Indian tribes object to allowing federal bailout money to go to Alaska Native corporations

A push by profit-making Alaska Native corporations for a big piece of the giant COVID-19 federal bailout has turned into a major controversy with many Lower 48 Indian tribes.

“Depending on the formula Treasury ultimately uses and the factors contained therein, some estimates have Alaska Native Villages and ANC’s (Alaska Native corporations) consuming up to $4 billion of the $8 billion allocated to Indian Country,” the head of the National Indian Gaming Association wrote to the Trump administration.

“Furthermore, this would allow for double or triple counting of Alaska Natives due to the fact that there are three layers for each Alaska Native village: federally-recognized Alaska Native village Tribal government; Alaska Native Village Corporation; and Alaska Native Regional Corporation,” said Ernest Stevens Jr., chairman of the group.

Another critic, Bryan Newland of the Bay Mills Indian Community in Michigan, said that the COVID-19 funds should not go to “stabilize – or improve – the returns for shareholders in for-profit corporations at the expense of tribal governments that desperately need money to protect their citizens from a deadly virus.”

He said giving Alaska Native corporations a share of the $8 billion included in the federal bail for tribal governments “would not be equitable. In fact, it would be galling.”

The Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Association wrote that the Alaska Native corporations don’t qualify under the “plain language of the CARES Act, and it would allow for double or triple counting of Alaska Natives since members of federally recognized Alaska Native villages are also shareholders in Alaska Native Regional Corporations and Alaska Native Village Corporations.”

 “Alaska Native Regional Corporations and Alaska Native Village Corporations are not Tribal governments. They are state-chartered, for profit corporations,” said the Great Plains group.

Native News Online said that the role of Assistant Interior Secretary Tara Sweeney, a former Arctic Slope Regional Corp. employee, has led to objections from those who say she advocated for some of the federal bailout money going to the Alaska corporations and should not have done so.

A leader of the National Congress of American Indians said Sweeney would allow Alaska Natives to be counted as “tribal members, village corporate shareholders, and regional corporate shareholders, including her and her family.”

“It is important to note the distinction between Alaska Native tribal villages and ANCSA regional or village corporations,” wrote Fawn Sharp of NCAI, quoted by Indian Country Today.

“Alaska Native tribal villages exercise sovereign governmental authority over their lands and citizens, possess a government-to-government relationship with the United States, and are ‘Tribal governments’ under Section 601. Alaska regional or village corporations, on the other hand, are businesses incorporated under Alaska state law as authorized under ANCSA that do not have a political relationship with the federal government.”

But a Treasury Department form said that the Alaska corporations qualify: “‘Indian Tribe’ means 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 (85 Stat. 688, 43 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), which is recognized as eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians.”