A bill to amend the Act of June 18, 1934, to reaffirm the authority of the Secretary of the Interior to take land into trust for Indian Tribes, and for other purposes.

Bill: 117-s-1901
Sponsor: full_name: Sen. Tester, Jon [D-MT]
Introduced: 2021-05-27
Policy area: Native Americans
Subjects: Federal-Indian relations

Indian lands and resources rights

Land transfers
Latest action: action_date: 2021-05-27
text: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs.

Summaries:
action_date: 2021-05-27
action_desc: Introduced in Senate
text: <p>This bill authorizes the Department of the Interior to take land into trust for all federally recognized Indian tribes.</p> <p>Specifically, the bill applies the Indian Reorganization Act to all federally recognized Indian tribes, regardless of when a tribe became recognized. The amendments made by this bill are retroactively effective as if included in the Indian Reorganization Act. This effectively overrules the Supreme Court's decision in <i>Carcieri v. Salazar, </i>which held that Interior could not take land into trust for a specified tribe because that tribe had not been under federal jurisdiction when the Indian Reorganization Act was enacted in 1934.</p>

tv_txt: II 117th CONGRESS 1st Session S. 1901 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES May 27, 2021 Mr. Tester (for himself, Mr. Moran , Ms. Warren , Ms. Smith , Mr. Luján , Mr. Markey , Mr. Schatz , Mr. Wyden , Ms. Hirono , Mr. Kelly , Ms. Cortez Masto , and Mr. Heinrich ) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs A BILL To amend the Act of June 18, 1934, to reaffirm the authority of the Secretary of the Interior to take land into trust for Indian Tribes, and for other purposes.

1. Authority reaffirmed (a) Reaffirmation Section 19 of the Act of June 18, 1934 (48 Stat. 988, chapter 576; 25 U.S.C. 5129 ) (commonly known as the Indian Reorganization Act ), is amended— (1) in the first sentence— (A) by striking The term and inserting Effective beginning on June 18, 1934, the term ; and (B) by striking any recognized Indian tribe now under Federal jurisdiction and inserting any federally recognized Indian tribe ; and (2) by striking the third sentence and inserting the following: In this Act, the terms Indian tribe and tribe mean any Indian or Alaska Native tribe, band, nation, pueblo, village, or community that the Secretary of the Interior acknowledges to exist as an Indian tribe. . (b) Effective Date The amendments made by subsection (a) shall take effect as if included in the Act of June 18, 1934 (48 Stat. 984, chapter 576; 25 U.S.C. 5101 et seq.) (commonly known as the Indian Reorganization Act ), on the date of the enactment of that Act.