On February 24, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Carcieri v. Salazar , ruled that the Secretary of the Interior (SOI) did not have authority to take land into trust for the Narragansett Indian Tribe (Tribe) under 25 U.S.C. §465, a provision of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (IRA). Although the facts of the case involve only a small parcel of land in Rhode Island, the reach of the decision may be much broader because it rests on the major statute under which the SOI acquires land in trust for the benefit of Indians and Indian tribes and restricts its coverage with respect to Indian tribes receiving federal recognition after 1934. The extent to which the holding in Carcieri with respect to the SOI's authority to take land into trust for newly recognized tribes may foster other litigation is not yet known. A June 2012 Supreme Court decision, Match-E-Be - Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians v. Patchak , is likely to encourage more suits seeking to set aside SOI decisions to take land into trust for Indian tribes. The case involves a challenge to a secretarial acquisition of land on the theory that the trust land acquisition was without authority because the tribe was not federally recognized in 1934. The case was brought under the Administrative Procedure Act within the six-year period covered by the applicable statute of limitations. The Supreme Court ruled that the suit directly challenging the DOI and its decision to acquire the land in trust could go forward, refuting a long-held assumption that U.S. sovereign immunity under the Quiet Title Act barred challenges to any decision of the Secretary to take land into trust once title has passed to the United States. Under the decision, plaintiffs who can meet the standing requirements under the Federal Administrative Procedure Act may bring a suit within six years of final agency action, provided they are not seeking to quiet title (i.e., claim title for themselves). On June 4, 2015, in Big Lagoon Rancheria v. California, an en banc decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that a claim challenging the validity of a trust acquisition for a tribe not recognized in 1934 may not be raised as a collateral attack on the status of the land for purposes of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. According to the court in that decision, a challenge to a decision to take land into trust is governed by the APA's six-year statute of limitations. In response to the Patchak decision, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the Department of the Interior (DOI) revised its Land Acquisition regulations, 25 C.F.R., Part 151. The regulations now specify how parties seeking judicial review of land-into-trust decisions may discern when final agency action occurs for the two kinds of decisions possible for land-into-trust applications. Decisions by the SOI or the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs (AS-IA) are final agency actions. When the SOI or the AS-IA issues a decision to take land into trust, the DOI must publish a notice of the decision "promptly" in the Federal Register and take the land into trust "[i]immediately." In contrast, land-into-trust decisions by Bureau of Indian Affairs officials (BIA-level decisions) are not final agency action and do not require Federal Register notice. They require notice in "a newspaper of general circulation serving the affected area of the decision" as well as notice to state and local officials with "regulatory jurisdiction over the land to be acquired" and to "interested parties who have made themselves known, in writing, to the official prior to the decision." Land may not be taken into trust pursuant to BIA-level decisions "until administrative remedies are exhausted ... or ... the time for filing a notice of appeal has expired and no administrative appeal has been filed." Once a BIA-level decision has become final, the land is to be acquired in trust "[i]mmediately." This report discusses both the trial court and appellate court decisions as background to the Supreme Court's ruling in Carcieri . Next, it provides an analysis of the potential impact of the Carcieri decision. This includes an analysis of a memorandum issued by the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior in response to the Supreme Court's decision and a discussion of some of the post- Carcieri judicial decisions. Finally, the report summarizes legislative proposals, beginning with those introduced in the 111 th Congress. The Narragansett Indian Tribe's history in Rhode Island predates colonial settlement and includes a continuing relationship with the state of Rhode Island. The Tribe's formal relationship with the federal government, however, was found by the Court to have been established in 1983, after enactment of the Rhode Island Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1978 (RIICSA). Federal recognition of the Tribe occurred with the approval of the Tribe's petition for inclusion on the (DOI) "List of Indian Entities Recognized and Eligible To Receive Services From the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs" under the DOI "Procedures for Establishing that an American Indian Group Exists as an Indian Tribe." Thereafter, the Tribe succeeded in having the SOI place in trust the tribal lands that RIICSA designated as "settlement lands," subject to the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the state of Rhode Island (State) rather than under the laws which apply under the "Indian country" jurisdiction of the United States. The dispute with the State began in 1991 when the Tribe's housing authority purchased 31 acres adjacent to the "settlement lands" and asserted that the land was free of state jurisdiction. After losing on that claim, the Tribe applied to the SOI to have the land taken into trust and received a favorable determination, which has been upheld by the Interior Board of Indian Appeals and by both the federal trial and appellate courts. A sharply divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, sitting en banc, ruled in favor of the trust acquisition, with the majority relying predominantly on statutory construction of RIICSA. Dissents, however, criticized this method of resolving the case as mechanical and emphasized the fact that permitting the trust acquisition and the consequent elimination of Rhode Island jurisdiction over the land would directly conflict with the overriding purpose of RIICSA and the State's bargained-for-objective in agreeing to the settlement—ending all Indian claims to sovereign authority in Rhode Island. The case represents the latest in a series of cases in which the State of Rhode Island and the Narragansett Indian Tribe have contested jurisdiction over tribal lands. The Tribe's current reservation consists of lands designated as "settlement lands" under RIICSA. Under the terms of RIICSA, these "settlement lands" are subject to Rhode Island civil and criminal jurisdiction and, therefore, not available for gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The Supreme Court agreed to review the ruling of the appellate court on the basis of two issues: (1) whether the IRA provision covers trust acquisitions by a tribe not recognized by DOI in 1934 or under federal jurisdiction at that time, and (2) whether the trust acquisition violated the terms of RIICSA. The case involves the interaction of two federal statutes: (1) RIICSA, which settled land claims of the Tribe, and (2) 25 U.S.C. §465, a provision of the IRA of 1934. RIICSA embodies the terms of the Joint Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Settlement of the Rhode Island Indian Land Claims (JMOU) executed on February 28, 1978, by the Tribe, the state of Rhode Island, and private landowners; it ratifies the settlement ending a lawsuit brought by the Tribe claiming land in Charlestown, RI. The Tribe had asserted that land transfers covering hundreds of pieces of property and dating to 1880 violated the Indian Trade and Intercourse Act, 25 U.S.C. §177, which requires federal approval for any land conveyance by an Indian tribe. RIICSA required tribal relinquishment of land claims; federal ratification of earlier land transactions; establishment by the state of an Indian-owned, non-business corporation, the "Narragansett Tribe of Indians"; a settlement fund with which private lands were to be purchased and transferred to the corporation; the transfer of 900 acres of state land to the corporation for the Tribe; designation of the transferred lands as "settlement lands"; and a jurisdictional provision providing for state jurisdiction on the "settlement lands." The Settlement Act was the necessary federal ratification of the JMOU. Under the federal legislation, Rhode Island was to set up a corporation to hold the land initially, for the Tribe's benefit, with the possibility that subsequently the Tribe would gain recognition as an Indian tribe through the DOI federal acknowledgment process. The Settlement Act contained language extinguishing all Indian claims to land in Rhode Island once the State had enacted legislation creating the Indian corporation and conveying to that corporation settlement lands. RIICSA did not provide federal recognition for the Tribe, that is, establish it as an Indian Tribe entitled to federal services for Indians. It did, however, envision the possibility that tribal status would be acknowledged administratively by the SOI. Nonetheless, it contains no explicit provision as to the ability of the Tribe, following recognition by the SOI, to acquire further trust land in Rhode Island. Essentially, it makes no express reference to Section 465 or to the Secretary's authority to take land into trust. After the Tribe received federal recognition in 1983, it successfully sought to have the settlement lands transferred from the corporation to the Tribe, and taken into trust pursuant to 25 U.S.C. §465 and proclaimed an Indian reservation under 25 U.S.C. §467. The central issue in the litigation was the IRA definitions of "Indians" and "tribe."