Godspeed Anon.
"McCain's letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Indian Affairs, asks that the Trump
administration not issue a non-binding opinion sought by a partnership of the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes.
The opinion would address how a decades-old agreement between the state and the tribes would be affected if the tribes jointly establish a third casino off their reservations."
final approval is needed and couldn't be sought until the state decides whether to back the tribes plan to establish a
"satellite" casino in East Windsor or open up the process to more potential operators, an approach pushed aggressively by MGM. The satellite casino is intended to compete with MGM's Springfield casino now under construction.
McCain, a principal author of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, said he is concerned that the previous opinion "is
being construed as the department's tacit approval for their project." McCain also requested that the department of the interior to rescind the previous letter.
"This letter is nothing more than an eleventh-hour tactic by MGM to stall our growing momentum," the tribes said, in a
statement. "We've been working with the BIA for months, and expect to see the fruits of that labor in the near future."
Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen also has expressed concern on how the expansion by the tribes might be
viewed by the Trump administration and how it might affect the revenue sharing with the state.
MGM declined to comment late Wednesday whether it had asked McCain to write the letter."
http://www.courant.com/politics/capitol-watch/hc-mgm-circulates-mccain-letter-in-casino-battle-20170510-story.html