In 2023 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued roughly $70 million in grant funding to bring high-speed fiber internet access to western Alaska.
Good news, right? There was just one, major, problem.
Two companies, Mukluk Telephone Company, Inc. and Interior Telephone Company, collectively working under Fastwyre Broadband, planned projects in Elim and Unalakleet.
With the projects taking place on tribal land, per the USDA’s own rules, they were required to obtain tribal consent. According to a joint lawsuit filed by Elim and Unalakleet, the companies sidestepped this requirement, instead relying on support from the Nome-based tribal consortium, Kawerak, Inc.
Court documents reveal it was Kawerak itself that raised concerns last year that their support was not a sufficient substitute for tribal consent. In response, the USDA wrote they “cannot simply undo legal contracts for federal funding which it believed were properly supported and entered into.”
In May Elim and Unalakleet filed a lawsuit against the USDA’s Rural Utility Service. The suit sought to cancel the awards issued to the telecommunications companies and restore the villages’ ability to apply for future broadband funding.
A Dec 17 ruling issued by Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew Scoble denied the villages’ request to cancel the awards. But the judge did rule that the USDA and telecommunications companies “should have obtained tribal consent and that failure to do so is a cognizable injury.”
An attorney representing Elim and Unalakleet called the ruling “a huge vindication of Tribal sovereign rights,” in an email to KNOM.
While Mukluk and Interior will be able to move forward with the broadband project, the ruling sets an important precedent for future cases involving tribal consent.
