Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-543_3e04.pdf
Page Number: 10.0

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

District  of  Columbia,  which  ultimately  entered  summary
judgment for the Treasury Department and the ANCs.  The 
Court  of  Appeals  for  the  District  of  Columbia  Circuit  re-
versed.  Confederated  Tribes  of  Chehalis  Reservation  v. 
Mnuchin, 976 F. 3d 15 (2020).  In its view, the recognized-
as-eligible clause is a term of art requiring any Indian tribe
to be a federally recognized tribe.  Because no ANC is fed-
erally recognized, the court reasoned, no ANC qualifies for 
funding under Title V of the CARES Act.  In so holding, the 
D. C. Circuit split with the Ninth Circuit, which had held 
decades prior in Cook Inlet Native Assn. v. Bowen, 810 F. 2d 
1471  (1987),  that  ANCs  are  Indian  tribes  for  ISDA  pur-
poses, regardless of whether they have been federally rec-
ognized.  Id., at 1474. 

We granted certiorari, 592 U. S. ___ (2021), to resolve the 
Circuit split and determine whether ANCs are eligible for 
the CARES Act funding set aside by the Treasury Depart-
ment. 

II 
All but one of the respondent Tribes agree that ANCs are
eligible to receive the CARES Act funds in question if they 
are Indian tribes for purposes of ISDA.3  The primary ques-
tion  for  the  Court,  then,  is  whether  ANCs  satisfy  ISDA’s 
definition of “Indian tribe.”  The ANCs ask the Court to an-
swer that question by looking to the definition’s plain mean-
ing.  Respondents ask the Court to adopt a term-of-art con-
struction that equates being “recognized as eligible for the 
special  programs  and  services  provided  by  the  United
States to Indians” with being a “federally recognized tribe,” 
i.e., a tribe recognized by the United States in a sovereign
political sense. 

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3 The Court addresses the arguments of that one Tribe in Part III, in-

fra.