Sen. Murkowski’s ‘landless’ bill advances to U.S. Senate floor
A bill allowing five Alaska Native communities in Southeast to receive land entitlements passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Alaska U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski announced July 16 that her bill had advanced to the Senate floor.
The legislation, called the Alaska Native Landless Equity Act, would allow Haines, Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg and Tenakee to form Alaska Native corporations and receive 23,040 acres each — or one township — of federal land.
Those communities were excluded from the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, or ANCSA, when it became law more than 50 years ago. ANCSA transferred 44 million acres to more than 200 regional, village and urban corporations to resolve land claims throughout Alaska.
The landless movement is not without controversy. ANCSA mandated that the newly recognized Native corporations seek to make profits for their shareholders. Because of this, some who oppose Sen. Murkowski’s bill argue that it would privatize 115,000 acres of land in the Tongass National Forest.
During remarks on July 16, Murkowski spoke directly to the opposition. She addressed concerns about environmental conservation and said that “this should not be the controversial measure it has historically been viewed as.”
“There are no better stewards of our Alaska lands than the people who have lived on them for thousands of years,” she said.
Alongside her statement, Murkowski noted letters of support from the Wilderness Society and the Nature Conservancy, two organizations that previously opposed the bill.
Alaska’s congressional delegation has been introducing so-called “landless” legislation since the early 1990s without success. In 2023, a landless bill introduced by Murkowski cleared the committee for the first time.
In her remarks July 16, Murkowski also noted that Alaska Congressman Nick Begich’s companion measure passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in June, with no recorded opposition. Begich’s bill is the first landless bill to clear the House.
“I think there’s good reason for that because it comes back to the inequity that we have seen in an effort to do right by the Alaska Native peoples who were excluded so many decades ago,” Murkowski said.
Murkowski’s legislation now heads to the Senate floor for consideration.