Alaska Senate asks Congress to help villages with land locked away for 50 years – Alaska Beacon

The Alaska Senate voted without dissent on Wednesday to support federal legislation that would give more than 90 Alaska Native village corporations about 11,550 acres of land that has been held in trust since the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971.

The Senate’s 19-0 vote on Senate Joint Resolution 13, sponsored by Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, sends it to the House for consideration. If approved there, it would be presented to the state’s congressional delegation.

SJR 13 encourages Congress to pass the Alaska Native Village Municipal Lands Restoration Act of 2023 or similar legislation that would end a program that required village corporations to give some of their initial land allotment to a state trust in case their community later decided to incorporate itself as a town under state law. 

Joint resolutions passed by the Alaska Legislature have no direct effect on federal legislation, but members of the congressional delegation have said that letters of support can encourage the passage of bills in Congress.

In the years since ANCSA became law and village corporations received land from the federal government, there have been only eight new town incorporations in places with village corporations. That leaves 93 other communities with swaths of land left in a state-run trust instead of local control.

In a 2023 letter, Gov. Mike Dunleavy called the issue a “loose end” left over after ANCSA and asked the state’s congressional delegation to fix the issue. All three members of the delegation have since proposed legislation to address the problem.