ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) â The U.S. Supreme Court was set to hear oral arguments in a case that will determine who is eligible to receive more than $530 million in federal virus relief funding set aside for tribes more than a year ago.
More than a dozen Native American tribes sued the U.S. Treasury Department to keep the money out of the hands of Alaska Native corporations, which provide services to Alaska Natives but do not have a government-to-government relationship with the United States.
The question raised in the case set for oral arguments on April 19 is whether the corporations are tribes for purposes of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which defines âtribesâ under a 1975 law meant to strengthen their abilities to govern themselves.
By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
Consumer advocacy groups, environmentalists and the New Mexico attorney general s office are raising concerns about a proposed multibillion-dollar merger of the state s largest electric utility with a U.S. subsidiary of global energy giant Iberdrola.
The groups have filed testimony with state regulators ahead of hearings that begin next month.
It will be up to the Public Regulation Commission to determine if the merger provides meaningful benefits to Public Service Co. of New Mexico customers and if it would be in the public interest.
Some groups say PNM shareholders will benefit from the proposed transaction and that it could end up stifling competition for renewable energy development in New Mexico.
On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear argument on that question in
Yellen v. Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation. Immediately at stake in the answer is billions of dollars in federal CARES Act funding. But the outcome could also have longer-term consequences for how, and from whom, Alaskan Natives receive essential services.
Remember the $8 billion #CoronavirusReliefFund for tribal governments?
Well the Supreme Court is finally hearing arguments in the long-running #COVID19 dispute!
First, some background. Just as, in
McGirt v. Oklahoma last term, the court confronted the complex past of Oklahoma’s Native nations, Chehalis turns on the unique legal history of Alaskan Natives. Though Alaska became part of the United States in 1867, the federal government only fitfully devoted attention to the status of the new territory’s Indigenous peoples.
U.S. Supreme Court sympathetic to Native Alaskans in COVID-19 aid dispute By Lawrence Hurley
FILE PHOTO: A man runs past the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday signaled sympathy toward allowing federal COVID-19 relief funds to go to specially created corporations for Native Alaskans even though they are not officially recognized as tribal governments in a case pitting groups of indigenous Americans against each other.
The justices heard almost two hours of arguments in the case in which tribal groups are fighting over $8 billion in funding intended for tribal governments under the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, known as the CARES Act. About $533 million of that aid hinges on the case’s outcome.
First Lady Jill Biden To Visit Albuquerque, Navajo Capitol
- Associated Press
First lady Jill Biden s office announced Saturday that she will visit the U.S. Southwest in the coming week, with stops planned in New Mexico s most populous city and the Navajo Nation s capitol in Arizona.
The announcement said Biden will travel to Albuquerque on Wednesday and visit Window Rock, Arizona, on Thursday and Friday.
The announcement did not elaborate on the scheduled visit but said additional information will be forthcoming.
Navajo Nation Has No COVID-Related Deaths For 7th Day In Row -
Associated Press
The Navajo Nation now has had a week of reporting no additional COVID-19 related deaths on the vast reservation where safety precautions like a mask mandate and daily curfews remain.