Source: http://www.gklaw.com/NewsUpdatesPressReleases/Indian-Nations-Law-Update---December-2018.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 14:48:47+00:00

Document:
In Oklahoma Intrastate Transmission, LLC v. 25 Foot Wide Easement, 2018 WL 5993558 (10th Cir. 2018), the Department of Interior (DOI) in November 1980 had granted a twenty-five-foot-wide easement, containing approximately 0.73 acres through a 136.25-acre tract of land located in Caddo County, Oklahoma (Allotment 84) to Producer’s Gas Company for $1,925.00 to install and maintain a 20 ft. natural gas pipeline for a term of 20 years. In June 2002, Enogex Inc. sought to acquire a new 20-year easement for $3,080 through Allotment 84 to continue the operation of the pipeline. The agency superintendent granted the easement, despite the lack of consent by a majority of land owners but the BIA’s regional director vacated the superintendent’s decision on the grounds that the compensation was too low and the required consent was lacking. Enogex’ successor in interest sued to condemn the easement under 25 U.S.C. § 357, which provides: “Lands allotted in severalty to Indians may be condemned for any public purpose under the laws of the State or Territory where located in the same manner as land owned in fee may be condemned...” The district court dismissed on the grounds that Section 357 could not support a condemnation of the ROW because the Kiowa Tribe, as of April 2013, owned an undivided 1.1% interest in Allotment 84 and because the Tribe was a necessary party that could not be joined because of its sovereign immunity. The court also awarded the defendants’ attorney fees under an Oklahoma statute permitting fees “where the final judgment is that the real property cannot be acquired by condemnation.” On the merits, the Tenth Circuit affirmed on the first ground identified by the district court: “A parcel’s status as tribal land does not depend upon the size of the tribe’s interest in the land. The two parcels at issue in Barboan involved a 13.6% and a 0.14% tribal interest, id. at 1110, and it is equally irrelevant that the land at issue here involves only a 1.1% tribal interest. Because the tribe has an undivided ownership interest in this land, Kiowa Allotment 84 is tribal land not subject to condemnation under § 357 and the district court correctly dismissed Enable’s action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.” The Court also affirmed the award of attorney fees.
In Maine v. Wheeler, 2018 WL 6304402 (Me. 2018), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2015 had disapproved Maine water quality standards that adversely impacted fishing rights of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians and the Penobscot Nation (collectively, the Tribes) in tribal waters. The State sued. The Trump administration decide not to defend EPA’s 2015 decision and asked the Court to remand the case to EPA for reconsideration of its decision. The court granted the motion, while also granted the motion of the Penobscot Nation to amend its answer to add a counterclaim against Maine for declaratory and injunctive relief requiring Maine to recognize and protect tribal sustenance fishing rights when setting water quality standards: “Although the EPA has not specified what its revised decision will be, it has made clear that it intends to make substantive changes to the original agency decision that is challenged in this case. This kind of reevaluation is well within an agency’s discretion, … and the law favors remand to allow such reevaluation. … The EPA has also identified several intervening events that it believes justify remand, … including the replacement of three key EPA officials; an April 2018 letter from the Department of the Interior revising its earlier letter upon which the EPA’s February 2015 decision was based in part; and the filing of Maine’s opening brief for judgment on the administrative record which, the EPA claims, helped crystalize the issues. … These intervening events present a reasonable basis for the EPA to have doubts about the correctness of its decision.” (Internal citations, quotations and emendations omitted).
In Indigenous Environmental Network v. United States, 2018 WL 5840768 (D. Mont. 2018), the Indigenous Environmental Network and Northern Plains Resource Council (Plaintiffs) sued the United States Department of State and various other governmental agencies and agents in their official capacities, alleging that the Department violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) when it published its Record of Decision (ROD) and National Interest Determination (NID) and issued the accompanying Presidential Permit to allow defendant-intervenor TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, LP to construct a cross-border oil pipeline known as Keystone XL (Keystone). The court partially granted and partially denied the Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, finding that (1) the Department’s 2014 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) analysis fell short of the “hard look” required by NEPA with respect to the effects of current oil prices on the viability of Keystone, the cumulative effects of greenhouse gas emissions from the Alberta Clipper expansion and Keystone, the survey of potential cultural resources contained in 1,038 acres not addressed in the 2014 SEIS and modeling of potential oil spills and recommended mitigation measures and (2) the Department failed to provide a detailed justification for rejecting its prior factual findings regarding impacts on climate change and other issues and reversing course by adopting a policy that “rests upon factual findings that contradict those which underlay its prior policy,” as required by the NEPA and the APA. The court enjoined further activities on the pipeline and remanded for further consideration consistent with its order.
In Thompson v. United States, 2018 WL 5833062 (D. Nev. 2018), factions of Duckwater Shoshone Tribe contested for control. Thompson and others sued the BIA, the Western Nevada Agency of the BIA (WNA), the Eastern Nevada Agency Superintendent, the Phoenix Area Director, the Intertribal Council of Nevada, and nine individual Defendants. The Plaintiffs contended that the federal officials violated the Administrative Procedure Act and Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA) by failing to intervene in various tribal disputes, following a tribal ordinance improperly enacted thirty years earlier, denying Plaintiffs of a venue to file appeals from tribal court decisions and withholding funding for the Intertribal Court of Appeals (ITCA). Tribal officials were accused of corrupt electoral and judicial practices in violation of the ICRA. The court rejected all of the Plaintiffs’ arguments, dismissing the tribal officials on the ground of sovereign immunity and the others on jurisdictional grounds: “[T]he federal Defendants are not amenable to any ICRA claim, and because the claim [related to funding of the ITCA] does not seek habeas corpus relief against any tribal entity, the claim cannot be cured by any set of facts concerning the funding issue and is therefore dismissed, without leave to amend. … This claim is based on various Defendants’ alleged corrupt political practices relating to tribal electoral and judicial practices. A federal court has no subject matter jurisdiction to entertain a suit based on the alleged violation of the law of tribal governance, which is ‘an internal controversy among Indians over tribal government.’” The court permitted the Plaintiffs to amend the complaint to identify a particular federal law requiring the government to fund the ITCA.

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