The state of Alaska is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether rural Alaskans should continue to get preferential fishing rights on most rivers and lakes within federal parks, preserves and reserves.

On Monday, the Alaska Department of Law asked the Supreme Court to reconsider a ruling from a three-judge panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the state’s existing two-tiered subsistence fishing system last month.

State attorneys have argued unsuccessfully since 2021 that federal law, as interpreted by recent rulings from the Supreme Court, means the state, not the federal government, has the power to regulate fishing in navigable waters on federal land.

A federal law, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, requires that rural Alaskans be give

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