Yellen v. Confederated Tribes Reservation

• Decision Date: 25 June 2021
• Docket Number: No. 20-544,No. 20-543,20-543
• Citation: 210 L.Ed.2d 517,141 S.Ct. 2434
• Parties: Janet L. YELLEN, Secretary of the Treasury, Petitioner v. CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF the CHEHALIS RESERVATION, et al.; Alaska Native Village Corporation Association, Inc., et al., Petitioners v. Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, et al.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

141 S.Ct. 2434

210 L.Ed.2d 517

Janet L. YELLEN, Secretary of the Treasury, Petitioner

v.CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF the CHEHALIS RESERVATION, et al.;

Alaska Native Village Corporation Association, Inc., et al., Petitioners

v.Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, et al.

No. 20-543

No. 20-544

Supreme Court of the United States.

Argued April 19, 2021

Decided June 25, 2021¹

Elizabeth B. Prelogar, Acting Solicitor General, Counsel of Record, Brian M. Boynton, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Edwin S. Kneedler, Deputy Solicitor General, Matthew Guarnieri, Assistant to the Solicitor General, Michael S. Raab, Daniel Tenny, Adam C. Jed, Attorneys Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Petitioner.

Riyaz A. Kanji, Counsel of Record, Kanji & Katzen, P.L.L.C., Ann Arbor, MI, Cory J. Albright, Katie E. Jones, Lynsey R. Gaudioso, Kanji & Katzen, P.L.L.C., Seattle, WA, Kannon K. Shanmugam, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, & Garrison LLP, Washington, DC, for Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation and Tulalip Tribes, for Akiak Native Community, Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, Asa'carsarmiut Tribe, and Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians.

Erin C. Dougherty Lynch, Matthew N. Newman, Wesley James Furlong, Megan R. Condon, Native American Rights Fund, Anchorage, AK, John E. Echohawk, Native American Rights Fund, Boulder, CO, for Arctic Village Council, Native Village of Venetie Tribal Government, Nondalton Tribal Council, and Rosebud Sioux Tribe.

Nicole E. Ducheneaux, Big Fire Law & Policy Group LLP, Bellevue, NE, for Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

Lisa Koop Gunn, Senior Attorney, Tulalip Tribes, Tulalip, WA, for Tulalip Tribes.

Harold Chesnin, Lead Counsel for the Tribe Oakville, WA, for Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation.

Doreen McPaul, Attorney General, Paul Spruhan, Assistant Attorney General, Jason Searle, Navajo Nation Department of Justice, Window Rock, AZ, Richard W. Hughes, Donna M. Connolly, Reed C. Bienvenu, Rothstein Donatelli LLP, Santa Fe, NM, for Pueblo of Picuris, for Navajo Nation.

Bradley G. Bledsoe Downes, General Counsel, Crescent City, CA, for Elk Valley Rancheria, California.

Eric Dahlstrom, April E. Olson, Rothstein Donatelli LLP, Tempe, AZ, Lori Bruner, Quinault Office of the Attorney General, Taholah, WA, for Quinault Indian Nation.

Alexander B. Ritchie, Attorney General, San Carlos Avenue, San Carlos, AZ, for San Carlos Apache Tribe.

Jeffrey S. Rasmussen, Frances C. Bassett, Jeremy J. Patterson, Patterson Earnhart Real Bird & Wilson, Louisville, CO, for Respondent.

Paul D. Clement, Counsel of Record, Erin E. Murphy, Ragan Naresh, Matthew D. Rowen, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Washington, DC, for Petitioners.

Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court.^*

In March 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, 134 Stat. 281. Title V of the Act allocates $8 billion of monetary relief to "Tribal governments." 134 Stat. 502, 42 U.S.C. § 801(a)(2)(B). Under the CARES Act, a "Tribal government" is the "recognized governing body of an Indian tribe" as defined in the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDA). §§ 801(g)(5), (1). ISDA, in turn, defines an "Indian tribe" as "any Indian tribe, band, nation, or other organized group or community, including any Alaska Native village or regional or village corporation as defined in or established pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act[,] which is recognized as eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians." 25 U.S.C. § 5304(e).

The Department of the Treasury asked the Department of the Interior, the agency that administers ISDA, whether Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) meet that definition. Consistent with its longstanding view, the Interior Department said yes. The Treasury Department then set aside approximately $500 million of CARES Act funding for the ANCs. The question presented is whether ANCs are "Indian tribe[s]" under ISDA, and are therefore eligible to receive the CARES Act relief set aside by the Treasury Department. The Court holds that they are.

I

This is not the first time the Court has addressed the unique circumstances of Alaska and its indigenous population. See, e.g. , Sturgeon v. Frost , 587 U.S. ––––, 139 S.Ct. 1066, 203 L.Ed.2d 453 (2019) ; Sturgeon v. Frost , 577 U.S. 424, 136 S.Ct. 1061, 194 L.Ed.2d 108 (2016) ; Alaska v. Native Village of Venetie Tribal Government , 522 U.S. 520, 118 S.Ct. 948, 140 L.Ed.2d 30 (1998) ; Metlakatla Indian Community v. Egan , 369 U.S. 45, 82 S.Ct. 552, 7 L.Ed.2d 562 (1962). The "simple truth" reflected in those prior cases is that "Alaska is often the exception, not the rule." Sturgeon , 577 U.S. at 440, 136 S.Ct. 1061. To see why, one must first understand the United States' unique historical relationship with Alaska Natives.

A

When the United States purchased the Territory of Alaska from Russia in 1867, Alaska Natives lived in communities dispersed widely across Alaska's 365 million acres. In the decades that followed, "[t]here was never an attempt in Alaska to isolate Indians on reservations," as there had been in the lower 48 States. Metlakatla Indian Community , 369 U.S. at 51, 82 S.Ct. 552. As a consequence, the claims of Alaska Natives to Alaskan land remained largely unsettled even following Alaska's admission to the Union as our 49th State in 1959.² See Alaska Statehood Act, § 4, 72 Stat. 339; Sturgeon , 577 U.S. at 429, 136 S.Ct. 1061.

That changed in 1971 with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). 85 Stat. 688, 43 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq. ANCSA officially dispensed with the idea of recreating in Alaska the system of reservations that prevailed in the lower 48 States. It extinguished Alaska Natives' claims to land and hunting rights and revoked all but one of Alaska's existing reservations. § 1610. In exchange, "Congress authorized the transfer of $962.5 million in state and federal funds and approximately 44 million acres of Alaska land to state-chartered private business corporations that were to be formed pursuant to" ANCSA. Native Village of Venetie Tribal Government , 522 U.S. at 524, 118 S.Ct. 948. These corporations are called ANCs.

Relevant here, ANCs come in two varieties: regional ANCs and village ANCs. To form the regional ANCs, the Act directed the Secretary of the Interior to divide Alaska into 12 geographic regions. § 1606(a). Within each region, Alaska Natives were instructed to "incorporate under the laws of Alaska a Regional Corporation to conduct business for profit." § 1606(d). To form the village ANCs, the Act identified approximately 200 Alaska "Native villages," a term encompassing any community of 25 or more Alaska Natives living together as of the 1970 census. §§ 1602(c), 1610(b), 1615(a). For each Alaska Native village, ANCSA ordered the "Native residents" to create an accompanying village corporation to "hold, invest, manage and/or distribute lands, property, funds, and other rights and assets for and on behalf " of the village. §§ 1602(j), 1607(a). ANCSA then directed the Secretary to prepare a roll showing the region and, if applicable, village to which each living Alaska Native belonged. § 1604. Enrolled Alaska Natives then received shares in their respective ANCs. §§ 1606(g), 1607.

B

In 1975, four years after ANCSA's enactment, Congress passed ISDA. 25 U.S.C. § 5301 et seq. ISDA answered the call for a "new national policy" of "autonomy" and "control" for Native Americans and Alaska Natives. H.R. Doc. No. 91–363, p. 3 (1970); see also Menominee Tribe of Wis. v. United States , 577 U.S. 250, 252, 136 S.Ct. 750, 193 L.Ed.2d 652 (2016) ("Congress enacted [ISDA] in 1975 to help Indian tribes assume responsibility for aid programs that benefit their members").

ISDA decentralized the provision of federal Indian benefits away from the Federal Government and toward Native American and Alaska Native organizations. ISDA allows any "Indian tribe" to request that the Secretary of the Interior enter into a self-determination contract with a designated "tribal organization." § 5321(a)(1). Under such a contract, the tribal organization delivers federally funded economic, infrastructure, health, or education benefits to the tribe's membership.

As originally drafted, ISDA's "Indian tribe" definition did not mention ANCs. H.R. 6372, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., § 1(a) (1973) (defining "Indian tribe" to mean "an Indian tribe, band, nation, or Alaska Native Community for which the Federal Government provides special programs and services because of its Indian identity"). Prior to passage, however, the definition was amended twice to include, first, Alaska Native villages and, second, ANCs. See H.R. Rep. No. 93–1600, p. 14 (1974) ("The Subcommittee amended the definition of ‘Indian tribe’ to include regional and village corporations established by [ANCSA]"). Today, ISDA defines an "Indian tribe" as "any Indian tribe, band, nation, or other organized group or community, including any Alaska Native village or regional or village corporation as defined in or established pursuant to [ANCSA], which is recognized as eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians." § 5304(e).³

Despite the express inclusion of ANCs in the definition of "Indian tribe," a question arose in the Interior Department whether the "recognized-as-eligible clause" limits the definition to "federally recognized tribes" only. A federally recognized tribe is one that has entered into "a government-to-government relationship [with] the United States." 1 F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law § 3.02[3] (N. Newton ed. 2012). This recognition can come in a number of ways: "from treaty, statute, executive or administrative order, or from a course of dealing with the tribe as a political entity." W. Canby, American Indian Law in a Nutshell 4 (7th ed. 2020). As private companies incorporated under state law,...