The Clark County groups Citizens Against Reservation Shopping, Stand Up For Clark County Citizens and American Land Rights Association want to make sure the government notifies communities and provides opportunities for comment when a tribe seeks to have an area designated as its initial reservation or as "restored lands."

The Cowlitz Tribe, which wants to build a $510 million casino-hotel complex near La Center, received an opinion from the National Indian Gaming Commission in November saying the tribe has sufficient historic and cultural ties to the proposed 152-acre casino site for it to qualify as restored lands.

That opinion has spawned heated protests from local officials and anti-casino groups who say they found out about the tribe's request too late in the process to provide meaningful comment.

The federal government, more than 15 years after adoption of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988, doesn't have formal rules for the restored lands process.

The act generally prohibits gambling on land taken into trust on the behalf of Indian tribes after 1988. However, the law also contains exceptions for a tribe's initial reservation or for restored lands.

The Cowlitz likely will use one of these two exceptions in seeking to build a 134,150-square-foot casino about two miles west of La Center.

Sarah Coomber, a spokeswoman for Citizens Against Reservation Shopping, said George Skibine, director of the Interior Department's Office of Indian Gaming, told a Senate committee two months ago that the federal government was developing formal rules.

Skibine said the draft regulations would be circulated to tribal officials, but he made no commitment to involve others in that process, Coomber said.

"We haven't received indication that they are consulting with state and local officials," she said.

The anti-casino groups say the rules should include a requirement that public notice be given within one month after a tribe submits a restored lands request, along with a provision for mandatory public comment.

The groups also want a moratorium on pending decisions until new regulations are implemented, as well as a provision indicating that initial-reservation and restored-lands determinations can be administratively appealed.

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