Southcentral Foundation land transfer is law, Begich tells AFN as other bills wait

U.S. Rep. Nick Begich told the Alaska Federation of Natives convention that the president signed the Southcentral Foundation Land Transfer Act this week, giving the Anchorage tribal health organization about 3.4 acres of federal land downtown. Begich and U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan also listed other new laws and bills still waiting for action.

The land transfer reached the president after the Senate passed it Sept. 29, as Alaska News reported Oct. 17. The parcel holds the Quyana Clubhouse, where Begich said Southcentral Foundation is preparing to break ground next spring on a behavioral health expansion. The foundation pays nothing for the land, according to the bill text. The secretary of health and human services has two years to complete the transfer, according to the delegation's release.

Begich said it is the 10th bill he introduced and sponsored to become law in his first term.

Another new law lets eligible Alaska Native elders and people with disabilities take settlement trust distributions without losing eligibility for federal assistance, Begich said.

Sullivan, who spoke first, cited the ARTIST Act, which became law in June and bars states from banning sales of authentic Alaska Native ivory handicrafts. "After a decade of fighting, pushing, holding hearings here at AFN, we finally got my artist act signed into law this year," he said.

At last year's AFN, he asked delegates for help extending the Alaska Native Vietnam-era veterans land allotment program before it expired. "In December, they finally relented and we got an extension for 5 more years and my bill signed into law," he said.

Sullivan said his Bycatch Reduction Act passed the Senate Commerce Committee but his effort to pass it on the Senate floor was blocked. His bill to return National Guard units and armories to rural communities that want them passed the Armed Services Committee unanimously, and he said he expects to get it done this year.

Begich said landless legislation for Haines, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Tenakee and Wrangell passed the U.S. House but has not yet passed the U.S. Senate. It would give each of the five communities 23,040 acres of federal land, about 115,000 acres combined, according to Sen. Lisa Murkowski's office.