Transferring ownership of unused lighthouses is a notoriously sluggish process. Yet even in the snail world of federal bureaucracy, surely the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians have waited long enough.

Please, Congress — hand over the Cape Arago Lighthouse and the surrounding land.

The real estate in question is 24 acres including Chief’s Island, the speck of land that holds the lighthouse. The Indians’ traditional ownership of the land ended in the mid-19th century, when the U.S. Army marched them off to a reservation up the coast. They lost their land and their self-determination. A century later, they also lost their government recognition as Indian tribes — a wrong that took three decades to correct.

The lighthouse stopped being crucial to navigation when electronic instruments became more reliable than visual beacons. The standard practice in such cases is for the government to cede the lighthouse to a nonprofit group — such as a lighthouse preservation society. Cape Arago has no such organization. It has, fortuitously, the tribes.

The tribes consider Chief’s Island and the rest of the 24 acres to be sacred ancestral land — a scarce commodity to these tribes, which have no reservation of their own. The tribes’ members hold ceremonies and pay tribute to their ancestors there. They revere the land as no one else does, and they have sought possession at least since 1984.

Who better to take over stewardship?

Tribal ownership of the lighthouse and Chief’s Island would benefit not just the tribes, but their non-Indian neighbors as well. Under federal authority, the public has no access to the lighthouse site. The current proposal for tribal ownership would mandate reasonable public access.

At present, however, tribal ownership is legally impossible. The National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, which prescribes the disposition of unneeded federal lighthouses, doesn’t recognize the tribes as suitable guardians. Why? Probably no particular reason. The politicians who wrote it probably didn’t think to mention Indian tribes — and once a law is on the books, it’s the law.

Oregon Sens. Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden are partnering with Rep. Peter DeFazio to propose legislation allowing tribal ownership. The three politicians deserve credit for pushing this perfectly sensible idea. The idea itself deserves support from everyone in Oregon.

The white man’s government historically has not treated the Confederated Tribes well. These tiny parcels of real estate, no longer useful to Uncle Sam, can be a token acknowledgment of the tribes’ heritage and confiscated birthright. Let’s get it done.