SCR 3: Relating to the sovereignty of the State of Alaska and the sovereign right of the State of Alaska to manage the natural resources of Alaska.
00SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 3 01 Relating to the sovereignty of the State of Alaska and the sovereign right of the 02 State of Alaska to manage the natural resources of Alaska. 03 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA: 04 WHEREAS the State of Alaska is a sovereign state within the United States of 05 America having entered the United States under the Alaska Statehood Act, which provides that 06 Alaska is a sovereign state of the United States on an equal footing with all other states; and 07 WHEREAS the Alaska statehood compact guarantees that Alaska has the exclusive 08 authority to manage its fish and wildlife resources and that all submerged lands and fish are 09 the exclusive property of the State of Alaska; and 10 WHEREAS art. I, sec. 1, Constitution of the State of Alaska, declares that "all persons 11 are equal and entitled to the equal rights, opportunities, and protection under the law"; and 12 WHEREAS art. VIII, sec. 3, Constitution of the State of Alaska, provides that the fish 13 and wildlife resources in Alaska are reserved to the people for common use; and 14 WHEREAS art. VIII, sec. 3, Constitution of the State of Alaska, incorporates the
01 public trust doctrine that requires that all Alaskans, as beneficiaries of the public trust, shall 02 be treated impartially and without preference in regard to the use of assets of the public trust; 03 and 04 WHEREAS it is in the best interest of all Alaskans that the replenishable resources 05 of Alaska be biologically managed by the State of Alaska for abundance; and 06 WHEREAS the Constitution of the State of Alaska prohibits special privileges and 07 preferential allocations of natural resources based on race, color, creed, sex, national origin, 08 or residency; and 09 WHEREAS the United States Supreme Court in New York v. United States, 10 505 U.S. 144 (1992), ruled that the task of ascertaining the constitutional line between federal 11 and state power has given rise to many of the court's most celebrated cases and that, in such 12 cases, the division of authority between the federal government and the state requires specific 13 inquiry into whether a power exercised by the Congress has been given to the Congress in the 14 Constitution of the United States or whether the power is one that the Tenth Amendment of 15 the Constitution of the United States expressly reserves for the states; if a power is an attribute 16 of state sovereignty reserved by the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United 17 States, it is necessarily a power that the Constitution of the United States did not confer upon 18 the Congress; "The question is not what power the Federal Government ought to have, but 19 what powers in fact have been given by the people" Id. at 157, citing United States v. Butler, 20 297 U.S. 1, 63 (1936); and 21 WHEREAS the United States Supreme Court in Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856), 22 ruled that the property clause of the Constitution of the United States cannot be used to 23 destroy or in any way impair the civil and political rights of citizens of the United States or 24 to provide the power to establish inequalities among those citizens by creating privileges in 25 one class of citizens by disenfranchisement of other classes, thus degrading those other classes 26 from positions they previously occupied; and 27 WHEREAS the United States Supreme Court stated in United States v. Alaska, 521 28 U.S. 1 (1997), that the Alaska Statehood Act expressly provides that the Submerged Lands 29 Act applies to Alaska and that Alaska is entitled to ownership of submerged lands under the 30 equal footing doctrine and the Submerged Lands Act; and 31 WHEREAS ownership of submerged lands carries with it the power to control fishing
01 and other public uses of submerged lands and the superjacent waters, which is an essential 02 attribute of state sovereignty; and 03 WHEREAS the United States Supreme Court has ruled in Printz v. United States, 521 04 U.S. 98 (1997), that the Constitution of the United States established a system of dual 05 sovereignty that bestows only discrete enumerated powers on the Congress, that all other 06 powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States are 07 reserved to the states or to the people, and that the Constitution of the United States does not 08 confer upon the Congress the power to regulate state governments, the power to require a state 09 to legislate in accordance with the direction of the Congress, or the power to compel a state 10 to implement administrative action; and 11 WHEREAS the supremacy clause makes the "law of the land" only those laws of the 12 United States that are made in pursuant to and in conformity with the Constitution of the 13 United States; and 14 WHEREAS the Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act 15 (ANILCA), the provisions of which violate the Alaska statehood compact, the public trust 16 doctrine, and the constitutions of the State of Alaska and the United States by denying citizens 17 constitutionally guaranteed protections; and 18 WHEREAS ANILCA is currently being interpreted to provide management authority 19 over the fish and wildlife resources of Alaska to the federal government to authorize 20 discriminatory allocation of those resources and to infringe upon the State of Alaska's 21 sovereign authority and sovereign right to manage and allocate its own resources; and 22 WHEREAS provisions of ANILCA directly interfere with the authority of the State 23 of Alaska to constitutionally provide for the equal protection of all Alaskans and to manage 24 the fish and wildlife resources of Alaska in accordance with the Constitution of the State of 25 Alaska and in conformity with the public trust doctrine; and 26 WHEREAS a legitimate dispute exists between the State of Alaska and the Congress 27 as to whether the Congress may require the State of Alaska to violate its own constitution; as 28 to whether the Congress of the United States has the authority to enact legislation that 29 authorizes federal agencies to manage or allocate submerged lands, fish, and wildlife in Alaska 30 by providing discriminatory allocation of Alaska's resources; and as to whether the provisions 31 of ANILCA violate the sovereignty of the State of Alaska and the Constitution of the United
01 States; 02 BE IT RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature finds that a legitimate dispute 03 exists between the State of Alaska and the Congress as to whether the Congress may interfere 04 with state management and allocation of the resources of Alaska, by mandating that the State 05 of Alaska provide for discriminatory allocation of Alaska's fish and wildlife resources and as 06 to whether the Congress may empower agencies of the federal government to manage the 07 resources of the sovereign State of Alaska and to provide for discriminatory allocation of those 08 resources; and be it 09 FURTHER RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature declares that it is the duty 10 of the Alaska State Legislature, the Governor of the State of Alaska, and each elected official 11 to uphold and defend the Constitution of the State of Alaska and the sovereignty of the State 12 of Alaska; and be it 13 FURTHER RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature finds that it is necessary 14 to defend the sovereignty of the State of Alaska by taking this dispute between the State of 15 Alaska and the Congress directly to the United States Supreme Court for final resolution; and 16 be it 17 FURTHER RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature respectfully requests 18 Governor Tony Knowles, on behalf of the State of Alaska, to request the United States 19 Department of the Interior to agree that final resolution of this matter requires that this dispute 20 be taken directly to the United States Supreme Court and that, until the United States Supreme 21 Court rules as to the constitutionality of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, 22 the State of Alaska retains full authority to manage all fish and wildlife resources of Alaska 23 under Alaska state law.