Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Filed Under: National | Politics

President-elect Barack Obama could reverse some of the Bush administration's controversial gaming actions, a senior Bureau of Indian Affairs official said on Monday.

Paula Hart, a career employee at the BIA's Office of Indian Gaming Management, said the agency has already flagged one issue for the new president. It's a May 20, 2005, letter that brought about a shift in the way tribal-state compacts are reviewed.

"Right now, we're in the transition and everybody's been asking what's going to be pulled," Hart, a member of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe of New York, said on the opening day of the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas.

According to the letter, which was developed without tribal consultation, the BIA will not approve compacts that refer to gaming sites that are not yet held in trust. The shift was based on a new interpretation of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act that tribes have criticized as unlawful.

Hart doesn't know whether the new Obama administration will change the directive or even consider it. But she said it was the "first thing" career employees at the BIA flagged.

"This is one of the positions that we're going to raise to the next administration," Hart told conference attendees.

Another controversial Bush administration action may be harder to review, Hart said. It's the January 3, 2008, "guidance memorandum" that makes it more difficult for tribes to acquire land away from existing reservations.