
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
It isn't necessarily as simple as it looks. A tribe is a government and as such if it buys land within an original reservation area, for instance, it may take on with those lands? And also some corporations have the power to buy lands without the consent of the secretary and when they do the act specifically provides for them to be tax exempt. And so some tribes can perhaps other tribes can't without the consent of the secretary. I suppose you all know the secretary's withholding consent now, to retire lands from tax status. But I know there are some tribes that are able to buy, even if the secretary doesn't want them to, if they are able to find their own monies.to pay for them and they have a federal law which protects them from taxation. And in that circumstance, anywhere within the United States and not within their original area. It's a very complicated case and nobody can answer it except on a tribe by tribe basis setting out in full the circumstances of the particular tribe in connection with the general law. Its an extremely complicated question and one that I don't think can be answered "Yes" or "no. Question on prohibition of selling. Following up on your statement, the prohibitions that were written into the Appropriations Act from tie to time saying that no appropriated public moneies and no appropriated tribal fund might be used for the purchase of lands, does this prohibition present a limitation on the ? Act.? Mr. McNickle, I'm not acquainted with the particular prohibitions, as I say it dpends on the study of the individual case. My statement was limited to that case where the tribe has its own money in its own hands, it doesn't have to get it out of the treasury with the consent of the Secretary.