Bill Supporting Indian Casinos Is Held Back

Albany, April 15 - Gov. George E. Pataki withdrew pending legislation on Friday that would have allowed five Indian-run casinos to be built in the Catskills and settled tribal land claims. A spokesman said the settlements need to be renegotiated in light of a recent federal court ruling that would make it harder to win passage of Mr. Pataki's bill.

The governor continued to support the state-brokered settlements with each of the five tribes, a spokesman said, as well as the plans in those settlements to build the five Las Vegas-style casinos in the Catskills, which Mr. Pataki has championed as an economic stimulus for the mountain resort region.

Mr. Pataki plans to reopen negotiations with the tribes shortly in hopes of revising the settlement pacts and clearing the path for the casinos.

The undoing of the settlement legislation, which took years to negotiate, stemmed from the March 29 ruling by the Supreme Court, which held that the New York Oneida tribe could not purchase property to expand its tax-exempt holdings and assert Indian jurisdiction when that land had been outside its reservation for decades.