Solicitor's Opinion M-37087 (Alaska fee-to-trust)

What happened

This item is an agency legal opinion, not a statute. On February 24, 2026, the Interior Department's Solicitor issued M-37087. The memo permanently withdraws Solicitor Opinion M-37076 of November 16, 2022, and the related M-37069. It reinstates M-37064 of January 19, 2021, and instructs Interior bureaus and offices "to treat M-37064 as binding and authoritative."

M-37076 had analyzed whether the Secretary of the Interior has authority under Section 5 of the Indian Reorganization Act to accept land in trust in Alaska, and "concluded that the Secretary maintains legal authority to accept land in Alaska into trust, notwithstanding the enactment of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971." M-37087 says that view and a 2017 opinion that reached the same result "conflict with over five decades of consistent policy and legal determinations" on the question. It adopts the conclusion of the reinstated opinion that the earlier analysis was "insufficient."

A law firm's analysis explains the back-and-forth. It says Solicitor opinions on this question have switched with administrations, that in 2013 a federal court in Akiachak Native Community v. Jewell held the Interior's "Alaska Exception" in its trust regulations invalid, and that Interior removed the exception in 2014. The firm reports that, with M-37087 in place, new Alaska fee-to-trust applications will be rejected and active ones will not progress, and that Interior plans a rulemaking.

Good to know. Background on earlier opinions and the Akiachak case comes from a law firm's article, not from the opinions themselves.

Summarized with AI assistance from 4 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error