Federal and state leaders have appointed 19 experts to a special task force responsible for creating a science plan to better understand Alaska’s salmon, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service announced on Friday. Task force members must address sustainable management and a response to the recent crashes in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. The group was chosen in accordance with the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force Act that passed and was signed into law late last year. The law calls for most members to be appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with Alaska’s governor, and one to be appointed directly by the governor.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch May Be Court’s Fiercest Defender of Native Rights of a 7-2 majority that upheld the ICWA in Brackeen and the lone dissenter in an Gorsuch wrote two powerful decisions in support of tribal sovereignty last week. The latest additions to Gorsuch’s impressive canon of pro-tribal decisions came in two opinions handed down by the Supreme Court on June 15th. The first case was Haaland v. Brackeen, which involved a conservative attack on the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The other case was Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Coughlin, which tackled the question of whether US bankruptcy law could be applied to tribal nations. Gorsuch sided with tribal governments both times: He was part 8-1 ruling that pierced tribal sovereignty in favor of general bankruptcy law in Coughlin. Says Gorsuch, “Tribal sovereignty always prevails”
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.
