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Page Number: 21

18 

YELLEN v. CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF CHEHALIS
RESERVATION 
Opinion of the Court 

grants in Alaska, receiving tens of millions of dollars each 
year.  See  Dept.  of  Housing  and  Urban  Development,  FY 
2020 Final [Indian Housing Block Grant] Funding by [Trib-
ally  Designated  Housing  Entities]  &  Regions.    For  years, 
Congress  has  passed  appropriations  riders  requiring  that
the existing recipients of NAHASDA’s housing block grants
in  Alaska  (including  ANCs)  continue  to  receive  those 
grants.  See, e.g., Further Consolidated Appropriations Act,
2020, Pub. L. 116–94, Div. H, Tit. II, §211, 133 Stat. 3003.
Following the D. C. Circuit’s decision in this case, Congress 
awarded  additional  grants  under  NAHASDA  and  empha-
sized  that,  “[f]or  the  avoidance  of  doubt,”  the  “Indian 
tribe[s]” eligible for those grants “shall include Alaska na-
tive corporations established pursuant to” ANCSA.  Consol-
idated Appropriations Act, 2021, Pub. L. 116–260, Div. N,
Tit. V, Subtit. A, §501(k)(2)(C), 134 Stat. 2077. 

Thus,  post-ISDA  sources  prove  no  more  fruitful  to  re-
spondents than pre-ISDA ones.  Even assuming the Court
should  look  to  events  after  1975,  respondents  cannot 
cherry-pick  statutes  like  the  List  Act  without  explaining
postenactment  developments  that  undermine  their  inter-
pretation.  In the end, the various statutes cited do not sup-
port respondents’ efforts to exclude ANCs from ISDA by use
of a term-of-art construction.6 

C 
Even  if  ANCs  did  not  satisfy  the  recognized-as-eligible 
clause, however, they would still satisfy ISDA’s definition
of an “Indian tribe.”  If respondents were correct that only
a federally recognized tribe can satisfy that clause, then the 
best  way  to  read  the  “Indian  tribe”  definition  as  a  whole 
would be for the recognized-as-eligible clause not to apply 
to the entities in the Alaska clause at all (i.e., to “any Alaska 

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6 In so holding, the Court does not decide whether the language of the 
recognized-as-eligible clause has been used as a term of art in other stat-
utes subsequent to ISDA’s enactment.