Kanji & Katzen attorneys helped the Port Gamble S’Klallam, Jamestown S’Klallam, and Lower Elwha Klallam Tribes of Washington negotiate an agreement with the United States Navy to provide $6.6 million in mitigation projects for injuries to the Tribes’ treaty fishing rights. The agreement will offset impacts to shellfish and fish habitat from the construction of a second Explosives Handling Wharf at the Trident nuclear submarine base near Seattle. The funding will pay for the purchase and conservation of waterfront land near the Tribes’ reservations, improvements to tribal shellfish and fish hatcheries, seeding of clams and oysters on tribally-harvested beaches, and fisheries and environmental research and education. The agreement also resolves tribal challenges to Clean Water Act and navigational permits for the wharf and to the adequacy of the Navy’s environmental impact statement. For more information, see the related articles on Kitsapsun.com and Turtletalk.wordpress.com.

In September 2011, Cory Albright was invited to speak at the National Intertribal Tax Alliance annual conference at Santa Ana Pueblo in New Mexico. Mr. Albright’s presentation focused on the impacts of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act of 2009 (“PACT Act”) on Indian tobacco economies and tax programs, the implementation of the PACT Act by the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the enforcement of the PACT Act against Indian nations and their members, and litigation challenging the constitutionality of the Act.