To the editor:

Once again, I’m provided humor by the Kansas Attorney General’s Office. Previously, they erroneously went after the Ho-Chuck, Iowa, Sac and Fox, and Kickapoo tribes for conducting tribal government-to-tribal government commerce in the distribution of gasoline on trust lands without taxation by the state. Tribal sovereignty won out over the state of Kansas. The state of Kansas had no jurisdiction in this matter. And it lost in federal court.

Now, Atty. Gen. Phill Kline also fails to realize the ability to learn from the mistakes of the previous attorney general, Republican Carla Stovall. The Shawnee Tribe of Vinita, Okla., has put forth a plan to reclaim the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant. This area was part of the Shawnee Reservation that was established in 1825, diminished in 1854 via the Manypenny Treaty, and fully allotted in 1867.

In 1975, an amendment was made to the Surplus Property Act of 1954 (40 U.S.C. and 483) that made federally recognized tribes eligible for surplus federal lands. Sunflower is under federal jurisdiction, via the Department of Defense. If the land in question was allowed transfer to the Department of Interior and held in trust for the Shawnee Tribe, it would stay in federal jurisdiction. It’s not like the state of Kansas is losing property here. I attended the presentations on this issue by both the Shawnee Tribe and the Sierra Club. There’s not enough money privately to clean up Sunflower. Re-federalizing the land would guarantee cleanup. Also, tribal protections like Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and the Sacred Sites and Traditional Cultural Properties sections of Part 106 of the National Historic Preservation Register apply here since Sunflower is federal land. This state needs to learn federal American Indian law or be embarrassed further.

Mike Ford,

Lawrence