CHARLESTOWN, R.I. – Rhode Island’s resident anti-casino group is mounting a battle against Sen. Byron Dorgan’s (D-N.D.) proposed “Carcieri fix,” a bill that would allow the Narragansett Indian Tribe to obtain trust land that potentially could be used for gaming.

Meanwhile, a group of western senators has launched a pre-emptive strike on any attempts by the Obama administration to lift Bush-era restrictions on off-reservation casinos requiring a “commutability” standard between a nation’s reservation and its proposed casino site to be used in evaluating applications. The two initiatives appear to be on a political collision course, observers of the Indian gaming scene have said.

The Rhode Island Statewide Coalition has posted a “Take Action” alert on its Web site asking its 4,000 members to “Fight efforts by Sen. Dorgan to silence Rhode Island voices.”

The bill, which was introduced in the Senate Sept. 24, aims to rectify a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said the Interior secretary doesn’t have the authority to take land into trust for tribes federally recognized after the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

The bill amends the words “any federally recognized Indian tribe now under federal recognition” to say “any federally recognized tribe,” restoring the land into trust process to what tribal nations and Interior assumed it was for the past 75 years.

That’s what the RISC doesn’t want.

“(Dorgan’s) bill would allow the Narragansett Tribe to take new lands into trust in Charlestown or any other community in Rhode Island. When land is taken into trust for tribes, state and local laws, including state environmental, criminal, tax and gambling laws and local planning, zoning and property tax, no longer apply to that land as the federal government assumes. Extending the IRA to the Narragansett will allow the tribe to build a casino without voter approval,” the Web site says.

The site provides a ready-made letter for people to sign and send to the state’s senators as well as the White House, asking them to block Dorgan’s amendment.

Narragansett Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas was not available for comment.

If passed, the legislation would end more than 15 years of state and federal litigation by the state and the town of Charlestown against the Narragansett over 31 acres of land the tribe purchased in 1991 to build elders’ housing. The houses, built with federal funding, were in the latter stages of construction when the state sued the Interior in 1998 for taking the land into trust. The buildings have stood empty and deteriorating for the past 11 years as the case made its way through district court and then a panel and a full en banc ruling from the 2nd Circuit in July 2007.

That ruling not only affirmed the Interior secretary’s authority to take the 31 acres into trust for the Narragansett nation and any federally recognized tribe, it also affirmed that Rhode Island would have no jurisdiction over the 31 acres or any other land it might purchase and place into trust. The state has jurisdiction over the nation’s 1,800-acre settlement land.

Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri appealed the 2nd Circuit ruling to the Supreme Court, memorializing his name in the effort to remedy what is universally regarded in Indian country as the high courts erroneous and politically-motivated ruling.

Harry Staley, RISC chairman, opposes Dorgan’s proposed legislation.

“If we allow the Indians around this country to go out anywhere they please and get land into trust, we might as well turn the whole country over to them. This is a very dangerous situation – to allow the Indians to take over and then have not taxable land, to be able to do anything they want, to have their own court systems, and own huge sections of this country sovereign nations unto themselves, and so forth, is a detriment all over the country.”

While the Rhode Islanders fight against trust land for the Narragansetts, a group of western legislators wrote to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Sept. 15, seeking his support for “certain aspects” of a guidance memorandum on off-reservation casinos issued by former Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

The memo established new rules for taking off-reservation land into trust for gaming and introduced a controversial “commutability standard” that would limit the distance between a proposed casino site and a nation’s reservation, regardless of whether the proposed site is within a nation’s historical territory.

Opponents of the guidance memo point to the fact that there is no commutability standard in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

The Obama administration is considering rescinding – or toning down – the guidance memo, but western tribes, fearing the competition from several newly recognized or re-established tribes in and near California, have put pressure on legislators to block any efforts to withdraw the off-reservation restrictions.

The letter to Salazar is signed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Sens. Jon Kyl, John Ensign, Dianne Feinstein, and Barbara Boxer.

In addition to supporting a distance standard, the senators said the Interior when evaluating off-reservation land into trust applications should take into consideration “state and local concerns and potential jurisdictional and tax concerns,” as well as whether a proposed gaming facility is “compatible” with state and local regulations.

The letter also suggests that Interior should give added weight to the potential competition that new off-reservation casinos would pose to established facilities.

“Where a state and its tribes have a long history of Indian gaming and have carefully negotiated initial and subsequent gaming compacts, a new gaming enterprise, particularly one outside the petitioning tribe’s ancestral or historical lands can be more disruptive to existing land use plans and revenue-sharing agreements,” the senators said.

Washington insiders say the opponents of off-reservation gaming plan to use their weight to add an amendment to the Carcieri fix bill that would restrict or limit off-reservation casinos, or block the bill altogether.

The Interior is expected to announce a decision on the off-reservation guidance memo within weeks.