Federal provision blocks them from using land as collateral

BY DENNIS CAMIRE, Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON -- Two Oregon Indian tribes asked a House panel Wednesday to approve a bill that would clear the way for them to develop almost 20 acres in Keizer as a shopping center.

Delores Pigsley, leader of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz, said they and the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community discovered that a provision in a federal law blocked their ability to use the land as collateral for construction loans needed to develop the site.

That provision, called a reversionary clause, allows the federal government to seize the land unless it is used for tribal economic development.

"As long as the reversionary clause remains a cloud on the title, it will prevent any type of meaningful development for the tribes' land," Pigsley said.

The tribes support a bill, sponsored by Rep. Darlene Hooley, D-Ore., that calls for a new deed to be issued without the provision and stipulates that the land must be for nongaming purposes.

The Senate approved the bill, sponsored by Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., in late May.

Michael R. Smith, deputy bureau director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said the agency supported the bill since the land was transferred to the tribes so they could develop it as they wanted.

A third Oregon tribe -- the Coquille Indian Tribe in North Bend -- also found that a different federal law blocked it from developing a 50-acre site that it bought on Coos Bay in southwest Oregon.

The Coquille Tribe was supporting a bill, sponsored by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., that would allow it to sell and lease its land not held in trust by the U.S. government in the same way as any other private party.

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said although the two federal laws were put into place to protect tribal land and help economic development, they now were preventing the tribes from fully engaging in economic development.

Rahall said he planned to have the full committee debate and vote on the two bills next week and wanted to bring them to the House floor for a vote before Congress leaves for its August recess.

Pigsley said she was happy about Rahall's comments on getting the committee and the House to act on the bill quickly.

"I think we have a bill that is going to get passed," she said.

Pigsley said her tribe and the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community contacted at least six lenders but none would make the loans.

The land, originally part of the Chemawa Indian School, was deeded to the tribes in 2002 under a federal law that encourages tribal economic development.

But the law also mandates the reversion provision be included.

The tribes want to use the land on which the Chemawa Station Water Tower stands for office space, restaurants, retail stores and a gas station and have invested more than $2.5 million of tribal money in the project.