Federal bills would allow Oregon tribes to renegotiate historic hunting and fishing restrictions

For more than 35 years, the Grand Ronde and the Siletz tribes of American Indians have been bound by legal agreements that strip them of the right to manage their own hunting and fishing seasons on tribal land.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, is sponsoring legislation that would give those tribes a chance to renegotiate those agreements with the state and the federal governments.

Senate Bills 3126 and 3123 would make it legal for the tribes to amend the restrictive, permanent agreements that were written into the laws that created their reservations in 1980 for the Confederated Tribes of Siletz and 1986 for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.

The tribes were stripped of their land and federal status in 1954 when Congress passed the Western Oregon Termination Act. In the 1980s, the tribes signed agreements with the federal and state governments that restored their federal status and gave them some land on reservations.

But there was a catch: The tribes could only be restored if they agreed to give up their fishing and hunting rights outside of the reservation through a consent decree.

The Siletz and the Grand Ronde are the only tribes that still have these consent decrees in place, and they prevent the tribes from ever updating the agreements so they might one day manage traditional salmon fishing and elk hunting on their own land.