Effort to block tribes from building casinos fails

WASHINGTON - An effort led by Nevada senators to block the Clinton administration from giving Indian tribes the go-ahead to build casinos over the objection of states has failed.

The House and Senate passed a $4.5 billion spending bill late Thursday without a provision that would have barred Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt from spending any money to write rules allowing his agency to approve tribal casinos.

But don't expect Babbitt to start approving Indian gaming compacts any time soon. The proposed regulations that would allow Babbitt to arbitrate disputes between tribes and states are at such an early point in the Department of Interior's rule-making process that it is virtually impossible to predict when they might be finalized.

"It's hard to estimate because it does depend on the volume of comments," said Tom Sweeney, an Interior Department spokesman.

The department is accepting comments on the proposed rules until June 22. At that time, the department could do a number of things, including re-writing the proposed rules to include some or all of the comments, and then asking for comments on the revised rules. Sweeney said it is impossible to tell whether the rules will be finalized this year.

In March, Nevada Sens. Richard Bryan and Harry Reid, along with Wyoming Republican Mike Enzi, attached an amendment that would have blocked Interior Department involvement in tribal/state gaming disputes to the Senate version of the spending bill.

But it was dropped in a conference committee negotiating the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill amid fierce opposition from some House Republicans.

The defeat is the latest development in a dispute between the Interior Department and the Nevadans, who fear the rules could open the door to Indian casinos in neighboring California.

The battle isn't over, however.

"There will be other opportunities to address this issue," Bryan's spokeswoman Karen Kirchgasser said Friday.

Those include attaching the measure to other bills. And Nevada lawmakers likely will try to kill the program when a bill funding the Interior Department goes before the Senate later this spring.

Reid argues the Interior Department, which oversees Indian affairs, also cannot impartially arbitrate disputes between states and tribes.

Reid "is disappointed that we didn't get the support we expected from the conference," said spokeswoman Jenny Backus. "But we are committed to using whatever legislative avenue is available to correct our concerns about the secretary's conflicting responsibilities when it comes to Indian gaming."

While of keen interest to Nevada, the debate over Babbitt's proposal has implications across the country. Tribes in states such as Florida and Alabama argue that state officials have kept them from breaking into the $7 billion-a-year Indian gambling business.

The tribes' case was weakened further by a 1996 Supreme Court ruling that found states can successfully claim they are immune to lawsuits brought by tribes. Tribes appealed to Babbitt for help. He responded by drafting a plan that would allow Interior Department officials to intervene.

Tribes support Babbitt's move and lobbied against the Nevada legislation.

"It's a matter of fairness," said A. Gay Kingman, spokeswoman for the National Indian Gaming Association, which represents 156 tribes. "In our justice system, there's supposed to be due process."

The Interior Department rule-making process provides a good forum for that due process, Kingman said.

"They're asking states to give their comments and tribes to give their comments," she said.

Any law prohibiting department involvement in state/tribe gaming disputes would deprive the tribes of their rights under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, the law which requires tribes to negotiate gaming with states, Kingman said.

"If the state will not negotiate, what is the recourse for the tribes?" Kingman said.

archive