This bill authorizes a land exchange between the Chugach Alaska Corporation, a Native Alaska regional corporation, and the federal government to resolve land ownership conflicts stemming from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Following the spill, the federal government used settlement funds to purchase over 600,000 acres for conservation, including 241,000 acres in the Chugach Region. However, due to Alaska's Native land laws, the Chugach Alaska Corporation retained subsurface (mineral) rights under much of this conserved land, creating a conflict between federal conservation goals and the corporation's duty to develop resources for its Alaska Native shareholders. Under this bill, Chugach Alaska would transfer approximately 231,000 acres of subsurface rights to the federal government in exchange for roughly 65,400 acres of federal land in the region that the corporation can develop. The exchange must be completed within one year of the bill's enactment and aims to consolidate federal ownership while providing Chugach Alaska with economically viable land to fulfill its obligations to shareholders. The land being exchanged comes from forests and lands identified in a 2022 Bureau of Land Management study as suitable for this purpose.
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