ANCSA Chugach Alaska Land Exchange Study Act of 2017

ANCSA Chugach Alaska Land Exchange Study Act of 2017

This bill requires the Department of Agriculture, in coordination with the Department of the Interior, to conduct a study that identifies the impacts on the land of the Chugach Alaska Corporation (CAC), an Alaska Native regional corporation, that resulted from changes in federal law or federal or state land acquisitions in the Chugach region after the enactment of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The study must include the impacts on land in which the subsurface estate was conveyed to the CAC and the surface estate or a conservation easement in the surface estate was acquired by Alaska or by the United States as part of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council Habitat Protection and Acquisition Program.

In addition, the study must: (1) include recommendations for a land exchange, including land exchange options that could be offered to the CAC as consideration for the conveyance of its existing property rights in exchange for other federal land or property available for exchange; and (2) identify at least 500,000 acres of economically viable federal land, in or outside of Alaska, that can be exchanged with the CAC.

The land exchange described in the recommendations must be pursuant to mutual agreement of the CAC and the United States.