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S. HRG. 111–470 

FIXING THE FEDERAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

PROCESS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

NOVEMBER 4, 2009 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Indian Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS 

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota, Chairman 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming, Vice Chairman 

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii 

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

JON TESTER, Montana 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

MIKE JOHANNS, Nebraska 

ALLISON C. BINNEY, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

DAVID A. MULLON JR., Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on November 4, 2009 ........................................................................ 1 

Statement of Senator Barrasso ............................................................................... 3 

Statement of Senator Dorgan ................................................................................. 1 

Statement of Senator Franken ............................................................................... 16 

Statement of Senator Murkowski ........................................................................... 14 

Statement of Senator Bill Nelson ........................................................................... 5 

Statement of Senator Tester ................................................................................... 4 

Statement of Senator Udall .................................................................................... 5 

WITNESSES

Ettawageshik, Frank, Chairman, Federal Acknowledgement Task Force, National Congress of American Indians ................................................................. 21 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 24 

Ferguson-Bohnee, Patty, Director, Indian Legal Clinic; Clinical Professor of 

Law, Arizona State University ............................................................................ 37 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 40 

Sinclair, Hon. John, President, Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of 

Montana ................................................................................................................ 28 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 30 

Skibine, George T., Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian 

Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior; accompanied by R. Lee Fleming, 

Director, Office of Federal Acknowledgement ................................................... 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 9 

Tucker, Hon. Ann D., Chairwomen, Muscogee Nation of Florida ....................... 34 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 36 

APPENDIX

Aceituno, Pedro, Chairman, California Cities for Self-Reliance Joint Powers 

Authority, prepared statement ........................................................................... 96 

Faleomavaega, Hon. Eni F.H., U.S. Congressman from American Samoa, 

letter, dated November 2, 2009 ........................................................................... 102 

Norwood, John, Pastor, Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation of New Jersey, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 93 

Towns of Ledyard, North Stonington, and Preston, Connecticut, prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 98 

Trope, Jack F., Executive Director, Association on American Indian Affairs, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 95 

Wyzlic Lisa, Citizen, Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians, prepared statement ...................................................................................................................... 95 

(1) 

FIXING THE FEDERAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

PROCESS 

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2009 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:15 p.m. in room 

628, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Byron L. Dorgan, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BYRON L. DORGAN, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH DAKOTA 

The CHAIRMAN. We are going to call the hearing to order. This 

is a hearing of the Indian Affairs Committee. It is an oversight 

hearing on the Fixing of the Federal Acknowledgement Process. 

The very title implies that the process is broken, so our title says 

this is about fixing it. 

Today we are going to talk about the Federal acknowledgement 

process, which is a very important issue, and one I think that does 

need substantial oversight. Last month, this committee considered 

and approved two bills that will grant Federal recognition to the 

Lumbee Tribe in North Carolina and to six tribes in Virginia. I believe in both cases they represented unique circumstances. I stated 

last month, however, that I would not intend for this Committee 

to begin to become a committee in which we recognize Indian 

tribes. That is not what we would like to do. That is a process that 

has been established and funded at the Interior Department, and 

that is where the acknowledgement process should exist and be adjudicated. 

Congress and this Committee do not have the resources nor the 

expertise to make informed decisions on recognizing Indian tribes. 

They are better left, in my judgment, for people with expertise in 

this matter. 

But I believe that the administrative process at the Department 

of the Interior is broken. Both of our tribal witnesses today have 

been in this process for some 30 years, that is three decades. People will be born and people will die in the middle of that process 

without ever getting answers. 

The Little Shell Band of Chippewa Indians in Montana first submitted their letter of intent in 1978. Their petition was deemed 

complete by the Federal acknowledgement in 1995. A final decision 

was issued last week, which I believe was denying that petition. 

2 

The Muscogee Nation of Florida submitted their letter of intent 

in 1978. The petition was submitted in 1995, deemed complete, 18 

years later, in 2003. And the Office of Federal Acknowledgement, 

however, has not started a review of the petition, which means 

they too will have to wait perhaps another decade before receiving 

a final determination. 

Regardless of the merits of these petitions, and that is not my 

point of raising them. The current process, in my judgment, is taking too long. I understand the frustration of petitioning groups. 

They spend decades gathering and documenting to complete their 

petitions, only to learn that it will take the Department decades 

more just to review the documentation. 

In addition, concerns have been raised about the consistent application of the mandatory criteria for recognition. It is not clear what 

level of evidence is really sufficient to meet the ‘‘reasonable likelihood’’ standard required by the regulations. The Little Shell Tribe, 

as an example, was originally told in the year 2000 it did not need 

to provide evidence of being identified as an Indian entity on a 

‘‘substantially continuous basis’’ in every decade in order to meet 

the criteria. However, the Department’s final determination last 

week found that the group failed to meet the criteria because it 

failed to provide the evidence for every decade. 

The Department’s deliberations on the Little Shell petition reveal 

a significant disagreement between the Office of Federal Acknowledgement and the Assistant Secretary back when the Department’s 

proposed positive finding was issued in 2000. It also shows the Department reversing its position on several factors midway through 

the process. That raises several concerns, not just exclusive to that 

petition. It brings into the question who is deciding the Federal recognition petitions at the Department of the Interior, the Office of 

Federal Acknowledgement or the Assistant Secretary? Ultimately, 

it is supposed to be the Secretary. 

Second, it is unclear what the burden of proof is for a petitioner 

to meet each of the seven mandatory criteria. The burden of proof 

is supposed to be ‘‘reasonable likelihood,’’ however, this standard 

has never been defined by the Department. Former assistant secretaries and the author of the recognition regulations have testified 

that the process should be taken out of the Department of the Interior. This would avoid inconsistent interpretation of data that 

seems to be occurring. 

Congressman Faleomavaega recently introduced a bill to transfer 

the recognition process to an independent commission. Last year, 

the former assistant secretary testified about changes the Department was making internally to improve the process. So today, I am 

curious to hear about whether there has been an improvement in 

the process. I am interested in learning what additional steps the 

Department is taking to make more substantial changes. And I 

want to hear other ideas on how this process can be improved. My 

staff is analyzing whether the processed should use administrative 

law judges to provide more transparency and a clear legal standard 

for evidentiary review. 

Let me just say finally that this process, I have this summary 

in front of me that says there are, in the current workload, 15 petitions, 7 I believe are active status. That perhaps is now six from 

3 

last week’s decision. Nine are petitions in ready status. And I understand, although this is a hard number to get from the Interior, 

there are about 80 partially documented petitions. 

In any event, as I have indicated, even petitions that have been 

ready and complete on nearly a decade ago are now just getting 

into the process of being part of the current workload. I just think 

this is not a system that works. I am not talking about the yeses 

or the noes that come from the Department. I am talking about the 

fact that when people get together and file a petition, they should 

not expect it will take three decades for their Government to respond to them. That is just not satisfactory to me, and I think it 

is not satisfactory to the Committee. 

Let me call on the Vice Chairman, Senator Barrasso. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I agree 

completely with you. It is not satisfactory to me as a member of 

the Committee. I want to thank you for holding this hearing, I 

want to thank the witnesses for traveling great distances to be 

with us today. 

I want to be clear: I support an administrative process for recognizing Indian tribes as opposed to the legislative process. The administrative process emphasizes a thorough and uniform analysis 

of every Federal acknowledgement petition. The Office of Federal 

Acknowledgement includes professional historians, anthropologists, 

genealogists. And these are people who are trained to evaluate and 

compare each petition against the seven criteria found in the Federal acknowledgement regulations. 

However, many tribal groups feel, appropriately, that the petition process is too costly and too protracted. Since 1978, only 47 petitions have been fully processed and resolved by the Department. 

Several tribal groups have been in the queue for over 30 years. The 

Department has told the Committee on the past that the delays are 

often the result of petitioners not adequately documenting their petitions. But we have heard petitioners say that the OFA keeps 

moving the goalpost back, requiring more and more documentation, 

Mr. Chairman. 

The fact is, the current administrative petition process does not 

impose strict deadlines. It is, practically speaking, open-ended, and 

some would say, never-ending. 

Mr. Chairman, I think this tells a story: Currently, nine group 

are on the OFA’s ready and waiting list, that is, waiting to be considered by the OFA. One of these nine tribes has been in the ready 

and waiting status for almost 14 years. Three others have been 

there for 12 or 13 years. So I can see why group would conclude 

that it is better to avoid the process altogether and ask Congress 

to recognize them. 

But frankly, Mr. Chairman, that doesn’t mean that Congress is 

the right way to go. It may be an easier way to go, but not the 

right way. So I hope to hear suggestions today, Mr. Chairman, to 

show us how this process can be improved. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Barrasso, thank you very much. 

4 

I am going to recognize members for brief opening statements. 

Then what I will do is I will recognize our colleague, Senator Nelson from Florida, who I believe wishes to introduce the Honorable 

Ann Tucker. She will be on the second panel. 

We are going to hear first from Interior, but I know that Senator 

Nelson will have other things. I would like to have him have the 

opportunity to introduce Ms. Tucker. 

Senator Tester. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JON TESTER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you 

for this Committee meeting, and I mean that a lot. 

Before I get into my statement, real quick, I want to thank John 

Sinclair from Montana Little Shell Tribe, for being here today. 

John is a third generation president of the Little Shell Tribe. I 

know how many trips you have made back to Washington, D.C., 

just in the short time I have been here. And I know that it comes 

at great financial sacrifice and sacrifice to your family. I want you 

to know that we appreciate it. And I want to thank you for your 

lifelong dedication to your people. It means a lot. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for this hearing. I think that 

as you and the Ranking Member have said, the process is broken. 

I don’t think there is any doubt about that. It is a good opportunity 

to have the folks from Interior here to discuss it to see if there are 

ways that we can make it better, because I think it needs to be better. We do need a balance on one hand, we don’t want a rubber 

stamp on one hand. On the other hand, it shouldn’t take 31 years 

to make a decision, $2 million in legal fees, which is what the Little Shell have had to pay, and over 70,000 pages of documents, 

which by the way, if stacked on top of one another would be 35 feet 

tall. 

Mr. Chairman, I think you probably already know this, I think 

the decision that came out of Interior last week was wrong. But 

that is not why we are here. We are really here to fix a situation 

that needs to be fixed. You have said many times in this Committee that you don’t think it is appropriate for the Committee to 

take up tribal recognition. I agree with that. I think it is a function 

of the Department of Interior. 

But by the same token, if their ability to do this in a timely basis 

with solid reasoning behind it doesn’t happen, that system is broken and needs to be fixed. It falls upon us as people in the legislative branch to make it work or potentially even recognize tribes 

that the Department of Interior has shown that they weren’t going 

to recognize because their process is broken. 

At any rate, I want to thank you for having the hearing, once 

again. I appreciate the opportunity to ask some questions once the 

witnesses get done. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Tester, thank you. 

Senator Udall. 

5 

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM UDALL, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO 

Senator UDALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to 

thank the Chairman for continuing his efforts to keep attention on 

the pitfalls and the long and complicated and even unclear process 

of Federal acknowledgement. It is my understanding that this 

Committee has held a hearing on this issue every Congress since 

2002. I hope that this hearing will be productive for all of us, and 

I hope we will gain new determination and ideas on how we can 

improve this process. 

Federal tribal recognition is a serious thing. It is of the utmost 

importance to communities and nations across the Country. The 

United States has a solemn trust responsibility to tribes that is 

based on a long and often tragic history of treaties and contracts. 

It is important that the Federal Government take these responsibilities seriously and conduct a fair and transparent process of 

Federal acknowledgement. 

With that, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Udall, thank you very much. 

Chairperson Tucker, you should know the Muscogee Nation has 

a very fierce advocate here in the form of Senator Nelson. I know 

he wishes to introduce you, even though you are going to be on the 

second panel. 

Senator Nelson, if you would come up and introduce the Chairperson, we would appreciate that. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NELSON, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA 

Senator NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You don’t normally associate tribes with Florida, all of you four 

esteemed Senators being from the western part of our Country. But 

as you know, we have two very prominent tribes, the Seminoles 

and the Miccosukee in Florida. And the Seminoles are quick to 

point out that they are the only unconquered tribe. 

But we have many others that are represented. And I am here 

to mirror the frustration that you all have just expressed in your 

opening comments with a process that needs to be repaired and 

that needs to be improved. And it is tribes like the Muscogee Nation of Florida that have waited for decades and they still don’t 

have a decision. As a matter of fact, they participated in the Federal acknowledgement process in 1978, that is 31 years ago, without a decision. Even the State of Florida legislature recognized 

them in 1986. But the recognition is still not there. 

So what I wanted to do was to introduce Ann, the Chairwoman 

of the Muscogee Nation, Ann Tucker. She served as the tribal council Chairwoman since 2002. The Chairwoman has served the 

Muscogee Nation of Florida since 1979, when she first collected 

oral histories for the University of West Florida. It was a project 

funded by the Florida Endowment of the Humanities. 

She was the youngest appointee to the Northwest Florida Creek 

Indian Council by then-Governor and our former colleague Senator 

Bob Graham, in 1981. She served 12 years as an elected representative to the tribal council, and the Chairwoman is also tasked by 

6 

the tribal council to complete the Federal recognition process for 

the tribe. 

So I want to thank you for your willingness to hold this hearing 

and to keep after this. While the bill that I had filed had a hearing, 

it never made it to the Senate Floor. So Senator Martinez and I 

reintroduced it as the 111th Congress started. I am hoping that 

you will be able to address this, address the process, and move to 

a markup. 

Thank you for the courtesies that you have extended to me, Mr. 

Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Nelson, thank you very much. Thanks 

for your work, and the Committee looks forward to continuing to 

working with you. 

Our first panel is going to be Mr. George Skibine, Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior. He is accompanied by Mr. R. Lee Fleming, the Director of the Office of Federal Acknowledgement at the 

U.S. Department of the Interior here in Washington, D.C. 

Mr. Skibine, you may proceed. Thank you for being with us. 

STATEMENT OF GEORGE T. SKIBINE, ACTING PRINCIPAL 

DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INDIAN AFFAIRS, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; ACCOMPANIED BY 

R. LEE FLEMING, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF FEDERAL 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

Mr. SKIBINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman, 

Senator Tester, Senator Udall. I am pleased to be here today to 

present our views on fixing the Federal acknowledgement process. 

I am appearing today as the Acting Principal Deputy Assistant 

Secretary of Indian Affairs. And it is in this capacity that I am appearing before you today. 

I am also the Acting Chairman of the National Indian Gaming 

Commission. But that is not what I am here to talk about. 

My statement is in the record, so I am not going to repeat it. I 

am just going to make a few comments and highlight what we said. 

Essentially, when Larry EchoHawk became Assistant Secretary, 

at his confirmation hearing, I think he agreed with you, Mr. Chairman, and with Senator Tester, that the acknowledgment process 

needed to be improved, to say the least. So he has asked me to be 

the chief architect of trying to fix what is broken. 

As a result, I have committed to him that this is going to be one 

of the priorities of his Administration, and that we are going to get 

that done before he leaves office, for sure. I became involved in the 

process in June of last year, when I became the Acting Assistant 

Secretary during the Kempthorne Administration. At that time, I 

really didn’t know much about the acknowledgement process, so I 

am certainly no expert in this area. I have certainly learned a lot 

in the year and a half or so that I have been involved in it. 

One of the first issues that I tackled was a request for an extension of time for a petitioner. I granted it, it was my first week in 

the job. Lo and behold, I thought it was going to be non-controversial. The following day, I got a call from an angry Congressman 

who was wondering what this was all about. I became quickly immersed in the controversies that surround this process. 

7 

And what I have come to conclude at this point is that, I know 

the title of the hearing is fixing something that is broken. I am not 

sure that the system is necessarily broken. Certainly, Mr. Lee 

Fleming will tell you, if he may, when I am done, why it is not broken. But we have looked at the x-rays, and there is certainly room 

for disagreement there. 

But if it is not broken, I think the doctor would say, you had better fix this before things get worse. So that is what I am determined to do. 

One of the things I think we need to do is, what we can do here, 

at Interior, is revise the process in 25 C.F.R. Part 83. The revision 

that I think needs to be done is the following. We need to establish 

time frames that are going to be easily ascertainable, that can be 

followed and where a petitioner can see where it began and date 

certain of when it ends. Right now, as you have said, there is no 

certainty in that process. That needs to happen. 

There needs to be, besides a time line, there needs to be an end 

to what I think in reading the regulations are a series of discretionary extensions that can be granted. I think all of these extensions can combine to take years in the process. That, whether it is 

for the Government or the petitioner, that cannot continue if we 

want to have a process that is clear and within certain time 

frames. 

We also need to take a look at perhaps the elimination of 

unneeded steps. I know that in the last regulation, 1994, we added 

a review by the Interior Board of Indian Appeals. There are reasons for that, but I think I want the staff to take a look at whether 

that is really needed. I will talk to the chief judge of the IBIA 

about that. Their process adds two years or more to the process. 

Then after that, the decision can be appealed to Federal district 

court. 

So essentially, is this really a necessary administrative process 

that we add this many years, because of the backlog at IBIA. 

In terms of the standards, I think we are probably going to take 

a hard look at the standards. The standards were established a 

long time ago. In fact, I was reading the excellent article by Patty 

Ferguson-Bohnee from Arizona State University. I think that even 

the American Indian Policy Review Commission started developing 

standards a long, long time ago. 

So it may be something that we take a look at to see whether 

there is some redundancy or see whether this is all needed. Then 

I think I would like to take a look at clarification of some of the 

terms that are somewhat ambiguous, for instance, the words, ‘‘on 

a substantially continuous basis.’’ Well, to me, there is some ambiguity there. That is why, for instance, I think in the Little Shell 

proposed finding, Kevin Gover, the Assistant Secretary, found that 

the petitioner met criterion A. When the final outcome was decided, 

the Office of Federal Acknowledgement found that it did not. 

How can you have this kind of disagreement? I think that what 

is important is to have standards that are, where you can rearticulate, either they meet or they don’t. I think we need to do that on 

a consistent basis. 

For instance, I remember when a couple of years ago I was involved in the development of regulations to implement Section 20 

8 

of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. We needed to define what is 

a nearby tribe and what is the surrounding community. There were 

not a lot of agreements as to whether there should be a radius. I 

was a strong proponent for putting something in. Otherwise, it may 

be questionable, but at least the people who look at the regulation 

know exactly, are they a nearby tribe, are they within the surrounding community, instead of asking the question. 

I think we need clear standards where, if you are going to be recognized on a substantially continuous basis, then what does it 

mean? Can there be a break of 5 years, 10 years, 20 years? I think 

that needs to be in there. 

I also think we need to clarify what the term predominant portion in 83.7(b) means. To me, that is again not exactly clear. Do 

we mean 60 percent, 62 percent? That should be pinned down, so 

that everybody knows exactly what it means. That should be in 

regulation. 

Finally on clarification, I think I agree that the burden of proof 

should be clarified in the regulation. 

You asked in your question who makes the decision. I think 

under our system at Interior, the Assistant Secretary makes the 

decision. In the case of Little Shell, I made the decision because the 

Assistant Secretary is recused from this matter. Even though I 

make the decision, I rely extensively on the proposed findings of 

the Office of Federal Acknowledgement. The office is staffed by a 

number of professionals. They are all very extensively qualified. I 

am not sure that it is my duty to substitute my judgement for that 

of the professional staff. We have a budget of—— 

Mr. FLEMING. About $2.2 million. 

Mr. SKIBINE. We pay these people $2 million a year to provide 

this advice. I think that, and I know that they are qualified. I am 

not going to essentially second guess their professional determinations. 

But at the same time, if we have ambiguities in the way the regulations are implemented, then essentially you are going to have 

problems. In fact, with Little Shell, it was an excruciatingly difficult decision for me and really agonizing. Because Kevin Gover 

had made a positive determination, I have the utmost respect for 

him. So we asked for an extension. We looked at what we could do, 

should we do, you know, what are our options here, could we do 

a re-proposed determination. 

Well, in the end, this is the way it came down. But it certainly 

was not easy. I think I have gone over my time at this point, so 

I am going to end and say that I am looking forward to working 

with the Committee as we proceed to develop regulations. We will, 

I think one of the things we decided that we will do consultation 

with the Indian tribes under the Executive Order and our consultation policy. 

But I think that I have promised our Assistant Secretary that we 

are going to get this done. And by the time we are done, we should 

have a process that works a lot better than it does now. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Skibine follows:] 

9 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GEORGE T. SKIBINE, ACTING PRINCIPAL DEPUTY

ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INDIAN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE

INTERIOR; ACCOMPANIED BY R. LEE FLEMING, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF FEDERAL

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, my name is George T. Skibine and 

I am the Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior. I am pleased to be here today to present the views of the 

Department of the Interior on Fixing the Federal Acknowledgment Process. We recognize Congress has plenary authority over this issue and look forward to working 

with this Committee to devise solutions on how to improve and streamline the Department’s Federal acknowledgment process. Appearing with me before you today 

is Mr. Lee Fleming, the Director of the Office of Federal Acknowledgment. 

Assistant Secretary Larry Echo Hawk is committed to reforming the acknowledgment process, and we are currently exploring ways to improve the process. One of 

the problems that we are aware of is the significant amount of time it takes for 

some, if not all, petitions, to be processed from beginning to end. We have undertaken a process to revise the current regulations in 25 CFR Part 83 to eliminate 

any steps in the process that we find to be unnecessary as well as to implement 

deadlines so that a timeframe for considering petitions can be determined with certainty. 

The acknowledgment of the continued existence of another sovereign entity is one 

of the most solemn and important responsibilities delegated to the Secretary of the 

Interior. Federal acknowledgment enables that sovereign entity to participate in federal programs for Indian tribes and acknowledges a government-to-government relationship between an Indian tribe and the United States. 

These decisions have significant impacts on the petitioning groups, the surrounding communities, and federal, state, and local governments. Acknowledgment 

carries with it certain immunities and privileges, including partial exemptions from 

state and local criminal and civil jurisdictions, and the ability of newly acknowledged Indian tribes to undertake certain economic opportunities. 

The federal acknowledgment process set forth in 25 CFR Part 83, ‘‘Procedures for 

Establishing that an American Indian Group Exists as an Indian Tribe,’’ allows for 

the uniform and rigorous review necessary to make an informed decision on whether 

to acknowledge a group. When the Department acknowledges an Indian tribe, it is 

acknowledging that an inherently sovereign Indian tribe has continued to exist socially and politically since the beginning of European settlement. The Department 

is not ‘‘granting’’ sovereign status or powers to the group, nor creating a tribe made 

up only of Indian descendants. 

Under the Department’s regulations, in order to meet this standard, petitioning 

groups must demonstrate that they meet each of seven mandatory criteria. The petitioner must: 

(1) demonstrate that it has been identified as an American Indian entity on a 

substantially continuous basis since 1900; 

(2) show that a predominant portion of the petitioning group comprises a distinct community and has existed as a community from historical times until the 

present; 

(3) demonstrate that it has maintained political influence or authority over its 

members as an autonomous entity from historical times until the present; 

(4) provide a copy of the group’s present governing document, including its 

membership criteria; 

(5) demonstrate that its membership consists of individuals who descend from 

the historical Indian tribe or from historical Indian tribes that combined and 

functioned as a single autonomous political entity, and provide a current membership list; 

(6) show that the membership of the petitioning group is composed principally 

of persons who are not members of any acknowledged North American Indian 

tribe; and 

(7) demonstrate that neither the petitioner nor its members are the subject of 

congressional legislation that has expressly terminated or forbidden the federal 

relationship. 

A criterion is considered met if the available evidence establishes a reasonable 

likelihood of the validity of the facts relating to that criterion. A petitioner must satisfy all seven of the mandatory criteria in order for the Department to acknowledge 

the continued tribal existence of a group as an Indian tribe. 

10 

OFA consists of anthropologists, genealogists, and historians who review, verify, 

and evaluate petitions from groups seeking federal acknowledgment. Since the process began in 1978, 67 petitions have been resolved, 45 through the Department’s 

acknowledgment process (16 acknowledged, 29 denied acknowledgment—representing 105 decisions composed of 51 proposed findings, 47 final determinations, 

and 7 reconsidered final determinations) and 22 by Congress or other means. 

The last hearing on this topic was on April 4, 2008 and in that testimony the Department’s witness testified the Department would consider various ideas for improving the OFA process. In the Federal Register on May 23, 2008, the Department 

published guidance and direction to the Office of Federal Acknowledgment for managing recurring administrative and technical problems in processing petitions for 

federal acknowledgment. This guidance and direction has or will produce results in 

dealing with the following problems: 

• splintering petitioning groups, 

• handling petition documentation when disputes between factions of a petitioner 

arise, 

• providing technical assistance, 

• processing expedited decisions, 

• reducing the time period for which petitioners must submit evidence, 

• processing expedited findings against acknowledgment, 

• processing decisions against acknowledgment based on failure to meet fewer 

than seven criteria, 

• maintaining integrity of the process, and 

• establishing inactive status for petitioners that are no longer in contact with the 

Department or who have not provided adequate documentation. 

Our goal is to continue to improve the process so that all groups seeking acknowledgment can be processed fairly, systematically and completed within a set time 

frame. This goal is in line with other goals: 

• to ensure that when the United States acknowledges a group as an Indian tribe, 

it does so with a consistent legal, factual, and historical basis, with uniform evidentiary standards; 

• to provide clear and consistent standards for the review of documented petitions 

for acknowledgment; to expedite an administrative review process for petitions 

through establishing ‘‘sunset’’ deadlines for decisions; and 

• most importantly, to provide adequate resources to process petitions meeting 

the expectations of Congress and the people affected by federal acknowledgment 

decisions. 

We welcome the interest of Congress in the acknowledgment process, and are willing to work with the Congress on legislative approaches to the Federal acknowledgment process. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I will be happy to answer 

any questions you may have. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right, Mr. Skibine, thank you very much. We 

appreciate your testimony. 

I am going to question last, so I will call on my colleagues to ask 

questions first. I will start with Senator Tester. I will just use the 

early bird rule, if that is all right. 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank you for your testimony, Mr. Skibine. We will 

stick with the Little Shell here for a bit. What options does Little 

Shell have now? 

Mr. SKIBINE. I think at this point, Little Shell certainly has the 

option of having Congress look at legislative recognition. There 

may be very good reasons why in this particular case, Little Shell 

should be recognized legislatively. 

In terms of our process, I think Little Shell can ask for a reconsideration, correct? 

Mr. FLEMING. Correct. 

11 

Mr. SKIBINE. Before Interior, or they can go and appeal to the 

Interior Board of Indian Appeals, that I discussed before. Those are 

the administrative options at this point. 

I think they can also go directly to Federal District Court, correct? 

Mr. FLEMING. Correct. 

Mr. SKIBINE. Yes. 

Senator TESTER. The reconsideration process goes through your 

office? 

Mr. SKIBINE. Yes, it does. 

Senator TESTER. And you would just go review the material 

again, is that what you would do, basically? 

Mr. SKIBINE. Let me ask, since I have never done one, let me ask 

Mr. Fleming to elaborate on this. 

Mr. FLEMING. The request for reconsideration is before the Interior Board of Indian Appeals, which is an independent review 

board within the Department of Interior. It is not within the Office 

of the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs. 

Senator TESTER. Okay, so how is that different from an appeal? 

Mr. FLEMING. It goes from the Office of the Assistant Secretary, 

Indian Affairs, that a decision was made, and it is reviewed by the 

Office of Hearings and Appeal. It is separate from the structure of 

the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or Office of the Assistant Secretary, 

Indian Affairs. 

Senator TESTER. Okay, so if they appeal it, where does it go? 

Mr. FLEMING. To the Office of Hearings and Appeals, and within 

that office is the IBIA. 

Mr. SKIBINE. I think that what you are saying is that the request 

for reconsideration is a request to the IBIA. So it is an appeal to 

the IBIA. 

Senator TESTER. It is the same thing? 

Mr. SKIBINE. Right, it is the same thing. 

Senator TESTER. Has there been any appeals done before? 

Mr. SKIBINE. Yes, there have been. 

Senator TESTER. And what have the results been? 

Mr. SKIBINE. I am going to have to ask Mr. Fleming about that. 

Mr. FLEMING. Results have been that some of the decisions were 

sustained. Some of the decisions were remanded back to the agency. 

Senator TESTER. Can you give me, has it been half and half, 30– 

70, 20–80? 

Mr. FLEMING. There have been seven reconsidered final determinations. Out of the seven reconsidered final determinations, one, 

Cowlitz, was positive. The other five were not. 

Senator TESTER. They were upheld by the decision that was 

made by the Department. 

Can I ask you this? I am going to jump back to this in a minute, 

but you said you were going to work on a certain time frame when 

you are fixing the appeals process. Can you tell me what that time 

frame would be? 

Mr. SKIBINE. I am hoping to have proposed rules within the year, 

within a year. 

Senator TESTER. Yes. 

12 

Mr. SKIBINE. I know that when I appeared before this Committee 

on the Section 20 IGRA regs, I made some commitments that beyond my control were not—— 

Senator TESTER. This is a different time frame than getting the 

rules. I want to know, do you have a time frame in mind to make 

the decision-making process? In other words, if Little Shell were 

going to apply for the first time tomorrow and your rules were in 

effect, would you expect the Department to make a decision within 

six months, one year, five years? What would it be? Will that be 

defined? 

Mr. SKIBINE. Yes, that will be defined. I cannot tell you what it 

is right now. 

Senator TESTER. Do you have any figure in mind? No? 

Mr. SKIBINE. Not really. 

Senator TESTER. Okay. The release that you sent out on Little 

Shell, the reason that the acknowledgement was not given, and correct me if I am wrong, but it said it has been identified as an Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis since 1900. What 

you are saying is they did not have that entity since 1900. Can you 

tell me who is responsible for making sure that that entity exist? 

Does that come from an outside source or does it come from outside 

the tribe? 

Mr. SKIBINE. I think on criterion A, it has to be identified by outside sources. 

Senator TESTER. Outside the Department of Interior? 

Mr. SKIBINE. Yes. 

Senator TESTER. Okay, so what kind of sources are you looking 

at? Because the truth is, I know for a fact Mr. Sinclair, this has 

been three generations, 1900 is a little longer than three generations, but my guess is that they could probably track that back. 

But what kind of paperwork are you looking for? 

Mr. FLEMING. If I may answer, the identifications are made by 

individuals outside of the group itself. 

Senator TESTER. Okay, let me get this right, then. You are not 

asking the Little Shell to determine that they have been around 

since 1900? 

Mr. FLEMING. Right, 

Senator TESTER. You are not asking the Bureau of Indian Affairs 

or the Department of Interior to determine if they have been 

around since 1900. So who did you ask to find out if Little Shell 

has been around since 1900? 

Mr. FLEMING. We rely on documentation such as newspapers, articles by other professionals, such as anthropologists who may have 

studied the region, correspondence that may be to and from Congress. 

Senator TESTER. Is it public information who you reached out to 

for that information? 

Mr. FLEMING. Yes, it is public information. 

Senator TESTER. Could I get a list of the folks you reached out 

to for that information? The reason is because I want to make sure 

they are Montanans and have Montana connections. It would be 

very difficult for a Seminole to determine whether the Little Shell 

existed since 1900. 

13 

Mr. FLEMING. What would be helpful to you would be the actual 

decision-making document. Because it goes through the various 

identifications that were used. 

Senator TESTER. Actually, I think I have that. But it doesn’t list 

who was used. I think that is as important as the criteria. 

Mr. FLEMING. Okay. 

Senator TESTER. You can do that for me? 

Mr. FLEMING. Sure. 

Senator TESTER. Okay. The second point that you said was that 

they comprised a distinct community since historical times and 

maintained significant social relationships and interaction as a 

part of a distinct community. Can you tell me what is the difference between that one and the first one? 

Mr. SKIBINE. Yes. I can tell you that between A and B, in A it 

has to be identification by outside sources that the tribe existed. In 

B, I think it is essentially evidence that there has been a community. 

Senator TESTER. So who do you turn to for that information? Do 

you turn to the tribe? 

Mr. SKIBINE. I think we turn to the tribe for that. 

Senator TESTER. So the tribe didn’t indicate, and this goes back 

to 1900 too, then? 

Mr. SKIBINE. No. 

Mr. FLEMING. Criteria B and C require documentation from first 

sustained contact. And this would be, in various forms of evidence, 

evidence that is found on the national level, the State level, the 

local level, the various levels where documentation is found. 

What is needing to be demonstrated by a group is that they have 

held events that took place where you have interactions between 

its members, which is demonstrating the community. Then you 

would have to have evidence to demonstrate the political authority 

and leadership from historical times. 

Senator TESTER. Are you talking about like pow-wows? Is that 

what you are talking about? 

Mr. FLEMING. Pow-wows is a good demonstration for a community, funerals is another example. 

Senator TESTER. Then the last question on this is, you maintain 

political influence, this is one of the reasons you denied them, 

maintain political influence over a community of its members, or 

over communities that combined into the petitioner. I don’t track 

the last one, but that is okay. Are you talking about elections? 

Mr. FLEMING. Talking about leadership where there may be situations that arise where the leaders take action and that the members of the group follow the action or they don’t follow the action. 

Senator TESTER. So it is more than just an election of leaders? 

Mr. FLEMING. Election is factored in, but it is more than just 

elections. 

Senator TESTER. Okay, so where do you go to get that information? Does that come from the tribe? 

Mr. FLEMING. Again, the tribe, local records, repositories, newspapers, those kinds of records. 

Senator TESTER. And you can give me information on where you 

got that, either the lack of information or the criteria to substantiate the fact that these were valid reasons to deny? Okay, good. 

14 

And if I might, last question, then we will move on. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence. Who set up the seven criteria 

and how long have they been around? 

Mr. FLEMING. The regulations were created in 1978. And it went 

through the Department’s regulatory process, a rule was promulgated. Hearings were held and such. 

Senator TESTER. Super. Mr. Skibine, do you anticipate these 

seven criteria being still in effect when you get done revamping 

this system? 

Mr. SKIBINE. Perhaps. I think we are going to take a look at it. 

I am not sure that the criteria in themselves are necessarily the 

problem. The problems fundamentally are the time line and how 

you weight the evidence. I think this is what we are going to have 

to focus on. 

But frankly, I agree that some of these criteria, we will take a 

hard look at that. That is the only thing I can say. 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If we get a second 

round, I have some more questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Tester, if you need a second round, we 

will do that. 

By consent, let me call on the former Vice Chair. She has some 

questions to submit and a comment and then has to leave. 

So if it is okay with the Committee members, I will call on Senator Murkowski. 

STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA 

Senator MURKOWSKI. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman, and appreciate the indulgence of the other Committee members. 

Mr. Skibine, welcome back before the Committee. In the last 

Congress, when I was sitting as the Ranking Member and had an 

opportunity to discuss these issues that we appreciate are very difficult. We have seen the impact in terms of the cost, the time lines. 

Resolution is multi-generational. I think we recognize that the 

process is one that just does not work. 

I don’t want to speak to that today, and I am going to submit 

to you a couple of very specific questions that I would like you to 

address in some detail. And it relates to my State. As you know, 

in the State of Alaska, we have some 225 federally-recognized 

tribes on the list. But there remain several tribes that believe that 

they should be on the list of federally-recognized tribes, and they 

are not. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has told these groups that 

they have to seek acknowledgment under the Part 83 process. The 

tribes’ attorneys submit, however, that they should be using the 

streamlined process that is provided by the 1936 Alaska amendments to the Indian Reorganization Act. So the questions that I 

will submit to you are two very specific ones. Given that I would 

like some detail, I will just ask that you spend some time on that. 

But I would appreciate your response to that so that I can be responsive to my constituents. 

Senator MURKOWSKI. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I conclude, 

and I appreciate your letting me leapfrog over the other more timely members of the Committee. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Murkowski, thank you very much. 

15 

Senator UDALL. Senator UDALL. Thank you, Chairman Dorgan. 

Mr. Skibine, it is my understanding that 150 petitioners have 

submitted letters of intent, stating they intend to enter the recognition process, but have not acted to submit the documentation necessary for consideration, while only about 48 groups have completed the full process since 1978. What are your opinions on why 

so many groups have noticed their intent but have not entered the 

process? Is it an issue of resources? I have heard the same thing 

that Senator Tester has, and that he talked about in his testimony, 

that this is very, very expensive. So is that what is going on here? 

Mr. SKIBINE. I think, to a large degree, that is very possible. Let 

me just say that you are right, I think that is probably one of the 

issues, and I think that is one of the concerns I have. I am involved 

also to a large degree in handling gaming issues for the Department. And because of the cost of these petitions, the tribes, or the 

group who are essentially money-less, have in some cases involved 

developers to help them to fund those petitions, which has led some 

to essentially associate the petitioning process with gaming, especially off-reservation gaming. 

There are no ties between the two, but because, I think, of the 

cost of these petitions, I think some of these petitioners really do 

not have a choice but to turn to outside sources, who essentially 

are not going to do this out of the goodness of their heart, unless 

they get something in return. 

So that is an issue. But I think that the cost is definitely one of 

the problems that we have had. 

Senator UDALL. One of the bills that has recently addressed this 

issue is Representative Faleomavaega’s bill, H.R. 3690. This is a 

proposal that tries to deal with the acknowledgement process. The 

bill would move the petition review process from the BIA to an 

independent commission of recognition of Indian tribes. The commission would consist of seven members appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. 

My question to you is, are there any benefits in keeping the Federal acknowledgement process within the Department of Interior 

rather than an independent commission? What are your thoughts 

on that? 

Mr. SKIBINE. Without commenting on Mr. Faleomavaega’s bill, 

because we haven’t, we are not authorized to do that—— 

Senator UDALL. Well, just the concept. 

Mr. SKIBINE. Yes, the concept, I think the concept, personally I 

think the concept of a commission is not something that we can implement in Interior. But it is something that Congress would have 

to do. I think that is something we should explore. It is not necessarily a bad thing. I think we have to look at it. But I think that 

it is, in terms of wanting to work with Congress to try to improve 

the process, that is certainly one of the issues that I think the 

agency or the Department should consider. 

Senator UDALL. And one of the things that he simplifies in his 

bill would be the idea of taking these seven mandatory criteria, and 

sort them down to two. And those would be proof that members of 

the petitioning group descended from a historic Indian tribe or historical Indian groups that combined and functioned as a single, auVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:20 Jun 30, 2010 Jkt 056575 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\56575.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF
16 

tonomous entity; and two, proof that the petition group comprises 

a community, related members distinct from surrounding communities, continuously since 1900. Does that make sense to simplify 

these seven criteria? 

Mr. SKIBINE. I am not sure. I think simplification is good. But 

I am not sure that we want to simplify it that much. Because we 

have to, there is reasons we have those seven criteria. And I think 

that we want to make sure that we have the real thing. If you simplify too much, then essentially, you don’t get the same level of evidence that we have with the seven criteria. So that is something 

we would have to be careful to look at. 

Senator UDALL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your doing this hearing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Udall, thank you. 

Senator Franken. 

STATEMENT OF HON. AL FRANKEN, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for 

being late today. I was at a Judiciary hearing. So I apologize if any 

of these questions were kind of covered in your testimony. I want 

to thank you for being here today. 

As the newest member of the Committee, this testimony is very 

valuable to me. I would like to recognize some folks from Leech 

Lake Reservation here today from Minnesota. This is off topic, but 

I just want you to bring this back to the BIA. At Leech Lake and 

other reservations in Minnesota, there has been an issue with the 

new school construction fund, where tribes have put in requests 

that are 15 years old and can’t find out where they are on the list 

of projects. There is kind of no existing list. 

So please, if you could take that back and maybe I could find out 

something about that. 

I read through the GAO report from 2005. When they, that is the 

Government Accountability Office, and when they testified before 

the House Committee on Resources, the testimony says, ‘‘While the 

BIA could extend the time lines, it has no mechanism to balance 

the need for a thorough review of a petition with the need to complete the decision process.’’ Excuse me again if you covered this in 

your testimony before I got here. Is this still the case? And what 

mechanisms are in place to ensure a complete review in a timely 

manner? 

Mr. SKIBINE. Let me ask Lee Fleming to address this issue, since 

he was around for all this time. 

Mr. FLEMING. Good afternoon. The GAO actually began their review of the acknowledgement process in 2001, November. Their report was quite extensive in our process. Their ultimate recommendation was to improve the timeliness and the transparency. 

We provided the GAO with a plan of action on correction. 

Within the past ten years, we have had quite a bit of growth in 

our decisions. In the past ten years, we have had approximately 38 

decisions that came forward. These would be proposed findings, 

final determinations and reconsidered final determinations. 

The GAO also asked the Department to develop a needs assessment to see what could be applied to make the process more effiVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:20 Jun 30, 2010 Jkt 056575 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\56575.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF
17 

cient and transparent. We provided that. I believe that as time has 

passed, we have indeed increased our production. Clearly not as 

fast as what the expectations are, but that is what we also put into 

the report, that if the expectations are such that this process be 

completed in three years, five years, ten years, then these are the 

resources that need to be applied. 

The outcome of that was we got one additional team. 

Senator FRANKEN. So what you got is insufficient. So you can’t 

do it in three or five or ten. We can’t expect that. What is the time 

line? What can you expect? From soup to nuts, to the beginning to 

the end of the process, what kind of time? 

Mr. FLEMING. Currently, the regulations define a 25 month process. That entails a 12 month review of all the evidence that is presented. There is a due process phase called the public comment period, so that when, after the first year, we issue a proposed finding 

and then it is introduced to the public; the petitioner, interested 

parties, and the public then have an opportunity to comment on 

our proposed finding, either to acknowledge or not to acknowledge. 

After the six month comment period, then there is a 60-day or 

two-month period for the petitioner to respond to any comments 

that came from any third parties. Again, all a part of due process. 

At the end of that two month period, then the Department has a 

minimum of 60 days to issue a final determination. When that is 

issued, then there is this 90 day period to request reconsideration 

before the Interior Board of Indian Appeals. 

So you add all of those together, it comes up to 25 months. 

Senator FRANKEN. But that is a much shorter period than the reality, right? 

Mr. FLEMING. That is ideal. That is if there are no backlogs, if 

there are no administrative tasks that are preventing direct attention. We have litigation that we have to juggle in. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Fleming, let me ask if Senator Franken 

would yield. 

Senator FRANKEN. Please. 

The CHAIRMAN. My understanding is, you have six petitions that 

are active in the current workload, is that correct? You had seven? 

Mr. FLEMING. I have eight that are currently on active consideration. 

The CHAIRMAN. Then nine petitions that are on ready status? 

Mr. FLEMING. Seven that are on the ready status. 

The CHAIRMAN. So I will correct that, seven that are on the ready 

status. But when you talk about 25 months, the seven that are on 

the ready status, presumably these are petitions that are ready. I 

assume you are not going to get to some of those for five, ten years, 

are you? I mean, you are doing two a year. 

Mr. FLEMING. We are doing—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Because the 25 months seems just way outside 

the real issue, and that is you have seven petitions on ready status 

that you are not even going to be looking at for some years, are 

you? 

Mr. FLEMING. No, the seven that are active are currently being 

acted upon. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am talking about ready status. 

18 

Mr. FLEMING. The ready status. Those can’t go into active until 

we have the resources open and available to address them. 

The CHAIRMAN. The only reason I interrupted Senator Franken 

here is to say that the 25 months doesn’t mean anything. All that 

mean is that at some point, once you get from ready to active and 

then moving on active up to the first one or two, then you have 25. 

But that might be four years from now. 

So I thank you for yielding. Go ahead. 

Senator FRANKEN. Well, that was sort of my question. I understand you delineated all the different periods that lead up to the 

25 months. But you also said you can’t do it in three, five or ten 

years without the level resources that you don’t have. 

Mr. FLEMING. Right. 

Senator FRANKEN. So, soup to nuts, from the beginning to the 

end, what would the expectation be of someone starting today of, 

of someone seeking recognition if they started today? 

Mr. FLEMING. I don’t think I could give you an estimation, because we have a work flow that is like getting into a grocery line. 

The first one in is the first one out, which is a fair way of working 

with the groups. We only have so many resources or teams to work 

each case. So we have four teams. You can expect that the four 

teams are able to work on proposed findings or the final determinations or the reconsidered final determinations. There are various 

different phases of this process and it all is complex in the processing of these decisions. 

Mr. SKIBINE. Can I interrupt you? Senator Franken, what I said 

at the beginning is that when we revise the regulations, we are 

going to try to address this issue, so that there is a, essentially a 

time frame with a beginning and an end, so when you ask that 

question, there can be an answer. 

Senator FRANKEN. Okay, thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Skibine, we have had these discussions before on other issues with respect to regulations. This set of laws 

has been in position for 31 years, 1978 the accountability process 

was established. And you are saying we don’t have regulations with 

which to make judgments about some of the sensitive areas. I just 

don’t understand that. But assuming you do regulations, now, from 

2002 to 2010, the Department has never asked for more money. 

And we all know, the problem is, this is no more fun for you than 

it is for us, to have a hearing every two years and complain about 

a process that doesn’t work. It doesn’t make any sense to do this 

every second year. 

So the question I would ask Mr. Fleming is this. Can you provide 

to this Committee what would be necessary to have some reasonable prospect of processing applications between a five and ten year 

interval as an end process? How much would that cost? If we have 

a tribal recognition process that by and large gives answers after 

a lot of people are dead, it is not a process that works very well. 

Are you asking for more money each year so that you—I am not 

a big advocate of spending here, but I am just saying, if you represent being able to do a job, then how much money do you need 

to do the job effectively? Are you requesting the funds? And if so, 

could you give a report to this Committee on what it would cost, 

so that we would have at least some measurable time frame and 

19 

be able to meet some measurable objective on this acknowledgement process? Otherwise, maybe we should all just give up and 

say, you know what, this process doesn’t work. The Little Shell 

Band, I don’t know the merits of that. Frankly, I have not studied 

it. But they wait 30 years? And a decade ago get told that things 

look fine, and then a decade later, they are told no, you are turned 

down? Somehow, that doesn’t meet any test of reasonableness. 

So Mr. Skibine, you have kind of disagreed that it needs fixing. 

You have heard my description of it. Disabuse me of the fact that 

my contention is it needs fixing. 

Mr. SKIBINE. Oh, I didn’t say that I didn’t believe it needed fixing. I agree, and we are going to try to do the best through our regulatory process to fix the problem that we have with the process. 

The CHAIRMAN. How long will it take you to develop regulations 

that are in force? 

Mr. SKIBINE. Well, it will take me, I think it will take about a 

year to develop proposed regulations. And then they will have to 

be finalized, we will have to do consultation with Indian tribes. So 

another year probably, at this point. 

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think you will still be working for the 

Federal Government when regulations are in force? 

Mr. SKIBINE. I am eligible to retire right now. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. SKIBINE. But I have committed—— 

The CHAIRMAN. It is about regulations. We are not trying to 

hurry you out the door. We would like to get some regulations in 

place. 

Mr. SKIBINE. I have committed to Assistant Secretary EchoHawk 

that I would work on this issue until we address it. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me say that it is not sport for us on the Committee to have you up here and to say, what is wrong with you all? 

That is not the issue. But the issue is this. In the Federal acknowledgement process, we have tribes beating on this door saying, we 

want hearings on recognition for us and we want the Congress to 

do it. And I keep saying, that is not the job of Congress. We can’t 

do that. We don’t have all of the folks that you have on your team. 

So I am very uncomfortable doing that. 

On the other hand, those knocks are going to get louder on that 

door unless this acknowledgement process starts to work a bit better. We have 80 partially document petitions in front of you, my 

understanding is about 80. We have seven that are ready, in ready 

status, and I think you said eight that are active petitions. You 

have done two in this calendar year. So that looks to be like, if you 

are in a ready status, you might be, even if you are just completely 

ready status at this point you are not one of the 80 that is partially, you are ready, it might be eight or nine years if you happen 

to fall at the end of the seven on the ready status. 

I am just saying that I understand why tribes are saying, we 

want something else, something that works. So to me, I don’t want 

this Committee to be the recognition committee. I want to fix this, 

so that they can have some reasonable expectation of a time line 

that is fair and that they all kind of understand when they file a 

petition. That is all. 

Senator Tester, you wanted some additional comments. 

20 

Senator TESTER. Just real quick. I want to echo your statements 

right now, Mr. Chairman, that is, you are right, the banging on 

that door is going to get louder until we get this process fixed. Why 

I bring up Little Shell is because you have regulations. It is much 

easier to look and see how those regulations are applied than just 

read the regulations for what they are. 

I guess that the Department has determined that the Little Shell 

are not a part of any other tribe, so they are not eligible for a lot 

of the benefits that a recognized tribe does. But yet they don’t meet 

each one of these seven criteria, which puts them out in limbo, unless we don’t think they are Native Americans at all. 

So how do you propose to fix that through regulations? Does that 

make any sense to you? It was a little bit convoluted, so you can 

say no, and I will say it again. But if we actually believe that the 

Little Shell, 89 percent of their members, were descendants from 

the Pembina Band of Chippewa Indians, but yet they are not, they 

are a separate band, so they are not part of the Chippewa, they are 

separate from that. How do they get to this kind of status? The Department makes one finding on one level, but yet doesn’t make a 

finding on another level. They say they are Native Americans, but 

they are not part of the Chippewa, but yet they are not Native 

Americans to be recognized as a tribe? 

Mr. SKIBINE. I think in the Little Shell case at this point, of 

course they could, if they appealed, there could be a reversal of the 

Department’s decision. So they could be recognized. But potentially, 

if they do not meet this regulation, it does not mean they are not 

a tribe. But then it will mean that they need legislative solution. 

Senator TESTER. Okay, so does that mean you are going to support my bill? 

Mr. SKIBINE. I cannot commit to that right now. But I think that 

we will definitely take a very close look at that. 

Senator TESTER. All right. Will you commit to support it after 

you take a look at it? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. SKIBINE. Not if I want to be working for the Government tomorrow. 

Senator TESTER. We will probably ask your boss that question, 

too. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your indulgence. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Tester, thank you very much. You came 

close to getting a commitment, it appeared to me. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me say, Mr. Skibine and Mr. Fleming, you 

both are Federal employees, you have long careers, it is not our intention to suggest that your work is without merit. That is not my 

intention at all. You no doubt work hard. Mr. Skibine, we have 

had, you have, in fact, filled many roles in the Department recently 

because of vacancies. You have had a lot to do on a lot of issues 

over many years here with this Committee, dealing with regulations and so on. 

I do say, however, that it is frustrating, every couple of years, to 

have another hearing. So somehow, this Committee needs your assistance to try to evaluate what kind of process could exist with respect to Federal recognition so that if a tribe does the work that 

21 

it needs to do, really develops the historical record in a very strong 

and positive way, that they could expect long before most of their 

residents have died to have some answer from the Federal Government. And 25 or 30 or 35 years is too long. 

So Mr. Fleming, can I ask you, would you submit a report to this 

Committee, if the head of the Interior Department will allow you 

to do that, I expect the Interior Secretary would, submit to us a 

report, what would be necessary, in your work, to give you the opportunity to put some time lines and some reasonable time frames 

on the acknowledgement process, so that we could find a way to address this, even as Mr. Skibine and others begin to do the regulations that will address the things that Senator Tester was asking 

us about? 

I did not ask about the issues Senator Tester asked about because I don’t want to duplicate it, but I have the same questions 

about criteria and what some of the provisions mean, how they are 

interpreted, why they might be interpreted 10 years ago one way 

and now quite another way, in the middle of the process of an application. Mr. Fleming, are you able to provide a report to me that 

would give me that sense? 

Mr. FLEMING. I should be able to. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. I thank you both for being here. And 

thank you for your work and your service. I hope perhaps the next 

time we have you here, which I expect would be in the next Congress, that we would have some good news to report, finally. Thank 

you very much. 

Mr. SKIBINE. Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Next I am going to ask to come to the witness 

table four additional witnesses on a second panel. Mr. Frank 

Ettawageshik, the Honorable John Sinclair. Frank Ettawageshik is 

the Chair of the Federal Acknowledgement Task Force, National 

Congress of American Indians. The Honorable John Sinclair is 

President of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Havre, 

Montana. The Honorable Ann Tucker, Tribal Chairperson of 

Muscogee Nation of Florida, in Bruce, Florida. And Ms. Patty Ferguson-Bohnee, the director of the Indian legal clinic at Tempe, Arizona. 

If the four of you would come forward and take your seats, I 

would appreciate it. I want to tell all of you that your full statements will be made a part of the permanent record, so you don’t 

have to read your full statement. You may appropriately summarize the statement if you would. 

Mr. Ettawageshik, we appreciate your being here, and we will 

ask you to speak first. You are the Chairman of the Federal Acknowledgement Task Force at the National Congress of American 

Indians. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF FRANK ETTAWAGESHIK, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TASK FORCE, NATIONAL CONGRESS 

OF AMERICAN INDIANS 

Mr. ETTAWAGESHIK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of 

the Committee. 

I have a prepared statement, as you said, and we of course stand 

by that statement. It is interesting that pretty much everybody 

22 

here, even the Department, although not directly, has agreed that 

the process is broken. Clearly, if you are going to attempt to fix 

something, then you must think that there are things that aren’t 

right within that process. 

So we all agree that this isn’t working. In my case, I am the 

former chairman of my tribe, I was the chairman of a non-federally 

recognized tribe when I first was elected and first went to work 

many years ago. Our tribe was not on that list of federally-recognized tribes. We went through the process. We eventually had legislation passed, because in our case, as you have pointed out, Mr. 

Chairman, at the rate that they were considering petitions, in our 

case, it would have been between 50 and 100 years before they got 

to our petition. We felt that that was too long. Justice that is delayed is justice denied. 

And as tribes, we are very much aware, through the National 

Congress and as individual tribes, that Congress isn’t creating a 

tribe through recognition. I think that is really important, because 

there are people who sort of feel that there is this weight of responsibility that somehow a tribe is being created through this. But it 

is not. Congress is acknowledging tribes exist. 

In the U.S. Constitution, we have the acknowledgment of the 

pre-existent sovereignty of tribes in the commerce clause. We go on, 

we look through, those of us who have signed treaties, we look to 

the section of the Constitution that talks about the signing of treaties, and that treaties are the supreme law of the land and that 

they don’t go away just because they are old. 

We are very concerned that, as a tribal chairman, one of the 

things that I used to do was to ask our legal interns when they 

were coming in that, if the Supreme Court made a ruling that limited tribal sovereignty, how did that limit our sovereignty. And the 

answer to that question was that it doesn’t limit our sovereignty 

at all. Tribes are either sovereign or they are not. And when they 

are sovereign, that is what the tribes are. 

But what that Supreme Court decision did would be limiting the 

ability of the Federal Government and its agencies in how they 

could acknowledge the sovereignty of the tribes. So it very much 

limits the ability of the tribes to be able to exercise that sovereignty. 

Well, what we have here in the case of the Federal acknowledgment process is we have tribes that are sovereign that are trying 

to figure out how to get the Government to agree that they are, and 

what kind of criteria do we have. I have heard people talk about 

shifting goalposts. I remember, the way I describe it is that we had 

a picture once in the process that we showed, we wanted to see 

what was going on in terms of voting. 

Well, we had a picture here of people voting, we had minutes of 

that meeting. So we provided that. Then they said, all right, well, 

that is fine, we really like the fact that you have provided this picture. But now, what are those women in the back of the picture 

talking about? In other words, we crossed one line, now here is another line in the sand, now cross that line. 

So what happened was, as tribes, what we felt was that this 

process was started originally to sort through those groups that 

clearly were not tribes. We have all read the reports, there were 

23 

groups that clearly weren’t tribes that were in the process or trying 

to be recognized as tribes. And all of us, tribes, everyone agrees 

that those folks should not be there, and that this process was designed to sort through that. 

What has happened is this process has deteriorated to the point 

that it today appears to those of us who are looking at it, either 

looking at the process from within it or looking at it from the side 

of trying to petition, that this process appears to be more one that 

is designed, through its application, to deny tribes, rather than one 

to actually provide justice for those tribes that are trying to seek 

that recognition, that status, where their governments are recognized by the United States. 

We realize that there are a lot of things that are involved in this. 

Mr. Chairman, the National Congress of American Indians and the 

Task Force that I chair are committed to working to find ways to 

make this process work in a better manner. We have looked at the 

new legislation and think that that legislation should be studied. 

There maybe some things in there that Mr. Faleomavaega’s bill 

and that concept of having an outside commission look at this, that 

is one thing that people have looked at. 

We also are, however, very much aware that if the criteria were 

to be looked at and analyzed and used in a manner as they were 

originally intended, we believe that they would work. But the problem is that in the application of those criteria, it has gotten progressively more and more difficult and we believe inconsistent in 

the way those have been applied. And as have some of the people 

who will be following me here will be getting into the very specifics, 

and particularly in the most recent case, I think there are some 

very flagrant examples of that inconsistent application of the criteria. 

So we are very much, very much supportive of change. We share 

with you the process, we are not trying to demean people for good 

intentioned efforts and everything that they are working on. We 

really appreciate having this hearing and bringing this focus on it. 

But like you, we also are frustrated by the fact that about every 

two years or so, we seem to have to do this again. It seems like 

we are saying the same thing over and over again. 

But we really need to have a timely process, and one that removes political considerations from it. With that, Mr. Chairman, I 

will close my oral comments. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ettawageshik follows:] 

24 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF FRANK ETTAWAGESHIK, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TASK FORCE, NATIONAL CONGRESS OF AMERICAN INDIANS


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*An Historical Perspective on the Issue of Federal Recognition and Non-Recognition by Terry Anderson and Kirke Kickingbird has been retained in Committee files.* 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. We appreciate your being here. 

Next, we will hear from the Honorable John Sinclair, President 

of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Havre, Montana. 

Mr. Sinclair, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SINCLAIR, PRESIDENT, LITTLE 

SHELL TRIBE OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS OF MONTANA 

Mr. SINCLAIR. Thank you, Chairman Dorgan. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the Federal acknowledgment process. I would also like to extend to Senator 

Tester our heart-felt thanks for his unwavering support of Little 

Shell recognition on behalf of myself and the Little Shell people. 

This is a frustrating time for the Little Shell people. After more 

than 30 years of being processed, examined, poked and prodded by 

the Bureau of Indian Affairs, we were told last week that we failed 

to satisfy three of the BIA’s mandatory criteria and cannot be recognized. I am here to share our experience with the administrative 

recognition process with you, to urge the Congress to establish a 

new and more realistic recognition process, and also to press Congress to recognize the Little Shell Tribe. 

Let me assure you that the Little Shell people are Indian. The 

BIA found that roughly 90 percent of our 4,000 plus members descend from the Pembina Chippewa, the same Pembina Chippewa 

who historically had treaty relations with the United States. Our 

people kept to the old ways and followed the buffalo. Instead of sitting on a reservation, we migrated from place to place. As a result, 

we didn’t generate enough records as far as the BIA is concerned. 


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29 

So the BIA concluded that we lacked enough evidence on three 

of their criteria. These criteria are all mandatory, so if you fail on 

one you cannot be recognized. The first one of these three, identification by outsiders as an Indian tribe, means nothing. No one can 

seriously argue that a tribe should not be recognized just because 

outsiders didn’t put it in writing every 10 years. 

But the other two, community and political authority, are meaningful. They overlap and probably shouldn’t be a separate criteria, 

but they are meaningful. In the BIA’s jargon, this means that you 

must prove there are social and political boundaries between your 

community and outsiders. But the BIA looks for these boundaries 

in the detail, and I do mean detail, not in the tribe’s overall history. 

It is like the BIA is looking at a chain link fence with their faces 

pressed to the fence. If you do that, you see the gaps between the 

chain links, but you don’t see the links. If you take a few steps 

back, you see the links and realize the fence separates those on one 

side from those on the others. 

In the proposed finding on the Little Shell petition, former Assistant Secretary Kevin Gover did take a step back, and he saw the 

links that bind Little Shell, not the gaps. So the proposed finding 

on Little Shell was positive. Flexibility in the regulatory requirements was possible, Mr. Gover said, and justified the case of Little 

Shell because of our migratory history. 

But this Administration said no, flexibility is not allowed, Little 

Shell must look like every other tribe or we can’t be recognized. 

Other governments, with their experience with the Little Shell 

Tribe, though, acknowledge that we are an Indian tribe. Tribes in 

Montana, the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, the State 

of Montana and all local governments. And in the comments on the 

favorable proposed finding on Little Shell, not a single party submitted any negative data against the finding. 

If the BIA regulations cannot be interpreted to allow for Federal 

recognition of the Little Shell Tribe under such circumstances, then 

the fault is in the regulatory process, not with the Little Shell 

Tribe. Our experience proves that the administrative recognition 

process doesn’t work. 

In my written statement, I make a number of suggestions on how 

Congress might create a new and equitable process. All of those 

ideas are contained in H.R. 3690, which is pending before the Natural Resources Committee. I urge this Committee to seriously consider the reform proposed there. 

It is time that the Congress stop the abuse of non-federally-recognized tribes that takes place in the BIA recognition process. All 

Indian tribes, whether or not formally recognized by the BIA, are 

sovereign. And the BIA’s offensive treatment of sovereign tribe like 

the Little Shell undermine sovereignty for all tribes. 

Finally, I am duty bound by my people to remind the Committee 

that we are the most recent tribe for which the BIA process failed. 

Justice was not done for Indian Country by creating a new process. 

But justice must also be done for the Little Shell people. And at 

this point, only Congress can provide this justice for the Little 

Shell people. We ask that Congress do what the BIA should have 

done and recognize the Little Shell Tribe. 

30 

Senator Tester has introduced S. 1936 that would extend Federal 

recognition to the Little Shell Tribe. On behalf of the Little Shell 

Tribe, I urge the Committee to report out Senator Tester’s bill 

while it deliberates on what it might do to establish a new recognition process. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sinclair follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SINCLAIR, PRESIDENT, LITTLE SHELL TRIBE OF

CHIPPEWA INDIANS OF MONTANA

Chairman Dorgan, Vice Chairman Barrasso, and honorable members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, I want to thank you for holding this extremely 

important hearing. Most particularly, I want to thank, Senator Jon Tester, who has 

always been the Little Shell Tribe’s dear friend and tireless champion. 

You may remember me. During my six years as President of my tribe, I have testified before Congress on Federal Recognition issues on three separate occasions to 

provide evidence of the ways in which the Department of the Interior’s Federal Acknowledgement Process is hopelessly broken. My name is John Sinclair, and like my 

grandfather and my father before me, I have been honored to serve my tribe during 

my Tribe’s decades-long, painful history of petitioning the Federal Government for 

recognition and a reservation so that, finally, justice will be done for the Little Shell 

people. 

Our experience with this process proves two things: first, that the process is deeply flawed; second and even worse, the process cannot be counted on to result in the 

recognition of legitimate Indian tribes—the stated goal of the process. As every government in Montana acknowledges, the Little Shell Band of Chippewa Indians is 

an Indian tribe. And yet, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) very recently refused 

to recognize the Tribe. Mr. Chairman, simply put, the administrative recognition 

process is a mess and, in all fairness and justice to Indian people, the Congress 

must step in and fix it. Every time a legitimate tribe fails, it undermines the sovereignty of all tribes. 

The history of our Tribe is the first part of this story. Our history shows what 

every government of Montana knows—that the Little Shell people constitute an Indian tribe. The BIA’s long and tortuous administrative deliberations on the Little 

Shell’s petition for federal recognition is the second part of the story—that the Tribe 

has been subjected to an interminable and intrusive process that failed to see the 

reality of Little Shell tribal existence. In its insatiable desire for more and more 

paper, the BIA process missed the forest for the trees. Based on our painful experience with this failed process, the Little Shell people have serious recommendations 

to make to Congress to fix this mess. 

The History of the Little Shell Tribe 

The Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians is a successor in interest to the 

Pembina Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota. We were buffalo hunters who 

lived and hunted around the Red River and the Turtle Mountains in North Dakota 

in the early 1800s. The Pembina Band was recognized by the United States in an 

1863 treaty that was ratified by the Senate. See Treaty of October 2, 1863, 13 Stat. 

667. After the treaty, some members of the Pembina Band settled on reservations 

in Minnesota but our ancestors followed the buffalo herds into western North Dakota and Montana, eventually settling in Montana and in the Turtle Mountains of 

North Dakota. 

In 1892, the United States authorized the creation of a commission to negotiate 

for a cession of land from the Turtle Mountain Chippewa and provide for their removal. Chief Little Shell and his followers walked out of the negotiations and refused to accept the terms of the eventual agreement. Some of Little Shell’s followers 

moved to Montana and joined with other members of the Pembina Band who had 

settled in Montana; accordingly, our collective Pembina ancestors came to be known 

as the ‘‘Little Shell Band.’’ When our traditional means of livelihood died with the 

buffalo herds, our ancestors were left to eke out an existence in a number of shantytowns across Montana. We became known as ‘‘the trash-can Indians,’’ or ‘‘the landless Indians.’’ Forced to live in communities which did not welcome us, our people 

faced severe racism and discrimination throughout Montana, some of which continues today. 

For one hundred years now, Congress has been aware of, and has attempted to 

address, the plight of the Little Shell people. In 1908, Congress first appropriated 

31 

funds to settle our people on a land base. See 35 Stat. 84. In 1914 Congress again 

appropriated funds for this purpose, and continued to do so every year thereafter 

until 1925—always to provide a reservation land base on which to settle the ‘‘homeless Indians in the State of Montana.’’ Unfortunately, no land was ever acquired 

with these appropriated funds and accordingly, because we had no land base, the 

Department of the Interior did not recognize us as a result of these appropriation 

acts. 

In the 1920s, newspaper articles chronicled our plight, and our leaders pleaded 

for help for the destitute Little Shell people. Tribal leader Joseph Dussome asked 

Congress, ‘‘Are we not entitled to a Reservation and allotments of land in our own 

County, just the same as other Indians are? ’’ Two weeks later, the Department of 

the Interior rejected our leader’s plea: 

The Indians referred to are Chippewas of the Turtle Mountain Band. They were 

under the leadership of Little Shell who became dissatisfied with the treaties 

of the United States and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewas. He accordingly refused to accede thereto... The disaffected band, by its failure to accede to the terms of the treaty and remove to the reservation is now unable to 

obtain any rights thereon for the reason that the lands of this band are all disposed of, and the rolls became final[.]... There is now no law which will authorize the enrollment of any of those people with the Turtle Mount band for 

the purposes of permitting them to obtain either land or money. 

Letter of Asst. Secretary Scattergood, dated December 14, 1931. Three years later, 

however, Congress enacted the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), which provided a 

mechanism for groups of Indians like ours to organize and apply for land. In December 1935, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs took steps to organize our people 

under the IRA. The Commissioner proposed a form to enroll our people, stating: 

It is very important that the enrollment of homeless Indians in the State of 

Montana be instituted immediately, and it is proposed to use this form in the 

determination of Indians who are entitled to the benefits of the Indian Reorganization Act. 

BIA Letter, December 23, 1935. This effort resulted in the Roe Cloud Roll, named 

after Dr. Henry Roe Cloud, an Interior official who played a large part in the 

project. Once the roll was complete, the Field Administrator clearly stated that the 

purpose of the roll was to settle our people and bring them under active federal supervision: 

The landless Indians whom we are proposing to enroll and settle on newly purchased land belong to this same stock, and their history in recent years is but 

a continuation of the history of wandering and starvation which formerly the 

Rocky Boy’s band had endured. 

Out of the land purchase funds authorized by the Indian Reorganization Act, 

we are now purchasing about 34,000 acres for the settlement of these Indians 

and also to provide irrigated hay land for the Indians now enrolled on Rocky 

Boy’s Reservation. The new land, if devoted wholly to that purpose, would take 

care of only a fraction of the homeless Indians, but it is our intention to continue this program through the years until something like adequate subsistence 

is provided for those who cannot provide for themselves. The first step in the 

program is to recognize those Indians of the group who may rightfully make 

claim of being one-half degree, which is the occasion for presenting the attached 

applications. The fact of these people being Indian and being entitled to the 

benefits intended by Congress has not been questioned. 

Roe Cloud Roll applications, 1937. The Department of the Interior was never able 

to fulfill this promise. The limited resources available to acquire land were expended 

for tribes already recognized. In 1940, Senator James Murray formally requested 

that the Department fulfill the Federal Government’s promise to acquire land for 

the Little Shell Band. Assistant Commissioner Zimmerman responded that his office 

was ‘‘keenly aware of the pressing need of the landless Chippewa Cree Indians of 

Montana. The problem thus far has been dealt with only in a very small way. I sincerely hope that additional funds will be provided for future purchases in order that 

the larger problem remaining can be dealt with in a more adequate manner.’’ Unfortunately, the Federal Government’s efforts to assist the Little Shell Tribe gave way 

during the termination era of the 1950s, and, as a result, the land promised for our 

people was never forthcoming. 

32 

The Tribe’s Experience with the Administrative Process 

When the acknowledgment regulations were first adopted in 1978, the Little Shell 

Tribe was hopeful that this process finally provided the means by which the Tribe 

would become federally recognized and eligible for the federal Indian services that 

all other tribes in Montana enjoy. As the years passed, though, this hope became 

fear, resulting in a federal pronouncement that the Little Shell Tribe does not constitute an Indian tribe. This pronouncement is wrong, as every government in Montana knows. And this pronouncement has caused intense pain and sadness to the 

Little Shell people. Now, the Tribe’s only real hope is the passage of S. 1936, and 

the Tribe is deeply appreciative to Senator Tester and Senator Baucus for giving 

us this hope. Without it, our people would truly be despairing now. 

The administrative process is so long and so intrusive that words can hardly describe it. A few basic numbers, though, will give the committee a sense of what the 

Little Shell people have endured in this process. The Little Shell Tribe first petitioned for recognition in the administrative process in 1978. On October 27, 2009— 

31 years after the Tribe initiated the administrative process—the BIA issued its 

Final Determination on the Tribe’s petition. During these long years that the BIA 

deliberated on the Tribe’s petition, the Tribe lost a whole generation of tribal elders 

and a whole generation of Little Shell children was born and grew to adulthood. 

These 31 years of deliberation on the Tribe’s petition produced more than 70,000 

pages of material that constitute the administrative record in the case. Placed one 

on top of the other, these 70,000 pages would be 35 linear feet in height. Put another way, the BIA record includes nearly 20 pages of documentation and analysis 

for each member of the Little Shell Tribe. The Tribe was represented through this 

process by the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), which hired the multiple experts needed to navigate the process and devoted hundreds of hours of attorney 

time. NARF estimates that it has expended more than $1 million in hard costs on 

the Tribe’s petition and an additional $1 million in attorney time. Even if the process were otherwise perfect and resulted in the recognition of every legitimate tribe 

that went through it, these numbers alone show that the process is completely run 

amok, requiring detailed analyses and documentation beyond anything approaching 

reason. Unfortunately, though, even if a legitimate tribe has the stamina, patience, and 

resources to make its way through this process, it cannot be certain that it will be 

rewarded with federal recognition at its end. There are 7 mandatory criteria used 

by the BIA to determine whether a tribe exists as such, 4 of which are substantive 

and 3 of which are mechanical (e.g., whether the tribe has been terminated.) See 

25 CFR § 83.7 Some of the substantive criteria are really irrelevant to whether a 

tribe exists, others are duplicative, and the key criteria are so subjective as to defy 

even handed and fair application. The Little Shell Final Determination reflects all 

these flaws. 

First, it is important to point out that there is no question that the Little Shell 

people are descendants of the Pembina Chippewa. The BIA itself found in the Final 

Determination that nearly 90 percent of the Little Shell membership has proven 

their descent from the Pembina Chippewa. And remember, these same Pembina 

Chippewa negotiated treaties with the United States. It would seem reasonable that 

where, as in the case of Little Shell, the Tribe has proven its descent from a treaty 

recognized entity, there should be some flexibility in the application of the other criteria. Sadly, this is not the case. The BIA found that the Little Shell Tribe had 

failed to prove 3 other criteria. 

On criterion a, or identification of an Indian entity, the BIA found that the Little 

Shell had failed to give evidence of such between 1900 and 1935. In the Tribe’s view, 

this criterion is irrelevant to whether the Tribe exists as such. It basically says that, 

even if you are a tribe and can meet all the other criteria, you will not be recognized 

unless outsiders have written down someplace that you are an Indian tribe. What 

sense does this make? If a tribe is a tribe, it shouldn’t matter whether outsiders 

have recorded it as such. So failure on this criterion is meaningless on the basic 

question of whether the Little Shell constitutes an Indian tribe. 

On criterion b, or proof of community over time, the BIA found insufficient evidence for Little Shell. The BIA also found insufficient proof on criterion c, political 

authority, for the same period of time. These 2 criteria overlap significantly, as the 

regulations themselves indicate. See 25 CFR § § 83.7(b) (v), 83.7(c) (3). The overlap 

is also evident from the fact that every single petitioner which has failed on one 

has also failed on the other. 

These 2 criteria, b (community) and c (political authority), are so subjective that 

any tribe’s evidence on them can be viewed as sufficient by one researcher and as 

insufficient by another. The criteria require proof of relationships—interaction 

among significant numbers of the members, bilateral political relations, etc. BasiVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:20 Jun 30, 2010 Jkt 056575 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\56575.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF
33 

cally, according to the BIA, the question is one of whether there are social and political boundaries that separate the tribal group from others. 

As applied by the BIA, these criteria cannot be quantified. They require that a 

judgment call be made in each case. And because the data compiled in each case 

is so massive, every researcher’s overall assessment of the data is different. The Little Shell petition suffered from this flaw. For example, the Final Determination essentially concludes that there was no historic community of Little Shell, that the 

Tribe consists of individual Indians who sort of came together over time. But the 

researcher’s assessment of the data in the Proposed Finding on the Little Shell petition was different. The Technical Report in support of the Proposed Finding documents that the Little Shell people responded to the disappearance of the buffalo by 

coming together consciously, sometimes by decision formally made by the group. 

Technical Report, Proposed Finding, p. 45. 

This highly subjective analysis of massive amounts of data explains how the Proposed Finding on the Little Shell could be positive while the Final Determination 

was negative. It all depends on a personal judgment regarding an overwhelming 

amount of data. Basically, the BIA is looking for tribal boundaries, a tribal community that is separate from others. But if you look at a chain link fence with your 

face right against it, you see the holes, not the links, and you fail to see the boundary. If you take just a few steps back, you can see the fence and the links that the 

separate those inside the fence from those outside the fence. 

Former Assistant Secretary Kevin Gover understood this. He took a step back 

from the thousands of pages of data compiled on the Little Shell Proposed Finding 

to look at the Tribe as a whole in the context of its history. He understood that traditional, migrating tribes like Little Shell just do not generate the paper record that 

the BIA interprets the regulations to require. And he understood that the real question is does the group constitute an Indian tribe, not whether the group has a piece 

of paper on each of the mandatory criteria for every ten year period. The regulations 

themselves purport to require that each tribe’s petition be evaluated in the light of 

its own historical circumstances, but the BIA gave no weight on the Little Shell petition to the federal policies that wreaked havoc on the Tribe. Rather, solely for the 

sake of administrative uniformity, the BIA takes the position that no departure 

from its analysis in every other petition is permissible. Every tribe must fit the 

BIA’s mold or recognition is denied. 

At the end of the day, this is the most fundamental flaw in the administrative 

process. It examines every tribe not just microscopically, but down to the subatomic 

level! And unless the features of that tribe are just like every other tribe that has 

been recognized, recognition must be denied. The Little Shell is penalized because 

it maintained its traditional life following the buffalo as long as possible instead of 

settling down into one place. Unless the regulations are applied in a flexible manner 

as Assistant Secretary Gover did, the regulations simply do not work for a migratory tribe like Little Shell. 

Those who know the Little Shell Tribe the best all know that we are an Indian 

tribe. The State of Montana recognizes Little Shell as an Indian tribe. Every tribe 

in the State of Montana supports recognition of the Little Shell, including our close 

relatives at Turtle Mountain in North Dakota and at Rocky Boy’s. Because of the 

strong support for Little Shell recognition, there was not a single, substantive comment made in opposition to the BIA’s favorable Proposed Finding on the Little Shell 

petition. Nonetheless, the BIA could not see the Little Shell community and refused 

to recognize the Tribe. This is morally indefensible. 

The Tribe’s Recommendations on Recognition Reform 

It is essential that the Congress step in to stop this miscarriage of justice. Congress did not create the BIA’s process and has never blessed the mandatory criteria 

applied in that process. Both must be examined and changed in a comprehensive 

way in reform legislation. And Congress must do so now to make sure that no other 

Indian tribes are forced to endure what the Little Shell Tribe has endured. 

Based on our nightmarish experience, the Little Shell Tribe makes the following 

recommendations to Congress regarding reform of the process: 

1. The recognition process should be taken out of the hands of the BIA. Of 

course, the BIA has great experience with federally recognized tribes. But it 

does not have great experience with non-federally recognized tribes and has 

proved that it is not capable of identifying all legitimate Indian tribes. 

2. The recognition criteria must be changed. The a criterion, identification as 

an Indian entity, should be eliminated because its absence does not disprove 

tribal existence. And the overlapping and highly subjective b (community) and 

34 

c (political authority) criteria should be combined and redefined to eliminate 

the subjective and highly detailed examination. 

3. The documentary burden must be reduced. It just makes no sense to compile 

records consisting of tens of thousands of pages in each case. Obviously, Indian ancestry is necessary. But it really is not necessary to present a complete 

profile of the community, literally showing the interaction of all tribal members, every ten years. 

4. There must be meaningful deadlines in the process. It is just not acceptable 

that tribes spend 30 years in a recognition process. 

There is a recognition reform bill that is now pending in the House of Representatives. It was introduced by Mr. Faleomavaega and is H.R. 3690. This bill would 

abolish the BIA process in favor of an independent commission to process petitions 

for recognition. The Little Shell Tribe supports this idea and many of the other reforms contained in H.R. 3690. 

In the administration of Indian affairs, the Congress has no more fundamental 

responsibility than determining which Indian people are subject to federal Indian 

statutes and policy. Congress can no longer leave this fundamental responsibility to 

the administration of inflexible bureaucrats at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the 

name of the Little Shell people, I urge the committee to move forward immediately 

on this important issue. Justice must also be done for the Little Shell Tribe, the 

most recent victim of this flawed administrative process, by the swift enact of S. 

1936, to extend the federal recognition that Little Shell deserves. 

The CHAIRMAN. Chairman Sinclair, thank you very much. 

Next we will hear the Chairwoman of the Muscogee Tribe in 

Florida, the Honorable Ann Tucker. Ms. Tucker, you may proceed. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ANN D. TUCKER, CHAIRWOMEN, 

MUSCOGEE NATION OF FLORIDA 

Ms. TUCKER. Thank you. First, I want to thank Senator Nelson 

and his staff for their continued support of our tribe in this process. 

Chairman Dorgan and honorable members of this Committee, I 

am Chairwoman Ann Denson Tucker of the Muscogee Nation of 

Florida, a Florida tribe of Eastern Creek Indians. I am again honored to represent my tribe’s people on the issue of Federal recognition. 

As petitioner number 32 in the Office of Federal Acknowledgement, we are one of the last of the old tribes who filed a petition 

before the 1978 regulatory changes. We are shackled to a process 

describe by an in-depth report of the United States GAO as irrevocably broken. 

When we read the report, our tribal government had to face the 

fact that our evidence, which now fills 144 banker boxes, was not 

going to cut it in the OFA. Jim Crow laws in North Florida did not 

allow for Indians to live openly. Therefore, external identification 

is not possible for us for the first part of the 20th century. We have 

no more resources to fight in-house changes, or worse, legal precedents from Federal courts that have become a mainstay in the recognition process. 

The burden of proof is on the Indian tribe. But today there are 

no grants to help petitioners respond to the new precedents. There 

is no grandfathering in. There is little to no written communication 

on proposed agency changes, no input on Federal court cases involving one petitioner whose findings can and will impact every 

other petitioner left in the OFA process. 

Our universe becomes nothing more than 100 years of 10-year increments, scanned and digitized, sorted four ways and subject to 

bureaucratic interpretation. For them, our world is a paper trail. 

35 

We will never have enough paper for the current process, and we 

will never have the right paper. We have buried two generations 

of people waiting for self-determination. The elders of the third 

generation are now in their 80s. We did not come to Congress on 

a whim. 

It is a frightening reality that when a process is broken, Congress is where an Indian tribe from Bruce, Florida, has to come to. 

We have spent the last 10 years watching this same broken process 

eliminate petitioners, and now this includes the Little Shell, who 

wait in a 90 day window to receive a final determination that will 

demoralize their people and the leaders who have struggled to protect their rights for these past 30 years. So it will be with us. 

Muscogee Nation of Florida has no confidence that a positive determination will be issued for our tribe. How can it be when we share 

similar experiences in a broken process? 

We are among the oldest petitioners left, and are destined to fail 

because we are exactly what we claim to be: an Indian community 

and government who lived separate and distinct in a world of Jim 

Crow law. We did not come to Congress to circumvent the administrative process. We worked for 20 years to try to answer every OFA 

criteria and filed our paperwork to move to ‘‘Ready, Waiting for Active Consideration.’’ We came to Congress because we believe we 

have no option. We can sit in the OFA and be turned down because 

of historical gaps directly caused by Jim Crow laws, or we can come 

here. We can sit in the OFA while a new process is created that 

we do not have the fiscal ability to respond to or we can come here. 

We can be a tribal government whose hands are tied while our impoverished people live in substandard conditions, or we can come 

here to fight for the immediate relief and honor of self-determination from a government-to-government relationship. 

Our tribe will never fit into pre-established criteria that do not 

allow for the devastating historical impact of State and local policy. 

We are not the exception as a tribe in this current process. We are 

the norm. And that is an unfortunate truth. 

One process cannot fit all, not when it comes to the histories of 

indigenous people. We are not all alike. And the process has to 

have enough flexibility that it allows for and accepts this fact. Once 

again, I have come from Bruce, Florida, to tell you that we are a 

150 year old community of Creek Indians waiting for justice. Our 

quality of life matters. The preservation of our culture and our tradition matters. The repatriation of our dead matters. And it matters now, not five years from now when the OFA makes a determination on Muscogee Nation of Florida that may or may not be 

just, and may or may not be reversed. 

I came here because I am the head of a tribal government for a 

people who managed to survive Governor Andrew Jackson. We 

have survived Indian removal and genocide, the Civil War, the 

burning of our courthouses, the Jim Crow laws and their KKK enforcers. Today we find our existence threatened by a broken process, so we have had to place our faith in you. We still exist, just 

like we always did, and we deserve recognition. We have waited 

long enough for a broken process to determine our fate. I ask you 

today to stand for our people. 

Thank you. 

36 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Tucker follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ANN D. TUCKER, CHAIRWOMEN, MUSCOGEE NATION

OF FLORIDA

Chairman Dorgan, honorable members of this Committee, I am Chairwoman Ann 

Denson Tucker of the Muscogee Nation of Florida, Florida Tribe of Eastern Creek 

Indians. I am again honored to represent my Tribe’s people on the issue of federal 

recognition. As Petitioner Number 32 in the Office of Federal Acknowledgement, we 

are the last of the old Tribes who filed a petition before the 1978 regulatory 

changes. We have seen many things. 

We are shackled to a process described by an in-depth report of the U.S. General 

Accounting Office as irrevocably broken. When we read the report, our Tribal Government had to face the fact that our evidence which fills 144 banker boxes was 

not going to cut it in the OFA. Jim Crow Laws in North Florida did not allow for 

Indians to live openly. Therefore, external identification was not possible for us in 

the first part of the 20th century. 

We have no more resources to fight in-house changes or worse, the legal precedents from federal courts that have become a mainstay in the recognition process. 

The burden of proof is always on the Indian Tribe, but today, there are no grants 

to help petitioners respond to the next new precedent. There is no Grandfathering 

in. There is little to no written communications on proposed agency changes, no 

input on federal court cases involving one Tribe whose findings can and will impact 

every other petitioner left in the OFA process. Our universe becomes nothing more 

than 100 years of 10-year increments, scanned and digitized, sorted 4 ways, and 

subject to bureaucratic interpretation. For them, our world is a paper trail. We will 

never have enough paper for the current process. We will never have the right 

paper. 

We have buried 2 generations of people waiting for self-determination. The elders 

of the 3rd generation are now in their 80s. We did not come to Congress on a whim. 

It was a frightening reality that when a process is broken, Congress is where an 

Indian Tribe has to come. We have spent the last 10 years watching this same broken process eliminate petitioners, and now this includes the Little Shell, who wait 

in a 90 day window to receive a final determination that will demoralize their people and the leaders who have struggled to protect their rights these past 30 years. 

So it will be with us. Muscogee Nation of Florida has no confidence that a positive 

determination will ever be issued for our Tribe. How can it be when we share similar experiences in the OFA’s broken process? We are the oldest petitioners left and 

we are destined to fail because we are exactly what we claim to be: an Indian community and government who lived separate and distinct in a world of Jim Crow 

Laws. 

We did not come to Congress to circumvent the Administrative Process. We 

worked for 20 years to try to answer every OFA criteria and we filed our paperwork 

to move to Ready, Waiting for Active Consideration. We came to Congress because 

we have no other option. We can sit in the OFA and be turned down because of 

historical gaps directly caused by Jim Crow laws or we can come here. We can sit 

in the OFA while a new process is created that we do not have the fiscal ability 

to respond to, or we can come here. We can be a Tribal Government whose hands 

are tied while our impoverished people live in substandard conditions, or we can 

come here to fight for the immediate relief and honor of self-determination and a 

government-to-government relationship with the United States. Our Tribe will 

never fit into pre-established criteria that do not allow for the devastating historical 

effects of state and local policies. We are not the exception as a Tribe in the current 

acknowledgement process. We are the norm. And that is an unfortunate truth. One 

process cannot fit all—not when it comes to the histories of indigenous people. We 

are not all alike and the process has to have enough flexibility that it allows for 

and accepts this fact. 

Once again I have come from Bruce Florida to tell you that we are a 150-yearold community of indigenous people who are waiting for justice. Our quality of life 

matters. The preservation of our culture and our traditions matters, the repatriation 

of our dead matters—and it matters now—not 5 years from now when the OFA 

makes a determination on Muscogee Nation of Florida that may or may not be just, 

and may or may not be reversed within the Department of Interior or by Congress. 

I came here because I am the head of a Tribal government for a people who have 

managed to survive Governor Andrew Jackson. We have survived Indian removal 

and genocide, the Civil War, the burning of our courthouses, the Jim Crow Laws 

37 

and their KKK enforcers. Today we find our existence threatened by a broken process so we have placed our faith in you. 

We still exist just like we always did and we deserve recognition. We have waited 

long enough for a broken process to determine our fate. I ask you today to stand 

for our people. 

On behalf of the tribal government and people of Muscogee Nation of Florida, 

thank you for allowing our voice to be heard. 

The CHAIRMAN. Chairperson Tucker, thank you very much for 

your testimony. We appreciate your coming to Washington, D.C. 

Finally, we will hear from Patty Ferguson-Bohnee, the Director 

of the Indian Legal Clinic in Tempe, Arizona. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF PATTY FERGUSON–BOHNEE, DIRECTOR, 

INDIAN LEGAL CLINIC; CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF LAW, 

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY 

Ms. FERGUSON-BOHNEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator 

Tester. Thank you for inviting us here today. 

I am the Director of the Indian Legal Clinic, and the students 

in the clinic have helped to prepare the testimony, and they are 

here and present today. They are Rebecca Ross, Vanessa Verri, 

Derrick Beetso and Dan Lewis. 

The CHAIRMAN. Can we have the students stand up so we can 

identify them? Thank you. Thank you for being here. 

Ms. FERGUSON-BOHNEE. As it has already been stated, the Federal acknowledgement process has been the focus of legislation introduced in both the House and the Senate and of the Committee 

hearings in this chamber over the past many years. As I think it 

is fair to say, that progress has been slow in developing a comprehensive solution to the issues at hand. Indeed, since the Committee’s last hearing in April, 2008, there was some movement by 

the Bureau of Indian Affairs to address a few issues through the 

guidance published in May, 2008. Notably, clarification of when 

from historic times to the present begins. 

However, in an effort to promote further progress, we are pleased 

to provide the Committee with additional views that may improve 

the process. And the issue before you is to decide whether the OFA 

process can be fixed. If so, how, and if not, what alternatives 

should Congress consider to replace or reform the system? 

The Federal acknowledgement process sought to redress the inconsistent standards applied by the Administration in recognizing 

tribes and to provide an opportunity for those tribes who lacked 

formal acknowledgement to obtain it in a timely and a fair manner. 

Neither the 1978 nor the 1994 regulations anticipated that tribes 

needed experts to produce or to complete a petition. 

The implementation and reality, however, have been quite different. As you have heard the testimony, petitioners have spent in 

some cases millions of dollars preparing petitions that don’t meet 

the standards of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. After three decades, 

only 45 to 48 petitions have been determined through the process, 

and the process is plagued with the exact problems that the regulations sought to address. 

We are left with a process that is not transparent, that applies 

an increased burden of proof on the petitioner, that is untimely, 

and that lacks resources for both the petitioner and the Office of 

Federal Acknowledgement. The current standards have steered so 

38 

far from the intent of the regulations that the OFA process must 

be overhauled in a meaningful way to address these problems. 

Due to the increased burden and shifting standards, the rules for 

evaluating petitions have changed without rulemaking. The main 

reason for this is because the interpretations left to agency discretion have changed while the criteria have remained the same. 

Some petitioners would argue that the current process is adversarial, and is definitely adjudicative, without the benefit of meaningful discovery. The process lacks transparency, leaving petitioners without clear direction of how criteria are applied and how 

the regulations are interpreted. 

A major problem in the current process is the application of the 

reasonable likelihood standard. Reasonable likelihood is a standard 

identified in the regulations to evaluate the sufficiency of evidence 

supplied by the petitioners. The plain language of the regulations 

provides that in evaluating the seven criteria, a criterion shall be 

considered met if the available evidence establishes a reasonable 

likelihood of the validity of the facts relating to that criterion. Conclusive proof of the facts relating to a criterion shall not be required. 

Reasonable likelihood is the lowest evidentiary burden. This 

standard means that when reviewing the available evidence, is it 

more likely than not that the petitioner met the criterion. While 

the petitioner’s burden of proof, reasonable likelihood, is the lowest 

evidentiary burden, the evidence necessary to meet the criteria has 

increased, requiring petitioners to exceed the standard by providing 

more documentation and analysis than required in the regulations. 

Earlier petitions, for example, were not required to satisfy the evidentiary burdens that current petitioners must satisfy. 

From reviewing proposed findings and final determinations, it 

seems that the standard of proof for issuing decisions shifts based 

on who is making the decision. The benchmarks, therefore, are not 

clearly defined. Conflicting statements and decisions as to how evidence will be applied is not helpful. For any positive and fair reform, there must be, one, commitment to funding the petitioner 

and the adjudicative body, whether it is OFA or some other process; two, clarification of the standards; three, clarification of the 

burden of proof; and four, provide for the exchange of discovery so 

that the petitioner knows what evidence is being presented in its 

case. 

There are several options. The first is to do nothing and to allow 

OFA to revise the guidelines or allow Interior to develop revised 

regulations. If the OFA only revised its guidelines, these will not 

address the serious issues that have been identified by the GAO 

and others as to flaws in fairness and funding. Further, the agency 

has been given numerous opportunities to work within its framework to provide meaningful reform, and it has failed to do so. 

Another option is to pass legislation defining the criteria, the 

burden of proof, and direct the OFA to follow the criteria and 

standards set forth by Congress, and to appropriate funding with 

sufficient staff and resources for this purpose. A third option is to 

create a commission or an administrative law judge process that 

replaces OFA, allowing for increased transparency, funding for petition development and application of the appropriate burden of 

39 

proof to the criteria. It should also include an implementation of a 

sunset provision, setting deadlines for bringing the recognition 

process to an end, and implement time frames for processing petition applications. 

I would like to thank you for your time and I would be happy 

to address any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ferguson-Bohnee follows:] 

40 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PATTY FERGUSON-BOHNEE, DIRECTOR, INDIAN LEGAL

CLINIC; CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF LAW, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY


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The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Ferguson-Bohnee, thank you very much for 

your testimony. We appreciate the testimony of all four of you. 

A couple of questions, if I might. Ms. Tucker, my understanding 

is that you filed a letter of intent in 1978. 

Ms. TUCKER. Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. So that is 31 years ago. You filed all of your documents in 1995? 

Ms. TUCKER. We had filed them before that also. They were returned when the regulatory change took place. 

The CHAIRMAN. This says that all documents received 9/28 in 

1995? 

Ms. TUCKER. Yes, for the second regulatory process, yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. And then nothing happened to them for eight 

years. And then in 2003, they were given ready status, is that your 

understanding of the process? 

Ms. TUCKER. Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Despite the fact that you are in ready status, 

there are, you are not in the top tier at this point, in active status? 

Ms. TUCKER. No, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. The reason I ask that question is that describes 

to me the difficulty here. If you filed the documents before and 

then leading up to 1995 and 2003, eight years later, you are put 

in ready status, but you are not now, six years even after that, in 

a situation where you are on the active list. 

Ms. TUCKER. No, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. So it is just a system that is not working very 

well. And I assume that were I or Senator Tester a petitioner, we 

would be frustrated as well and trying to find a table to express 

that frustration. 

Mr. Ettawageshik, can I call you Frank? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ETTAWAGESHIK. Sure. I have been on a first name basis with 

people all my life. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. How long had you been in the process before deciding to go to the Congress for recognition? 


1104c49.eps
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Mr. ETTAWAGESHIK. We had been in the process only a short 

while. We had not been in the process for a decade or more. But 

we realized, because of the number that we were at that it would 

take us, at the rate they were going, even with the completed petition, it would take us years before we would be considered. 

The CHAIRMAN. I see. I will call you Frank, you call me Byron. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ETTAWAGESHIK. I will call you Mr. Chairman, I think. 

The CHAIRMAN. Chairman Sinclair, what is your tribe planning 

to do next at this point? Will it appeal the decision to the Board 

of Appeals? 

Mr. SINCLAIR. We are considering that option. I don’t know if I 

have a lot of faith in that process, so we have to consider that, and 

what does that do to this legislative process that we are requesting. 

So that is kind of where we are there. We are not dismissing it out 

of hand, but we have to look at it hard. 

The CHAIRMAN. Tell me about the process that it took you, you 

submitted 60,000 pages of documents, I understand. 

Mr. SINCLAIR. Seventy, I have heard. 

The CHAIRMAN. Seventy thousand pages that are now in the possession of the agency. Over what period of time? I know that your 

petition spans, or at least the notice of intent, spans back 31 years 

as well. 

Mr. SINCLAIR. Right. 

The CHAIRMAN. So over that lengthy period of time, some 70,000 

pages were developed. I think Senator Tester’s question is germane. Leading up until the decision you had expected, because of 

other decisions that had been affirmative in that application process that there was not a problem in some of those areas. For example, the issue of having to demonstrate every 10 years. If you are 

a couple hundred years old, the fact that you can’t find a 10 year 

period some place in the middle of those 20 different decades, I 

think it had been indicated to you that that is not going to be a 

problem, providing you can demonstrate the continuum. 

Mr. SINCLAIR. Right. I really don’t know, as far as in detail, 

where the gaps were that they are saying we had, or what spans 

and why the evidence that we buried them in for years wasn’t adequate. That is the biggest problem. They came back, in 2000, when 

they came out with the proposed positive finding, and they say, 

strengthen your petition. But they don’t say in detail where are we 

lacking and how much do they need. So we end up just burying 

them in paper. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Tucker, in dealing with the Office of Federal 

Acknowledgement, have they provided you with any guidance on 

how you might deal with the specific time frames where historical 

information may not be available? 

Ms. TUCKER. No, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Ferguson-Bohnee, my understanding is that 

the petitioners are not allowed access to all the information that 

the Department is considering in the process. Is that correct? 

Ms. FERGUSON-BOHNEE. The petitioners must submit a FOIA request to obtain all of the documents that are being considered in 

their petition. 

89 

The CHAIRMAN. And so, that further adds to the burden and expense, correct? 

Ms. FERGUSON-BOHNEE. That is correct. They do have a new 

process which offers some of the documents in a digital data base. 

If you have submitted information about your petition and it includes private information, if they then mark on that information 

then they will redact that personal information about a petitioner 

because of the Privacy Act. 

The CHAIRMAN. You mentioned, when you talked about alternatives, you talked about an administrative law judge, an ALJ 

process. Can you describe more fully to us what that process would 

look like, in your judgment? 

Ms. FERGUSON-BOHNEE. Yes, sir, and I would also like the opportunity to follow up on that question. Our students have been looking at the administrative law judge process. There would be, as 

they have in certain agencies now, administrative law judges who 

the petitioners could go to and present their evidence. Then they 

would be able to cross examine witnesses. I would assume that the 

Federal Government would have an interest in those petitioners, so 

that there would still be an office with experts, because they would 

want to know who was petitioning through the process. Since it 

recognizes a political relationship with the United States. 

I think one of the issues that Mr. Sinclair and Ms. Tucker mentioned is that there isn’t funding for tribes to go through the process. So that would be something that would have to be considered, 

because many tribes are poor and unfunded, to have to go through 

the process. So we would recommend some sort of regional petitioner assistance to help tribes navigate that process, so that they 

wouldn’t all be coming to D.C. for a week to two weeks to try to 

put on a trial, and to take into account that many people who have 

prepared evidence in these petitioner cases could actually no longer 

be living, are dead. So then to take into account certain hearsay 

evidence. 

But I think that the primary point that would be positive would 

be the burden of proof in the standard that an administrative law 

judge could apply, and apply in an even-handed manner. 

The CHAIRMAN. But it wouldn’t be unusual that it would cost 

money in an ALJ process. The fact is, I don’t know of a tribe that 

has not had to bear substantial monetary burden to go through the 

acknowledgement process at Interior. Isn’t that correct? 

Ms. FERGUSON-BOHNEE. That is correct. I think for any process, 

there needs to be some sort of funding. Because there is not a level 

playing field. And the guidance has changed. I don’t remember 

which year, 2000 or 2005, where the Bureau doesn’t do additional 

research on a petition. So whatever the Bureau is reviewing is 

whatever the petitioner submitted. 

The CHAIRMAN. I think it would be helpful for our Committee if 

you would wish to submit additional information about those alternatives. 

Ms. FERGUSON-BOHNEE. Okay, we will do that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Tester. 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to stay 

with you, Ms. Ferguson-Bohnee. The previous two gentlemen, Mr. 

Skibine and Mr. Fleming, had said that the reconsideration appeal 

90 

process, the reconsideration and appeal process were the same. Do 

you have enough knowledge about the recognition process that currently exists to comment on that? 

Ms. FERGUSON-BOHNEE. Yes, sir. The reconsideration process is 

discretionary. You can ask for reconsideration and it can be denied. 

Then if, obviously because the OHA can deny reconsideration because it goes back to the OFA to reconsider. And I don’t think that 

very many people have been successful through that process. It is 

a higher burden also in that process than reasonable likelihood. 

So I think that Mr. Skibine mentioned that that may be something they are considering changing. If it serves really no function 

to actually process these petitioners, then I think it probably 

should be changed. 

Senator TESTER. Yes, so the reconsideration process, you said, is 

a much higher standard than the appeal process? 

Ms. FERGUSON-BOHNEE. You would need some new evidence. 

And it is also a preponderance of the evidence. It is not reasonable 

likelihood, which is a somewhat higher standard. 

Senator TESTER. Thank you. And thanks for your testimony. 

Chairman Sinclair, could you give me an indication of what the 

Government structure is for the Little Shell at this time? 

Mr. SINCLAIR. At this time, we have a seven-man council made 

up of an executive committee with a president, first vice president, 

second vice president, secretary-treasurer and then three councilmen at large. 

Senator TESTER. Okay. Do you ever make decisions that would 

demonstrate influence over your community from a political standpoint? 

Mr. SINCLAIR. Oh, absolutely. 

Senator TESTER. Give me an example of one. 

Mr. SINCLAIR. Well, you can take the new stimulus money that 

came out. We made the decision how to spend that money. That 

would be the latest one. 

Senator TESTER. That is good. Can you give me the insight into 

why there is no available evidence between 1935 and 1900? The 

definition from the Department said, I don’t know if you have seen 

this or not, Mr. Chairman, I assume you have, but it said that 

there was no external, there was no evidence that showed external 

observers that have identified the petitioner as an entity only since 

1935, and not since 1900. Do you have any insight as to why that 

has occurred? 

Mr. SINCLAIR. I go back to Ms. Tucker’s comments about the time 

period we are talking about. During that time, there were three 

factors I think that were involved: Federal action, which made us 

sell our lands; racism and extreme poverty. I go back to the old bar 

sign, no dogs and Indians allowed. We were really non-people. Unless we attacked somebody, I don’t think they really mentioned us 

much, and we were not in any position to attack somebody. 

Senator TESTER. The last thing that was a determination against 

you was you didn’t comprise a distinct community since historical 

times, which sounds to me to be, distinct community and Indian 

entity seem to be very similar to me in impact. And then it went 

on to say, nor did the petitioner maintain significant social relaVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:20 Jun 30, 2010 Jkt 056575 PO 00000 Frm 00094 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\56575.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF
91 

tionships and interaction as a part of a distinct community since 

their migration to Montana. 

When did you migrate to Montana? 

Mr. SINCLAIR. Well, we have always been traveling in that area. 

We have traveled into Canada. I am not supposed to mention Canada, but that was, the Cypress Hills which extend from Turtle 

Mountain, up into Canada about 100 miles north of Havre and 

back down and along the Milk River Valley. That was where we 

hunted. 

Senator TESTER. So there really wasn’t a migration to Montana? 

You have been here forever. 

Mr. SINCLAIR. Yes, we were back and forth with the buffalo 

hunts. That is what we did. 

Senator TESTER. I want to thank you, thank you for your patience. I think that you do have some recourse in this, and I will 

certainly give you my opinion, but that is all it is worth, is an opinion. So we will go from there. 

I did have one other question, let me find it here. It was for 

Frank. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator TESTER. Frank, if I heard your testimony right, you had 

talked about agency conflict with the BIA. And I was wondering, 

if we take this decision away from the BIA, number one, where 

would you put it? 

Mr. ETTAWAGESHIK. Well, the proposals that have been there are 

to create this separate commission and put it there. Frankly, those 

of us who have thought about this and looked at it wonder if that 

will just be putting it in another place where we are still going to 

have some of the same kind of problems. But of course if you do 

that, you create a separate commission, you then have, it will take, 

after it is created it will take a year to get it peopled. Then it will 

take a while to get rules, and it will take a while more longer to 

figure out how they are going to work. So you have two or three 

years before it is really functioning. And then you don’t know if it 

is going to function all that much better than the current system. 

So those are some of the problems that we see. It has to be 

looked at really carefully in any ways that we do this. 

Senator TESTER. Once again, I want to thank you all for being 

here. I didn’t ask you any questions, Ms. Tucker, that is because 

you did such a great job on the Chairman’s questions. But I want 

to thank all four of you for being on the Committee today and the 

two in the previous panel, too. Thank you all for being here. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me add my thanks to all of you, and say that 

the hearing record will be held open for two weeks. If there are 

others who wish to submit formal testimony, we will include it in 

the hearing record. 

I am going to ask my colleagues on the Committee to sign a letter with me to the Secretary of the Interior. I am going to ask the 

Secretary of the Interior to provide formally for the Committee his 

views on how to fix this issue. Clearly, this needs fixing. And I 

don’t want to the Interior Department to be a bystander here. I 

want to hear the views of the Interior specifically on what kinds 

of approaches does he believe would be necessary for us to be able 

to have an acknowledgement system that would set targets and 

92 

time tables and have a reasonable expectation of completing these 

things before two or three decades. 

So we will submit that later this week to the Secretary and ask 

within 60 or 90 days if he can provide the Committee formally with 

his views on those issues. 

Ms. Ferguson-Bohnee, you and your assistants will provide some 

additional information on alternatives that you discussed in your 

testimony as well. 

So again, we thank you for traveling to Washington, D.C. to testify today. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:00 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN NORWOOD, PASTOR, NANTICOKE LENNI-LENAPE

TRIBAL NATION OF NEW JERSEY

My name is Pastor John Norwood and I am from the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape 

Tribal Nation of New Jersey, which is united with the historically related Lenape 

Indian Tribe of Delaware in an intertribal alliance known as the ‘‘Confederation of 

Sovereign Nentego-Lenape Tribes.’’ I am writing as a Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribal 

councilman, delegate to the National Congress of American Indians, and the government agent for the confederation. I am humbly requesting that my statement be 

added to those included in the November 4, 2009 Senate Indian Affairs Oversight 

Hearing on ‘‘Fixing the Federal Acknowledgement Process.’’ 

In 1982, the legislature of New Jersey called on the United State Congress to recognize our tribal nation. Having no action taken by congress on the request, an honored tribal elder attended a briefing provided to tribes involved in the federal recognition process. She returned to our people and indicated that the millions of dollars needed to go through the federal acknowledgement process made it insurmountable for poor tribes. Since that time, tribal volunteers have painstakingly gathered 

the information required for an application, while watching worthy tribal applicants 

wait for decades only to be denied recognition over minutia. The impact of such a 

denial is immeasurably and intergenerationally devastating to the psychological, social, and political wellbeing of tribal communities. 

The administrative process was meant to be an objective method to correct the 

relationship between the United States and historically verifiable American Indian 

Nations without federal recognition. However, the GAO has reported, along with 

other independent studies and congressional hearings, that the current methodology 

of the administrative process has become a cumbersome, expensive, and time consuming barrier to the recognition of deserving tribes. The process meant to aid legitimate tribes has become a burdensome obstacle to their recognition. 

The particular challenge for many ‘‘eastern tribes of first contact’’ is that legitimate tribal communities of the colonial period that remained in the east often had 

no contact with the military or federal authorities and were not enumerated in the 

manner their migrating sister tribal bands and the western tribal nations were. 

Treaties, which were typically the result of hostile engagements, were not established with tribal communities that peacefully remained in the east and partially 

assimilated into the dominant society. Some eastern states, eager to be rid of any 

land claim or treaty entanglements, asserted that there were no more Indians within their borders, as they reclassified or overlooked remaining tribal communities as 

they saw fit. Some legitimate tribes suffer from this turn of history, which for them, 

makes the current federal recognition process even more difficult. This reality leaves 

deserving tribes, which can reasonably document their history, still unable to meet 

the overwhelming burden of proof now required by the current administrative process. 

During the November 4, 2009 Senate Committee on Indian Affairs oversight hearing on fixing the federal recognition process, Senator Byron L. Dorgan indicated his 

frustration that after many years of review and unanimous agreement on the need 

for change, little has actually been done. Representative Nick Rahall II, in his opening statements during a House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources 

hearing said on November 4, 2009, ‘‘Whether or not the Congress decides to exercise 

our jurisdiction over an Indian tribe does not mean that we do not have the power 

to do so. If the group is an Indian tribe, it is under our authority as vested by the 

Constitution. As such, Congress possesses jurisdiction over any tribe that exists, 

whether formally recognized or not by the Federal Government.’’ Non-federally recognized tribes, which can document their histories, have still been left in limbo and 

need congress to exercise its authority in changing the federal recognition process 

in the following ways: 

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1. Recent federal recognition decisions appear to be focused on what may lacking in an application instead of giving weight to the strengths of an application. Overwhelming evidence in response to one criterion can be overshadowed 

by missing evidence in another related criterion. During much of the time for 

which evidence is required, many tribes were more concerned with survival 

in a socio-political environment that was hostile to their existence; documenting activities was not a high priority, and in some cases could have been 

dangerous. Therefore, evidence provided for criteria (a) ‘‘The petitioner has 

been identified as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous 

basis since 1900,’’ (b) ‘‘A predominant portion of the petitioning group comprises a distinct community and has existed as a community from historical 

times until the present,’’ and (c) ‘‘The petitioner has maintained political influence or authority over its members as an autonomous entity from historical 

times until the present,’’ should be viewed in a more unified fashion and not 

weighed separately. The process should allow for any historical documentation 

that provides evidence for a tribe’s continued communal existence as being 

sufficient proof to meet requirements (a), (b), and (c) as a whole. 

2. The process should give weight to the unique historical situation of each applicant. One challenge for some tribes of first contact is in meeting criterion 

(e) ‘‘The petitioner’s membership consists of individuals who descend from a 

historian Indian tribe or from historical Indian tribes which combined and 

functioned as a single autonomous political entity.’’ Administrative genocide 

was prevalent in eastern states in regard to dealing with tribes of first contact. The first tribal termination began in 1813 against the Gingaskin, after 

local officials pushed to racially reclassify tribal families. Similar situations of 

racial reclassification imposed by the dominant group upon remaining tribal 

communities are evident in, but not limited to, Virginia, Delaware, and New 

Jersey. Evidence provided by an applicant that meets criteria (a), (b), and (c) 

should be viewed to have a positive impact on that applicant’s ability to meet 

criterion (e), especially in geographic areas in which the dominant society’s racial reclassification can be demonstrated. 

3. The expense and time involved in the current administrative process is unreasonable. Some of the suggested changes indicated above would address 

this. The process should be one in which the poorest tribe can navigate its 

way to federal recognition in a matter of no more than two or three years with 

its volunteers completing the application. Federal assistance for this could 

come in the form of grants for tribal research and/or funded technical assistance consultants that would evaluate tribal prospects for federal recognition 

and then provide professional help to a tribe in order to assemble a complete 

application. 

4. There should be some logical connection between an preliminary finding and 

a final decision. A positive preliminary finding should be relative assurance 

that the final decision will also be positive. A negative preliminary finding 

should be a tool that the tribe can use to better focus its research. The preliminary finding, which should be aimed at assisting a tribe in identifying 

areas of historic evidence it may need to reinforce or in determining its own 

eligibility for meeting the criteria, should not be completely disconnected from 

the final decision. 

5. Congress should not shy away from legislative recognition. The use of consultants or administrative judges who, being familiar with the unique histories of their respective geographic regions, could provide objective review of 

the petitioner’s evidence and provide a finding for congressional action. This 

method could greatly reduce the backlog of applicants along with the time and 

expense involved in the process. 

6. Tribes that can demonstrate that they meet the ‘‘Montoya’’ standard used by 

the federal courts to determine tribal federal common law recognition, should 

have access to that process without the expense of attorneys and lengthy court 

cases. In Montoya v. United States (1901) the court ruled that a tribe was, 

‘‘a body of Indians of the same or a similar race, united in a community under 

one leadership or government, and inhabiting a particular though sometimes 

ill-defined territory.’’ Tribes should be able to file their evidence with the 

courts and have a hearing on the matter. Positive decisions through such a 

process should suffice for federal recognition. This would reduce the backlog 

of applicants along with the time and expense involved in the process. 

7. ‘‘Interested parties’’ should not be able to derail the recognition of a deserving 

tribe. 

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Each of these suggestions could be implemented in complimentary fashion to provide objective measures to address the crisis that deserving non-federally recognized 

tribes have been in for generations. None of the suggestions should be exclusionary 

toward the others; tribes should be able to apply to each, thereby reducing the likelihood of deserving tribes being rejected. 

I appreciate the opportunity to submit this statement on behalf of my people and 

other deserving non-federally recognized tribes. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JACK F. TROPE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASSOCIATION ON

AMERICAN INDIAN AFFAIRS

The Association on American Indian Affairs is an 87 year old Indian advocacy organization located in South Dakota and Maryland and governed by an all-Native 

American Board of Directors. Our current projects focus to a considerable extent in 

the areas of cultural preservation, youth/education, health and federal recognition 

of unrecognized Indian tribes. In regard to the latter, we have been working to support tribes seeking federal acknowledgment for more than 20 years, most recently 

working with the Pueblo of San Juan de Guadelupe. 

The testimony before the Committee amply documented the profound problems 

with the acknowledgment process. In view of the lengthy delays in considering petitions and the ever-changing and increasing burden of proof upon petitioners, the 

system clearly is broken. Federally unrecognized tribes that have survived in spite 

the array of forces pushing them to extinction are now being in effect terminated 

by a process that is out of control. 

The witnesses laid out a number of proposals for the Committee to consider and 

we are not going to reiterate those ideas. We would like to propose one additional 

action for your consideration, however. We would recommend that the Congressional 

Research Service be asked to do an analysis of the decisions by the BlA and document the application (and evolution) of the standards over the 30 years since the 

recognition process became codified. 

Thank you for considering this testimony. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LISA WYZLIC, CITIZEN, GRAND RIVER BANDS OF OTTAWA

INDIANS

My name is Lisa Wyzlic and I am a citizen of the Grand River Bands of Ottawa 

Indians (GRBOI). I would like to thank you and the Committee for the attention 

afforded to the inefficiency and inconsistencies of application of standards noted in 

the federal acknowledgement process during the recent hearing and your commitment to correcting these deficiencies. 

As you are aware, as of September of 2008, GRBOI was listed as number lO on 

the Ready list. The merits on which the Tribe’s recognition will be based are summarized in Chairman Ronald Yob’s testimony to the Committee in both September 

of 2007 and September of 2008 and the materials included in our petition, which 

we were required to submit in 2000 as a condition of the 1997 Michigan Indian 

Land Claims Settlement. 

GRBOI is recognized as a State Historical Tribe by the State of Michigan and has 

the support of our Senators and Governor as well as other tribes. As noted by BIA 

Commissioner Collier in 1935, GRBOI was found eligible to reorganize under the 

Reorganization Act of 1934, but did not have a land base at the time, which was 

a requirement for reorganization, and there were no federal funds available to assist 

in acquiring said land. Additionally, BIA Commissioner Thompson in 1976 indicated 

that GRBOI was functioning as and was accepted as a tribal political entity by the 

Minneapolis Area and Great Lakes Agency. GRBOI has been found not to have been 

terminated by Congress, but terminated as a result of faulty and inconsistent administrative decisions. 

By the inaction of the OFA to act upon our submission we have lost significant 

funds never to be received. While some of our members have left the tribe and 

joined our recognized sister tribes for which they are eligible to gain access to services, most remain proud citizens of the Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians and 

hope for the day that we are fully recognized by the Federal Government. Although 

we may not have been waiting as long as some other tribes, we have now been in 

the process for 15 years (1994 Letter of Intent) with the expectation of our petition 

being reviewed in 15–20 years. As the Committee so noted, this is not acceptable. 

The ancestors of Grand River members were signatories to five treaties dating 

from 1795–1955. My great-great-great-great grandfather was signatory to at least 

two said treaties, yet currently our treaty rights are being negotiated by other 

96 

Michigan tribes. This should not be the case. As the witnesses testified at the hearing and the Committee agreed, there are significant problems within the acknowledgement process, most notably, the lengthy delays, inconsistent application of 

standards, and ever increasing burden of proof on top of the financial burden. 

Tribes are being terminated or worse, becoming extinct, by virtue of a broken 

process which has become a denial process rather than an acknowledgement process. Non-recognized tribes are desperately trying to hang on to our cultures, our languages and our sense of identity and provide for our communities and our future 

generations without the benefit of the financial support and eligibility for programs 

that comes with recognition. In Michigan it is getting harder and harder to stay connected with our tribe due to economic difficulties which would be relieved if recognition were granted. People would not have to relocate for jobs if they felt they had 

access to health care and other services, and cultural traditions would be easier to 

continue if people felt they could travel to gatherings across two counties on an already depleted budget without incurring sometimes devastating expenses. 

Several proposals for fixing this broken process were laid out during the hearing 

and you requested additional materials for consideration from Mr. Skibine and Mr. 

Flemming as well as from Ms. Ferguson-Bohnee. I ask you to please carefully consider any proposals and move to expedite the implementation of any solutions 

deemed appropriate. In the interim, I urge you to reconsider your stance on the legislative acknowledgement process. 

Thank you for considering my comments. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PEDRO ACEITUNO, CHAIRMAN, CALIFORNIA CITIES FOR

SELF-RELIANCE JOINT POWERS AUTHORITY

Good afternoon Chairman Dorgan, Ranking Member Barrasso, and Members of 

the Committee. My name is Pedro Aceituno, and as Chairman of the California Cities for Self-Reliance Joint Powers Authority (JPA), I am pleased to submit the following testimony on ‘‘Fixing the Federal Acknowledgment Process’’ to the Committee on behalf of the JPA. 

The JPA is a coalition of local communities, chartered under California law, representing several hundred thousand citizens and thousands of local businesses and 

their employees in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. The process of federal recognition and acknowledgement of Indian tribes is of great interest to the members of 

the JPA, and we commend the Committee for holding this much-needed hearing on 

the topic of recognition reform. On behalf of our organization, I would respectfully 

submit the views of the JPA for the hearing record for consideration as the Chairman, Ranking Member, and Senators on the Committee work together to tackle the 

current problems with the recognition process and potentially craft recognition reform legislation. 

Currently, the JPA is an interested party in the petitions for federal acknowledgement of the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians (designated petitioners 84A and 84B). 

Through our participation as interested parties in the Juaneno petition, as well as 

discussions with others intimately familiar with federal acknowledgment, we have 

noted many areas of serious problems where the recognition process is in dire need 

of significant reform. 

Our observations of faults that need correcting with the current system include: 

• The recognition process as currently constituted takes far too long for completion. In the case of the Juaneno petitioners, they first gave notice to the Federal 

Government in 1982 of their intention to seek federal recognition. 27 years 

later, the BIA has yet to give a final decision in this matter. 

• Overall, there are over 250 potential petitioners who are not even yet on the 

ready for active consideration list, many of whom have last contacted the BIA 

decades ago with an intent to pursue recognition, but who have not followed up 

with any materials or further action. Despite their inactivity, these petitioners 

still consume time and resources and impact decision making in processing 

other petitioners. 

• Current deadlines under BIA regulations mean little or nothing to the petitioners. Over the past several years, the Juaneno have continually been granted 

time extensions to complete required work by the BIA, often based on factuallyunsubstantiated claims by the petitioners. The routine granting of extensions 

creates an environment where the petitioners do not take deadlines seriously, 

do not make sufficient efforts to complete work on time, and take it for granted 

that there will always be more time available to delay their final determination, 

even though their historical record or lack thereof remains the same. 

97 

• These continual extensions of deadlines are costly to the BIA, other petitioners, 

and the American taxpayer. The Office of Federal Acknowledgement (OFA) 

within BIA is small, and has limited resources which are wasted by petitioners 

who fail to make deadlines. These failed deadlines in turn force other petitioners, who often have their materials ready, to wait longer for active consideration. In some cases, this has prompted costly litigation by these petitioners 

against the BIA to force active consideration of their petitioners sooner. Taken 

together, all of these delays and litigation ultimately waste millions of American 

taxpayer dollars each year. 

• Splinter groups of petitioners further complicate and delay the process. In the 

case of the Juaneno petitioners, there are two official petitioners, as well as at 

least three splinter groups, meaning that no less that five different factions are 

claiming to be a Juaneno Indian tribe. The issues of Juaneno petitioner leadership should have been sorted out years ago, by the petitioners themselves. Instead, because of their failure to do so, the BIA must expend additional time 

and funds attempting to communicate with and sort out the materials received 

from these quarreling, conflicted factions. 

• Another waste of OFA time and resources is the need to fully evaluate all aspects of a petition when it has been clearly established that the petitioner cannot meet all 7 requirements for federal recognition. In such cases, the petitioner 

should be given an expedited denial of their petition so OFA resources can be 

redeployed to work on other petitioners that may qualify for recognition. 

• The current system of communicating between the BIA and interested parties 

needs serious improvement. While the BIA does send copies of official correspondence sent to petitioners to interested parties, it does not provide copies 

of official correspondence from petitioners to the BIA to interested parties. This 

causes petitioners to be unaware of key or critical requests made by petitioners, 

such as requests for extensions of deadlines, until after the BIA has considered 

the petitioner’s request and issued a decision. At that point, the interested party 

receives a copy of a request decision that it had no idea existed, and had no 

opportunity to comment upon. The only present alternative to help keep interested parties informed of petitioner requests is to constantly bombard BIA and 

OFA with regular FOIA requests. These FOIA requests are costly and time consuming for all involved, and lead to further delays in the processing of petitions. 

Lee Fleming, Director of OFA, testified to Congress a few years ago that one 

of the biggest burdens for personnel in his office is the constant need to comply 

with FOIA requests, which he cited as a major reason that OFA takes so long 

to process and come to a decision on petitions. 

The good news is that despite these numerous problems, there are numerous actions the Bureau could take which would improve the recognition process for petitioners, interested parties, and the American taxpayer. Based on our experiences, 

we would like to submit the following ideas for recognition reform for your 

consideration: 

• First, and most importantly, the seven criteria for determining if a petitioner qualifies for federal recognition should not be weakened or loosened in any way. Weakening these requirements would be unfair to currently 

recognized tribes who have had to meet these criteria, as well as open an unnecessary controversy over whether petitioners turned down under the old criteria 

should be allowed to re-apply for recognition under new, weaker criteria. 

• To clear the backlog of old, inactive, or non-responding petitioners who have not 

followed up their letter of intent to seek recognition with any further actions, 

the Secretary should initiate a program to determine whether these petitioners 

still are seriously intent on seeking federal recognition. We would suggest that 

each potential petitioner currently not on the ‘‘active consideration’’ or ‘‘ready 

for active consideration’’ list be sent official correspondence from the BIA requiring that they re-affirm their interest in pursuing federal recognition in writing 

within six months, and supply materials necessary to satisfy documentation requirements to be ready for active consideration within twelve months. If a petitioner should fail to reaffirm their interest in recognition, or fail to present initially required documents within the time designated, they should be permanently stricken from the BIA’s list of petitioning tribes. 

• There should be a cut-off deadline for all potential petitioners to seek federal 

recognition, after which the program should be closed to future applicants. Once 

all pending petitioners have either reaffirmed their interest in recognition and 

supplied all required materials to BIA, or have failed to do so, the list of petitioners eligible to seek recognition should be finalized and closed. In this era 

98 

of modern technology and communications, there is no reason that if a group 

exists that could conceivably satisfy the seven criteria for recognition it cannot 

at least submit its interest and petition for doing so now. As each year passes, 

the idea that a real, but currently unrecognized, Indian tribe would exist but 

fail to even petition for recognition becomes more absurd. At some point soon 

the process needs to be brought to a close, pending petitions analyzed, and after 

that ends, the OFA will have fulfilled its mission of identifying all legitimate 

sovereign Indian tribes in America, and no more remain to be discovered. 

• As mentioned above, the BIA should have an expedited denial process for petitioners who obviously do not meet one or more of criteria for federal recognition. 

This would save the OFA and American taxpayer significant time and resources 

better spent elsewhere. 

• Deadlines in the recognition process should be firm and upheld strictly. Lax 

deadlines and easy extensions have helped turn a recognition process designed 

to last months from start to finish for a petitioner into one which lasts decades. 

If a petitioner fails to do the work necessary to meet a deadline, they should 

not be rewarded with more time, but rather be forced to go forward with what 

materials they have at the time. Once again, our supposition here is that a tribe 

that can legitimately meet the 7 recognition criteria will have the information 

they need to meet deadlines readily at hand, and its government will be sufficiently well-organized to ensure that it meets deadline requirements. 

• Petitioners with multiple splinter groups, such as the Juaneno, should be temporarily excluded from active consideration and given a deadline to present a 

united petition for a single tribal government entity to the OFA. If they fail to 

meet this deadline, they should be removed from the recognition process and 

all related petitions rejected. 

• Communications with interested parties should be improved by requiring the 

petitioners and interested parties to provide copies of all written communications they make to the BIA and OFA, along with proof of service, regarding 

deadline extensions or other requests to all other interested parties and petitioners. This would relieve interested parties and the BIA/OFA from the timeconsuming and expensive FOIA process, and improve the amount of information 

available to all petitioners and interested parties. 

The members of the JPA, as well as the citizens we represent, greatly appreciate 

your time and consideration of our views on recognition reform. It is our hope that 

our experiences and insights bill be of value to you in the process of reviewing your 

policy options. We look forward to working with the Committee as you evaluate options for making legislative changes to the system. We would welcome the opportunity to participate further in any way possible, and of course, are available to answer any questions you may have or provide any further assistance that would be 

appropriate. 

Once again, on behalf of the JPA, its member communities, and their businesses 

and citizens, we thank you for this opportunity to present our views for the hearing 

record. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE TOWNS OF LEDYARD, NORTH STONINGTON, AND

PRESTON, CONNECTICUT

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to 

comment on the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) tribal acknowledgment process. This 

testimony is submitted on behalf of the Towns of Ledyard, North Stonington, and 

Preston, Connecticut (the Towns). The Towns have extensive first-hand experience 

with the federal tribal acknowledgment process, having participated for many years 

as an interested party in the review of acknowledgment petitions for the two Pequot 

petitioner groups. Any changes to this process would affect not only our Towns, but 

the entire State of Connecticut, whose petitioner groups have included the 

Schaghticoke Tribal Nation (STN), the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe, the Golden Hill 

Paugussett, and two Nipmuck groups, as well as the two Pequot groups. We address 

this Committee to express our strong and common concerns with respect to the potential for Congress to intervene in the tribal acknowledgment process and, in doing 

so, interfere with an administrative process that does not need to be reformed. Simply put, if the goal is to ensure fair, objective, and reasoned decisions on tribal acknowledgment petitions, there is no need for Congressional action. 

As a general matter, the primary drawbacks of the current process are its cost 

to participating parties and the length of time required to undertake a review. The 

cost problem is difficult to avoid given the detailed nature of the required analysis 

99 

and the great importance associated with BIA’s decision. This problem can be addressed by offering more technical assistance and ensuring that casino resort financial backers are not allowed to bankroll acknowledgment petitions. The time factor 

can be addressed through the simple solution of providing more funds to BIA to hire 

more staff. When left alone from political interference and adequately funded and 

staffed, the BIA-administered process applying the existing regulatory standards in 

25 C.F.R. Part 83 should result in appropriate decisions. The solution to the problems of cost and delay is not to follow the approach outlined in the recently introduced House bill, H.R. 3690, which is to create a new bureaucracy that will give 

rise to entirely new coordination problems, demand new staff and administrative 

structure that lack the necessary expertise, operate under a procedure that is biased 

in favor of petitioner groups, not allow for full participation of interested parties, 

apply more permissive substantive standards that will favor petitioner groups, and 

allow the reopening of already decided and even litigated decisions. There is no 

basis whatsoever for taking any of these actions. As the Committee considers the 

BIA acknowledgment process, we respectfully request that deference be accorded to 

the decades of experience that exist under the BIA regulations in 25 C.F.R. Part 

83 and that no action be taken to disrupt the status quo procedures and decisions. 

Background on Connecticut Local Involvement in Tribal Acknowledgment 

The Towns have extensive experience with the tribal acknowledgment process, 

having participated for close to a decade in the review of the Eastern Pequot and 

Paucatuck Eastern Pequot petitions. The Towns submitted detailed technical evidence which demonstrated, as ultimately determined by BIA, that neither of these 

petitioners qualified for federal acknowledgment. Elsewhere in the State, a final determination against acknowledgment of the STN was recently upheld by the Second 

Circuit Court of Appeals. Through these experiences, we are familiar with all aspects of the acknowledgment process and can address the issues raised in the testimony of the witnesses and in the questions of the Committee members during the 

November 4 oversight hearing. We offer this testimony with our preliminary views 

and would be pleased to participate directly in future Committee deliberations. 

Impacts on Local Governments 

Local governments such as ours are impacted by tribal acknowledgment reviews 

and decisions in a number of very important ways. In some cases, even before a 

tribe is acknowledged, the petitioning group files a land claim lawsuit. This was 

true of the STN group. If challenges to the title of land ownership of residents in 

an affected community are not filed prior to recognition, they very often either follow, or are threatened to follow, acknowledgment, as was threatened by the Pequot 

groups. Needless to say, land claim litigation causes serious disruption to the lives 

of the affected landowners and the economy of the local community. The inevitable 

connection between land claim litigation and tribal acknowledgment is one reason 

why rigorous standards must be applied and a timely and efficient procedure used. 

In addition to disputes over land title, the acknowledgment of Indian tribes often 

gives rise to the effort to establish gaming facilities. The Indian Gaming Regulatory 

Act (IGRA) has created considerable incentive for financial backers to support petitioners seeking recognition. If successful, newly recognized tribes are in a position 

to reap the significant benefits that flow from gaming on tribal lands. Financial 

backers cash in through management contracts with the tribes. This is true of the 

Pequot and other Connecticut tribal petitions, which were bankrolled by wealthy casino backers who spent tens of millions of dollars in the effort to gain recognition 

for these groups so that massive casino resorts could be developed. 

We are well aware that gaming has become a fact of life in the funding of acknowledgment petitions. As we can attest, the acknowledgment process is expensive 

to participate in, and petitioning groups often have limited means to pursue tribal 

status and look to financial supporters for the resources to pursue their claims. The 

solution to that problem is not unfettered, unreported, and uncontrolled financial 

support from gaming interests, however. The involvement of these funding sources 

inevitably creates political pressures on the BIA review and adds to the expense and 

delay in the process due to the volume of evidence submitted, and the delay associated with the small BIA Office of Federal Acknowledgment (OFA) staff responding 

to massive records and contested proceedings. 

Yet another problem for local governments is the establishment of reservations 

and trust lands, often without regard to existing community land use patterns and 

economic needs. Trust land and reservation status removes land from state and 

local jurisdiction. BIA does very little to ensure that establishing such lands for a 

newly acknowledged tribe is undertaken on a negotiated basis that does not result 

100 

in undue adverse impacts on local communities. As a result, local governments such 

as ours have no choice but to participate in the process. 

Newly acknowledged tribes are, of course, entitled to certain benefits. The end result, however, can be a strained and contentious relationship between the tribe and 

the local governments and residents of surrounding non-Indian communities. As the 

Department of the Interior itself has stated, recognition has ‘‘serious significance’’ 

and ‘‘considerable social, political, and economic implications for the petitioning 

group, its neighbors, and federal, state and local governments.’’ Letter from William 

B. Bettenberg, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Interior, to the President of the 

United States Senate (Jan 17, 1992). Consequently, any meaningful and fair review 

of the acknowledgment process must be premised on the understanding of the great 

importance of these determinations to local governments, as well as the petitioner 

groups. Federal tribal status should be awarded to petitioning groups only under the 

most rigorous, searching, objective, professional, and equitable standards, and after 

all affected parties have the opportunity to participate. We are disappointed that 

only BIA and tribal groups participated in the November 4 hearing, and we request 

that any future Committee review include a balanced witness list. 

Weakened Criteria 

One of the themes of the November 4 hearing was the need for more permissive 

criteria than the current standards. There is no reason to make any changes to the 

current standards. They have been in effect in essentially the current form for nearly 30 years, and they have worked well. The standards and the precedents that have 

evolved under the criteria have served as the basis for dozens of decisions, both 

positive and negative. Congress should not seek to substitute its judgment for that 

of the government experts and the multiple layers of public review that have defined these criteria over many, many years. 

The 25 C.F.R. Part 83 acknowledgment criteria are detailed and complex. Even 

small changes in these standards can open the floodgates to new applicant tribes 

who should not be awarded federal status, but may qualify under the substantially 

weakened standards. In this regard, we note that the House bill would dramatically 

change the criteria in totally unjustified ways. As applied to Connecticut alone, 

those criteria would turn the several negative determinations into positive findings, 

despite decades of review and tens of thousands of pages of evidence from all parties. There is absolutely no reason to touch the 25 C.F.R. Part 83 criteria other than 

to favor petitioner groups, including those previously denied. 

For these reasons we object to any change to the existing criteria. If Congress is 

to act on the acknowledgment process, it should not legislate standards. Those criteria should be left to BIA to establish, to be revised through the rulemaking process and public comment, as appropriate. 

Lack of Objectivity of Commission 

Our second concern relates to the structure and composition of a possible commission on tribal recognition. As proposed in the House bill and urged by some parties, 

the Commission would not improve the administration of the tribal acknowledgment 

process. The current BIA system is not perfect, but it at least has sufficient builtin checks and balances to make possible fair and objective decisions. Essential elements of the current process that must be retained include: full participation of interested parties; independent review of an administrative law judge entity; reasonable deadlines; and decision-making based on review by a staff of qualified experts, 

not political appointees. The proposed Commission fails on all of these fronts. The 

existing BIA process is not broken; it is simply underfunded. Creating a new bureaucracy is not the answer; more Congressional appropriation and financial assistance to parties participating in the review (on all sides) is. 

Involvement of Interested Parties 

Numerous examples illustrate how critical the evidence and analysis submitted by 

interested parties can be to the development of a complete and well-balanced record 

upon which BIA can make a final decision. Without this participation in the Connecticut petitions, the record would have been one-sided and dominated by the proacknowledgment evidence from the petitioners, funded by wealthy gaming interests. 

The current BIA process allows for such a role for interested parties. The current 

House bill does not, and the November 4 hearing before this Committee gave no 

consideration to the important role of third party participation. 

We strongly encourage the Committee to make interested parties equal players 

in any revised acknowledgment process. 

101 

Reopening Past Decisions 

It must be an accepted premise of any Congressional review of the acknowledgment process that already completed reviews will not be reopened. It can be expected that most, if not all, denied petitioners will seek to take advantage of any 

such opportunity. In the case of groups funded by gaming financial backers, the reviewing agency will be overwhelmed by documentation and argument. The result 

will be utter chaos, as the ability to consider yet-undecided petitions is impeded by 

petitioner groups and their casino backers seeking a second chance. BIA’s past decisions are well-considered and based on decades of process. They should be left as 

they stand, positive or negative. 

Conclusion 

While certain aspects of the tribal acknowledgment process could be improved, the 

major problems, such as the lack of adequate funding, staff, and time to conduct 

appropriate reviews and avoid the pitfall of casino financial backers bankrolling the 

process, can be addressed without enacting legislation or trying to fix a procedural 

framework and substantive criteria that are not broken. We would support an effort 

by this Committee to improve the acknowledgment process by providing adequate 

funding to BIA and participating parties. Any changes to the current BIA rules cannot be justified. 

Thank you for considering this testimony. We would be pleased to provide additional information to the Committee. 

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*H.R. 3690 has been retained in Committee files and can be found at http:// 

frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/ 

getdoc.cgi?dbname=111lconglbills&docid=f:h3690ih.pdf* 

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