor, Indian Affairs, to 

Assistant Secretary, Indian Affairs 3 (Sept. 15, 1978)

(“Fredericks Opinion”), Interior published regulations 

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governing acquisition of Indian trust land that excluded “the 

acquisition of land in trust status in the State of Alaska,” a 

provision known as the “Alaska exception.” 25 C.F.R. § 151.1 

(1980). It was this Alaska exception that stood in Akiachak’s 

way. 

Akiachak filed the complaint in this case against the 

Secretary and the Department of Interior, seeking declaratory 

relief in the form of an order ruling that the Alaska exception 

violated the IRA’s antidiscrimination provision, the 

Constitution, and the Administrative Procedure Act. Compl. 

¶¶ 54, 56, 58; id. Prayer for Relief ¶¶ I–III. Akiachak also 

sought an injunction directing Interior “to implement the 

acquisition of land into trust procedures without regard to the 

bar against Alaska tribes” and “to accept and consider 

Plaintiffs’ requests to have lands in Alaska taken into trust.” 

Id. Prayer for Relief ¶¶ IV–V. 

The State of Alaska, seeking to defend the Alaska 

exception’s validity, intervened in the district court as a 

defendant. The State filed an answer in which it presented 

several affirmative defenses, including that Akiachak’s claims 

were “barred by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.” 

State of Alaska’s Answer, Affirmative Defenses ¶ 3. The 

State’s answer also included a prayer for relief in which it

requested “entry of a judgment . . . declaring [the Alaska 

exception] compliant with [the IRA’s antidiscrimination 

provision],” “denying plaintiffs’ requested injunctive relief,” 

and “declaring [the Alaska exception] consistent with and 

compelled by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.” Id.

Prayer for Relief ¶¶ 1, 4, 6. Alaska’s answer included no 

purported crossclaim against Interior or counterclaim against 

Akiachak, nor did the State file any separate crossclaim or 

counterclaim.

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In response to cross motions for summary judgment, the 

district court agreed with Akiachak that the Alaska exception 

violated the IRA and granted summary judgment in its favor. 

Akiachak I, 935 F. Supp. 2d at 210–11. The court observed 

that the 1936 amendments to the IRA had expressly granted 

the Secretary authority to take land into trust in Alaska. Id. at 

203. Akiachak argued—and Interior agreed—that such 

authority had survived ANCSA, while Alaska argued that 

ANCSA had “implicitly repealed the Secretary’s statutory 

authority to take Alaska land into trust outside of Metlakatla.” 

Id. at 203–04. Following thorough consideration of Alaska’s 

arguments, the district court concluded that “[f]rom the 

weight of the textual and structural evidence, and the strength 

of the presumption against implicit repeals, . . . ANCSA left 

intact the Secretary’s authority to take land into trust 

throughout Alaska.” Id. at 208. The court then ruled that 

because the Alaska exception prevented the Secretary from 

considering trust petitions from non-Metlakatlan Alaska 

Natives, it violated the IRA’s antidiscrimination provision. Id.

at 210–11.

The district court then ordered the parties to brief the 

question of the appropriate remedy. Abandoning its claim to 

injunctive relief, Akiachak urged the court to remand to the 

Secretary for “curative rulemaking.” Akiachak Native 

Community v. Jewell (Akiachak II), 995 F. Supp. 2d 1, 6 

(D.D.C. 2013). Instead, the district court severed and vacated

the portion of 25 C.F.R. § 151.1 that constituted the Alaska 

exception. Id. Vacatur was appropriate, the court concluded, 

because “the deficiencies of the Alaska exception [were] fatal; 

the Secretary could not promulgate it again on remand.” Id.

Subsequently, the district court granted Alaska’s motion to 

enjoin Interior from taking any land into trust pending appeal. 

Akiachak Native Community v. Jewell (Akiachak III), 995 F. 

Supp. 2d 7, 18–19 (D.D.C. 2014).

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Although Interior initially appealed the district court’s 

judgment, it eventually decided to revise its regulations and 

drop its appeal. Specifically, it issued a proposed rule 

eliminating the Alaska exception, and sought comment on

that course of action. 79 Fed. Reg. 24,648, 24,649 (May 1, 

2014). Alaska filed comments in opposition and also filed a 

motion in the district court to enjoin the rulemaking. The 

district court denied the motion, noting that Alaska had never 

“argue[d] that the Proposed Rule or the rulemaking process 

itself [would] cause it irreparable harm,” and explaining that 

such processes could cause no such harm “[b]ecause the 

rulemaking process marks such a preliminary step, and one 

with limited consequences,” given that the court “ha[d]

already severed the Alaska exception to the land into trust 

regulations.” Akiachak III, 995 F. Supp. 2d at 15. Following 

the comment period, Interior then finalized the rule and 

removed the Alaska exception from its land-into-trust 

regulations. 79 Fed. Reg. 76,888 (Dec. 23, 2014). Noting that 

“[a] number of recent developments . . . caused the 

Department to look carefully at this issue again,” “including a 

pending lawsuit” and “urgent policy recommendations” from 

two blue-ribbon commissions, Interior “carefully reexamined 

the legal basis for the Secretary’s discretionary authority to 

take land into trust in Alaska” and concluded that “ANCSA 

left . . . the Secretary’s . . . land-into-trust authority in Alaska 

intact.” Id. at 76,889–90. According to Interior, “[t]he district 

court’s judgment in [Akiachak I] is consistent with the 

conclusion we reach but is not the basis for the Department’s 

decision to eliminate the Alaska Exception.” Id. at 76,891.

Alaska has not challenged the new regulation.

After Interior issued the proposed rule suggesting the 

elimination of the Alaska exception, the Department 

voluntarily dismissed its appeal. It then filed a motion to 

dismiss Alaska’s appeal for lack of standing. Mot. to Dismiss 

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Intervenor State of Alaska’s Appeal 2 (July 18, 2014). After

the new rule became final, Interior filed a separate motion 

seeking to dismiss Alaska’s appeal as moot, arguing that 

“[t]he district court’s judgment has now been overtaken by 

Interior’s administrative action to delete the regulatory 

language challenged in the complaint.” Federal Appellees’ 

Mot. to Dismiss Appeal as Moot 2 (Oct. 8, 2015). Akiachak 

joined both motions. We thus have before us Alaska’s

opposition to these motions and its argument on the merits, 

i.e., that ANCSA “precludes the creation of new trust land in 

Alaska.” Appellant’s Br. 32. 

II.

“To qualify as a case fit for federal-court adjudication 

[under Article III, section 2], ‘an actual controversy must be 

extant at all stages of review, not merely at the time the 

complaint is filed.’” Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 

520 U.S. 43, 67 (1997) (quoting Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U.S. 

395, 401 (1975)). A case is moot “‘when the issues presented 

are no longer “live” or the parties lack a legally cognizable 

interest in the outcome.’” U.S. Parole Commission v. 

Geraghty, 445 U.S. 388, 396 (1980) (quoting Powell v. 

McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 496 (1969)). These requirements 

ensure that federal courts exercise jurisdiction only over 

“questions presented in an adversary context and in a form 

historically viewed as capable of resolution through the 

judicial process.” Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 95 (1968). 

In order to remain “live,” and thus justiciable, a case or 

controversy must retain at least one “claim for relief [that] 

remains viable, whether that claim was the primary or 

secondary relief originally sought.” Ramer v. Saxbe, 522 F.2d 

695, 704 (D.C. Cir. 1975); see also Powell, 395 U.S. at 499

(“reject[ing] respondents’ theory that the mootness of a 

‘primary’ claim requires a conclusion that all ‘secondary’ 

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claims are moot”). The causes of action identified in the 

complaint perform the Article III function of restricting the 

court’s review to “a real and substantial controversy admitting 

of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character, 

as distinguished from an opinion advising what the law would 

be upon a hypothetical state of facts.” Aetna Life Insurance 

Co. of Hartford v. Haworth, 300 U.S. 227, 241, 244 (1937).

As described above, Akiachak requested two forms of 

relief in the district court: a declaratory judgment that the 

Alaska exception violated the Constitution, the IRA, and the 

APA; and an injunction directing Interior to apply its landinto-trust regulations to Alaska. Each cause of action 

challenged the validity of the Alaska exception. See Compl. 

¶¶ 53–58. Because that regulation no longer exists, we can do 

nothing to affect Akiachak’s rights relative to it, thus making 

this case classically moot for lack of a live controversy. See, 

e.g., Burke v. Barnes, 479 U.S. 361, 363 (1987) (“[A]ny 

issues concerning whether [a bill] became a law were mooted 

when that bill expired by its own terms.”); Diffenderfer v. 

Central Baptist Church of Miami, Florida, Inc., 404 U.S. 412, 

414–15 (1972) (per curiam) (“The only relief sought in the 

complaint was a declaratory judgment that the now repealed 

[statute] is unconstitutional as applied to a church parking lot 

used for commercial purposes and an injunction against its 

application to said lot. This relief is, of course, inappropriate 

now that the statute has been repealed.”). A similar situation 

arose in Larsen v. U.S. Navy, 525 F.3d 1, 4 (D.C. Cir. 2008),

where we explained that “because the [agency has] already 

eliminated the [challenged] [p]olicy and plaintiffs never 

allege that the [agency] will reinstitute it, any injunction or 

order declaring it illegal would accomplish nothing—

amounting to exactly the type of advisory opinion Article III 

prohibits.” Although the voluntary repeal of a regulation does

not moot a case if there is reason to believe the agency will 

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reinstitute it, “the mere power to reenact a challenged [rule] is 

not a sufficient basis on which a court can conclude that a 

reasonable expectation of recurrence exists” absent “evidence 

indicating that the challenged [rule] likely will be reenacted.” 

National Black Police Ass’n v. District of Columbia, 108 F.3d 

346, 349 (D.C. Cir. 1997). No such evidence exists here.

Alaska argues that this case remains live because we 

could, it says, provide it with two forms of effective relief: a 

declaration that ANCSA prohibits Interior from acquiring 

trust land in Alaska and an injunction prohibiting the agency 

from doing so. According to Alaska, it “pleaded for 

affirmative relief” in the district court when it sought a ruling 

that the Alaska exception was valid. Appellant’s Reply Br. 3;

see State of Alaska’s Answer, Prayer for Relief ¶¶ 1–3, 6 

(requesting an “entry of judgment . . . declaring 25 C.F.R. 

Part 151 compliant with [the IRA’s antidiscrimination 

provision],” “constitutional,” and “consistent with and 

compelled by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act”).

Alaska’s argument ignores the restrictions that Article 

III’s case or controversy requirement places on the 

jurisdiction of the federal courts. As our decision in National 

Football League Players Ass’n v. Pro Football, Inc., 56 F.3d 

1525 (D.C. Cir. 1995), vacated in part on other grounds, 79 

F.3d 1215 (D.C. Cir. 1996), makes clear, the scope of a 

federal court’s jurisdiction to resolve a case or controversy is 

defined by the affirmative claims to relief sought in the 

complaint or, as may be the case, in any counterclaims or 

crossclaims. There, to determine whether the case had become 

moot, we looked only to the “relief requested by” the National 

Football League Players Association in a dispute over 

payment of union dues. Id. at 1529. Concluding that “the only 

relief for which the appellants prayed and which the District 

Court could have granted—suspension of [certain football] 

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players for the remainder of the 1993–94 season—became 

impossible to grant” when the season ended, we held that the 

case had become moot because “the matter in dispute before 

the arbitrator, failure to pay fees for the 1993–94 season, 

could not be affected by the District Court by virtue of the 

limited relief sought by appellant.” Id. Although the 

Association argued that “the declaratory relief granted by the 

District Court” would “have continuing effect on the 

relationship between the Players Association and the [team]

and its players (and any similarly situated teams),” and thus 

that we could grant effective relief “by rescinding the 

declaratory order,” we explained that the narrow scope of 

relief requested in the district court meant that, as a legal 

matter, that court’s declaratory order affected only the 1993–

94 season, which had already ended. Id.; see also Alton & 

Southern Railway Co. v. International Ass’n of Machinists & 

Aerospace Workers, 463 F.2d 872, 879–80 (D.C. Cir. 1972) 

(To prevent mootness, “there must be at least a capacity for a 

declaration of a legal right concerning a future projection of 

the actual dispute that precipitated the litigation.”).

The Supreme Court made the same point in Powell v. 

McCormack, noting that “the constitutional requirement of a 

case or controversy” is “suppl[ied]” by “the . . . issues 

presented” to the court, and that a case will remain justiciable

only so long as at least one of those issues remains live. 395 

U.S. at 497. And in Diffenderfer v. Central Baptist Church of 

Miami, Florida, Inc., the Court concluded that a constitutional 

challenge to a repealed statute providing a tax exemption for 

church property was moot because no court could grant “[t]he 

only relief sought in the complaint,” namely, a declaratory 

judgment that the statute was unconstitutional and an

injunction barring its application to the property in question. 

404 U.S. at 414–15; see also Love v. Griffith, 266 U.S. 32, 34 

(1924) (holding that a constitutional challenge to a rule 

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prohibiting African Americans from voting in a past primary 

election was moot because “[t]he bill was for an injunction 

that could not be granted at that time,” and “[t]here was no 

constitutional obligation to extend the remedy beyond what 

was prayed”); Mills v. Green, 159 U.S. 651, 658 (1895) 

(finding a case moot where the plaintiff sought to participate 

in a constitutional convention that had already occurred, 

which made it “obvious . . . that[] even if the bill could 

properly be held to present a case within the jurisdiction of 

the circuit court, no relief within the scope of the bill could 

now be granted”).

As noted above, Alaska intervened in the district court as 

a defendant and filed an answer that contained affirmative 

defenses and a prayer for relief, but nothing identified as a 

counterclaim or crossclaim. Alaska nonetheless insists that it

“pleaded for affirmative relief” when it “assert[ed] . . . an 

affirmative defense that some or all of the Tribes’ claims are 

barred by ANCSA and request[ed] declaratory relief.”

Appellant’s Reply Br. 3 & n.5. Under Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 8(c), however, affirmative defenses made “[i]n 

respon[se] to a pleading” are not themselves claims for relief.

True, Rule 8(c)(2) provides a potential mechanism for 

extending jurisdiction to an improperly pled claim: “[i]f a 

party mistakenly designates a defense as a counterclaim, or a 

counterclaim as a defense, the court must, if justice requires, 

treat the pleading as though it were correctly designated.” But 

several of our sister circuits have held that a request for relief 

that amounts to no more than denial of the plaintiff’s demand 

is properly considered an answer, not a separate claim for 

affirmative relief that expands the court’s jurisdiction. See 

Riverside Memorial Mausoleum, Inc. v. UMET Trust, 581 

F.2d 62, 68 (3d Cir. 1978) (“A counterclaim may entitle the 

defendant in the original action to some amount of affirmative 

relief; a defense merely precludes or diminishes the plaintiff’s 

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recovery.”); Kleid v. Ruthbell Coal Co., 131 F.2d 372, 373 

(2d Cir. 1942) (holding that a bankruptcy trustee’s objection 

to a creditor’s claim was an affirmative defense rather than a 

counterclaim because it was “a purely defensive pleading 

interposed against allowance of the claim” that allowed for no 

damages judgment in favor of the trustee and could not 

survive once the creditor’s claim was withdrawn); cf. 

National Surety Corp. v. Charles Carter & Co., Inc., 539 F.2d 

450, 457 (5th Cir. 1976) (noting that, even if a contractor had 

not styled its claim for damages as a counterclaim, “the court 

could have considered the claim of offset in the original 

answer as a counterclaim” because the contractor “was 

entitled to judgment” of damages). These decisions suggest

that Alaska presented only a defense, as in order to resolve 

Akiachak’s claim that the exception ran afoul of the IRA, the 

district court necessarily had to grapple with Alaska’s 

contrary argument that “the Alaska Native Claims Settlement 

Act . . . implicitly repealed the Secretary’s authority to take 

most Alaska land into trust” and thus compelled the 

regulation. Akiachak II, 995 F. Supp. 2d at 3. But even were 

we to construe Alaska’s pleading as asserting some

independent claim, the only relief Alaska requested was a

ruling that the Alaska exception was valid and compelled by 

the statute. State of Alaska’s Answer, Prayer for Relief ¶¶ 1–

3, 6. As with Akiachak’s complaint, the subject of that 

purported claim—the Alaska exception—no longer exists, 

and so cannot continue to generate a live controversy.

Although Alaska never identifies the precise basis for its 

alleged independent claim to relief, the dissent takes matters 

into its own hands and contends that “Alaska affirmatively 

sought relief of its own by requesting ‘entry of a judgment . . . 

declaring [the Alaska exception] consistent with and 

compelled by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.’” 

Dissenting Op. at 2 (alterations in original) (quoting State of 

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Alaska’s Answer, Prayer for Relief ¶ 6). “[F]rom the outset,”

the dissent writes, “Alaska made clear its interests were 

unique and the Department could not be expected to 

adequately defend them.” Id. The dissent asserts that the 

phrase “compelled by” must have constituted an independent 

claim for relief because Interior’s argument that the Alaska 

exception was within its discretion “would have been 

sufficient to win the suit,” and thus Alaska must have been 

seeking “relief . . . that was separate and distinct from merely 

winning the suit.” Id. at 2–3. “Alaska still has something to 

litigate even when the exception is no longer in force,” the 

dissent believes, “because Alaska seeks a declaration that the 

exception must be the law.” Id. at 8.

The dissent’s position suffers from several flaws. First, it

conflates Rule 24(a)’s standard for intervention as of right, 

which requires merely that “the applicant show[] that 

representation of his interest may be inadequate,” a “minimal” 

“burden,” Trbovich v. United Mine Workers of America, 404 

U.S. 528, 538 n.10 (1972) (internal quotation marks omitted),

with the presentation of an affirmative claim for relief. True,

Alaska and Interior presented alternative defenses to 

Akiachak’s claims, but that demonstrates only that Alaska 

satisfied Rule 24(a), not that it asserted a claim against 

Interior. See Fund for Animals, Inc. v. Norton, 322 F.3d 728, 

736 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (noting that “interests need not be 

wholly adverse before there is a basis for concluding [under 

Rule 24(a)] that existing representation of a different interest 

may be inadequate” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

Interior and Alaska each offered statutory interpretations that, 

if correct, would have resulted in nothing more than denial of 

the relief Akiachak sought, albeit for different reasons. Thus, 

both responses were defenses. The dissent insists that Alaska 

did something distinct from satisfying Rule 24(a) when it 

“asserted a different affirmative position than what the 

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Department advanced.” Dissenting Op. at 6. But this court has

squarely held that Rule 24(a) is designed to allow intervention 

on the ground that the intervening party seeks to make a legal 

argument not pursued by a named party—just what happened 

here. Dimond v. District of Columbia, 792 F.2d 179, 193 

(D.C. Cir. 1986) (holding that an insurance company could 

intervene as a defendant under Rule 24(a) in part because the

government could not be expected “to make the same legal 

arguments that [the company] would make”); see also 

Building & Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO v. 

Reich, 40 F.3d 1275, 1282 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (holding that an 

employer’s motion to intervene as a defendant was properly 

denied under Rule 24(a) when the employer “offered no 

argument not also pressed by” the government). 

Second, the dissent would have us read some unspecified 

claim to relief into the phrase “compelled by” in Alaska’s 

answer. See Dissenting Op. at 2. But these words cannot bear 

the weight the dissent places upon them. For one thing, it is 

difficult to discern what Alaska’s cause of action would have 

been at the time it filed the answer which, according to the 

dissent, pled an affirmative claim to relief against Interior. It 

could not have been the APA, as in its opposition to 

Akiachak’s motion for summary judgment, Alaska argued 

that no “action by the Secretary associated with the land into 

trust rule has been arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of

discretion,” State of Alaska’s Opp’n to Pl.’s Cross-Mot. for 

Summ. J. Re ANCSA and Reply in Supp. of Alaska’s Mot. 

for Summ. J. (“Alaska Summ. J. Opp’n”), Dkt. No. 85, at 39–

40 (Jan. 8, 2009), and urged the district court to conclude that 

“the record demonstrates that the Secretary has acted 

appropriately in maintaining the regulatory prohibition against 

taking land into trust in Alaska,” id. at 2.

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17

Nor had Interior taken any final action that was contrary 

to Alaska’s interpretation of ANCSA. Indeed, as far as Alaska 

knew when it filed its answer, Interior still believed that 

ANCSA prohibited the Secretary from taking any Alaska land 

into trust. Interior’s answer—the only document the 

Department had filed at that time—contained no assertion that 

the Alaska exception was discretionary. See Answer of the 

United States to Pls.’ Compl., Dkt. No. 17 (Nov. 27, 2007). 

The dissent believes that because Interior “had publicly 

rescinded the Fredericks Opinion,” “Alaska knew the 

Department no longer defended the Alaska exception as being 

compelled by ANCSA.” Dissenting Op. at 7. But throughout 

the proceedings in the district court, Alaska argued that 

“[s]ince the enactment of ANCSA in 1971, the Secretary’s 

formal position consistently and admittedly has been that 

ANCSA precludes him from taking land into trust in Alaska.” 

State of Alaska’s Resp. to Defs.’ Supplemental Br. Pursuant 

to Court’s Order (“Alaska Supplemental Br.”), Dkt. No. 103, 

at 6–7 (Aug. 15, 2012). Alaska expressly acknowledged the 

withdrawal of the Fredericks Opinion, but accorded it little 

weight. See Alaska Summ. J. Opp’n 42–45 (arguing that

although Interior had withdrawn the Fredericks Opinion, the 

withdrawal memorandum and another prior Solicitor opinion 

“indicat[ed] that the Solicitor himself understood that the 

Secretary’s discretion to take land into trust in Alaska may be 

curbed by law”). As Alaska recognized in its district court

briefs—and as the dissent itself acknowledges, see Dissenting 

Op. at 14—the State’s disagreement with Interior regarding 

the legal effect of ANCSA developed during the litigation of 

Akiachak’s claim. See Alaska Supplemental Br. 4 (“The 

Secretary first adopted the position that ANCSA permitted 

him to take land into trust in Alaska during this litigation.”). It 

is therefore difficult to comprehend how, at the time Alaska 

filed its answer, it could have intended that disagreement to 

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18

serve as the basis for an affirmative claim for relief against 

Interior.

The dissent’s theory requires such speculation in part 

because Alaska never asked the district court to construe 

anything in its answer as an affirmative claim under Rule 

8(c)(2), nor did it do anything to suggest that it intended to 

bring any such claim. In fact, quite the opposite. As noted 

above, Alaska’s answer was solely responsive: the State

neither presented a crossclaim nor pled facts even suggesting 

that Interior had acted impermissibly or bore some statutory 

duty to promulgate regulations enforcing Alaska’s reading of 

ANCSA. See Rundgren v. Washington Mutual Bank, FA, 760 

F.3d 1056, 1061 (9th Cir. 2014) (“A ‘claim’ is a cause of 

action or the aggregate of facts that gives rise to a right to 

payment or an equitable remedy.” (citing Black’s Law 

Dictionary 281–82 (9th ed. 2009))). And in its motion to 

intervene, Alaska argued only that “certain affirmative 

defenses apply to the state that cannot be advanced by the 

federal defendants.” Alaska’s Mem. of Points and Authorities 

in Supp. of Its Mot. to Intervene, Dkt. No. 18, at 3 (Nov. 27, 

2007). Far from asserting its own claim, Alaska expressly 

recognized that “[a]t the heart of plaintiffs’ case lies the 

question of whether [ANCSA] continues to justify the 

regulatory bar prohibiting the Department of Interior . . . from 

applying the land into trust regulations in Alaska.” Alaska’s 

Reply Mem. in Supp. of Its Mot. to Intervene, Dkt. No. 24, at 

1 (Dec. 17, 2007) (emphasis added). Critically, at the very end 

of the proceedings in the district court, Alaska described the 

case this way in its motion for reconsideration:

In this case, Plaintiffs have challenged only the 

regulatory bar that prohibits Alaska tribes from 

petitioning the Secretary under 25 C.F.R. Part 151 to 

have land taken into trust. The parties have briefed 

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19

the legal issues pertaining to that prohibition, and the 

Court has found it invalid. No other provision of the 

regulation has been challenged, and no issues other 

than its legality have been briefed for the Court’s 

consideration.

Mem. in Supp. of State of Alaska’s Mot. for Recons., Dkt. 

No. 112, at 11–12 (Apr. 17, 2013) (footnote omitted). In its 

briefing here, moreover, Alaska neither cites Rule 8(c)(2) nor 

refers to anything it did in the district court as raising a 

“claim.” The State argues only that it “assert[ed] . . . an

affirmative defense” and “requested” and “pleaded for 

affirmative relief.” Appellant’s Reply Br. 3 & n.5. If Alaska 

knew all along it was asserting a claim, one would have 

thought it would have used that term in its briefs.

Equally telling, no one in the district court—not even the 

court itself—seemed to think otherwise. Interior filed neither 

a pleading in response to the claim the dissent finds apparent 

on the face of Alaska’s answer, nor any response to Alaska’s 

summary judgment motion. Alaska filed no motion for default 

on any claim, which would have been the proper course of 

action once Interior failed to respond. Meanwhile, Akiachak

filed and briefed a motion for summary judgment against 

Alaska regarding ANCSA’s meaning. See Dkt. Nos. 83, 88. 

And contrary to the dissent’s belief that it was “apparent to 

the district court” that Alaska had brought an affirmative 

claim to relief, Dissenting Op. at 3, the district court never

even hinted that it was rendering judgment, or needed to 

render judgment, on any affirmative claim raised by Alaska. 

For instance, in its order requesting supplemental briefing, the 

district court referred to the “plaintiffs[’] . . . challenge [to] 

the regulations governing the acquisition of land by the 

United States in trust status for individual Indians and tribes,” 

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20

but mentioned no other claim. Dkt. No. 99, at 1 (Apr. 30, 

2012).

We engage in this lengthy response to the dissent to 

demonstrate the difficulty of drawing any conclusion other 

than that, until filing its reply brief in this court, Alaska seems 

to have thought it was merely defending against Akiachak’s 

claims. The dissent provides no reason not to take Alaska at 

its word. See National Union Fire Insurance Co. of 

Pittsburgh, Pa. v. City Savings, F.S.B., 28 F.3d 376, 393 (3d 

Cir. 1994) (“[I]t is clear that a defense or affirmative defense 

is not properly called an ‘action’ or a ‘claim’ but is rather a 

response to an action or a claim. When a lawyer files a 

responsive pleading to an action or claim, she does not say 

that she is bringing an action or filing a claim; instead, she 

says that she is answering, responding to, or defending against 

an action.”). Moreover, even under the dissent’s theory, we 

could take Alaska’s failure to raise before the district court 

any suggestion that the court had misconstrued its pleading as 

the final nail in the coffin of any claim Alaska now purports 

to have pled. See 389 Orange Street Partners v. Arnold, 179 

F.3d 656, 664 (9th Cir. 1999) (declining to construe a labeled 

crossclaim as an affirmative defense under Rule 8(c)(2) 

because appellant never presented the argument “until oral 

argument on this appeal,” and “if [his] attorneys did not 

discover this argument until now, the district court should not 

be expected to have done so for them”).

The dissent also relies on the fact that once the case 

reached this court our Clerk’s Office designated Alaska as 

“appellant” and Interior and Akiachak as “appellees.” See

Dissenting Op. at 4. But a careful look at the procedural 

history of this case belies any support for the dissent’s 

insistence that “Alaska all along has raised a claim against 

which the Department has thought necessary to defend.” Id. at

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21

5. Alaska and Interior each filed separate notices of appeal, on 

November 29, 2013, and December 3, 2013, respectively. 

This court consolidated the cases on December 20, 2013. 

Under the Clerk’s Office’s routine docketing procedures, any 

party involved in the original litigation other than the party 

filing the notice of appeal is automatically designated as an 

appellee in that appeal without any analysis of the parties’ 

legal adversity, even if one of those parties has filed a 

separate notice of appeal. When Interior voluntarily dismissed 

its appeal, it left only Alaska’s originally filed appeal and the 

docket entries accompanying that appeal, which had 

automatically identified Interior as an appellee. These 

docketing procedures are therefore irrelevant. To the extent 

the dissent relies on Alaska’s intent to establish Interior as an 

adverse party, Alaska informed the court in its certificate as to 

the parties, rulings, and related cases, filed after consolidation, 

that “Appellants are the State of Alaska (case 13-5360) and 

the . . . Department of Interior[] and . . . [the] Secretary of the 

Interior (case 13-5361).” Certificate as to the Parties, Rulings 

and Related Cases by the State of Alaska 1 (Jan. 21, 2014). 

Alaska listed only Akiachak and the other tribal litigants as 

“Appellees.” Id.; see also Statement of Issues by Appellant 

State of Alaska 1 (Jan. 21, 2014) (captioning Alaska and 

Interior both as appellants). As noted above, it was not until 

after Alaska filed its answer in the district court that the State

and Interior made different arguments regarding ANCSA’s 

effect. Even so, it is unsurprising that, even once those 

differing positions became clear, Alaska made no suggestion 

that it had become legally adverse to Interior; after all, at that 

time, both parties continued to defend the regulation’s 

legality, a circumstance that changed only midway through 

this appeal. In any event, that Alaska and Interior eventually 

became adverse to one another says nothing about whether

Alaska presented a crossclaim against Interior in its original 

answer.

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22

This brings us, then, to Alaska’s argument that its appeal 

remains live because Interior’s rulemaking cannot alter the 

meaning of ANCSA and thus “the new regulation cannot

displace the central legal question in this appeal: whether 

ANCSA prohibits the creation of new trust land in Alaska,” 

an issue over which “[t]here is still a present, live 

controversy.” Appellant’s Reply Br. 4 (internal quotation 

marks omitted). Essentially, Alaska argues that by ruling on 

the meaning of the statute and vacating the Department’s rule, 

the district court effectively eliminated the Department’s 

power to take any action that could moot the case. Alaska 

relies on our decision in Williams v. Washington Metropolitan 

Area Transit Commission, 415 F.2d 922, 940 (D.C. Cir. 1968) 

(en banc), in which we invalidated a rate order but declined to 

remand to the agency to allow for promulgation of a new 

order because the Commission “possesse[d] no authority to 

fix” rates retroactively. But Alaska cannot expand our 

jurisdiction by relying on Williams. That decision never

addressed mootness, and Alaska points to no case law 

distinguishing between remand and vacatur of agency rules 

for mootness purposes. Indeed, in an analogous situation, the 

Tenth Circuit in Wyoming v. USDA, 414 F.3d 1207, 1212 

(10th Cir. 2005), found that rescission of a permanently 

enjoined regulation mooted a lawsuit challenging the

regulation because “[t]he portions of the [regulation] that 

were substantively challenged by [the plaintiff] no longer 

exist.” As explained above, the same is true here.

Although acknowledging that Wyoming “would be 

analogous to the present circumstances if . . . the only claim to 

be appealed was what Akiachak stated in the original 

complaint,” the dissent nonetheless believes that because the 

district court vacated the Alaska exception, Interior’s 

“subsequent curative rulemaking was an absurdity” that 

“created no legal effect.” Dissenting Op. at 9. Thus, the 

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23

dissent asserts, “what the court really means is that the district 

court mooted this case when it vacated the Alaska exception,” 

a decision it characterizes as “nonsensical.” Id. at 10. But 

Interior did far more than merely acquiesce in the district

court’s judgment. Instead, it engaged in a new rulemaking, in 

which it considered the history of trust ownership in Alaska, 

its prior legal interpretations of the governing statutes, policy 

issues such as public safety in Alaska Native communities, 

comments from Native communities and corporations, and the 

recommendations of blue-ribbon commissions formed to 

“investigate criminal justice systems in Indian Country” and 

“evaluate the existing management and administration of the 

trust administration system.” 79 Fed. Reg. at 76,889–92.

Interior then exercised its discretion to promulgate a new rule

that removed the Alaska exception, explaining that the new 

rule could “foster economic development, enhance the ability 

of Alaska Native tribes to provide services to their members, 

and give additional tools to Alaska Native communities to 

address serious issues, such as child welfare, public health 

and safety, poverty, and shortages of adequate housing, on a 

local level.” Id. at 76,892. Significantly, Interior made clear

that “[t]he district court’s judgment . . . is not the basis for the 

Department’s decision to eliminate the Alaska Exception” and 

that it had “independently concluded that there is no legal 

impediment to taking land into trust in Alaska, and there are 

sound policy reasons for giving Alaska tribes the opportunity 

to petition to take land into trust.” Id. at 76,891. As in 

Wyoming, it was this action by Interior, not the district court’s 

decision to vacate the regulation—a decision that was, of 

course, on appeal—that mooted this case.

In sum, once the Department of Interior rescinded the 

Alaska exception, this case became moot. Even assuming, as 

Alaska argues, that the district court’s interpretation of 

ANCSA injured the State, such injury cannot extend our 

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24

jurisdiction by creating a new controversy on appeal. In 

essence, Alaska urges us to “entertain the appeal so as to 

advise the parties of what their rights would be in what is 

essentially a new legal controversy”—whether Interior’s 2014 

rule correctly interprets ANCSA. Alton & Southern Railway 

Co., 463 F.2d at 879. We are without jurisdiction to provide 

such an advisory opinion. Assuming Alaska’s claim is ripe, 

we see no barrier to the State raising it directly under the 

APA, see, e.g., Harris v. FAA, 353 F.3d 1006, 1009 (D.C. Cir. 

2004) (noting the six-year statute of limitations on APA 

claims), or if and when Interior attempts to take any land into 

trust in Alaska, see, e.g., NLRB Union v. Federal Labor 

Relations Authority, 834 F.2d 191, 195 (D.C. Cir. 1987) 

(noting that a party against whom a regulation is applied 

could challenge that regulation as a “defense in an 

enforcement proceeding” or other “further agency action 

applying it” (internal quotation marks and alteration 

omitted)).

What the dissent thinks is a “catastrophic result” flows 

from our application of a perfectly uncontroversial and wellsettled principle of law, namely, when an agency has 

rescinded and replaced a challenged regulation, litigation over 

the legality of the original regulation becomes moot. See, e.g.,

Initiative & Referendum Institute v. U.S. Postal Service, 685 

F.3d 1066, 1074 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (finding a challenge to a

Postal Service regulation moot where the agency had “beat 

[the appellants] to the punch by amending the regulation to 

exempt” the challenged activity); Coalition of Airline Pilots 

Ass’ns v. FAA, 370 F.3d 1184, 1190 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (finding 

a due process challenge to a regulation moot where the 

agency had abandoned the regulation and “committ[ed] . . . to 

provide . . . greater procedural rights”); National Mining 

Ass’n v. U.S. Department of Interior, 251 F.3d 1007, 1010–11 

(D.C. Cir. 2001) (declaring a challenge to a revised rule moot,

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25

noting that “[t]he old set of rules, which are the subject of this 

lawsuit, cannot be evaluated as if nothing has changed” 

because “[a] new system is now in place” and “[a]ny opinion 

regarding the former rules would be merely advisory”);

Arizona Public Service Co. v. EPA, 211 F.3d 1280, 1295–96

(D.C. Cir. 2000) (holding moot a challenge to an EPA rule 

after the agency issued a “clarification” altering the 

regulation); Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas Co. v. FERC, 962 

F.2d 45, 46 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (finding a case “plainly moot” 

where the challenged agency order had been “superseded by a 

subsequent order,” and noting that such an occurrence was so 

routine that “[o]rdinarily, we would handle such a matter in 

an unpublished order”). In all such cases, moreover, if the 

agency promulgates a new regulation contrary to one party’s

legal position, that party may “cure[] its mootness problem by 

simply starting over again,” Dissenting Op. at 11—by 

challenging the regulation currently in force. See, e.g., 

Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas Co., 962 F.2d at 46 (noting 

that a petitioner’s opposition to a superseded order was 

“appropriately resolved either upon review of [the new] order 

. . . or in [a] complaint proceeding”); Gulf Oil Corp. v. Simon, 

502 F.2d 1154, 1156 (Temp. Em. Ct. App. 1974) (“This suit 

sought equitable relief from particular regulations and 

proceeded to judgment on that controversy. If new 

considerations provide a basis for challenging the validity of 

significantly different superseding regulations that now are in 

effect, that can appropriately be done in a new suit. 

Otherwise, an unending series of post-judgment controversies 

about new subject matter could be litigated under the 

umbrella of a suit already fully considered and decided.”). 

Although the dissent seems to disapprove of agencies’ ability

to moot challenges to regulations, see Dissenting Op. at 12, 

such authority is in fact so fundamental to judicial economy 

that it serves as the animating principle underlying the 

administrative exhaustion doctrine: “The basic purpose of the 

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26

exhaustion doctrine is to allow an administrative agency to 

perform functions within its special competence—to make a 

factual record, to apply its expertise, and to correct its own 

errors so as to moot judicial controversies.” Parisi v. 

Davidson, 405 U.S. 34, 37 (1972). Indeed, this court has

criticized an agency for failing to formally remove certain 

superseded orders from its books because doing so would

“sav[e] time, energy, and money, allow[] the parties to focus 

their attention on review of the [new] order, and allow[] the 

court to focus on live cases and controversies instead of this 

moot one.” Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas Co., 962 F.2d at 

47. We went so far as to note that we issued an opinion on the 

issue specifically “to express our displeasure with [agency] 

counsel’s failure to take easy and obvious steps to avoid 

needless litigation.” Id.

The dissent makes several other points that require little 

response. First, it contends that “in attacking the rulemaking 

directly, Alaska will be forced to confront a standard of 

review highly deferential to the Department,”—that is, 

Chevron deference—allowing Interior to “run the table.”

Dissenting Op. at 10. This argument is difficult to fathom, as, 

according to the dissent, Alaska would find itself in precisely 

the same position in a new suit as it was here: bringing an 

affirmative claim to relief that Interior was “compelled” to 

promulgate regulations enshrining one particular 

interpretation of ANCSA. More important, the dissent never 

explains why Chevron would apply to one case but not the 

other. See Federal Appellees’ Br. 24 (arguing that Chevron

applies to Interior’s interpretation of ANCSA). Next, the 

dissent asserts that once this appeal ends, “the Department 

will be free to take Alaskan lands into trust.” Dissenting Op. 

at 12. It is true that when the district court lifts its stay, the 

Department could move to take land into trust in Alaska, but 

it is hardly “free” to do so. Quite to the contrary, Interior will 

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27

have to comply with its land-into-trust regulations, which 

establish a multi-step process requiring the Department to 

consider, among other things, jurisdictional conflicts and the 

effect of any acquisition on state and local governments, 25 

C.F.R. § 151.11(a); engage in notice and comment on any

proposed acquisition, id. § 151.11(d); and issue a written 

decision, id. § 151.12—a decision subject to judicial review, 

see Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians 

v. Patchak, 132 S. Ct. 2199, 2204–10 (2012) (holding that 

sovereign immunity did not bar review of a trust decision and 

noting that challenges to such actions on the ground that “the 

Secretary’s decision to take land into trust violates a federal 

statute” are reviewable under the APA). Finally, according to 

the dissent, “[t]he issues presented” in this case “are of great 

significance” to the parties. Dissenting Op. at 13.

Undoubtedly so. But no matter how important an issue, courts 

may not decide cases over which they have no Article III 

jurisdiction. 

III.

This brings us, finally, to the question of whether we 

should vacate the district court’s decision. All parties urge us 

to do so, and we agree. The Supreme Court has instructed

courts to “dispose[] of moot cases in the manner ‘most 

consonant to justice . . . in view of the nature and character of 

the conditions which have caused the case to become moot.’” 

U.S. Bancorp Mortgage Co. v. Bonner Mall Partnership, 513 

U.S. 18, 24 (1994) (alteration in original) (quoting United 

States v. Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien 

Gesellschaft, 239 U.S. 466, 477–78 (1916)). Because Alaska 

is “the party seeking relief from the judgment below,” id., and 

has been prevented from appealing the district court’s 

decision for reasons outside its control, vacatur is appropriate 

to “clear[] the path for future relitigation of the issues . . . and 

eliminate[] a judgment, review of which was prevented 

USCA Case #13-5360 Document #1622673 Filed: 07/01/2016 Page 27 of 42
28

through happenstance.” United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 

340 U.S. 36, 40 (1950).

So ordered.

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BROWN, Circuit Judge, dissenting: The question this court 

ought to address is whether the Alaska Native Claims 

Settlement Act (ANCSA) prohibits the Secretary of the 

Interior from placing land into trust in Alaska. The plaintiffs, 

several Native American tribes, argued it did not; the State of 

Alaska, as intervenor, argued it did. The district court agreed 

with the plaintiffs. But instead of resolving this critical 

question, the court dismisses this case as moot on the view 

that the Secretary’s repeal of a regulation the district court had 

already vacated earns a do-over under a deferential standard 

of review. While I acknowledge the power of this court to 

declare when a case is dead, the court today euthanizes a live 

dispute. Respectfully, I dissent.

When Akiachak initiated this suit in the district court, the 

tribe sought relief in the form of a declaration that the Alaska 

exception was invalid. Compl. Prayer for Relief ¶¶ I-III. 

Akiachak proffered three legal rationales for invalidity: that 

the Alaska exception violated 25 U.S.C. §476(f) and (g), or 

the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. 

Constitution, or the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 

§706(2)(a). Id. Akiachak further requested an injunction 

requiring the Department to implement land into trust 

procedures “without regard to the bar against Alaska tribes” 

that was then contained in the Alaska exception. All of 

Akiachak’s arguments thus centered on one thing: the 

invalidity of the Alaska exception. Akiachak could obtain the 

relief it sought in this suit so long as the district court adopted 

at least one of its arguments for the Alaska exception’s 

invalidity. 

In response, the Department defended the Alaska 

exception, arguing that the exception did not violate 25 

U.S.C. §476(f) and (g), the Constitution, or the APA. The 

Department took the position that although the Secretary of 

Interior possessed “both the authority and the discretion to 

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2

take lands within the State of Alaska into trust, the Secretary 

is not legally obligated to do so.” Dkt. 55-1 (Cross-motion 

for Sum. J.) at 25. Rather, in the Department’s view, the 

Alaska exception was a duly promulgated regulation 

consistent with the demands of federal law. The Secretary 

could change the regulation, but need not. This argument 

represented a complete defense against Akiachak’s claims; if 

the Department prevailed, the Alaska exception would remain 

in place unless and until the Department lifted it pursuant to 

the APA. 

The State of Alaska intervened in the district court to join 

the Department in opposing Akiachak’s suit. But from the 

outset, Alaska made clear its interests were unique and the 

Department could not be expected to adequately defend them. 

In its motion to intervene, Alaska explained that it sought to 

make an argument the Department had been unwilling to 

make: that the Alaska exception was not discretionary at all, 

but compelled by ANCSA. Dkt. 18-2 (Motion to Intervene) at 

15. The Department had formerly taken this view in a 1978 

Associate Solicitor opinion known as the Fredericks Opinion. 

The Department withdrew the Fredericks Opinion in 2001, 

however, and was no longer willing to defend it. Id. at 15. 

In seeking to intervene on the basis of its ANCSA theory, 

Alaska did something more than merely defend against the 

claim Akiachak had made: Alaska affirmatively sought relief 

of its own by requesting “entry of a judgment ... declaring 

[the Alaska exception] consistent with and compelled by the 

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.” State of Alaska’s 

Answer, Prayer for Relief ¶ 6 [JA 57-58] (emphasis added). 

This prayer for relief went a step beyond simply affirmatively 

defending against the claim Akiachak had made. It instead 

sought relief for Alaska that was separate and distinct from 

merely winning the suit. After all, the Department’s 

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3

arguments would have been sufficient to win the suit had they 

been successful: so long as the Alaska exception was 

permissible, as the Department argued, Akiachak’s claim 

would fail. Alaska, however, was not satisfied with merely 

permitting the Alaska exception. Alaska instead claimed that 

a statute otherwise not at issue in this case—ANCSA—

requires the Alaska exception. That argument was a new 

claim in this suit. 

The district court rejected Alaska’s claim and its motion 

for summary judgment because it concluded that ANCSA did 

not compel the Alaska exception. Dkt. 109 (Opinion) at 19-

20. That is the decision Alaska appeals today, and as to that 

distinct question, this case is not moot. 

Rather, Alaska’s interest in its ANCSA claim is every bit 

as live today as it was the day Alaska intervened in the case. 

Here, the State asked the district court to hold that ANCSA

compelled the Alaska exception. The district court disagreed 

and vacated that regulation, which Alaska believes the law 

compels. Alaska still wants—and can still obtain—the relief 

it has sought all along, a declaration that ANCSA compels the 

Alaska exception. Alaska thus has a “legally cognizable 

interest in the outcome” of this litigation. U.S. Parole 

Comm’n v. Geraghty, 445 U.S. 388, 396 (1980).

That this outcome left Alaska with a live dispute and an 

appeal as of right was apparent to the district court, which 

entertained and granted in part Alaska’s motion to stay the 

decision pending appeal. Specifically, the district court 

enjoined the Department from taking any Alaska lands into 

trust while this appeal was pending because such an action 

would cause “irreparable harm to state sovereignty and state 

management of land” in Alaska.” Dkt. 145 (Opinion 

Granting Stay) at 12. In doing so, the district court 

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4

contemplated that the Department would act as it in fact did 

and repeal the Alaska exception. The district court noted “it 

is entirely possible that the [Bureau of Indian Affairs] 

publishes a final rule before the D.C. Circuit issues an opinion 

in this case, and that the Secretary will then begin the process 

of taking land into trust before a decision is issued on appeal.” 

Id. To avoid the irreparable harm that would result from that 

outcome, the district court granted Alaska a stay pending 

appeal by enjoining the Department from taking Alaska lands 

into trust until this court issued its opinion. That injunction is 

the only thing that has prevented the Department from taking 

Alaskan lands into trust during the pendency of this suit. 

Similarly, it seems this state of affairs was apparent to the 

parties throughout this appeal. This case has been captioned 

with the Department listed as “appellees” and Alaska listed as 

“appellants” despite the fact that both the Department and 

Alaska were defendants below. While the origins of those 

labels arose in this Court according to the routine docketing 

procedures of our Clerk’s Office, any party could have moved 

for realignment if the party designations were incorrect. See 

Weaver v. United Mine Workers of America, 492 F.2d 580, 

586-87 (D.C. Cir. 1973) (granting a party’s motion to 

withdraw an appeal, remand to district court, and realign the 

parties). That Alaska and the Department accepted their

adverse alignment suggests they understood themselves to 

have adverse claims in this case. After all, if Alaska had no 

claim of its own at stake in this suit, there would be no reason 

for the Department to show up in this court and defend 

against Alaska’s appeal; Alaska would have only been an 

adverse party to the Native Alaskan appellees, and the 

Department’s acquiescence in the judgment would not have 

changed that reality. But Alaska does have a separate 

disagreement with the Department, which drew the

Department into this court to defend itself. Although the 

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Department primarily asserts a procedural argument aimed at 

kicking this suit on mootness grounds, the Department 

nonetheless defends against Alaska’s claim on the merits 

because, indeed, Alaska all along has raised a claim against 

which the Department has thought necessary to defend. It 

does not matter, as the Court suggests, that Alaska described 

both itself and the Department as appellants in its January 21, 

2014 certification; at that time, the Department’s appeal was 

still pending and both parties were appealing. Nonetheless, 

after the Department dismissed its appeal in June of 2014, 

both it and Alaska were content to maintain the Department’s 

status as an appellee. I do not mean to place too much stock 

in case captioning decisions, nor need I, because the 

Department itself told this court that “Alaska intervened to 

assert that the Secretary lacked authority to acquire lands in 

trust status in Alaska,” and the district court “denied relief on

its claim.” Federal Appellees’ Statement of Issues Filed (Jan. 

27, 2014). 

Today, the court says Alaska sought no affirmative relief 

in the district court, but I cannot agree. Alaska did seek 

affirmative relief by requesting a declaration that ANCSA

compelled the Alaska exception. That relief is not merely the

flip side of Akiachak’s claim. In fact, it was entirely possible 

that both Akiachak and Alaska could lose on their claims, 

leaving the Department’s defense as the prevailing legal 

theory. Under that outcome, the district court would have 

held that the IRA did not prohibit the Alaska exception, but 

neither did ANCSA compel it; the Department would have 

had the discretion to retain or repeal the Alaska exception. 

But by entering the case and raising the claim that ANCSA

compelled the Alaska exception, Alaska raised a new 

affirmative argument and a new claim for injunctive relief. 

The district court determined that issue solely because Alaska 

raised it. Absent Alaska’s participation in the case, the 

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district court would have had no reason to consider whether 

an injunction enforcing the Alaska exception would have been 

warranted. 

Contrary to the court’s view, this position does not 

“conflate[ ] Rule 24(a)’s standard for intervention as of right 

... with the presentation of an affirmative claim for relief.” 

Maj. Op. at 15. The point is not that the Department “may” 

not have adequately defended Alaska’s interests, which is 

what this court’s interpretation of Rule 24(a) required for 

Alaska to intervene as of right in the case. Trbovich v. United 

Mine Workers of America, 404 U.S. 528, 538 n. 10, 92 S. Ct. 

630, 636 (1972) (citations omitted). The point is that Alaska 

went further than that and asserted a different affirmative 

position than what the Department advanced. As Alaska 

stated in its motion to intervene, “[h]ere, the positions of 

Alaska and the federal defendants are not the same.” Dkt. 18-

2 at 15. While the “Department of Interior withdrew the 1978 

Fredericks Opinion stating that ANCSA prohibits the 

Secretary from taking land into trust in Alaska ... Alaska 

supports the reasoning of the Fredericks Opinion and 

maintains that ... Indian country [susceptible to trust status] 

does not exist in Alaska.” Id. Thus, “[w]ithout intervention, 

the full ventilation of these issues cannot take place.” Id. 

Alaska made clear not only that it possessed certain interests 

that the Department “may” not adequately defend (“the 

State’s interest ... in ensuring the consistent and uniform 

application of state law” and “protecting its territorial 

jurisdiction throughout the state”), but also that it intended to 

assert an entire argument the Department had abandoned. 

The court doubts that Alaska’s new argument rose to the 

level of a “claim to relief” because it says the words 

“compelled by” are insufficient to establish a claim. Maj. Op. 

at 16. But the court misconstrues Alaska’s claim. Alaska 

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established an affirmative claim to relief by seeking “entry of 

a judgment ... declaring [the Alaska exception] consistent 

with and compelled by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement 

Act.” State of Alaska’s Answer, Prayer for Relief ¶ 6 [JA 57-

58] (emphasis added). Alaska’s claim sought a declaratory 

judgment holding that the Alaska exception was not merely 

“consistent with” ANCSA (as the Department argued) but 

compelled by ANCSA. If ANCSA clearly compels the 

Alaska exception—as Alaska believes it does—the district 

court could have declared that fact in its judgment, thus 

affording Alaska the affirmative relief it sought. The court 

suggests that only the Administrative Procedure Act could 

have supplied a basis for any affirmative claim Alaska might 

have pled, but even if that is true, the Department was free to 

challenge Alaska’s claim for relief on the merits. In fact, the 

Department did exactly that, arguing that ANCSA left to the 

Secretary’s discretion whether to take land into trust for 

Alaskan tribes.

Nor does it matter that the Department’s view of the case 

had not been fully fleshed out in court filings at the time 

Alaska filed its answer. See Maj. Op. at 16. Alaska knew the 

Department no longer defended the Alaska exception as being 

compelled by ANCSA because the Department had publicly 

rescinded the Fredericks Opinion (which espoused that view), 

stating that “there is substantial doubt about the validity of the 

conclusion reached in” that opinion. Appellant’s App. 265. 

In any event, the Department’s answer to Akiachak’s 

complaint raised no claim that the Alaska exception was 

compelled by ANCSA, so Alaska was free to raise that 

affirmative claim itself.

To reach its conclusion, the court relies on a series of 

purportedly analagous cases that are actually inapposite. The 

court looks to Akiachak’s claim—seeking the invalidation of 

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the Alaska exception—and declares the case moot because the 

challenged regulation no longer exists. Maj. Op. at 10. But 

the relevant claim here is not Akiachak’s but Alaska’s. 

Alaska’s claim is still live because Alaska’s claim has always 

been that the Alaska exception must remain law. Alaska still 

has something to litigate even when the exception is no longer 

in force because Alaska seeks a declaration that the exception 

must be the law. For this reason, the court’s reliance on 

Diffenderfer, Larsen, and National Black Police Ass’n is 

misplaced. Maj. Op. at 10-11. In those cases, a party sought 

to invalidate a law, policy, or regulation that no longer existed 

and that was unlikely to be reenacted. Alaska’s relief is still 

possible where the relief sought in Diffenderfer, Larsen, and 

National Black Police Ass’n was not. 

The court relies on National Football League because of 

the same misunderstanding. Maj. Op. at 11. There, an 

intervening event (the conclusion of the 1993-94 professional 

football season) made all of the relief sought in the complaint 

unobtainable, and therefore, the case was moot. The same 

would be true here if the relief sought in Akiachak’s 

complaint were the only relief sought in this case. But 

Alaska’s counterclaim raised a new issue, which no 

intervening event has rendered moot. Mootness has been 

prevented here because there is “at least a capacity for a 

declaration of a legal right concerning a future projection of 

the actual dispute that precipitated the litigation.” Maj. Op. at 

12, (quoting Alton & S. Ry. Co. v. Int’l Ass’n of Machinists & 

Aerospace Workers, 463 F.2d 872, 879-80 (D.C. Cir. 1972)). 

That holds true because the “dispute that precipitated the 

litigation” in the present context is the dispute Alaska alleged 

when it intervened below.

At the risk of excessive repetition, the same error plagues 

the court’s reliance on Wyoming v. USDA, 414 F.3d 1207 

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(10th Cir. 2005). Maj. Op. at 22-23. There again, the case 

became moot because “[t]he portions of the [regulation] that 

were substantively challenged by [the plaintiff] no longer 

existed.” Id. at 1212. That situation would be analogous to 

the present circumstances if Akiachak were the party seeking 

to appeal or if the only claim to be appealed was what 

Akiachak stated in the original complaint. But Alaska raised 

a separate claim here, and that claim is the subject matter of 

this appeal. Moreover, Alaska’s claim survives the

Department’s regulatory repeal because Alaska seeks a 

declaration that the regulation is required by law. That relief 

is still possible despite the repeal, unlike the relief sought in 

Wyoming.

From here, the errors compound because the court rests 

its opinion on the premise that the Department mooted 

Alaska’s claim when it repealed the Alaska exception. But 

that action did not— indeed, could not—have caused such a 

catastrophic result. There are two problems with the court’s 

approach. First, it treats the Department’s repeal of a vacated 

regulation as a meaningful event. In fact, the repeal was 

meaningless because the district court had already severed 

and vacated the Alaska exception. Dkt. 130, (Remedy 

Opinion) at 3-9. The district court took that approach because 

it was clear to it that “the deficiencies of the Alaska exception 

[we]re fatal” such that “the Secretary could not promulgate it 

again on remand.” Akiachak Native Comm. v. Jewell, 995 F. 

Supp. 2d 1, at 6 (D.D.C. 2013). Accordingly, the district 

court rejected the possibility of remanding for a curative 

rulemaking and instead “sever[ed] and vacate[d]” the Alaska 

exception from the rest of 25 C.F.R. § 151.1. See id. at 7. The 

Department’s subsequent curative rulemaking was an 

absurdity at best; it created no legal effect because the Alaska 

exception was already vacated and therefore unenforceable. 

At worst, the Department’s curative rulemaking effected a 

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strategic bait-and-switch on Alaska, allowing the Department 

(with this court’s authorization) to force Alaska back to 

district court to start its claim again, but with a deferential 

standard of review applied to the new rulemaking under 

Chevron. Either way, when the court relies today on the 

absence of the Alaska exception to demonstrate the mootness 

of this case, what the court really means is that the district 

court mooted this case when it vacated the Alaska exception. 

That is nonsensical, of course, because the decision of the 

district court to vacate the Alaska exception is the very 

decision Alaska is challenging here and from which Alaska is 

entitled to an appeal as of right. 

Second, it is odd to think (as the court must) that the 

Department could moot Alaska’s claim by doing precisely 

what Alaska has sought to prevent from the moment it 

intervened in this suit. Alaska has tried all along to prevent 

the repeal of the Alaska exception; it hardly moots Alaska’s 

case to have the Department formalistically (if meaninglessly) 

do exactly what Alaska feared. 

In treating the Department’s repeal of the Alaska 

exception as a meaningful decision that has mooted this case, 

the court falls prey to the Administration’s thimblerig. Of 

course, it was in the Department’s best interest to retract the 

vacated Alaska exception in a rulemaking and thus force, if it 

could, Alaska to attack that rulemaking rather than merely to 

appeal a decision of a district court. Why? Because in 

attacking the rulemaking directly, Alaska will be forced to 

confront a standard of review highly deferential to the 

Department. The Department will run the table.

That the mootness problem the Department urges is 

illusory becomes even clearer when the court suggests Alaska 

could bring this case and avoid a mootness problem by simply 

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returning to the district court and raising the same claim 

against the same party in a new case. Maj. Op. at 25. On its 

face, that recommendation is confirmation that the case is not 

moot but has only hit a procedural roadblock thrown up the 

Department and endorsed by this court. In no other case on 

which the court relies could the supposedly aggrieved party 

have cured its mootness problem by simply starting over 

again. When an intervening event truly moots a case, no 

promised “do-over” can save it.

Following this case, Alaska will have two options: either 

challenge the new rule afresh in district court or wait for the 

Department to take lands into trust and then challenge that 

administrative decision directly. Both of these approaches 

disadvantage Alaska compared to the present litigation. If 

Alaska awaits the administrative decision, it will not only face 

a deferential standard of review favoring the Department but 

also the general reluctance of courts to disturb administrative 

actions retroactively. But see U.S. v. Mead Corp., 533 U.S. 

218, 226−27 (2001) (Chevron deference only applies where 

Congress has delegated authority to an agency); cf. Final 

Appellant’s Br. 47. This is especially true if the Department 

chooses to take land into trust, which will introduce the 

reliance interest of tribal parties into any balancing that a 

future court may undertake. It is enough to say that Alaska 

will never be in the same posture it is today. 

In any event, the result the court suggests is contrary to 

judicial economy and basic fairness. Alaska did the right 

thing by intervening here, in a case in which the subject 

matter being contested related substantially to the State’s 

interests. Alaska sought to promote judicial economy by 

locating itself with other interested parties in the same court 

and as part of the same proceedings, adding its related claim 

to the others already being litigated. Today this court undoes 

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that sensible effort, only to recommend that the gathered 

parties disband and start the same dispute over again in 

district court. It is as if the groom is at the altar, the bride is in 

the vestibule, and friends and family gathered in the pews, but 

the court has decided to reschedule the wedding for a few 

days from now in a different church down the road. The 

litigants, a state and a federal agency, are taxpayer-supported 

entities. The result is waste—pure and simple. 

To make matters worse, the court’s suggestion that the 

parties begin afresh in district court carries real consequences 

for Alaska, consequences that threaten the State with 

“irreparable harm” according to the district court. Dkt. 145

(Opinion Granting Stay) at 12. Currently, the Department is 

operating under a stay that prevents taking Alaskan land into 

trust. That stay protects Alaska while this appeal is pending,

but upon issuance of the court’s decision today, that stay will 

be lifted and the Department will be free to take Alaskan 

lands into trust. Alaska can hope, of course, that another 

district court will see fit to enjoin the Department from doing 

so while Alaska starts over. But having obtained a stay once 

does not guarantee extraordinary relief will be granted again. 

See, e.g., Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 

555 U.S. 7, 24 (2008) (“A preliminary injunction is an 

extraordinary remedy never awarded as of right.”). By 

making the Department’s rulemaking the pivotal fact in its 

mootness determination, the court has arguably decided the 

merits sub silentio. And that decision necessarily affects 

another court’s calculus in deciding whether injunctive relief 

is appropriate. 

The court says Alaska’s argument amounts to saying “the 

district court effectively eliminated the agency’s power to 

take any action that could moot the case.” Maj. Op. at 21. 

Embedded in that statement is the assumption the government 

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can always choose to end a case when it wishes, for all 

parties. But in intervening, Alaska established that it had 

interests at stake in this case that were different from those of 

the Department. Nothing says the Department, in addition to 

being able to effectively “settle” with Akiachak by 

acquiescing to the tribe’s claims, should also be able to 

acquiesce on behalf of Alaska, dissipating Alaska’s distinct 

interests in the case. Indeed, Alaska’s concern is not about 

the agency’s power to moot the case; it is about the agency’s 

power, period. The purpose of the case or controversy 

requirement is to reserve our adversarial judicial process for 

disputes between real adversaries. Today the court endorses 

the opposite approach, suggesting the government always 

retains the power to moot a case, even when its actions 

exacerbate rather than alleviate the grievance of another party. 

We have adversaries before us today seeking to have a live 

controversy resolved. This case is not moot, and I would hear 

it.

We should not deceive ourselves about the disservice we 

do the parties in not resolving this case on the merits. The 

issues presented are of great significance. The district court’s 

decision and the Department’s actions may very well affect 

Alaska’s sovereignty—infringing its jurisdictional hegemony 

and its territorial integrity. At the very least, the potential 

establishment of Indian Country in Alaska arguably runs 

counter to the bargain the State struck with the federal 

government (and paid for handsomely) when ANCSA was 

enacted. See Donald Craig Mitchell, Alaska v. Native Village 

of Venetie: Statutory Construction or Judicial Usurpation? 

Why History Counts, 14 Alaska L. Rev. 353 (1997). After 

all, the Department’s present view of ANCSA is a recent 

invention; at the origination of this very suit the Department 

held a view contrary to what it espouses now. The issues of 

statutory interpretation at play here can hardly be of obvious

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advantage to the Department given that it took the 

administration well over thirty years to see things this way, 

and it is not clear Congress delegated any interpretive 

authority to the Secretary. See 43 U.S.C. §§ 1601, 1603, 

1618(a). ANCSA has been recognized as a significant 

legislative accomplishment, bringing disparate interest groups 

together—the State of Alaska, Native peoples, the federal 

government—to create a new system for land recognition that 

explicitly repudiated and replaced the paternalistic reservation 

model implemented in the lower continental states. See 

Alaska v. Native Village of Venetie Tribal Gov’t, 522 U.S. 

520, 523−24 (1998). The Department’s new view of ANCSA 

runs counter to that historical narrative, and the express 

intentions of Congress. See Address by Hon. Ted Stevens, 

United States Senator, before a Joint Session of the First 

Session of the Twentieth Alaska State Legislature (Apr. 2, 

1997) in Senate & House J. Supp. No. 9 (1997). Whether the 

Department’s view is accurate is a question deserving serious 

consideration. I, for one, would have considered that question 

today.

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