New rule may give tribes a boost

Changes could give groups more autonomy

WASHINGTON — Some Indian tribes may have a clearer path toward federal recognition under a new Obama administration rule that relaxes some requirements and speeds decision-making, potentially affecting hundreds of groups.

Federal acknowledgment means a tribe is treated as a nation within a nation, able to set up its own government, legal system, and taxes and fees. Recognition also brings critical federal investments in medical care, housing and education. It also can lead to tribes opening casinos in future years through a separate approval process.

In all, there are 566 federal recognized tribes. Hundreds more want to join their ranks.

The new regulation updates a 37-year-old process that has been roundly criticized as broken because of the many years and mounds of paperwork that typically went into each application.

But the effort to address those criticisms generated a backlash of its own, with some lawmakers and existing tribes with casino operations complaining that the administration’s original proposals set the bar too low.

The Obama administration made changes in the final rule that answers many of those concerns, but not all. Kevin Washburn, an assistant secretary at the Department of Interior, announced the regulation Monday during a National Congress of American Indians conference in Minnesota.

The most scrutinized changes will be the new criteria that must be met for recognition to occur.

Indian groups seeking recognition will no longer have to show that outside parties identified them as an Indian entity dating back to 1900. Washburn said the requirement clashed with the reality of those times. Many Indians were attempting to hide their identity from outside sources out of fear they would be discriminated against, or worse. “They would have been crazy not to have,” said Washburn, a member of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma.

Some federally recognized tribes had urged that the requirement be kept.