BIA Delays Section 20 Regulations

A couple weeks ago in the Chumash Casino Expansion - How Likely Is It? post, I pointed out that the BIA had recently released refined regulations concerning the criteria for tribes acquiring lands off their existing reservations for casinos.

These regulations were intended to set a higher bar for proposals to build casinos on sites distant from reservations, requiring consultation with more affected communities and more scrutiny of a tribe’s justifications for an off-reservation casino.

Under these new regulations, tribes will have to meet a commutable distance standard for off-reservation, gaming-related land acquisitions.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has delayed the effective date of its controversial Section 20 gaming regulations.

The rules were supposed to go into effect on June 19, but in a notice being published in the Federal Register today, the BIA stayed the rules for another 60 days.

The rules establish standards for gaming on lands that are taken into trust after 1988.

They implement Section 20 of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

I read the notice and it appears that there were a few corrections made to a few sentences in the original Federal Register publication.

Doesn’t look like there are any major policy changes.. they just fixed a few errors in how it read.