The U.S. Interior Department has reversed a Biden administration decision, which gave tribes legal jurisdiction over Alaska Native allotments. The policy shift could return millions of acres of land to state control and threatens two tribal gaming projects -- the Eklutna tribe’s new casino near Anchorage and Tlingit and Haida’s plans to build a casino on Douglas Island across from Juneau.
The state has applauded the decision but has not said what its next step will be in its fight to close the Native Village of Eklutna’s casino. In the final days of the Biden administration, the Interior Department green-lighted the tribe’s plans to operate a small casino on a Native allotment.
In January, the tribe rushed to open the Chin’an Gaming Hall, which sits on about eight acres of land near the Birchwood Airport. It is housed in a modular building, assembled in a matter of days, just before President Trump began his second term.
The tribe had fought for decades to build a gaming hall and finally got support from the Biden administration’s Interior Solicitor. As the Interior Department’s top legal chief, Bob Anderson, revoked part of another Interior Solicitor’s opinion that upheld the state’s authority over Native allotments in Alaska. In February 2024, Anderson issued a new interpretation of the law, which gave tribes legal primacy over Native allotments in Alaska – an opinion that cleared the way for the tribe to win approval from the National Indian Gaming Commission to open a gaming hall.
Deputy Interior Secretary’s new opinion returns to policy set in George W. Bush administration
On Thursday, the Trump administration changed course. The Deputy Secretary of Interior, Katharine McGregor, struck down Anderson's opinion and instructed all department bureaus, including the National Indian Gaming Commission, to follow the 1993 opinion, written by Thomas Sansonetti, Interior Solicitor in the George W. Bush administration.
Anderson now lives in Anchorage and is a visiting professor at Harvard. He says MacGregor’s reversal of his opinion is wrong -- that Native allotments in Alaska should be regulated by the tribe, just as they are in the Lower 48.
“It's been the law in the Lower 48 forever, and Alaska is part of the United States, and the same federal laws apply here, as they do everywhere else,” Anderson said. “So, I'm fairly confident that we'll continue to prevail on these questions.”
Battle between tribes and the State of Alaska over jurisdiction has its roots in ANCSA
Today there are more than 17,000 Native allotments in Alaska. Under the 1906 Native Allotment Act, they were awarded as individual homesteads until the program ended in 1971, after the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). Since then, the state has claimed jurisdiction over the allotments.
In April, the State of Alaska sought an injunction from a federal court in Washington D.C. to shut down the Eklutna tribe’s gaming hall. It argued the tribe did not have the jurisdiction to operate the casino as it would on a Lower 48 Indian reservation, because ANCSA created a different political structure. Under this system, for-profit Native corporations gained title to most of the state’s Native land, but the state retained the power to regulate it.
Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox said in a statement that the new Interior Department opinion “restores the jurisdictional balance Congress intended and courts have repeatedly affirmed.”
Impact of Deputy Interior Secretary’s new opinion uncertain
So what happens now that the Interior Department has revoked tribal jurisdiction over Native allotments in Alaska?
Despite last week’s opinion, the Native Village of Eklutna said the Chin’an Gaming Hall remains open.
The tribe’s president, Aaron Leggett, said in a statement that it will review the opinion to clarify questions of legal jurisdiction and will work with the state and federal government, so that the gaming hall can provide “meaningful benefits” to the tribe, the surrounding community and the state for years to come.
There’s also another lawsuit against the tribe’s gaming hall, involving a group of neighboring property owners. After a U.S. District Court judge dismissed their bid to shut down the hall in July, they launched an appeal. Their attorney, Don Mitchell, says his clients are delighted with the new opinion, but what happens next is hard to predict.
“The chairwoman of the National Indian Gaming Commission, based upon the new legal decision, should disapprove the gaming ordinance and tell the Native Village of Eklutna to shut its doors,” Mitchell said. “Whether that does happen, we shall see.”
Former Interior solicitor Bob Anderson says the National Indian Gaming Commission may operate within the Interior Department, but it is still an independent regulatory agency. Anderson says that means the Interior Secretary does not have the power to order the commission to reverse a decision.
Anderson says the commission approved the Chin’an Gaming Hall because it agreed with his 2024 opinion on Alaska Native allotments. Under his interpretation of the law, the allotments — whether they exist on Indian reservations outside Alaska, or on lands within the state -- still qualify for gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. He argued that Native allotments in the Lower 48 sometimes exist independently of reservations, and remain under tribal jurisdiction, or even after a reservation is terminated.
Patty Sullivan, communications director for the State Department of Law, said the new opinion calls for the Interior Department to reevaluate actions taken by the National Indian Gaming Commission.
“Therefore, it is for Interior to undertake the re-evaluation process and for the State to see the result of that re-evaluation process,” Sullivan said in a statement.
As for the state’s lawsuit against the Eklutna casino, the case has been moved from the D.C. court back to a federal court in Alaska, where it is pending review.
In a statement, the Attorney General’s office expressed hope that the new Interior Department opinion would put an end to litigation.
For now, the gaming hall continues to do brisk business. The tribe says it has already created jobs for the local economy and income for tribal programs. Earlier this month, it donated $9,000 dollars to local charities.
