In a meeting with federal Office of Management and Budget representatives in Washington, D.C. last week, the attorney representing North Stonington said proposed changes to federal tribal recognition rules come with two primary problems.

Donald Baur said the proposal outlined last May "dramatically reduces" the ability of towns and other affected parties to take part in the recognition process and could lead to several legal challenges.

The Office of Management and Budget, which received a finalized copy of the changes from the Bureau of Indian Affairs earlier this year, could make a decision on the rules in less than three months. The office allows anyone to request a meeting when a rule is under review.

North Stonington First Selectman Nick Mullane and Kent First Selectman Bruce Adams, along with a group of more than five people representing various California counties, also attended the almost hour-long meeting on May 14 where Baur presented his arguments based on the proposal outlined last year. If changes have been made to the final version, Baur said, no one outside of the Department of the Interior — which encompasses the BIA — and the Office of Management and Budget knows.

As it stands, Baur said, towns "can participate fully in every aspect" of reviewing petitions for federal recognition — something he said was instrumental in the 2005 reversal of the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation's 2002 recognition. The new rules would allow interested parties only a 90-day period in which they could submit questions and concerns.

Second, the rules could bring about a whole host of new legal challenges. These could include questions such as does the Secretary of the Interior have the authority to grant acknowledgement to tribes, or can only Congress do that? Do the new rules, which, among other things, eliminate some documentation requirements and may allow for younger tribes, correctly identify tribes that deserve federal recognition? If so, are the rules being correctly applied to each petition?

"Under the existing regulations, there's a track record back to 1978 when they were first developed," Baur said, referring to the body of precedence that's come from court cases in the years since. "If starting from scratch with dramatically different standards, that precedence is of limited value. It's going to be starting the cycle of legal issues on all of those levels over again."

Mullane said the May 14 meeting was "very good" because Stuart Levenbach, meeting moderator and policy analyst for the Office of Management and Budget, asked questions and was "not passive."

Adams, though, said he's unsure whether the meeting will have any impact on the Office of Management and Budget's decision.

"There was no reaction from the OMB, and we were told there wouldn't be," Adams said. "I'm not faulting anybody for that. We had to try."

Mullane and other Connecticut politicians expressed similar concerns at an April 22 hearing hosted by the subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee that deals with Indian affairs.

In affected Connecticut and California municipalities, federal recognition of more tribes could lead to new Indian casinos and thousands of acres of land taken off the tax rolls from land claims. The goal of the new rules is to streamline a process many say is expensive and takes too long.

l.boyle@theday.com

Twitter: @LindsayABoyle