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Alaska's Right to Ivory Sales and Tradition ActSection 2 › Proposal

No State may bar trade in a finished article containing ivory, bone, or baleen

To amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 to protect the cultural practices and livelihoods of producers of Alaska Native handicrafts and marine mammal ivory products, and for other purposes, section 2, Sec. 2. Written by .

No State may bar trade in a finished article containing ivory, bone, or baleen

The document says “shall notWho acts: CongressHow: statuteSec. 2 in the PDF
What the document says

“No State shall prohibit the interstate commerce, importation, sale, offer for sale, transfer, trade, barter, possession, or possession with the intent to sell, transfer, trade, or barter of marine mammal ivory or marine mammal bone or baleen incorporated under this title by an Alaska Native, into an authentic Alaska Native article of handicrafts and clothing.”

To amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 to protect the cultural practices and livelihoods of producers of Alaska Native handicrafts and marine mammal ivory products, and for other purposes, Sec. 2

The paragraph is addressed to the States rather than to a federal officer. It lists the dealings a State may not prohibit: interstate commerce, importation, sale, offer for sale, transfer, trade, barter, possession, and possession with intent to sell, transfer, trade, or barter. The material covered is marine mammal ivory, as defined above, or marine mammal bone or baleen, and it has to have been incorporated by an Alaska Native into an authentic Alaska Native article of handicrafts and clothing.

What the document actually says

“No State shall prohibit the interstate commerce, importation, sale, offer for sale, transfer, trade, barter, possession, or possession with the intent to sell, transfer, trade, or barter of marine mammal ivory or marine mammal bone or baleen incorporated under this title by an Alaska Native, into an authentic Alaska Native article of handicrafts and clothing.”

To amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 to protect the cultural practices and livelihoods of producers of Alaska Native handicrafts and marine mammal ivory products, and for other purposes, Sec. 2
That sentence, in plain words

A state may not ban these crafts. It may not ban selling them or trading them. It may not ban holding them or bringing them in.

What this is about

Baleen is the strainer in the mouth of some whales. The ivory, bone, or baleen has to be worked into a finished item. An Alaska Native has to have done that work. Only then does this rule cover it.

No action is recorded against this proposal. That is not evidence that none has been taken, and nobody has yet read it against the record. See what the tracker does not yet cover.

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How to cite this
  1. The document itself

    Alaska's Right to Ivory Sales and Tradition Act, Public Law 119-99, sec. 2, 140 Stat. 842 (2026).
    https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ99/html/PLAW-119publ99.htm

  2. This page

    “No State may bar trade in a finished article containing ivory, bone, or baleen,” Alaska's Right to Ivory Sales and Tradition Act, section 2, Sec. 2. Read the Mandate, https://readthemandate.org/alaska-s-right-ivory-sales-tradition-act/proposal/sec02-no-state-prohibitions/ (retrieved August 26, 2026).

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The quotation is the document's own words, exactly as printed, and we check the page number against the Act itself before publishing. The paragraph underneath is our summary, not the document's words. So is the plain English version, which is why it sits beside the quotation rather than replacing it.

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