The action taken by the Congress kills our ‘day in court,’” Sneed said in an email. The act recognizes 17 acres of North Carolina land the Department of the Interior took into trust for the South Carolina-based Catawba Nation.Īccording to a Congressional Budget Office analysis from May, the Catawba act imposes “an intergovernmental mandate as defined by the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) on the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the Cherokee Nation, by restricting their existing right of action to pursue a case against DOI under the Administrative Procedures Act.”ĮBCI Principal Chief Richard Sneed confirmed that to. The Senate then added it to the appropriations bill. However, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed by Biden included the Catawba Indian Nation Lands Act. That case is currently in the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The action was filed after the Catawba Indian Nation was given the go-ahead to build a casino in North Carolina. A bill signed into law on Monday by President Joe Biden ends the legal challenge the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) filed against the federal government.
