WHITECLAY, Neb. - The main business in this dusty village, population 12, is beer. Lots of it. Thousands of cans each week, millions of cans a year.

Most of the beer is sold to people from just across the state line at South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where all booze is banned but alcohol abuse is rampant.

Nebraska's attorney general has responded to the situation by making an unusual move: He is turning over control of law enforcement in Whiteclay to the reservation's tribe, even though it is a sovereign nation in a different state.

Tribal officers from the Oglala Sioux Tribe will soon be deputized and given the legal right to enforce Nebraska law in the town. Nebraska and tribal leaders plan to sign the agreement Aug. 30.

Attorney General Jon Bruning said that deputizing the tribe was the best option to deal with Whiteclay's overwhelming problems stemming from alcohol-related crime, including drunken brawls in the street, theft, public intoxication and bootlegging onto the reservation.

"The issue is not so much the border. The issue is there is a massive alcohol problem in the area," Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said. "The facts are that liquor stores licensed by the state of Nebraska sell the alcohol to the people that have the problem."

The thirst for beer in Whiteclay is evident at State Line Liquor - one of three liquor stores in town. Cases of Milwaukee's Best beer and Hurricane malt liquor are stacked to the ceiling. Within minutes on one summer day, one would-be customer tried to trade a used VCR and another peddled an electric screwdriver still in the package - with the goal of scoring some beer.

"They'll sell you anything," said store co-owner Dan Brehmer, who politely refused the offers.

Removing loiterers from the street would cure most of the crime problem, he said.

"That's why there's fights."

The source of the alcohol problem in Whiteclay is the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the alcoholism-related mortality rate is one of the nation's highest. The reservation also is one of the poorest areas in the country, with unemployment around 80 percent.

Law enforcement in Whiteclay is rare, with the highway patrol and county sheriff occasionally showing up to patrol the streets. The sheriff's department is based 20 miles away in Rushville.

"As far as I'm concerned, Whiteclay is an embarrassment and I'd like to see it go away. But the problem is the demand for alcohol," said Rep. Tom Osborne, R-Neb.

He and Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., are working together to get congressional approval for ongoing funding for tribal patrols in Whiteclay.

Osborne secured $100,000 from the federal government for the current budget year to cover the cost of Pine Ridge officers patrolling the town. He and Herseth have asked for another $100,000 for the next budget year.

The tribe says it is glad to address the problem in Whiteclay, as long as officers are given the adequate money for the extra patrols.

"You start out with a little piece. That will expand to another piece," Cecelia Fire Thunder, Oglala Sioux Tribe president. "Pretty soon we'll be able to deal with all of the challenges that Whiteclay presents."