Posted May 15, 2014
The Wyoming Farm Bureau recently filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit over the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) decision to grant local Tribes “Tribes-as-State” status under the Clean Air Act, according to an article by the Fairfield Sun Times available here. The Wyoming Star Tribune and the Billings Gazette also reported on the story hereand here.
In December 2013, the EPA granted the Northern Arapahoe Tribe and the Eastern Shoshone Tribe (both on Wind River Indian Reservation) “Tribe-as-State” status under the Clean Air Act.
In December of 2008, both tribes sought “Tribe-as-State” status under § 301(d)(2) of the Clean Air Act, “which provides an ‘express congressional delegation’ to tribes of the EPA’s authority to regulate air quality on fee lands located within the exterior boundaries of a reservation.” The tribes then expanded their application to include the town of Riverton.
The case, Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation v. EPA, poses the question of whether “non-Indian landowners may be subjected to tribal jurisdiction after their land was ceded by the Tribes to the United States and then purchased by settlers over 100 years ago pursuant to an Act of Congress” that stated the land was outside of the reservation’s boundaries.
For more information on the Clean Air Act, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
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