Opinion ID: 410976
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Indian Consent.

Text: 55 As already noted, Project No. 176 involves various dams, ditches, flumes, powerhouses, and canals, which occupy parts of the Rincon, La Jolla, and San Pasqual Reservations. All three reservations were established pursuant to the provisions of the Mission Indian Relief Act of 1891 (MIRA). Section 8 of MIRA provides in pertinent part: 56 [P]revious to the issuance of a patent for any reservation as provided in section three of this act the Secretary of the Interior may authorize any citizen of the United States, firm, or corporation to construct a flume, ditch, canal, pipe, or other appliances for the conveyance of water over, across, or through such reservation for agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes, upon condition that the Indians owning or occupying such reservation or reservations shall, at all times during such ownership or occupation, be supplied with sufficient quantity of water for irrigating and domestic purposes upon such terms as shall be prescribed in writing by the Secretary of the Interior, and upon such other terms as he may prescribe .... Subsequent to the issuance of any tribal patent, or of any individual trust patent as provided in section five of this act, any citizen of the United States, firm, or corporation may contract with the tribe, band, or individual for whose use and benefit any lands are held in trust by the United States, for the right to construct a flume, ditch, canal, pipe, or other appliances for the conveyance of water over, across, or through such lands, which contract shall not be valid unless approved by the Secretary of the Interior under such conditions as he may see fit to impose. 57 (Emphasis added). The Bands and Interior maintain that under this section the Commission may not license those parts of Project No. 176 which occupy reservation land without the consent of the respective Indian Bands. The Commission disagrees. 58
59 Trust patents were issued on September 13, 1892, for the La Jolla and Rincon Reservations, and on July 10, 1910, for the San Pasqual Reservation. Thus, the relevant part of the statute is the latter part, which by its terms applies [s]ubsequent to the issuance of any tribal patent. The language of the statute appears on its face to be comprehensive in prescribing the ways in which private parties can obtain rights-of-way for water projects across Mission Indian Reservations. Interior and the Bands contend that the statute means just what it appears to mean in this respect, and that it was not superseded, repealed, or limited by the congressional grant of licensing authority to the Commission under the FPA. The Commission contends, on the other hand, that Sec. 8 of MIRA does not provide the exclusive means by which a private party can obtain such a right-of-way, or that if it does, it has been repealed implicitly to that extent by enactment of the FPA. 60 We begin analysis by considering the scope of MIRA as originally enacted. That question is illuminated by understanding the legal background from which MIRA emerged. Indian tribes generally possess sovereign power within their reservations, including among other facets of self-government and territorial management the authority to control economic activity within their jurisdiction, and the power to exclude non-Indians from tribal lands. Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U.S. 130, 137, 102 S.Ct. 894, 901, 71 L.Ed.2d 21 (1982). Similarly, it has long been held that a tribe's title to its lands cannot ordinarily be extinguished without tribal consent. See Wilson v. Omaha Indian Tribe, 442 U.S. 653, 665, 99 S.Ct. 2529, 2536, 61 L.Ed.2d 153 (1979); Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1, 17, 8 L.Ed. 25 (1831). 61 Of course, the congressional power of eminent domain remains paramount, and can be exercised by Congress over tribal lands, just as it can be exercised over the lands of any private landowner within the jurisdiction of the United States. Congress can and often does delegate the power of eminent domain to various federal agencies. Ordinarily, however, it does not do so in the case of Indian lands; a special act of Congress is required when such lands are to be condemned. This point was highlighted recently when new regulations were proposed that would have given Interior the power to issue rights-of-way across certain tribal lands (not those involved in the instant case) without the Indians' consent. In commenting on these proposed regulations, the House Committee on Government Operations said: 62 Present law generally requires a special act of Congress to condemn tribal Indian land. If there are frequent instances of Indian tribes unreasonably refusing to consent to the Secretary's granting of rights-of-way over their land which are essential to the fulfillment of public purposes and the public welfare, then Congress might consider enacting legislation authorizing the person or agency seeking the right-of-way to institute a suit for condemnation thereof in a federal court. 63 H.R. Rep. No. 78, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. 9-10 (1969). With respect to the proposed regulations, the Committee said this: 64 The Committee believes that the Secretary's proposal for granting rights-of-way over tribal land without the consent of the tribe which owns it violates property rights, democratic principles, and the pattern of modern Indian legislation. 65 The Committee believes that the Secretary's assertion of power to act in disregard of his own regulation and issue rights-of-way over lands of tribes that have withheld their consent to such grants is contrary to law, as well as to good government, and should not be entertained. 66 Id. at 3-4. 67 These general principles are wholly consistent with Congress's purpose in including section 8 when it enacted MIRA, as the legislative origin of that section reveals. Shortly before the passage of MIRA, several irrigation companies sought rights-of-way across Indian land. Interior believed that the proposed irrigation ditches and flumes would benefit the Mission Indian Bands across whose lands they were to run. But Interior concluded that it was without power to grant the rights-of-way. That conclusion was based on an 1887 opinion of the Attorney General, which addressed the identical question. The Attorney General had said: 68 It is stated the diversion of the water and the right to dig the canal or ditch would be useful to the petitioners and beneficial in its effect to the Indians. These same facts exist in many cases where one man could use his neighbor's property with advantage both to himself and his neighbor; but still, as a rule, it is better to maintain the rights of property under the law. 69 .... 70 Attorney-General Devens, in an opinion reported in 16 Opinions, page 553 (in which I concur), maintained that the United States had power to grant such privileges as are asked for by the petitioner in this case; but the power to make the grant exists only in Congress, and without action by Congress it cannot be lawfully exercised. 71 18 Op. Att'y Gen. 563, 563-64 (1887). 72 In order to enable the Indians and the surrounding settlers to benefit from the construction of irrigation canals across reservation land, the Secretary of the Interior proposed that the pending legislation be amended to provide a mechanism for granting rights-of-way. The proposed amendment was identical to the later enacted section 8 except that it lacked the requirement that pre-patent grants guarantee a supply of water to the Indians for irrigation and domestic purposes. The proposed amendment was added to the bill as section 8 on the House floor. 22 Cong.Rec. 311-13 (1890). The Senate conferees agreed to the amendment with the addition of the requirement just mentioned, and with this modification, the bill enacting MIRA was passed. 73 The legislative history of section 8 makes clear that, at the time of its passage, Congress and Interior believed that federal agencies 5 could not grant rights-of-way without specific authorization from Congress. In section 8, Congress carefully limited the scope of that authorization which it was willing to grant. Unless implicitly repealed by later legislation, section 8 represents the only way in which a private party may obtain a right-of-way across reservations created pursuant to MIRA. 6 74 The Commission takes the position that section 29 of the FPA, 16 U.S.C. Sec. 823 (1976), repeals section 8 of MIRA to whatever extent section 8 of MIRA comes into conflict with the Commission's asserted power to grant rights-of-way across reservations under its licensing authority. Section 29 provides, in pertinent part, that [a]ll Acts or parts of Acts inconsistent with this Act are hereby repealed. However, the FPA explicitly requires the Commission, before issuing a license within any reservation, to find that the license will not interfere or be inconsistent with the purpose for which such reservation was created or acquired. Section 4(e) of the FPA, 16 U.S.C. Sec. 797(e) (1976). This requirement would be meaningless if Congress meant to extinguish preexisting Indian rights wherever they came into conflict with the Commissioner's comprehensive jurisdiction over power projects on federal lands. See Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Federal Power Comm'n, 510 F.2d 198, 210-12 (D.C.Cir.1975). 75 We do not agree with the Commission that section 8 of MIRA and the FPA conflict. Section 8 of MIRA defines the way in which any private entity can obtain a right-of-way across a reservation to which it applies. The FPA authorizes the Commission to issue licenses for the construction and operation of power projects. Where a project requiring a license under section 23(b) of the FPA crosses lands to which MIRA applies, the operator of that project is required both to obtain a license from the Commission, and to obtain the necessary right-of-way by the method provided in section 8 of MIRA. 76 Out of respect for Indian property rights, laws establishing and governing the reservations here involved were enacted. 7 Without strong indications of congressional intent, we will not attribute to Congress a desire to abandon those principles, and repeal those laws, by enacting the FPA. 77