Anchorage Daily News

Meeting with tribal leaders from across the country Thursday in Washington, D.C., President Obama heard calls from Alaska Natives for help combating suicide, coastal erosion and offshore drilling.

Acknowledging broken promises of the past, the president vowed to involve tribal governments in federal decision-making. Alaska Native leaders called the summit -- the first of its kind in 15 years -- a historic move by the White House as the president and several top aides spent the day talking with tribes.

"They actually apologized for the neglect we've received in the past from past administrations," said Sen. Albert Kookesh, D-Angoon, who attended the meeting as co-chairman of the Alaska Federation of Natives. "And they promised us in front of God and everybody else that they would be there for us to make sure that things work out a lot better for us."

As many as 387 tribes from California to New York sent representatives to meet with Obama at the Department of the Interior. More tribes were expected from Alaska than from any other state, according to the White House.

Obama said the meeting fulfilled a campaign promise, calling it "the largest and most widely attended gathering of tribal leaders in our history."

"I get it," he told the crowd. "I'm on your side. I understand what it means to be an outsider."

Obama talked about the need to tackle climate change, particularly in Alaska, along with joblessness and crime in tribal communities.

"Few have been more marginalized and ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans -- our first Americans," he said.

During a brief question-and-answer period, Alaskans invited Obama to the 49th state. Twice.

"If you ever decide you want to get away from it all, come see one of us," said Bill Martin, president of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska.

"I often want to get away from it all," Obama replied. "So I'm very much looking forward to visiting."

'AT THE TABLE'

Chris McNeil is president of Juneau-based Sealaska Corp. In 1994 he attended the feds' last widespread gathering with tribal leaders, he said. That was a smaller affair.

Thursday's message from the president doesn't mean tribes will get everything they want, McNeil said. "But it sure means we're going to be at the table."

The meeting came less than two weeks after the Interior Department announced it was launching a sweeping review of the way the feds regulate subsistence hunting and fishing in Alaska. Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who ran Thursday's meeting, told AFN delegates the current system is broken.

To participate in the review, the Alaska Federation of Natives has raised more than $100,000 from regional Native corporations as a kind of war chest that could be used for research or a statewide subsistence meeting, Kookesh said Thursday.

Obama also told tribal leaders he strongly supports a bill pushed by lawmakers in North and South Dakota, among others, that would expand tribal police powers in an effort to reduce crime.

But Alaska Newspapers Inc. reported this summer that a state attorney had concerns about a draft version of the bill, saying in a May 29 letter that it could give Alaska tribes authority over criminal matters that they currently don't have.

The state supports the intent of the bill -- to fight violent crime and other chronic problems -- but worries the proposal could lead to years of unnecessary lawsuits in Alaska, wrote Rick Svobodny, who was acting attorney general at the time.

The state is now reviewing the proposal, Department of Law spokesman Bill McAllister said in an e-mail.

ASKING FOR SUPPORT

As Obama finished his opening speech and prepared to field questions from the crowd, someone apparently hollered a travel invitation from the audience.

"Hold on, no shouting now," Obama said. "But I would love to come to Alaska, absolutely."

Martin, one of the first Alaska Native speakers, asked Obama to support subsistence fishing and hunting rights for tribes. He warned that villages are in danger of slipping into the ocean because of coastal erosion and asked for money to pay for suicide prevention programs.

The suicide rate for Alaska Natives is five times the national average, he said.

Caroline Cannon, president of the Native Village of Point Hope, asked the president to overturn a Bush-era plan to allow offshore drilling along the Alaska coast.

Obama said the Interior Department is reviewing those decisions now.

During the meeting, the president also signed a memorandum directing each federal agency head to write a plan to consult with tribal governments. When the government makes decisions that affect American Indians and Alaska Natives without input from tribal leaders, the order says, the impact can be devastating.

The president talked about unemployment -- as high as 80 percent on some reservations -- homes without access to safe water supplies, and high rates of sexual assault as examples.

"The shocking and contemptible fact that one in three Native American women will be raped in their lifetimes is an assault on our national conscience that we can no longer ignore," Obama said.

Read The Village, the ADN's blog about rural Alaska, at adn.com/thevillage. Twitter updates: twitter.com/adnvillage. Call Kyle Hopkins at 257-4334.

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