• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Subscribe
  • Donate

WyoFile

Indepth News about Wyoming People, Places & Policy. Wyoming news.

  • Latest News
    • Education
    • Energy
    • Legislature
    • Native America
    • Natural Resources
    • People
    • Photo Friday
    • Places
    • Policy
  • Voices
    • Drake’s Take
    • Madden’s Measure
    • Guest Column
    • Studio Wyoming Review
  • Supporters
    • Membership
    • Underwriting
    • Foundations
  • COVID-19
  • Latest News
    • Education
    • Energy
    • Legislature
    • Native America
    • Natural Resources
    • People
    • Photo Friday
    • Places
    • Policy
  • Voices
    • Drake’s Take
    • Madden’s Measure
    • Guest Column
    • Studio Wyoming Review
  • Supporters
    • Membership
    • Underwriting
    • Foundations
  • COVID-19

U.S. Supreme court rules for tribe in boundary case

U.S. Supreme court rules for tribe in boundary case

The United States Supreme Court ruled Tuesday Mar. 22 that a Nebraska tribe's reservation boundaries were not "diminished" by non-tribal settlement. The case may have implications for an ongoing dispute between the Wind River Indian Reservation tribes, the City of Riverton and the state of Wyoming. (Envios / Flickr Creative Commons)

March 25, 2016 by WyoFile 3 Comments

Tweet
Share
Pin
Email
0 Shares
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision Tuesday the significance of which is likely to be debated in the ongoing dispute between the Wind River Indian Reservation tribes and the state of Wyoming regarding EPA’s decision to allow the tribes a voice in air quality decisions in central Wyoming.

In Nebraska, a tribe that had asserted jurisdiction for liquor law purposes over a nearby town, on original reservation lands then settled by outsiders, won a key ruling from the SCOTUS Tuesday. The court decision said that Congress didn’t legally “diminish” the reservation and its boundaries when it opened that reservation for settlement. Whether the WRIR was “diminished” by being opened up to settlement that established the town of Riverton is a key issue in the air-quality case.

In the Nebraska case, while the court unanimously ruled that the reservation in question had not been “diminished” and still had its original boundaries, the decision sent the case back to the lower court to decide whether a century or more of tribal failure to assert jurisdiction over all the original territory may invalidate the new liquor law.

According to the EPA, its December 2013 decision to give the WRIR tribes “Treatment as a State” on air quality issues will allow the WRIR tribes to receive more grants under the Clean Air Act, and get notifications of air permits that may affect their airshed. It will also allow the tribes to participate in air quality commissions and the development of risk-management plans. The EPA decision stressed that TAS does not give the tribes regulatory authority.

The Wyoming attorney general’s office, and the city of Riverton, have raised concerns that if the EPA decision on reservation boundaries is upheld, the tribes could assert jurisdiction over a wide variety of issues. The state is challenging the EPA decision in the federal 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Opinions at the tribal offices and the Wyoming attorney general’s offices are likely to differ dramatically on the significance of the new high court decision, Nebraska v. Parker in their dispute.

Here are links to the Supreme Court opinion, and to two different descriptions of the ruling.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-1406_6536.pdf

http://www.narf.org/2016/03/supreme-court-unanimously-holds-reservation-boundaries-not-diminished-favor-omaha-tribe-nebraska-v-parker/

http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/03/opinion-analysis-history-lessons-along-the-old-frontier/

Additional WyoFile coverage:

Arapaho Promote Mediation in Wind River Reservation Border Dispute


Popular Articles:


Wyo senators' cowardice should not be mistaken for loyalty


Wyoming GOP embraces Trump’s phony voter fraud claims


Biden administration stops half-million-acre Wyo oil and gas sale


Filed Under: Policy, Politics, Wind River Indian Reservation

About WyoFile

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Larry Antelope says

    March 30, 2016 at 7:33 pm

    The SCOTUS unanimous decision made clear that the 1882 act of congress that opened up Indian lands to settlement did not clear the way for continued diminishment for said lands. If there was one viable argument that Riverton was established on tribal diminished lands the EPA would have excluded Riverton. Trust me, the EPA, the state and feds are not on the tribes side.

    • City: Missoula
    • State of Residence: Montana
    Reply
  2. Mary Keller says

    March 29, 2016 at 7:17 am

    A great book from which to consider these issues is Robert Meister’s “After Evil”–a moral philosophy that considers deeply questions of justice given America’s history of the violent conquest of Indigenous people and theenslavement of Africans and African Americans. Meister is one of America’s gifted intellectuals, trained in finance, law, and moral philosophy. He asks what it would mean to be Americans who could figure out, together, what “justice in time” would mean. That is, we know how to recognize the injustice of the past, such as the creation and then whittling away of reservations, but we are stymied on imagining what it would mean to configure justice now in light of the past. Instead of fighting the ruling, Wyoming could be the state that thought deeply about justice in time. We were the place of last resort, the place where the Ft Laramie treaty of 1851 and the place where the Laramie Peace Council of 1888 transpired. What might 2016 and beyond look like if we sought out justice in time.

    • City: Cody
    • State of Residence: Wyoming
    Reply
  3. ken casner says

    March 25, 2016 at 8:49 am

    I wonder how the city of Riverton would react to the city limits being changed without a voice, or the State of Wyoming boundaries being changed by a treaty? Placing people within a boundary develops rules, and these rules usually have a voice. The American Government placed these people within boundaries without rules, or a voice. I would have to say this judgement was based on the rules our Government made, and now we should listen to our rules.

    • City: Elk Mountain
    • State of Residence: Wyoming
    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Want to join the discussion? Fantastic, here are the ground rules:
- Identify yourself with full name and city. WyoFile stands behind everything we publish and expects commenters to do the same.
- No personal attacks, profanity, discriminatory language or threats. Keep it clean, civil and on topic.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Tweets by @WyoFile

Search WyoFile

Become an Underwriter
Sign Up for Free Weekly Newsletters

Recent Comments

  • Jenelle R Gaddis on Bill would kill residential solar, critics say
  • Geoff Letchworth on Wind project doesn’t belong in Laramie Basin
  • Jenelle R Gaddis on Bill would kill residential solar, critics say
  • Jenelle R Gaddis on Bill would kill residential solar, critics say
  • Robert Nickens on Wind project doesn’t belong in Laramie Basin

Footer

Recent Posts By Date

February 2021
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
« Jan    

From The Archives

  • About Us
  • People
  • Careers
  • Freelancing
  • Underwriting
  • How to Republish
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us

Copyright © 2021 by WyoFile