This will be a very interesting case... There is a lot of background and it has been discussed here in past. The Ninth bringing Katie John into play is amazing and has some potential to be Earth-shattering for AK hunters. Katie John was a case already scheduled for SCOTUS when the POS governor, Tony Knowles unilaterally dropped it at the last minute. The legislature attempted to reinstate it and was turned down for lack of standing (has to be the Executive branch.) There are a bunch of concerns about the blatantly obvious unconstitutional aspects of the ANCSA and ANILCA and the likelihood/possibility (?) the whole mess will be overturned. Sturgeon deserves our support for hanging in as long as he has while being turned down.
The Feds appeared to be digging for justification for their need to manage the rivers and stepped in a hole that was either brilliantly planned or mighty stupid.
http://www.ktuu.com/content/news/St...affect-subsistence-rights-490869111.htmlState supports hunter in U.S. Supreme Court case that could affect subsistence rights
By Richard Mauer | Posted: Tue 3:58 PM, Aug 14, 2018 | Updated: Tue 9:10 PM, Aug 14, 2018
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) — The legal case of a hovercraft owner stopped by federal authorities in a federal preserve is on its way to the U.S. Supreme Court again, and again the State of Alaska is asking the justices to decide the matter as a state’s rights case.
But this time the case has a new element — whether in supporting the hovercraft operator, John Sturgeon, the state is opposing the subsistence fishing rights of rural Alaskans that were decided in another series of Supreme Court cases that involved Katie John, a Native with a fish camp.
The state says both rights can exist together and is supporting both.
The state and Sturgeon say the introduction of the Katie John subsistence matter into his case was a mistake by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court used water law to conclude that National Park Service authorities were right to block Sturgeon and his noisy hovercraft in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. In order to support Katie John and subsistence fishing, the federal government needed rights to water, the appeals court ruled.
The state, however, says in its new friend-of-the-court filing on Tuesday that the Ninth Circuit decision commandeers “the State’s traditional regulatory authority over its submerged lands and the navigable waters that flow over them for use by the United States.” The brief says the state’s ownership of the riverbeds is “undisputed,” yet control is given to federal authorities.
But the state also suggested in its brief that the Supreme Court could decide the case without rejecting rural subsistence rights. “In restoring Alaska’s sovereignty over its navigable waters, this court need not and should not disturb the Katie John circuit precedents,” the state's brief said.
"At the core of this case is the issue of state sovereignty — who gets to manage the state’s navigable waters," Alaska's Attorney General, Jahna Lindemuth, said in an interview. "It’s our longstanding position that the state has that authority, it’s part of our state sovereign rights, and the federal government has come in and is arguing that they get to have broad regulatory authority over our waterways."
With the federal government also asserting it should have a voice in fish research, the state has reason to be concerned over who can control its waterways, Lindemuth said.
"This is not about one hovercraft. This is about broad regulatory authority over those rivers," she said.
Mark Begich, a Democrat running against independent Gov. Bill Walker, whose attorney general filed the brief, says the state should have left the case to Sturgeon to defend.
"I think subsistence is what’s at risk here and so I would not file an amicus brief with the Sturgeon case — that’s a mistake on this governor," Begich said.
But the state said the Supreme Court can decide the case in favor without wrecking any subsistence rule.
The Sturgeon case goes back to 2007 when Sturgeon was operating his hovercraft on Nation River — a state navigable waterway — in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. He was attempting to travel to moose hunting grounds, but was stopped by Park Service rangers who told him that a hovercraft was illegal in the national park — even though state law permitted it.
Alaska has now filed as a friend of the court four times in Sturgeon's cases — once asking the court to hear the case the first time, and once before the court’s 2016 decision sending the case back to the Ninth Circuit. When the Ninth Circuit again came down against Sturgeon, the state in February urged the Supreme Court to hear the case again. The fourth filing was on Tuesday, when it asked the justices to rule in favor of Sturgeon.
Editor's Note: Due to an editing error, this story previously omitted the word "whether" in the paragraph that now reads: "But this time the case has a new element — whether in supporting the hovercraft operator, John Sturgeon, the state has found itself in the position of opposing a decision by an appellate court that ruled that the Park Service needs to manage the river to protect the subsistence fishing rights of rural, mostly Native Alaskans decided in another series of Supreme Court cases..."
