Alaska Native Claims Settlement Improvement Act of 2016

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Improvement Act of 2016

This bill amends the Barrow Gas Field Transfer Act of 1984 to require the Department of the Interior to convey to the Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation, an Alaska Native village corporation, sand and gravel deposits underlying a surface estate owned by the corporation.

Interior must grant the Shishmaref Native Corporation, a village corporation, an easement between Shishmaref, Alaska, and the area of Ear Mountain, Alaska.

Shee Atika Incorporated, an urban Native corporation, may opt to receive credits from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the sale of Cube Cove in Admiralty Island, Alaska, that may be used to acquire federal property sold at public sales.

The bill authorizes a land exchange between the USDA and the Sealaska Corporation, an Alaska Native regional corporation.

Cook Inlet Region, Inc., a regional corporation, may satisfy its claim land under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA).

The bill amends ANCSA to require Interior to convey: (1) a surface estate to Kian Tr'ee Corporation, a village corporation, for the Native village of Canyon Village; and (2) a subsurface estate to Doyon Limited, a regional corporation.

Upon application by the village of Kaktovik or Nagamut, Interior must convey land within the National Wildlife Refuge System to the village.

The bill makes land held by Alaska Native corporations subject to the National Historic Preservation Act, the Tribal Forest Protection Act, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Native residents of the villages of Haines, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Tenakee, and Wrangell, Alaska, may organize as urban corporations. Upon incorporation, Interior must offer each corporation 23,040 acres of land.

Alaska Native veterans who served during the Vietnam War may receive an allotment of federal land.