Emma Lu Reeves v. Great Plains Regional Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 54 IBIA 207 (2012)

CourtInterior Board of Indian Appeals

INTERIOR BOARD OF INDIAN APPEALS Emma Lu Reeves v. Great Plains Regional Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs 54 IBIA 207 (01/18/2012) Related Board cases: 52 IBIA 327 49 IBIA 126

United States Department of the Interior

OFFICE OF HEARINGS AND APPEALS INTERIOR BOARD OF INDIAN APPEALS 801 NORTH QUINCY STREET SUITE 300 ARLINGTON, VA 22203

EMMA LU REEVES, Appellant, v. GREAT PLAINS REGIONAL DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, Appellee.

Order Dismissing Appeal

Docket No. IBIA 09-091

January 18, 2012

Emma Lu Reeves (Appellant), beneficial owner of at least one trust allotment included in a 2008-2013 grazing permit for Range Unit (RU) #48 on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota, seeks review from the Board of Indian Appeals (Board) of an April 20, 2009, letter (April 20 letter) from the Great Plains Regional Director (Regional Director), Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). In his letter, the Regional Director declined to review the decision of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe’s (Tribe) Tribal Council to allocate grazing privileges for RU #48 to Jess Keckler (Keckler) instead of to Appellant’s grandson, Chris Reeves (Reeves). The Regional Director held that Appellant’s dispute involved interpretations of tribal law, the Tribe had the authority to interpret its own laws, BIA would not substitute its judgment for a decision by the Tribal Council, and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Court was the proper venue to resolve Appellant’s concerns. We dismiss Appellant’s appeal for lack of standing. To the extent that the Regional Director’s decision is construed to affirm BIA’s issuance of a grazing permit to Keckler and Appellant challenges that decision, we conclude that Appellant lacks standing to pursue this claim as well. In short, Appellant cannot satisfy the criteria for standing. She has not shown how any alleged injury to her legally protected interests as a landowner was caused by an act or omission by BIA, or described how the alleged injury would be redressed by a favorable decision from the Board. As the Regional Director correctly concluded, the disputed issue — whether the Tribal Council properly considered and applied the Tribe’s Grazing Ordinance — was one for a tribal forum to resolve, not BIA.

Background I. Regulatory Framework for Grazing Permits on Individually Owned Indian Land

The authority to issue a grazing permit for individually owned Indian trust land — and to select the permittee for such land — depends upon whether or not the land has been consolidated into a range unit. If the land is not part of a range unit, the Indian landowner(s) may select the permittee and grant the permit, subject to approval by BIA. See 25 C.F.R. §§ 166.203 (b), (c), 166.216. When individually owned Indian land is included in a range unit, the tribe has the right to establish procedures for allocating grazing privileges, i.e., selecting permittees, for range units on the reservation, id. § 166.218(c), and grazing permits are then issued by BIA. The relevant Federal regulations governing grazing permits for trust and restricted land included in range units were well-explained in a related case, Anderson v. Great Plains Regional Director, 52 IBIA 327, 328-29 (2010) (footnote omitted): Grazing on Indian trust or restricted lands is administered through permits issued or approved by BIA for range units. See 25 C.F.R. §§ 166.200, 166.203, 166.206. These “range units” are consolidated tracts of rangelands that BIA creates after consultation with the Indian landowners. Id. §§ 166.4, 166.302. With limited exceptions, anyone wishing to graze livestock on Indian trust or restricted land must first obtain a permit to do so. See id. § 166.200. Indian tribes may develop allocation procedures to apportion grazing privileges to tribal members without competition, thereby giving the recipient a preference over other prospective permittees to receive a grazing permit for a particular range unit. See id. §§ 166.218(a) & (b) (acquiring a permit through allocation), 166.4 (definition of “allocation”). The permit preference gives the recipient tribal member a right, as against other prospective permittees, to accept (at the offered grazing rate and under the permit conditions), and to be issued, a grazing permit for the range unit to which the member has been granted an allocation. The allocation of grazing privileges on the Cheyenne River Reservation (Reservation) is governed by tribal law. The Tribe has developed allocation procedures and criteria for awarding grazing privileges to tribal members. The allocation procedures and criteria are detailed in the Tribe’s Grazing Ordinance No. 71.

BIA implements a tribe’s allocation decisions by issuing (for range units that include allotted lands) or approving (for range units that are entirely tribal or government lands) grazing permits, subject to certain regulatory provisions not relevant to this matter. See id. §§ 166.218(c), 166.400(b) & (c); see also Frank v. Acting Great Plains Regional Director, 46 IBIA 133, 135 (2007) (BIA implements a tribe’s allocation decisions). After individually owned land has been included in a range unit, the landowners retain the right to ask BIA to remove their land from an existing permit (i.e., from the range unit). 25 C.F.R. § 166.227. Once the land is removed from the range unit, the landowner(s) again have the right to use their land or grant a permit to the permittee of their choice. On the Cheyenne River Reservation, Tribal Grazing Ordinance No. 71 (Grazing Ordinance) provides that when an Indian landowner withdraws his or her land from a range unit, that landowner must then fence the withdrawn land within 180 days from the date of the withdrawal, or the land will revert to the range unit. II. Factual Background

Appellant is the beneficial owner of several allotments, at least one of which is or was (at the time of the Regional Director’s decision) located within RU #48 on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota. Reeves’ father (Appellant’s son) held the 2003-2008 permit for RU #48 and Reeves was added in 2004 as a joint permittee. During that time, in 2007, Appellant removed 3 of her allotments from RU #48, but apparently left Allotment No. 7811-A in the range unit.1 Appellant asserts that before the permit expired in 2008, Reeves applied for reallocation of grazing privileges on RU #48 in his own name. Instead of granting the allocation to Reeves, the Tribal Council allocated the 2008-2013 grazing privilege for RU #48 to Keckler on October 30, 2008, and the Superintendent of BIA’s Cheyenne River Agency (Superintendent) implemented the Tribe’s decision by issuing the grazing permit for RU #48 to Keckler on December 5, 2008. Appellant protested the Tribe’s allocation decision by letter to the Regional Director dated November 12, 2008 (November 12 Letter), because she believed that proper application of1

[1]. According to Keckler’s grazing permit, which was provided by BIA, RU #48 consists of over 8,400 acres. Apparently the Tribe owns nearly all of the lands included in RU #48 inasmuch as the Tribe is entitled to 93 percent of the grazing fee. 54 IBIA 209

the Grazing Ordinance preference criteria should have resulted in reallocation to Reeves.2 She requested that BIA take no action in response to the Tribe’s allocation decision and also asked for an investigation into the Tribe’s allotment procedures. The Regional Director did not immediately respond. On April 3, 2009, Appellant again wrote to the Regional Director (April 3 Letter) and demanded a response, pursuant to 25 C.F.R. § 2.8, to her November 12 Letter. She reiterated her demand for a BIA investigation into the Tribe’s grazing privilege allocation process.3 The Regional Director’s April 20 Letter, which is the subject of Appellant’s appeal, responded to the November 12 and April 3 Letters. The Regional Director informed Appellant that the issues raised in her letters involved interpretations of...

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