Description:
S. 1879 would modify the Secretary of the Interior’s authority to take certain land into trust on behalf of Indian tribes under the Indian Reorganization Act. Under current law, as established by the Supreme Court’s decision in Carcieri v. Salazar (2009), the Secretary’s authority to take land into trust is limited to tribes that were federally recognized prior to the enactment of that act in 1934. S. 1879 would amend that act to allow the Secretary to take land into trust for all federally recognized Indian tribes. The bill also would specify a process—including new requirements and deadlines—for the Secretary to follow in considering applications from tribes or individual Indians to have certain types of land taken into trust on their behalf.
CBO estimates that implementing S. 1879 would increase administrative costs for the Department of the Interior (DOI) by $30 million over the next five years, assuming appropriation of the necessary amounts. Pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply to this legislation because enacting it would not affect direct spending or revenues.
CBO estimates that enacting S. 1879 would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2027.
S. 1879 would impose both intergovernmental and private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA). CBO estimates that the aggregate costs of mandates in the bill on public and private entities would fall below the annual thresholds established in UMRA for intergovernmental and private-sector mandates ($77 million and $154 million in 2016, respectively, adjusted annually for inflation).
