Next secretary of the Interior should elevate allotted landowner rights
Will Burgum prioritize the interests of all tribes and Indian people, or will his policies favor wealthy oil-rich tribes and perpetuate the exploitation of individual Allottee landowners?
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore
Much praise has been given recently to the Trump Administration’s pick of North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, as the new Secretary of the Department of the Interior. He is expected to replace Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first American Indian to serve in the post. I commend and respect Haaland for being the first to crack the glass ceiling and obtain the position. I wish her well in her future endeavors.
Meanwhile, Chairman Mark Fox of the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Nation, is a fan singing Burgum’s praises. He went so far as to call the appointment “a match made in heaven” for North Dakota tribes. Fox also expressed his hopefulness that the appointment will be beneficial on behalf of MHA and those tribes that are “oil-rich.”
Time will tell, but according to existing North Dakota policy, future federal policies may be a match made in heaven for sell-out, over-reaching tribal politicians who are willing to waive their tribal sovereignty and allow state taxation upon their reservations while simultaneously collecting tax benefits that don’t belong to the Indian Reorganization Act tribal councils but belong to individual Indian landowners, called “Allottees,” instead.
Unbeknownst to most, three separate MHA tribal administrations have done so on the federal Fort Berthold Indian Reservation through Oil and Gas Gross Production Tax Sharing Agreements they executed with the state of North Dakota. The Marcus Levings administration, the Tex Hall administration, and finally, the Mark Fox administration, who now guards the henhouse.
Under the former and current Oil and Gas Gross Production Tax Sharing Agreements, the MHA Nation does not exercise its taxing authority or inherent sovereignty, as tribal politicians like to tout. It is the exact opposite.
Instead, in accordance to North Dakota State law, the IRA councils have each waived tribal sovereign immunity from state taxation on federal “trust lands,” within the boundaries of the reservation. The tax agreements are nothing but a waiver and an agreement not to litigate over taxing authority.
While a great concept to promote economic development, the devil is in the details. Federal Allottee lands are illegally being taxed without any landowner’s consent. No public notice nor due process was ever afforded to the affected Allottees.
Tribal lands and Allottee lands are separate and distinct. The tribal council does not have the right or authority to speak and/or give consent on behalf of allotted landowners. Allottees own at least 70% of the land-base now being illegally taxed on the Fort Berthold Reservation.
Article 6, Section 2 of the Constitution of the Three Affiliated Tribes explicitly states:
“The exercise of powers granted by this Constitution is subject to any limitations imposed by the statutes of the United States or by this Constitution and Bylaws.”
Currently, the monies that the MHA Nation tribal officials have been so flush with and spending – like it is their own personal lottery winnings– have been essentially stolen from Allottee properties by the state of North Dakota and given back to the tribal government as a refund. According to federal, state, and tribal law, both the state of North Dakota and the Indian Reorganization Act governed MHA tribal council lack any legal jurisdiction or right to tax Allottee lands unless the landowners give their prior consent.
An exemption from taxation is an added value component of ownership, a property right, which belongs to the beneficial interest holder of an allotment and not the tribal council. Any income or benefit generated on Allottee lands belongs to the individual Indian owner or owners. It does not belong to the politicians who spend, spend, spend to build over-priced funhouses, greenhouses, bankroll casinos, or buy private residences for themselves, like one such mansion in a Summerlin/Las Vegas gated community complex.
Maybe Fox and other IRA officials are also hoping that Gov. Burgum, in his new role, will overlook that the MHA Nation has not completed audits of federal funds in several years and any audits of tribal funds appear to be nonexistent. Close to $1 billion is alleged to have disappeared into thin air, unaccounted for.
Hopefully, incoming Interior Secretary Burgum will fulfill the federal trust responsibility and fiduciary duty due to Individual Indians, Indian landowners, and federally recognized tribes by enforcing existing laws meant to protect individual and collective civil, trust, property and treaty rights which were paid for in blood by our ancestors and combat veterans.
We expect Burgum to work for the benefit of all tribes, all Indian people, especially the ones struggling to make ends meet, and not just the “oil-rich.”
Gowitz