MONTPELIER, Vt. – The National Park Service recently published a regulation that encourages concessionaires within national parks to sell genuine American Indian and Alaska Native handcrafts that are appropriately labeled and identified as authentic. But Vermont’s Indian artists and craftspeople cannot market their work as authentic American Indian products at national parks or anywhere else because of a flawed state recognition bill.

A state legislative committee will consider two proposals to fix S. 117, an act passed in 2006 that granted recognition to Vermont’s ”Abenaki people” and established the Vermont Commission on Native American Indian Affairs.

One proposal would vest the commission with the authority to recognize the state’s tribes and bands of American Indians. The other proposes a two-step process in which the commission would process applications then send a recommendation for recognition to the legislature, which would make the final, non-reviewable decision to accept or deny the application.

The recognition of ”Abenaki people” fell short of the federal Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, which requires Native artists to be from a federally recognized tribe or from an Indian group ”that has been formally recognized as an Indian tribe by a State legislature or by a State commission … legislatively vested with State tribal recognition authority.”

Although S.117 cited the 1990 Federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act and appeared to vest the commission with the authority to develop criteria for recognizing tribes and bands for the purpose of protecting the indigenous artists under the federal law, when the commission began developing the criteria early last year, state Attorney General William Griffin stepped in and claimed the commission only had authority to recognize individuals, not tribes or bands.

The commission would like the legislature to vest it with the recognition authority and provide a one-step, time-saving process, VCNAA Chairman Mark Mitchell, Abenaki, said.

The legislature already has the authority to give state recognition to tribes and bands, Mitchell pointed out.

”As chair of the commission, after 2 years I’ve realized the commission’s established authority simply cannot be achieved unless the state recognizes its Native residents – and it doesn’t,” Mitchell said.

The state’s intransigence to recognize its Native population has far reaching effects.

”The arts and crafts issue was what brought this to the forefront, but the reality is the attorney general’s interpretation of S. 117 has hampered attempts to achieve federal assistance for bolstering Native businesses, community employment opportunities, cultural opportunities, securing social services, housing help and health care and care for the elders. It’s all hampered by not being able to identify Native communities,” Mitchell said.

What is the point of the commission if the legislature won’t exercise its authority to recognize the state’s Indian tribes and bands, but won’t vest that authority in the commission?

”Well, I suppose it could be considered symbolic,” Mitchell said. Assistant Attorney General Mike McShane told Indian Country Today that the attorney general’s office now recognizes that S. 117’s language was inadequate.

”Clearly, there is a shortcoming in the legislation passed and the way to fix that would seem to be to add some designation of tribes or groups or bands made by the state. The attorney general’s office helped draft a bill that said the commission would make a recommendation and the legislature would either accept or reject it. That’s what we were comfortable with,” McShane said. He acknowledged that the federal law allows either a state legislature or a state commission to recognize tribes. When asked if the attorney general has any objection to vesting the commission with the recognition authority, McShane said, ”We haven’t specifically been asked that question.”

When pressed, however, McShane said, ”I think we would say this is a policy decision for the legislature and there isn’t a legal problem going either way. It’s up to the legislature to decide whether the legislature wants to do it or have the commission do it.”

Republican State Sen. Vincent Illuzzi, the chair of the Senate committee on Economic Development and a supporter of state recognition for Vermont’s Abenaki tribes and bands, scheduled a meeting for Feb. 15 where both proposals could be heard and testimony could be taken.

lluzzi said the bill that passed in 2006 had been so altered from the time it was first drafted that ”It was a shell of itself. There’s a lot of misinformation and bias against the Abenakis. I don’t know why or where it’s coming from. It’s very discouraging at times. Some people have been led to think this is going to lead to gaming and Indian reservations and casinos, which is dead wrong, but once these people have these ideas in their heads – and the opponents who are spreading this don’t take the time to do the research – it’s hard to get people on track,” Illuzzi said.