Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition and Compensation Act
Key claim: This bill would let Native residents of Haines, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Tenakee, and Wrangell form Urban Corporations under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and receive settlement land and compensation they were previously left out of.
Abstract
(S1306 · 109th Congress) Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition and Compensation Act - Amends the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act to permit the Native residents of each of the Native Villages of Haines, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Tenakee, and Wrangell, Alaska, to organize as Urban Corporations and to receive certain settlement lands and other compensation pursuant to this Act. Latest action (2005-06-23): Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. (text of measure as introduced: CR S7314-7316)
Why this matters
ANCSA’s 1971 settlement excluded five Southeast Alaska Native communities from forming Urban Corporations, leaving their residents without the land conveyances and compensation received by other Alaska Native groups. Recognition bills like this one would alter land ownership, resource rights, and local development patterns in Haines, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Tenakee, and Wrangell. The 2005 version stalled in committee, but it established the template later carried forward in landless-equity proposals.