Supreme Court declines to hear the appeals of two Indian tribes to jurisdiction over 1.48 million acres of Wyoming

DENVER, CO.  The Supreme Court of the United States today declined to hear the appeals of two Indian tribes to the Tenth Circuit’s December of 2017 opinion rejecting the tribes’ claims to jurisdiction over 1.48 million acres of Wyoming.  The Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, represented by Mountain States Legal Foundation, had challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) 2013 decision to grant the Northern Arapahoe Tribe and the Eastern Shoshone Tribe—of the Wind River Indian Reservation— jurisdiction over large swaths of state and private land, including the town of Riverton.  Farm Bureau members who live, work, and own property in and near Riverton and who would be subject to tribal jurisdiction although they are not tribal members, argued the EPA’s order ignores more than one hundred years of actions by Congress, Wyoming, the Tribes, and various rulings by a host of federal and state courts.  In November of 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver, ruled 2-1 against the EPA. The EPA, perhaps recognizing the wisdom of the Tenth Circuit’s decision, declined to sign onto the Tribes’ ill-fated petition to the Supreme Court.                "We are pleased and gratified that the Supreme Court declined to review this decision," said William Perry Pendley president of Mountain States Legal Foundation.  "Judge Tymkovich issued a thoughtful and