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The Administration strongly opposes the enactment of S. 1158 on several
grounds. Because the bill would set an unacceptable precedent by reopening
native entitlements under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), the
Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior would recommend that the President
veto the bill.
ANCSA granted over 200 village corporations the right to select public lands in
Alaska for a variety of uses. Each corporation was required to select the
public lands within the township in which it was located. ANCSA was a final
settlement and, as such, represented many trade-offs and compromises by all
parties.
If S. 1158 were enacted, all of Alaska's other village corporations could argue
that they too were entitled to exchange land selected under ANCSA for more
valuable Federal land. This precedent would threaten to unravel ANCSA's
historic settlement through piece-meal amendments. In turn, Federal land
management throughout Alaska would be severely disrupted with significant costs
and consequences for all taxpayers.
Beyond the question of precedent, the land exchanges proposed in S. 1158
would not be in the public interest. The primary reason the U.S. Forest
Service pursues land exchanges is to provide more efficient land management
through consolidation of existing Federal ownership and to dispose of isolated
parcels that are uneconomical to manage. S. 1158 is in direct conflict with
these goals.
The bill is based on the premise that because some of the land that the Huna
Totem Corporation received within the township under ANCSA is not subject to
development, the United States should provide the Corporation with replacement
land elsewhere. ANCSA, however, contemplated that villages would obtain all
land within the "core" township regardless of its development potential.
Pay-As-You-Go Scoring
S. 1158 is subject to the pay-as-you-go requirements of the Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation Act of 1990. The Administration estimates that S. 1158 would
result in Federal revenue losses of up to $500,000 per year, beginning in
1998. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 reduced the PAYGO balances to zero, and
consequently, any bill that would increase mandatory spending or result in a
revenue loss would contribute to a sequester of mandatory programs as called
for in the Budget Enforcement Act. In the case of S. 1158, the Administration
opposes the bill, and notes that it does not contain provisions to offset the
net deficit increases. As a result, if the bill were enacted without further
action to provide offsets, any deficit effects could contribute to a sequester
of mandatory spending.
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