Lisa Murkowski: “The simple reality of this amendment is that this affects a group of native Alaskans--Aleut, Eskimo, and Indian--who…”

“The simple reality of this amendment is that this affects a group of native Alaskans--Aleut, Eskimo, and Indian--who served in uniform during the Korean or Vietnam war, and as a consequence of that service were unavailable and not in the State at the time when they would have had the opportunity to take advantage of an individual allotment, which was authorized under the 1906 Alaska Native Allotment Act, allowing the collection of up to 160 acres of nonmineral, vacant, unappropriated, unreserved land in Alaska to any qualified Alaska Native head of a household. What happened during that timeframe between 1968 and 1972, which is the 3 years that are explicitly addressed in this amendment, is that the authorization for the selection ended. So what we have here is the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971 that terminated this selection opportunity, and there were a number of Alaska Natives serving in the military who did not have an opportunity to take advantage of the 160 acres that were due them under the 1906 law.”