Tribes help craft national policy on reservation businesses

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is making the “rounds” across the U.S. to gather feedback from tribal nations to decide whether long-standing “Indian trading regulations” should be updated — laws that determine who can run a business on tribal reservations and what items can be sold. The BIA also says it wants tribes to comment on how changes to current dual tax regulations on Tribal lands could benefit tribes.

On Thursday morning, the BIA had its first of eight consultations at the Wa Walton Event Center at the Swinomish Casino & Lodge, to gather input from the “Seattle area.” The meeting was closed to the public, press and counties, despite the BIA previously stating that it’s seeking verbal and written comments from “federally recognized tribes” and also “states and their agencies and from the public.”

As the trading laws currently stand, the BIA has strict authority over tribal businesses. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs has sole power to appoint business licenses, or “traders to the Indian tribes,” and to make the rules and regulations about the type, quality and prices of the goods being sold to tribal members.

The law, first written in 1957, contains outdated language at times, particularly in references to race and “civilized tribes.”

“The regulations themselves have a long history — it’s been over 30 years since they’ve been revised,” Tana Fitzpatrick said in a call after the consultation ended. Fitzpatrick is a senior counselor under the Department of the Interior’s Office of the Assistant Secretary, according to the BIA’s website.

“Some of the commenters there today wanted to keep aspects of the licensing scheme,” she said, “but other tribes thought it’s long overdue that we update the regulations — that tribes are fully capable of regulating trade themselves.”

Fitzpatrick stressed that the BIA is in the early stages of crafting the policy.

“Dual taxation did come up. From the comments received today, the tribal nations receiving these taxes said it could help them with the governmental services that they provide to their people.” Dual taxation in this context refers to taxation by tribes as well as public agencies.

The U.S. government has a special relationship with Indian tribes, outlined in “government-to-government” policies — at the meeting, Fitzpatrick and Swinomish Indian Tribal Community attorney Stephen LeCuyer pointed to the policy as an explanation why the meeting was closed to the public. However, the BIA’s “Government-to-Government Consultation Policy” document outlines the consultation process, and it does not state that the public is barred from the meetings.

Two advance notices of the consultations were published in the Federal Register on December 9 and February 8. Federal agencies are required to publish notices of proposed rulemaking in the register, which is essentially the U.S. Legislature’s daily newspaper.

The BIA’s list of seven feedback questions is available online here, with instructions on how to submit comments in writing before April 10: http://bit.ly/2lZaWRa.

The BIA is a federal agency and is the oldest bureau of the United States Department of the Interior.