Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today I introduce legislation, already pending in the House of Representatives, where it was first introduced in 2009, 2011, and 2013 by Alaska Congressman Don Young to finally settle a long-standing injustice to the Native residents of Alexander Creek, a Native village built along the creek that runs into the Susitna River near its entrance to Cook Inlet, north of Anchorage and southwest of Wasilla, AK. The story of Alexander Creek's Alaska Natives is a sad story, in that it is a story of Natives whose village happened to be located at the site of one of the State's prime salmon fishing locations, a site that may have prompted efforts by some to deliberately prevent the village from rightfully gaining the lands it was entitled to receive under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, ANCSA, passed by this Congress in 1971. It is especially sad since the villagers succeeded in the Federal courts in winning confirmation of their status as a village under ANCSA nearly four decades ago but because of decades of mistakes and misunderstandings, still have received only about 10 percent of the land village residents are entitled to receive. The legislation I am introducing today would give the Secretary of the Interior the authority to enter into negotiations to settle aboriginal land claims with Alexander Creek, after conferring village instead of group status on the community.…”