[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2021
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
___________________________________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota, Chair
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
DEREK KILMER, Washington MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
JOSE E. SERRANO, New York CHRIS STEWART, Utah
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
NOTE: Under committee rules, Mrs. Lowey, as chairwoman of the full
committee, and Ms. Granger, as ranking minority member of the full
committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.
Rita Culp, Donna Shahbaz, Jocelyn Hunn, Peter Kiefhaber,
Kusai Merchant, Janet Erickson, and Tyler Coe
Subcommittee Staff
___________________________________
PART 7
Testimony of Interested Individuals and Organizations
Page
Americans for the Arts, February 6,
2020.................................... 1
Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee,
February 11, 2020....................... 281
American Indian and Alaska Native
Public Witness Day 2, February 12, 2020. 527
Members' Day Hearing, March 10, 2020.. 779
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
___________________________________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
43-677 WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
----------
NITA M. LOWEY, New York, Chairwoman
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio KAY GRANGER, Texas
PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
JOSE E. SERRANO, New York ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California KEN CALVERT, California
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia TOM COLE, Oklahoma
BARBARA LEE, California MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota TOM GRAVES, Georgia
TIM RYAN, Ohio STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
DEREK KILMER, Washington MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
GRACE MENG, New York CHRIS STEWART, Utah
MARK POCAN, Wisconsin STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi
KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
PETE AGUILAR, California JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan
LOIS FRANKEL, Florida JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida
CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois WILL HURD, Texas
BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
NORMA J. TORRES, California
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
ED CASE, Hawaii
Shalanda Young, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2021
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
TESTIMONY OF INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS
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AMERICANS FOR THE ARTS
WITNESS
BEN FOLDS, AMERICANS FOR THE ARTS
Ms. McCollum [presiding]. Good morning. Welcome to the
first day of two public witness hearing being held here for
non-tribal government programs under the jurisdiction of the
Interior, Environment Appropriations Subcommittee. And I am
pleased to be joined by the former chair of this committee,
still a great member, Congressman Michael Simpson of Idaho, as
well as our vice chair, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree of Maine.
Now, you might have noticed there was a little commotion
before I put down the gavel. We were out in the hall really
quick. So I would like you all to give a warm welcome to a
visiting delegation of the Parliament of Georgia. We appreciate
your interest in our legislative process, and we hope you find
our hearing instructive because it is very important to this
committee that we support our public lands, our arts, and
things that make America so very special. Yes, please.
[Applause.]
Everybody was being so, so quiet and so polite. I didn't
want to put anybody on the spot, but thank you for welcoming
our guests.
Last year when I became chair of this subcommittee, I
brought back the important tradition of public witness days for
non-tribal programs, and I am pleased today that for this
hearing, more than 40 witnesses composed of a diverse range of
partners, including public nonprofit organizations, State and
local governments, will have an opportunity to testify before
this subcommittee. Today we will hear about numerous topics
related to the jurisdiction of this subcommittee, including the
arts and the humanities, environment, public lands, and
wildlife. I am eager to learn more about each of your
priorities, and I look forward to our discussions that we have
on these issues because I believe it will help all of us on
this committee be more informed while we begin to develop the
2021 appropriations bill.
Before I turn to Mr. Simpson, I would like to cover a few
hearing logistics, however. We will call each panel of
witnesses to the table one at a time, and, as you can see, our
first panel, gold stars, right here. Each witness will have 5
minutes to present their testimony, and we will be using a time
tracker to track the time. As I pointed out, we have 40
witnesses, so we want to be respectful of everybody's time. So
when the light turns yellow, you have 1 minute remaining, and
we would like you to please conclude your remarks. When the
light blinks red, I will lightly gavel. [Laughter.]
It is a light gavel. It is not a heavy one, and ask you to
please conclude your remarks so the next witness can begin.
Now, each witness needs to know we have their written
statements, and I have been reading through them, so everything
will be in the record. So don't feel pressure or rushed to get
everything covered orally in your 5 minutes. After we hear the
testimony of each witness on the panel, members will have an
opportunity to ask questions, so get ready. We ask really good
questions.
And I would like to remind those who are joining us in the
hearing room that the committee rules prohibit the use of
cameras and audio equipment during the hearing by individuals
without House-issued press credentials. After this morning's
hearing concludes, we will adjourn and reconvene at 1:00 this
afternoon for the hearing.
So at this time, I am honored and very happy to yield to my
dear friend, my dear friend, Mr. Simpson from Idaho.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for
calling this important hearing to get input from the public on
a wide array of programs under this subcommittee's
jurisdiction. Mr. Joyce and I, along with other members of the
subcommittee, look forward to working with you in the days and
weeks ahead to do what we can to evaluate the effectiveness of
these programs and to make the difficult, but necessary,
choices among competing priorities.
Like the chair, I would like to take a minute to extend a
warm welcome to all of our witnesses and to the delegation from
the Parliament of Georgia, who are sitting in the audience.
Since we have a full day ahead of us, I am happy to yield back,
and I look forward to the testimony.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. There will be a portion of the
testimony where I will have to step out and attend another
hearing, but the vice chair, who has many other arts titles
here at the U.S. Congress, will be ably ready to assist in
taking remaining testimony.
So with that, we have our first panel: Mr. Ben Folds, Ms.
Pam Breaux, Ms. Beth Kane, and Stephanie----
Ms. Eriacho. Eriacho.
Ms. McCollum [continuing]. Eriacho. Beautiful name. In the
interest of time, I am just going to let you introduce your
arts organizations so we have more time for questions. Mr.
Folds?
Mr. Folds. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, thank you
for the opportunity to testify on behalf of Americans for the
Arts and the NEA, something that is very important to me. I was
here speaking to your committee 1 year ago, and I wish more
people could see this side of D.C. It is really nice to see you
all working together on something that is important to
everybody, and it gave me some fuel to go back out and do it
again for 1 year, something that I do as advocacy for arts.
I have submitted written testimony for the record that
presents arguments we know are effective in making the case for
the National Endowment for the Arts. I state that I am asking
for at least $170 million for the National Endowment for the
Arts for the 2021 Fiscal Year. You all know this, but it is
worth noting for the public watching that this request just
brings us to the 1994 levels of investment for the NEA. That is
not a big ask for something that is very important.
I began my career as a rock and roll recording artist 30
years ago, making albums and touring every corner of the U.S.
It is kind of like I am on constant campaigning. I just talk to
people. I am everywhere and talk to everybody. For the past 15
years, a big part of my career has been performing with
symphony orchestras in cities big and small. I just got back
from performing two nights with the Minnesota Symphony. I
performed with the Utah symphony in Salt Lake in April. I do
that regularly. Tacoma Symphony Orchestra in November. I have
done them all.
One of my greatest experiences was Cleveland's Contemporary
Youth Orchestra, and that is a total NEA success story. That is
wonderful. It is 100 kids, all walks of life, and they are
fantastic. They play all original music. I did five seasons of
primetime NBC music television. I am about to embark on a TV
series for Fred Rogers Productions composing songs with
children. I am the artistic adviser to the National Symphony
Orchestra at the Kennedy Center where my mission is to bring
younger audiences to experience the symphony, an important part
of our culture. It means a lot to me.
At my own gigs, I tell each audience that the symphony
orchestra is the artistic symbol for civilization, which I
believe is very true. You are seeing 50, 60, 100 people on
stage working together. The rhetoric that we use every day--in
concert, in harmony. Those are all symbols of the symphony
orchestra, and the symbols matters to me. That is what we take
with our flag.
I am a cold-hearted capitalist you should know----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Folds [continuing]. Who is grateful for the competitive
environment in which I succeeded because it pushed me
creatively, and it pushed me personally. So I come to you as an
artist, an arts advocate, but also a small business owner
because in rock music, the band runs out of gas and you are
done. Zero-zero.
A small business owner knows the difference between
spending and investing. If you spend too much you fail. The NEA
is to me, is a great investment. It is felt most profoundly in
rural areas where an NEA dollar results in $9 in matching funds
from the private sector. That is the kind of investment that
satisfies the cold-hearted capitalist in myself.
But the invaluable, irreplaceable service that the NEA
offers most has to do with access to the arts. That is the
important part to me is the access and the access for everyone.
It is hard to do it any other way. It is not as much about
supporting the arts, which is important, but it is about
finding ways for the arts to support and help us. It is putting
the arts to work, and you see that every day if you tour as
much as I do.
For profound examples of this, I don't have to draw from my
professional career. I live in a small Hudson Valley River
town. It is as small as a postage stamp. It is just a few
blocks wide and deep. We have a very diverse population that
you will ever see. It seems like a Kentucky rural countryside.
It is sitting right next to Brooklyn. It is all together. But
sadly, despite the proximity, there is not a lot of mingling.
Different blocks, different stores, different churches despite
all our best intentions.
Just last December, I attended a fun little concert. It
involved children, and it involved local professional
performers, musicians, and dances. It was just so cool. I don't
normally like stuff like this, but it was awesome. Kids from
all the neighborhoods got together, sung together. The parents
mingled. Everyone had a good time, and it is the first time I
saw everyone together. I looked at the program, ``Made possible
by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts,'' and they
nailed it. They nail it all the time. And the people in the
community made it work all the way to whatever level this has
to come down from. We have a lot of arts, a lot of arts money
in the Hudson, but I have never seen it bring people together
like that.
I think I am out of time, so I am just going to say that
$170 million is not 50 cents a year per person. It is not quite
50 cents. Over my lifetime, I have seen it increase at $1 per
capita. Thanks for your time.
[The statement of Mr. Folds follows:]
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Ms. McCollum. Wonderful. Please.
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Thursday, February 6, 2020.
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF STATE ARTS AGENCIES
WITNESS
PAMELA (PAM) BREAUX, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF STATE ARTS
AGENCIES
Ms. Breaux. Good morning.
Ms. McCollum. Good morning.
Ms. Breaux. Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, and
members of the committee, today, Members Pingree and Simpson,
thank you for your invitation to deliver this testimony today
regarding Federal appropriations for the National Endowment for
the Arts. My name is Pam Breaux, and I serve as president and
CEO of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, or NASAA,
the organization that represents and serves the Nation's 56
State and jurisdictional arts agencies. And today I am here to
thank the committee, to thank the members for their tremendous
support of the Arts Endowment, and urge the committee to
consider funding it at $170 million in Fiscal Year 2021.
In the recent funding bill passed by Congress, this
subcommittee supported an increase in funding for the Agency.
The States and NASAA are extremely grateful for this. We
recognize that committee members worked together in a
bipartisan manner to support the Endowment and its important
contributions to our country. Through its highly-effective
Federal/State partnership, the Endowment contributes 40 percent
of its programmatic funds to State, jurisdictional, and
regional arts agencies each year. That resulting $49 million
Fiscal Year 2019 helped to empower States and regions to
address their priorities.
Unique among Federal agencies, the Endowment funds State
plans. These plans are developed by State arts agencies in
response to citizens, communities, arts organizations,
legislators, and governors. That makes the Federal/State arts
investment incredibly responsive and relevant to citizens. The
report accompanying the last appropriations act affirmed
Congress' support for this important partnership and its
corresponding 40 percent allocation, and we thank the committee
for this acknowledgement.
State arts agencies use their share of Endowment funds
combined with funds from State legislators to support about
22,000 grants to arts and civic organizations and schools in
more than 4,500 communities. Twenty-two percent of the grant
awards go to non-metropolitan areas, supporting programs that
benefit rural America, and 26 percent of State grant dollars go
to arts education, fostering student success in and out of
school. Congress' continued support of the 40 percent formula
is essential to State arts agencies, boosting their ability to
ensure that the arts benefit all communities regardless of
wealth or geography.
In response to an increased demand for arts programming for
older Americans, for example, the Minnesota State Arts Board
recently provided training for teaching artists to learn how to
design and implement high-quality arts education programs
specifically for older adults. With the total number of older
adults in in Minnesota expected to double between 2010 and
2030, creative aging programming is a key strategy for
fostering positive aging and healthier lives. And the State
Arts Board Programs will ensure that Minnesota artists are
trained to provide these vital services.
In an additional example, the Ohio Arts Council
demonstrates its commitment to all the people of the State by
successfully fulfilling its Fund Every County Initiative. Now
all 88 counties in the State have received arts funding in
response to their needs. Should Congress support an increase
for the Arts Endowment, State arts agencies will be in a
position to expand their meaningful work to help communities
thrive as fulfilling and productive places to live, conduct
business, visit, and raise families.
NASAA and state arts agencies also applaud the Arts
Endowment's many services to the country, including its
leadership in developing noteworthy programs for communities,
military personnel, veterans, students, and so many others. We
proudly partner with the Endowment and work collaboratively
with them to benefit all communities across the country because
together we can accomplish what neither side can achieve alone.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you
today. We look forward at NASAA to continuing to work
productively with this committee, and we stand ready to serve
as a resource to you. Thanks.
[The statement of Ms. Breaux follows:]
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Thursday, February 6, 2020.
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES AND THE STATE HUMANITIES COUNCILS
WITNESS
BETH KANE, GRANTEE, NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES AND THE STATE
HUMANITIES COUNCILS
Ms. Kane. Madam Chair and member of the subcommittee, thank
you for this opportunity to present testimony on behalf of the
State Humanities Councils, the state affiliates of the National
Endowment for the Humanities. My name is Beth Kane, and I am
director of the Norway Memorial Library in Norway, Maine.
My institution has received no fewer than 24 grants from
the Maine Humanities Council. I am here to request $170 million
for the National Endowment for the Humanities for Fiscal Year
2021, and $54 million for the Federal/State Partnership, which
provides allocations by formula to the 56 humanities councils.
Because this request is so important, I would like to tell you
what the State Humanities Council support has done for Norway
and other rural communities across our country.
Norway, Maine is a town of about 5,000 people in southern
Oxford County between Little Androscoggin River and the western
foothills of the Mahoosuc Range of the White Mountains. The
Norway Memorial Library has a staff of six and serves over
40,000 visitors a year. Our most recent annual report records
program attendance of 6,301. As in so many towns across rural
America, the library in Norway is an anchor cultural and
educational institution and plays a central role in the life of
the community.
The Maine Humanities Council has been our valued partner
for more than 30 years. Through grant funding and program
partnerships, the Council has helped to shape how we understand
our work and clarify our vision for the kinds of intellectual
and cultural opportunities we offer. In partnership with the
Maine Humanities Council, the library has been home to popular
book discussion programs for the general public and for low
literacy adults, who may have never dreamed they would be part
of a book group.
Other offerings include lectures, theatrical presentations,
and community discussions programs. To give just one example,
in 2013, the library was awarded a Bridging Cultures Muslim
Journeys Bookshelf by the American Library Association and the
NEH. We turn to the Maine Humanities Council for financial
support for cultural programming, including speakers,
musicians, a film screening, and scholars to help lead book
discussions.
This year, several Norway organizations will come together
to plan events for the State's bicentennial. The library and
Norway Historical Society will seek Council support for
programs as part of this series.
Time and again we have seen hunger for this kind of
programming, and it is no small thing when a discussion series
on race and justice in America brings in 89 people over five
discussions, or 52 people attend a talk by an Iranian immigrant
sharing his family's story of building a life in Maine. These
experiences have lasting impact on the life of the community.
Maine Humanities Council programs and grants enable people
in my town to access cultural and lifelong learning
opportunities that the library simply could not provide on its
own. The work of our State Humanities Council levels the
playing field so that my small-town library can offer
experiences equal and intellectual depths and breadth to those
found in America's biggest cities. I am very proud that the
Norway Memorial Library is a valuable resource for the people
of my community, but I am not here today because my library is
special. I am here because libraries serving communities like
mine are partnering with their state humanities councils in
every corner of America.
What I have described in Norway is a microcosm of the
impact State humanities council support has had on individuals
and neighbors across our country. The councils make humanities
programs possible in places where a small grant of several
hundred to a few thousand dollars can make an enormous
difference. The councils, along with the NEH, are now looking
ahead to the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of
Independence, an event that offers Americans the opportunity to
renew our understanding of our founding principles, explore how
they have been both challenged and reinforced, give voice to
marginalized stories in communities, and deepen understanding
of our collective history and the pillars of democracy. The
State humanities councils can help make the next 5 years a time
when we rededicate ourselves to strengthening civics education
and reinvigorating our ability to work through differences.
My written testimony describes a wide range of programs
made possible by State humanities councils in communities large
and small, in every corner of this Nation where residents are
talking with each other about issues that matter. The State
councils are well positioned to effectively put to use the $54
million we are requesting through Federal/State partnerships.
Thank you for this opportunity you have given me to
testify, for the support you have provided over the years, and
for the important work of the State humanities councils and the
National Endowment for the Humanities.
[The statement of Ms. Kane follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. This panel, and I know we have
another speaker, but I set it up going in this direction. So we
have heard from the Assembly of State Arts Agencies. We have
heard from Americans from the Arts, and we have heard from the
Endowment for the Humanities. And now we are going to hear from
a very, very special American, one who not only shared her
story, but her uncle's story, and how the arts and the
humanities make it possible for us to say thank you for your
service. Please introduce yourself for the record.
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Thursday, February 6, 2020.
JEFFERSON COMMUNITY COLLEGE
WITNESS
STEPHANIE ERIACHO, STUDENT VETERAN, JEFFERSON COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Ms. Eriacho. My name is Stephanie Eriacho, and I am a
student at Jefferson Community College in Watertown, New York.
Good morning. Thank you to the subcommittee for inviting me
today to testify today. I am pleased to testify in support of
the National Endowment for Humanities on behalf of the National
Humanities Alliance.
As I said, I am a student at Jefferson Community College,
home to Fort Drum. I am a retired Navy veteran and aircraft
mechanic by trade. I deployed 12 times, including a 7-month
deployment to Iraq, and a 13-month deployment to Afghanistan.
In 2018, the College offered a class for combat veterans
called Dialogues of Honor and Sacrifice. The class made
possible by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant was
intended to teach the history, literature, and art of the
Civil, Vietnam, and Iraq Wars. I was drawn to this course
because I wanted to better understand my uncle's experience. He
is an Army veteran who had been twice during the Vietnam War,
and was awarded two Purple Hearts.
I remember my uncle as being intimidating, quiet, and a
scary man who wanted nothing to do with me. We hadn't spoken
more than two full sentences to one another by the time I left
to join the Navy in 1996. Nonetheless, I visited my uncle every
chance I could during my time in the Navy, but nothing was as
special as the visits after I experienced real combat
deployments. Now, seeing me as a fellow combat veteran, he let
down his guard. He smiled, laughed, and even joked around. My
uncle was now able to talk, even just a little bit, about his
experience in Vietnam. Knowing I could relate, he let me see
his guilt and pain that he had been harboring for years: guilty
for wanting to be proud of wearing his Army uniform even being
spat on when he stepped off the plane; guilty for being able to
come back home to his family unlike so many brothers who lost
their lives in front of him.
It was not until another tour in Afghanistan that I grew
more like my uncle. When I returned, I began to self-medicate
with alcohol, or I was working out 6 times a week for about 2
hours a day to the point of exhaustion. My relationship with my
husband, my children, and my family were severely strained. My
children, especially my oldest, were afraid when I got angry. I
could not wrap my head around why I felt lost, alone, and
misunderstood. It was in the midst of these challenges that I
had the opportunity to take the Dialogues of Honor and
Sacrifice course, and while I hoped the focus on the Vietnam
War would help me understand more about my uncle, I didn't
realize how it would affect me. How it would help me as well.
The course began 2 weeks before JCC's 2018 fall semester
with a week-long trip that took both professors and students to
Gettysburg, Arlington National Cemetery, and Washington, D.C.
We learned the history of the sites and bonded quickly.
Although we were strangers, we were interested in one another,
taking turns, talking and listening. Sometimes no words needed
to be spoken, only the presence of a fellow combat soldier who
understood.
Fall semester began with the trip still fresh in our minds,
and we dove straight into the history of all three wars. We
studied contrasts and similarities between the three wars, but
to our amazement, we realized that these soldiers were not so
different from us. Experiences in Vietnam, the battle, and the
firefights in Iraq were also similar. As veterans of Iraq and
Afghanistan, we could relate to stories from a Civil War. This
camaraderie across conflicts was amazing. It was a special bond
that most could never fathom.
Our focus shifted to poetry, literature, music, and art as
we read, Here, Bullet, a book of short poems. Our task was to
create our own poem, intimidating at first, but became a
touching, lasting experience, a liberating sense of freedom to
open your heart and pour every brutal emotion onto paper so
that readers can experience the reality. When we moved to The
Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, it became everyone's
favorite because every student carried something special in
their combat war zone. We related to one another across
different branches of military, different theaters of war, and
even drastically different duties while at war.
Moving towards the last 2 weeks of the week, we entered the
world of art. Each student was given a blank masquerade mask to
decorate it as we saw ourselves. The introspection and self-
evaluation produced every raw emotion I have ever felt as they
flooded onto my mask. The syllabus surely did not reflect
therapy or liberation as a goal, but it helped me face my past
with the realization that none of us are alone in the battle of
normalcy. The curriculum allowed everyone to engage and
challenge one another. They forced everyone to try different
perspectives and even think differently than they normally may.
During the last week of the course, we had the privilege of
speaking with two Vietnam veterans. My initial drive for
pursuing this program was upon me, trying to understand my
uncle, hoping to learn how to bond with him. I learned horrific
details from these Vietnam veterans, but ones I wanted to hear,
ones I knew would help me relate to my uncle. But I also began
to realize that searching for a better understanding about my
uncle was not as impossible as I thought.
Our lives and experience paralleled each other at each
times; occasionally, even mirrored one another. My experiences
were less gruesome and less drastic, but in the end, he and I
carried the same demon from war. We are kept awake at night for
the same reasons. Through a combination of course and therapy,
my night terrors have lessened dramatically. Anxiety attacks
are almost gone. I still avoid big crowds, but I have learned
to work through my fears. My relationship with my family, both
immediate and extended, have improved and are no longer
strained. For the first time in my life, I have been at peace
with myself and no longer self-medicate to drown out the noises
in my head.
I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to take this
course and appreciate the support the subcommittee has offered
NEH in recent years, making programs like this possible. To
ensure that more veterans and all Americans can benefit from
humanities as I did, I ask that you fund the NEH at $170
million for the Fiscal Year of 2021. Thank you for your time.
[The statement of Ms. Eriacho follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, and the Mask Program is something
that I have seen that we have worked with other arts
organizations, Americans for the Arts. So thank you so much for
your testimony. Ms. Pingree, do you have a question for the
panelists?
Ms. Pingree. So many, but I have a feeling you want me to
keep it short.
Ms. McCollum. I can tap you lightly. [Laughter.]
Ms. Pingree. Okay. Well, first, Madam Chair, thank you.
This is a wonderful panel. I know it is going to be a great
morning of panelists, but this is really a great, as you said,
sort of transition between looking at the big picture. And
thank you so much for sharing your personal story. That is just
really profound. I don't think any of us could say it better
about how the arts can impact an individual, a family, and
obviously the community. You took the course, that is really
great, and I really appreciate you sharing so much with us.
And to all of you, thank you. Of course, we are great fans
of Americans for the Arts, and really appreciate all that they
do in--in the national perspective on all of this. And for you
to make this part of your career, it is really beneficial. We
love the state associations for the arts, and it is important
to us. And, Beth, thank you so much for coming from the State
of Maine. I am honored to have you here. And, of course, if you
lived in the State of Maine, there is only 1.3 million people,
and we joke we are just a small town with very long roads.
[Laughter.]
And, of course, Beth and I hadn't seen each for a very long
time, and then we realized that were closely connected by her
husband. And that is just how it is in Maine. You know everyone
one way or the other. And thank you for the great work. I
really appreciated the fact that you brought it home to all of
us that in every small rural town, there isn't sufficient
funds. There aren't sufficient funds to support the kinds of
works that the NEA and the NEH do. And I don't think people
realize how profound that is, the number of people who would
come in to hear the experience of an Iranian immigrant or to
come in and talk about race, and, you know, many challenges
that are faced in every single community. And you all really
brought that out about how the arts can bring us all together.
So I am obviously making a statement, not asking a
question, but just quickly because I won't have as much time as
I would like. But is there more that you could do? I mean, I
hope we can fund at $170 million, and based on all your
testimony, we should be doing this at $170 billion, I don't
know. You know, it should be twice that, right? [Laughter.]
Mr. Simpson. I don't know about all that. [Laughter.]
Ms. Pingree. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, but, as you said, I
think less than 50 cents a person. I think this is a
contribution we would all make seeing the work that you did.
But just quickly share with us, what could you do if you had a
little more money, and why is it so important in a community
like Norway because I am assuming you wouldn't find these funds
in the communities' budget.
Ms. Kane. We would not. We have great support in our
community, but a lot of it is not necessarily financial
support. We could always do more. We try to keep in the back
pocket availability and openness to programs that come our way.
We are always keeping our eyes and ears open. We can't do
everything on a shoestring. We have very generous authors and
professionals in Maine who come to libraries, but money always
helps. What we find is the cultural aspect, discussing a book
is one thing, but when you can actually bring in speakers or
musicians, or take the food, or hear more in depth, it grows
and expands that experience for everyone in the community. That
frequently takes money that we don't necessarily have.
Ms. Pingree. Well, thank you. I would love to ask you all a
question, but I know I will get in trouble. But thank you so
much. You really gave great testimony this morning. Thank you,
Madam Chair.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all for
being here to testify. This is an area that I think is very
important, and I think it is bipartisan between Republicans and
Democrats. Several years ago I said, I guess about 4 or 5 years
ago, we had one of the directors for the NEA out in Idaho. In
fact, I think I have had the last four out to Idaho. Last
summer we had Mary Anne Carter and toured the State for a few
days and stopped at local arts councils and everything. I said,
you know what we need to do is find a plan where we can project
5 years ahead where we would like to double the investment in
the arts and humanities, and put that one a glide path somehow
as they did in 1994 when they said they wanted to NIH funding
over a 5-year period, and they did it.
When you look at our total budget of stuff, $170 million is
not all that much money. But they do incredible work in
communities all across this country, and it has been, as I
said, my pleasure to have the directors of both the National
Endowment for the Arts and Humanities out to the State. In
fact, I had the director for the National Endowment for the
Humanities bring to Boise one day when I was there about 10 or
12 people who had gotten grants, that the State had given
grants to. And we sat around the table, and they each talked
about what they were doing and why they were doing it, and so
forth. It is fascinating stuff, but it is very important.
Pam, you mentioned 40 percent of the $170 million, if you
got that, goes to the States. Is that true? Is that the same in
the Humanities? What is the split between State and----
Ms. Kane. I haven't done the percentage. That sounds about
right. Yes, thank you. Yeah, this is my homework.
Mr. Simpson. Is that the right split?
Ms. Breaux. Yeah, it is about the same. They parallel. To
my humanities? Yeah, they are parallel.
Mr. Simpson. Is that the right split?
Ms. Breaux. It is. I think it is an important split. Forty
percent is meaningful and goes a long way to match State
dollars for important programming, and it is also meaningful
that the National Endowment for the Arts retains 60 percent of
its funding at the national level because it allows arts
organizations across the country to compete in a national pool.
And those who are able to do that find incredible leverage
within that to go out and raise other resources for
programming.
Mr. Simpson. And I think it is probably true for most of us
is that, you know, I am not worried about the arts in New York,
or the arts in Washington, or the arts in Los Angeles. I am
worried about the arts in Salmon, Idaho.
Ms. Breaux. Right.
Mr. Simpson. And how do we make sure that we can continue
to support the arts communities in rural America----
Ms. Breaux. Right.
Mr. Simpson [continuing]. That don't have access to a lot
of these things? So it has been fantastic what they have been
doing. I hope they continue it. I have always questioned
whether 60/40 was the right split or whatever, and I don't know
what it is, but I know that my wife is on the Idaho Falls Arts
Council, and there is one person they do have to satisfy in
this world. [Laughter.]
And so I do whatever I can.
Ms. Breaux. One additional note on the importance of the
investment on the Federal side, on the 60 percent side, is it
allows both the Endowments, I think, to invest in new work that
then can have a major ripple effect. And a prime example of
that would be both Endowments' investments in arts and
humanities and military, right?
Mr. Simpson. Yeah.
Ms. Breaux. It is both the Endowments that began those
pilots that have led to so much important work now going on
across the country in arts and humanities to benefit members of
the military. And that had to be tested and created someplace,
and it is the leadership shown at both Endowments that enable
that to happen. So that is another important part of a strong
investment on the Federal side, that leadership and what they--
--
Mr. Simpson. You talked about the authors, and the Idaho
Humanities Council brings out authors and does a lecture in
north Idaho and southeast Idaho, and southwestern Idaho, and
they have been fascinating. And ever since I started going to
those when I can, when I get out of here and go to them, it has
cost me a lot of money. Then I support the humanities, and last
year, we had Douglas Brinkley that wrote ``Moonshot,'' and
listening to him talk about it all is just fantastic. So
anyway, Stephanie, thank you for your testimony. We appreciate
it very much.
Ms. McCollum. As I mentioned, I have another committee that
I am going to be going to later, and it is the one that
oversees the defense money. And we are having the Department of
Defense, now that the humanities and the arts have proven ways
in which to help our service men and women heal, recover, be
resilient, be strong, they are stepping up to the plate in
order to free up more dollars for more opportunities to work
with our communities at large. And when you help a veteran, you
help their family, and I say that as a daughter of a veteran,
so.
But, Mr. Folds, I want to know, when you mentioned working
on this project with the Rogers Foundation, with kids, my kids
had an artist in residence, and the ``Peanut Butter and Jelly
Sandwich'' song has not left my head since you mentioned that.
[Laughter.]
So will you help me think about something else today and
just kind of tell me where you are going to go? What are some
of the goals and aspirations, because I think it is really
important to get into schools and for kids to understand music
is language, music is math.
Mr. Folds. Exactly, yeah.
Ms. McCollum. Music is transformative.
Mr. Folds. Yeah. I mean, the angle of the show that I am
doing with the Rogers Foundation is music as communication
first and foremost. I mean, the human brain works that way. You
know, if a little kid says, I want to go home, it is like,
okay, we have got to a song. You do that 3 times. [Laughter.]
Mr. Simpson. We begin to think that doing is an art is
great. It is hijacking something that we already do in
communication, and if you can teach a kid that and not
intimidate them too badly at the beginning about are you going
to be a musician, are you going to be proficient at it or not.
When you learn art as, you know, painting, the first thing you
do when you are a little kid is you do something that is an
original piece that came out of you. When you do music, not so
much. You know, you are usually learning dead German music, you
know?
And I think it is really important to do both, but this
show is an attempt to, and it has been really successful so far
in the pilots that we have done. The kids have all kinds of
ideas. Behind we will have a student group of musicians that
are a little bit older so they can see that you could get good.
Ms. McCollum. Yeah.
Mr. Folds. Plus I give them the riff. So if the kid has
said, I want to go home, I am like, okay, harp plays this, you
play this, and now say what you just said. And they say it, and
they sing it, and they come up with new ideas. So I think it is
good because it is not for kids who are going to grow and be
musicians. It is for kids to grow up and have an idea of how to
speak publicly, how to organize their lives, how to connect
abstract and critical thinking together. And I am inspired by
it.
Ms. McCollum. Well, I want to thank the first panel for
setting the table literally up here for what we are going to
hear the rest of the morning and this afternoon. Thank you very
much. Thank you, Stephanie.
Ms. Eriacho. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. It is always a good sign when people are
still talking after a panel has left, but I want to be
respectful of everyone's time. So I am going to, because we are
already a little behind, we are not going to introduce
everybody twice. I am just going to let you folks take it. You
sat in order, and introduce yourself and your organization
because we want to have time for questions. So, please.
Ms. Onley. Is it on?
Ms. McCollum. The little red light is on.
Ms. Onley. Okay.
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
THE NATURE CONSERVANCY
WITNESS
KAMERAN ONLEY, DIRECTOR OF U.S. GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, THE NATURE
CONSERVANCY
Ms. Onley. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be
here. It is hard to follow that last panel. That was pretty
moving and very exhilarating. On a personal note, I will start
with I am Kameran Onley. I am the director for U.S. policy and
government relations at the Nature Conservancy. And on a
personal note, as I was sitting there listening to your last
panelist, I was thinking of my daughter who is 12, and she is
literally going through a test right now on the American
Revolution and the Declaration of Independence. And it has just
been so fun for me to tell her that I am coming up here to talk
to you, really exercising democracy. I wish she could be with
me here today, but she is taking a science test also.
[Laughter.]
But just thank you. It is really timely for me.
So Chairwoman McCollum, Congressman Simpson, and members of
the committee, thank you for the opportunity to submit our
recommendations, the Nature Conservancy's recommendations, for
Fiscal Year 2021. The Nature Conservancy is an international
organization. We are in all 50 States, but also around the
world, working to protect ecologically important lands, waters
for people and nature. Building on the themes that you heard
from our last panel, you know, the nature really unites people.
We see that across the country. It brings people together to
work on issues they care deeply about in their community. It
also heals people. We have seen more and more science where we
have seen veterans use our rivers, use our parks, use our
nature to really heal after some very traumatic events.
We would like to thank you all on the committee for the
work that we do over the years with policy initiatives on the
ground. Chairwoman McCollum, you have been just a champion for
the Land and Water Conservation Fund. We cannot thank you
enough for that, increasing the funding for the conservation
not just for your home State, but for projects around the
country, nationwide. I also wanted to recognize Ranking Member
Joyce has continued support for the Great Lakes Initiative. It
has been great.
Each one of you have done work with us, the Nature
Conservancy, in your home States, but also nationwide. We
cannot thank you enough. We have a lot of it in our submitted
testimonies. I can't highlight it all, so I apologize for that.
We have to be brief. Those are just two examples of where we
have worked with you.
As we enter the Fiscal Year 2021 budget cycle and likely
another challenging fiscal environment, the Conservancy wishes
to thank all of you for the 2020 programs and the support
there. Our budget recommendations that we submitted to you in
full reflect a balanced approach from the funding levels that
we have seen in prior years.
The Fiscal Year 2020 spending package dedicated $495
million dollars to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Thank
you. This is a fund that has seen strong bipartisan support,
again, bringing people together, and the Conservancy
appreciates Congress' commitment to the funding of important
projects on the ground and the recreational project that that
program delivers across the country.
The Conservancy this year is supporting $900 million full
funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. We are
looking forward to that, but also looking forward to working
with all of you to see a permanent funding fix for that
program.
We strongly support funding for habitat and wildlife
conservation investments, like the Cooperative Endangered
Species Fund and the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program.
These and other investments are essential to ensuring that we
take strategic actions to prevent species from being listed as
threatened or endangered. Notably, the Conservancy requests
continued investment in ongoing efforts to restore and conserve
sagebrush habitat and the greater sage-grouse across Federal,
State, tribal, and private lands.
These resources are needed to implement on-the-ground
projects and monitor habitat treatments, address fire, invasive
grasses, and facilitate the partnerships and the science needed
that for effective conservation. We also urge the subcommittee
to continue its support for programs that focus on specific
geographic areas. I mentioned the Great Lakes Restoration
Initiative, but the EPA's programs and the Chesapeake Bay,
Puget Sound, Long Island Sound, Gulf of Mexico programs, all of
those contribute to protecting habitat, water quality on a
large landscape scale. These programs have a proven record of
supporting the States' voluntary restoration efforts, and the
Conservancy urges the committee to continue to support strong
Fiscal Year 2020 funding for these programs.
I will close by thanking all of you for the continued work
to address wildfire funding. Congress took major steps to
stabilize the Department of Agriculture's Forest Service as
well as the Department of Interior's budgets with the 2018 fire
fix. However, the fire fix will only be fully successful
without substantial reinvestment and the programs that help
those forests be resilient. Strategic, proactive hazardous fuel
and restoration treatments have proven to be safe and cost
effective in reducing risks, and leaving forests a more natural
condition resilient to those wildfires.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to be here and to
submit the Nature Conservancy's recommendations for Fiscal Year
2021.
[The statement of Ms. Onley follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
AMERICAN HIKING SOCIETY
WITNESS
KATHRYN VAN WAES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN HIKING SOCIETY
Ms. Van Waes. Thank you. I am Kate Van Waes, executive
director of American Hiking Society. Chair McCollum and members
of the subcommittee, on behalf of American Hiking Society and
the Trails Move People Coalition, I thank the committee for the
opportunity to provide testimony today on the vital importance
of adequately funding our Nation's trails and public lands to
ensure access for all.
This is about more than preserving precious ecological and
cultural treasures. Children's outside playtime is shrinking,
and the gap between the diversity of our Nation and the
diversity of those spending time outdoors is widening,
resulting in measurable detriment to mental and physical health
and development. We cannot afford to push trail funding to the
sidelines.
American Hiking Society is the only national nonprofit
organization dedicated to empowering all, and I stress all, to
enjoy, share, and preserve the hiking experience. We envision a
world where everyone feels welcome in the hiking community and
has permanent access to meaningful hiking. Our efforts ensure
funding for hiking trails, the preservation of natural areas,
and expansion of access to and inclusion in outdoor recreation.
American Hiking Society has mobilized over 558,000 trail
volunteers to construct and maintain 41,000 miles of trails on
Federal and State public lands at a value of over $108 million
in labor.
I am also testifying today on behalf of the newly-formed
Trails Move People Coalition. The member organizations of the
Coalition represent millions of Americans who spend their time,
money, and energy to get out on trails for recreation and
volunteer activities. I thank the subcommittee for in recent
years leading congressional efforts to provide incremental
increases in funding that benefit trails and the hiking
community, and I encourage continued progress, and know I am
speaking to friends today. I will highlight a few of these
funding priorities today with the full list of recommendations
provided in my written statement.
We are grateful to the subcommittee for providing increased
funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund in Fiscal Year
2020. Like the Nature Conservancy, we are urging full funding
at $900 million. The LWCF protects and makes accessible much of
our Nation's trails, public lands, parks, and open spaces. One
great example is the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership
Program. This innovative program has made real progress in
expanding access to outdoor spaces for urban communities,
especially urban communities of color, whose access to and
inclusion in outdoor recreation have been disproportionately
negatively impacted by geography, socioeconomic status, and
other factors. Along with full LWCF funding, passage of the
Outdoors for All Act will help programs, like Outdoor
Recreation Legacy, thrive.
Hiking, simply walking along a trail, be it urban or wild,
poses the fewest participation barriers of almost any outdoor
activity. But it requires trails, paved and unpaved, and trails
don't build and maintain themselves. That requires human labor
and Federal funding. Specifically, for the Forest Service,
which is responsible for over 80 percent of all federally-
managed trails in the U.S., we recommend funding the capital
improvement and maintenance trails budget at $100 million,
which will allow the completion of annual maintenance needs and
begin addressing the huge trail maintenance backlog.
For the Bureau of Land Management, we urge the creation of
a trail specific line item in their budget. The BLM manages
over 13,000 miles of trails, traversing a rich diversity of
landscapes for hikers, anglers, hunters, and other outdoor
enthusiasts. Unlike other Federal land managers, though, BLM
does not have an individual funding line item for trails,
resulting in inconsistent funding levels and a lack of clarity
on allocations. For the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, we
recommend funding for refuge visitor services at just over $74
million. National wildlife refuges provide incredible
opportunities for outdoor recreation on 11 national scenic and
historic trails and 44 national recreation trails, supporting
more than 37,000 jobs.
In conclusion, the nearly 1 million square miles that
comprise U.S. public lands are our most treasured natural,
historic, and cultural resource. Whether you are a hiker
enjoying the abundance of American trails, which span over 4
times the total length of interstate highways, whether you are
a member of the indigenous populations for whom these lands are
their ancestral homes, or one of the 145 million outdoor
recreation users, our public lands are of incalculable value to
hundreds of millions of Americans. As we all strive together to
protect these lands and trails and make them accessible and
welcoming to all communities for generations to come, Congress
must do its part to ensure adequate funding. I thank the
committee for holding this public witness day and providing me
with the opportunity to give this testimony.
[The statement of Ms. Van Waes follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
CONTINENTAL DIVIDE TRAIL COALITION
WITNESS
AMANDA WHEELOCK, POLICY AND COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER, CONTINENTAL DIVIDE
TRAIL COALITION
Ms. Wheelock. Chair McCollum and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on
behalf of the Continental Divide Trail Coalition, a nonprofit
organization with the mission to complete, promote, and protect
the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail. My name is Amanda
Wheelock, and I am the policy and communications manager for
the Coalition.
For those who haven't had the fortune of visiting the
Continental Divide Trail, usually known simply as the CDT,
travels 3,100 miles along the spine of the Rocky Mountains,
connecting the vibrant Tonahutu of the southern New Mexican
desert to the equally brilliant yellow larches of Glacier
National Park in northern Montana, as well as countless natural
historical and cultural treasures in between, including several
hundred miles in the 2nd District of Idaho.
The Continental Divide Trail Coalition and our members
greatly appreciate your previous support for the CDT and the
entire National Trail System through appropriations to our land
management agency partners to build and maintain these trails,
and respectfully request that you continue and increase the
support as detailed in our written testimony. We are also
grateful for your efforts to increase appropriations for the
Land and Water Conservation Fund, often referred to as
America's best conservation program and the subject of my
testimony today.
Statistics abound on the myriad successes of LWCF, but I
myself prefer stories to statistics. So let's imagine ourselves
on the CDT for a, moment walking just a few miles outside of
Steamboat Springs, Colorado on a warm summer's day. As we walk,
shimmering Aspen Groves and golden rangeland stretch beyond the
horizon in front of us as does the black pavement of the
highway we are walking on. An 18-wheeler whizzes by just 5 or 6
feet away, followed by a long line of cars stuck behind it,
cursing and wishing they could get up to Rabbit Ears Pass even
quicker than they are now. Here in northern Colorado, due to a
lack of public land, the CDT is forced to follow along the
shoulder of Highways 14 and 40 for almost 15 miles, tempting no
one but the most determined of through-hikers to experience
this particularly dangerous section of this National Scenic
Trail.
Despite more than 4 decades of work by dedicated Land
Management agency staff, nonprofit partners, volunteers, and
members of trail site communities, the Continental Divide Trail
remains incomplete due to gaps just like this one in public
land ownership along its corridor. Without LWCF funding, there
is no realistic way to acquire the lands necessary to create a
continuous corridor for the trail, leaving what should be a
world-class recreational resource with no path to completion.
That is why the Continental Divide Trail Coalition respectfully
requests $900 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund
in Fiscal Year 2021, because we believe that resources like the
Continental Divide National Scenic Trail deserve the protection
via LWCF that they were promised.
And we are not alone in this belief. A full 98 percent of
small business owners along the CDT support Congress providing
dedicated full funding for the Land and Water Conservation
Fund, and just last year, more than 200 of those business
owners along the trail went a step further, signing open
letters urging their senators and representatives to provide
LWCF with full permanent funding. Residents of Steamboat
Springs, which became an official CDT gateway community in
2018, want dearly to see their section of trail moved off of
the highway and made footing of a National Scenic Trail.
The Yampa Valley Community Foundation has provided funding
to CDTC to support our work to close the gap. Big Agnes, a
multimillion-dollar and much beloved gear company borne out
Steamboat Springs, rallied their entire staff of more than a
120 people to relay all 750 miles of the CDT in Colorado to
raise awareness of the trail and the need for its completion.
And many local residents stand willing and ready to volunteer
to build the new trail section. Steamboat Springs resident,
Kathleen Lynch, perhaps captured their spirit best when she
said, ``It is so much more than a trail to the people who live
here. It feels so much a part of what defines us as a community
that protecting it is inherent to what we believe in.''
The Land and Water Conservation Fund is vital to
communities like Steamboat Springs all across the United
States, to their economies, to their health, and to their
identities. We hope to see you invest in these communities and
in our public lands by fully funding LWCF in Fiscal Year 2021.
Thank you for your time today and for your consideration of
these important requests.
[The statement of Ms. Wheelock follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
PARTNERSHIP FOR THE NATIONAL TRAILS SYSTEM
WITNESS
KATHY DECOSTER, ADVOCACY & POLICY COORDINATOR, PARTNERSHIP FOR THE
NATIONAL TRAILS SYSTEM
Ms. DeCoster. Good morning. My name is Kathy DeCoster, and
thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am testifying
this morning on behalf of the Partnership of the National Trail
System, but I wanted to echo what Kameran and others earlier
have said about our appreciation for the time you put into
these public witness days. It is probably underappreciated or
certainly unknown maybe outside these walls, but we are very
grateful that you are listening to the American people for many
days. I am just glad I am on the early panel. [Laughter.]
I am testifying today for the Partnership, which represents
the 30 congressionally-designated national historic and scenic
trails that make up the National Trail System. I brought a
couple of maps to look at while we are talking because you may
know about the one or two trails that are in your district or
your State, but you may not know that there is at least one
national trail in each of the 50 States. Altogether, they are a
significant public land resource for the American people worthy
of investment.
The 19 national historic trails help tell our uniquely
American story from colonial exploration, to the forced
relocation of Native Americans, to the civil rights struggle,
and so much more. And the 11 National Scenic Trails, like
Amanda just discussed, along the Continental Divide Trail,
provide millions of Americans with access to the outdoors over
thousands of miles close to home and in remote wilderness
areas.
Here are some quick statistics to keep in mind. These 30
trails connect with 84 national parks, 89 national forests, 70
national wildlife refuges, over 100 BLM public land areas, and
179 national wilderness areas. The individual national trails
and their supporting groups have engaged 129 trail towns mostly
in rural areas at the local level, and they run near or through
100 major urban areas. So the system is really something we are
working to expand and appreciate the support you all have
given. Your ongoing commitment in the past and last year's
appropriations bill has made an enormous difference to this
system and to the successful work of trail groups and trail
administrators on the ground.
It is also worth noting that in 2019, the Federal funds
invested in the trails leveraged over $13 million in private
funding and 1 million volunteer hours that are valued at almost
$26 million. So you can be assured that every dollar you
appropriate is stretched much farther on the ground, and the
Partnership is committed to expanding this leveraging power of
the national trails. This impressive system of trails is not
yet complete, however, as Amanda talked about so effectively.
In order to ensure that the national trails serve the American
people most effectively, we are requesting investments in
Fiscal Year 2021 for operations, construction, and maintenance
for all 30 trails in the Park Service, the Forest Service, and
the Bureau of Land Management, and full funding at $900 million
for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, with over $38 million
of that allocated for the parks. I mean, for the trails. My old
job just surfaced. Sorry.
Ms. McCollum. As you say, everything connects.
Ms. DeCoster. Everything connects. [Laughter.]
These funds are critical to ensuring that the integrity of
the trails that make up the National Trail System is supported
and enhanced now and into the future.
My written testimony includes specific funding requests for
the varied needs within the Agency's operations, construction,
and maintenance categories for all 30 trails, and we are happy
to dig in later as you put your bill together on those. We also
want to extend our gratitude, as others have, for your
continued robust investments in the Land and Water Conservation
Fund and the annual allocations to specific national trails.
We call for full funding for LWCF in Fiscal Year 2021 so
that the entire $900 million that is deposited into the LWCF
account every year can be allocated by Congress by this
subcommittee to the conservation and recreation programs for
which that funding is intended. We understand that within your
current budget allocations this is very challenging as well as
your need to meet all the other programs, as has been testified
to and will continue to be today. So that said, we were very
heartened to see a final LWCF appropriation in Fiscal Year 2020
that was the highest in 17 years. We really appreciate that.
LWCF funding for the national trails is critical. There
continued to be identified needs for land acquisitions along
several national trails, totaling almost $40 million in Fiscal
Year 2021, and the specifics are highlighted in our written
testimony. Full funding of LCWF and the allocation of some of
those funds to specific trails will give trail managers the
tools they need to protect important trail resources and ensure
that the National Trail System can meet the needs of the
American people.
Thank you again for allowing us to testify today, and we
look forward to working with you as you put your bill together.
[The statement of Ms. DeCoster follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you, and thank you very much for
helping me make the case, along with all the colleagues on this
committee, that we need a bigger baseline budget. And thank you
for the acknowledgement for what this committee did for all
LCWF. But we need your help in getting a bigger topline number
altogether, and many of the programs that you pointed out, you
also want to see an increase in, and that is some of the lines
in Forest, and BLM, and Park. So altogether, it just puts more
pressure on the dollars.
And I appreciate also the singling out of some of the
trails and some of the connections that you want to do, but as
of right now, we are not able to specify anything but putting
things in the topline number due to constraints with not having
full agreement with my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle that that we can specify certain trails or certain
projects. I would like to see us do some of that where we can
get something completed and done, and move on to the next one,
but that is the discussion that will continue to take place on
this side of the Capitol, but also has to take place on the
other side of the Capitol to do that.
So thank you. I just want to thank you for helping me make
the case where we need to work with a bigger allocation, and
for also recognizing not only the testimony that you heard
today, but what we will hear from our tribal brothers and
sisters who also work on many of the projects that you are
working on together. So I can't thank you enough. I don't have
a question for you because you got everything laid out for me
to take when I go in and make my argument. So thank you from
the top of my heart for helping me make the case that our
subcommittee needs a larger allocation, period. And we all want
to work together for finding that permanent funding solution
for LWCF because that will help this committee in being able to
move forward on those joint projects that you so all eloquently
put out. Ms. Pingree?
Ms. Pingree. No, I didn't really have anything. I
appreciate your helping people to understand just beyond this
room that it is the big number that governs everything else. So
thanks for everyone's hard work and doing all that we can. I
get to work with almost all of you, except the Continental
Divide, which is way too far away. [Laughter.]
But anyway, it is a wonderful part of the trail system, and
thanks for providing this map. It is really impressive to see
what all of them are. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. McCollum. And I know, having worked on environmental
policy for many, many years, Peter, we like you. But I just
want to cherish this moment of all the women sitting here at
the table on both sides. [Laughter.]
Thank you very much. Thank you.
[Applause.]
Ms. DeCoster. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. So as I pointed out--thank you to the third
panel--we have colleagues coming in and out. We have full
testimony in front of us, and they will be joining back again
shortly. I figured out a way to kind of get us back on time,
and that is not to do the double introductions. So, Ms. White,
I am going to let you lead it off and give us the full
background of who you are supporting, and go right into your
testimony. And we will start it will start the timer when you
go into your testimony, not for introducing yourself. Thank
you.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
WITNESS
KASEY WHITE, DIRECTOR FOR GEOSCIENCE POLICY, GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF
AMERICA
Ms. White. Okay, wonderful. Thank you so much, Chairwoman
McCollum. My name is Kasey White, and I am pleased to testify
today in support of the U.S. Geological Survey, on behalf of
the Geological Society of America. GSA is a scientific society
with more than 20,000 members from Academia industry, and
government in more than 100 countries. GSA applauds the work of
the subcommittee to increase the USGS budget in Fiscal Year
2020. Thank you for supporting the Survey and ensuring its
ability to continue to serve the Nation through its research
and partnerships.
GSA or urges Congress to build on these investments and
provide USGS with $1.35 billion in Fiscal Year 2021. This
increase will allow the USGS to implement new initiatives
created by recent legislation, sustain base funding for
critical research and monitoring, and update and maintain its
facilities.
The USGS is one of the Nation's premier science agencies
with the distinctive capacity to engage interdisciplinary teams
of experts to gather data, conduct research, and develop
integrated decision support tools about our earth. In addition
to underpinning the science activities and decisions of the
Department of the Interior, USGS research is used by
communities and businesses Across the Nation to make informed
decisions regarding land use planning, emergency response,
natural resource management, engineering, and education.
The recent passage of several pieces of legislation
illustrates the bipartisan congressional support for the
Agency. Last year, the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation
Management and Recreation Act established a national volcano
early warning and monitoring system at the USGS, and
reauthorize the USGS' National Cooperative Geologic Mapping
Program. The previous year, the enactment of the National
Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program Reauthorization Act of 2018
reauthorized and expanded this important program, including
adding our earthquake early warning capabilities. GSA
recommends adequate funding to implement these laws.
USGS research addresses many of society's greatest
challenges. For example, natural hazards are a major cause of
fatalities and economic losses. NOAA found that in 2019, the
United States saw 14 weather and climate events with losses
exceeding $1 billion, which included floods, severe storms,
tropical cyclones, and wildfires. USGS data is utilized by
decision makers in many sectors to mitigate the effects of
these natural disasters. For example, the aviation sector
relies upon USGS volcano monitoring to create safe flight
routes. NOAA depends on data from the USGS to issue flood,
drought, and tsunami warnings.
USGS is a key partner in obtaining measurements necessary
to predict severe space weather events, which can have drastic
impacts on the electric power grid, satellite communications,
and navigation systems as highlighted in the March 2019
executive order coordinating national resilience to
electromagnetic pulses. GSA urges investment in the USGS
hazards programs as an improved scientific understanding of
these events will reduce future losses by informing effective
planning and mitigation.
In addition to conducting research on long-term patterns of
climate change, USGS connects science to local communities.
Climate adaptation science centers provide scientific
information necessary to anticipate, monitor, and adapt to the
effects of climate change at regional and local levels. These
centers work with communities to make smart, cost-effective
decisions on issues as diverse as protecting cultural resources
to planning for wildfires. GSA appreciates the expansion of
this important program and Fiscal Year 2020.
As the U.S. increases its use of renewable energy, there is
a vital need to understand the abundance and distribution of
critical mineral resources both within the U.S. and globally.
This goal will require expanded collection and analysis of
geological, geochemical, and geophysical data. Earth MRIs are
an important part of this effort, and GSA appreciates
congressional support for this program.
The Landsat Satellite Program has amassed the largest
archive of remotely-sensed data in the world, a tremendously
important resource for everything from natural resource
planning, land use planning, and assessing water resources, the
impacts of natural disasters, and global agriculture. GSA
supports interagency efforts to ensure the continuation of this
vital monitoring program.
All of these endeavors are supported by the core systems
sciences, facilities, and science support. These programs and
services, such as geologic mapping and data preservation,
provide critical information and infrastructure that form the
foundation of USGS research.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today
for the support of the U.S. Geological Survey. I would be happy
to answer any questions.
[The statement of Ms. White follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Make sure the mike is on.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
3DEP COALITION
WITNESS
JOHN M. PALATIELLO, 3DEP COALITION
Mr. Palatiello. Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is John
Palatiello, and I am pleased to be here today on behalf of the
3DEP Coalition. I am also the government affairs consultant to
the National Society of Professional Surveyors, and the founder
and president of USGO, the informal coalition of leading
geospatial firms.
The 3DEP Coalition includes more than 40 organizations. If
I may, I would like to insert into the record a list of these
organizations that support the 3DEP program.
Ms. McCollum. We will do that. Just make sure that you
leave that at the end of the presentation.
Mr. Palatiello. I will do. Thank you. Thank you very much.
As the subcommittee is aware, 3DEP is the USGS program that is
satisfying the growing demand for consistent, high-quality
topographic data across the country, primarily through the
collection of elevation data with LIDAR. There are more than
600 applications that benefit from this data. They support
economic growth, responsible environmental protection and
resource development, infrastructure improvement, and many
more.
USGS' own assessment of this program shows that it
generates about $13 billion in annual benefits and has a
benefit cost ratio of 4.7 to 1, so it is an extraordinary
investment of our tax dollars. And I would say that it provides
the underpinning to a number of the programs that you will hear
about in the course of the public witnesses here today.
Since 2015, over 200 Federal, State, local, and
nongovernmental partners have collaborated in support of 3DEP.
I have a map here that my colleague is showing that where now
about 67 percent of the Nation is completed with this data for
the first time over. The optimal funding for this program is at
$146 million a year. At that level, the country can be mapped
in 7 years and then go on another repeat cycle. So at our
current funding level, we are at about 67 percent.
I would like to draw your attention to two things with
regard to this map. One, Madam chair, I think jumps out at you
is there is unfortunately a big white space in the middle of
the country other than perhaps the Twin Cities. And so is a
tremendous need for precision agriculture for stormwater
management, for a variety of applications in agricultural
America. The other point that I think is very important to draw
attention to is the fact that the other major unmapped part of
the country is the public lands west, and there is a critical
need whether you are talking about wildfire mapping, rural
broadband development, rural infrastructure. We would hope that
the subcommittee could fund this program not only through USGS,
but through the other agencies. It is the landowners, the
Forest Service, BLM, that have an inherent interest in having
this data for good management.
As I mentioned in the beginning of my statement, 3DEP has
supported numerous programs, applications, and activities. I
would hasten to add, Mr. Joyce, that in my written statement, I
talk about some great work that an Ohio firm is doing on the
3DEP program, and that is being replicated by the other firms
that are involved as well. But when we talk about hazard
mitigation, energy resource development, wildlife and habitat
management, flood plain mapping, flood risk management,
agriculture, precision farming, natural resource, conservation,
invasive species mapping and mitigation infrastructure,
transportation, climate change monitoring, all of these are
activities where the 3DEP data becomes good baseline data for
all of them.
So we would urge the full funding of the program at its
optimum level of a $146 million. We understand the constraints
on you. Whether we do this solely within USGS or through the
other agencies, as I mentioned, there is a critical need to
finish the country and provide that data and the benefits that
I mentioned. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be with
you this morning.
[The statement of Mr. Palatiello follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
GEOMAGNETISM
WITNESS
DAVID JONAS BARDIN, GEOMAGNETISM
Mr. Bardin. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, Mr.
Simpson, Vice Chair Pingree, Mrs. Watson Coleman, I am David
Jonas Bardin, and I appreciate your again holding this public
hearing and again letting me testify.
This subcommittee was the leader on the USGS Geomagnetism
Program that had such success in the minibus that was signed
into law on December 20th, and I am going to give you all the
credit in the world. You identified issues. You identified the
issue of what happens when the Air Force withdraws a stipend.
You dug into the facts. Your staff went and found out with the
Air Force on the one hand, but also with USGS stuff, which they
don't tell you in the way the green book, the budget
justifications are done nowadays. So you have to dig them out
on why three observatories might have been closed down, which
really had to do with deferred maintenance issues that I want
to raise.
And you fully funded the Administration's request for the
$1.7 million for 1 more years' worth of the magnetotelluric
survey in order to try to do what the President's executive
order of March last year calls for, completion in 4 years. So I
give you credit. I give you hosanna, and I hope, Madam Chair,
that you and your staff again will dig in on some of the issues
I want to raise.
Today I just want to talk thematically. I am not asking.
You raised the appropriation for the USGS Geomagnetism Program,
Congress did, to $4 million, which is almost all of the $4.1
million that the House voted for. Your Senate colleagues came
around to your advice and your insights, for which I give them
credit, but I give you the most credit and thanks.
Ms. McCollum. They didn't bring any money with it.
Mr. Bardin. The $4 million the minibus appropriates is
almost the entire $4.1 million that the House did. The Senate
would have had a somewhat lower number. One of the differences
was on the magnetotelluric survey that you fully funded the
Administration's request. They initially didn't, but then
finally in the minibus, they did.
There are a couple of things I would like you to look into,
and, as I say, this is thematic testimony. After we see the
Administration's actual proposal next week, I probably will
supplement it. At the very least, I will give you a table which
shows you year by year what has been requested and what has
been appropriated. And I can't fill in the bottom line now
because I don't know it yet. But basically, the history flat,
flat, flat until the sequester, and then down, and only last
year. Thanks to this subcommittee and the minibus did it go up
to the $4 million. I think it should be higher.
I would like you to look into at least two questions. One
is the $1.7 million for the magnetotelluric survey. This is a
new undertaking for USGS and the Geomagnetism Program. They
have never done it before. They are working hard to figure out
how to do the details, and I hope that you want on a tactful
staff level will follow what are the issues at the moment. None
of that money has been obligated. Now, it is not remarkable
since it was appropriated on December 20th, and none of it has
been obligated. But we are not going to feel good about it if
that isn't corrected and cured by the end of the Fiscal Year.
And I think it is a question of finding what are the roadblocks
for the money and what needs to be done there.
The second area I would like you to take a look into is
deferred maintenance. There is a problem for some of the
observatories on deferred maintenance. The formula which works
very well for much of the Interior Department doesn't really
apply very much to geomagnetic observatories. They are not
catering to visitors like national parks. They don't have large
numbers of staff people. So to the extent that priorities are
set based on health and safety of staff, health and safety of
businesses, they really don't apply to a facility wherever it
is located. And I think we need some reconsideration. Perhaps
the Administration will come up with something on its own, but
if not, perhaps either in report language or even more, once
you get the facts, that would be helpful.
The Geomagnetism program staff does an excellent job of
keeping track of the deferred maintenance issues, the
accumulating balance. They have the facts. So if you ask them
the questions, they can produce the answers, and I trust they
will produce truthful answers. But they are not being
volunteered because that is not the way it is normally run.
I am supposed to stop now, so I will stop.
[The statement of Mr. Bardin follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. We mentioned with the other panel,
you know, their succinct way in which they outlined how we
needed to have more funding. And I appreciate the way this
panel, and, you, sir, in particular, Mr. Bardin, pointed out
that the House had money for some of the projects that we're
talking about today. But when Mr. Joyce and I went to
conference with the Senate, when we left conference, we had
$1.3 billion less than what we left the House with. So it is a
challenge. And that is why these hearings today are so
important to hear your priorities, to give us some questions to
be asking the administration, discussions for us to have
amongst ourselves, so that with the dollars that we have, we
put forth the most robust budget that that meets the needs of
the people here.
I just want to take an observation because we are talking
about earth. And in the testimony about earth science and the
studying of earth science, most high schools don't even have an
earth science class anymore. They might have a climate studies
class in which they are talking about climate trends, but that
is different and needs to be incorporated into a more robust
earth science class. So I was the only girl in my earth science
class----
[Laughter.]
And it is something that I have found very useful for me
just as taking a biology class or other things like that,
because it is the planet we live on. So thank you. As a social
studies teacher, I want to thank you for shouting out for earth
science because that is where social science and physical
science meet each other and other things. So thank you for
pointing that out. And I am going to talk to my education
colleagues and do some lobbying.
Ms. White. Terrific. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. So, Mr. Joyce, thank you for joining us, and
I didn't have a question, I had a comment, and so I will turn
it over to you and see if there is a question or comment you
have.
Mr. Joyce. None at this time, but thank you very much for
the recognition, and I thank Mr. Simpson for helping me out
here.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. I am good.
Ms. McCollum. Okay.
Ms. Pingree. Can I ask a question?
Ms. McCollum. Yes. Ms. Pingree.
Ms. Pingree. Sorry. I will go home and do a little
homework. Thank you all for the important work you do. It is
obviously under recognized most of the time, but I will do a
little homework. But will you just tell me what 3DEP means?
Mr. Palatiello. It is 3-Dimension Elevation Program.
Ms. Pingree. Oh, okay. So----
Mr. Palatiello. It is the topographic mapping of the
country. It is primarily collected through LIDAR, which is a
process where a sensor is mounted in the fuselage an airplane.
As it goes along a flight path, it is sending thousands of
lasers to the ground, and measuring the time it takes for that
laser to leave the airplane, hit the ground, and come back and
register with the sensor. And by doing thousands of pulses a
second, it goes along and all of a sudden the mountains rise
and the valleys fall. And that is how modern topographic
mapping is done. So this is a program to do with current
topographic mapping of the entire Nation.
Ms. Pingree. So, what is the range of an airplane? Like is
it----
Mr. Palatiello. The size of the swath?
Ms. Pingree. Yeah.
Mr. Palatiello. That depends on the altitude of the
aircraft, and that will relate to what the scale and resolution
of the mapping is that is guys hired.
So the lower it is, the broader the swath, and the higher
resolution the data is. The higher the altitude is, the more
narrow the swath and the less accurate or larger scale the
mapping will be. So what this program does is it did create
sort of a common denominator for the accuracy. All the
stakeholders were brought together. A study was done and looked
at both what was a reasonable budget and what was a scale of
mapping that would meet the greatest number of needs. And that
is the standard in 3DEP.
Ms. Pingree. So last question. So the topographic maps that
we currently have, we have them, but you are doing like the
next sort of digital electronic----
Mr. Palatiello. Yes. So you remember the pink and green
topographic maps with the contours. This is the next
generation. This is the replacement to that, which produces the
benefit of being both digital data so it can be used to plot it
and manipulate it, and also it can be printed.
Ms. Pingree. Perfect. Thanks so much.
Mr. Palatiello. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. I am just going to add on because I think one
of the things that you can 3DEP that we can't do with some of
the better precision satellites that we have where we can move
and position faster, is now we have a full complement. And I
think this is very exciting that if we need to look at
something, what is happening with a flood plain in a large
swath area, we are getting better satellite image to do that.
But you can do something that they can't do, and that is, and I
know the reason why Minnesota is not mapped is because of our
trees.
Ms. Pingree. Yes----
Ms. McCollum. No, the reason why they are not mapped is
because of our trees, because the satellites can't do what you
can do. And if you would explain a little more about what LiDAR
can do that the satellites can't do. And this is why they
complement each other and it is so exciting. My trees don't get
in the way. That is not why I am not mapped.
Mr. Palatiello. Well, there are a lot of trees in Maine as
well, and you can see Maine is a further along. [Laughter.]
So LiDAR does----
Ms. McCollum. All right, guys. I have the gavel.
[Laughter.]
Minnesota wins.
Mr. Palatiello. What LiDAR does is the technology enables
the collection of what I described before about the timing and
the distance from the sensor to the ground and back. You can do
that to the treetop, or you can do it to the bare earth, and
that way you can penetrate those tree canopies.
When we used to do mapping with old conventional aerial
photography, in Maine, for example, and Minnesota, particularly
the northern tier States in the country, particularly those
where you had deciduous trees, you could only fly aerial
photography mapping during a time of the year where there is
snow. Think about this in Maine. No snow on the ground. The sun
is high enough where you don't have long shadows. You can only
do it around noon time, I mean, a couple of hours midday, and
no leaves on the tree. What is that? That is 3 days in March in
Maine? [Laughter.]
I mean, in all seriousness, that was the challenge with
conventional aerial photography and photogrammetry. You no
longer have those constraints with LiDAR. The other benefit of
LiDAR is because you can measure that tree canopy, this is an
extraordinary tool in measuring, monitoring, verifying, and
validate the effects of climate change. You can measure the
biomass, and if we had a program where were doing the country
every year, we can go back year by year and saying, well, we
are losing 3 percent of our biomass in the country. And we
don't have that data now, so we can't define the effects or
measure the effects as precisely as we would like, but the
technology is there.
Ms. McCollum. So we have two tools in the toolbox. When we
can combine them now, we can get amazing, amazing in-depth and
real-time imagery. So it just means we have to be more creative
on how we finance both of these types of mapping to go forward
because they are both critically important. Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Simpson. No, I don't have any questions. I feel like
what I have learned here just in the last few minutes is that
we have a lot more forestry programs in Minnesota. [Laughter.]
Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Good morning, Mr. Stewart. Did you have a
question for the panel?
Mr. Stewart. No. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Mr. Joyce. Madam Chair.
Ms. McCollum. Yes?
Mr. Joyce. I think there is somebody at the table who is
celebrating today, if I am not mistaken.
Ms. McCollum. Really?
Mr. Joyce. There might be a birthday?
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you. [Laughter.]
Ms. McCollum. I respect you so much, Bonnie, I will not
lead ``Happy Birthday'' in a song. [Laughter.]
I would drive all our witnesses who are ready to approach
the table out of the room. I was asked to sing softly many
times in grade school.
So, Ranking Member Joyce, what we have been doing to stay
on time is we have been having the panels introduce themselves.
Mr. Joyce. That is great.
Ms. McCollum. And not counting their introduction time
against their testimony time. And we have found that, as you
come down in the panelists, right, you don't want to be the one
that is running 15 minutes, now it is 20, now it is a half an
hour behind. So I want to thank the panels for doing that.
I will probably be leaving during this panel, so after the
introductions, Mr. Joyce, Ms. Pingree will be taking the gavel.
Mr. Joyce. I am used to ladies being in charge on this
committee. [Laughter.]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. So please start.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
THE CORPS NETWORK
WITNESS
MARY ELLEN SPRENKEL, PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE CORPS NETWORK
Ms. Sprenkel. Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce,
members of the subcommittee, my name is Mary Ellen Sprenkel,
and I am the president and CEO of the Corps Network. On behalf
of the Corps Network, our 131 member corps, and the 25,000
diverse Corps members they annually engage, thank you for the
opportunity to testify before the subcommittee about utilizing
service and conservation corps to complete priority projects
with the National Park Service and related public land
management agencies.
Based on the model and philosophy of the Civilian
Conservation Corps of the 1930s, today's corps are locally-
based nonprofit organizations that engage young people between
the ages of 16 and 30, and recently returned veterans up to age
35, in service projects that address conservation, recreation,
disaster response, and community needs. Through a term of
service that could last several months to 1 year, corps
participants or corps members gain work experience and develop
in-demand skills.
Corps members are compensated with a stipend or living
allowance, and often receive an educational award or
scholarship upon completing their term of service.
Additionally, corps provide participants with educational
programming, mentoring, access to career and personal
counseling, and supportive services. Like the Civilian
Conservation Corps, today's corps work with the land management
agencies to maintain and improve our natural resources and
recreation infrastructure. Last year alone, corps built,
improved, or maintained more than 13,000 miles of multiuse
trail and waterways, restored 1.4 million acres of wild
wildlife and fish habitat, cleared almost 67,000 acres of
invasive species, removed 19,000 acres of hazardous fuel,
increased access to and utilization of nearly 8,000
recreational facilities, responded to 223 wildfires and other
natural disasters, preserved 336 historic structures, and
planted almost 1.1 million trees. Further, they leveraged an
additional 107,000 volunteers who completed 537,000 service
hours valuing more than $13 million.
In addition to traditional natural resource work, many
corps participate in projects to preserve America's historic
and cultural resources. Six years ago, the Corps Network
partnered with the Historic Trust for Historic Preservation to
develop the Hope Crew Model, and under this model traditional
corps crews work side by side with a historic preservation
expert to refurbish and maintain historic structures and
facilities. Several hundred projects have been completed in the
years since. Through these projects, corps members not only
develop a sense of connection to our country's history, but
learn marketable job skills.
Regardless of the type of project, land managers find corps
to be cost effective and capable of producing high-quality
work. The National Park Service commissioned an independent
study by Booz Allen Hamilton, which found that corps can save
up to 87 percent on certain maintenance projects. In addition,
in regular surveys, virtually all Federal partners report being
highly satisfied with the project work and say they would work
with a corps again.
With over $19 billion in deferred maintenance on Federal
lands, we need to harness America's growing enthusiasm for the
great outdoors and engage more people in service and
volunteerism on public lands. One obvious strategy is to engage
and bring to scale the existing network of corps to start
tackling a variety of deferred maintenance projects already
identified by the Restore Our Parks Project, which we will hear
more about in a moment.
The National Park Service relies on several funding streams
to engage corps in this work. Therefore, we respectfully
request that you support funding increases that directly
address deferred maintenance needs within the National Park
System. Specifically, we request strong funding levels for the
repair and rehabilitation, cyclic maintenance, and line item
construction accounts. In addition, we also request robust
funding for similar accounts of other land management agencies
under your jurisdiction, including the U.S. Forest Service, the
Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
Corps have long been cost-effective partners of Federal
land management agencies, and have been working to generate
excitement and new ways to engage youth and veterans in outdoor
service, while helping to accomplish much-needed project work.
The time has come to seriously consider corps as an essential
part of any plan to tackle deferred maintenance and usher in
future stewards and champions of our natural treasures.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I welcome any
questions.
[The statement of Ms. Sprenkel follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree [presiding]. Thank you. Ms. Brengel.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
KRISTEN BRENGEL, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, NATIONAL
PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION
Ms. Brengel. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. My name
is Kristen Brengle. I am the vice chair of government affairs
for the National Parks Conservation Association. I want to
thank Ranking Member Joyce and members of the subcommittee for
giving us the opportunity to testify today. We are grateful for
the work that all of you do on behalf of the national parks. In
fact, this committee is full of park champions that we are
thrilled about. Ranking Member Joyce, I want to thank you in
particular for your work on the Great Lakes, pollution,
invasive species, all of the issues up there. It has been great
working with you and your staff.
We truly appreciate all the subcommittee does for parks
given scarce funding. As the chair pointed out earlier, the
overall budget is tough to work with. In particular, we want to
thank you for the land and water conservation funding last
year. It was particularly impressive.
So I am here to share some concerns that we have about the
current state of our national parks and our worries about the
staff who protect them. We are hearing and seeing the
following. Morale is low. This is due to weakening policies, a
looming reorganization, and a lack of leadership. In fact, as
some of you may know, 10 of the 16 senior park service
positions that oversee critical departments, including
operations, interpretation, visitor, and resource protection,
and even the acting National Park Service director, are either
vacant or without a permanent leader. Second, many parks are
suffering unrepaired damage, as my colleague pointed out to the
right, and the effects of climate change. The other issue and,
Ms. Pingree, you know this very well, some of our popular parks
are completely overcrowded, including Acadia, which I was just
there. Beautiful. [Laughter.]
And this can lead to resource harm. The other issue is
conservation, is taking a backseat to development outside of
their borders. This is due to rampant drilling and mining,
proposals which this committee is very well aware of. And
specifically we thank you for Chaco, for the language on Chaco
Cultural.
In the last 3 years, NPCA has documented 112 administrative
actions that erode protections for waterways, wildlife, visitor
experiences, air quality, and quality of life for staff. The
consequences of these actions could be felt for generations. We
appreciate the committee's willingness to consider some of
these issues as you deliberate the bill.
To dive specifically into the National Parks Service
budget, park operations and deferred maintenance are our
highest funding priorities. One of the largest challenges
facing park superintendents is operating budgets insufficient
to prevent the reduction of personnel. One superintendent
recently reported uncontrollable fixed costs of more than 5
percent. This will no doubt result in fewer staff. One area
where the staff shortage becomes a major issue is with the huge
influx of visitors to many popular parks. With inadequate
staff, national parks are getting crushed.
Joshua Tree, for example, no longer has an off season.
There are just tons of people there through the year. In 2018,
there were 1.6 million more visitors than a decade prior,
similar to Zion and other parks in Utah. That 125 percent
increase in visitation was coupled by a 31 percent erosion of
base staffing levels. As an example, a Joshua Tree ranger was
making sure cars weren't parking on the side of the road,
crushing vegetation. When asked the range what his job actually
was, he said he was on the trail crew. Because he was dealing
with so many visitors, he couldn't work on the trail. This
means less maintenance. The lack of operations funding has a
ripple effect.
Now getting to the deferred maintenance backlog, it is one
of our highest priorities, and my colleague at Pew next to me
is going to testify in greater detail on this important issue.
But one example to point out is Great Sand Dunes. Some of the
pressing projects are very connected to visitors. The visitor
center roof, re-roofing of the comfort stations, and
rehabilitation of campgrounds, these are just some of the
thousands of examples that there are cross the park system. We
are working on other funding sources, including the bill that
Mr. Kilmer is leading, the Restore Our Parks and Public Lands
Act. We are thankful for that bill, and we appreciate all the
co-sponsors here. We hope that it gets signed into law this
year, but we still need this committee to focus on deferred
maintenance and routine maintenance as we look at the budget.
I should note a huge thanks for the Centennial Challenge
funding, which also helps with the maintenance backlog and
great programs; National Heritage Area funding, which is also a
wonderful program; Endangered Species Act funding, and, course,
the EPA's geographic programs in last year's bill.
As I mentioned earlier, we are alarmed by the impacts of
climate change. We must ensure the Park Service has the
resources and guidance they need to monitor climate change
impacts to the parks, and utilize the best available science to
help parks adapt to climate change. We can reduce repair costs
if parks have the funds they need to be resilient from the
start. On another topic, we appreciate your oversight on the
Interior Department's reorganization. We are concerned not just
about the BLM move, but the potential for a larger initiative
to harm management and stewardship of our parks. We don't want
the reorganization to undermine the Park Service's
conservation-driven work or the morale of Park staff. We
commend the oversight and the report language on this. We are
also happy that you were able to secure statutory reprogramming
language, which ensures greater oversight of the
administration, and reaffirms the role and powers of the
appropriators. This time last year, our parks were recovering
from a shutdown made worse by the Administration's use of fees
to keep parks open to harm. So we are grateful for your work on
the issue and hope we can identify more opportunities for your
engagement. Thank you so much.
[The statement of Ms. Brengel follows:]
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Ms. Pingree. Rebecca, tell me how to say your last name.
Ms. Knuffke. Knuffke.
Ms. Pingree. Knuffke. Thank you so much.
Ms. Knuffke. Thank you.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
RESTORE AMERICA'S PARKS, THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
WITNESS
REBECCA KNUFFKE, OFFICER, RESTORE AMERICA'S PARKS, THE PEW CHARITABLE
TRUSTS
Ms. Knuffke. So good morning, Ranking Member Joyce and
members of the subcommittee. I am Rebecca Knuffke, officer at
the Pew Charitable Trust Restore America's Parks Campaign. And
thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
The Pew Charitable Trusts applies a rigorous analytical
approach to improve public policy, inform the public, and
invigorate civic life. The Restore America's Parks Campaign
seeks to conserve the national assets of the National Park
System by providing commonsense long-term solutions to its
multibillion dollar repair backlog. The National Park Service
is responsible for managing and maintaining more than 400
nationally-significant sites in all 50 States and several
territories. These park units document the remarkable people,
heritage, and the places that comprise the ongoing story of
America.
Unfortunately, our 100-plus year old National Park Service
has an aging infrastructure that is deteriorating. Compounding
this challenge are visitation pressures on park resources. The
National Park Service recorded over 318 million visits in 2018
and years of inadequate funding for maintenance needs.
The Park Service is not able to keep up with the pace of
repairs for assets that include over 5,000 miles of paved
roads, nearly 1,500 bridges, 18,000 miles of trails, more than
28,000 buildings, including historic structures, employee
housing, over 2,000 sewage systems, and other facilities, such
as battlefields, campgrounds, interpretive facilities, and
monuments and memorials. As a result, the Agency must triage
repair needs, and it has a backlog of deferred maintenance that
is estimated to be $11.9 billion based on 2018 data.
Drawing down a maintenance backlog that has accrued over
decades requires a combined approach, one that includes robust
annual appropriations funding, dedicated funding, and policy
reforms to leverage technology and increased efficiencies.
Adequate discretionary investment is essential for NPS to keep
up with the maintenance needs, over three-quarters of which are
priority projects. Pew commends the subcommittee for providing
increases for NPS deferred maintenance in recent years, and we
respectfully urge you to build on the support in Fiscal Year
2021 as there still is a substantial gap between NPS
discretionary funding and what the Agency needs to address its
priority projects repairs.
Specifically, within the operation of the National Park
System and construction appropriations, Pew urges the
subcommittee to maximize allocations for repair and rehab,
cyclic maintenance, and line item construction accounts. These
accounts provide the bulk of the necessary funding for the Park
Service to undertake maintenance that will keep our national
parks accessible to the public and safe. Funding for planning
and adequate staffing capacity, as Kristen mentioned, are also
critical to the execution of repair and maintenance needs, and
we ask that these accounts be funded as robustly as possible.
Further, we urge the allocation of $4 million for employee
housing to help expedite correcting the dilapidated state of
ranger housing. According to NPS, deferred maintenance for
employee housing totaled more than $186 million in Fiscal Year
2018, yet the Agency received only $2.2 million that year for
the housing improvement program. Another important program that
my colleagues have also mentioned, the Centennial Challenge
program, which matches Federal dollars with private donations
and directs the monies towards priority deferred maintenance
projects and other park programs. This has the potential to
leverage even more funding, and by raising the annual
appropriations from $20 million to $30 million, Federal dollars
could encourage more partner and private donations,
facilitating the repair of even more park infrastructure.
Dedicated funding is also an important way to draw down the
backlog, and the Restore Our Parks and Public Lands Act, and
thanks again to Representative Kilmer for his leadership on
this bill, and also Congressman Bishop here in the House, and
the companion Restore Our Parks Act sponsored by Senators
Portman, Warner, Alexander, and King in the Senate, would
direct over $6 billion of Federal agency energy development
revenue to tackle park repairs over a 5-year period. This
dedicated funding source would provide consistent, reliable
funding to enable NPS to better plan for complicated large-
scale project repairs. If enacted, this bipartisan, widely-
supported legislation, endorsed by over three-quarters of the
House, half of the Senate, the Administration, and 82 percent
of the American public, would provide NPS the resources to help
tackle its highest priority repairs. The intent of the
legislation is not to supplant annual appropriations, however,
which are needed to ensure that NPS can do current maintenance
work needed to prevent the repairs from escalating and becoming
more expensive over time.
In conclusion, fixing our parks has overwhelming support
from Congress and the American public. To be successful, NPS
needs robust annual appropriations and dedicated funding, and
we appreciate the discretionary increases in park maintenance
accounts over the past several years, and encourage the
subcommittee to continue to build on that investment. Thank you
for your consideration of Pew's request and for your continued
support of our national parks. And, Chairwoman McCollum, I will
just add that it comes to me through my family. My stepmother
was a Park Service superintendent at Voyageurs National Park in
your beautiful State. So thank you again.
[The statement of Ms. Knuffke follows:]
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Thursday, February 6, 2020.
NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION
WITNESS
TOM CASSIDY, VICE PRESIDENT FOR GOVERNMENT RELATIONS AND POLICY,
NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION
Mr. Cassidy. Okay. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce,
and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate this opportunity
to present the National Trust testimony. My name is Tom
Cassidy. I am the vice president of government relations. The
National Trust is a privately-funded nonprofit chartered by
Congress in 1949. We work to save America's historic places to
enrich our future. And this is the line I have been practicing,
and it is the best line I have ever delivered in this room.
[Laughter.]
Thank you for creating and enacting last year's bill. It
was the most preservation-friendly appropriations bill in the
history of the republic, both for its historic funding levels
and also for policy directions throughout the report. Thank
you. We are confident that this subcommittee will continue its
robust support for funding for programs within your
jurisdiction. My written testimony includes recommendations on
a variety of reports, as did our best-selling report from last
year now in production for this year.
Let's start with the third successive year of record
funding for the Historic Preservation Fund. Last year's level
of $118.6 million represents a 46 percent increase from Fiscal
Year 2017 levels. HBF funding supports fundamental preservation
activities provided by State and tribal preservation officers,
including survey, nomination of properties to the National
Register, and project reviews required for historic tax credit
projects. Among many highlights within the competitive grants
programs, we would like to emphasize the committee's $15-and-a-
half million appropriation for the successful African-American
Civil Rights Program and the new $2-and-a-half million program
to preserve and highlight sites and stories associated with
securing civil rights for all Americans, including women,
American Latino, Native American, and LGBTQ Americans. This
subcommittee made that happen. Thank you. And this really
promises to be a lasting legacy to recognize the sights and
stories that tell our fullest and most inclusive history. And,
of course, our national stories also benefit from your strong
commitment to increased funding for Save America's Treasures.
In terms of National Park Service and the operation of the
Park System, a small, but important, increase last year within
resource stewardship was $1 million for the African-American
Civil Rights Reconstruction Era and other networks. We urge an
increase for these programs this year, including language that
would make some of these funds available for grants to network
sites. We have had a lot of discussion about in NPS deferred
maintenance, so I will try to shorten this area. But this
committee has been a champion of tackling this program, and of
the $12 billion DM backlog, 47 percent of that is attributed to
historic assets.
We have for years really focused on the repair and rehab
and the cyclical maintenance programs. Marginal increases in
these accounts are spread out throughout the system. They form
the basis to fund core network projects and crew projects, so
we would just really emphasize sustained investment in these.
They are not high profile. Cyclical maintenance is not like a
line item construction project, but it has broad-based impact
throughout the system. And we also strongly support the
creation of a reliable dedicated funding source. Thank you, Mr.
Kilmer, for your sponsorship of that, and Mr. Bishop. And
everybody here is a co-sponsor, so thank you for that.
In terms of the Park Service cultural programs, thank you
for your attention to the Agency's proposed revisions of
procedures for listing projects on the National Register, and
language calling for the agency to withdraw its proposed rule
and consult with stakeholders. We are monitoring the situation
closely, but remain concerned with the direction the Service
may take. I would also like to address the Bureau of Land
Management, specifically, the Cultural Resources Program. Not
as many people realize that BLM oversees the largest, most
diverse, and scientifically-important collection of historic
and cultural resources on our Nation's public lands. We
appreciate the committee's commitment to ongoing oversight of
the Department's reorganization. Please sustain that oversight.
The Trust and many other organizations continue to be concerned
with the impact of the reorganization and loss of staff within
the Cultural Resources Division.
You directed funding last year of $1-and-a-half million
within the BLM cultural resources account for something called
the National Cultural Resources Information Management System.
But basically, as we learned from our USGS friends earlier, if
you don't map it, you can't save it. And this program is an
innovative partnership between BLM and state historic
preservation officers to support predictive modeling and data
analysis to enhance planning for large cross-jurisdictional
projects. It is a significant and too often overlooked
preservation success story, and we would recommend once again
providing specific funding for that above enacted.
And my time is over, so thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Cassidy follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much for your presentation and
your thoughtful words, and thank you to everybody here. Of
course, we greatly appreciate the work that all of you do. It
is vitally important in States like mine, but everywhere across
the country. Mr. Kilmer, do you have any questions or thoughts?
Mr. Kilmer. I had a couple. Is that all right?
Ms. Pingree. Go for it, yeah.
Mr. Kilmer. First, for the Corps Network, it is not a
question. I just want to take a moment to say thank you for the
amazing work you do. Thanks for the amazing work you do. In our
neck of the woods, Jay Satz from the Northwest Youth Corps,
does outstanding work, innovative work. We are really lucky to
have him. And it is really, I think, a great example of the
work that happens in our local communities by the Corps
Network. So I can make it a question by just saying don't you
agree----
[Laughter.]
So let the record show she said yes. I do also want to
express gratitude for your references to the maintenance
backlog within our Park System. This subcommittee and our
chair, I think, has worked very hard to ensure that the Agency
has sufficient funding, but we know that there is an $11
billion, with a ``B,'' maintenance backlog. And to your point,
the Restore Our Parks and Public Lands Act is targeted at
addressing that. NPCA, Pew, have been terrific partners in
this. We have got 330 co-sponsors at this point, and I think
that is a testament to your organizations collectively for
making the case. I guess my question is, so what else should we
be doing?
Ms. Brengel. We need to get it to the floor as quickly as
possible.
Ms. Knuffke. We need to get it to the floor. And I will
just add that there are 39 appropriators on the bill as co-
sponsors on the dedicated funding bill, so that is impressive.
Ms. Brengel. Yeah. I don't know if you read in the E&E
newsletter this morning, Mr. McConnell also talked about
bringing it to the Senate floor, so it would be really great if
we could move it in both chambers this year. So we did so much
work.
Mr. Kilmer. Yeah.
Ms. Brengel. It is time to move it.
Mr. Kilmer. Yeah, let's get it done. Thank you. Thanks. I
yield back.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much. Mr. Joyce? No? Mr.
Stewart? Again, we greatly appreciate your support helping to
make the case for the things that I think this committee knows
are really important, and I feel confident Mr. Kilmer will get
the bill to the floor. Laughter.]
With his great power and wisdom. Thank you, and thanks so
much for the work that all of you do.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. The next panel will come up. You guys are so
quick and efficient, getting right up there. So we are excited
to have our next panel. Thank you, Mr. Kolton.
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
ALASKA WILDERNESS ACTION
WITNESS
ADAM KOLTON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALASKA WILDERNESS ACTION
Mr. Kolton. Thank you. Thanks for having me. My name is
Adam Kolton. I am the executive director of Alaska Wilderness
League, which is the only national organization devoted
exclusively to the production of Alaska's national treasures,
for which the Interior Department plays such a critical role in
stewarding for the benefit of all Americans here, because there
are two of our national treasures in Alaska that are at grave
risk, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Tongass
National Forest.
As we speak, the Administration is rushing to hold the
first-ever oil and gas lease sale in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge, and in the process, we believe it is
sidestepping environmental laws, sidelining scientists,
skipping required consultation with indigenous people. This
process jeopardizes the very values to which President
Eisenhower originally set aside this area, endangering not only
iconic wildlife, such as threatened polar bears, but the way of
life the Gwich'in people and their 15 villages.
Beyond that, and perhaps most notable for members of the
subcommittee, the Interior Department has also completely
abandoned its commitment and the legislative requirement of the
2017 Tax Act that arctic refuge lease sales generate $2.2
billion in revenue, half of which for the Federal Treasury.
Thanks to this subcommittee and the good work of the chair,
last year's bill attempted to direct the Bureau of Land
Management to set minimum lease sale bids to meet the required
revenues of the Tax Act, and it was retained on the House floor
in a strong bipartisan fashion.
But unfortunately, it wasn't included in the final bill,
and, as a result, the BLM could in the coming months hold a
lease sale that auctions off this cherished landscape at fire
sale prices, setting up a future scenario in which Congress
will need to appropriate even more money to buy back leases
from oil companies that will bid low and attempt to sell back
high. Last year in response to the subcommittee's actions, we
heard drilling proponents argue against any requirement to meet
the promised revenue targets. This begs the question, were the
highly-touted revenue and oil bonanza production simply a ruse
to catch a ride on the budget reconciliation train? Why are
some now so fearful and opposed to language that simply
enforces what Congress already passed? Might they be worried
that major banks, like Goldman Sachs, who are unwilling to
finance arctic refuge oil and gas development?
Alaska's senior center acknowledged that the goal here is
simply to get leases out in the hands of oil companies because
then, ``it is tougher to throw roadblocks in place.'' The
Administration's intent here is clear: get leases sold no
matter the cost or, in this case, whatever the taxpayer rip-off
may be. Considering this, it is not surprising that the
Administration is barreling toward a lease sale in ways that
not only disregard the fiscal consequences, but also the impact
to the resources on the ground.
Take the issue of polar bears. Climate change and
disappearing sea ice is causing bears to come on shore more
frequently in search of food and to build their winter
maternity dens. Yet the Interior Department has developed no
meaningful restrictions on seismic exploration to prevent the
killing of polar bears. If all that weren't troubling enough,
Politico has reported the Administration has silenced
scientists and pressured others in pursuit of advancing leasing
as quickly as possible. Given the reckless manner which the
Interior Department is seeking to hand over this national
treasure to oil companies and its disregard for the
requirements of the Tax Act, including its own revenue
assumptions, we ask you to again include language in the
underlying bill that forces the Administration to meet its
promises and its legal responsibilities.
We similarly ask the subcommittee's help to rein in the
Administration as it seeks to exempt the entire 17 million acre
Tongass National Forest from roadless protections. You know, we
heard the President talk about planting a trillion trees. These
are 800-year old trees. This is America's rain forest, and
there are enormous subsidies that are still intact for the
Tongass. It makes no sense to, on the one hand, talk about
planting trees to sequester carbon, and the other, subsidize
the destruction of our most iconic cherished American
rainforests.
The Alaska Wilderness League strongly supported
Representative Blumenauer's amendment, successful amendment, to
last year's bill to end taxpayer subsidies for road building
activity in the Tongass. And, you know, even now, the Forest
Service timber program is costing taxpayers about $30 million
per year for a loss of approximately $600 million over the last
20 years. We urge you to include the Blumenauer language which
passed the House with a bipartisan 243-188 vote in this year's
underlying bill. Doing so would protect U.S. taxpayers,
southeast Alaska's vibrant outdoor economy, hunting, fishing,
and outdoor recreation interests, as well as wildlife and our
climate.
Thank you for the opportunity to testimony and share our
views.
[The statement of Mr. Kolton follows:]
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Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much. Mr. Stretton.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT (POGO)
WITNESS
TIM STRETTON, POLICY ANALYST, PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT (POGO)
Mr. Stretton. Thank you, Congresswoman Pingree, and Ranking
Member Joyce, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for
the opportunity to testify today. My name is Tim Stretton, and
I am a policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight,
or POGO. POGO is a nonpartisan, independent watchdog that
investigates and exposes waste, corruption, abuse of power, and
when the government fails to serve the public. For decades,
POGO has shed the light on the need for the Federal Government
to ensure oil and natural gas industries are paying their fair
share for the publicly-owned onshore and offshore resources
they extract and profit from.
POGO has recommendations to provide more accountability and
transparency for oil and gas royalty policy at the Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management. We urge the subcommittee to prohibit
the use of funds to approve leases where the bureau
retroactively lowered its valuations without public notice, and
requires that no public funds be spent on approving delayed
value leases that were not evaluated by a neutral third party.
The Bureau administers offshore drilling rights and
periodically holds auctions in which bidders obtained leases
for the underlying oil and gas deposits under specific tracts
of land. These resources are owned by the taxpayer, so the
Bureau is legally required to ensure that taxpayers receive
fair market value, in part, by collecting royalties on the sale
for oil and gas produced from these lands. But the Bureau's
royalty release procedures often leave tens of billions of
dollars in the pockets of the extractive industry rather than
being returned to taxpayers.
In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office
identified two additional procedures the Interior Department
has engaged in for decades that may not have resulted in a full
fair market return. The GAO's analysis closely tracks with the
findings of POGO's 2018 report, ``Drilling Down Big Oil's
Bidding.'' And the nonpartisan organization, Taxpayers for
Common Sense, has reported similar problems at the Department's
Bureau of Land Management through its increased use of awarding
of noncompetitive leases.
The Bureau sets royalty rates for offshore oil and gas and
can reduce or waive royalty payments in an attempt to increase
production. But as the Bureau itself has found, the practice
often means taxpayers lose out on the fair return they are
owed. The GAO found that leases that had been awarded between
1996 and 2000 resulted in about $18 billion--that is billion
with a ``B''--in foregone royalties through 2018. When it
auctions off tracts of land, the Bureau is supposed to reject
bids that are below the estimated value of the land. Instead,
however, the GAO found that when a bid comes in lower than the
Bureau's own valuation, the Bureau often retroactively lowers
its initial value and then accepts the bid. The GAO estimated
that between March 2000 and June 2018, the Bureau could have
collected $567 million in addition auction revenue if it had
not engaged in this practice so consistently.
The Bureau does not disclose when it awards drilling rights
based on reduced valuations, and because of this, the practice
of lowering valuations has resulted in the loss of hundreds of
millions of dollars in public revenue. This committee has a
vested interest in ensuring that the Bureau is held
accountable. To provide that accountability, we urge the
subcommittee to prohibit the use of funds to approve leases
when the Bureau retroactively lowers its valuation without
public notice.
The GAO's report also highlighted problems with how the
Bureau considers the present value and the delayed value of a
tract of sea floor, which may have resulted, again, in $873
million in foregone revenue from March 2000 to June 2018.
Again, that is money that should have gone to the American
taxpayer. If a bid is lower than the present value, but higher
than the delayed value, the Bureau can accept it, but the
Bureau has been projecting delayed values to be lower than they
should be, allowing it to accept lower bids.
The GAO found that the Bureau's unrealistically large
forecast of depreciation have increasingly been the deciding
factor in accepting lower bids, and, as a result, the
government is unnecessarily passing up hundreds of millions of
dollars in potential revenue. GAO recommended that an
independent third party should examine whether the Interior
Department's use of delayed values deliver fair market value
and whether it should stop using these lower valuations. POGO
believes that such an independent examination would bring about
greater accountability to the bid valuation process. We
recommend that this subcommittee require no funds be spent on
approving a delayed value lease that was not evaluated by a
third party.
Again, POGO has prepared recommendations to provide more
accountability and transparency for oil and gas policy at the
Bureau, which we would be happy to provide to the subcommittee.
Thank you for the opportunity, again, to testify today, and I
am happy to answer any questions you may have.
[The statement of Mr. Stretton follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much. Mr. Messmer.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
OCEANA
WITNESS
MICHAEL MESSMER, OCEAN ADVOCATE, OCEANA
Mr. Messmer. Good morning. Thank you, Congresswoman
Pingree, Ranking Member Joyce, and members of the subcommittee
for this opportunity. I am Mike Messmer, an ocean advocate at
Oceana, the largest international advocacy organization devoted
solely to oceans conservation. I am here to speak in opposition
to expanded offshore oil and gas drilling, particularly to the
Trump Administration's 2019-2024 5-year program for offshore
oil and gas leasing that the Department of Interior's Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management is currently developing.
Oceana thanks the committee and members for including
provisions in the Fiscal Year 2020 Interior, Environment
appropriations bill to restrict funding for offshore oil and
gas leasing in the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Eastern
Gulf of Mexico. There is longstanding precedent for this as
Congress for nearly 3 decades heeded concerns from the
communities it represents and restricted spending on offshore
Federal oil and gas leasing and drilling activities via the
appropriations process.
We urge the committee to include these offshore drilling
moratoria again as you craft the Fiscal Year 2021 base bill. We
also encourage committee leaders to work with the Senate to
include these provisions in any final package.
The 5-year program governs when and where BOEM can offer
offshore drilling leases to the oil and gas industry. In
January 2018, the Trump Administration released its 2019-2024
draft proposed program. As it stands, this proposal would
radically expand future oil and gas leasing to the Atlantic,
Pacific, and Arctic Oceans as well as off Florida's Gulf Coast.
The draft plan proposes opening the vast majority of the outer
continental shelf. Reinstating offshore drilling moratoria
through the appropriations process would prevent BOEM from
leasing specific areas that Congress wishes to protect from
future offshore drilling. Without moratoria provisions,
Congress relinquishes its power to influence the future of
offshore drilling to the executive branch.
Offshore drilling threatens the continued prosperity of
coastal communities and States whose economies are directly
tied to clean oil-free shores and waters. As of today,
opposition and concern over offshore drilling activities has
been expressed by every East and West Coast governor, more than
380 municipalities, over 2,300 State, local, and Federal
elected officials, Democrats and Republicans alike, and
alliances representing over 56,000 businesses and more than 500
fishing families. In addition to permanently altering the
landscape of many towns up and down the East and West Coasts,
offshore drilling is a dirty investment with long-term
implications for the environment and the safety of workers.
Large-scale catastrophies, such as BP's Deepwater Horizon
in 2010, highlight how a single accident can cause enormous and
lasting consequences. The Deepwater Horizon tragedy killed 11
rig workers, spilled more than 200 million gallons of oil,
fouled thousands of miles of coastline, endangered public
health, and killed thousands of birds, dolphins, and fish.
Seaside communities on the Gulf are still recovering physically
and economically from the estimated $36.9 billion in damage
caused by the Deepwater Horizon spill.
Offshore oil development is dirty across the board beyond
catastrophic spills that make headlines. At least 6,500 oil
spills occurred in U.S. waters between 2007 and 2017; further,
are typically far larger than what is reported. During that
same time period, hundreds of workers were injured every year,
and, on average, a fire or explosion erupted on offshore rigs
every 3 days on the outer continental shelf.
Offshore oil and gas exploration activities, such as high-
intensity geophysical seismic surveys, pose dangers to marine
life before commercial drilling even begins. Noise from these
dynamite-like blasts is so loud that it can disturb, injure, or
even kill animals across the entire marine ecosystem from the
smallest zooplankton to the largest whales. The North Atlantic
right whale, one of the most endangered marine mammal species
in the world, is a particular concern. Experts say seismic air
gun blasting for oil and gas exploration may well represent a
tipping point for the survival of this critically-endangered
whale.
We urge the subcommittee and committee to restrict any
funding in the Fiscal Year 2021 Interior, Environment
appropriations bill for the purpose of conducting any new
offshore oil and gas leasing and related activities. Threats to
coastal economies, marine wildlife, and your own constituents
are simply too great to risk expanding the footprint of
offshore drilling. Thank you again for the opportunity to
testify today.
[The statement of Mr. Messmer follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you all very much for your testimony and
for the critical work that your organizations are doing. I just
want to make a couple of comments, particularly, well, to each
one of you. But thank you to POGO for the work that you have
done on the report, researching this. And I think particularly
in light of the last panel where, funding for land and water
conservation, the Kilmer bill that is proposed, so much of it
depends on how much we receive on these leases. So the idea
that there would be any mechanism that would reduce the amount
that we receive, and also that there is no transparency, is
really unthinkable. So thank you for bringing to light, and I
hope we can do some work on that in the next bill.
Certainly we are all concerned about the Administration's
proposals in Alaska, and even as far as Maine, I hear from my
constituents about this all the time because I do think we
think of these as national treasures. In terms of the logging
rights, as you mentioned, the President just said we are going
to plant 1 million trees, and we don't need to cut down trees
in areas where we should be protecting them. And obviously
there are appropriate places for forestry harvesting. My State
is one of them. But there are places in public lands where we
shouldn't be doing that.
And I am particularly disturbed about the leasing of oil
and gas opportunities, particularly when we are not paid the
full value. But even more importantly, I think as solar, and
wind, and renewable resources become even more affordable, the
fact that we are not investing in that, yet we are encouraging
and supporting and subsidizing oil and gas leases, is
ridiculous at this moment in time when we have bigger concerns
to think about.
I just heard someone give a talk that said 5 years ago in 1
percent of the world, solar and wind was more financially
feasible than oil and gas. Five years later, today, in two-
thirds of the world, it is more cost-effective to invest in
solar and wind. So the very idea that we are supporting that is
unthinkable. It also makes a lot of those resources subprime,
and so over time, the reason the value is going down is because
it is increasingly less valuable. The reason these companies
want, you know, a cheaper, no expense to their bid is because
they know in the future there is not going to be much support
for it. So it is just bad policy all the way.
And, of course, being from an ocean State where we have so
many concerns about the future of the ocean, and I think you
know our entire delegation, our tripartisan delegation, and our
governor, our State legislature are just furious at the idea
that the Administration would suggest that we should drill. It
would be a huge challenge to our fishing industry, it would be
a disaster to our tourism industry, two very important
industries to our State. And it doesn't make any sense, and we
are much more interested in offshore wind and solar projects,
and that is where our money should be.
So obviously I didn't ask you guys any questions, but I
just wanted to rant there for a minute and really support the
work that you are doing. And I am so grateful for you helping
us to make that case. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. I certainly appreciate all of you coming today
and the information that you have provided all of us. I don't
have any further questions. Thank you.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you each for the
work you do. Mr. Messmer, last week I was in Grays Harbor
County, Washington out on the coast meeting with folks who work
in the fishing industry. And obviously it has been a
challenging time. And the concern about offshore drilling is
real, you know. It is perceived in our region by Democrats,
Republicans, you name it, as a real threat to those
livelihoods, to our maritime industry, to commercial fishing,
sport fishing, tourism. We have a $50 billion maritime economy,
almost 200,000 jobs supported by it just in Washington State
alone, and it is incompatible with oil and gas development.
You spoke about hoping to see in the bill restriction of
funds to be used for offshore drilling. Any other direction
either to this committee or to Congress to protect the coastal
communities that are really put at risk?
Mr. Messmer. Thank you. I think at this time what we would
really like to see is the restoration of these funding
restrictions to the bill. They had a 30-year. This is nothing
new. They are something out of the legacy of Congress. This is
something that Congress had done in response to the will of its
constituents and because of the interest of members as well for
almost 30 years from 1982 to 2008. And so we very much think
that this is returning, restoring these provisions to the bill
as you did last year. Unfortunately, we didn't make it through
the Senate and on to the White House. But, you know, obviously
regardless, we keep pushing on that front as well as protecting
the North Atlantic from seismic. I know there was language that
Mr. Cunningham offered last year, which was amended to the
bill. And we obviously support that language as well.
Mr. Kilmer. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Messmer. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. I want to just add, I meant to say that. But
thank you so much for the data and the support around limiting
seismic drilling exploration. Obviously the right whale is a
huge topic in the Gulf of Maine, and we are concerned about
every threat to the right whales, and so thank you for making
that case.
Thank you to the panel. We appreciate all your work, and we
appreciate your being here today. And we will look forward to
our last, but certainly not least, panel of the morning.
Okay. Well, thank you for being so prompt, and we will go
ahead and begin this panel. Thank you, Ms. Kraska.
Ms. Kraska. Kraska.
Ms. Pingree. Kraska, yes.
Ms. Kraska. Mm-hmm.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Ms. Kraska. Exactly how it sounds. Thank you so much. I
appreciate it.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
ASPCA
WITNESS
KATIE KRASKA, SENIOR MANAGER OF FEDERAL LEGISLATION, ASPCA
Ms. Kraska. Good morning, Vice Chair Pingree, Ranking
Member Joyce, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for
the opportunity to testify on the non-lethal and sustainable
management of our Nation's wild horses and burros under the
care of the BLM. My name is Katie Kraska, and I am the senior
manager of Federal legislation for the American Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Wild horses and burros are a key segment of the equine
population at the ASPCA is working hard to protect. We
appreciate the subcommittee's continued commitment to non-
lethal management, most recently extending these protections to
herds on U.S. Forest Service lands in Fiscal Year 2020.
Recognizing the American public's overwhelming opposition to
horse slaughter and killing for population control, Congress
has, since the late 1980s, prohibited lethal management of our
wild herds, and we urge that this continue in Fiscal Year 2021.
But wild horses and burros need more than these protections
to thrive for generations to come. That is why I am here today
to speak in support of a new humane path forward for the Wild
Horse and Burro Program. If there is one thing that everyone on
all sides of this highly-polarized issue can agree on, it is
that the status quo is not working. This program is in
desperate need of a change, and know that ASPCA does not agree
with the BLM's current view that the 31 million acres of land
allotted for wild horses and burros can only support 27,000
equines. We know that achieving a sustainable program requires
a stable population over time.
The current strategy of moving horses off range and into
holding facilities is not capable of achieving this goal
because it does nothing to address population growth. We end up
with more horses on range, more horses off range, and a
shrinking budget to use on active management. Last year, off-
range holding costs devoured 67 percent of the program's annual
budget. Despite the negativity and polarization that has
plagued this issue for decades, we want to focus on solutions.
For the first time, and in large part due to the
subcommittee's leadership, we have an opportunity to slowly but
surely steer this program on to a sustainable and humane
course. The ASPCA, along with other humane and wild horse
advocacy groups, recognize that the BLM's Wild Horse and Burro
Program needed not only an overhaul, but direction on how to
accomplish it. Our goal was a paradigm shift away from removals
and towards on-range management achieved with proven, safe, and
humane fertility control. That is why we developed a
comprehensive science-driven, non-lethal management plan that
will achieve this goal within 1 decade.
Wild horse and burrow management has vexed administration
after administration, Congress after Congress, which is why it
is a privilege to be able to thank the vice chair, the ranking
members of the subcommittee, and their staff for their hard
work and unprecedented action in the Fiscal Year 2020 Interior
appropriations bill. In the end, this committee allocated an
additional $21 million for a new management plan. It takes
courage and expertise to recognize the need for action.
This was a truly bipartisan effort, and we applaud the
subcommittee's directive to BLM to ensure that effective and
humane fertility control is adopted as the central pillar of
its management program, and to strictly adhere to its
comprehensive animal welfare program to ensure that horses and
burros on and off range are always handled humanely. With the
support of a wide variety of stakeholders, we are carving a
humane path forward for these iconic animals of which Americans
can be proud.
Assuming that the BLM meets Congress' requirements, we urge
the committee to continue to increase funding for BLM's Wild
Horse and Burro Program in Fiscal Year 2021. We look forward to
seeing BLM's forthcoming report outlining how it intends to use
the additional $21 million in funds, which we hope will convey
their clear commitment to a humane path forward. We also
support the subcommittee's commitment to oversight and
understand that Agency input and communication are critical to
the lasting success of these efforts.
From a humane and scientific standpoint, the most cost-
effective way to rebalance this program is to dedicate maximum
funding up front, but correct implementation, especially of
fertility control, is key. Ultimately, the American public
wants to see wild, free-roaming horses and burros managed with
their well-being in mind. We thank the committee for taking
action to achieve this and for considering funding and
programmatic needs for the Wild Horse and Burro Program in
Fiscal Year 2020. I welcome your questions.
[The statement of Ms. Kraska follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much. Ms. Marienfeld?
Ms. Marienfeld. Marienfeld, yes.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
SOUTHERN UTAH WILDERNESS ALLIANCE
WITNESS
KYA MARIENFELD, WILDLANDS ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN UTAH WILDERNESS ALLIANCE
Ms. Marienfeld. I represent the Southern Utah Wilderness
Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of the
outstanding wilderness at the heart of the Colorado Plateau. We
thank you for providing the opportunity to present our views on
the subcommittee's support for the Bureau of Land Management's
financial involvement in the State of Utah's Watershed
Restoration Initiative, a partnership that has resulted in tens
of millions of Federal taxpayer dollars spent on the
destruction of native ecosystems throughout public lands and
Utah. Specifically, we are concerned that the subcommittee's
explicit support for this partnership greenlights BLM spending
on large-scale removal of native vegetation risks diverting
limited agency monies away from critical staffing needs, and
results in irreparable damage to Utah Public Lands.
Utah's Watershed Restoration Initiative, which I will refer
to as the Initiative, is founded and coordinated by the Utah
State Department of Natural Resources. The Initiative is a
coalition of public and private entities created to fund and
promote vegetation and habitat projects in Utah. The money
pooling function of the initiative has undoubtedly produced a
continual increase in vegetation removal on BLM managed public
lands in our State.
In the report accompanying the appropriations bill for
2020, this subcommittee highlighted its concern over ongoing
drought in the western United States, and overtly endorsed
BLM's continued funding of the Initiative to, as the
subcommittee stated, ``develop water resources to benefit the
public, wildlife, endangered species, permits use, and other
users.'' But vegetation removal projects, called vegetation
treatments or habitat restoration, take many forms. Often the
initiative invests in projects that employ heavy machinery and
extensive surface disturbance.
One prevalent method is mastication where a machine known
as a bull hog is used to mulch vegetation, turning entire
forests of live trees into thousands of acres of wood chips and
stumps. Chaining utilizes a large anchor chain dragged between
two enormous bulldozers to rip live trees out of the ground,
roots and all. These chain masticators and other heavy
equipment destroy the fragile living soil crust that is the
backbone of the Colorado Plateau ecosystem, and is our main
defense against future drought and desertification.
While preventing drought and fire and protecting watersheds
are laudable goals for BLM, science tells us that the large-
scale disturbance resulting from these projects can actually
make these problems worse. BLM is spending millions of dollars
a year on projects with no proven track record of success and
with no real plan to develop the science necessary to increase
those odds in the future. Furthermore, the Initiative's funding
regime has created a tail-wagging-the-dog situation as this
pool of money has grown, so has the size and scale of
vegetation removal projects proposed by BLM, regardless of
science and research that recommends otherwise.
Since 2006, BLM has contributed over $80 million in funding
to support initiative projects in Utah. It is exceptionally
difficult for the public to follow the trail of financing from
congressional appropriation to BLM funding of initiative
projects. We are concerned that discretionary agency monies are
being moved away from other needs, such as filling critical BLM
field office staffing vacancies and positions ranging from law
enforcement officers to biologists, and is instead being
transferred to a money pooling coalition controlled by the
State of Utah. Rather than protecting water resources, this
taxpayer money is being used to fund the removal of native
trees and shrubs, which results in a degraded ecosystem on
public lands. Our concern over a lack of transparency is
heightened when considering the revolving door between
leadership at the Department of Interior and the State of Utah.
We are not advocating that truly degraded ecosystems can
never benefit from human help, but rather that the subcommittee
should not continue to effectively grant BLM blanket approval
to fund large-scale vegetation removal projects through this
initiative partnership. We believe that additional
appropriations oversight is necessary to ensure that BLM's
funding pipeline for so-called watershed restoration projects
is transparent, and that projects are grounded in high-quality
science and monitoring, and that discretionary BLM funds are
not being diverted from necessary staffing and resource needs
toward Initiative projects.
We encourage the subcommittee to take a hard look at its
endorsement of this partnership. Issues of accountability, both
through BLM's funding process as well as when public funds are
in the Initiative's hands, and the Initiative's continual
promotion of projects that benefit economic interests at the
detriment of all other resource values. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Marienfeld follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much. Mr. Simpson. You are
well-miked today. [Laughter.]
Mr. Simpson. Stereo right here.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
PUBLIC LANDS FOUNDATION
WITNESS
DON SIMPSON, VICE PRESIDENT, PUBLIC LANDS FOUNDATION
Mr. Simpson. Well, thank you for the opportunity to testify
today. My name is Don Simpson. I am the vice president of an
organization called the Public Lands Foundation, PLF. We are a
national nonprofit organization. We are nearly all retired
employees of the Bureau of Land Management and have a large
body of experience, expertise, and knowledge of public land
management. I am here today to present our program priorities
for the 2021 budget for BLM.
The first program area is balanced energy development. I
think we have had a little discussion already. We believe the
subcommittee should support the environmentally-responsible and
balanced development of all energy resources. This includes
oil, gas, coal, solar, wind, and geothermal. It also includes
the associated pipeline and transmission infrastructure. It is
critically important that sufficient funds are provided to not
only support the leasing and permitting activities, but also
the land use planning, the resource assessments, the NEPA
reviews, the program management, and the inspection and
enforcement activities.
Sage-grouse habitat is the second issue that we have. As
the West has become urbanized over the last 100 years, large
areas of sagebrush have been impacted, resulting in significant
sage-grouse population declines. The PLF recommends increased
funding for the BLM to coordinate activities on public lands
with State agencies, stakeholders, and partners to improve and
restore habitat that has been damaged by wildfire, weed
invasions, and development. Conserving and restoring habitat
for sage-grouse will also enhance populations for elk, mule
deer, golden eagles, and hundreds of sagebrush-dependent
species.
Wild horses and burros, number three. So I am going to tag
on to what Ms. Kraska was talking about. The overpopulation of
wild horses and burros on the range is now nearly 4 times its
targeted management level, and it is past a critical point, and
it is doing irreparable harm to the land, the vegetation, the
wildlife, and the animals themselves. The PLF has been working
as a partner with a broad coalition of diverse stakeholders
that are seeking a solution to the problem. The only viable
approach for resolution is the implementation of a consistently
funded multiyear strategy that entails aggressive removals,
broadscale annual application of fertility control, novel
efforts to increase adoption, such as BLM's recent incentive
program, and pasturing of unadopted animals. We recommend that
the committee, at a minimum, retain the 2020 funding levels for
the Wild Horse and Burro Program, with increases and long-term
funding to implement the BLM's soon-to-be-presented plan.
Recreation is the fourth area I would like to discuss. For
those of you that have visited the West recently, it is growing
very rapidly. It is placing a significant demand on the public
lands for recreation opportunities. In Fiscal Year 2018, the
public lands provided 68 million recreation visits with an
economic output of nearly $7 billion to the western States'
economies. We recommend that this subcommittee increase funding
for recreation, wildlife, fisheries, land restoration, and the
Land and Water Conservation Fund. These funds will allow BLM to
maintain and add recreation opportunities, secure easements for
access to landlocked public lands, and restore degraded lands
to improve wildlife and fisheries habitat.
Fifth is an emerging and important program area, wildlife
migration corridors. BLM has been working for several years now
with the State wildlife agencies to identify wildlife migration
corridors for species such as mule, deer elk, and pronghorn
antelope. Funding should be provided to continue and expand
this effort. These are very small amounts of public lands, but
they are crucial for the species to get to and from their
winter and summer habitats. Our sixth and final issue I would
like to highlight is the functional elimination of the BLM
headquarters. As you are aware, the Secretary of Interior
announced the movement of the BLM headquarters of employees
from Washington, D.C. to 11 western States. That was done last
summer. So the director, assistant directors, and a few
immediate staff are going to be located in Grand Junction,
Colorado. The other staff will be scattered throughout other
western locations. The PLF opposed this proposal as it will
functionally eliminate the Agency's headquarters. The result
will be the largest Federal land managing agency with no seat
at the table in Washington, D.C. as policy procedures and
budgets are developed. We strongly believe the BLM headquarters
should be located in Washington, D.C. We recommend that funding
be eliminated for the continuation of this action in Fiscal
Year 2021, and that significant congressional oversight occur
by both House and Senate Appropriations and authorizing
committees during Fiscal Year 2020.
Thank you for the opportunity to share PLF's priorities.
[The statement of Mr. Simpson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you so much. Mr. Ogsbury.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
WESTERN GOVERNOR'S ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
JIM OGSBURY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WESTERN GOVERNORS' ASSOCIATION
Mr. Ogsbury. Thank you. Vice Chair Pingree, Ranking Member
Joyce, my name is Jim Ogsbury. I am the executive director of
the Western Governors Association, a bipartisan organization
representing the governors of the 22 westernmost States and
territories. It is my profound honor to appear before you,
particularly because of the disproportionate influence of the
Interior appropriations bill on the economies, and
environments, and quality of life in the great American West.
Western governors have few priorities that are higher than
that of strengthening the State-Federal relationship. As the
chief executives of co-sovereign governments, they aspire to
work shoulder to shoulder with the Federal agencies as
authentic partners in the development and execution of policy
that affects our shared constituencies. States are not
stakeholders, although they are too frequently treated as such
by Federal authorities. They are sovereigns governed by men and
women whose knowledge of their States' unique environments and
economies and cultures should be integrated into Federal
policymaking. Federal consultation with States that is
substantive, meaningful, and ongoing, and it occurs at the very
earliest stages of a policy's ideation and throughout its
execution will result in policy that is more informed, durable,
and defensible.
This subcommittee in particular has consistently recognized
the value of State engagement, directing that resource agencies
within your jurisdiction utilize State science and data and
analysis to inform Federal decision making. Western governors
urge you to include such language in the report to accompany
the Fiscal Year 2021 appropriations bill. The governors
understand that you operate under severe fiscal constraints.
Within those constraints, they respectfully urge your
consideration of their priorities, which are outlined in detail
in the written testimony that WGA has submitted for the record.
With respect to the conservation of the West's unparalleled
natural resources, those priorities include funding to support
the shared stewardship memorandum of understanding executed by
western governors with the Department of Agriculture, and
additional funding to advance State-supported projects and
programs promoting voluntary mitigation corridors and habitat
conservation.
Western governors appreciate the subcommittee's historic
support of the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program. PILT funding
does not represent a gift to western States. Rather, it helps
compensate western jurisdictions for the disproportionate
measure of nontaxable Federal lands within the region. WGA
encourages you to continue full funding of PILT in the Secure
Rural Schools Program in the coming Fiscal Year.
I commend your attention to my written testimony for a
discussion of other gubernatorial priorities, including
protection of State authority over our water and groundwater,
funding to address the maintenance backlog at national parks,
efforts to combat invasive species, and funding to help States
comply with their obligations under the Clean Water Act. In the
meantime, thank you again for the opportunity to testify.
Western governors appreciate the enormity of your
responsibilities, and urge that you regard them as partners and
resources as you establish funding priorities for the Nation.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Ogsbury follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much for your testimony. Thank
you to all of you for the great work that you are doing. Ms.
Kraska, I know that is an intractable problem, and I appreciate
the hard work that your organization is doing. Ms. Marienfeld,
I am coming from an eastern State so unaware of some of the
things that happen in western States. And, I will certainly get
up to speed and learn a little more about this.
But I guess I am not completely clear what the original
purpose is of deforesting and this vegetation, I forgot what
you termed them as. But anyway, what is the stated purpose of
doing that?
Ms. Marienfeld. It varies from project to project.
Oftentimes you get sort of a catch-all where it is wildlife
restoration, habitat, sage grouse protection is one, watershed
protection. Grazing is really heavily involved in these
projects as well. It is never a stated benefit more often than
not these days, but it is often an auxiliary benefit of the
treatments when they happen. And then more recently, you are
seeing fire prevention as a stated reason for doing these
treatments in the West as well.
Ms. Pingree. So when you deforest land, does prairie grass
or something grow up there so it become grazing land?
Ms. Marienfeld. In the West, more often than not, it has to
be really heavily impacted, heavily treated in order for that
to happen. There are a lot of factors that go into perennial
grasses or forbs coming back. You will see land management
agencies that seed there. They often seed non-native species
that are good for cattle forage as part of these projects. But
it is really dependent on whether in climate conditions,
whether or not the treatments are successful at the end of the
day, which is why you do see, according to the best science and
the research that is out there right now, that the treatments
really are unsuccessful by most metrics a lot of time, if they
are in those very heavily surfaced disturbing manners. The big
mechanic treatments that we are talking about here.
It depends on the weather. If you get rain, maybe it will
work, but if you don't, which is far more common these days,
they are unsuccessful, and you have to go back and do basically
the same thing about 10 years later.
Ms. Pingree. Well, thank you. I am sure I will be
interested to learn more about that.
Ms. Marienfeld. Yes, thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Mr. Simpson, I, too, am very concerned about
this relocation and the reorganization of the Bureau of Labor
Management. I also sat on Agriculture Appropriations, we have
been very discouraged to watch the relocation of ERS and NIFA,
and can see that that has just had disastrous consequences, a
lot of senior staff was lost in the process, so a lot of the
experience and brain trust there, and didn't seem to be a lot
of consultation.
So I am just curious. From your perspective, the
Administration maintained that it conducted extensive
consultation with Bureau employees, especially senior
employees, before implementing this breakup. Can you tell us
what you are hearing from members of your organization
regarding that claim?
Mr. Simpson. Sure. So we have about 600 members, and they
are scattered throughout the country, so they are near a BLM
office somewhere in the West. We do a lot of work with them,
public lands appreciation days, that kind of stuff, so we are
in daily contact pretty much with our BLM offices. And I have
to say when that was announced last summer, none of the BLM
people that we had talked to knew this was coming. They read
about it the same time we did.
Ms. Pingree. Yeah, that is very discouraging, and, again,
we have lots of concerns about this, and hopefully, in my
opinion, the committee can exercise more oversight on this
process. Thank you, too, Mr. Ogsbury. I appreciate your
representation of the western State governors. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you all for being here. I can appreciate
the problems that you certainly have. It is something that we
have studied, and the combination of the animals and the land
and trying to find where we have that perfect match. I know the
answers aren't easy, but we will continue to work with you to
try to address those concerns. Thank you for coming.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you to this panel. This concludes the
morning hearing, and we stand adjourned until the afternoon
hearing begins at 1:00 p.m. Thanks again very much for your
testimony.
Voice. Thank you.
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
AFTERNOON SESSION
----------
NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY
WITNESS
DAVID O'NEILL, CHIEF CONSERVATION OFFICER AND SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE
CEO, NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY
Ms. McCollum. Good afternoon, and welcome to our second
public witness hearing covering non-tribal programs under the
jurisdiction of the Interior, Environment, and Other Related
Agencies subcommittee. This morning we heard from advocates
from the arts and from the humanities discuss issues related to
land and water conservation funding, energy, science, and
conservation programs. This afternoon we are going to be
focusing on issues related to endangered species conservation,
public lands, and critical environmental programs for our
Nation. We will be hearing from the remaining 21 witnesses.
Before I begin, I am going to go over a couple of logistics
here for the hearing. We are trying to stay on time. So my
colleagues are in and out of the room. We have a gentlepersons
agreement to help each other, but we also have, as you see in
front of me, a big fat book with everybody's testimony. And
Jocelyn can tell you, I have a lot of things highlighted, so I
have looked at things before, and I am frantically taking notes
during the hearing. So I want you to know that that you are
being listened to and paid attention to.
What we are going to do, and the first panel is at the
table, we are going to call the panels up one at a time.
Everybody is going to get 5 minutes to present their testimony.
We are going to use a timer to track the progress. When the
light turns yellow, the color of this highlighter, witnesses
will have 1 minute remaining to conclude their remarks. When
the light blinks red, I will lightly tap--I won't use the big
end of the gavel--but I will let you know that it is time for
the next witness to start. And that is so all witnesses can
have an opportunity to be heard without getting too delayed.
Having said that, we do have votes scheduled some time
between 1:20 and 1:30 we feel, so when we call votes, please
make sure that we are going to be taking a brief recess and
come back as soon as we can, and we will pick up where we left
off. So I would ask people to stay close. There are places to
get coffee and some things around here on this floor. So take
your rest break and grab what you need, but stay close because
we will start as soon as a member is back.
I would like to remind those in the hearing room of the
committee rules, however. We prohibit the use of cameras and
audio equipment during the hearing by individuals without
House-issued press credentials. So, Mr. Joyce, has told me to
get started so we don't delay. And what we did this morning to
save a little extra time is we had people introduce themselves,
and we found it really kept things moving a little faster. So
maybe the second panel would like to get in before votes get
started.
So, Mr. O'Neill, your introduction will not count against
your time, so please introduce yourself and then we will start
your time.
Mr. O'Neill. Great. Thanks so much for the opportunity. I
much appreciate it. My name is David O'Neill. I represent the
National Audubon Society and our 1.7 million members across the
country as its chief conservation officer and senior advisor to
the CEO.
Ms. McCollum. And you can start your testimony.
Mr. O'Neill. Sure. I am here to discuss an ongoing crisis
of bird survival, what the crisis signals for communities, and
steps the committee can take to reverse the alarming trend.
Since 1970, we have lost 3 billion of America's birds, and
two-thirds of our remaining birds are now at risk of extinction
due to climate change. The birds we have lost are not just
threatened and endangered species, but common birds in
communities and back yards across the country. The bird
declines we are seeing and predicting are due to human
activity: loss of habitat, greenhouse gas emissions, on and on.
This is the fifth alarm and a five-alarm fire that is crystal
clear to the 48 million birders across the country.
But birders aren't the only ones who should care about
these staggering figures. Birds are important indicator
species. They are indeed the canary in the coal mine, meaning
that severe declines in bird health tell us about future
threats facing people and communities. With the Administration
implementing rollbacks to bedrock environmental laws,
increasing Federal conservation investments is a critical
backstop. The bipartisan projects and programs under your
jurisdiction provide tangible, scientifically-based solutions
to recover our bird populations as well as to provide cleaner
air and cleaner water. The National Audubon Society is
proposing Fiscal Year 2021 funding priorities to address
critical threats facing birds and to start to reverse these
declines. I thank this committee for its work to consistently
expand and enhance conservation funding. The recovery of birds
require it.
Our recent ``State of the Birds'' study that documented the
3 billion bird loss also found one area for hope: waterfowl.
Waterfowl are the one bird guild that not only did not
experience declines. In fact, it increased by 56 percent, in
large part due to investments to wetlands conservation work
through the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, or NAWCA.
And I thank the committee for continuing to prioritize this
investment. Conservation works, and we urge funding for this
program at $50 million.
The Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act Grants
Program is one of the best opportunities to build on NAWCA's
success for the billions of migratory birds that pass through
our backyards to breed and winter outside our borders. The
program is an innovative, cost-effective approach to bird
conservation, supporting projects that benefit birds and their
habitats, research and monitoring, law enforcement, and
education programs in Canada, the U.S., Latin America, and the
Caribbean. It is important to reauthorize the Act and to fully
fund the program at $6.5 million, and we would like to work
with you and others to see how we could expand that program in
the future.
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative present provides a
regional success story that not only restores habitat, but
allows the community to take part in education and stewardship
of restoration programs over a long period of time. The newest
GLRI action plan prioritizes, among other things, the
restoration of wetlands that attract and restore to sustain
breeding marsh bird populations. Increasing the investment in
GLRI can help advance these important goals for birds.
Investments at the ecosystem scale, like the Great Lakes
program, are critical to protecting the full spectrum of
habitat needs for birds. We urge the creation of a similar
program for the Mississippi or Upper Mississippi River Basin,
and we had be thrilled with the opportunity to work with you,
Representative McCollum, on that to make that a reality. There
are dozens of successful programs moving forward across the
country, all of which require full and sustained Federal
funding. We are standing at a crossroads. Now is the time to
fully invest in conservation programs at a scale necessary to
address the crisis and to ensure a sustainable path forward for
birds and communities now and into the future.
Thank you very much for your time and your attention.
[The statement of Mr. O'Neill follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
AMERICAN BIRD CONSERVANCY
WITNESS
STEVE HOLMER, VICE PRESIDENT OF POLICY, AMERICAN BIRD CONSERVANCY
Mr. Holmer. Thanks very much for this opportunity to
testify. I am Steve Holmer, vice president of policy for
American Bird Conservancy, and we work to conserve birds in
their habitats throughout the Americas. We are going to be
talking today about a package of funding requests from a large
coalition of groups, and this includes the Neotropical
Migratory Bird Conservation Act at $6.5 million, Migratory Bird
Joint Ventures at $19.9 million, State and Tribal Wildlife
Grants at $70 million, North America Wetlands Conservation Act
at $50 million, ``State of the Birds'' activities at $5
million, and then an overall $10 million increase for invasive
species eradication monitoring control. And we appreciate
language about the greater sage-grouse and the need to advance
its conservation.
And I just want to take a moment to thank the committee
because there were some very significant increases in last
year's bill for this package of programs. This committee
recommended over $20 million in increases. The final bill
included about $10 million, so this was an important step in
the right direction. But based on what we know about the $3
billion bird report and the ``State of the Birds,'' there needs
to be quite a lot more done. And I am not sure if you have
received a copy of the 2019 ``State of the Birds'' report, but
I just thought I would share that with you and others on the
committee if you would like to see this, because it does
highlight the science study showing the 2.9 billion birds gone,
but it also shows that through State wildlife grants and
through the migratory bird joint ventures, we are also seeing a
lot of successes. We are seeing things getting done on the
ground that can really make a difference.
In your region where we have the Upper Mississippi and
Great Lakes Joint Venture, the Kirtland's warbler is being
delisted through concerted conservation action. And so it shows
that when we focus our efforts, we can bring these birds back.
Of course, wetland conservation is another big success story
where we managed to bring back waterfowl in large part through
NAWCA. The joint venture in your region has guided a number of
NAWCA projects in Minnesota, and one of the reasons we are
interested in supporting this package is for the simple reason
that all these programs work very closely together. So I feel
like we are making good progress and appreciate the support of
the committee on these issues.
In light of the billion birds report, there is an
indication, though, that we need to think about doing even
more. This is kind of a beginning as kind of how we are seeing
that. And we also need to maintain the regulatory framework
that makes sure that endangered species and public lands are
protected. And at this point with rulemakings happening on the
National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act, on sage-grouse plans, on Forest
Service, NEPA, we are concerned that the safety net for
wildlife and public lands is now at risk. And so we appreciate
the committee weighing in against these changes. I don't
believe the public supports these deregulatory efforts, and it
is really unfortunate that at a time when we are in a crisis
where we are seeing, you know, significant losses, that there
are policies that could end up actually making the situation
worse. So it is really important that we address it on both the
funding side and on the policy side.
This committee included some really strong language in the
report last year about reducing bird collisions. We thought
that was very helpful because about 1 billion birds a year are
lost to bird collisions. There was also language about the
Tongass National Forest, actually an amendment to protect that
forest. And forest carbon is very important as part of the
strategy to address climate change, and we would love to see
that language be included again in this year's appropriations
bill, and perhaps be expanded to include the Pacific Northwest,
where we have old growth forests that have very high carbon
stores that are also essential for threatened species, such as
the marbled murrelet. And, in fact, the relationship between
murrelet habitat and high carbon force is nearly 100 percent,
so by conserving that bird, we are helping on climate change as
well as clean water for the region.
So I appreciate all the good work of the committee, and I
had be happy to answer any questions.
[The statement of Mr. Holmer follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
ASSOCIATION OF ZOOS AND AQUARIUMS
WITNESS
DAN ASHE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, ASSOCIATION OF ZOOS AND AQUARIUMS
Mr. Ashe. Good afternoon, Ms. McCollum, Mr. Kilmer. My name
is Dan Ashe. I am the president and CEO of the Association of
Zoos And Aquariums and the former director of the United States
Fish and Wildlife Service. It is a pleasure to be back in front
of you and a privilege, a privilege because of the importance
of the work that you do to wildlife conservation, and a
pleasure because I neither have to present nor defend an agency
budget today. [Laughter.]
The Association of Zoos and Aquariums, or the AZA, is the
world's leading zoological professional association. In order
to be a member, a facility like Como Park Zoo and Conservancy
or Northwest Trek must meet our exacting accreditation
standards, the world's gold standard for a modern aquarium or
zoo. And our vision for a modern aquarium or zoo is of a
purposeful place. Yes, fun and educational where visitors come
and create memories that last lifetimes, but most importantly,
where a visit helps to conserve wildlife and save animals from
extinction.
Our 238 member facilities spent a collective $231 million
on field conservation in 2018, positioning them as among the
world's biggest conservation investors, and that number will
likely occur approach one-quarter billion dollars in 2019, and
it will continue growing. It is not a phase or a fad. It is who
they are. And we are passionate partners of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the U.S.
Geological Survey, and their State, local, and tribal
counterparts. We support their work to conserve and recover
species, like the California condor, manatee, black-footed
ferret, sea turtles, hellbender, American burying beetle, red
wolf, rhinoceros, and dozens and dozens more.
Your support for the Endangered Species Recovery Challenge
Grants is inspiring this partnership, and I hope you will
expand funding for this program and insert report language
encouraging the Service to grow its partnership with accredited
zoos and aquariums. Our members are ready and willing.
We are building exciting new partnerships with the Interior
Department agencies, and I will just quickly mention three.
Since 2017, we have built a zoo park partnership and this past
year signed a memorandum of understanding with the Park Service
calling for 25 new partnerships over the next 5 years. The
Yosemite National Park-San Francisco Zoo Partnership is a
perfect example. They just released their 1,000th endangered
California red-legged frog in an effort covering four valley
floor habitats where introduced bullfrogs had eaten up
literally the native populations. Park and zoo staff collect
frogs and tadpoles, which are then reared at the zoo until they
are ready for re-introduction around age 2. Through efforts
like this, we are helping national parks and national wildlife
refuges conserve species like sea turtles, corals, grizzly
bear, and bison, and linking AZA's 200 million annual guests
with their national parks and other public lands, and
connecting urban America with wildlife and the outdoor. Again,
with the encouragement of report language and a few dollars
perhaps for National Park Service natural resource manage and
refuge operations in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, we
will grow momentum and excitement about this partnership.
AZA's signature conservation program is Saving Animals From
Extinction, or SAFE, and it is driving cooperative conservation
of species from elephants to sharks to monarchs. Wildlife
trafficking is a major cause of decline in many SAFE species,
and through AZA's Wildlife Trafficking Alliance, we are working
with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on an innovative pilot
confiscations network to help rescue and care for animals that
are victimized by illegal trade. And finally, we are developing
a strategy to manage AZA's entire polar bear population to
support relevant conservation science. And this is going to
help the Service and others answer key questions about the
effects of climate change on managed wild bears, and also
engage millions and millions of visitors.
So, Ms. McCollum and subcommittee members, AZA's members
are already exceptional partners of the Fish and Wildlife
Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey,
and others. They are anxious to do more nationally and
internationally to conserve wildlife and save animals from
extinction. Your encouragement through funding and report
language will inspire ever more cooperation and innovation. And
I want to thank you for your time and attention and everything
that you do, and I am happy to answer any questions if there
are any.
[The statement of Mr. Ashe follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. I am going to put this in a
general format, and then those of you who feel comfortable,
speak to it. So we worked very hard to get riders. Authorizers
need to do their job. Our bill, we were very successful. We
still have a little ways to go. Report language is a way in
which we try to monitor what is the cost of inaction or what
can be the benefit of action, getting that agencies and outside
groups. So the report language that we put in is a useful tool
for us when we are making our decisions, as well as it is a
useful tool for the authorizers when we are having
conversations on things.
So, for example, lead poisoning has been brought up. What
is the cost of lead poisoning? What is the cost of having a
rider like that in there? How much money are we spending? What
other things are we doing? What is the cost of inactivity when
we don't get ahead of an invasive species, you know? Dutch elm
took place. People probably weren't talking too much about
birds back then. Climate change wasn't the issue it was then.
But since then we have seen you know, what is happening with
the beetle that is attacking our pine, with what is going on
with Asian ash borer, urban and rural areas, and in forestry
areas, and then the effects of climate change on top of that.
So there is a cost, whether it is forest health or bird
population, of not doing anything. What is the cost of when we
see insecticides and things like that, you know, keeping it in
or out of the water? How is it affecting frog populations? What
happens to the bird population that eats the frogs? So we are
trying to get a holistic approach and try to take a scientific
approach to things like doing that. So I appreciate the
acknowledgement of the report language we are putting in there
because inactivity has consequences on our budget, and activity
can have positive, sometimes negative, consequences on our
budget.
So if I could just maybe ask you to kind of speak to
invasive species because we are trying to do more with that in
the committee, about how our organizations can work with the
scientific community. If you have got some ideas of how Mr.
Joyce and I, and Mr. Kilmer is here. He cares a lot about the
birds. I was in his district. You have got seabirds. I don't
have that, so you have got it all. So maybe just take a take 1
minute or 2 a piece, and just kind of tell me, you know, if
there are some ideas on how we can get the invasive species
part of this right, ideas on that.
Mr. Holman. Sure. I will be happy to jump in there. Sage-
grouse are in severe decline across the range, and cheatgrass,
an invasive grass, is a major factor. And, in fact, I have had
Forest Service Agency people tell me that if we don't deal with
the cheatgrass problem, there is really no way to bring back
enough sagebrush habitat to conserve the grass. So there is one
example where we could do more on cheatgrass.
In Hawaii, mosquitoes and the spread of avian malaria and
other diseases are a huge problem. These are non-native insects
in Hawaii, and now there are efforts to eliminate these
mosquitoes in Hawaii. And this is really crucial because we are
seeing a lot of birds go extinct in Hawaii because of the avian
malaria and other diseases. So there are two examples where,
you know, dealing with invasives is really critical.
And then the last is the monitoring, the fast attack. You
know, when we think about the brown tree snake, for example, if
that were to get to Hawaii, it would be disastrous. So there
needs to be this ongoing effort to monitor and keep things out,
and then when they are in, attack them immediately.
Mr. Ashe. Two things, Ms. McCollum. I can't resist the
temptation to speak about California condor and lead poisoning.
And so the key in that case is to stop the source of lead
poisoning. Every California condor that is in the wild in
California has to be taken back into captivity and put through
lead chelation. And if that didn't happen, and it is AZA's
members, like Los Angeles Zoo and San Diego Zoo and Santa
Barbara Zoo, that are doing that work. And if that didn't
happen, then that recovery of that population would collapse
automatically. So we have to eliminate the source of the
problems and have the courage to do that, and non-toxic
alternatives are available.
With invasives you have to act quickly. And so right now,
we are helping deal with a coral reef crisis off of Florida.
There is an invasive disease that is wiping out 25 of the 40
coral species along the entire Florida Reef tract, over 300
miles of coral reef. America's largest coral reef is being
decimated by an invasive unknown as yet disease. And so what is
required is to get in ahead of that, rescue the coral, pull
them into refugia so that we can have the hope of restoring
that reef once we find out what is going on. And so the key
thing for the Federal agencies and their State counterparts is
to act quickly in the face of species invasion.
Ms. McCollum. So, Mr. O'Neill, birds eat fish. Fish live in
coral. We will you close it. [Laughter.]
Mr. O'Neill. Yeah, I think one of the things that we are
finding, particularly on our seabird work, which is interesting
maybe to Mr. Kilmer, is that you are starting to see a mix of
species moving into areas where seabirds really rely on fish in
order to survive. There are out on the water maybe 70, 80
percent of their life cycle. They are getting fish now that are
too large for their beaks to be able to feed. They are no
longer productive, and that is a big shift because of climate
change. The warming of some of these oceans are creating
different movements of fish. As a result, the sea birds aren't
able to eat fish that are the size that can create productivity
when they move to their breeding grounds.
So that is an important shift, but the importance of the
actions that can be taken are around really thinking about
managing the small forage fish that are in these river systems
and that move out into the oceans. Protecting forage fish is
really important to saving sea birds, and sea birds have
declined some 70 percent over the last 40 years. So that is an
invasive species that is moving as a result in part of ocean
temperatures and warming.
And I want to pick up on Dan's point about, you know,
something along the lines of the pesticide issue for birds.,
and Steve and I were talking about this earlier. It is a major
issue for our board and our members. But pesticides we are more
and more concerned about in terms of their impact on birds, and
that is an issue that we want to explore further. I think some
scientific research relative to the impact of pesticides on
birds and the health of birds would be very valuable to really
draw that link, that scientific link, between pesticide use and
the loss of bird species throughout the Americas.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Have you found any birds that like to prey on
Asian carp? [Laughter.]
Mr. O'Neill. Not yet.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you all for being here.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Kilmer.
Mr. Kilmer. None. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much. Thank you. And if the
second panel would come up, please.
I think we are going to be fine. We are finding out that we
are seeing a yellow light. This morning we saw yellow light,
but you are not seeing a yellow light right now. So we will
give you an indication kind of where the minute comes without
being too disruptive.
So as the first panel did, if you would introduce yourself,
and then we will start the clock then.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE
WITNESS
JACOB MALCOM, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR CONSERVATION INNOVATION,
DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE
Mr. Malcom. Good afternoon. I am Jacob Malcom. I am the
director of the Center for Conservation Innovation at Defenders
of Wildlife. Defenders has 1.8 million members and supporters,
and we are dedicated to the conservation of wild animals and
their habitats in their natural communities. Thank you, Madam
Chairwoman, Ranking Member, and members of the subcommittee for
the opportunity to speak with you today.
The science that has been marshaled in recent years shows
with unrivaled clarity that this is a pivotal time for wildlife
and for humanity. You are likely familiar with last year's
report. ``The Global Assessment on the Status of Biodiversity
and Ecosystem Services,'' found that 1 in 8 species on the
planet, or about 1 million species, are at risk of extinction.
That is tens to hundreds of times faster than the background
rate of extinction, and ultimately we are the cause of this
loss.
We have altered over 75 percent of terrestrial environments
and two-thirds of marine environments. When you combine that
loss with ongoing threats, like invasive species, climate
change, the damage that we have done to nature is almost
unimaginable. And the consequences of that are not just borne
by nature, but also by humanity. Half a trillion dollars of
crops are at risk of loss because of pollinator loss, which is
a really big deal. Ecosystem services from fisheries to water
filtration and beyond are all at grave risk of loss because of
the damage to natural systems.
But despite the darkness of these results, we also have
good reason for hope because we know that we have solutions. We
know we can make a difference when we act. We have reduced the
risk of extinction for plants and animals by some 22, almost 30
percent by investing in conservation. In the U.S. this is
because of laws going back over a century for conservation
starting with the Lacey Act in 1900, and because of our
stewardship of our Federal public lands and public and private
lands across the country.
Defenders has a number of priorities that we have laid out
in our written testimony, but here I wanted to focus for a
moment on the key law for addressing the extinction crisis that
we are facing now, the Endangered Species Act. The ESA is the
epitome of success. Over 95 percent of listed species are still
with us today, and hundreds of those are on the path to
recovery. This record of success is even more stunning when you
consider that species have received less than 25 percent of
what scientists say is needed to recover them. You can imagine
what we would be able to do if we invested fully in the
Endangered Species Act. This point may have been most clearly
made last fall in the Journal of Science when 1,800 scientists
endorsed greater ESA funding as a key strategy for responding
to the extinction crisis.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the lead agency for
recovering most listed species, but its endangered species
budget needs nearly double the current funding, or about $486
million a year, for the Agency to carry out the missions
Congress intended. For example, the backlogged Listing Program
needs to increase nearly threefold to $51 million dollars a
year so that the Agency can determine if species need
protection. The Recovery Program funding needs to nearly double
to almost $197 million a year. That would allow the Service to
complete almost 400, actually over 400, recovery plans that are
needed, and thousands of recovery actions that are already
planned and just need to be taken action on.
The Consultation and Planning Program needs an almost 50
percent increase to $130 million, which would allow, among
other things, the application of new technologies that really
massively increase the efficiency of consultations. And the
Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, which
empowers States and private landowners to take conservation
action, needs at least $100 million a year.
Across these programs and others detailed in our written
testimony, we have laid out a path to address the extinction
crisis that looms before us. You and your constituents depend
on nature and the ecosystem services it provides.
Fundamentally, laws like the ESA will be little more than lip
service to wildlife if they are not funded fully and carried
out. So thank you for the funding increases last year.
Defenders and all of the wildlife and their habitats certainly
appreciate it. Now we need leaders to use their authorities,
the power of the purse, to further our commitment to halt the
extinction crisis and reverse the fortunes of nature. Thank
you.
[The statement of Mr. Malcom follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR ANIMAL WELFARE
WITNESS
KATE WALL, SENIOR LEGISLATIVE MANAGER, INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR ANIMAL
WELFARE
Ms. Wall. Hi. Thanks. Can you hear me? Bear with me. I have
a very scratchy voice.
Ms. McCollum. Why don't we make sure you have a glass of
water handy in case you need it?
Ms. Wall. Thank you. That is kind. I won't wait on that,
though. My name is Kate Wall. I am here on behalf of the
International Fund for Animal Welfare. I am the senior
legislative manager in our United States office. The
International Fund for Animal Welfare--thank you--or IFAW, has
offices in 15 countries around the world and works in more than
40 countries globally. And we want to thank the chairwoman, and
Ranking Member Joyce, and members of the subcommittee for the
opportunity to testify here today.
IFAW is very grateful for the subcommittee's championship
of strong conservation funding in the current Fiscal Year. And
as a member of the International Conservation Caucus, we also
thank both the chair and ranking member for your conservation
leadership both on this committee and elsewhere.
So I am going to deviate a little bit from my prepared
remarks today because, Chairwoman McCollum, you asked about the
cost of doing nothing during the last panel. And I wanted to
start these remarks by saying that the Intergovernmental
Platform on Climate Change put forward a report last year that
said that the total value of global ecosystem services is
roughly equivalent to global GDP. That is huge. So the cost of
doing nothing to protect our ecosystem services may be as much
as allowing global GDP to trickle down the drain.
All right. I just wanted to see that in your minds before I
get started on my formal remarks because I think that sometimes
when we talk about wildlife and ecosystems, we think about
these as something that we need to think about in the future,
not something that we should worry about today. We need to
worry about our bottom lines of today. We all do this. I do
this in my own thinking when I am thinking about my budget at
home. But the reality is that we may be squandering huge
resources that we do not have the wherewithal to put back into
our coffers if we don't act today to protect wildlife and
protect ecosystems here in the United States and globally.
So we have heard just by turning on the news about some
really pretty serious and grim challenges that face us around
the world. We hear about sea level rise. We hear about warming
oceans. We hear about biodiversity loss. If you aren't scared,
then you aren't paying attention. But I don't want to focus on
our fear today because fear can paralyze us, and the reality is
that those of you sitting across the table from us here today
have the power as leaders in this country to really make some
transformative changes and make a better world for us, and I
want to inspire you to act in that way. So put the fear aside,
and let's talk about some things that you can do with the power
of your purse.
We continue as the United States to be a global leader, and
the actions that we take here at home matter on the global
stage. Some of the things that we can do internationally
include funding the International Affairs Program within the
Fish and Wildlife Service, which is tasked with coordinating
domestic and international efforts to conserve species and
restore wildlife and wild lands. These are programs that look
not just at iconic species, which we will talk about next, but
species that we may not have heard of, transboundary species,
ecosystems, and they really have a power to create change in
wide swathes of the world with very, very little. Also, because
of language that you justifiably put in the Fiscal Year 2020
appropriations report language, are tasked with ensuring the
highest level of integrity and professionalism among partner
organizations. And so we asked for further funding to ensure
that they have the resources that they need to carry out those
very important offices.
With regard to iconic species like those protected by the
multinational species conservation funds, species like tigers,
rhinos, African and Asian elephants, great apes marine and
freshwater turtles and tortoises, these species continue to
face threats from poaching, from trafficking, and from climate
change. And while there was a significant increase in funding
in the last Fiscal Year, for which again, we are very grateful,
these threats have not gone away, and we need more preventative
funds now so that we don't risk further cure funding required
later that will be much more costly to taxpayers and species
writ large.
And finally, on the international stage, the Office of Law
Enforcement within the Fish and Wildlife Service is tasked with
a huge amount of inspection of wildlife and wildlife products
that come across our borders. They have attaches around the
world. And we face yet another global pandemic, which appears
to have been caused by wildlife interactions, we see those as
all the more important offices that need to be carried out with
additional funding.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you
here today.
[The statement of Ms. Wall follows:]
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Thursday, February 6, 2020.
LEGISLATIVE AND FEDERAL BUDGET COMMITTEE
WITNESS
TIM SCHAEFFER, CHAIR, ASSOCIATION OF FISH AND WILDLIFE AGENCIES,
LEGISLATIVE AND FEDERAL BUDGET COMMITTEE
Mr. Schaeffer. Hi. My name is Tim Schaeffer. I am the
executive director of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat
Commission. And like Minnesota and Ohio, we are both a Great
Lake State and a Mississippi River watershed State. People
don't often think about the fact that the Ohio starts right
there in Pittsburgh. And I am here today on behalf of the
Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. I am the current
chair of the Legislative Federal Budget Committee for the
Association.
Should I start again?
Ms. McCollum. We are good.
Mr. Schaeffer. Okay. Good. Thank you. Generally, the
Association supports no less than Fiscal Year 2020 funding
levels for the various budget line items under your purview.
However, increasing funding for the Division of Fish and
Aquatic Conservation of the Fish and Wildlife Service is
important to ensure sufficient capacity and expertise is
readily available to work in partnership with the States on
various projects and issues. At least maintaining Fiscal Year
2020 funding levels for the National Fish Hatchery operations
and functions and budget line items is critical, and we request
the same for mass marketing initiatives.
Additional funding to address the National Fish Hatchery
systems deferred maintenance is also necessary to continue
species restoration and conservation efforts. We support the
National Fish Habitat Action Plan at $7.2 million, and to
continue Fiscal Year 2020 funding levels for conservation
activities in the Delaware River Basin, Klamath Basin, Great
Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, and the Everglades.
The spread of the associated costs of aquatic invasive
species are exploding--we have been talking about that already
today--and we recommend increasing funding for AIS prevention
in the FAC. This should be part of a comprehensive approach
across relevant Federal agencies and the programs that provide
resources to States to prevent and control AIS. We request
Congress to restore funding for State aquatic nuisance species
management plan implementation to $4.4 million dollars, without
compromising ANS programs. And we support the continuation of a
$25 million annual appropriation to implement the National
Asian Carp Management and Control Plan in the Mississippi River
and it is tributaries. I would really emphasize if we get it
right in the tributaries, that helps to prevent the spread to
the Great Lakes.
The State and Tribal Wildlife grants program is the only
Federal program available to States to leverage non-Federal
funds to conserve over 12,000 State species of greatest
conservation need to prevent them from becoming threatened or
endangered through voluntary proactive and State-led
conservation efforts. It is a lot cheaper to keep something off
the Endangered Species List, and we like to say we want to keep
common species common.
The Association recommends the program be funded at $90
million and Fiscal Year 2021. To truly address these
challenges, we ask Congress to enact the Recovering America's
Wildlife Act, H.R. 3742, which would provide States and their
conservation partners with dependable resources and a modern
enhancement in how we fund the full array of diverse fish and
wildlife conservation for current and future generations.
The Fish and Wildlife Service and States share management
jurisdiction for migratory birds. This represents one of the
most successful State/Federal Cooperative Partnerships for over
80 years. Unfortunately, the Migratory Bird Conservation
Program is chronically underfunded. More funding is needed to
retain sufficient staff, fill key vacancies to work in
cooperation with the States on co-management issues, and
support science to inform decision making. The Association
supports funding the program at Fiscal Year 2010 levels, and
the Migratory Joint Bird Ventures at $19.9 million to
accomplish shared responsibilities and priorities.
Thank you for providing much-needed funding for the USGS
Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit Program in Fiscal
Year 2020, and we strongly support maintaining the funding in
Fiscal Year 2021. Further, we support additional funding for
the science centers. In Pennsylvania, we recently learned that
the Northern Appalachian Research Lab and Wellsboro,
Pennsylvania may close this year because of decreased funding.
That lab provides critical data, research, and information to
our agency on how we manage freshwater mussels for the
Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, but we manage all fish,
reptiles, and amphibians in the Commonwealth. They also have
supplied really critical research and data to us on the
filtration roles of mussels, how they are connected to eels,
and how that would help with Chesapeake Bay restoration
efforts. The cleaner the water is leaving the Susquehanna
River, the better it is for the Bay, and mussels play a role in
that. We get a lot of great data on that from that USGS
facility in Wellsboro.
We also support additional funding for the National
Wildlife Health Center to deal with chronic wasting disease. We
support no less than Fiscal Year 2020 funding levels for other
budget line items within USGS ecosystems. However, it is
imperative the Congress provide additional resources to all
relevant Federal agencies to coordinate to coordinate with the
States on challenges related to CWD. We respectfully request
that the subcommittee refer to the Association's testimony on
CWD provided on October 17th, 2019 for additional CWD-related
needs.
Thank you for upholding the commitments to wildfire
borrowing. We support the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
budgets at no less than Fiscal Year 2020 levels, and
respectfully request an additional $3 million to this program.
So with that point, I would be happy to answer any questions.
[The statement of Mr. Schaeffer follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Schaeffer. I didn't know if that buzz was for me or
not, so. [Laughter.]
Voice. The building is on fire.
Mr. Schaeffer. Okay.
Ms. McCollum. I have messages on my phone. There are 14
minutes left. Only four people have voted, so I think we have
got time for a quick round of questions. Mr. Joyce, do you want
to kick us off?
Mr. Joyce. I don't have any questions. I appreciate all of
you being here today and your input. I look forward to working
with you in the near future. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Kilmer.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all for
your testimony. Mr. Malcom, I wanted to thank you in your
written testimony for calling out the important role played by
the regional climate centers in supporting efforts to combat
climate change and to adapt to the impacts of climate change. I
am really grateful to our chair and to this committee for
protecting and growing funding for the eight regional climate
centers, including the Northwest Climate Center at the
University of Washington.
I was hoping just in the brief time we have, just could you
elaborate a little bit on how the science that is produced at
these centers informs our efforts to respond to the threat of
climate change?
Mr. Malcom. Sorry. Give me just 1 second.
Mr. Kilmer. That is all right.
Mr. Malcom. The science is critical to being able to make
informed decisions. We are at a day and an age where we
understand how to do this. As some people have noted, the
science is so advanced and our understanding is so advanced. We
know how we can make use of it and bring that information to
the lawmakers to be able to make decisions. I wish I had a very
specific example, for example, from the Northwest Climate
Center that I could give to you, but I don't. There is this
very tight, or there should be this very tight relationship
between science and policy that society follows, and climate
centers are essential for carrying that out and helping folks
in different regions across the country understand the
consequences.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. I appreciate the fact that when I
read through your testimony, you see how everything is
interconnected, all three of you did. And the support and
reasons why supporting something at Fish and Wildlife is
important to something, you know, with migratory birds, which
whatever, because quite often I know somebody can say, oh, I
will cut this. And they don't realize what the impact it is
going to be achieving the goal that they really want to
achieve. So I just wanted to compliment your testimony because
you are kind of doing the broad cloth on how all the pieces fit
together to make the quilt happen. So thank you for kind of
putting that together for us for the committee to take a look
at that.
And with that, we will be in recess until the call of the
chair after votes. Thank you.
Mr. Kilmer [presiding]. All right. I think we are up for
our next set of witnesses. Mr. Durkin, you have 5 minutes.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
THE FRIENDS OF RACHEL CARSON NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
WITNESS
BILL DURKIN, PRESIDENT, THE FRIENDS OF RACHEL CARSON NATIONAL WILDLIFE
REFUGE
Mr. Durkin. Good afternoon, Ms. Chairman, and goodbye.
[Laughter.]
And honorable members of the subcommittee. I am Bill
Durkin, president of the friends of Rachel Carson National
Wildlife Refuge in Maine. Thank you for accepting my request to
testify today before the subcommittee. It is a true honor and
privilege to represent my friend's group and to speak out for
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Wildlife
Refuge System, our refuge, Rachel Carson National Wildlife
Refuge, and for full dedicated funding of the Land and Water
Conservation Fund.
The Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge is named in
honor of one of the Nation's foremost and forward-thinking
biologists. After arriving in Maine in 1946 as an aquatic
biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Rachel Carson
became entranced with Maine's coastal habitats, leading her to
write the international bestseller, The Sea Around Us. This
landmark study, in combination with other writings, The Edge of
the Sea, and Silent Spring, led Rachel Carson to become an
advocate on behalf of this Nation's vast coastal habitats and
wildlife that depends on it. Her legacy lives on today at the
refuge bears her name, and is dedicated to the permanent
protection of the salt marshes and estuaries of southern Maine
Coast.
The refuge was established in 1966 to preserve migratory
bird habitat, waterfowl migration along southern Maine's
Coastal estuaries. There are 11 refuge divisions and 12
municipalities protecting approximately 5,600 acres within an
14,800-acre acquisition zone. I have been on the board of the
Friends group since 1989. The organization was founded in 1987.
We are small group with a history of communicating with our
Maine congressional members, who we are missing our
representative right now, Chellie, for decades. In the past, we
sent letters via U.S. mail, then anthrax forced us to fax our
letters. Then the electronic age made things very simple: email
and PDFs.
The Friends play an important role in supporting the Rachel
Carson National Wildlife Refuge mission. We work to educate
Maine's U.S. congressional and State legislation about the
relevance of the refuge wildlife habitat, its coastal
resilience, tourism benefits, and the use for future
generations. We support refuge staff by volunteering with trail
maintenance, greenhouse activities, administrative work, and
visitors services. We engage the towns and communities that
surround the refuge through mailings, meetings events, and a
future conservation theme book group. We fundraise and apply
for grants so that we can assist with hiring refuge interns,
purchase equipment, and support research projects. We support
acquisition funding and refuse operation and engage in
environmental education and outreach programs.
National wildlife refuges protect habitat for a host of
wildlife species, while also offering storm surge protection,
improving water quality, supporting nurseries for commercially
important fish and shellfish, and providing recreation
opportunities for local refugee communities. Each one of you
has a national wildlife refuge in your home State and maybe
even one close to your home.
I request, number one, an overall Fiscal Year 2021 funding
level of $586 million for the operations and maintenance budget
of the National Wildlife Refuge System managed by the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service. All the refugees are in dire need of
staffing and upkeep. Without increased funding for refuges,
wildlife conservation and public recreation opportunities will
be jeopardized. Every dollar appropriated for the refuge system
returns an average of 4.87 to local economies.
Number two, I request to appropriate $283 million for the
wildlife and habitat management projects within the O&M budget.
These monies will support restoration of salt marshes removal,
controlling invasive species, recovering species, continued
fire management programs, restoring cultivated land to its
original habitat, implementing climate change strategies of
adaptation mitigation, and engagement.
Number three, I request $41 million for refuge land
acquisition projects. In addition, the Land and Water
Conservation Fund needs to be permanently funded at the $900
amount annually. I have been advocating for this for over 2
decades of Congress, and we finally have LWCF permanently
authorized, but now to have the amount permanently funded at
$900. As you know, there is H.R. 3195, the Land And Water
Conservation Fund for Permanent Funding Act. It is pending, and
we all need your continued support.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and we
thank Rachel Carson for inspiring us all. I leave you with a
quote from Rachel's book, A Sense of Wonder. ``A child's world
is fresh, and new, and beautiful, full of wonder and
excitement.'' Each of the national wildlife refuges have a
unique story and history behind their name, but they basically
all serve one purpose: protect wildlife habitat. With that
wonder and excitement, I thank you again for the opportunity to
present my testimony and support our national wildlife refuges.
[The statement of Mr. Durkin follows:]
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Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. You stuck the landing. Mr. Hall.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
FRIENDS OF NISQUALLY NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE COMPLEX
WITNESS
JUSTIN HALL, BOARD PRESIDENT, FRIENDS OF NISQUALLY NATIONAL WILDLIFE
REFUGE COMPLEX
Mr. Hall. Good afternoon, Representative Kilmer, Ranking
Member Joyce. It is on. The light is on. I just need to be
louder. I can do that. My name is Justin Hall. I am the current
president of the Friends of the Nisqually National Wildlife
Refuge Complex, and I appreciate the invitation to testify
today on behalf of the Friends.
So our Friends group was formed in 1999 to promote the
conservation of the natural and cultural resources of the
Refuge Complex and engage in educational, charitable,
scientific, and civic activities that will increase public
awareness and assist management in accomplishing refuge goals.
We provide just under $60,000 a year to support programs at the
refuge, with our primary focus being the environmental
education program.
The Nisqually Complex is blessed with three very unique
places. Billy Frank, Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge was
established in 1974. The creation was led by a grassroots
citizens movement to aid in the protection and enhancement of
the Nisqually River delta. In 2009, the refuge accomplished the
largest estuary restoration on the West Coast when 762 acres of
deck habitat was converted back to salt marsh and tidal estuary
essential rearing grounds for the threatened Puget Sound
Chinook salmon. Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually is an urban refuge
located between the cities of Olympia and Tacoma, just 1-hour-
and-a-half from Seattle and 2 hours from Portland. The refuge
receives over 220,000 visitors a year, and over 10,000 students
and teachers participate in the environmental education
program.
The Black River Unit of Billy Frank, Jr. Nisqually protects
a unique freshwater flood plain that is also critical habitat
for the federally-threatened Oregon spotted frog. The Black
River unit is not open to the public at this time because of
lack of funds to develop and staff it for visitors. Grays
Harbor National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1988. The
highlight of Grays Harbor is the 100,000 shorebirds that stop
over during the spring migration. The refuge is open to the
public where visitors can view large flocks and the 1-mile
boardwalk extending into the salt marsh. Over 12,000 people
visit annually, mostly in the spring. A partnership between
Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge, Grays Harbor Audubon
Society, and the City of Hoquiam puts on the Grays Harbor
Shorebird and Nature Festival during the peak spring migration
the last weekend of April or the first weekend of May. The 3-
day Festival brings in more than 1,400 visitors.
The Grays Harbor Hoquiam Aberdeen area is economically
depressed, and one of the purposes of the annual festival is to
increase ecotourism and help the local communities. However, an
annual festival only provides short-term benefits. Grays Harbor
has the potential to be a mainstay in the community and a
destination for visitors, if an interpretive center,
prioritized by Congress, but not funded, was supported for
construction with an annual budget for staffing, operations,
and maintenance.
The biggest challenge at the Nisqually National Wildlife
Refuge Complex is adequate funding for staff. Currently, seven
permanent employees manage over 11,000 acres of land with a
Black River unit 40 minutes from main office, and Grays Harbor
Refuge 1-hour-and-a-half away. The complex has one maintenance
worker to maintain the infrastructure and assist with habitat
management, yet a large amount of the time is spent commuting
between these worksites. I do believe the complex needs 15
staff members to achieve at the full purpose of the refuges,
not only to benefit fish and wildlife, but also provide
quality, safe outdoor opportunities for the public. This is a
common limitation for many other refuges.
Law enforcement is also a significant issue for our
complex. Currently, we have one-quarter of a refuge law
enforcement officer for all three of our locations. The
officer's house is 2 hours away in Sequim at the Washington
Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Billy Frank, Jr.
Nisqually is located directly off of Interstate 5, the major
Corridor between Seattle and Portland. This close proximity and
easy exit and entrance onto the highway may be the reason why
there is higher crime at Billy Frank, Jr. Nisqually,
particularly car prowls. Trespassing in a closed area set aside
for wildlife and engaging in non-wildlife dependent activities
are also big problems despite miles of trails throughout the
refuge. For example, portrait photographers disturbing birds so
their subjects can sit in the grasslands, dog walking in the
refuge, and fishing and hunting in closed areas. A full-time
law enforcement presence on the refuges is needed to curb
abuses and to provide education to those unaware of the rules
and regulations, and the reasons why they are in place.
Additionally, a security surveillance system for the parking
lot would go a long way towards reducing the problem with car
prowls.
The education program at the Billy Frank, Jr. Nisqually is
incredible and is a direction for the future focus of this
urban refuge. The refuge is a popular regional destination,
especially on clear Pacific Northwest days, and regularly
exceed its visitation capacity due current resource
limitations. This is also true for the education program which
serves a remarkable 10,000 students each year, but is facing
growing demand from school districts and staff and teachers.
With additional staff, the program can be expanded to provide
environmental education outreach within the communities and
then follow-up visit to the refuge. We want to help create the
next generation of people who actively take care of our
Nation's lands.
As it is now, our Friends group and volunteers are picking
up the slack and smoothing out the inconsistencies in the
funding to the best of our ability. Whoever volunteers and
outside staff are not a sustainable model for our refuge
system. We support the request that the subcommittee allocate
$586 million in funding for the Refuge System Operations And
Maintenance Fund for Fiscal Year 2021. This increase would
greatly impact our refuge. The Nisqually National Wildlife
Refuge Complex would be better able to hire the staff needed to
have an adequate level of law enforcement, increase our urban
refuge outreach, control invasive species to benefit a
diversity of fish and wildlife, restore critical habitat for
Oregon spotted frog, construct and operate the promised
interpretive center at Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge,
provide additional wildlife-dependent opportunities at Grays
Harbor National Wildlife Refuge in the back of our unit, and
further build out our environment education programs.
Our refuges are the face of public lands for many people in
the South Puget Sound Community as they are for communities
across the country. We need adequate funding to ensure that
they stay protected, accessible, and stewarded for the
generations to come. Thank you for your consideration.
[The statement of Mr. Hall follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. Is it Brouwer?
Ms. Brouwer. Brouwer, yes.
Mr. Kilmer. All right. Ms. Brouwer.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
CAROLINE BROUWER, VICE PRESIDENT OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, NATIONAL
WILDLIFE REFUGE ASSOCIATION
Ms. Brouwer. Good afternoon. My name is Carolyn Brouwer,
and I am the vice president of government affairs for the
National Wildlife Refuge Association. I very much appreciate
the invitation to testify today on behalf of the National
Wildlife Refuge Association and our members and supporters,
particularly the friends groups who do such amazing work on the
ground. I am joined today by Justin and Bill, and we are
thrilled to have you into town.
The Refuge Association was started 45 years ago by retired
refuge staff who wanted to start a group to advocate on behalf
of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Today, the Refuge
System consists of 568 refuge units across 850 million acres,
which is roughly the size of India. Refuges are in all 50
states and in five marine national monuments in the Pacific and
Atlantic Oceans.
Today, I want to talk with you today about what the Refuge
System has been able to do with the recent increases. There was
an increase of $14 million in the budget this past year in
2020. With the $2.9 million increase included in the budget for
law enforcement, the Refuge System has hired 43 new Federal
wildlife officers. Last year when I testified, I stated that 13
States have zero or one officer. With these recent hires, this
is no longer the case, and we are anticipating law enforcement
staffing to increase, especially in the States that have been
particularly neglected recently.
Another place that will receive more officers is border
refuges. For several years, the Fish and Wildlife Service has
moved nearly all of their officers on a rotating schedule down
to the border for 21-day details. With these new hires, we
expect detailees to be discontinued, which will allow these
officers to stay at their home refuge. With additional funding
in the upcoming appropriations Bill, the Refuge System is
planning on hiring an additional 12 officers, which will raise
levels of staffing and law enforcement to a new recent high.
Current law enforcement funding is $41 million, and goal is $70
million.
Another positive outcome in the Fiscal Year 2020 bill was
additional funding on invasive species. The Fish and Wildlife
Service is facing serious impacts on nearly every wildlife
refuge with 2.4 million acres infested with invasive plants. I
am sure all of you will recognize names like phragmites, Kudzu,
and salt cedar. There are also 1,749 invasive animal
populations, which includes everything from mice and rats on
the Pacific atolls and islands, to feral hogs, quagga mussels,
pythons, and Asian carp. To show the impact of funding
eradication efforts, one great example is nutria in the
Chesapeake Bay. Nutria are a rat species that are roughly 14
pounds on average, which is larger than my cat. There are
extremely destructive to wetland habitats. For several years,
there has been a substantial amount of money put towards
eradicating nutria in the Chesapeake Bay. There has been a lot
of people, I have a team of dogs, lots of money and focus. This
is about the fifth year with no nutria sightings, so perhaps
this next year, nutria will be considered eradicated in that
area.
There has also been a new effort to create invasive species
strike teams. There was $2.5 million for this in the fiscal
year 2020 bill, which is enough for five new teams, bringing
the number up to 12. Their goals are early detection and rapid
response. One species that is a prime target for the strike
teams are mice on Midway atoll. These mice are literally eating
the albatross alive as they sit on their nests, and it is a
gruesome sight. And I am told that at dusk, you can see the
ground moving there are so many mice there.
I want to thank you for your support of funding for the
Refuge system and for that overall $4 million dollar increase
in the 2020 bill. The system needs another boost of funding
this next year. Funding is now $1 million lower than the height
of funding in 2010, and fiscal year 2010 funding of $503
million, after calculating for inflation, would be $598 million
now. This means that the Refuge System has had to absorb $94
million in cuts over the last 10 years. As a result, the system
has lost one-seventh of its staff. Acres needing prescribed
burns are left untouched. Half of refuge units are unstaffed.
Law enforcement funding, even with recent increases, is
about 25 percent of full staffing. Many, many refuges have no
visitor services staff, which doesn't sound like a big deal
until you see the refuges that do have these staffers, and you
realize the value they add to the community in terms of
bringing school kids out to refuges and teaching the community
about nature in their own backyard. Anyone who has visited the
Prairie Wetlands Learning Center in Fergus Falls, Minnesota
knows the value of hands-on nature for kids. This is what
visitor services staff does. Just imagine if we could replicate
centers like that all over the country.
Refuges are currently funded at 59 cents an acre. Parks in
comparison, and I agree we are talking about apples and
oranges, but parks are funded at $30 an acre. Our goal for over
a decade now has been to get refuge funding up to $900 million
dollars, which would still be barely a dollar per acre. We are
asking your subcommittee to include $586 million in the FY 2021
appropriations bill.
Thank you very much, and I am happy to answer any questions
you may have.
[The statement of Ms. Brouwer follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. Mr. Leinbach.
Mr. Leinbach. Thank you. Am I allowed to give you pictures
and stuff?
Mr. Kilmer. I think so, yeah. Sure.
Mr. Leinbach. [Audio malfunction in hearing room.]
Mr. Kilmer. Great. We love pictures. Thank you. I will pass
them down. Thank you.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
URBAN ECOLOGY CENTER
WITNESS
KEN LEINBACH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, URBAN ECOLOGY CENTER
Mr. Leinbach. Good afternoon. Ranking Member Joyce and Mr.
Kilmer, and anyone else who is listening in the room. It is a
lovely afternoon if you are a duck. I am the executive director
of the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I am
super grateful for the opportunity to speak with you today. The
purpose of this testimony is to introduce the Interior and
Environment Subcommittee to a replicable nonprofit model for
urban revitalization.
The Urban Ecology Center, the UEC, uses environmental
education as a tool to transform challenged urban parks and
neighborhoods, and our work is capturing the attention of
cities across the country. The UEC started as an experimental
social invention based on research that states, ``If one has
consistent access to nature from an early age while having a
mentor in your life who demonstrates respectful behavior toward
the land, that person is very likely to grow up caring for and
working for the environment.'' That is the kind of person we
need right now in the world.
Our mission then is quite simple: to connect people who
live in cities to nature and each other. The center began in
the mid-90s as a small group of teachers in a humble trailer in
a high crime park in one of the most densely populated
neighborhoods in our State. We started offering field trips to
nearby schools, and quickly discovered the what we are offering
was needed. Nature-based recreation and education is beneficial
in every: intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, and
physical. Our trailer became a hive of community activities for
adults and kids. Our success allowed us to grow, and we now are
in three beautiful green built and rehab buildings that bustle
with community activities on Milwaukee's southwest and east
side.
While the center began as a strategy to improve ecological
literacy of folks in a city, we discovered that when a UEC is
placed in an urban park, so much more happens. The park becomes
safe. Student academic achievement improves. New jobs are
created. Volunteerism explodes. And if done correctly, a
significant influx of community resources flow into the park
and nearby surroundings. The center has catalyzed over $45
million in direct investments in and near the parks that we
occupy. What once was blighted, even dangerous, green spaces
becomes a safe and green community asset.
Last year, we hosted over 220,000 visits by youth and
adults at our three branches in Milwaukee. Three thousand five
hundred volunteers helped us plant over 10,000 native trees and
plants in the 70-plus acres that we now manage. We partner with
63 urban schools providing 35,000 students with regular field
trips. We reach an incredibly diverse audience. All ages,
racial, political, and economic backgrounds come together at
our centers. Both sides of the aisle have supported us.
Today, cities all over the Nation are reaching out and
showing interest in replicating this model. To help facilitate,
we published this book, Urban Ecology, and created a training
institute around it. To date we have had over 50 people come
through our training, representing 19 different cities,
Columbus, Atlanta, Rochester, and Denver to name a few. We have
had cities from different countries as well.
Twenty years after our inception, the program is
flourishing to such a degree that it was suggested that it was
important for you, who are charged with governance of this
Nation, to be aware of our existence and the transferable
impacts we are having. I am deeply honored that you accepted
our testimony to speak to you today and have hopes that you and
any listening might be able to assist us in finding additional
partnerships and funding opportunities to help accelerate the
spread of our important program. Worth noting, we have worked
with the U.S. Forest Service in creating a 40-acre children's
forest, an arboretum out of remediated industrial land. And we
were also grateful to receive nearly $1 million dollars of
funding from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, the first
year of its inception, to help remediate a tier-one tributary
into Lake Michigan. Thank you. Congratulations, by the way, on
passing the reauthorization bill for the GLRI just yesterday, I
believe, right? Well done.
Some of you may be in Milwaukee this July for the
Democratic National Convention. Come visit. We would love to
show you around. And if you happen to know of anybody looking
for a unique venue for their meeting or event, please contact
us. We have really cool facilities, these ultra-green
facilities.
I know as you, Ranking Member Joyce, that the freshwater
bodies in our region aren't merely Good Lakes, they are Great
Lakes. Accordingly, I don't know if I am allowed, but I brought
you each a Petoskey stone, a polished fossilized ancient stone
found only on Lake Michigan, as a gift from the lake. I
actually have enough that folks in the room can have them as
well. And there is no real value to these except for the
beauty, so I think it is okay for me to give them. It is not
like----
Mr. Kilmer. People frequently throw rocks at us----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Kilmer. So we are good. We are good. Thank you. Thank
you.
Mr. Leinbach. These are quite beautiful, so take one, pass
it on. Make sure you get one. You are doing the hard work. I
would Tyler to get one because he helped me out early, and then
anybody else in the room until they are gone. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify. I am more than happy to answer any
questions you have about our mission and our work.
[The statement of Mr. Leinbach follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. This
got Oprah real quick. You get a rock, and you get a rock.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Joyce, do you have any questions?
Mr. Joyce. No. I thank you all for being here, and I
appreciate all the hard work you do. Hopefully we can all
continue to work together for a better planet.
Mr. Kilmer. I would like to thank each of you for your
testimony. I have been trying to get David Joyce to come to the
Democratic Convention for a long time now, so thank you.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Joyce. I got to go to Washington. That was nice.
Mr. Kilmer. There you go. Yeah, that was nice. That was
nice. I actually did want to just make maybe a comment and a
question to Justin. Thank you for mentioning some extraordinary
refuges in our neck of the woods. The Billy Frank, Jr. Refuge
is really incredible, and is appropriately named after someone
who was a real champion for tribal justice and for
environmental justice, and I know that the work of that refuge
is designed to sort of live up to that mission. I am also
really grateful that you mentioned Grays Harbor and the
Shorebird Festival. I would encourage anyone who is watching on
C-SPAN 8----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Kilmer [continuing]. To come visit Grays Harbor
Country, and it really is an extraordinary refuge, the
Shorebird Festival. So I have got two daughters. My oldest
daughter was quite young. She was a total birder. She was very
unusual. Most kids would read Dr. Seuss, and she would read,
like, a book on birds at night rather than reading Dr. Seuss.
She would be the yellow-breasted warbler, you know, lives in
shrubs and trees, and migrates in the fall, right? It was a
very unusual childhood for her. But I took her to the Shorebird
Festival, and it was so cool to see her just sort of connect
with nature. And the only connection I had seen prior to that
was Angry Birds was about as close as she got to connecting,
and so I appreciate you mentioning that.
I want to ask you in light of these unique assets, so if
there was additional base funding, talk about how that could
build capacity for connecting with communities, connecting with
youth. You mentioned a couple of examples, but I just want to
make sure we hear the message loud and clear from you.
Mr. Hall. You bet. So most of education comes out of the
Billy Frank, Jr. Nisqually, and we actually have a partnership
between the Friends group, the refuge, some amount of their
base funding, and another nonprofit, the Nisqually River
Foundation, that provides a staff member in order to do that.
And then we have a couple AmeriCorps, one that works Grays
Harbor and that works at Billy Frank, Jr. As I said, we reached
capacity. Our parking lots are full. People are parking on the
grass on those occasional sunny days that we do get in the
Pacific Northwest.
So the way to increase the outreach and the benefit of that
refuge is to get those education staff out into the schools,
into the community. We also work with the Nisqually Tribe with
their Head Start program, getting them out. And they learn
about the refuge, and what the missions are, and what we are
trying to do, and then they have capstone field trip into the
refuge itself. And so really working with Joint Base Lewis-
McChord, and then Pierce County Schools and Thurston County
Schools and some Lewis County Schools, we are really able to
extend that out, and then those people come back. The students
come back with their parents, and, you know, they learn what
the refuge system is for, why they are there, what the benefits
are. And so really that is that next step.
And the Fish and Wildlife Service had an urban refuge
contest, a funding contest, which added $1 million to the base
funding, which we applied for. We still have that plan ready to
go. We were not successful. They only did one. It went on for 3
years. They did two refuges one year and then one refuge the
other 2 years, and the one in our district was fortunate enough
to get that. But we have those plans ready to go. And so really
to extend the impact of the refuge into the community, it just
requires that extra base funding in order to fully support that
education program.
Mr. Kilmer. Terrific. I appreciate you mentioning that. And
I also just wanted to call out the staff at both of those
refuges are just really tremendous.
Mr. Hall. Absolutely amazing people to work with.
Mr. Kilmer. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you all for your
testimony.
Mr. Leinbach. Can I offer a thought to this?
Mr. Kilmer. Go on. Dive in.
Mr. Leinbach. I was just thinking, I am curious. In our
modeling of an urban ecology center, it would be really great
to partner with the refuges and the parks that are on the
outskirts. And the way our model works is we actually have a
fleet of buses that we own that we are able to take kids to
where we need to go, which is often a stumbling block. So it
would be lovely to talk to with you or anyone else again in the
room--I don't know who is here--related to that type of
partnership. But the amount of money that it would require to
create those urban centers is actually not very significant, so
it would be interesting to talk to somebody about that. So
thanks.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. Great. Thank you all for your
testimony. Let me invite up the next panel. Miles Keogh, the
executive director of the National Association of Clean Air
Agencies. Dr. Sumita Khatri. Did I get that close?
Dr. Khatri. Yes.
Mr. Kilmer. Okay. With the American Lung Association, and
Mandy Warner with the Environmental Defense Fund. Thank you.
Thank you. Welcome. Mr. Keogh, go ahead. Kick us off. You have
got 5 minutes.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CLEAN AIR AGENCIES
WITNESS
MILES KEOGH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CLEAN AIR
AGENCIES
Mr. Keogh. Thank you so much. This is actually my second
rodeo doing this, and to repay your kindness for the last time
that I came, I have some written remarks, but I know you know I
can read, and I know you can read, so I am not going to read
them. I will speak a little bit extemporaneously, but I will
kind of try to make it worth your time as much as possible.
Thank you so much, again, to you and to the other members of
the subcommittee for letting me speak today.
You mentioned I am Miles Keogh. I run the National
Association of Clean Air Agencies, which convenes 155 of the
State and local air pollution and climate agencies across the
country. And I am testifying today because those agencies,
which have the primary responsibility under the Clean Air Act
for protecting your constituents form air pollution. They get a
lot of their funding through appropriations that you all
consider and authorize.
Those agencies which are coastal and heartland, urban and
rural, every stripe of politics, those agencies have received
level funding for a long time. In fact, they continue to
receive today the same level of funding that they received 15
years ago in 2004 during the George W. Bush Administration.
NACAA's ask for every State and local agency in every State
of the country, is for the House, for you all, to help
appropriate an additional $87 million this year to the State
and local category grants under Section 103 and 105 of the
Clean Air Act. That is a 15-year inflation adjustment, and I
came in last year and asked for a 14-year inflation adjustment.
The needs are greater than that. In 2007, we asked the agencies
what they needed, and, you know, it is 15 years at the same
level, and the numbers were more than double what they were
receiving. But adjusting for inflation would go a long way.
So I remember from last year. I know what you are thinking.
Why should you all give any more money to the Clean Air
Agencies for this work, right? Obviously you can do it with
level funding because you are doing it, and you have been doing
it, so why would we consider increasing the money? In fact,
there are five ways in which your districts would benefit from
having these agencies get an increase in the funding.
The first is that at the current level, there is an
impediment to business development. When the agencies are
stretched as they are over 15 years of operating with the same
funding, it delays the time that we can approve projects as
being in line with the law. It slows down how fast we can get
permits out the door. It impedes investment. It slows economic
growth, and it slows job creation. So this is a real thing. It
is hard to tally what that number actually is, but holding
things steady over that time has had an effect.
Second, it shifts that spending to your States. There are
not that many sources of money in the world, so where the
Federal money doesn't show up, it is citizens in your district
that backfill the difference, and that a lot of what has
happened. Third is that the public demands more information and
more effort than we needed in previous years. We now find out
about air quality in our weather apps. There is greater Clean
Air awareness thanks to wildfires. There are some explosion and
sensor data, and there is a bunch of new pollutants, things
like ethylene oxide and PFAS, and the like that we just didn't
have the same understanding years ago as we do know.
Fourth, if you have ambitions to comprehensively reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, those are going to involve State and
local agencies. If you want to do that in the future, the time
to invest in those agencies is now. And then finally, and by
far most importantly, even though more people are protected
from air pollution today, we still have non-attainment areas,
and we still have people exposed to air toxics. There are still
limits to the work that we could be doing, and constraining the
ability of air agencies to provide services to the public, it
narrows that reach and limits the protection we can provide
your constituents.
We don't know how many environmental justice programs we
are not doing. We don't know how many communities we are not
reaching. And the fact is that while clean air is a huge
success story, it is still an unfinished story. More Americans
still die from air pollution than from car crashes or from gun
violence, and about a third of Americans still breath unhealthy
air for about a third of the year. So, again, the ask is for an
addition $87 million to adjust for 15 years of holding it
steady on the paycheck.
I thank you for your time, and if you have questions, I am
happy to address them.
[The statement of Mr. Keogh follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. Dr. Khatri.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
SUMITA KHATRI, M.D., M.S., VICE CHAIR-MISSION PROGRAMS; CHAIR OF THE
PUBLIC POLICY COMMITTEE, AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION
Dr. Khatri. Good afternoon. Hello, Ranking Member Joyce. I
am a Buckeye, too. Thanks. Mr. Kilmer and others in the room,
thank you for offering us the opportunity to testify in front
of your subcommittee. My name is Sumita Khatri. I am a board
member of the American Lung Association, and I am also a lung
physician, and also a member of the community. And it is in
these realms that I am here for you today. The mission of the
American Lung Association is to improve lung health and prevent
lung disease, and how that mixes in with air quality, so thank
you for the segue prior.
So I am here to urge the subcommittee to increase its
investments in the U.S. EPA air quality programs. It is the
50th anniversary of the Clean Air Act, and there is opportunity
to do even more than has already been done. There is much more
to be done because you can't have too healthy air. In order for
us to deliver on our promise for the Clean Air Act, if we fund
further, there are so many things we can do.
For instance, build upon the EPA air quality management
system that is in already place which is keeping track of what
air quality is going on so that we can all be informed
citizens. Two, EPA's grants to States and tribes to do what
needs to be done individually based on what the community needs
after you have done the research to figure out and have these
partnerships. Three, monitoring and enforcement. Unless we
monitor, we don't know what we are needing to do next. And
enforcement because we need to be held accountable whatever the
origin of those air quality alerts are coming from. And then,
of course, the EPA's Climate Protection Program because after
decades of progress, we are seeing some backslide due to
changes in climate, as you mentioned, in the wildfires.
So my written comments outline more in detail what we are
asking for specifically, but I would like to highlight how the
EPA has helped me be better at all three realms that I
discussed earlier. I live in Cleveland, and don't talk about
the river, okay? But Cleveland used to have worse air quality,
but it has gotten a lot better. And part of how we are being
able to do that is through the State implementation plans,
looking at what the sources of air pollution are. And not only
is it industry, but it is also transportation.
So I have to mention a story. I do a lot of outreach. I
just don't stay in my four walls as a clinician. I partner with
air quality agencies, and I have a really compelling story
about the very proactive bus fleet manager in a large public
school system, who decided that he wanted to be part of the
solution. And so he applied for the diesel particulate filter
funding grants, and he took about 300 buses over 6 years and
retrofitted them with diesel particulate filters. And the air
quality not just outside improved, but inside. We actually rode
those buses and did some air quality monitoring, and we saw
that.
So about 10 years ago when my kids started going to school,
you will be sure to know that as I waved goodbye to them, I was
actually making sure that the DPF was there. Like, what are you
doing, Mom? I am like, never mind, it is good for you. So that
is one thing that I know that we are doing well with these
programs. The second thing is that having publicly-available
databases with air quality metrics, like AQS Data Mart, that
lets people who are epidemiologists like me look and see
whether there are associations from a timing standpoint with
asthma visits to the ED, or even doing kind of studies looking
at inflammation in their upper airways, people with asthma who
demonstrate that more. So having this publicly-available data
available allows for us to do this research.
And then finally, as a clinician, I am able to have these
conversations. They know what they are breathing, and it
doesn't feel good. They are the canaries in the coal mine. And
having conversations around air quality index and what they can
do, when they should exercise, what they can do in their own
environments to think how to have a healthier lifestyle can be
improved. Those are all important.
So I already mentioned about how climate change, having
these extreme weather events, and not only are the people
getting sicker in these areas, but the people who are trying to
deliver medical care, they are experiencing challenges. So all
of these things are important that we talk about. So thank you
very much. We appreciate all of the progress that has been made
through the EPA, but I call on you to further fund the EPA, and
we have all those details available for you so that we as
clinicians can do job well done, too.
Thank you very much.
[The statement of Dr. Khatri follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. Ms. Warner.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND
WITNESS
MANDY WARNER, SENIOR MANAGER, CLIMATE & AIR POLICY, ENVIRONMENTAL
DEFENSE FUND
Ms. Warner. Thank you. Good afternoon. I want to thank
Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, and Representative
Kilmer, and other members of the subcommittee for the
opportunity to testify today. My name is Mandy Warner. I am a
senior manager for climate and air policy at Environmental
Defense Fund. EDF is an international and environmental
advocacy organization with 2-and-a-half million members
nationwide. While there are numerous priorities for EDF within
Interior and Environment appropriations that are critical to
public health, my remarks today are specifically focused on the
Environmental Protection Agency's proposal related to the
mercury and air toxic standards for power plants.
EDF is respectfully asking the Interior, Environment
Subcommittee to include a provision to direct EPA to complete a
report that fully assesses this proposal's impacts on
Americans. Specifically, we recommend EPA complete an analysis
of the impacts of its MATS proposal that includes a
comprehensive assessment of its potential public health,
economic, and environmental consequences. That study must
include an analysis of the costs and benefits of the
Administrator's proposed revised supplemental finding, and of
any rescission, invalidation, or termination of MATS, as well
as a study of the actual cost to industry of complying with
MATS since it has been implemented. This analysis will better
inform the public and Congress of the issues at stake in the
MATS proposal.
Remarkably, EPA proposed to find control of power plant
mercury in air toxics emissions is not appropriate without
doing any such study, and despite a massive record showing the
grave harms that these pollutants cause to society, including
children and vulnerable populations.
As background, in 2011, EPA finalized standards to reduce
mercury and other toxic air pollution, including lead,
chromium, arsenic, and soot from coal- and oil-fired power
plants. Power plants were the single-largest source of toxic
mercury emissions in the U.S. and emit over 80 hazardous air
pollutants. These pollutants are known to cause cancer, birth
and reproductive impacts, respiratory and cardiovascular
impacts, impaired brain develop in children, and other harms to
human health.
Leading up to the finalization of the standards, EPA
assessed the benefits and costs associated with implementing
the rule, finding up to 11,000 lives would be saved every year,
along with avoiding 130,000 asthma attacks among children and
other health harms. This analysis demonstrates that the
benefits outweigh the costs of implementing the standards by a
margin of 9 to 1. And subsequent to finalization and
implementation of MATS, many studies have further quantified
and monetized reductions of mercury, finding that the benefits
are indeed orders of magnitude higher than EPA had estimated.
And it is now also clear that EPA and industry overestimated
the cost of compliance with the standards.
The power sector is meeting MATS and has achieved an 85
percent reduction in mercury, an 81 percent reduction in other
metals, and a 96 percent reduction in acid gases since 2010.
Unfortunately, in 2018, EPA proposed to reverse the Agency's
prior foundational finding that MATS is appropriate and
necessary, which could potentially undermine these already-
implemented and widely-supported standards. EPA presented no
scientific evidence to suggest it was not appropriate to
regulate power plants' hazardous air pollution. EPA also
declined to update its analysis of the cost and benefits of the
rule, and instead inappropriately relied on the 2011 regulatory
impact analysis.
Numerous public commenters noted that the substantial peer-
reviewed research documenting greater health effects of mercury
and analysis quantifying and monetizing benefits and reducing
mercury emissions were not considered in EPA's 2018 proposal.
This deficiency was also noted by the EPA's Science Advisory
Board in a draft report addressed to Administrator Wheeler in
October 2019. For example, as EPA admitted at the time, the
Agency's 2011 RIA was only able to quantify and monetize a
small subset of the subset of the impacts of methyl mercury
exposure. More recent studies have shown that there are
significant new analysis EPA could draw from to assess the full
array of benefits from implementing the standards.
A comprehensive report from leading independent
environmental economists released in December 2019 also found
that EPA's approach greatly underestimated the public health
benefits associated with reducing mercury emissions, and that a
new retrospective and prospective benefit cost analysis could
better represent the impacts of the MATS rule. Furthermore, the
public health and environmental community is not alone in
objecting to EPA's harmful and scientifically-unsupported
proposal. EPA's proposal has been widely opposed, including by
the power sector and labor leaders, who have asked EPA to leave
the standards in place and effective. Also the House of
Representatives has expressed bipartisan opposition to the 2018
MATS proposal with the House Interior EPA funding for Fiscal
Year 2020 having included an amendment that would have blocked
the EPA from finalizing this proposal.
I want to thank you again for your consideration of the
MATS study proposal, and we look forward to working with the
committee on this important matter.
[The statement of Ms. Warner follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum [presiding]. So I will just ask a quick
question of all three of you. We have things I looked at. I
mean, some of this is appropriations, making sure that there is
the funding to do the right analysis, the funding to do the
right studies, the funding to do the enforcement. That is kind
of the place we are at. And the amendments can come on the
floor and be in order for some of the things. But do you have
anything moving through Energy and Commerce in the
authorizations committee that Mr. Joyce and I should be looking
at to see whether or not there is a funding attachment to them
and be aware of it?
Dr. Khatri. I don't know that we have anything formally
going through those committees. However, I think the clean
energy sector certainly helps with improving our air quality.
And so any collaborations we can make in that regard would be
helpful. I think the lens through which I came with
representing ALA is the fact that it is a broad issue, the air
quality, and it doesn't even affect only those people with
chronic lung diseases, but can develop it as well.
Ms. McCollum. Right.
Dr. Khatri. So I think knowledge is power is the key to
this, and giving the communities the empowerment to sort of
partner and change their environment, that is the lens through
which I came. So perhaps that didn't come through as clearly.
Ms. McCollum. No, no, it did. I was just wondering if you
had any other, you know, we are not the only tool in the
congressional toolbox that you are looking at to bring these
issues either to awareness. You know, sometimes there is
environmental justice bills going through. There are other
hearings happening. I was just wondering if there was anything
that I as a member should be talking to some of my counterparts
in either Energy and Commerce or any of the other committees.
Dr. Khatri. I can certainly get back to you on that.
Ms. McCollum. You could get back to us. That would be
helpful.
Mr. Keogh. We do not have anything attached to any other
legislation. Implementing the Clean Air Act is a pretty swim
lane.
Ms. McCollum. I think so.
Mr. Keogh. And the State and local agencies have these
category grants. So you are the dance partner that we come
with.
Ms. McCollum. With the dance.
Mr. Keogh. So that is where we are at.
Ms. McCollum. But for the grants, but for some of the other
things.
Mr. Keogh. Yeah, I am not aware of any advocacy work that
we have in Energy and Commerce related to the mercury stuff
that I talked about, but I am happy to follow up with you as
well about that.
Ms. McCollum. Okay.
Mr. Keogh. Thank you for that question.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Keogh. Thank you for your time.
Ms. McCollum. Absolutely. We have heard from the EPA clean
air panel. Now we are going to hear from the EPA clean water
panel. So if you would, and we won't count it against your
time. Just take a moment and introduce yourself, and then go
into your testimony. We will go through. We found out that that
kind of saves time and gets people back on track. And you have
waited throughout a vote, so we appreciate it, and we look
forward to hearing your testimony. Please start.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW & POLICY CENTER
WITNESS
ANN MESNIKOFF, FEDERAL LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR, ENVIRONMENTAL LAW & POLICY
CENTER
Ms. Mesnikoff. Thank you. Good afternoon. I am Anne
Mesnikoff. I am the Federal legislative director for the
Environmental Law and Policy Center. ELPC is based in the Great
Lakes region with offices in seven Midwest States and here in
D.C. Thank you, Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, and
Representative Kilmer for the opportunity to testify today in
support of the popular bipartisan Great Lakes Restoration
Initiative. We greatly appreciate the leadership of this
committee that resulted in the program receiving $320 million
for this Fiscal Year.
The Great Lakes are a global gem and contain 21 percent of
the world's fresh water. They supply 42 million people with
safe drinking water. The Great Lakes support a $7 billion
annual fishing industry, and recreation draws millions of
tourists, who boost the economies of shoreline communities. In
short, the Great Lakes are where many millions live, work, and
play.
I will make three points today. First, the Great Lakes
Restoration Initiative is vitally important and successful. It
is a model Federal program providing great benefits, and it is
working well. As the GLRI's Third Action Plan notes, the GLRI
has been a catalyst for unprecedented Federal agency
coordination, which has, in turn, produced unprecedented
results.
Congress' recognition of the effectiveness of the program
is reflected in the bipartisan support to reject the
President's proposed budget cuts for this successful program,
and instead restored funding for it for Fiscal Year 2018, 2019,
and an increase in Fiscal Year 2020. Yesterday on the House
floor, many members spoke to the benefits of GLRI across the
Great Lakes, and my written testimony details a range of
projects the program covers and highlights several examples of
successful projects documented by our partners, Healing Our
Waters Coalition. Importantly, GLRI projects bring together a
broad array of partners to do the work to achieve GLRI's goals
and create jobs. The program delivers significant regional
economic value.
Second, even as we applaud the success of GLRI, we need to
recognize the new and evolving threats the Great Lakes face
from climate change, the increases of harmful algal blooms, to
this Administration's attack on the Clean Water Act. These
combined threats mean we need to protect the Great Lakes more
now than ever. Last spring, ELPC issued a report authored by
top climate experts from Midwest universities, including the
University of Minnesota and Ohio State University. The report
found that climate change is causing significant and far-
reaching impacts across the region. Among the impacts
particularly relevant to GLRI is the finding that climate
change is contributing to a more dramatic pattern of
fluctuating lake levels compared to historic patterns. Annual
precipitation in the Lakes region has increased at a higher
percentage than the rest of the country, and more of this
precipitation is occurring in unusually large events.
The Lakes remain at dangerously high levels, bringing
flooding, impacting infrastructure and increased polluted
runoff. We need to recognize the role climate change is playing
and will play across the region with attention to resilience,
protecting shorelines, wetlands restoration, other projects
that GLRI supports. Changes in precipitation patterns are also
contributing to the growing challenge of algal blooms, which
threaten public health, drinking water, and treatment costs,
and impact recreation and fishing.
In just the Maumee River Watershed, a priority watershed
for GLRI, the estimated number of animals in the region tripled
over the last 10 years. We used satellite imagery to count and
measure CAFOs in the Maumee Watershed to estimate the number of
animals the amount of manure these facilities produce, and
concluded that in 2018 alone, CAFOs produced 3.5 million tons
of manure, fueling Lake Erie's excess nutrient load. GLRI
supports strategies to reduce this harmful runoff, but even as
these programs are implemented, the number of animals and
industrial farms is on the rise.
Finally, the Lakes face new threats from critical rollbacks
of rules intended to protect clean water. The recently-
announced Navigable Waters Protection Act will leave rain-
dependent streams and a large percentage of wetlands
unprotected. EPA's own Science Advisory Board's draft letter
was deeply critical of the analysis supporting the final rule.
This rollback, along with the proposed changes to States'
authority under section 401 of the Clean Water Act could also
increase challenges to the Lakes.
And finally, third, I need to make amendment to my written
testimony because, again, as members spoke in support of GLRI
yesterday, they also passed the GLRI Act of 2019. ELPC supports
this bill and the important goal of funding GLRI at $475
million. But given the urgency of protecting the Lakes, we
request that this committee consider increasing funding for the
program to that level for fiscal year 2021. This increase would
be both a downpayment toward the implementation of the
reauthorization and a recognition of the challenges the Great
Lakes face.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today in
support of GLRI.
[The statement of Ms. Mesnikoff follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA, FLATHEAD LAKE BIOLOGICAL STATION
WITNESS
ERIN K. SEXTON, SENIOR SCIENTIST, UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA, FLATHEAD LAKE
BIOLOGICAL STATION
Ms. Sexton. So thanks in advance for your time today.
Thanks, Chairman McCollum, and Ranking Member Joyce, and
Committee Member Kilmer. This is a first for me. So my name is
Erin Sexton, and I am a senior scientist at the University of
Montana Flathead Biological Station. I am here today to discuss
the important issue of mine contamination from British Columbia
flowing downriver into Alaska, Washington, Montana, and Idaho.
I have spent the last 2 decades studying the impacts of
large-scale mining in transboundary rivers. I live and work
with my family just outside of Glacier National Park and live
near two of these big transboundary rivers, the Flathead and
the Kootenai watershed. Both of these rivers have their
headwaters in southeast British Columbia and are underlain by
some of the world's largest metallurgical coal deposits.
I am here today because there is a critical need for
Federal funding to address the issue of B.C. mining impacts to
our downstream States.
Ms. McCollum. For the record, B.C. is British Columbia?
Ms. Sexton. Yes, I am sorry. British Columbia. British
Columbia, Canada. This spending is an investment up front to
ensure accountability so that our communities in Washington,
Idaho, Alaska, and Montana do not pay the price for long-term
damages from Canadian mines.
Mines in British Columbia leeching into western States
creates a unique problem for our State, tribal, and Federal
Governments. We are collectively outside of the decision-making
process and excluded from environmental assessments and mining
permits that directly impact our rivers. In Montana and Idaho,
mines owned by Teck Coal in southeast B.C. are right now
delivering mine waste into our Kootenai River watershed, and
they are already impacting water quality and fish. In
Washington State, Imperial Metals seeks to build a giant copper
mine in the headwaters of the Skagit River, and in Alaska,
there are more than 12 operating and proposed mines that
threaten some of our last remaining wild salmon rivers. All
four States share the common problem of British Columbia mines
jeopardizing downstream economies, water quality, fish, and
communities.
In years of working on transboundary mines and sorting
through the environmental process in British Columbia, I have
learned that we cannot trust their laws to protect our waters.
In British Columbia, the mining company leads every aspect of
the EA, from data collection, to assessment of impacts, to
selecting the mitigation. In short, letting a mining company
write their own environmental assessment is business as usual
for British Columbia, but represents a substantial downgrading
of our own environmental laws.
Fifteen years ago when I started sampling water quality
downstream Teck's Elk Valley mines in southeast B.C., I found
significantly elevated levels of selenium nitrates and other
contaminants, all well above healthy environmental thresholds.
We saw evidence from fishing outfitters of fish with missing
gills and birds with two beaks, common deformities resulting
from selenium toxicity. Given these impacts and clear
increasing contaminant trends, I expected to see a moratorium
on new mines pending effective mitigations and regulatory
enforcement. Instead, with this data in hand, British Columbia
permitted the expansion of four open coal mines in the Elk
Valley and Kootenai watershed. Rather than enforcing water
quality guidelines, they rewrote the management plan,
increasing water limits to accommodate rising contaminant
levels.
Teck Coal's mitigations have repeatedly failed, and we now
have decades of mine waste leeching into Montana and Idaho over
150 miles downriver from the mines. This year, USGS, USEPA, and
the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho are trying to cobble together
funding to verify those findings and expand their study.
In Fiscal Year 2019 and 2020 with funding from Interior
appropriations, USGS took a first pass at baseline data at the
International Boundary of the States bordering British
Columbia. They did this by installing higher-grade gauges at
the International Boundary. To date, EPA has not received
funding to address this issue despite being a lead entity
across all four States and providing a critical link to our
States and tribes.
Data gathered with those initial dollars in Fiscal Year
2019 and 2020 shows the need for a substantial long-term
funding investment to our interior agencies. A conservative
estimate would be $16 million over 5 years across Washington,
Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. This funding will allow us to lead
our own science, establish our own baseline, evaluate impacts,
and proactively ensure protection and rehabilitation of these
rivers. We can build a long-term strategy, which can include
assessment of damages and assignment of accountability north of
the border.
The call for resolution on this issue has been loud and
clear. Last year, eight U.S. senators from the four downstream
States read a joint letter to B.C. Premier Horgan demanding
action. The letter followed on a rising chorus from affected
tribes expressing deep concerns about impacts to travel, treaty
rights, and lands. The response from Premier Horgan was
insufficient and notably lacked any mention of financial
assurances or accountability to downstream States.
A robust commitment to Federal-led science is imperative to
U.S. efforts to achieve meaningful and lasting resolution to
this issue, and ultimately to ensure that the cost of this
contamination isn't paid by downstream communities of Idaho,
Montana, Washington, and Alaska. Thank you for your time today.
[The statement of Ms. Sexton follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
ENVIRONMENT AMERICA
WITNESS
JOHN RUMPLER, SENIOR DIRECTOR, ENVIRONMENT AMERICA
Mr. Rumpler. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Ranking Member
Joyce, Representative Kilmer. My name is John Rumpler, and I am
a senior attorney and clean water program director for
Environment America. Madam Chair, if I can indulge for just a
moment, I just want to recall of all the elected officials that
I have ever had the privilege to hear speak on the importance
of clean water, when you when I shared a stage in March of
2014, 200-plus people on a hearing on the Clean Water Rule in
St. Paul, you were the one who better than anyone captured what
clean water means for America, for our ecosystem, and our
citizens. And I remember it to this day.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Rumpler. I am here to testify in support of dramatic
increases that are urgently needed in the Clean Water State
Revolving Fund and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. As
a national organization working to protect the places we love
and promote core environmental values, Environment America
believes that we have to fund the water infrastructure that our
environment deserves and our health demands. And as a citizen-
based network of State groups in 29 States, we know the public
agrees.
Now, Congress nearly 50 years ago when we passed the Clean
Water Act made a promise to the Nation that our waters would be
safe for swimming. Yet here we are all these years later, and
we still have billions of gallons of sewage overflows and
runoff pollution plaguing Lake Erie, plaguing the rivers,
including the Mississippi River in Minnesota, plaguing Puget
Sound. Just to underscore, last summer in our report, ``Safe
for Swimming,'' my researchers found widespread fecal bacteria
contamination in beaches across America. And, in fact, health
experts estimate there are 57 million instances of Americans
getting sick each year from swimming in our waters:
gastroenteritis, skin rashes, ear infections, et cetera. This
is clearly not what we meant when we said let's make our waters
safe for swimming right here in Congress with the Clean Water
Act.
Moreover, these problems are likely to get worse with
climate change exacerbating storms and flooding. To give you
one recent example, a sewage facility that was flooded in
Nebraska has been releasing over a 1 million gallons of sewage
every day since last spring because it has been knocked out of
capacity. In addition to these challenges, we now have new
challenges facing our wastewater infrastructure from PFAS, to
micro plastics, to pharmaceutical waste. Now, I have to ask
you, if the American Society of Civil Engineers has given our
wastewater infrastructure a recent grade of D-plus, how on
earth are we going to secure clean water if we don't step it up
with dramatically increased funding?
EPA estimates that to solve our wastewater problems, it is
going to take an investment of $271 billion over the next 20
years. Current levels do not even approach that, but
Environment America, along with 20 other organizations, are
urging Congress to triple the SRF level up to $6 billion per
year so that we can have safe clean water. But it is not just
our waterways that are at risk. It is also our drinking water,
and let me talk primarily right now about the threat of lead
contamination.
Unfortunately, over the course of a century, we built our
pipes and a lot of our fixtures with a potent neurotoxin that
harms the way that our kids learn, behave, and grow. And now I
have to tell you we have a national epidemic of drinking water
contamination by lead. And I don't just mean in communities
like Flint or Newark. Researchers have found lead in water at
the tap in 2,000 water systems in all 50 States, rural,
suburban. It is everywhere. We know that lead harms the way
that our kids develop, so we have got to deal with this
problem.
To stop the toxic contamination, job one is removing lead
service lines. These toxic pipes are the leading source of lead
water contamination wherever they are. EPA now estimates there
are 9.3 million of them out there. The price tag to remove them
all, which health officials say we must do, is now estimated at
approximately $45 billion. State and local rate payers are not
going to be able to bear that burden alone. The longer we here
in the Federal Government wait for a substantial investment,
the longer our kids are going to be drinking water tainted with
lead. And let me assure you that it is our kids because, in
fact, our research through our Get the Lead Out Campaign has
found it not just in our homes with service lines, but in
schools across the country. A high percentage in Washington
State, a high percentage in Ohio and States across the country.
Lead contamination of drinking water in our schools is
pervasive, and I can get you that data from about 20 States
that have done various levels of testing so far.
We need to help our schools get the lead out so that our
kids can learn and grow up safely every day when we send them
to learn and grow. How do we do that? Well, schools need to
start removing old water fountains that have lead in them, and
water fountains, and put on filters that are certified to
remove lead. That is going to take a lot of resources, and
schools that are, you know, strapped for their budgets are not
going to be able to do it alone. So, again, this is going to
require a substantial unprecedented Federal commitment to say
we are not going to tolerate the contamination of our water
with a potent neurotoxin that makes our kids sick.
Now I should say lead is not the only problem that we need
to face with drinking water. We have heard about PFAS, toxic
chemicals and toxic metals getting into our waterways. EPA
estimates overall there that we are going to $472 billion over
the next 20 years just to maintain our current drinking water
infrastructure.
Ms. McCollum. Are you about done?
Mr. Rumpler. I am just about to finish. I just wanted to
add, Madam Chairwoman, if I can, that clean, safe water is the
hallmark of an advanced society. And for too long, we have
taken it for granted, and now America has fallen short. But if
we can take this opportunity to make a historic investment in
clean water, we can bring back the promise of clean water for
all Americans. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Rumpler follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
ASSOCIATION OF NATIONAL ESTUARY PROGRAMS
WITNESS
RICH INNES, SENIOR POLICY DIRECTOR, ASSOCIATION OF NATIONAL ESTUARY
PROGRAMS
Mr. Innes. Thank you. Is it okay to give you a couple of
pictures?
Ms. McCollum. We love handouts. [Laughter.]
Mr. Innes. I am Rich Innes. I am the----
Voice. What we got last time.
Mr. Innes. Oh, that is right. You missed your stone.
Ms. McCollum. It is an agate.
Mr. Innes. My name is Rich Innes. I am the senior policy
director of the Association of National Estuary Programs. My
association with the NEPs goes back to when I was fortunate
enough to be a staffer on the Senate Environment Committee when
we were doing the 1987 amendments to the Clean Water Act, which
created the program. And I am sure that champions of the
program at that time, including my boss, Senator John Chaffee,
George Mitchell of Maine, and Pat Moynihan would be very proud
of how this program has flourished.
I want to particularly thank Representative Kilmer for
inviting both the chair and the ranking member to see firsthand
one of our premiere national estuary programs, the Puget Sound.
And while I am sure you saw it is absolutely stunningly
beautiful and breathtaking framed by Mount Saint Helena,
surrounded by the lands that belonged to Chief Seattle, the
ancestral lands, it is trouble underneath, and there are a
world of problems that the National Estuary Program, together
with many other partners, the Puget Sound Partnership, is
addressing out there.
The way that that started is the way that all of our
estuary programs have started, and that is with the commitment
and support of a few very strong, committed citizens. In this
case, it was some of your former colleagues, then
Representative and now Governor Jay Inslee; the chairman
emeritus of this committee, who will always be Mr. Chairman to
me, and that is Norm Dicks; my lifelong mentor and very dear
friend, Bill Ruckelshaus, who passed recently; and the
legendary tribal leader, Billy Frank, Jr. I hope you got a
chance to see the Wildlife Refuge named in his honor while you
were out there. It is beautiful.
I am really so glad you got a chance to see that. That is
being replicated 28 times around the country for the 28
national estuary programs, and each one of them has its own
story to tell with modest funding, which we greatly appreciate,
from this committee, and not just this committee. This is
generations of this committee that have been very supportive of
this program. It has hit well above its weight. The examples
here are too numerous, but I am going to mention a few of them.
The Delaware NEP, where I spend a great deal of time, is
bringing back the oyster, and it is appearing on tables and in
restaurants, and it is also cleaning the Bay, which is a major
accomplishment. The New York-New Jersey Harbor, one of our
great economic ports, is degraded, as I think we all know. And
the NEP there, along with many partners, is spearheading a plan
to revive and resuscitate that great port.
The San Francisco Bay NEP, that estuary suffered
dramatically from the indiscriminate filling of San Francisco
Bay for decades. And what the NEP now is doing is changing
that. They are addressing it along with Save the Bay, along
with many partners, in order to restore and recapture the
beauty of that Bay. Casco Bay in Maine, I am sorry that Chellie
isn't here, but it is doing incredible work up there to reduce
nitrate and nitrite loadings into the Bay. And, of course, the
Puget Sound Partnership, the NEP up there, is in the forefront
of the governor's efforts to save the orcas. And I am sure you
learned a great deal about that when you were out there. The
iconic black and white fish, they are down to 72. They just
lost another one within the last few days.
So the red light is blinking there. I want to just take one
moment to talk about a special one, Tampa Bay, just because it
is such a poster child, and Tampa Bay was essentially dead in
the 1980s. Eighty percent of the seagrasses were gone, and
almost half of the wetlands were gone out of Tampa Bay. The
National Estuary Program down there, again, I don't want to say
that they did it by themselves. They didn't. It was a
partnership that is the model that NEPs employ where they get
citizens, businesses together in order muster the political
will and the funding, which you have been so helpful with, to
restore these places that we love and care about. Right now,
Tampa Bay is considered a world-class model for estuary
restoration, and it didn't come about easily. It took decades
for us to get there. The work isn't done, but it is a stellar
example.
Yesterday, there was some very good news, as we heard some
of it, the Great Lakes bill. Thank you for passing that. Also,
a bill reauthorizing the National Estuary Program. H.R. 4044
was approved overwhelmingly by this body, and we greatly
appreciate that. Norm Dicks when he was chair of this committee
lamented publicly in a hearing similar to this that the NEPs
were doing so much with so little, and at that point I think we
were getting about $400 per NEP. Now thanks to you, it is up to
a little over $600,000. Yesterday's bill that passed on the
floor of the House would increase the authorization amount to
$1 million per NEP, and continue to put $4 million into a
competitive fund used to address things like ocean
acidification in Hood Canal, algae blooms, which, as you know,
harmful algae blooms are a major, major problem.
So anyway, I am going to end there. I just want to thank
all of you for your continued support.
[The statement of Mr. Innes follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Well, Mr. Joyce, you have gotten a
lot of kudos for the Great Lakes bill, and people have talked
about authorizing amounts. When our last bill that Mr. Joyce
and I worked on left here at the House, it has $1.3 billion
more dollars in it than when it came back from conference
committee.
Voice. Wow.
Ms. McCollum. And so we are trying to do our level best to
work with our authorizers and their suggested amounts because
we all think that they are wonderful, but we don't have an open
pocketbook here. So what we are trying to do is utilize you and
the testimony today to ask our leadership for a bigger
allocation, so thank you all for helping to do that.
I would just like to throw something on the table here to
just discuss briefly. One of the challenges that I find with
water is everybody knows we need it. Everybody drinks it. Some
people like to recreate in it. We eat food from there. Some
people like to just enjoy a sailboat on it. But when you ask
people what water is worth, they say it is priceless, but then
when it comes to some of the runoff, when it comes to some of
the pollution that you referred to, Ms. Sexton, we get into
this cost benefit analysis. Oh, we need the minerals. We need
this. And that is all very true, but I think we need to be
conservative. And as you pointed out, Mr. Rumpler, everybody is
for clean water. They are willing to pay for clean water.
What are we missing is that there is still a disconnect
that water has a significant important value to it, because
when you don't value it, you will pollute it. And I grew up in
a river town, the Mississippi River. When the stockyards first
opened up, they just washed everything out into the river
because the river would wash it downstream. You don't have to
look at it. Dilution was the solution to the pollution, and
eventually it choked off and killed that section of the
Mississippi River. The stockyards are gone. We mourn the loss
of the jobs, but we don't mourn the loss of the pollution when
the river is making a comeback. There are also some other
issues with our sanitary sewer system there, too.
So any suggestions about what you are doing to raise public
awareness that water has a value so that when people talk about
water, they also have in the back of their mind a value to it
besides just, oh, it is here, it is accessible, it is never
going away.
Mr. Rumpler. Madam Chair, I have two thoughts on that. One
is I think the U.S. Water Alliance actually has a whole public
education program called the Value of Water. So perhaps there
would be some resources there about how to remind people that
water has value. But I would say, although this is a little bit
beyond the purview of the Appropriations Committee, that there
is a direct relationship between our regulatory regimes to
protect our waterways and prevent pollution versus how much
money we have to spend on the back end cleaning it up. And as
we all know, it is cheaper to prevent, right?
So if we could maintain stronger Clean Water protections,
for example, Federal jurisdiction over our wetlands and streams
that provide drinking water to hundreds of millions of
Americans, or 117 million Americans, I should say, we will have
less cost on the back end to clean up pollution.
Ms. Mesnikoff. And I will just add that ELPC has done
polling in various parts where we operate in the Great Lakes
region to asses show people are viewing the value of clean
water and understanding some of the particular sources that
affect their access to clean water in their area because it is
different, you know, sources depending on where people are. And
then using that to help educate people about the importance of
clean water protection, clean water regulations. So we are
doing that, and I can share that polling with you.
Ms. McCollum. Okay.
Mr. Innes. A major part of the mission of the National
Estuary Program is environmental education, and it starts when
folks are young, but it continues. One of the benchmarks of a
successful plan is that it includes businesses and the general
public in buy-in to these programs. We have seen the enemy. The
enemy is us.
The majority of pollution of water right now, as we know,
is coming from non-point source pollution runoff. It is coming
from the fertilizers we are putting on our lawns, from
agriculture, from the cars we drive. It is no longer the big
bad industrial polluter as it was when we first passed the
Clean Water Act. And so that is going to involve all of us in a
real public education campaign in how to value and cherish
something as essential to human life as water.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. I am just going to make one quick
comment before I turn it over Mr. Joyce. I am dealing with an
issue that is reverse flow than what you are dealing with with
the Canadians, Ms. Sexton, because of the Laurentian Divide. So
when you teach social studies, geography is part of it, so I
have to get the map up, and in our part of the world, the water
flows north. And so we are dealing with sulfur copper ore
mining, and I am sure the Canadians don't want anything going
into Quantico Bay, just as we don't.
I want to work save their pristine waters. Waters in the
boundary waters, we can literally put this glass in, take it
out, and drink it. And all the mines, it just isn't one mine,
all the mining permits that could go along in that area, and
one mistake, and it is over. There is no going back. So I
appreciate the fact you mentioned your challenge with the
Canadians. I am planning on meeting with some of our
counterparts in Canada, and one of the things that I have
highlighted with the permitting of these mines is we need to be
mindful of the 1908 Boundary Waters Treaty. I think it is 1909.
I did have the date correct. And the water flows both ways on
that, so you gave me some ammunition, and I will be using it.
Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you all for coming here today and for
providing us with this information. Erin, I thought you did a
hell of a job for your first time testifying.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Kilmer.
Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair. I want to thank all of you
as well. And, Mr. Innes, thanks for highlighting the Puget
Sound Partnership and the work they do. As you all pointed out,
last year, we saw an increase in National Estuary Program
funds. We saw an increase in funds for the Puget Sound
Geographic Program. I want to thank our chairwoman for her
leadership, and partnership, and advocacy in making that
happen. The Puget Sound is just so vital to our economy, to our
environment, and as you pointed out, it is beautiful, but sick.
Talk about how increased funding will help us move the needle
on recovery.
Mr. Innes. So as you are well aware, Congressman, each of
the NEPs develop something called a comprehensive management
plan. In Puget Sound, it is called the Action Agenda, and it
has a tremendous amount of buy-in, and this goes back to Bill
Ruckelshaus, his shared strategy. So now you have got a very
dynamic, very well-conceived plan for achieving the cleanup
goals for Puget Sound, and there is no substitute for funding.
And it isn't all Federal. I have to say that the State of
Washington is putting in an enormous amount of money, more than
the Federal contribution, and also private industry. We have
got NGOs that are very engaged in this. The tribal contribution
is enormous as well.
We made a decision. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but
the figures were so big and so staggering that good advice was
don't put out there that it is going to take $2 billion to
recover this because that might scare people, to make it more
bite sized. But there is no substitute for some of the
investments that be made. They are expensive. They are
culverts, replacing culverts to restore streams. They are water
treatment. Anyway, it is expensive. And I do have to say that
in the NEPs in general and Puget Sound in particular, that
investment is put to extremely good purpose and goes a long
way. So thank you.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Well, we will have our next panel
come up. Thank you so much.
Ms. Sexton. Would you like some maps?
Ms. McCollum. Oh, I love maps. Well, welcome. So you know
the drill probably better than anybody else. You are the last
panel, so I want to thank you so much for your patience, your
due diligence, putting up with the vote, and we are anxious to
hear your testimony. So, Ms. Murdoch, if you want to introduce
yourself, we won't count that against your time.
Ms. Murdoch. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. It saves time.
Ms. Murdoch. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. And go into your testimony.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
AMERICAN FORESTS
WITNESS
ALEXANDRA A. MURDOCH, ESQUIRE, VICE PRESIDENT OF POLICY, AMERICAN
FORESTS
Ms. Murdoch. Hello. My name is Alex Murdoch, and I am the
vice president of policy for American Forests. Thank you very
much for having us today. Chairman McCollum, Mr. Joyce, and Mr.
Kilmer, thank you so much.
I am here to talk with you today about our recommendations
for U.S. Forest Service programs that are critical to achieving
climate-informed restoration and reforestation of America's
forests. So very particularly about our national forests and
what they do for us with respect to our changing climate. We
sincerely thank the committee for the Fiscal Year 2020 funding
levels for the Forest Service. And I would also like to
particularly appreciate the increase in funding that you
provided for the Urban and Community Forest Program, and we are
grateful to the committee for recognizing how important that
program is.
American Forests was founded in 1875 by citizens who were
alarmed by the state of our forests. At that time, America was
growing quickly, and we were clearing our forests to make way
for new farms, towns, and railways. This development came at a
price. In the 1600s, almost half of the United States was
forested, and those forests provided clean water, and fish and
game, and shelter and goods for those who lived near them. But
by the start of the 20th century, we cleared over 25 percent of
our forest land, and our drinking water was seriously at risk.
Thankfully in 1911, Congress began to protect our forests
and waters by authorizing Federal purchase of forested cutover
or denuded lands to protect important watersheds. So today,
national forest lands are the largest source of municipal water
supply in the United States and serve 60 million people. Today
we also know that our forests play an important role in
regulating our climate. In Congress and the White House now, we
see an emerging bipartisan recognition that forests and
climate-informed forest management are an important strategy
for mitigating climate change.
At American Forest, we agree with that consensus. Today,
U.S. forests and forest products annually sequester and store
15 percent of U.S. carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.
New research suggests we could nearly double this natural
carbon capture with the right actions. Managing and protecting
our national forests in a changing climate is a critical piece
of this climate puzzle. The good news is we can do this through
existing programs if proper levels are provided.
Foresters need good scientific data to manage our forests
and changing climate. Increased investment in the Forest and
Rangeland Research Program can provide the tools for foresters
to identify, prioritize, and manage climate-driven risks to
forests. Foresters need to restore an estimated 80 million
acres of national forests with climate-informed management
practices. To do this, they need to significantly increase
investments in existing programs that improve forest carbon,
adaptation, and resilience outcomes both on Federal lands and
across boundaries. These programs include the Collaborative
Forest Landscape Restoration Program, the Hazardous Fuels
Reduction, and Vegetation and Watershed Management Programs.
Over 1.2 million acres of national forests need
reforestation, a backlog that grows with every catastrophic
wildfire or infestation from pests and disease. After a
catastrophic event, foresters need funding to implement post-
fire reforestation treatments on lands unlikely to recover
naturally, as well as increased reforestation practice
investments.
Healthy and resilient national forests can deliver critical
power to close climate change. We are greatly heartened by the
optimism and enthusiasm emerging in our country that
reforesting America is an important part of the climate puzzle.
Business leaders are playing an essential and growing role by
funding millions of trees planted all across America, and
pledging investment to the new Trillion Trees Initiative that
was announced at the World Economic Forum in late January. But
Congress has the power to activate the greatest single lever
for quickly advancing large-scale forest carbon mitigation
activities in the U.S. by significantly increasing climate-
informed restoration and reforestation on our national forests.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Murdoch follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Baker.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS
WITNESS
TERRY BAKER, CEO, SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS
Mr. Baker. Good afternoon, Chairwoman McCollum, and Ranking
Member Joyce, and also Representative Kilmer. My name is Terry
Baker, and I am the CEO of the Society of American Foresters.
Thank you for this opportunity to share how forestry, national
resource professionals, and stakeholders can work together to
ensure the sustainability of our Nation's forests through
thoughtful investments and long-term commitment to active
management, research, and partnerships.
SAF is a professional society that represents over 10,000
forestry and natural resource professionals across our Nation.
SAF also produces two peer-reviewed scientific journals and
critical natural resource programs at academic institutions
across the Nation, and helps encourage professional excellence
through credentialing and continuing education.
Since our founding in 1900, forestry and foresters have
evolved. Today's foresters are proud women and men who have
devoted their careers to understanding forests and trees,
enhancing benefits that they provide, and ensuring that they
continue to thrive for generations to come. In our humble
opinion, we are the original green job----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Baker [continuing]. That through commitment to science
and innovation, we have continuously improved forestry
practices and tools, lessening impacts to the land and
improving outcomes to communities, wildlife, and society as a
whole.
With increasing threats and demands on our forests, no
agency program or organization can do it alone. Partnerships,
collaboration, and cross-boundary work is more important than
ever. This is exactly why SAF wholeheartedly supports the
Forest Service's shared stewardship strategy. Actively working
to identify shared priorities and improved processes and
procedures will benefit all stakeholders in the long run. We
encourage you to support these efforts and tools that expand
collaboration with rural communities, partners, and industry,
such as the Good Neighbor Authority and stewardship
contracting.
We sincerely thank this subcommittee for its work in
supporting and securing funding increases for the Forest
Service and Bureau of Labor Management programs for Fiscal Year
2020. These important gains would not have been realized
without your leadership and dedication. For Fiscal Year 2021,
we respectfully ask that you consider the continuing trend of
investing in our forest resources, specifically through the
Forest Service's forest and rangeland research, State and
private forestry programs, and the Bureau of Labor Management
forestry programs. Advancing forest science is integral to
improving the health of U.S. forests and citizens, increasing
the competitiveness of U.S. products in the global marketplace,
and adapting to future challenges. Recent Forest Service
research activities have developed innovative solutions to
managing invasive species, improving smoke and fire management
capabilities, and driving innovation and expansion of
commercial applications for forest products.
For Fiscal Year 2020, we appreciate that this subcommittee
not only rejected the drastic cuts to Forest Service research,
but also championed an increase. For Fiscal Year 2021, we urge
you increase funding for Forest Service research to no less
than $310 million, which includes $83 million for the Forest
and Inventory Analysis Program, and $227 million for the
remaining research and develop programs.
As we all work to use resources more efficiently and
effectively, State and private forestry programs provide a
significant return on Federal investment by leveraging the
boots on the ground and financial resources of State agencies
to deliver to landowners, communities, tribes, and other
Federal agencies. The President's budget for the last few years
has proposed eliminating programs like Urban and Community
Forestry and Landscape Skill Restoration. Again, we appreciate
your efforts to continue these programs to secure much-needed
increases for the entire five programs of the State and private
forestry area.
SAF recommends that these programs be funded at Fiscal Year
2020 levels, and, if possible, above. In addition, we urge you
to consider increasing urban and community forestry to at least
$35 million and forest self-management on cooperative lands to
$48 million. The Bureau of Labor Management plays an integral
role in improving the health and productivity of our Nation's
public lands. SAF asks this subcommittee to extend the
authorization for the Forest Ecosystem Health and Recovery
Fund, which is currently set to expire this year. This fund
specifically helps support management that improves wildfire
resilience and other benefits for BLM and adjacent lands.
In conclusion, we understand and appreciate the resources
are finite, and that more money is not always the answer.
However, our forests have been long been undervalued by society
and underfunded by decision makers. Today, thanks to the
growing and more sophisticated body of science, we know that
forests and trees are key to mitigating climate impacts and
improving the health, well-being and prosperity of our
communities.
Modest increases to the programs discussed today can yield
incredible results for our forests. Please know that SAF and
its diverse membership are always a resource to you. Whether
you are looking for the latest science or insights from our on-
the-ground practitioners, don't hesitate to reach out. Thank
you again for your leadership and your recognition of the
importance of our forests, forest management, research, and
forestry professionals.
[The statement of Mr. Baker follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Asher.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY
WITNESS
JONATHAN ASHER, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, THE WILDERNESS
SOCIETY
Mr. Asher. Thank you, Chair McCollum, for having me today,
and, of course, Ranking Member Joyce and Mr. Kilmer. I am
Jonathan Asher. I am the director of government relations for
conservation funding with the Wilderness Society.
And I just want to start out by saying, you know, in
particular thank you to you and your staff for working across
the aisle, but also, you know, in particular, taking advantage
of the increased budget cap and negotiating the increased
budget cap last year, and then also a full-year bill. That is,
you know, a huge benefit, I think, to all of our priorities. So
thank you very much. I appreciate that.
I just want to share with you some priorities of the
Wilderness Society looking forward to this year. And in doing a
quick time read of what I had written, it was like way over, so
I am just going to kind of go through what I can.
Ms. McCollum. We will have----
Mr. Asher. There you go. Exactly. [Laughter.]
Right. So, you know, the Land and Conservation Fund remains
one of the Wilderness Society's top priorities because of its
on-the-ground impact and value to actual conservation, and to
local communities, and to our natural landscape. The increased
funding level of $495 million last year was greatly appreciated
and certainly acknowledged. I think, you know, as look forward
to this year, noting that the program remains authorized at
$900 million, we, you know, always continue to look for
opportunities to increase that because of its value to our
local communities, our natural landscapes, recreation, and, in
particular, climate change.
LCWF is one of the main on-the-ground tools that we have in
addressing the impacts of climate change through adaptation
efforts as exemplified in the Sierra Nevada and California,
where the long history of kind of the patchwork of railroad
ownership throughout the years has created kind of the
patchwork ownership that makes it hard to fight wildfires
efficiently. The State teamed up with the Forest Service,
localities, land trusts, and other landowners to employ LWCF to
undo some of that patchwork, and it is actually seen a visible
increase in the ability to efficiently address wildfires in the
State. So they are using LWCF there as a climate tool.
Similarly, in New Jersey, there was a large wetlands
project that was done as a natural storm buffer from hurricanes
and, in particular, to mitigate against the impacts of climate
change. A study of the insurance industry showed that with
similar efforts, we saved upwards of, you know, several hundred
million dollars with Hurricane Harvey. So, again, these natural
solutions are really key to how we are looking towards the
future of addressing climate change, not only for our natural
landscapes, but also for local communities, in particular. So
the Land and Water Conservation Fund is critical to that
effort, and we certainly hope the committee will continue to
increase its funding levels and support that critical program.
Additionally, we pay attention to renewable energy
opportunities on public lands. You know, while there is still
authorizing legislation that is working its way through
Congress, we know that several programs, several line items
within the appropriations bill speak specifically to renewable
energy to public lands, and we want to support those, and
increased responsible development of renewable energy on public
lands, again, as a climate solution.
The Wilderness Society also pays particular attention to
wildlife refuges and noting, in particular, funding for listing
under the Endangered Species Act. We certainly support that and
efforts to make sure that it doesn't get cut this year. We
would like to, you know, continue to push for the legacy Roads
and Trails Program to kind of be independent of the Capital
Improvement and Maintenance Fund. And then, in particular,
also, you know, a number of oversight provisions last year were
great that we hope you will continue to support this year,
including the boundary waters, including Chaco Canyon, and, you
know, with the DOI reorg and the BLM headquarters move. You
know, these are moves that the Trump Administration has made
that are, you know, pretty aggressive with respect to
congressional authority, and we hope that you will feel
bolstered in your ability to continue those oversight
activities.
So with that, thank you again for a great bill last year.
We really appreciate it and hope that you will keep up the
progress this year.
[The statement of Mr. Asher follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
----------
Thursday, February 6, 2020.
LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS
WITNESS
LAURA FORERO, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS
Ms. Forero. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member
Joyce. My name is Laura Forero, and I am the legislative
representative for conservation and public lands with the
League of Conservation Voters. As you know, the League of
Conservation Voters is a national environmental nonprofit
focused on protecting our planet and everyone who inhabits it.
And along with our 30 State affiliates and the conservation
voter movement, we work for a more just and equitable democracy
where people, and not polluters, determine our future. So
today, we want to thank you for the increased levels of funding
in last year's Interior appropriations budget. We are also very
thankful for the subcommittee's Fiscal Year 2020, especially
because it did not contain any longstanding anti-environmental
provisions, and we urge you to take this approach once again.
Our written testimony does tell a lot of our full budget
recommendations, but today I would like to highlight just a
couple of those programs. So, first, I would like to talk about
the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which in its 50 years of
history has protected our public lands, increased accessibility
to green spaces, and helped fuel our thriving outdoor
recreation economy. What is more, we want to talk about the
fact that LWCF also helps preserve our natural and cultural
heritage. It helps tell the stories of diverse communities in
our country and its support of green spaces in every single
State and almost every county in the country. So we definitely
appreciate that Congress last year provided a sizable increase
to LWCF and that the subcommittee provided even more than
Congress, that is, last year.
So just to show how critical this program is across the
country, I wanted to share the story of one of my colleagues,
Barbara Hartzell. Barbara was raised Nuwu. Tribally, she is a
Chemehuevi Paiute from the Chemehuevi Tribe of Lake Havasu,
California and Las Vegas Indian Colony. Her grandmother was
raised as an orphan and was forced into a residential school
system that separated Indian children from their families and
their culture and their heritage. Due to this, her grandmother
lived her entire life with unanswered questions about her
family, and Barb only got to know the stories of these women
through oral history and seeing their names listed in the
Indian Census rolls.
The one vestige of the story that remains for her family is
an old picture of her great, great, great grandmother at an
unknown location. But as it turns out, it was taken at the Doll
House at Kiel Ranch Historic Park in Las Vegas, and Barb, my
colleague, came to this realization when she arrived at Kiel
Ranch for an event. One thing that we really want to highlight
is the impact on her family. When she took her mother to the
park, her mother's eyes filled with tears, and her mother's
words still haunt her. Her mother said, ``You mean they were
real,'' meaning these people existed. Barb and her family were
able to see the land their family lived on because of the Land
and Water Conservation Fund and because of the money that it
provided to the State of Nevada.
So as my colleague said, when we talk about the Land and
Water Conservation Fund, we are talking about the importance of
the preservation of our lands, our water, and, more than
anything, our heritage. The League of Conservation Voters
supports full funding of $900 million in discretionary
appropriations for LWCF in Fiscal Year 2021, and we also look
forward to working with Congress to find a permanent solution
for LWCF. So as Barb put it, we can focus on a new kind of
conservation that centers on our voices, on our communities,
instead of having to fight every year for these special places.
In addition to that, I would now like to turn to a
different program, the National Environmental Policy Act. NEPA
is one of Nation's bedrock environmental laws that fosters
government transparency and accountability. For 50 years, it
has enabled the public to provide critical input on the
environmental effects that Federal projects will have in our
communities, public lands, wildlife habitats, as well as our
health. But as you know, unfortunately, the Administration has
recently proposed changes to NEPA. Those changes would severely
limit public input and undermine the analysis of cumulative
effects.
More than anything, we want to highlight how gutting this
process would have dire implications for mitigating climate
change, and also to access clean air, land, water, and
especially for those in low-wealth communities and communities
of color, which are the most impacted by climate change and
toxic pollution. Because of that, we also wanted to share the
story of one of our members, Jose Archapa down in Texas, who
has unfortunately been impacted through toxic pollution.
Unfortunately, due to time, I might not be able to tell the
entirety of his story, but we definitely just want to recommend
that the committee support funding prohibitions on the Trump
Administration's plan to gut NEPA. So thank you so much.
[The statement of Ms. Forero follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. One thing that most people don't
realize about our national forests is that they protect water,
right? And the Superior National Forest where there is the
proposed copper sulfate ore mine, it is 20 percent of the
national forest water bank. And I appreciate the President's
initiative to plant 1 million trees as we are losing trees to
Asian ash borer, what is happening with the pine rust and the
pine beetle, and everything. I could go on about gypsy moss. I
could list a lot of little bugs that we don't want to have
flying around in our forests and embedding themselves in our
trees.
But some of the things kind of going on with extraction,
whether it be of minerals and national forests are impacted, or
putting in roads in some of our public land areas. We need to
have a real education understanding about forests are more than
trees. They are also about water. And I know when we have our
public/private forestry councils, those are the things that,
you know, where we are sitting around the table, everybody
learned from each other, and it took some of the tension out of
the room, and some real opportunities to talk about what are
our shared values, what should our goals be, you know. How do
we make this work for individuals?
Maybe just tell me a little bit about some of the things
that your organizations are doing to kind of hit it home, that
this is about protecting drinking water. And the forests also,
when you replant, they need water, too, this water. So could
you just maybe share a couple of things before we close up this
panel on that?
Ms. Murdoch. We work not only in the national forests, but
to help this public/private stewardship between States and
national lands. And also working in urban areas to make sure
that they have forests for everyone and tree canopy for
everyone in urban areas as well. And every single one of those
projects and efforts all contribute to and have a nexus with
drinking water.
I came to American Forests from the Chesapeake Bay
Foundation, and there I was also working on forests because
forests and buffers are incredibly important to water quality
in the Great Lakes and in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. And
this overlap is incredibly strong, and it is something that
across USDA, it is very important to help all of those projects
work together in order to maximize their ability to contribute
to clean water.
And I don't know if that is helpful, but it is a broad
perspective from the mosaic of Federal work and across with
State foresters and State lands. It is complicated because
there are so many, like, with the LWCF, so many actors and
ownership lands. But water is absolutely one of the top
priorities that we have to focus on to get interest, and buy
in, and support for the forest work.
Mr. Baker. That is a great question. Prior to coming to
SAF, I spent almost 20 years with the U.S. Forest Service, so I
am very familiar with this particular question, some of the
challenges that come with it. I think overall, it is that
infamous challenge. It is about balance. It is about all the
different parts and pieces that come into play and the players.
And so that aspect of how do we look across boundaries, as you
mentioned, it is not just about the national forests. It is
about the State landowner. It is about the private landowner,
and it is also about the industrial landowner.
And so when we look at all those lands married together,
you know, where we do we balance out the uses that we have to
have? If it is a mine, where is a place where it could be
located where it has the least amount of impact? If it is
actively managing a forest, where can that happen in a way
that, one, there is either rules or regulations to require
reforestation to meet those needs to maintain that water
quality over time, versus not actively managing could put us in
a place where we could have a catastrophic fire that would end
up putting us in a much worst situation.
And so it is really this piece of, as you mentioned, those
public/private discussions around in a lot of cases, many of
these things do have to happen. So how do we, again, allocate
those finite resources in a way where they are the least
impactful and the most beneficial both in the immediate time
frame and long term? And so it really is all the folks around
the table having a discussion and having to give a little bit
to be successful.
Mr. Asher. Yeah, and I would say, you know, being an
appropriator from a funding perspective, for us it is valuable
to look at, you know, what can we be doing to save costs and
not just investing, you know, new money, but also ensuring that
we are using the public resources in the most responsible way.
And so, again, with the Land and Water Conservation Fund, you
know, there are great examples of projects where we have
conserved areas for water supplies that have actually saved
money over the long term. Instead of going out and building
really expensive infrastructure, we are going out and
conserving natural areas that help to create, you know, clean
water opportunities and forests.
You know, I think if we are talking about climate change
and things like the Trillion Trees, you know, Initiative, from
the Wilderness Society, we are also looking at, well, you know,
let's be saving trees now, too, right? So the Tongass National
Forest----
Ms. McCollum. I agree.
Mr. Asher [continuing]. And, you know, Alaska is a place
and the Roadless Rule are things that are very active right
now, recognizing that in addition to building out the number of
trees that we want to have over the future, there is an
important role to play in conserving places now. So that also
comes through, you know, not only in the LWCF, but also the
Roadless Rule. And, you know, and other kind of, I think,
elegant solutions that your committee put forth last year where
conservation was in the interest of saving taxpayer resources,
like with the Arctic Refuge, I think that was a very, you know,
mindful way of addressing that. And we hope that your committee
and staff will continue to find those, you know, elegant policy
solutions to challenges that we face.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Anything you want to add?
Ms. Forero. No, I think Jonathan actually articulated so
much of what I believe we are here for as well.
Ms. McCollum. Well, you guys were magnificent. What a great
way to close out. Public lands, water, air, climate change,
critters that we don't want to have invading our public lands.
You did a fabulous job. I can't thank you enough because you
are about a half an hour behind from what you thought your day
was going to be, but it meant the world to us that you are here
testifying.
So with that, you get to help me conclude this afternoon's
hearing, and we will stand adjourned until our next hearing,
which is going to be public witness tribal programs on February
11th, 2020. Thank you again. Meeting adjourned.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
TESTIMONY OF INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS
----------
NEZ PERCE TRIBAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
WITNESS
CHANTEL GREENE, SECRETARY, NEZ PERCE TRIBAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Ms. McCollum [presiding]. Good morning, and welcome to the
first day of public witness hearings on tribal programs under
the jurisdiction of the Interior, Environment Appropriations
Subcommittee. And I am pleased to welcome my Native American
sisters and brothers to discuss the needs and challenges facing
Indian Country.
For the second year in the hopes of having a more in-depth
discussion of Native American issues and what you are
experiencing on your tribal lands, we have organized witnesses
according to the following topics: healthcare, land trust,
national resource management, including climate change, public
safety, justice, education, tribal government, and human
services. Now, today we will begin hearing from witnesses on
the healthcare needs and challenges before transitioning to
issues related to climate change, land trust, and natural
resources today.
The United States government entered into treaties
guaranteeing healthcare to Native Americans. A few months ago,
I traveled to South Dakota, and I saw firsthand how centuries
later, the government, our government, the U.S. government, is
still not meeting its responsibilities. The need for investment
in healthcare and related facilities is real, and we continue
to do the best we can with the allocation we are given. Last
year, Congress provided a $241 million increase to Indian
Country health services. This is a 4 percent increase. It
included additional funds to address 105(l) lease costs. As
part of the bill, we directed IHS and BIA and OMB to consider
whether these costs should be funded as an indefinite
appropriation. I was pleased to see that the President
recognized the importance of this issue and included such a
proposal in the President's Fiscal Year 2021 budget request.
In addition, last summer I had the opportunity to visit
tribes in Minnesota, and Mr. Joyce I traveled to Washington
State to visit tribes in Mr. Kilmer's district. We met with
tribal leaders and learned more about climate change and
impacts on health, safety, and cultural well-being in Native
Americans, as well as some issues surrounding land and natural
resource management. Future generations deserve clean air,
clean water, drinkable water, but we must give these issues our
fullest attention now.
For Fiscal Year 2020, Congress included additional funds
for BIA natural resource management programs and included
increased funding for climate resilience, endangered species,
and water resources. I was disappointed, but not surprised,
that the President's budget request released yesterday once
again ignores climate change. No one is immune from climate
change, especially not Native Americans, who are at the
forefront of experiencing the effects of increasing temperature
rises and water rising.
Your written testimony describes in very real detail the
impacts of climate change is having on Native Americans.
Melting permafrost in Alaska, the loss of traditional foods,
presence of flooding, and it is happening right now in
Washington and Oregon State, and I know that there have been
tribal villages that had to be evacuated. Our hearts are with
them, but yet, the President, Mr. Trump, looks the other way.
Well, luckily, the President proposes and Congress
disposes. So at the beginning of this Congress, I want you to
also know that I introduced a bill, H.R. 1128, to authorize
advanced appropriations for tribal funds. As we figure out to
meet the needs of Native Americans, I will continue to work
towards passage of this vital legislation. Most recently, I did
write a letter to the Budget Committee requesting that hearings
be held on this, and I know you are talking to members about
this issue as well. I am eager, along with Mr. Quigley, to
learn more about your priorities, and I look forward to our
discussion on these issues because I believe it will help to
inform us as we begin to develop the 2021 appropriations bill.
Now, I am going to cover a few hearing logistics, and when
Mr. Joyce comes in, if he has an opening statement, I will
yield to him at that time. Anything you would like to say at
this time, Mr. Quigley?
Mr. Quigley. I am anxious to hear what you all have to say.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. All right. So we have got the timer out
here, and we already have our first panel of witnesses at the
table. Each witness will have 5 minutes to present their
testimony, and we will be using a tracker to track time. Don't
worry, it is highlighted in here. I have read all your
testimony. I am going to take notes on it. We all have it. If
you run out of time, please know it is fully entered into the
record. But when you see the light blink yellow, you have 1
minute to close your remarks, and when the light blinks red, I
will lightly tap with this gavel, which is made of buckthorn,
an invasive species here. [Laughter.]
To let you know that you need to stop your remarks so that
the next witness can begin so that we are respectful of
everyone's time here. And as I said, everybody's statement will
be entered into the record. Don't feel any pressure. After we
hear testimony, each witness on the panel and members will have
an opportunity to ask questions.
And I would like to remind those of you in the committee
hearing room here today of the committee rules. They prohibit
the use of cameras and audio equipment during the hearing by
individuals without House-issued press credentials. So when
this hearing concludes, we will reconvene at 1:00 for the
afternoon hearing.
And so with that, we found out a way to kind of save a
little time. Rather than do double introductions, we are just
having the panel introduce themselves, and that left more time
for questions, which I really love to have. So I will let you
start out, Ms. Greene.
Ms. Greene. So we are introducing ourselves?
Ms. McCollum. And just make sure that little----
Ms. Greene. Okay. Good morning, or Ta'c meeywi. My name is
Chantel Greene, and I am representing the Nez Perce Tribe, and
I serve as the secretary officer currently.
Ms. McCollum. No, go right into your testimony.
Ms. Greene. Okay. Again, good morning, honorable chairwoman
and members of the subcommittee. Again, my name is Chantel
Greene, and I serve as the secretary of the Nez Perce Tribe
Executive Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to provide
this testimony on behalf of the Nez Perce tribe as the
committee evaluates and prioritizes Fiscal Year 2021
appropriations. I would also like to thank Chairwoman McCollum
and Congresswoman Pingree for their letter regarding a mining
project in the Nez Perce Country.
Today I would like to emphasize the need for sufficient
resources in areas such as the Community Health Aide Program,
IHS, purchase referred care, contract support costs, special
diabetes, mental health, and substance abuse programs. The CHAP
was established over 40 years ago to help expand access to care
in Indian Country in areas such as behavioral health, dental
health, and community health. The tribe believes the CHAP model
is an important tool for tribal health programs that should be
provided the resources to grow as it increases tribally-based
practice and knowledge that a culturally- and evidence-based
holistic methodology offers abilities similar to wraparound.
The tribe appreciates the committee's support of broadening
the program by providing $5 million Fiscal Year 2020 for
expansion. The tribe feels this successful program is needed
and ready to be duplicated in the Northwest. As a result, the
tribe supports the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health
Board's effort to be designated a demonstration site by IHS so
that certification of these healthcare assets can move forward.
In that regard, the tribe recommends the committee provide $20
million in Fiscal Year 2021 for continued expansion of CHAP.
The Nez Perce Tribe with an enrollment of 3,500 operates
the Nimiipuu Health on the Nez Perce Reservation and provides
services to almost 5,000 patients each year. Our expenditure
total of Federal funds in Fiscal Year 2019 was $18 million, an
increase of $1.6 million from that in Fiscal Year 2018.
Purchased/referred care costs for outpatient services in Fiscal
Year 2019 totaled $5 million, which is an increase of almost
$700,000 from Fiscal Year 2018.
The tribe recommends, at a minimum, maintaining the $6.05
million in funding enacted for IHS in Fiscal Year 2020. Please
note that this amount does not keep up with medical inflation
and population growth or limitation on prescription drugs. The
tribe supports an increase of at least $20 million in funding
for the PRC spending needs of tribal health facilities since a
budget increase was not provided in Fiscal Year 2020. The tribe
supports full funding for contract support costs in Fiscal Year
2021 and the inclusion of bill language to classify this
appropriation as indefinite. The tribe appreciates that
Congress chose to fully fund contract support costs in Fiscal
Year 2020 at $820 million as it should per any agreement.
In addition, the tribe recommends permanent, mandatory
funding of the SDPI at no less than $150 million per Fiscal
Year. In that regard, similar levels of funding are strongly
recommended for mental health and substance abuse treatment and
SDPI for these type of services. Although the $10 million
annual allocation for mental health and substance is very
important, it falls well below the financial needs to provide
adequate care and treatment on reservations.
In conclusion, the tribe would like to express our support
for the recommendations of the Northwest Preliminary Board,
including, but not limited to, the recommendations of 105(l)
lease costs, population growth, and medical inflation costs,
loan repayment for Indian health professionals, small
ambulatory programs, and funds for updating technology and
patient files. Thank you for the opportunity to testimony
today, and I am happy to answer any questions you may have.
[The statement of Ms. Greene follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Just maybe as a guide, SDB
programs, special diabetic programs, maybe the first time
before we use the initials, some of us are familiar with it. We
have other people who might be listening in on C-SPAN, and this
is our opportunity to share and to share the educational
meaning while you are here to inform the Congress. So thank
you.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
SAULT STE. MARIE TRIBE OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS
WITNESS
AARON PAYMENT, CHAIRMAN, SAULT STE. MARIE TRIBE OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS
Mr. Payment. Boozhoo. My name Aaron Payment. I am the
chairperson of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.
My tribe is located in the supper peninsula of Michigan and is
the largest tribe east of the Mississippi with nearly 44,000
tribal citizens. Our territory is 2,800 acres of trust, and our
ceded territory is one-third of Michigan where we exercise our
treaty rights, reserved rights, to fish, hunt, and gather. We
administer 23 governmental divisions and departments and
manages 75 Federal, State, local, and tribally-funded programs
across the seven-county service area.
We provide a full range of services for our citizens, like
healthcare, education, elder services, law enforcement,
housing, family and social services, and cultural programs. We
also offer eight health clinics around our purchased and
referred service area. We offer a wide range of services,
including medical, dental, behavioral health, special diabetes,
nutrition, pharmacy, wellness programs, and traditional
medicine. We are proud of the healthcare delivery system, but
we believe there is a void, and it is time to fill that void.
The focus of my testimony today is to request that the
Appropriations Committee examine how the IHS addresses
healthcare facility needs throughout Indian Country. Of concern
is the adherence to a facility priority list that was developed
in the 1980s. Healthcare delivery has changed, and the
illnesses and diseases that we seek to treat have changed, in
some cases dramatically.
Healthcare cannot be provided in isolation, but must be
provided in a holistic and comprehensive way, grounded in
traditional beliefs and practices. A team-based model of care
is more adept in being able to combat our emerging top
healthcare priority, which is alcohol and drug addiction,
including the opiate crisis. Last February, we announced a
collaboration with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation to expand
our substance abuse use treatment and recovery services and
enhance our integrated healthcare and wellness center to build
a true team-based facility to support those in our surrounding
native community.
The Sioux recovery hospital and campus concept is provided
in the tribe's tribal action plan, one of the first approved in
the Nation. While creating our TAP, our people voiced the need
for a recovery campus close to home, with traditional medicine
at its core to combat the historical trauma outcomes that have
plagued tribal communities as a result of Federal Indian
policy. Our holistic plan is to heal those afflicted, as well
as their families and communities. Only with family support and
healthy living will we be able to defeat this crisis.
Our new facility, when built, will be a one-stop shop for
those struggling with addiction. We intend to start with detox,
then inpatient treatment, with half-way, three-quarter way, and
longer-term residential recovery environments. Intensive
outpatient programming with supports like recovery coaches will
follow. We intend to create a never-before comprehensive family
reunification process built on our [Speaking native language]
healing and healthy living.
One of the biggest factors of staying sober is the person
having a place to live or begin to return to life as a sober
person. All too often, a person goes into treatment, only to
come home to the same social dynamic they left to get well.
This leads to relapse. We want our recovery campus to be a
pathway, the good red road to success that can be recreated
across Indian Country to combat the opiate and heroin crisis.
At our recovery campus, those afflicted will have the
access to drug treatment and behavioral healthcare that is
informed by our traditional cultural healing. Immediate access
to healthcare services will enable us to properly manage any
medical health conditions that a patient might face. To
effectively treat addiction, we have to treat the whole person
and address each condition, be it physical, emotional, mental,
or spiritual, that led him to self-medicate.
We have been confronted by many who tell us this kind of
facility has not, and will never be, built. But my ancestors
overcame too much for me to simply give up because something
has never been done before. I believe we can do it, and I am
here to ask you to help us to make this a reality. We support
Congress providing joint venture funding. We have identified a
deficiency in the program, however. We think there should be a
geographical diversity with regard to the joint venture
selection process.
It is time for Congress to provide $50 million to fund the
Indian Healthcare Delivery Demonstration Project, which was
intended to build facilities that are different than the
clinics that we currently fund. The demonstration project was
intended for facilities, like the Sioux tribe recovery hospital
and campus, which we deliver in a different model and holistic
model. I believe that my tribe's recovery model is exactly what
Congress was considering when it created the Indian Healthcare
Delivery Demonstration Project. It is beyond time for Congress
to provide funding for this initiative, and we are willing to
be that demonstration project. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Payment follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
CATAWBA INDIAN NATION
WITNESS
HON. WILLIAM HARRIS, CHIEF, CATAWBA INDIAN NATION
Mr. Harris. Thank you, Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member
Joyce, and members of the subcommittee, for the opportunity to
testify on Indian healthcare needs for the Fiscal Year 2021
budget. My name is William Harris. I am the chief of the
Catawba Nation, the only federally-recognized tribe in the
State of South Carolina. Let me begin by acknowledging the hard
work of this subcommittee in protecting and advancing Indian
Country interests in the Federal budget. The appropriations
process is vital to fulfilling federal treaty needs and trust
obligations, and we encourage you to continue to fight the good
fight.
For my testimony today, I would like to focus on the theme
of prevention for Indian health. Preventive health saves lives
and costs in the long-term, a situation that benefits all
Americans. As a direct service tribe, the Catawba Nation
depends on the IHS for the delivery of healthcare services. Our
local IHS service unit, however, has restricted operating hours
and services that impair access to care within the community.
An investment in preventative health services is not a
substitute for quality, comprehensive healthcare. It is a
critical component of overall health that is often overlooked.
Advanced appropriations. A central way for this
subcommittee to support Indian health is through advanced
appropriations for the IHS. Advanced appropriations would
provide the IHS parity with other direct service Federal health
agencies, provide funding stability across Fiscal Years, and
show that the Federal Government is committed to its trust
obligations. Invest in holistic healthcare. In response to
shortcomings in IHS services, the Catawba Indian Nation has
taken a proactive approach to community health. Our Wellness
Warriors Programs uses health education, physical activity,
nutrition, and tobacco cessation programs to help our members
lay a foundation for lifelong health. Through prevention and
education, we aim to reduce incident rates of disease, promote
wellness, and alleviate burdens on the Indian Health Service.
We urge this subcommittee to increase funding for the
preventative health services account in Fiscal Year 2021.
And build the infrastructure for access for healthcare. On
an elementary level, no amount of investment in or quantity of
preventative health services will benefit a community if the
people cannot reach them. Roads in Indian Country are
notoriously bad. Unsafe roads obstruct access to appointments
and emergency services. They also damage vehicles, causing
further strain on IHS and tribal resources. An influx of money
into the BIA roads maintenance account is urgently need to
build the infrastructure Indian Country needs for public health
and safety.
Quality health requires a quality environment. The EPA is a
central agency fulfilling the Federal Government's trust and
treaty obligations to protect Indian health. If our waters,
air, and soil are polluted, our bodies will be as well. Quality
human health requires the sustained presence of a quality
natural environment. Our tribe and many others have utilized
EPA resources to protect and promote tribal health. For
example, we partner with the State to generate air quality
forecasts for a three-county area, and for water quality, we
established a water monitoring program using Clean Water Act
funding. We urge you to maintain adequate funding for EPA
environmental quality programs as a fundamental component of
preventative health.
And I thank you for the consideration of my tribe's
testimony. I will be glad to ask any questions you answer.
[The statement of Mr. Harris follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
SISSETON WAHPETON OYATE OF THE LAKE TRAVERSE INDIAN RESERVATION
WITNESS
HON. DONOVAN WHITE, CHAIRMAN, SISSETON WAHPETON OYATE OF THE LAKE
TRAVERSE INDIAN RESERVATION
Mr. White. Good morning, Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking
Joyce, and Committee Member Quigley. My name is Donovan White.
I am chairman of the Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, one of the
seven great Sioux nations of the Midwest. For years, we have
been working on building our community justice and
rehabilitation center. We have been working on this for more
than a decade. We need the justice center to combat the serious
violent crime, drug crime that is plaguing our reservation.
This center will also provide much-needed alcohol and drug
treatment, as well as mental health, detox, transitional care,
and inpatient/outpatient adult and youth services. We plan to
build this center as a unified facility, but the end of
earmarks and the IHS general counsel rulings limit our ability
to build this unified center.
SWO adult detention center. The urgency of building a
community justice center intensified in 2016 when the BIA
closed our outdated and deficient condemned jail without a
replacement plan. This created many public safety problems on
top of an already perilous situation on our reservation. As a
result, we work very hard with our congressional
representatives and with this committee to restore this
detention construction funding in the BIA budget. Thankfully,
under the Fiscal Year 2018 Interior Appropriations Act, the BIA
awarded us $5.175 million to design and construct a 25-bed
medium security adult detention facility. This is a major first
step in developing our justice center. [Speaking native
language.] A big thanks to this committee and to Congress.
After a year of discussion with the BIA, our project is now
underway. We signed our 638 contract and issued the RFP for an
A&E firm. The BIA is also developing a model to construct an
adult detention facility. This will guide our project, subject
to modifications, to meet our site location and to reflect our
Dakota culture.
Adult high-security detention cell wing. Next, we need a
high-security detention block as part of our new detention
facility. We will need increased detention staffing. We
urgently need to detain the most serious offenders in our
highest-security setting, including those sentenced to a low
enhanced security sentencing authority. In Fiscal Year 2020,
the Senate directed the BIA to work with us to consider a high-
security block and develop a cost estimate, and report back in
60 days. We estimate that the $4 million will be needed to
build a 20-cell high-security wing. BIA detention has not
consulted with us yet, and we need an extra 30 days on the
deadline for the report for them to consult with us.
Inpatient drug and alcohol treatment center. We are also in
dire need of an inpatient alcohol and drug treatment center. In
the past year, we have had six fatal drug overdoses. That is 5
times higher than the national average. In the past 2 months,
six babies have been born under the influence of drugs. We have
to stop this trafficking trend. In the mid-2000s, a
comprehensive health planning effort identified behavioral
health and drug dependency as a leading health problem on our
reservation.
We have a treatment center, and it was built in the early
70s, and it is falling apart. We can only treat about 10 people
at a time. And as you know, the opiate and the meth and now the
fentanyl deaths have taken over. And I am off script here, but
I don't need to read all of this, but meth, opiates, fentanyl
is killing our people. Not only that, it is destroying our
homes, you know. The meth gets made in the homes. So we have
been very successful in the last 30 years with our gaming, but
the leadership, we have let our people down, and we shouldn't
have to come here, you know, to ask for money all the time. But
we have been very successful, but now with new leadership, we
need to move forward. Drugs are killing our people, and our
babies are being born addicted to meth and stuff. And, you
know, being a sociology major, you know, we pay now or we pay
later, right, you know.
So and we have problems with law enforcement, and it
affects everybody. It affects the counties. It affects all of
the cities because our people are being locked up, and all of
the jails, prisons are full of our people. So we need long-term
treatment, and we need help with funding with a long-term
treatment center. And not only that, a lot of our people go to
prison, right, or they get court ordered to treatment is when
they usually go when they are court ordered, but we need long-
term aftercare. You have got to support our people when they
get out of prison or they get out of treatment. So we need
that.
So the drug epidemic is killing our people literally, and
we have had six overdoses in the last year, so but it is
everybody's problem, not just our problem. It is the counties
and the cities. Their jails are full, too. So we have got to
look at fixing the problem. And I am over my time, so
appreciate you guys seeing me and listening to my testimony,
and, you know, begging for assistance. So thank you.
[The statement of Mr. White follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
AK-CHIN INDIAN COMMUNITY
WITNESS
ROBERT MIGUEL, CHAIRMAN, AK-CHIN INDIAN COMMUNITY
Mr. Miguel. Good morning, Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking
Member Joyce, and members of the subcommittee. My name is
Robert Miguel, and I am honored to serve as chairman of the Ak-
Chin Indian Community and to give testimony to you today on our
community's priorities.
First, I would like to thank all of the members of this
subcommittee for inviting me to testify today. Despite the
Trump Administration consistently proposing cuts every year to
the many programs that tribes utilize, this subcommittee
increased funding for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the
Bureau of Indian Education in Fiscal Year 2020 by $142 million
over Fiscal Year 2019. This subcommittee also increased funding
to the Indian Health Services by $243 million over the Fiscal
Year 2019 enacted level. This increased funding will help
tribal governments, including ours, provide quality health
services to their citizens. Thank you for your continued
dedication to the trust responsibilities of the Federal
Government to tribes and for these increases in funding for
Fiscal Year 2020. Thank you.
Before I begin on our funding priorities, I would like to
tell you a little about the Ak-Chin Indian Community. We are
and always have been a farming tribe, and our name is directly
derived from an O'odham word that refers to a type of farming
traditionally practiced by the Ak-Chin people. Throughout our
history, we have relied on subsistence and eventually
commercial farming for sustenance. Today we own and operate the
Ak-Chin Farms. We cultivate more than 15,000 acres of farmland,
and the farms have been a central economic enterprise for the
community since the 1960s.
We are a small, but growing, tribe with 1,130 enrolled
community members today, and as the area surrounding us
continues to grow at one of the fastest rates in the Nation, we
are committed to being good neighbors while also working hard
to build a stronger future for the next generation of Ak-Chin
community members.
This is my fifth appearance before the subcommittee, and
today I am here to testify on a number of important issues to
the community, including funding for healthcare programs and
tribal self-governance. My testimony today will focus on a
handful of programs that our tribe utilizes for the benefit of
our people. Although it is important for me to be here to speak
on these issues today, we are advocating for funding for these
and others programs every day that we deal with.
As you know, the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of
Indian Affairs are both on the Government Accountability
Office's High-Risk List. We hope the subcommittee can address
this and join us in supporting a budget that assists tribal
communities in advancing sustainable tribal programs.
Self-Governance. The Ak-Chin Indian Community is a
compacted self-governance tribe with the BIA. The compact
enables the United States to maintain and improve its unique
and continuing trust relationships and responsibilities to the
community through tribal self-governance for various programs,
services, functions, and activities, such as our public safety,
social services, courts, road maintenance, and various other
vital programs.
Currently, the community has a self-governance compact with
the Indian Health Service for our Emergency Medical Service
Ambulance Program and our Health Education Program. We are
proud to provide these important services, but they are just a
first step towards improving the healthcare options for our
entire community. Ultimately, it is our goal to make informed
decisions about which PSFAs to assume and the necessary steps
to successfully support these programs.
The community applied and received two tribal Self-
Governance IHS Cooperative Agreements Grants under Planning and
Negotiation. We are truly appreciative as this funding has been
an asset while our community upgrades and modernizes our
healthcare system. Because of the success of tribal governance,
we ask the subcommittee to expand self-governance status to
include any programs that tribes are eligible for both in IHS
and DOI, Department of Interior, as well as being open to
compacting under other Federal agencies. Our self-governance
programs have been a model of success. If we have the
opportunity to self-govern more of our programs, it will
undoubtedly lead to higher quality services to our community.
Advanced appropriations. As you know, advanced
appropriations would ensure that funds are available in advance
to alleviate the unfortunate circumstances so many tribes faced
during the partial government shutdown last year. Currently,
critical Federal programs at the Department of Education,
Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of
Labor, and Veteran's Affairs are all authorized for advanced
appropriations. Funding uncertainty causes tribes to
redistribute funds from other tribal programs just to continue
to operate programs. Advanced appropriations would prevent
future lapses in funding associated with potential funding
delays and will help keeping critical services uninterrupted.
We ask for your support for advanced appropriations BIA, BIE
and IHS funding.
In conclusion, again, there are a lot of other topics that
we want to discuss, and you do have our testimony definitely,
and we appreciate that. Again, I would like to thank the
chairwoman and ranking member for holding this hearing and
engaging in government-to-government consultation to hear our
community's priorities. We hope the subcommittee will continue
its good work and address the challenges we continue to face. I
hope my testimony today has given you meaningful insights into
these Federal programs and how they are positively impacting
our community members. So, again, thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Miguel follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, sir, and thank you for--I do have
your full testimony--for mentioning Johnson O'Malley and the
well-being that that plays for children, for healthcare, and
for our communities. Mr. Joyce, would you like to make any
opening remarks at this time?
Mr. Joyce. Well, I would pass on an opening since I was
late. I want to apologize for that. Our mutual friend, Mr.
Bradley, who said to say hello to you, was making his case, and
I told him that I was going to be held in contempt by you if he
didn't stop and I did not make it here. I have one quick
question for Ms. Greene.
Ms. McCollum. Oh, please.
Mr. Joyce. In your testimony, you mentioned that the local
hospital has stopped taking the tribal insurance. What does
that do to your budget?
Ms. Greene. So, yes, I am told our current situation, which
has just been recently resolved with both our insurances, the
main insurance that we go through, which is Regents, and the
local hospital, which is the state hospital with new
leadership. And with their new leadership, they decided to not
go into agreements with Regents Insurance, which includes our
third party billing, so that hits our purchased/referred care
very hard. So as of January 16th, we are going to be accepting
under continuity of care a fuel level of care, such and cancer
and those type of [Audio malfunction in hearing room]. As for
the members, I would still need to get back to the members
because they did just recently come under agreement, and they
backdated that to January 15. So I am hoping that we won't see,
I am sure, in our billing, in our purchased/referred care
referral service, we are going to see some interruption, but
they did backdate that to January 15. So as of right now, we
won't be seeing too many issues there. So that was resolved.
Having to look down the future, in our billing process so
that we don't end up in this situation again, we are having to
readjust our own systems and kind of start looking at some
funding because, at the end of the day, we have to look out for
overall health and well-being. And we can't be at the mercy of
two other organizations and then be taking hits to our
purchase/referred care budget. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Before I go to Mr. Quigley, I have a follow
up on that.
Mr. Joyce. Okay.
Ms. McCollum. Do you know if that insurance company takes
Medicare, Medicaid, and VA, now that we have some of the VA
that people can do outside? Do you know if they take that? Can
you find out?
Ms. Greene. Yes, yes, we can, and we can follow up on that.
Ms. McCollum. It would be interesting that they would take
every Federal program, but one that has gone through the Bureau
of Indian Affairs.
Mr. Joyce.----
Ms. McCollum. Yeah. Mr. Quigley.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for all
your service to your communities and for being here. Let me ask
a related question because it impacts everything else. We hear
of the national economic outlook on unemployment rates, how the
economy is going. We don't have a lot of time in each of our
segments, but could a couple of you give me a snapshot as how
the picture looks in your own communities?
Mr. White. I haven't seen a whole lot of change at all in
our economics on the reservation within our boundaries. If you
go to some of the bigger cities, like Watertown, there are some
companies that have come in. But to the smaller communities, if
you would ask the people, I would say it is probably going
backwards. We think some of the help is the bigger factors into
bigger towns, but on the reservation, I don't see that
improvement at all.
Ms. McCollum. Just identify yourself for the record.
Ms. Greene. I am Chantel Greene of the Nez Perce Tribe
again. Within economics, we are actually having to look at our
own natural resources. I know I am on the healthcare panel. I
am speaking specifically to that because there are aspects for
the shortage of providers. That has been a major impact on
healthcare as well. In Idaho, we just passed the Digital Health
Aide Therapy through the Medicaid, Medicare, to get that
program standing up.
However, we are still seeing issues within the rulemaking,
so making sure that we can provide adequate care when we don't
have providers who want to actually be rural, so that has been
our issue. So it is one thing to actually get the providers
there, but because of the cost of living and the market values,
and it is an area that they don't want to be in versus, in
Idaho, it would be the Boise location, area.
And so us looking at our holistic models for actually
looking at our natural resources, and the climate change, and
energy development. So we are trying to readjust to the
circular economy, and utilizing our natural resources and
developments in solar and small modular reactors. Those are new
developments because we are pretty much maxing out our gaming,
which also in the State of Idaho is a major impact. We are the
third largest employer in the State, so our economic impacts to
these States specifically is incredible. [Audio malfunction in
the hearing room] tribes in Idaho, there would be a recession
in Idaho.
Mr. Harris. I am quite envious of the two statements prior
to mine. My name is William Harris. I am the chief of the
Catawba Nation. We do not have economic development on our
small reservation. South Carolina has not yielded from the
growth that has happened throughout the Nation, and I think we
are one of the restricted settlement tribes as well.
Mr. Quigley. Could you assess the unemployment rate within
your tribe?
Mr. Harris. It is double what is in South Carolina. So we
are in double digits on the reservation, even though South
Carolina itself is not. So grants are what sustain our
community.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Go ahead.
Mr. Miguel. Robert Miguel, chairman of the Ak-Chin
Community. First, fortunately for us, we are a small tribe,
again, and we are about 40 miles south of Phoenix, Arizona. And
so in our area, in Pinal County in Arizona, we are one of the
fastest-growing counties in the United States. So we have been
able to be fortunate enough to capitalize in that sense.
Currently, our economic development in the enterprises we do
have in the community, we have been fortunate enough to employ
a little over 1,500 people at our casino, which is, I think,
still number one as far as employment for Pinal County. And we
have a little over 500 in our government operations for our
community, and 400 overall for other areas.
So, again, the employment that we have been able to offer
for the area has been tremendous. It has been great. And we
continue to grow, so we are looking forward to that. But,
again, have overall we have helped Arizona, I believe,
financially in being able to accommodate in different areas
through our 12 percent, our compact negotiations that we give
back to the State. And then we do other things that are
unknown, so we have been able to provide a number of services
in and just the opportunities for Arizona overall.
Mr. Payment. So we are the largest non-government----
Ms. McCollum. You want to be----
Mr. Payment. Oh, I am sorry.
Ms. McCollum. You want to be ``Dr.,'' ``Vice Chair,'' ``the
Honorable''----
Mr. Payment. Dr. Chair.
Ms. McCollum. Dr. Chair. [Laughter.]
Dr. Chair Payment.
Mr. Payment. The honorable, of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe
of Chippewa Indians. So we are the largest non-government
employer in the upper peninsula of Michigan, next to prisons,
sadly. We haven't really seen any change. In fact, we are the
resiliency factor in rural communities that provide jobs when
the economy is bad because people come to casinos whether the
economy is good or bad, and we haven't seen any increase in
people coming to casinos because of the expected trickle-down
economic impact that is happening right now.
But the bigger threat is the work requirement to the
Affordable Care Act expansion because we increased our revenue
by $10 million. Our AFAR IHS funding is $30 million. We
increased by $10 million, so we increased it by one-quarter of
our health delivery system because of the Affordable Care Act.
That is at threat right now.
CMS, and we have fought CMS and HHS because they were
saying it was discriminatory, it is a violation of civil rights
laws. All that was made up. There was no substance to that.
They capitulated. Arizona pushed it, and they played a game of
chicken, and Arizona won, and so now we can add it, but the
damage is done because legislators put the work requirement in.
Indians should be exempted from the work requirement. We are
already the engine, and so at risk is $10 million dollars to
our economy. That will be drastic, so.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Simpson. No questions. I just apologize for being late,
but I like hearing your testimony.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you all. And I know it is a very
busy 2 days for you, so thank you for making time and coming
and sharing.
Voices. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. We will have the next panel come up, please.
We will be hearing from the National Indian Health Board,
Southcentral Foundation, Riverside-San Bernardino County Indian
Health, Inc.
The other panel finished right on time, and so we are going
to check outside if a few other colleagues who are going to
join the panel are here. And if not, we will start right away
with you, Ms. Sanchez. I think everybody is saying good morning
to each other, which is good. You come to a conference, and you
get to see people you haven't seen for a while.
Good morning. I am going to have you introduce yourselves.
We will go down, and we will start with the other end of the
table, and you can go right into your testimony from that. The
timer is set for 5 minutes. At 1 minute, you will see a yellow
light, and then if you get into that yellow light a little bit,
I will lightly tap the gavel. And when it is red, we ask you to
please conclude your remarks. We have all your testimony in the
record. Thank you. Do you need another second, or are you ready
to?
Voice. I am ready to go.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. And you need to push the red
button down there, and they like it if the microphone is close
so it can be recorded. Thank you. Good morning.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
WINNEBAGO TRIBE OF NEBRASKA AND INDIAN HEALTH BOARD
WITNESS
VICTORIA KITCHEYAN, CHAIRPERSON AND GREAT PLAINS AREA REPRESENTATIVE,
WINNEBAGO TRIBE OF NEBRASKA, NATIONAL INDIAN HEALTH BOARD
Ms. Kitcheyan. Good morning. Good morning, Chairwoman
McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, and members of the
subcommittee. On behalf of the National Indian Health Board, I
am thankful to testify on the Fiscal Year 2021 Indian Health
Service budget. My name is Victoria Kitcheyan. I am the chair
and Great Plains area representative to the National Indian
Health Board. I am a member of the Winnebago Tribal Council.
And as we work together on the first IHS budget of the
decade, let's reflect on some of the great successes over the
past 10 years. We began the previous decade with a tremendous
victory with permanent reauthorization of the Indian Healthcare
Improvement Act. This was an incredible victory that ensured
the foundation of the Indian health system will persevere.
Because of this congressional action, we were also able to
secure rightful and full funding of the contract support costs.
Thanks to you, the 2010 enacted IHS budget was $4.02
billion, and we ended in 2020 with $6.04 billion. During this
same time span, we saw third party reimbursements from public
and private payers reach over $1 billion for federally-operated
healthcare facilities alone. Our people made dramatic gains in
healthcare coverage, improving access to care, and revenue
streams for our services and facilities overall.
Overall, we continue to applaud the leadership and the
partnership of this committee to help secure those successful
legislations, but they have been achieved alongside great
challenges, and the road in front of us remains long. Our
members continue to live 5.5 years longer less than general
population, and in the Great Plains where I am from, 20 years
earlier. Our people continue to have the lowest health outcomes
and the highest health disparities. For example, infant
mortality continues to rise in our communities, while it is
decreasing through the rest of the country.
The fate of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act remains
imbalanced due to legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act.
Our public health infrastructure remains decades behind State
and local entities. Our communities continue to be overlooked
when new block grants or opportunities are introduced. Our
hospitals remain 4 times older than the rest of America's
hospitals. If one was built today, it would not be rebuilt for
400 years. Provider shortages remain severe with chronic
vacancies from physicians to behavioral health professionals,
pharmacists.
So in every year of the previous decade, there were delays
in passage of the IHS budget leading to one continuing
resolution after another. On four occasions, IHS was shut down
because lawmakers couldn't agree on a final budget. The budget
disagreements had nothing to do with Indian Country or the IHS,
and our people suffered, nonetheless. Those shutdowns lasted
from one day to the longest in history at 35 days. In each of
those instances, are healthcare was shut down. Our people were
endangered. Each of those such shutdowns violated the solemn
responsibility of the United States to our tribes and people.
Every year tribal leaders from across the country convene
in Washington, D.C. to formulate the national tribal budget
formulation recommendations for needs-based and fully-funded
IHS budget. The recommendations reflect the national voice of
tribal people. Every year we face limitations on this
discretionary budget that only allows for marginal increases to
the IHS budget. For example, we were thankful last year that
the committee fought really hard for a 9 percent increase
totaling over $530 million, and when that final agreement was
reached, it was cut by half. So when you compound chronic
underfunding and continuing resolutions, the inevitable result
are pervasive disparities for our people.
So where does that leave us? We ask you as we start this
decade to just reimagine how we fund the Indian Health Service.
We begin this decade with a monumental victory, and we can do
that by passing advanced appropriations. We are very thankful
to Chairwoman McCollum and Representative Young for introducing
the latest legislation that would authorize advanced
appropriations for our programs, and Ranking Member Joyce and
others who strongly support that. We remain fully committed to
working in a bipartisan way to pass the advanced
appropriations. We have the momentum. We can get it done this
year.
We can begin this decade by passing an IHS budget that
reflects the recommendations of the Tribal Budget Formulation
Work Group calling for $9.1 billion for IHS in 2021. This
decade must be where Congress fully lives up to its obligations
to tribal nations, and this decade is where we receive a full
and permanent needs-based budget for IHS and all of our health
programs. This must be the decade where we look back and say
this was a time when our treaties and obligations by the
Federal Government were finally honored.
So our dedication to this remains everlasting. We thank you
for your commitment as well and look forward to working
alongside you on this. And I thank you for the invitation to
testify and happy to answer questions.
[The statement of Ms. Kitcheyan follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Ms. Kitcheyan. Thank you.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
SOUTHCENTRAL FOUNDATION
WITNESS
APRIL KYLE, VICE PRESIDENT, SOUTHCENTRAL FOUNDATION
Ms. Kyle. Good morning. My name is April Kyle, and I am
from Southcentral Foundation. My tribe is Ninilchik. We are a
tribal healthcare organization in the southcentral region of
Alaska serving 65,000 Alaska Native and American Indian people
in an area the size of Wyoming, so a really big service area.
I want to share with you six things in 5 minutes. I will do
them quickly. First, I want to talk about funding in general,
and I want to say that we appreciate the increases to funding,
until we see that health disparities between Alaska Native and
American Indian people and other Americans are extinguished,
the funding solution hasn't come yet. So we ask you to think
about that as you are looking at the IHS budget. The second
topic is 105 lease funding. We want to thank you for increasing
funding levels to $125 million. We know that the IHS estimates
the need as $150 million. We think that the need for that
funding is great and hard to predict, and all we ask is for the
IHS to consult with tribes, Congress, and the OMB to figure out
the right appropriation level. We also think these funds should
be reclassified as appropriated entitlement.
Third, I want to talk about advanced appropriations. It is
a topic you have heard about before, but certainly with
government shutdowns it became very clear what the impact is
for communities, and it puts people and families at risk. And I
just want to remind you that the IHS is the only Federal
healthcare system that does not have advanced appropriation.
And at Southcentral Foundation, we appreciate that there is
good movement on legislation to resolve this issue. We thank
the co-sponsors, and we ask for your support.
The fourth is behavioral health. So I serve as the vice
president of behavioral services. I have been with SCF for 17
years, so this is my actual topic of expertise. And at
Southcentral Foundation, we are doing really good work in
addiction treatment, working with kids, working with adults,
working with folks in behavioral health crisis. I attend
graduations, and I see people's lives change because treatment
works and recovery is possible. But there is a big problem. The
problem is the volume of services that we can deliver, the
supply is so much smaller than the demand in our communities.
And so we ask you to think about behavioral health, and we are
looking for at least a 15 percent increase in behavioral health
funding for the next budget cycle.
Fifth topic is joint venture construction, a highly
successful program. It benefits tribes. It benefits the IHS.
And we would like to see an increase in joint venture projects
to expand and grow more services across the Nation. My last
topic, number six, is the VA Mission Act, and I know that is a
little bit outside the scope of this hearing. We appreciate
that $11 billion was appropriated to the VA to implement the
Mission Act, and there is a piece of that which creates an
opportunity for a medical residency pilot program in the VA
where medical residents could be placed with tribal or IHS
facilities for their medical residency. This is a win-win-win
opportunity for tribes, for the VA, and for IHS.
Our ability to deliver healthcare is often limited by our
workforce. And so any opportunity we have to bring more doctors
into our systems--that includes IHS, the VA, and tribal
healthcare--the better that we will be able to deliver the
services that are needed by our community. We know that is not
exactly in the scope of this hearing, but any influence and
support you have for funding for that residency program would
be greatly appreciated.
So in conclusion, in the time that I have had, I have
spoken about the importance of funding, 105(l) leases, advanced
appropriations, behavioral health, which is probably my
favorite topic and the importance of truly meeting the needs of
our community with behavioral health funding, joint venture and
the VA Mission Act Residency Program. I thank you very much for
your time.
[The statement of Mr. Kyle follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
RIVERSIDE-SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY INDIAN HEALTH, INC.
WITNESS
TERESA SANCHEZ, BOARD VICE PRESIDENT, RIVERSIDE-SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY
INDIAN HEALTH, INC.
Ms. Sanchez. Good morning. I am Teresa Sanchez. I am a
member of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians. I am also on
tribal council. I am the vice president of the board of
directors for Riverside-San Bernardino County Indian Health.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
I want to start by saying that the Indian Health Service's
105 lease program has been very beneficial in our Fiscal Year
2019-2020 budget years. Our consortium puts the funding
provided through this program to good use every day. Therefore,
we strongly urge this committee to continue to support the
tribes across the country on this critical funding issue by
providing sufficient appropriations to fully fund IHS' 105
lease obligations, and by reclassifying 105 appropriations as
an appropriated entitlement.
This is especially important for tribes in California
because there is a general lack of funding for our California
health facilities, and these 105 lease monies help offset the
present inequities stemming from the lack of funding. Simply
put, California tribes have not historically been funded to
build clinics and hospitals in the ways that tribes outside of
our State have. Needless to say, this lack of facility and
staffing funds has been a thorn in our side for many years.
The joint venture program, which provides money to help
tribes build new clinics, still continues to disappoint
California tribes. California has only had one joint venture
program funded in the State since the inception of the program.
In the recent 2019 application process, seven tribal systems
from California applied for this funding. However, we have been
notified that none of these tribal programs were asked to
continue with the application process for consideration of the
joint venture opportunity. This highlights another inequity
issue for California. Although the current capital projects of
all the Indian Health Services are projected to be funded over
the next 25 years, California does not have any projects on the
current capital project plan. This will challenge us to use
other sources of funding to improve our health clinics.
The joint venture program should be a strong tool for
California tribes to address current and future needs, but IHS
does not appear to be seriously considering any California
joint venture proposals. We urge the committee to direct IHS
toward addressing this problem.
Four of the 12 IHS areas are designated PRC dependent,
meaning they have little or no access to any IHS or tribally-
operated hospitals and, therefore, must purchase all or a large
portion of inpatient and specialty care from nontribal
providers at a significantly higher cost. Our region, the
California area, has no tribal hospitals. However, the current
PRC formula disproportionately affects California because it
allocates PRC and hospital funding to those other eight IHS
areas. This funding inequity tends to then treat our clinics
the same as those in the remaining eight IHS areas who receive
both PRC dollars as well as hospital funding. This impacts our
specialty care access.
IHS does not have access to a care fairness factor meant to
remedy the funding inequities to the four PRC-dependent areas.
According to their own methodology, there are three levels of
priority. Our access to care factor is at the lowest priority
level of 3. Unfortunately, the PRC money has run out before the
access to care fairness factor can be calculated and
distributed to benefit our area. The result is our area rarely
receives any access to care fairness to PRC monies and,
therefore, falls further and further behind. We ask the
committee to instruct IHS to move this access to care factor
from the lowest priority level 3 to level 2 priority. We thank
you for your time and consideration.
[The statement of Ms. Sanchez follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. I am going to step up to the
Agriculture Committee for a minute, which also deals, as you
pointed out, other committees have jurisdiction over some of
the programs that are important. And I leave you in the capable
hands of the gentleman from the western part of the United
States on the coast, Mr. Kilmer.
Mr. Kilmer [presiding]. I will do my best not to mess it
up, you guys, but no problems. Mr. Simpson, do you have any
questions?
Mr. Simpson. No, not right now.
Mr. Kilmer. All right. Thank you for your testimony. All
right. Let me invite up Maureen Rosette, president of the
National Council of Urban Indian Health; Greg Abrahamson from
the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board; Esther Lucero
from the Seattle Indian Health Board; and Shaquita Bell from
the American Academy of Pediatrics. Hey.
Voice. Good morning. How are you doing?
Mr. Kilmer. Welcome. I am glad you are here. Welcome. Do
you want to kick us of?
Ms. Rosette. Yes.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF URBAN INDIAN HEALTH
WITNESS
MAUREEN ROSETTE, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF URBAN INDIAN HEALTH
Ms. Rosette. Yes. Good morning. Hello, my name is Maureen
Rosette, and I am a citizen of Chippewa Cree Nation, and I
serve as the president of the National Council of Urban Indian
Health, NCUIH. We represent 41 Indian healthcare organizations
across the across the Nation who provide high-quality,
culturally-competent care to urban Indians constituting over 70
percent of all American Indians/Alaskan Natives. Thank you,
Chairwoman McCollum, who just left, Ranking Member Joyce, and
the rest of the committee for holding this meeting.
NCUIH is appreciative for the subcommittee's strong
leadership and continued bipartisan support for urban Indian
health. We were encouraged to see Congress come together to
pass a roughly $1 trillion Fiscal Year 2020 spending deal
giving the IHS approximately $6 billion, an increase of 4
percent above the Fiscal Year 2019 enacted level, and $138
million above the President's budget request. Most noteworthy
for us was the House bill that included $81 million to the
Urban Health line item. We are confident that this was
instrumental in getting an increase in the final budget to $57
million, which allowed for a long overdue and increased
urbanism health line of approximately $6 million. This provided
over $115,000 to 39 urban Indian health organizations. We know
that the lawmakers on this subcommittee have fought for more
IHS guess funding, and NCUIH expresses our sincere
appreciation.
This subcommittee's recommendation last year set a high
standard for the future of this line item, and we hope you will
continue to push for the still-needed increases in Fiscal Year
2021. For Fiscal Year 2021, NCUIH requests that the
subcommittee meet the Tribal Budget Formulation Work Group
recommendation of $106 million for the urban Indian line item.
Additionally, we are asking for the IHS system to receive
advances appropriations--I have heard a lot of that today--and
encourage the subcommittee to sign on to Chair McCollum's
bipartisan bill, H.R. 1128, Indian Programs Advanced
Appropriation Act, which has 48 co-sponsors presently.
We cannot express how dire the effects of a government
shutdown are for this program. When funding is delayed or cut
off during events such as government shutdown, there are
devastating effects upon UIO's ability to provide healthcare.
We also urge that the 100 percent Federal medical assistance
percentage, FMAP, include UIOs through the Urban Indian Health
Parity Act. Recently, CMS announced a plan to let States
convert a portion of Medicaid funding into block grants. This
will have devastating impacts on health reimbursement and
Indian Country. It also violates the trust responsibility of
the U.S. government to provide healthcare to our people.
The amount of Medicaid service costs paid by the Federal
Government is set by a law at 100 percent for IHS and tribes,
but not for UIOs because UIOs did not exist in law when the law
was written. Therefore, we ask that you correct this problem in
Fiscal Year 2021 as the new block grant funding requirement has
made 100 percent FMAP a more urgent need. We are thankful that
the recent budget measure included a substantial boost of funds
to cover the costs of the 105(l) lease obligations in the
amount of $125 million, which is $89 million above the Fiscal
Year 2019 enacted level. And we are hopeful that this funding
continues to grow with need. UIOs are not eligible for IHS for
these leases, yet IHS has taken $1.5 million from our funding
for these leases. We respectfully request language that would
restrict IHS to take you UIO-designated funds for their purpose
that cannot benefit UIOs. Every dollar counts for UIOs, and
their money must be reserved for them.
We also urge the committee to support the reauthorization
of this Special Diabetes Program for Indians, SDPI. SDPI is
critical to urban native communities who experience a higher
prevalence of diabetes, and a greater diabetes mortality rate
than the general U.S. population in those areas. It is
imperative that the SDPI be reauthorized before its expiration
and May 2020.
We, again, thank Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, and
the entire subcommittee for your efforts towards prioritizing
funding in Indian Country and for holding this hearing. NCUIH
staff is available for any questions or other needs for this
committee. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Rosette follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
SPOKANE TRIBE AND NORTHWEST PORTLAND AREA INDIAN HEALTH BOARD
WITNESS
GREG ABRAHAMSON, NPAIHB SECRETARY/VICE CHAIR SPOKANE TRIBE, NORTHWEST
PORTLAND AREA INDIAN HEALTH BOARD
Mr. Abrahamson. I will start off. I have got a little bit
of a hoarse throat there, but I will give it the good old
Northwest best we can there.
Well, good morning, Chairwoman McCollum and Ranking Member
Joyce, and thank you Subcommittee Kilmer, Simpson, and then
Mrs. Watson. My name is Greg Abrahamson. I serve as vice chair
for Spokane Tribe, and I am on a national tribal budget
formulation work group, vice chair, direct service drives, and
I serve a secretary for the Northwest Portland Area Indian
Health Board. The Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board
works with 43 federally-recognized tribes in Idaho, Oregon, and
Washington to advocate on specific healthcare issues. I thank
the subcommittee for the opportunity to provide testimony.
Within the past 40 years, Portland area tribes have made
progress to improve the health status of our people, but there
is not enough funding to address all the health disparities our
communities are experiencing. We are grateful for the increase
of the IHS budget. We request $37.6 billion for full funding to
meet the trust and treaty obligations. We know this
subcommittee has been supportive of increases every year, so we
thank you for that, and especially funding for IHCIA and health
education in Fiscal Year 2020.
For Fiscal Year 2021, the IHS budget must be brought up
$9.1 billion per the recommendation of the Budget Formulation
Work Group. There must also be an annual increase to population
growth and inflation estimated at $200 million. The increased
cost of Section 105(l) leases will continue to cut into program
increases for direct service tribes and tribal facilities, and
we will not be able to maintain current services. Section
105(l) lease costs must be made an indefinite discretionary
appropriation.
Other funding priorities for our area include mental,
health substance use, purchased and referred care, HIV, HCV,
Indian health professionals, CHAP expansion, and ITHR
modernization for our youth, who are precious to our
communities, and the carriers of our northwest traditions and
culture. We want to ensure that they will have the services
that they need to grow and develop into future leaders for our
tribes. With the high rates of native suicide, substance use in
our tribes has prioritized the need of youth residential
treatment centers that provide aftercare, transitional living
for both substance use and mental health. While there are two
facilities in the Portland area, more are needed with expanded
services.
For Fiscal Year 2021, we request increases of $40 million
to both substance use and mental health, and $150 million for a
special behavior health program for Indians. This program was
promised to the tailored and tribal specific programs that meet
behavior health needs in our communities. As the program is in
the pilot stage, it must be expanded beyond opioids and allow
for the service of other substance use and mental health
issues, and provide for an option for tribes to receive funding
through compacts and contracts. Portland Area does not have an
IHS hospital, so IHS and tribal facilities in our area must
purchase all specialty and inpatient care. There no increase to
PRC in Fiscal Year 2020, which is a loss in funding when
medical inflation is not included. For Fiscal Year 2021, we
request a $50 million for increase for PRC above the 2020
budget.
HIV and hepatitis C funding must also be included in Fiscal
Year 2021 funding. For Fiscal Year 2021, Portland Area requests
$25 million for the ending of HIV epidemic and $25 million for
hepatitis C treatment so that IHS can begin providing
lifesaving treatment for American Indians/Alaska Natives within
the IHS system. Provider shortages is another concern. The
Indian Health Professionals Program is critical to support the
workforce development needs through loan repayment and
scholarships. For Fiscal Year 2021, Portland Area Health
requests a program increase of $10 million for Indian
professions.
We thank the committee for funding the Community Health Aid
Program, CHAP, at $5 million in Fiscal Year 2020. RAA has made
great progress in setting the framework for CHAP expansion. We
have 12 dental health aide therapists that have finished an
Alaska training program, one more will graduate from the DI
program this year. We have two in the health aide training
program with six more ready to start. Our area has already
launched a DHAT education program in Fiscal Year 2021, and is
developing a behavioral health aide program with two of our
tribes.
In Fiscal Year 2021, I request $290 million for
continuation of the national CHAP expansion, with $5 million in
the Portland Area, to continue work to establish a
demonstration project. Our area has also been advocating for a
regional referral specialty center. A study was in 2009. This
would address our area needs related to the specialty care
since we have no IHS hospitals. This program can be funded
through ICEA Section 143 demonstration authority. We also
support funding under the Small Ambulatory and Joint Venture
Programs. Lastly, IHS implements the first phases in the IT
modernization project. It must continue to conduct travel
consultation to ensure all areas are represented. Portland Area
recommends funding at $25 million for Fiscal Year 2021.
Thank you for this opportunity to provide recommendations
on the 2021 IHS budget. I look forward to working with the
subcommittee on the requests, and we thank you for holding this
hearing.
[The statement of Mr. Abrahamson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. You stuck the landing. Ms. Lucero,
welcome. Sorry. We are ahead of schedule.
Ms. Lucero. I know. [Laughter.]
And that doesn't happen often.
Mr. Kilmer. I know. I am going to ask really slow questions
when we get to questions.
Ms. Lucero. And it is raining outside. People are behaving
like they are driving in Seattle, so.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
SEATTLE INDIAN HEALTH BOARD
WITNESS
ESTHER LUCERO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, SEATTLE INDIAN HEALTH BOARD
Ms. Lucero. Ya'at eeh abini, everyone. I am Esther Lucero.
I am Dine and Latina, third generation in my tribe to be raised
in an urban environment, which is why urban Indian health is
super important to me. I am always privileged to sit at the
table with these folks, you know. These are our partners,
especially our tribal partners out in Washington, and so it is
really amazing to see all of you again. This is now my fourth
year, so it is exciting. I feel like we are building relations
at this point.
So I really want to start off with just thanking you all. I
think that last year's budget recommendation at $87 million is
the highest we have seen come out of this committee. And I just
want to say I am incredibly grateful for that, for the urban
Indian line item. Along with our tribal partners, we have
established a funding mechanism to get IHS to full funding
within 10 years, and so we really align with our tribal
partners, and so this year's ask is aligned with $106 million.
And I want to be clear: this isn't about taking dollars from
our tribal partners. This is about increasing the whole pie. It
is very important that we don't focus on percentages, but that
we are focused on dollar amount.
The other thing I would like to thank you for is that we
saw $1 million increase going into the tribal epicenters,
right, and so if you will recall, the Urban Indian Health
Institute is the research arm for the Seattle Indian Health
Board and produced the ``Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
Report.'' Now, I will tell you, with a little investment into
the tribal epicenters, those are the kind of results you will
see, right, actually initiating a national response to this
crisis. And so having in $1 million increase is really
beneficial. And I will have to tell you, if our 12 tribal
epicenters were able to get to a $2 million operating budget
per year, we would see significant changes within our
community. So our ask is a $24 million ask to go specifically
to the tribal epicenters. Let's make sure that we make that
investment there so that we can fill the data gaps that you all
need to make really important financial decisions. So that that
is where I am on that.
I think the other thing that we have to understand is that
as an urban Indian health program, we kind of rose from the
social justice movements of the late 1960s, early 70s, and that
means our buildings are getting pretty old at this point. Urban
Indian health programs have never had access to facilities
dollars, and, again, we don't want to take anything from the
tribal partners. Many of our tribal partners are still waiting
on, you know, facilities dollars to address their
infrastructure needs. But I will tell you that we actually had
an assessment done, and it was my second year, so that would be
about 3 years ago. And IHS actually came out to our facility
and they said they were doing an assessment on the needs of
urban health programs from an infrastructure perspective. We
actually haven't seen the results of that report. My ask to
this committee, for the subcommittee, is to ensure that we get
the results of that report, and that we get to understand what
the cost is of making a true infrastructure investment in urban
Indian health programs.
Now, I will tell you, HRSA actually did something for the
past couple of years where, as part of their mental health
expansion grants, they actually added facilities and
infrastructure dollars to that. That is something I would like
to see IHS do is really invest in what it takes to increase our
capacity both from an infrastructure perspective as we move
towards integration, but also capacity in regards to our
providers, you know, so that we can meet those needs.
And I will give you a specific example on this. So our
Thunderbird Treatment Center, we are actually having to
relocate that site because our building is so old that our
infrastructure needs became so significant, and they are very
challenging dollars to acquire. And we want to expand our
services to provide services to the women, pregnant women,
women with children. And so we are actually selling that
building to be able to use those resources to move, but this is
a testament to the fact that we have not invested in
infrastructure. And now our organizations, our urban Indian
health programs, are going to have to address those needs in
whatever way we can. So I want you to know that we are doing
our part in creating community partnerships, right, leveraging
our local and State resources, and still it is necessary for
IHS to invest in infrastructure.
And then lastly, I would ask you to continue to support the
work on missing emergent indigenous women. You will hear from
my colleague, I believe, tomorrow a little bit more on that
work. And to me, this is where that synergy between both, you
know, resources, research, and also policy work go hand in hand
to support the program needs, because our communities are
struggling with the trauma that these experiences have caused.
And so now, programs like ours from health and human services
perspective are really in need of providing resources and
support. And so I would ask that we think about that when we
are investing in this year's funding.
And with that, it is always an honor to see all of you. It
is really a privilege, and I am sorry that I got a little bit
rained out and was a little bit late. No disrespect, I promise.
So thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Lucero follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
AAP COMMITTEE ON NATIVE AMERICAN CHILD HEALTH
WITNESS
SHAQUITA BELL, M.D., FAAP, CHAIR, AAP COMMITTEE ON NATIVE AMERICAN
CHILD HEALTH
Dr. Bell. A tough act to follow. No notes. That is
impressive. [Laughter.]
Greetings, Representative Kilmer, Coleman, and Simpson. So
honored to be here. My name is Dr. Shaquita Bell. And I am
Cherokee and black. I am a pediatrician in Seattle where it
wasn't raining when I left, and I heard it was raining here
before we left. We didn't bring the rain.
I am so honored to be up here with the urban Indian
programs. I was a child in Minneapolis who received my care
through an urban Indian program, the Minneapolis Health Board,
and so it is such a pleasure to be here. I am the pediatrician
in the room, so a lot of my testimony will be pretty kids
focused, but I could not agree more with what everyone has said
today. I am here on behalf of the American Academy of
Pediatrics. I am the chair for the Committee on Native American
Child Heath, and I am also very grateful for our Federal
Affairs Office, who helped me with this testimony.
We at AAP support the IHS full funding that we can get. We
recommend the largest possible funding increase. And we are
also really interested in strong funding, and we really feel
like advanced appropriations would be the most helpful thing
for IHS. So we also agree with that and strongly recommend it,
and we appreciate the efforts of this subcommittee to get to
that.
I like to use stories to tell my desires for funding, and
so I am going to use a story, but I am going to call this
patient ``Robert.'' Robert is a young adolescent who would
rather play videogames than listen to me talk about veggies and
eating healthy. He struggles with his weight, and my clinic was
able to partner with a local pool. And after exploring his
interests, he signed up for swimming lessons and met a group of
friends, joined a hip hop dance club, which apparently is cool
as long as I don't talk about it, and has found a really unique
way to become physically fit and gain a better sense of
identity, which really helps protect his mental health. It is
one of the strongest protective factors is a sense of identity.
And when we think about mental health and behavioral health
in Indian Country, we know that we have really vast unmet
needs. We continue to have waits as long as 4 to 6 months for
acutely anxious patients and depressed patients. I have a young
girl who hides under the table at school and cries herself to
sleep every night because she is so scared of school, and I
can't get her in any sooner than that. So I really urge us to
think about how we can address this unmet need in our
communities.
Once those kids of mine grow up and become students, I love
to have them shadow at clinic and mentor them into their
careers. And one of the things that really makes a difference
in choosing your future career is loan debt. And so we really
strongly appreciate the value of the IHS Health Professions
Scholarship Program and the Health Professions Loan Repayment
Program, but we really wish it could be tax exempt. That would
really help us meet a lot more of the need and recruitment and
retention of health providers in our communities, and would
take a burden off of students when they are considering this
job.
So once they become pediatricians--hopefully they all do--
then we encourage them to come and work in IHS, or in urban
health programs, or in tribal clinics. And then they get to
meet the Federal government. It is a real barrier to hiring
talented physicians. I have a friend right now who accepted a
job in IHS about a year ago and is still working on the
paperwork, and has sold a house and is trying to move to that
community, but can't qualify for a loan because they don't have
proof of employment. It is just a vicious cycle. And if we
can't recruit talented professionals, we are going to continue
to have issues with the type of care that we are able to
deliver.
Kind of thinking about that quality care that we want to
deliver, I am very thankful to this committee for helping IHS
to hire, encourage IHS to hire, the maternal child health
coordinator, Dr. McKernan. We are thrilled to be partnering
with her. She has attended some of our meetings and is already
getting on the ground with emergency services. So really thank
you for that.
Just in closing, every year as part of our committee, we
get to visit an IHS site, one of the regions, and then we pick
four sites in that region, and I was fortunate enough to visit
the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara Valley. And they told
us about a really exciting job skills program where they take
youth and teach them skills that they can use for the rest of
their life. And it makes me think of Robert. It makes me think
of all of the stories that I have told so far of how we can
engage youth with really simple interventions that tie them to
their identity, tie them to their roots, and lead to a very
successful happy and healthy life.
So with that, I will close and just thank you all. And I
would be happy to take any questions.
[The statement of Dr. Bell follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you all for your testimony. Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Simpson. Always more thoughts than questions. Always a
complex problem. Ms. Rosetta, in addition to an increased
budget line item for urban health, your testimony mentions a
number of authorizing issues outside of this subcommittee's
jurisdiction. So are you making any progress with the
authorizing committees, because at some point in time, it
always comes down to us to do authorizations, and people hate
that, so.
Ms. Rosette. Not that I am aware of, no.
Mr. Abrahamson. No.
Ms. Lucero. No.
Mr. Simpson. We need to be working with those authorizing
committees, so I appreciate that. And, Ms. Lucero, you
mentioned that in your testimony, the Seattle Indian Health
Board's budget has increased by 80 percent in the last 4 years?
Ms. Lucero. That is correct.
Mr. Simpson. Which is kind of surprising. At a time when
urban Indian organizations are struggling, what is happening in
the Seattle area that has enabled your budget to grow so
strongly?
Ms. Lucero. Yeah, thank you for that question. We are
actually very proud of that. So I have been in my position for
4 years now, and for us, we were able to see kind of the low-
hanging fruit in places that we hadn't invested. And, quite
frankly, an investment has been largely in behavioral health.
So we were able to access other grant funding sources to be
able to supplement that work, coupled with the fact that we
have done a significant investment in our infrastructure to
support increased revenue through third party billing. That, of
course, is threatened constantly when we hear things like block
grants that come into the States that would actually capitate
Medicaid dollars.
So thank you for that. Yes, we are proud of that. Yes, it
has taken a year where we have had revamp our entire IT system.
We have had to improve our electronic health record system. We
have had to access grants and increase staff to be able to
support that work. So we are looking at our IHS dollars to
maintain our cultural integrity. You know, we can work with
these other systems, absolutely, but this is what allows us to
serve in a culturally-relevant way. And, quite frankly, our
success is grounded in our indigenous knowledge informed
systems of care, so centered on traditional medicine. Thank
you.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Congratulations on that also. Dr.
Bell, just out of curiosity, and it wasn't part of anybody's
testimony. But I was curious, are we making progress in
diabetes with the Native American population? As you know, they
have the highest rate of diabetes of anybody.
Dr. Bell. So I am a pediatrician.
Mr. Simpson. The doctor. [Laughter.]
Dr. Bell. I would say that we have definitely seen impacts
from SDIP. I think the specialty diabetes project, what it
really does or what the funding does is allow us to build
culturally-relevant programs, like exercise, diet, nutrition,
things that meet people where they are. The other thing that is
really cool about SDIP is that it allows people to be creative.
So you don't have this, you know, just, okay, everybody with
diabetes gets X, Y, and Z. You get to tailor it to the
community you are serving, and that is why it is so important
that each of those communities can take that money and build a
program that is specific to their needs, to their people, and
to their rates of diabetes specifically.
I would have to say across the board, native or non-native,
we have a problem with diabetes, and that is not native
specific. I think that is a reality for all of America.
Mr. Simpson. I noticed when we have traveled out to some of
the reservations and so forth, one of the programs has always
been to try to get people back on traditional foods.
Dr. Bell. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. Simpson. And the thought was that that would help with
reducing the rate of diabetes and so forth. And I was just
wondering if we have any positive successes in that that we can
relate to.
Ms. Rosette. If I can answer.
Mr. Simpson. Sure.
Ms. Rosette. From what we have learned in the last year is
that the mortality rate for natives obviously is lower. But
actually with the SDPI Program, we have increased by 1 year, so
we have gained 1 year, so that is one success for us. And that
has taken over 20 years to achieve, so that is why we need the
continued funding for the SDPI Program.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you all.
Mr. Kilmer. Mrs. Watson Coleman.
Mrs. Watson Coleman. Thank you. I don't really have a
question. I just wanted to thank you for your testimony, and to
let you know that this discussion about the access to
healthcare, about access to mental healthcare, about cultural
competence and services and programs, is something that I hear
in other specific communities, and it is something that in
general we need to pay better attention to. I thank you for the
information you have shared with me. Maternal health issues and
all of those issues are things that I have encountered in other
meetings, so I was very interested in hearing it. Thank you.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Kilmer. First of all, thank you for your testimony, and
thank you for the important work you do. I wanted to touch on,
several of you in both your testimony and your written
testimony, referenced the impacts of shutdowns and referenced
the potential value, as our chair has led the way on doing
advanced appropriations. I think it would be helpful if you
could just paint the picture, though, of when there is a lapse
in funding. What does that mean in terms of access to care,
quality of care? Help us tell the story to our colleagues. What
do you see when that happens? You know, and I will say up front
I think there is agreement certainly by the members on this
committee that trust responsibilities and treaty obligations
should not be treated as discretionary. They are not
discretionary. But when you see this lapse in funding, paint
the picture for us.
Ms. Rosette. Well, last year, I know that in the Boston
area, they had to shut down, and, in that process, they had a
couple of people who overdosed, and so that is just there. And
then particularly for us, for the native project, we were
looking at the potential of having to reduce hours, which means
you have to have less services and less access to the care. So
obviously we were more prepared for it, I would say, but not
all of our urbans were prepared for it. I know Boston was one
of the ones most affected by it, and they saw deaths because of
it.
Mr. Abrahamson. So within our area there, we didn't shut
down, but some of them were contemplating on shutting down
there. And, I believe, we did lose one provider in the area
there, and, as you guys know, the lack of recruit/retention
that we have in the systems there on direct service tribes. So
on the average, we are 33 percent of lack of professions in the
field there and stuff there. So losing professionals is really
critical for us, because just being able to recruit them and
get them there. And as we heard on testimony here, too, that it
takes so long to go through the process of getting them there,
but it has made an impact on bringing professionals there and
stuff there, so.
Mr. Kilmer. Yeah, thank you.
Ms. Lucero. For us, we actually had to develop a furlough
strategy. And, you know, we always have looming threats both on
the community health center side and the IHS side. But for us,
we actually had to shut down our Saturday clinic, and we also
had to cut back for our Elders Program, which is largely
dependent on our Indian Health Service funding. Additionally,
all of our traditional Indian medicine services are funding
through Indian Health Service. Those are all the pieces that go
away when we have to respond to a shutdown.
And so, yes, I have always been a proponent of advanced
appropriations. From my perspective, we have already paid this
debt, right? We have already paid this debt, and it is up to us
to make sure that we help heal the communities that we serve.
Dr. Bell. Can I share a story that will be very poignant
for you to pass on to your colleagues? So one of the privileges
of being chair of the CONACH is I get to connect with
pediatricians and pediatric providers all over the country. And
so when the shutdown happened last year, I sent out an email
and just asked how people are doing, and I heard from a
pediatrician in the southwest who were lacking basic medical
care for children. So when a baby is born, we check their
oxygen level to see if they have a cardiac defect. They could
not afford the probe to check the oxygen entry, right, because
all funding stopped.
Ms. McCollum [presiding]. Explain what the probe is.
Dr. Bell. The probe is literally, it looks like a piece of
tape that goes to a machine that tells you what your oxygen
level is. Like, if you have ever been to the doctor, they check
it when you check in. So they couldn't get any more of those,
so they couldn't screen babies for congenital heart disease,
which means until they are seen in their pediatrician or family
medicine clinic, we don't know if that child has a heart
condition. And that happened, how long were we closed, a month?
I mean, a month of babies who were impacted by this, and they
were desperate. There were people who were buying supplies for
their clinic out of their own pocket.
So it was a very, I don't like to use the word
``devastating,'' but there was a very real impact. As far as I
know, no babies passed away, but if you can imagine as a
parent, you would want to know if your baby's heart was okay.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. Well, thank you very much, and we will
have our next panel come up, and thank you for your testimony.
I have read it and highlighted it through the book. So thank
you.
Dr. Bell. Sorry I didn't get to tell my Minnesota joke.
[Laughter.]
Ms. McCollum. We are running about 10 minutes ahead of
schedule, so we want to make sure that we don't miss anybody
coming in. So we will just take a few minutes and take our
time. Thank you.
Would anyone like any water or anything? You are all good?
So good morning. Before we start the panel on climate
change, I am going just going to repeat myself about something
that I said earlier this morning in the opening statement. For
Fiscal Year 2020 Congress, we included additional funding to
BIA, natural resources management programs, including increased
funding for tribal climate resilience, endangered species, and
water resources. And I was disappointed, but not surprised,
that the President's budget request yesterday once ignored
climate change.
No one is immune from climate change, especially not Native
Americans, who are at the forefront of this experience with the
effects on increasing temperatures and rising waters. Your
written testimony and other tribal members' who spoke on other
issues also alluded to what was happening with climate change,
described melting permafrost in Alaska, the loss of traditional
foods, concern about traditional and cultural practices. And
then we know about the unprecedented flooding that is happening
in Washington and Oregon. And yet, unfortunately, the President
looks the other way.
But as I said, the President proposes, and Congress
disposes. So this testimony that you are about to give on
climate change is something that we will be looking at very
seriously on how we can work with you for resilience and other
issues that are being affected by climate change.
So I am going to have you introduce yourself and then go
right into your testimony. Just a little reminder, 5 minutes.
Your testimony is fully entered into the record now, so don't
feel rushed. Don't feel you have to cover everything if
something comes to mind when you are testifying. The light will
go yellow at one 1 minute. When you go a little beyond that 1
minute, I will kind of tap with the gavel, and then at 5
minutes, it will go red, and we would ask you to conclude your
remarks.
So with that, I would very much like Ms. Nelson to lead us
off. Thank you.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
SHOALWATER BAY INDIAN TRIBE
WITNESS
CHARLENE NELSON, CHAIRWOMAN, SHOALWATER BAY TRIBE
Ms. Nelson. Madam Chairman and all the subcommittee here, I
thank you for being here to listen to us. I thank you as a
chairwoman. I am chairwoman of the Shoalwater Bay Tribe. I am
also a steward, and that is a steward of the ocean and what is
happening to it now. I speak for tribal members all along the
Salish Sea. We are in danger, and also the whales, the salmon,
all the things that live in the sea are affected by what is
happening. There is climate change. I am 80 years old, and I
have seen climate change. And at first, it is just part of
life, and then all of a sudden, you realize something is
happening.
Our reservation, Shoalwater Bay Reservation, is right on
the edge of the sea. We are 6 feet above high level of the
tide. If there is a storm, generally comes up. We work to
protect our land. We work to protect the land of the people
around us. There are no fences. If somebody needs help, we do
help because that is what you do. I look at what we face, and
we are working at trying to go uphill. It is expensive to go
uphill. We have bought the land, but to get there is going to
be a challenge because the road that is strong enough to carry
the equipment goes over a wetland, and you have to mitigate for
a wetland. So we are doing that. We are working on doing this.
This December, 5 days before Christmas, we were protected
by a berm, a sand berm out in front of us, and that berm
breached, or very close to a breach. I can't call it a state of
emergency, 5 days before Christmas. And the next morning, the
Army Corps of Engineers was out there, and there are boots on
the ground day and night to save. They are great. I mean, they
have just helped us so very, very much, and giving us advice
and good things like that. Coming to meetings because we hold
meetings not only for our tribe, but we include the county, the
State, and all the people around us so that we are working
together because you can't just fix a piece and stop a piece.
You have to stop our work on it all, seeing it as a whole,
because that is what it was made as, as a whole. Right now, we
actually had another storm Friday night. We have drones or one
drone that flies over it so that after a storm, as soon as it
calms down enough that we can use it, we send that drone out.
So we are keeping all the time what is happening.
Anyway, as far as reservation lands we are working on,
well, what we did is we purchased from someone else wetland,
more wetland, and we are working on doing a wetland bank. Part
of this, to begin with, is the ghost dike, which we will, once
we are able to, and we have been working on this from 2017--I
call it government to government--sat down with everybody, and
that is what you do. You sit down because you are pulling
together if you are sitting down, and you are listening. We
showed them, actually took them out in the rain and wind to
show them just exactly what we were talking about. It made a
difference. We have been moved up in the queue, and actually we
were notified about 1 week ago we will be able to apply and
start work on the first one, which is a ghost dike.
When we reach this, the saltwater will come back in. The
saltwater was there before, before the owners that, you know,
in the 30s possibly, maybe the 40s, is built a dike right on
the ocean side. So that will bring an estuary, which is
important for salmon. Again, we are stewards. We need to look
after what we have been given as a tribe. And all the tribes
around us talk about traditional food. Traditional food is
salmon in our area.
I in my life have been a commercial fisherman, a teacher,
and now I am tribal chairwoman. It is challenge all the time.
You keep moving. You keep doing what you like to do no matter
if you get to be 80, which is a gift. But we look at if a
tsunami hits, that can happen any time. People say, oh no, it
won't happen. We know what happened in Japan. We set up a
command center, and we were ready to go uphill if we had to go
uphill. We are working on a tsunami tower. The tower is where
the middle of the peninsula is. The only place that people
there can get in time is to that tower. It is open to
everybody. It is our tribal members. It is anybody who is down
there. Get there as fast as you can. Well, we are working on
that because we found out there is some wetland under that. We
are working with FEMA with this, and it is important. We want
to get that built.
We need wetland credits in order to do that, so we are
getting that wetland credits we hope with our bank or the ghost
dike bank, and we can move up, start to move uphill. We have
got the plan for the road. We just can't get the money yet or
the road. And we have put our own money into doing what we have
been doing. And by the way, I am blind in my right eye, and I
am using my left eye to try to look at people, and I see I am
red.
So anyway that is where we are. We are working, and I
always think we go in and we say we are going to look at this,
we are going to make a plan. When is it too late? When is too
late? And I want to get there and do something before it is too
late. Masi. ``Masi,'' by the way, means thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Nelson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Greene.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
MAKAH INDIAN TRIBE
WITNESS
TIMOTHY GREENE, SR., MAKAH TRIBAL COUNCIL CHAIRMAN, MAKAH INDIAN TRIBE
Mr. Greene. Thank you. Chair Nelson. Mr. Chair, members of
the committee, it is an honor to be here today. For the record,
I would like to apologize to Congressman Kilmer. I missed the
10 most enlightening minutes of my life this morning
apparently. He gave a speech over at the NCAI, is my
understanding. Sorry I couldn't be there.
Mr. Kilmer. You really missed out. [Laughter.]
Ms. Nelson. Yeah.
Ms. McCollum. We will get you a copy.
Ms. Nelson. All right. Well, I am T.J. Greene. I am
chairman for the Makah Tribe, and I will be testifying on
changing ocean conditions and the severe water shortage that we
have on our lands, and tsunami relocation efforts, oil spill
response and prevention, as well as coastal erosion, some of
the things that that was already discussed here today.
And the Makah Indian Tribe, we are located at the
northwestern tip of Washington State, right where the Pacific
Ocean meets the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Real beautiful area,
and the ocean means everything to us. It is what our treaty is
built around, and it is what defines us as a people. Tribal
fisheries or vital for Makah culture, subsistence, and our
economy. The impacts of changing ocean conditions on our
fishery is a priority for the Makah Tribal Council. We are
already experiencing warm ocean waters, increased hypoxia,
harmful algal blooms. Ocean acidification along our coast is
putting our treaty resources and our community at risk.
Continued funding for Federal programs like BIA's Travel
Resilience Program and EPA's National Estuary Program is
crucial to addressing climate change and protecting our
community and livelihoods.
In this past decade, Makah has experienced three fisheries
disasters due to changes in the marine environment. Fisheries
disaster hit our community particularly hard, and delays in
disaster relief funds compound these effects. We appreciate
that they do eventually come, but the delays in the process are
critical to our fishermen. You know, I think we can do that a
little bit better.
We urge Congress to continue to designate funding to the
national fisheries disaster account as it has done in Fiscal
Years 2018 and 2019, and to expedite fisheries disaster relief
in this process. Over the past 2-and-a-half years, we have
trapped over 2,200 invasive European green crabs on the Makah
reservation. My backyard, which you have been to, Congressman,
is one of the sites that is being infested by these green
crabs. We are the only entity monitoring the outer coast of
Washington. Limited available resources are targeted in the
Puget Sound. We need increased Federal funding to address this
infestation through monitoring programs on the outer coast,
possibly under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Aquatic
Invasive Species Program. These crabs compete with some of the
habitat that is critical to the Dungeness juvenile crabs that
are very important to Washington State, and we think that is
important.
We have severe water shortages on the reservation due to
limited groundwater storage capacity. The Makah Tribe
experiences chronic and severe water shortages every summer,
which are exasperated by climate change. Water shortages
restrict our tribe's ability to provide sufficient housing for
our community and limit economic development and relocation
efforts. We request Federal funding increases for programs,
like IHS and BIA, to address water shortage issues on tribal
reservations. We also would like tsunami relocation efforts to
be funded, the Makah Village, including 60 percent of our
population, our schools, clinic, and all of our critical
infrastructure, including water treatment and sewage treatment
facilities, are in the tsunami inundation zone. We are
developing a comprehensive relocation plan for our community,
but planning and implementation is restricted and limited by
water supply and lack of funding. We want to work with programs
like IHS, HUD, BIA, and others, to identify solutions and
funding opportunities to address this imminent threat and move
our community to safety.
Oil spill preparedness prevention infrastructure is
something we have been involved in heavily for years. Since the
1970s, over 1-and-a-half million gallons of oil have been
spilled within the Makah treaty area, which is vital to our
fishing resources, the staple of our economy. The Strait of
Juan de Fuca is a high-risk area for vessel traffic where ocean
and weather conditions are often severe. Vessel traffic is
increasing, and climate change further complicates spill
response on the remote outer coast. Because of these risks, the
Makah Tribe is highly engaged in oil pollution, vessel traffic
safety, and climate policy forums supported by EPA's Natural
Estuary and Brownfield Programs. It is essential that these
programs continue to fund and prioritize tribal engagement in
this area.
The Port of Neah Bay is home to an emergency response
towing vessel, ERTB, which has made over 70 saves since its
stationing, preventing oil spills across the outer coast of
Washington and British Columbia. The tribe has already invested
$13 million of its own funding for infrastructure in the Port
of Neah Bay. And coastal erosion is threatening two primary
areas in our territory: Hobuck Resort, which is an economic
employer to the community, and the Ozette coastline, which is
vital to our cultural resources. Th4ere is a significant amount
of erosion that is going on in those areas that are at risk,
and we are looking for programs to help mitigate those risks.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
[The statement of Mr. Greene follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Williams.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
AKIAK NATIVE COMMUNITY
WITNESS
HON. MICHAEL WILLIAMS, CHIEF, AKIAK NATIVE COMMUNITY
Mr. Williams. Yeah. My name is Michael Williams. I am
currently the chief of the Akiak Community in western Alaska.
Impacts on Alaska Natives and American Indians. Climate
change is undermining the social identity and cultural survival
of Alaska Natives and American Indians. As we watch our ice
melt, our forests burn, our villages sink, our sea level rise,
our temperatures increase, our oceans acidifying, and our
animals become diseased and dislocated, we recognize that our
health, our traditional ways of life are at risk.
Our elders, in particular, are deeply concerned about what
they are withholding. In Alaska, unpredictable weather and ice
conditions make travel and time-honored practices hazardous,
endangering our lives. According to the U.S. Corps of Engineer,
at least three tribes must be moved in the next 10 to 15
years--Shishmaref, Kivalina, and Newtok--while, according to a
GAO report, over 100 communities are at risk. Currently, Newtok
has begun to move finally.
Everything is changing so quickly. Lakes are drying. New
insects are appearing. Permafrost is melting. Bays are
disappearing. Storms are fiercer. Animal populations are
changing. Our fish are rotting on drying racks. Polar bears are
drowning and dying. Because of massive record-breaking forest
fires, our youth and elders are having trouble breathing. Our
ice is so much thinner, or entirely gone, and our coastlines
are eroding, washing away ancient artifacts from our ancestors
as well as modern infrastructure. Throughout the Nation, in
Indian Country, traditional foods are declining. Local
landscapes are changing. Real infrastructure is being
challenged. Soils are drying, and the lake and river levels are
declining. Tribes are experiencing droughts, loss of forests,
fishery problems, and increased health risks from heat strokes
and from diseases that thrive in warmer temperatures.
If climate change is not addressed, the impacts on Alaska
Natives and American Indians will be immense. Models and the
best scientific data and traditional knowledge indicate that if
we do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the entire icecap
will melt, endangering the culture and subsistence needs of
America's indigenous people. Furthermore, erosion, flooding,
sea level rise, storm surges, and greater storms will endanger
my people, the Yupiaq Tribe in Florida and elsewhere.
Hotter temperatures threaten all indigenous people,
especially in southwestern Florida, where we often do not have
adequate means of escaping the heat. Increased climate change
will also endanger salmon in the Pacific Northwest, even in our
lands that we witnessed this past summer, which are crucial to
the tribes there, as well as in Alaska. Finally, on almost all
tribal lands, enhance climate change will threaten our sacred
waters essential to our physical and cultural survival.
Clearly, climate change presents one of the greatest
threats to our future and must be addressed by Congress and the
Administration as soon as possible. We cannot afford to wait
any longer. We cannot put our head in the sand right now. And
we have so much opportunities that we can initiate now with
economic development, other than the fossil fuels that we
depend on. We can get economic opportunities without depending
on fossil fuels anymore, and we at Alaska tribes and
corporations have passed resolutions indicating our impacts on
our oceans and our rivers.
Alaska Federation natives, NCAI, and I had an opportunity
to listen to you this morning, and thank you for those
comments, Mr. Kilmer. But anyway, throughout the Alaska Nation,
we are in peril from climate change. For the sake of our
children and grandchildren, seven generations and beyond,
Congress must take meaningful action to address this issue
right now. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Williams follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Than you, Mr. Williams. Ms. Sigo.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
SUQUAMISH TRIBE
WITNESS
ROBIN SIGO, TREASURER, SUQUAMISH TRIBE
Ms. Sigo. Thank you, Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member
Joyce, and honorable members of the committee. My name is Robin
Little Wing Sigo, and I serve as the treasurer of the Suquamish
Tribe. Thank you for the opportunity to testify about the
tribe's funding priorities.
The Suquamish name comes from the traditional word
[Speaking native language], which means ``place of the clear
saltwater.'' The tribe is a signatory to the 1855 Treaty of
Point Elliott. Our reservation, which is located west of
Seattle across the Puget Sound, encompasses approximately 7,600
acres, including 12 miles of Salish Sea shoreline. The
Suquamish people have lived in the Puget Sound area since time
immemorial. The tribe relies on its abundant wildlife and
plants to meet our economic, nutritional, and cultural needs.
These traditional foods are found on our dinner tables and
featured during our travel gatherings. Today, 20 percent of the
tribe's members help support their families by earning income
from the harvest of fish and shellfish.
For such strong ties to our environment, the Suquamish
Tribe is experiencing the growing impacts of climate change.
The tribe is on the front lines of this battle, and one which
is disrupting our daily lives. In order to aid tribes facing
climate change, the Suquamish Tribe requests the subcommittee
increase funding for the BIA's Tribal Resilience Program, or
TRP. Despite the tribe's best efforts, we are facing an uphill
battle against climate change. We feel stronger Federal
investment in programs, such as TRP, is needed.
Over the last several years, the tribe has received
multiple funding awards through TRP. With this funding, the
Suquamish Tribe conducted a project that provided us with
valuable data on the temperature and stream flow of the Chico
Creek watershed. For generations, my family has lived on this
watershed, and we have witnessed the decline in returning
salmon. Thanks to the TRP funding, the tribe is now able to
monitor future changes of the watershed, which may cause long-
term impacts on our salmon population.
Another TRP program was centered around engaging our
troubled youth in understanding the impacts of climate change
at a scientific and cultural level. By laying the groundwork of
knowledge for our youth, we are providing them with the best
tools to continue this battle against climate change. The TRP
has proven to be an effective program to help tribes fight
against the ever-increasing impacts of climate change.
Therefore, the tribe urges the subcommittee to consider a
substantial increase to funding for TRP.
The tribe's second request is for continued funding for the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Tribal Wildlife Grants. The
Suquamish Tribe has been active in the recovery of the sea
cucumber population in the Puget Sound. Due to our over
harvesting, many areas where the sea cumber once thrived are
now struggling in population number. The sea cucumber is part
of the Puget Sound's rich community of organisms, and the tribe
is committed to ensuring all wildlife within it thrive.
The Suquamish Tribe received a Tribal Wildlife Grant to
help protect future generations of sea cucumbers. With this
important grant funding, the tribe partnered with several
organizations to start a sea cucumber restoration program. The
project focuses on over-harvested areas in the Puget Sound and
created a hatchery program. This funding will help to
reintroduce sea cucumbers from the hatchery to some of our most
over-harvested areas. And I have gotten to go visit those
little baby sea cucumbers, and they are really cute, and they
just keep getting bigger. And, you know, some of our elders go
out and look at them also because that is an important part of
it as well. The Suquamish Tribe urges the subcommittee to
continue to increase funding for the Tribal Wildlife Grants,
and also expand it to include more pilot programs.
And finally the tribe's final request is for continuing
funding for the EPA's Puget Sound Geographic Program. The EPA's
Puget Sound Program provides funding to tribes to address
environmental and human health risks as well as tribal capacity
building and project implementation. Despite the effectiveness
of the Puget Sound Geographic Program, the EPA's Fiscal Year
2020 budget request calls for its elimination. Considering the
proposed elimination of the program, the Suquamish Tribe was
pleased to see the program increased to $33 million. However,
the Puget Sound Program has suffered a drastic reduction in
funding from the $50 million it previously received. Therefore,
the tribe encourages the subcommittee to continue funding and
increase the funding available for the EPA's Puget Sound
Program account.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify. This work here
is more than just food. It is also about our culture. It is
also about the whole world. And I am available to answer any
questions.
[The statement of Leonard Forsman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Ms. James.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
QUINAULT INDIAN TRIBE
WITNESS
GINA JAMES, 1ST COUNCILWOMAN, QUINAULT INDIAN TRIBE
Ms. James. Good afternoon, Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking
Member Joyce, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Gina
James, and I am the first councilwoman of the Quinault Indian
Nation Business Committee. I want to thank the subcommittee
holding this hearing to hear from tribes on the importance of
these Federal programs.
Before getting into the specific requests I have, I would
like to thank the subcommittee for increasing funding for the
Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education in
Fiscal Year 2020 by $142 million over Fiscal Year 2019. The
subcommittee also increased funding to the Indian Health
Services by $243 million over the 2019 enacted level. Thank
you.
The Quinault Reservation is located on the southwest corner
of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State and abuts the
Pacific Ocean, and has over 3,000 enrolled tribal members. The
lands and waters of the Quinault Reservation consists of
207,150 acres beautiful forest lands, mountains, rivers, Lake
Quinault, and 25 miles of relatively undisturbed Pacific
coastline. My testimony today focuses on three priorities.
Funding requests for the Taholah Village relocation
project. There are two major villages located within the
reservation, the villages of Taholah and Queets. Tahola is
located in the southern portion of the reservation at the mouth
of the Quinault River on the Pacific Coast, and consists of two
locations known as the Upper Village and the Lower Village, the
latter of which is located below sea level and is the original
village of Taholah, signers of the Treaty of Olympia.
Our nation had models prepared by the Washington Department
of Natural Resources that show a potential of tsunami
inundation of 40 to 50 feet in depth in most of the lower
village of Tahola. And that is where I live. A comprehensive
2017 report was contracted by QIN and two other tribes, the
Quileute and Hoh Indian Tribes, to understand the effects of
climate change and impacts to the homelands and treaty
resources of our coastal tribes. The report entitled, ``Climate
Change Vulnerability Assessment for Treaty Tribes of Olympia,''
found that the combined effects of thermal expansion of ocean
waters, vertical land deformation, e.g., tectonic movements,
melting glaciers and ice fields, and seasonable water surface
elevation changes due to local atmospheric circulation effects
will result in sea level increases, substantial increased flood
risk in the lower village of Tahola. By 2050, sea level is
projected to increase by up to nearly 20 inches under the high
scenario.
The report further noted that changes posted by climate
change include increased winter precipitation, soil saturation,
and flow into the Quinault River will compound and increase the
coastal flood risk to the lower village of Tolah. The nation
applied and received a grant in 2013 from the Administration
for Native Americans, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, to prepare and plan to relocate the village to higher
ground, and it resulted in the Taholah Village Relocation
Master Plan.
We will need assistance from our trustee, the Federal
Government, to continue implementation of the master plan, and
to ensure that our citizens are safe and our government
operations continue. We request the subcommittee in the Fiscal
Year 2021 appropriations bill direct the BIA and the
Environmental Protection Agency to prioritize funding for
tribes who are dealing with reservation loss and displacement
due to climate change. We also urge the subcommittee to include
report language that mandates funding criteria that will allow
our tribe and others dealing with the negative impacts of
climate change to address the needs described above.
Along with the climate change and the more rain in winter,
another funding request is for additional roads to access
Quinault's Village of Taholah. Exit and entry access to the
Village of Taholah is limited to a single highway. Access to
the village is cut off during natural disasters and weather
events, such as downed trees, mudslides, floods, that make the
roads impassable. In December 2018 and January 2020, very large
mudslides shut down the single highway for a number of days.
When this access is cut off, emergency vehicles are unable to
reach or leave the Village of Taholah, except by a treacherous
logging road known as BIA Road 29, or McBride Road. It takes an
additional 45 minutes to get through that road. That
significantly increases response times for emergency services.
We thank the subcommittee for funding the BIA Road
Maintenance Program at $36 million in Fiscal Year 2020. We ask
that the subcommittee increase funding for this program to $50
million to meet the current high demand of tribes. We also urge
the subcommittee to include report language giving funding
priority to tribes with safety and emergency access concern.
And my last request was the Housing Improvement Program.
Ms. McCollum. We have that, yeah.
Ms. James. QIN has utilized this program for many years.
HIP is a home improvement and home replacement program that
assists tribal members who have substandard to deplorable
housing. Cutting this funding would be devastating to the
people that need it the most. We thank the subcommittee for not
following the Administration's request to zero out and cut this
program, and for funding it at $11.7 million in Fiscal Year
2020, an increase of $2 million for Fiscal Year 2019. Because
there is a continued need for this program at Quinault and
through Indian Country, we ask the subcommittee to increase
funding to $50 million for Fiscal Year 2021.
Thank you for allowing me time to comment on our nation's
needs and other native nations.
[The statement of Ms. James follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. It
was heartfelt and disturbing. Mr. Kilmer.
Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair. And I actually just want
to start by thanking our chairwoman and our ranking member for
coming out to our neck of the woods this last summer, and
seeing some of the challenges that you spoke to. We had,
Councilwoman James, the Quinault hosted four of the coastal
tribes for kind of a roundtable discussion around some of the
challenges facing frontline communities. And we got to go down
into the lower village, and, you know, it is one thing to hear
about it. It is another to kind of put eyes on how close the
ocean is and to be below sea level, and to actually see the
risk of climate change on your village.
We heard from the Makah Tribe about some of the challenges
faced by climate change, not to mention the threat of tsunami.
One of your neighboring tribes, the Hoh Tribe, spoke to the
fact that while they had secured space to move to higher ground
and have built a fire station, the only supplies they were able
to secure at this point were body bags, which was a pretty dark
statement.
I thought it was a good thing that Chairman DeFazio in the
infrastructure proposal or framework that he put out had a
section that was focused on resiliency. Personally, I think
that we should have a section that is dedicated to tribal
communities, and, specifically, to frontline communities that
are going through what you are going through right now, that
are facing the need to potentially move to higher ground. And I
was hoping that you could just elaborate a little bit on what
are the big hurdles that tribes are facing.
When you talk about moving to higher ground, you know,
there is a lot, and, Chairwoman, you spoke about, you know, the
road problem and dealing with wetlands. You know, it is a lot
to think about just in terms of basic infrastructure, like
water systems, and sewer, and all of that. Can you just speak
about what are some of the barriers that this committee should
be thinking about when it comes to moving to higher ground?
Ms. Nelson. I think you said it already. One, money to do
these things. The infrastructure, when we get up there, and we
are planning that, but we don't have money enough to do it for
sure. Time is getting shorter, and I know that all of our
fellow tribes have the same problem. We don't have enough money
to build the house, do the infrastructure like it should be
done because we want to do it. So we are environmentally, you
know, taking care of the environment, and we are doing as much
as we possibly can for the people around us to keep them safe,
too.
Mr. Williams. Yeah, in Alaska, Mr. Kilmer, right now in my
village, we have are relocating six homes right now, and we are
struggling to get funding. And we appreciate all of the
contributions that we had because of the disastrous nature of
these, what we are facing. And many of the communities are
falling into the river, because of the permafrost melting. And
a lot of the roads and a lot of the buildings are tilting and
falling down, and a lot of our graveyards are sinking through
the tundra.
And I think FEMA and Federal agencies need to come
together, Army Corps of Engineers. Everybody has to come to aid
the communities that are being impacted by the climate change
that we are facing. It is not our fault that we are living in
these conditions. It is the emissions. It is what is going on
in other parts of the world that are affecting the Arctic, and
it is not going to be the same anymore. And we definitely need
Congress and the Administration to help give us the relief
right now. We really appreciate it.
Mr. Greene. Congressman Kilmer, if I could just add that,
you know, some of the wetland mitigation is an issue for Makah
as well, and then also, you know, the funding to be able to
access some of these areas out there where we live. The places
we need to relocate to are not easily accessible. There is no
infrastructure in place in terms of roads, water, sewer. Those
sort of issues are not there. The tribe has invested, you know,
over $7 million in the last 10 years to move to some of these
areas and put housing developments in some of these areas,
relocate part of its health facilities there, and is planning
to relocate the rest of the housing facility that is going to
be about another $7 million investment by the tribe that we are
going to do.
You know, we are moving forward with it, and so, you know,
those are some of the challenges. And to keep in mind that
every time we do that for Makah, we are having to take timber
out of revenue cycle. We are a timber tribe that relies on that
for our budget, and every time we have to dedicate this land
for other uses, it takes that away from our economy. Thank you.
Ms. James. I would just like to reiterate the point about
the infrastructure and the cost for us to move up the hill.
Because our reservations are heavily allotted, we might have to
get permission from 200 landowners to buy an 88-acre allotment
to build a housing development on an allotment. So it takes a
lot of time, a lot of calling and visiting and trying to
convince people to sell their allotments. And the nation has
put money into buying some allotments, but the infrastructure
is the biggest cost. And basically moving the ancestral village
up to the upper village is going to be hard because that is
where our foundation lies and where our people originally
signed our first Quinault River Treaty before the Treaty of
Olympia was signed with the other two tribes.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield
back.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you all for being here, and I apologize
for coming in a little late. I went over to the National
Congress at American Indians Summit, and have returned. I
appreciate your coming here today and advising us so we can
make better decisions on your behalf. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Ms. Pingree.
Ms. Pingree. No, thank you, Madam Chair, but thank you so
much. I am sorry I had to come in late, but such an important
topic, and we really appreciate your giving us some insights
into how to help.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Stewart.
Mr. Stewart. No, I would just thank you for coming.
Ms. McCollum. I appreciate you pointing out the
interdependency of the Federal agencies working together,
whether it be Army Corps, FEMA, and disaster mitigation. And
one of the things that we are going to try to figure out is how
we do a whole-of-government approach to what you need to have
happen, and to really get a cost and a handle on this, because
as the other panel pointed out, we are under funding healthcare
as it is right now, and you are going to have hospitals and
clinics that are going to have to move, through no fault of
your own. And we need to start getting real about having a plan
about what this is going to cost, how we are going to pay for
it. You know, there is just a lot of work to do and time is
wasting.
But on a different note, this gavel is made out of an
invasive species called buckthorn, and I am curious about what
these green European crabs, I mean, so don't want buckthorn. I
don't want gavels made out of it. I want it to go away totally.
Mr. Joyce and I deal with Asian carp. They don't appear to be
good for much of anything, maybe fertilizer eventually. What
happens with them? I mean, is there anything that you can do?
Can they say they are sorry in any way possible for being
there?
Mr. Greene. Currently, there is no use for them right now.
Our fisheries program, you know, is analyzing those questions.
If they are going to be there for the long term, you know, is
there a use for them? We don't have that answer yet, so we are
trying to develop that, and, you know, certainly, you know,
these invasive species can be devastating.
Ms. McCollum. And so you are monitoring on your area, and
you asked for more funding for fish and wildlife for invasive
species. But is anybody else monitoring, or are there whole
sections where no one is really surveying or even paying
attention to what is happening with them?
Mr. Greene. Our understanding is that there are whole
sections that aren't being monitored right now, and that there
is some monitoring going on in the Puget Sound. I don't know
the exact levels of that, but, you know, we feel that it
certainly needs a little more attention, especially in light of
the importance of, you know, that region's dependence on the
Dungeness crab fishery. I don't know if that is a risk or not.
I guess the science will tell us whether that is not.
Ms. McCollum. And then I am going to take the prerogative
of being the chair and ask you one more question, and if the
rest of you have timber, please chime and say anything. With
climate change, what keeps you up at night about being able to
sustain your economic development? Is it with the climate
change invasive species coming in? Is it water? Is it drought?
Is it fire? What is it?
Mr. Greene. For us, it is the health of the ocean for
Makah. I mean, the ocean is a big driver in climate, as we
know, and our whole livelihood is built around the ocean. And
that is what keeps me up at night, Madam Chair, is, you know,
we depend on that for everything. It is our spiritual identity.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you all. We will
have the next panel come up. Well, good morning, and this is
our last panel before we will take our break, and it is on land
trust and natural resource management. And I think some of you
were in the room as the other panel went forward. So quickly,
please introduce yourself, go right into your testimony. You
have 5 minutes. We have your full testimony in front of us, so
don't feel rushed or that something won't be covered because it
will be read, and it will be used to formulate questions as the
other panelists that we will be asking the bureaus about Indian
health education, and some of the Department of Interior
issues. So you are helping us prepare questions from Indian
Country when we have those testimonies moving forward.
Yellow light means you have 1 minute left. Red means please
wrap it up. And we will let you start, sir. Introduce yourself
and go right into your testimony. Good to see you again.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
SHOSHONE-BANNOCK TRIBES
WITNESS
LADD EDMO, CHAIRMAN, SHOSHONE-BANNOCK TRIBES
Mr. Edmo. Good morning, Subcommittee. [Speaking native
language.] It is good to be here with you all. My name is Ladd
Edmo. I am the chairman of the Fort Hall Business Council and
the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of Southeast Idaho. The Shoshone-
Bannock Tribes thank Representative Simpson for being our
friend.
For almost 70 years, the health and environment and safety
of tribal members have been subject to toxic contaminations
caused by Simplot and FMC Corporation from mining and
processing of phosphates on the reservation and on are ceded
lands. This has resulted in two Superfund site. At the Eastern
Michaud Flats Superfund site, Simplot currently operates a
phosphate facility that contaminates over 2,500 acres. After 30
years, FMC and Simplot have not cleaned up the site.
Because of chemical and radioactive contaminants, we cannot
drink water, we cannot eat fish, and we cannot swim in the
rivers and streams, and recent tests show that our aquifers are
contaminated. This must be cleaned up. This past year, the
tribes developed air and water quality standards with the EPA.
It is critical the EPA approves these standards. We ask the
committee's assistance in funding with full implementation. The
Idaho National Laboratory has evaluated this site and
determined that there are viable treatment options. FMC removed
and shipped some of their waste offsite after years of saying
it was not possible.
We ask the committee's assistance in working with EPA to
require actual cleanup and also funding a pilot project for
cleanup of each site. Simplot mined an open pit phosphate
operation across 7,000 acres for over 45 years at the Gay Mine
Superfund site on the reservation. It closed in 1993. Since
then, the site has not been cleaned up. In 2010, EPA conducted
a remedial study under CERCLA, which found that the soil,
vegetation, and surface water remains contaminated with
arsenic, mercury, uranium, and other heavy metals. We remain
concerned that these contaminants will leech into the ground
water. In addition, the site has approximately 158 open pit
mines ranging from 10 to 20 acres, some having high walls over
50 feet, making the area unsafe. We appreciate Representative
Simpson's leadership in bringing together the Federal agency,
Simplot, and the tribes to work collaboratively on this. We
request the committee's assistance to fund a long-term
strategic plan for the tribes to return the land to its natural
state.
I want to highlight our other priorities. We request your
support for advanced appropriations for BIA IHS programs to
uphold treaty rights and trust responsibilities, and to protect
tribal programs during shutdowns. We thank the committee for
last year's support language on the National Park Service
proposed rule on the National Register because it would harm
our efforts to protect our cultural resources and our Federal
lands. We request that the committee ensure that NPS conduct
meaningful consultation with the tribes before there is a final
rule.
We are very concerned that CEQ's proposal regarding NEPA--
the tribes rely on NEPA--to understand the impacts of natural
and cultural resources. We ask the committee require meaningful
tribal consultation before CEQ does anything else. We need more
funding to offer safe, affordable transitional housing, to aid
our efforts to help tribal members recovering from substance
abuse. Our BIE schools lack adequate funding to hire qualified
teachers. Entry level teachers are offered $10,000 less than
surrounding schools. We ask for competitive teacher salaries at
BIE.
We lack sufficient funding for utility systems, for roads,
housing, community buildings, and broadband internet, which are
important to our future economic success. We urge the committee
to provide increased funding for all infrastructure programs in
Indian Country, and to ensure there are tribal set asides.
Thank you for having me, Subcommittee. It is an honor to be
here speaking before you.
[The statement of Mr. Edmo follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Ms. Dana.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
PENOBSCOT NATION
WITNESS
MAULIAN DANA, AMBASSADOR, PENOBSCOT NATION
Ms. Dana. Good morning, and thank you for allowing me to
testify today on behalf of the Penobscot Nation. I am Maulian
Dana. I serve as the ambassador. I want to thank Chairwoman
McCollum and Ranking Member Joyce for continuing to hold these
tribal witness days. It is nice to see you. I also want to
thank Ms. Pingree for being a tireless advocate for the tribal
nations in Maine. Our relationship with the Federal Government
is complicated, and you have really been a huge help in
educating your colleagues about that relationship and
advocating for our unique funding needs. Thank you.
My testimony today will focus on the need to increase
funding for the BIA's fish and wildlife management programs.
The Penobscot Nation continues to practice our traditional
sustenance lifestyle. Our people continue to hunt moose, deer,
bear, and fish for medicinal and cultural purposes. We also
rely on access to traditional plants. Every tribal member has
the right to acquire one moose per year, and this animal can
feed an entire family for much of that year, and is
supplemented with other game and fish. So having access to
these traditional foods cuts down on the cost of groceries
significantly, and reduces health disparities, such as type 2
diabetes, amongst our people.
Given this, the proper management of our lands, wildlife,
fish, and waters is critical to our health and longevity. We
have over 123,000 acres and land holdings. Although our lands
historically covered much of what is now the State of Maine,
our land became substantially reduced and scattered after
enactment of a land claims settlement act between us, Maine,
and the Federal Government in 1980. Our various territories can
be a 3-hour drive from each other, and our land base also
includes about 100 islands located within 80 miles of the
Penobscot River. So most of our land is undeveloped forest land
best use for hunting.
We have limited economic resources and are not able to
conduct gaming like many other tribes, so we really rely on the
Federal Government to meet its trust responsibility to us by
providing funds for our natural resource, water, and land
management programs. We rely on BIA funding for these programs,
in particular, because those funds are recurring each year. Our
current unmet need for our fish and wildlife management
programs is approximately $360,000 annually. Additionally, we
have been short one full-time game warden for several years now
due to lack of funding.
As I previously mentioned, our lands are scattered, and
most of our citizens rely on hunting and fishing for
sustenance. Proper management of our wildlife and lands is
crucial to our ability to continue to hunt. Game wardens also
play an essential role in ensuring that our wildlife is not
over harvested. They are also the only law enforcement on a lot
of these lands and play an important public safety function for
hunters who may get lost or injured. We need funding for game
wardens to be increased. Unlike many other tribal nations, our
Settlement Act requires that all of our trust lands be managed
pursuant to the Indian Self-Determination Act.
Thank you so much. I have a sore throat. I have been
fighting a cold. That is so nice of you.
All right. Let's talk about self-determination contracts.
So the Indian Self-Determination Act, which means that we are
required to enter into self-determination contract with the
Federal Government for management of our lands and natural
resources. For almost every other tribe, these contracts are
voluntary versus mandatory. So for us, they are mandatory, and
this means we cannot retro-cede management of our lands and
resources back to the Federal Government if the BIA fails to
fund our programs properly. This puts us at a disadvantage in
negotiations with the BIA on our annual funding agreements. We
believe that Congress owes us a unique obligation to better
fund our self-determination contracts because of our Settlement
Act. Self-determination contracts are funded through the tribal
priority allocations line item, and we ask that funding for
them be increased.
I would like to wrap up my remarks today by providing the
committee with an update on the opioid epidemic that Penobscot
Nation has been facing for several years now. This issue
continues to be our number one health and safety risk. With the
support of this committee, the BIA has been able to hire a drug
investigator focused on supporting the tribal nations in Maine.
This has helped a lot, and we thank you for getting this to
happen.
Our biggest need for combating this epidemic is funding for
tribal court, and, particularly, our Healing to Wellness Court.
When we are able to get individuals into the Healing to
Wellness Court Program, we make substantial progress in getting
them off opioids and back on track to being productive
citizens. But our court is overwhelmed right now, and we need
additional resources to build up to our capacity. We ask that
the committee increase BIA funding for tribal courts.
Thank you again for the water and for allowing you to
provide remarks today.
[The statement of Ms. Dana follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Frank.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
NISQUALLY TRIBE
WITNESS
WILLIE FRANK, III, COUNCIL MEMBER, NISQUALLY TRIBE
Mr. Frank. Good morning, Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking
Member Joyce, and honorable members of the subcommittee. My
name is Willie Frank, III. My Indian name is [Speaking native
language] given to me by my grandfather, Willie Franks, Sr.,
who lived to be 104, and I have the honor of serving as a
council member for the Nisqually Indian Tribe. I am humbled to
speak today and continue my father, Billy Frank, Jr.'s,
lifelong fight to save our salmon, waters, and the environment.
In 1854, the Nisqually Tribe and the United States signed
the Treaty of Medicine Creek. Through this treaty, the tribe
secured the perpetual survival of my people, our traditions,
and our culture. We also reserved the right to use our
homelands and access the natural resources that have been
central to our existence since time immemorial. However, the
salmon of the Nisqually River have dramatically decreased in a
number of years, with two species listed as threatened under
Endangered Species Act, the Fall Chinook salmon and the
steelhead trout. Two more species are candidates for future
listings.
Our tribe was able to fish 8 months of the year on the
Nisqually River, but by 2015, fishing time was constrained to a
mere 8 days to conserve the diminishing resources for future
generations. Eight days is not using our homelands and water as
promised. Eight days is not practicing our culture and our
traditions. Eight days is not honoring the promises contained
in the Treaty of Medicine Creek.
First, the Nisqually Tribe would like to request an
increase in funding for the BIA Western Washington Program. The
Department of Interior established the Rights Protection
Implementation Program to uphold the Federal Government's
treaty obligation. This initiative includes the Western
Washington Program, which provides tribes with Federal funding
to protect and restore for wild salmon and for fishery
management. The Nisqually Tribe has used this vital funding to
protect our precious fish resources and to build a strong and
dedicated natural resource program.
The tribe has over 50 staff and eight different programs.
However, the funding levels for this program are not sufficient
to face the current challenges. The tribe is putting all its
efforts into the survival of our fisheries and stretching every
dollar. Unfortunately, the Federal resources have failed to
fully support the proper management of our treaty-protected
rights.
The Nisqually Tribe's second request is for increased
funding for EPA's Puget Sound Program. The Puget Sound
represents the promise of a clean, healthy, and vital
environment that is central to our lives in western Washington.
However, the Puget Sound is in dire need, and it suffers. So do
our salmon. The plight of the salmon is the plight of my
people. Losing our promised and generational connection to the
salmon, the river, and our traditional practices has long-
lasting impacts on our communities. Our physical, emotional,
and spiritual health is directly and permanently connected to
our river and salmon. Saving the salmon is saving our people.
We are not alone feeling the impact of disappearing salmon
runs. Our brothers, orca of the Puget Sound, are salmon eaters
like us, and they are now listed as threatened under ESA, and
are slowly slipping away into extinction. As go the salmon goes
the orca and the Nisqually people. Under EPA's Puget Sound
Program, the Nisqually Tribe receives funding to conduct
research and implement programming to revitalize salmon
populations. This funding allows our scientific researchers to
understand the underlying issues impacting the Puget Sound.
Once we have an understanding of the cause, we can deploy the
best measures to protect the salmon. The Nisqually Tribe
requests that this subcommittee ensures the Puget Sound Program
remains this year and into the future.
Finally, the Nisqually Tribe requests increased for the BIA
Tribal Resilience Program. Climate change is real, and it is
having a dramatic impact on our people and the resources we
depend on. As a result of rising sea levels, we are seeing
changes to the Nisqually delta in ways that are impacting
salmon survival. The culturally-important plant species that we
use for our food, medicine, and crafts are becoming scarce as
the range is being reduced with rising temperatures and changes
in timing and magnitude of rainfall. We have invested a
tremendous amount of time and resources to protect and restore
our watershed, but the changes are occurring in a pace that is
challenging to match with our efforts alone. We all need to
increase the magnitude of our efforts while working on
solutions to the climate change that threatens the very
resources that we care for and are dependent on our very
survival.
In conclusion, I want to thank the committee for listening
to my testimony today. And I am a fisherman on the Nisqually
River. I fished with my father. I fish with my brother in the
same areas where my grandfather fished. And for us, being on
the river, that is medicine for us as a native people, and the
importance of the salmon are sacred to us. I compare it for us
to going to church. When we are able to set our nets on
Sundays, that is medicine for us. That is a way to express our
treaty rights, our tribal sovereignty, and our way of life.
And at 82 years old, my father, he was still fishing with
us on the Nisqually River. So the importance of salmon are very
near to the Nisqually people, and we will continue to fight and
protect our treaty resources and tribal sovereignty, and we
look for support in funding. I thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Frank follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Cawston.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF THE COLVILLE RESERVATION
WITNESS
RODNEY CAWSTON, CHAIRMAN, CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF THE COLVILLE
RESERVATION
Mr. Cawston. Good morning, Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking
Member Joyce, and members of the subcommittee. On behalf of the
Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, I thank you
for the opportunity to provide testimony today. I know that you
have the testimony that was submitted, but I did make some
changes last night, and so I am going to read that today.
The CCT, the Colville Tribe, recommends that the
subcommittee, one, provide a $10 million increase through the
Bureau of Indian Affairs forestry account for reforestation and
additional foresters; two, include report language directing
the Secretary of the Interior to prioritize tribal requests for
wild land and preparedness funds; three, and this is the
change, to provide a $50 million increase through the BIA
forestry account to award grants to tribes in the northwest
region to develop forest health strategic plans; and four,
include report language directing the Secretary to consult with
stakeholders, including Indian tribes and tribal organizations,
and report to the committee on the potential benefits of using
very large air tankers in fire suppression activities.
Although now considered a single Indian tribe, the
Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation is, as the name
states, a confederation of 12 aboriginal tribes from
northcentral Oregon to British Columbia, Canada. That is an
edit that I added. The Colville Reservation encompasses
approximately 1.4 million acres and is located in northcentral
Washington State. The Colville Tribe has nearly 9,500 enrolled
members, making it one of the largest Indian tribes in the
Pacific Northwest. About half of our tribal members live on or
near the Colville Reservation.
One, provide a $10 million increase to the BIA forestry
account for reforestation and additional foresters. The
Colville Tribe joins the Intertribal Timber Council in our
request that the subcommittee increase the BIA forestry
projects for its development line item by $5 million for
replanting and thinning, and, two, increase BIA forestry PPA
line item by $5 million to better enable Indian tribes and
tribal organizations to hire additional foresters. In 2015, the
Colville Tribe endured the most destructive fires on an Indian
reservation in recorded history. The North Star and Okanogan
complex fires collectively burned more than 255,000 acres on
the Colville Reservation, nearly 20 percent of the
reservation's total land base. Approximately one-fourth of the
commercial timber land on the reservation was burned or
severely affected, totaling 788 million board feet of timber.
And then I added this as well. In August of 2019, the
Colville Tribe experienced the largest wild land fire in the
United States during its time. The Williams Flats fire burned
over 45,000 acres in a designated game reserve on the Colville
Reservation. This wild land fire was unusual because the
Northwest Interagency Incident Management Team reported that a
flash flood occurred during the fire with large amounts of rain
and flooding occurring, creating hazardous conditions, and
washed out many roads in the area, leaving them impassable.
This posed a new challenge for firefighters and those working
to move heavy equipment out of the area. Sixty-four
firefighters were caught behind the flash flood.
Funding of the forest projects development line item funds
the necessary replanting and reforestation activities that will
continue to take place on the Colville Reservation for years in
response to both fires. The BIA has a statutory obligation
under the National Indian Forest Resources Management Act to
replant Indian forest land. Currently, the BIA's average annual
burned area rehabilitation budget, however, is approximately
$3.2 for tribes nationwide. The BIA's entire $320 budget for
fire rehabilitation would cover planting and restoration of
less than 11,000 acres nationwide. At current funding levels,
this would mean that hundreds of thousands of acres of forest
that was burned on the Colville Reservation in 2015 and 2019
may not be replanted for decades, if ever.
Acres that were not replanted or where failures occurred
from record-setting lack of summer precipitation will be added
to the already existing backlog of forced development
activities. Unplanted acres diminish the tribe's ability to
sustainably manage forest resources for both economic and
ecosystem benefits.
Equally important is additional BIA funding for foresters,
which are essential personnel to increasing the tribal timber
harvests. The BIA remains responsible for a wide range of
critical forestry functions in its capacity as trustee. These
functions include environmental clearances and approval and
oversight for timber and salvage log sales. Without additional
funding, the lack of forestry staff to perform these and other
important trust functions will continue to directly constrain
tribal timber harvest levels. Two, include report language
directing the secretary to prioritize tribal requests for fire
preparedness funding. The Colville Tribe suggests that the
subcommittee include language in its Fiscal Year 2021 spending
bill that directs the Secretary of Interior to prioritize
tribal requests for wildlife preparedness funding.
In early August of 2017, the Colville requested $16,250 in
severity funding to prepare for what weather reports predicted
was going to be a severe lightning storm on the Colville
Reservation. These funds were requested from the BIA's
northwest regional office in Portland Oregon. The tribe's
timely request would have covered use of additional bulldozers,
personnel, and equipment to prepare areas of high risk of fires
from lightning ignition. The BIA unfortunately denied the
tribe's request. The lightning storm arrived as forecasted, and
on August 7th, 2017, a lightning strike ignited the Bridge
Quick fire near the Town of Keller on the Colville Reservation.
The Bridge Quick fire ultimately burned 4,500 acres and was not
fully contained until the following month. Suppression costs
for the Bridge Quick fire exceeded $16 million, the bulk of
which was drawn from the Department of the Interior.
The wild land fire management account. Had the Colville
Tribe's initiative $16,250 request been approved by the BIA,
the Bridge Quick fire would have been contained much sooner and
at a significant cost savings to taxpayers. Tribal forest
managers are in the best position to assess danger and risk to
on-reservation tribal forests. Tribes rely on their forest
resources for many uses and purposes, including cultural uses
and economic development. Tribes, therefore, have a motivation
to protect their forest resources from wildfires in ways that
other Federal land managers do not. For these reasons, the
committee should direct the BIA and the DOI generally to honor
tribal preparedness requests to the maximum extent possible.
Three, provide a $50 million increase to the BIA forestry
account to award grants to tribes in the northwest region to
develop forest health strategic plans. The Colville
Confederated Tribes has a forest health crisis. We are seeing
large catastrophic fires, more disease, insect infestations,
and dying forests, which threaten our communities and fill our
summer skies with smoke. The Colville Tribe request that the
subcommittee increase the BIA forestry projects forest
development line item by $50 million to award grants to tribes
northwest region to develop forest health strategic plan.
The grant program allocated by the legislature would be to
implement projects that seek to restore forest health, protect
watersheds, promote the long-term storage of carbon and forest
trees and soils, and minimize the loss of forest carbon from
large, intense wildfires. Project activities may include forest
fields, reduction prescribed fire pest management,
reforestation, biomass, utilization. And I thank you for
allowing me to testify.
[The statement of Mr. Cawston follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. And we have got the report language directing
the Secretary to consult with stakeholders and report to the
committee the potential benefits of using very large air
tankers and fire suppression. So I know you wanted to get that
in, too.
Mr. Cawston. Okay.
Ms. McCollum. Ms. Pingree.
Ms. Pingree. Well, thank you all very much for your
testimony. Really very helpful and helpful that you had so many
details. And thank you for the last testimony. I think that is
such a striking example about how the $16,000 invested might
have saved $16 million. And so I hope that is an area where we
can be more supportive, and certainly it raises a lot of
concerns. If there is not sufficient money to reforest lands
where we have had forest fires, not only is it lost income to
you, but certainly on the last panel, talking about climate
change. We need to keep those forested lands.
And I share your concerns certainly about the salmon. I
represent Maine, so I am the opposite side, but we have been
very concerned about native fisheries. And Mr. Kilmer has been
a huge proponent of the Puget Sound Program, and I know the
President eliminated it in this budget we just received. But I
feel this committee will be very strong in a bipartisan way of
keeping it there.
The only question I had around that, and I really
appreciated you talking about the important of salmon
fisheries, is it a declining population just because of all the
reasons we are all experiencing, or are there other people
accessing the same fisheries?
Mr. Frank. So I think that it is everybody is experiencing
the change.
Ms. Pingree. Right.
Mr. Frank. It is not just tribal fishery. It is not
commercial fishery. It is not just sports fishery. Two years
ago was the first time that sports fishermen and the commercial
fishermen came to the tribes and said let's work together, and
the State of Washington, to do this. And so you are seeing it.
You are seeing the concern. I always tell people I don't want
to be that generation that goes to a museum to see a salmon.
You know, I am a fisherman, and I don't want that to happen for
the future generations and for the kids.
You know, I think we need more funding committed to the
Puget Sound cleanup, and, of course, climate change is a big
issue, especially in the Nisqually.
Ms. Pingree. Right.
Mr. Frank. In 2015, we had temperatures get up to almost 70
degrees in the Nisqually. It is unheard of because it comes
straight from Mount Rainier. It is glacier water. So that
should never happen, but everybody wants to do what they can to
protect our salmon.
Ms. Pingree. Yeah, and that is an important point. I mean,
we have severe ocean warming in the State of Maine, and salmon
are cold water species. It is very hard to keep them there, and
those are bigger problems than just what you guys can handle.
And, of course, Ambassador Dana, thank you so much. It is a
real privilege to work with you and the other tribes in Maine.
And I appreciated you attempting to describe, we would have to
have like about five hearings in a row for people to understand
the complexity of the Settlement Act.
Ms. Dana. Right.
Ms. Pingree. But it was helpful to hear a couple of
specific things, like self-determination contracts and the
tribal courts, just in terms when we can be helpful in such a
massive issue. And I am just so happy to hear that the tribal
courts continue to be beneficial, so I hope we can enhance the
funding there so this very complex problem, we can help. I am
using up my time, but thank you all very much. Thank you for
your testimony. It is really beneficial to have you all here.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all for being
here, and I truly appreciate your testimony because it is what
we need so we can make intelligent decisions going forward. I
have had the opportunity to visit some tribes. I am continuing
to visit as many as I can so I can see firsthand some of the
issues that you have been discussing. But again, thank you for
being here today.
Mr. Frank. You are always welcome to come to Nisqually.
Mr. Joyce. Let me know when those days are. [Laughter.]
Ms. McCollum. I wanted to go back. You mentioned about the
teacher salaries, and one of the challenges that we have been
having in Indian Country is getting professional staff
workforce training and scholarships for youth to go on and get
their training and, you know, return back home, but, you know,
wages, it something everybody cares about. So beyond almost
$10,000 discrepancy in wages, are you also having struggles, if
you can comment, on housing for teachers when you do have them
available to you? Sometimes it is a whole package where there
is a problem. Is your problem just salaries, or do you have
other problems in recruiting and retaining teachers?
Mr. Edmo. Thank you for the question, Betty. Basically,
housing for our teachers is not an issue because the housing
problem we have is for tribal membership. We do have agreements
and MOUs with the local university and Idaho universities for
reduced tuition to help to alleviate some of this. But it has
just started, so we do have a few students returning home to
work at the schools, but the wages are not just competitive
enough. And so our school system fails on the reservation
because of the wage. So if there was a better wage in our
school, our local school there, high school. Actually it is a
junior-senior high school, and we just can't compete with the
other schools.
Ms. McCollum. Well, I used to teach high school myself. I
saw the salary and went, oh. It is kind of tough. One other
thing. So you mentioned the Superfund cleanup. Is there
anything else? I mean, you have quite a few different sites in
your testimony. You have the Michaud Flats, and then you also
have the Gay Mine Superfund site. So those are two different
Superfunds, if I read this right?
Mr. Edmo. That is correct. The Gay Mine was mined on the
reservation. That is the 7,000 acres I told you about. And then
the Michaud Creek Flats is adjacent to the reservation right
next to the Portneuf River, and the City of Pocatello. So those
are our concerns that they are contaminating the area within
our permanent homelands, and we take that as a serious matter
that we are going to be there forever, and the city could up
and move whenever they want if that is what they choose to.
Ms. McCollum. Okay.
Mr. Edmo. Can I make a comment on the fish?
Ms. McCollum. Yeah.
Mr. Edmo. So you talked about the fish. So in Central
Idaho, those fish there that you are talking about, they have
to make it all the way up 700 miles upstream. And when you talk
about warm water conditions, that's even worse the further up
you go. And we have to rely on some of them fish for our
sustenance fishing. Last year, we were only able to fish three
salmon per tributary. That is a major reduction in what our
harvest limits were, and this year we are looking at the same.
And we do have fisheries, and we try to manage fish. We have a
fisheries department, so and we have been buying properties to
help us to enhance the fish. But for them to travel that far,
their health and their condition is not the best, but that is
what we get. We get what we get. And since time immemorial,
also those fish used to be plentiful up there just as they were
anywhere else. Now they are a mere drop in the bucket compared
to what it used to be.
So I would just like you let you know that those fish have
to travel almost 900 miles to get to their spawning grounds,
and yet we can't just go out there and slaughter them before
they spawn either. So we have to have good fishing practices.
And I also am a fisherman, and my technique is not the same as
the gentleman here, but we all have and share in common those
basic subsistence needs. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Ms. Dana, I wanted to ask you
about, because you talked about fish, and I want to also talk
to you about the health of the four-legged population you
mentioned, especially moose. Chronic disease, we had a hearing
on that. That is something that we are dealing with. Maybe talk
about climate change and how your moose population is holding
up. We are very concerned about ours in Wisconsin and
Minnesota, and I know our Canadian first nations are concerned
about this issue as well.
Ms. Dana. Yeah, for sure. I mean, climate change, I think,
for all of us, it should be a number one priority probably. And
I think for indigenous nations, it is woven into everything we
do, every part of our lifestyle. So with our moose population,
we have definitely seen an impact from climate change, and we
have the ticks that are just devastating moose up in Maine. I
know that we have had some restrictions on our hunting. Some
areas are bulls only. We can't hunt cows anymore. You know, I
talked about the game wardens being important, you know,
getting adequate coverage on these lands, making sure we are
harvesting in the right way, making sure others aren't hunting
on our lands because that population is so delicate.
So, yeah, I think you would be hard pressed to find an
indigenous person that wasn't completely consumed with worrying
about Mother Earth and climate change, so thank you for that
question.
Ms. Pingree. Can I add one thing, Madam Chair?
Ms. McCollum. You certainly can.
Ms. Pingree. I wasn't able to attend the chronic wasting
hearing, but I know that the scientists in the State of Maine
are watching very closely. We haven't been as impacted, and
certainly the ticks have been a huge problem, so we kind of see
it around the corner. And the other thing I was thinking about
when you were asking about the impact on the forests, I know I
have talked to several of the basket makers in Maine about the
decline of the ash. So ash has been such a critical species,
not only for baskets, but for a whole variety of things. And
the ash borer has been moving north, and I know people sort of
see that as almost gone already. But, you know, we have still
ash trees, but they can kind of see the end of it, and that was
certainly a huge impact.
Ms. Dana. Yeah, the temperature swings and kind of
unpredictability, it affects the sweet grass, the birch bark,
the ash for sure. So it is definitely having a big impact on a
lot of things.
Ms. McCollum. I was just at an exhibit in the Minnesota
History Center, and it is on the first indigenous in the
Minnesota area. And one of the contemporary modern Native
American artists had made the shape of a coffin woven out of
ash. And it was the way that artist kind of describing the
death of the ash and what it could mean to the culture and to
so many things. And it was really moving to see it because I
walked up to it, and I said, that looks like a coffin, who
would do a coffin in ash? And then I just kind of stepped back
for a minute, and it was so very powerful. Then as you walked
around the rest of the exhibit kind of studying the scene.
Mr. Frank, thank you so much for your testimony, and I know
someone is looking down with a big smile on their face. And one
of the first times I served on this committee was hearing your
predecessor speak, so thank you for doing that. And I actually
know, and probably Chellie does, too, about getting the scooper
tankers and it going. We have to take a really serious look,
especially along the northern border because so many of our
States and the Canadian provinces, we have memorandums of
understanding to help each other out. But with the intensity
and the frequency of these fires, if we don't really look at
the big picture for what our fire response is, we might find
that we have huge holes in it that we are not even aware of. So
thank you for bringing that to our attention, and I think we
need to talk to States, talk to our Canadian counterparts,
including first nations, to make sure we have really got it
covered. I am concerned we possibly don't have it covered with
how long and how severe these fires are burning. And you had
one in California, and pretty soon another part of the United
States, and all the resources are gone.
Anything you want to add before we close?
Mr. Cawston. Can I add a comment about fish?
Ms. McCollum. Oh, sure. We love fish here. We love to eat
them, too.
Mr. Cawston. Well, I can talk to you about wildlife, big
game. We have a large reservation. We have a lot of issues with
that. But, you know, but on the Colville Reservation, you know,
you talk about fish die offs in 2015 because of warming
temperatures in the Columbia River. Two hundred and fifty
thousand Sockeye died in the river.
Ms. McCollum. Wow.
Mr. Cawston. You know, so, you know, we also have two dams
that were constructed on our reservation, the Grand Coulee Dam
and the Chief Joseph Dam, which are blockages to Chinook salmon
going up into the upper waters of the Columbia and into Canada.
And, you know, other tribes, there is a 14-tribe coalition that
have been working to restore salmon to the upper Columbia, and,
you know, that blocks thousands of miles of habitat.
And, you know, there are many issues, you know, endangered
and threatened species of salmon impacting orca, as Willie has,
you know, talked about this morning. But one of the best ways
to increase the abundance of Chinook, because Chinook is the
primary diet of orcas, is to allow for fish passage above those
two dams. We have been reading through the Columbia River
system operations environmental impact statement process. They
have told us they are not going to include reintroduction into
the EIS or the preferred alternative. And also we have been
working with the Columbia River Treaty negotiation, which they
have also said and informed us recently they are not going to
include reintroduction in the treaty language.
You know, there was a large coalition of tribes and other
stakeholders who put together the Northwest Regional
Recommendation, which includes reintroduction of salmon. So I
just wanted to let you know that that is something that we have
been working very tirelessly on.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you. Thank you for your
testimony. We had a fabulous morning hearing from people. Lots
of questions to ask the bureaus when they are in front of us.
Lots of ideas on funding. Mr. Joyce and I just need a bigger
allocation. We could certainly put it to good use.
So with that, this hearing that we are having will stand in
recess until 1:00.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
AFTERNOON SESSION
----------
TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION
WITNESS
HON. NED NORRIS, CHAIRMAN TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION
Ms. McCollum [presiding]. So good afternoon. We will start
the panels for this afternoon here, and I would like the first
panel to come up--the name plates are up--and take your seat,
please.
So I welcome you to our second public witness hearing part
of today covering tribal programs under the jurisdiction of the
Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee. This
morning we heard about critical healthcare issues facing Native
Americans both on and off the reservation. This afternoon, we
will be focusing on issues relating to land trust, natural
resource management, including climate change. And once again,
we will hear testimony from distinguished tribal leaders, who
are truly experts on this issue, so we thank you for being
here.
This afternoon's issues components of native culture of
religion are integral to the very survival of individual
Indians who rely on the resources for substance as well as
economic activity. Indian Country lacks the tax base enjoyed by
other governments, so funding provided by the Federal
Government is essential to their economic development. So we
are happy to have you here. We are going to start taking
testimony. I will just go over a couple of things.
Only pictures and recordings are taken with individuals
that hold press credentials, so we have noticed everybody for
that. And we have a timer here. We have 5 minutes for your
testimony. We are going to have you introduce yourselves
because we found out that gave us a little bit of extra time.
Introduce yourself. Go right into your testimony. We will not
count your introduction against your time, so Janet, she is
ready to go. When the light turns yellow, there is 1 minute
left. When it turns red, we will ask you to wrap up your
testimony.
We will have a series of votes this afternoon probably in
about a half an hour, so we should be able to get through all
of your testimony with that. And then votes could go half hour,
45 minutes, I am hearing, Mr. Stewart.
Mr. Stewart. Yes.
Ms. McCollum. You are hearing the same thing?
Mr. Stewart. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. McCollum. And after that happens, I will be going over
to speak at the National Congress of American Indians, so Ms.
Pingree will be filling in as vice chair as chair for me while
I am gone. So let us start out with Mr. Norris. Please
introduce yourself, and then go right into your testimony.
Thank you for being here. Thank all of you for being here.
Mr. Norris. Thank you for the opportunity. Good afternoon,
Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, and distinguished
subcommittee members. I am Ned Norris, Jr. I am the chairman of
the Tohono O'odham Nation, a tribe with more than 34,000
members in southern Arizona. Our reservation is one of the
largest in the country, encompassing more than 2.8 million
acres. We share a 62-mile border with Mexico, which is the
longest southern international border of any tribe in the
United States. Thank you again for this opportunity to testify.
So, first, I would like to address our roads. The BIA Roads
Maintenance Program is chronically underfunded. The nation has
735 miles of BIA, the sixth largest total mileage in Indian
Country. Many of these roads shows are badly damaged and poorly
maintained by the BIA. Monsoon rains, and flooding, and heavy
usage by the Border Patrol vehicles have resulted in terrible
reservation road conditions. During monsoon season, flooding
washes our bridges, isolates communities, strands our children
on school buses, and prevents access for emergency vehicles.
Congress has failed to provide adequate funding for BIA
reservation roads. We urge the subcommittee to increase funding
to address this serious safety issue.
To address the damage to our roads done by Border Patrol
vehicles, the Fiscal Year 2018 appropriations law provided for
the transfer of funds from Border Patrol to BIA for repair of
reservation roads. Some of that funding is currently being used
to repair one of our roads heavily used by the Border Patrol,
which will protect tribal and Federal law enforcement and
tribal members. We are grateful to the subcommittee for
addressing this critical issue and for including similar
language in Fiscal Year 2019 and 2020. But many of our roads
need work, and we ask that language permitted the BIA to accept
funding from Border Patrol be included in the Fiscal Year 2021
Interior appropriations bill.
Next, our water settlement. The nation faces a serious and
imminent water crisis because the nation's Southern Arizona
Water Settlement Act is not being funded. The act authorized up
to $32 million to pay for delivery of water to the nation, and
directed Interior to tell Congress how much funding would be
necessary to implement the settlement. Interior has never
requested any of the funds. As a result, reclamation estimates
that our settlement may run out of funding in the very near
future, forcing closure of tribal farms, employee layoffs, crop
loan defaults, and breach of related agreements. We urge
Congress to provide for a long-term stable funding source for
Indian water settlements. A long-term funding source will
provide tribes with fiscal certainty and ensure timely
implementation of water settlements.
Next, law enforcement. The nation faces unique law
enforcement and public safety challenges. Tribal police patrol
remote areas that are difficult to access, and radio
communication with other law enforcement agencies is
unreliable. Our officers face serious and unnecessary safety
risks. A significant amount of the nation's limited law
enforcement resources are dedicated to border security. The
nation has a longstanding relationship with Border Patrol and
other Federal law enforcement agencies, but we still spend
millions of our own dollars, a third of our police department
budget, every year to help meet Federal border security
responsibilities.
The nation's police regularly investigate immigrant death
and pay for costly autopsies with no Federal assistance. We
also incur costs from border-related damages to our
reservation, including removal of abandoned vehicles and
control of wildland fires caused by illegal activity. Our
correctional facility is too small to hold the detainees our
police apprehend. We urge Congress to provide increased Federal
funding for tribal law enforcement programs to improve
communications, hire and train additional officers, purchase
vehicles, meet border security obligations, and improve tribal
correctional facilities.
Finally, healthcare. The nation's hospitals one of the
oldest IHS facilities, and it is inadequate to meet our needs.
We waited more than 20 years for IHS construction funding. In
the last 2 years, we began to receive funding for a replacement
hospital, but in Fiscal Year 2020, no additional funding was
provided. Substantial increases for IHS facilities construction
budget are needed in Fiscal Year 2021.
Thank you. The nation appreciates the subcommittee's
efforts to provide Indian Country with much-needed resources in
this challenging fiscal time. I am happy to answer any
questions.
[The statement of Mr. Norris follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you. Sir.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
UTE TRIBE OF UNITAH AND OURAY
WITNESS
HON. SHAUN CHAPOOSE, UTE TRIBE OF UNITAH AND OURAY
Mr. Chapoose. Good afternoon, Chairwoman, and subcommittee
members, and representatives from State of Utah. My name is
Sean Chapoose. I am a council member of the Ute Indian Tribe,
also a member of the Ute Indian Tribe representing the
Uncompahgre Band.
So we appreciate the work to defend funding for Indian
programs. These programs are based on our treaties and the
United States trust responsibility to Indian tribes. The
subcommittee and Congress are responsible for making sure that
the United States lives up to its words and laws of the land.
The Ute Indian Tribe asks that the subcommittee increase
funding for Indian energy development, justice systems, and
healthcare. These are some of the most important programs on
our Unitah and Ouray Reservation and across Indian country.
Indian energy development provides stable, long-term
economic resources. Energy development funds our tribal
government and the services we provide our members. It creates
thousands of good-paying jobs and supports the development of
infrastructure on our reservation. Our reservation is located
in northeastern Utah. It is the second-largest reservation
United States. We use cutting-edge technologies to develop our
energy resource and manage our lands and resources. By being
proactive, we can be a major energy producer while also
protecting our environment and homelands.
Using our management techniques, we have about 7,000 wells
producing 45,000 barrels of oil a day. We also produce more
than 900 million cubic feet of gas per day. We have been
producing oil and gas for more than 70 years. Meanwhile, we
also protect our homelands, and are one of the first tribes to
develop a management plan for endangered species on our
reservation. The President should be supporting our proactive
management efforts, but every year he proposes cutting funding
for every program needed to approve energy permits. The
subcommittee must reject his proposal and increase funding for
Indian energy programs.
The President is also trying to consolidate or eliminate
important programs that support in Indian energy development.
For example, there is a proposal to move the Office of Indian
Energy and Economic development within BIA. We oppose this
move. The Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development is
not a permitting agency like BIA. The office provides funding
and technical support to tribes. The office works at the
assistant secretary level and is able to move funds and staff
quickly to address the needs of tribes and changing market
conditions.
For example, just a few years ago, the RBI agency was
buried under an energy permitting backlog. This backlog limited
our ability to produce oil and gas and limited our revenues. To
solve the problem and get permits flowing, the office provided
teams of energy experts that were able to reduce BIA backlogs.
BIA should focus on its core mission of processing energy
permits. BIA needs staff and expertise in its agency offices to
support permitting on the ground. BIA also needs full funding
for its Indian Energy Service Center in Denver. BIA has a
different mission than the Office of Indian Energy and Economic
Development.
Finally, we ask that you protect funding for the Department
of Energy's Tribal Loan Guarantee Program. The President keeps
trying to eliminate this program. This is the only Federal
program that helps tribes access capital for commercial-scale
energy projects. In my remaining time, I want to stress the
importance of funding for tribal justice systems and
healthcare.
We have done our part. We have used $36 million of our own
funds to build a new justice center. We also revised our law
and order code to get tough on gangs and drugs, but we can't
enforce our laws because BIA lacks the funding to fully staff
the justice center. Instead, BIA uses Federal funds to put
offenders in county jails. Even worse, BIA tells our tribal
judges to slow enforcement of warrants because BIA is running
out of money to put offenders in county jails. This means they
are released back into our communities.
We have a similar problem in the area of healthcare. Again,
we are being forced to use tribal revenues to contract or
construct a new village and dialysis center. There is a little
visual for you to look at.
Ms. McCollum. Bring it up on up here so----
Mr. Stewart. I am sorry. This is where?
Mr. Chapoose. It is on the reservation. It is an elder
dialysis center because we are funding that ourselves. IHS says
it is authorized to do dialysis center treatment, but Congress
is not providing the funds. Instead, IHS uses referred care
funding to send tribal patients the non-Indian dialysis
centers. We estimate the cost, $43,000 per patient per month.
In addition, our dialysis staff are forced to spend time
transporting patients rather than caring for them. This makes
no sense.
Congress must provide the funding needed for tribal justice
systems and healthcare. Congress should also direct agencies to
use Federal funds at tribal facilities not in border towns. The
Ute Indian Tribe asks the subcommittee to focus its efforts on
funding Indian energy, justice system, and healthcare. We need
your support in each of these areas. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify. I am willing to answer any questions
you may have.
[The statement of Mr. Chapoose follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you. Please go ahead.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
STOCKBRIDGE MUNSEE MOHICAN COMMUNITY
WITNESS
HON. SHANNON HOLSEY, PRESIDENT, STOCKBRIDGE MUNSEE MOHICAN COMMUNITY
Ms. Holsey. Good afternoon, Chairwoman McCollum and ranking
members of the subcommittee. My name is Shannon Holsey. I am
the president of the Stockbridge Munsee Community. It is my
pleasure to be here today to provide testimony on behalf of my
people with regards to the need for mandatory appropriations
for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and certainly the critically
important process of taking land to trust.
As many tribal governments, mine is no different in regards
to our membership, which largely relies upon the combination of
Federal funding and gaming dollars. For my community, the
Stockbridge Munsee, our tribal government budget comes from
gaming dollars, and the funding source allows for not only
expansion of services for healthcare, our police department,
our emergency responders, and also funding for our memberships
for education and training opportunities. This is why time is
of the essence for the funding from the Federal Government that
will allow our tribal governments to invest in a diversified
economy. Being able to plan years in advance due to stable
Federal Government funding of its trust responsibilities to
tribes allows tribes to engage in long-term planning and
financial stability that is crucial for a successful,
diversified economic project.
In 2019, I don't need to tell you the government shutdown
was the longest in the United States history, and it is only
the most recent example of Federal budget processes that
jeopardize not only our health, safety, and well-being of our
tribal citizens. Tribal nations must regularly overcome
uncertainty when planning and providing services to the
citizens because of the political impasses related to Federal
special spending. For instance, since 1998, there has only been
1 year, in 2006, in which the Interior, Environment, and
Related Agencies appropriations bills has been enacted before
the beginning of the new Fiscal Year. Often, the partisan
debates affecting the appropriations process has an outsized
impact on the daily lives of our people, who already face under
funding healthcare, education, backlogs of physical
infrastructure, all of which all fall under the Federal trust
responsibility.
Congress must prevent political impasses from jeopardizing
the provision of adequate quality services in tribal
communities, such as healthcare, law enforcement, and child
welfare, by passing legislation authorizing advanced
appropriations for Indian Health Services and the Bureau of
Indian Affairs. And I also want to thank Chairwoman McCollum
for the proposed current legislation, the Indian Programs
Advanced Appropriations, which I think will play a significant
role in stabilizing our government. Also, the Health Services
Advanced Appropriations, which is much needed for the
appropriations of Indian Health Services and our Indian health
facilities accounts.
The best way Congress, and, specifically, the community can
assist in driving diversified economic development in Indian
Country is by you all doing your part with the extraordinary
job of finding many years and many ways to provide funding for
our tribal needs, often exceeding the Administration budget.
This is very much appreciated, and it is clear that you all
recognize the need that we have and the trust and treaty
responsibilities of the United States. Unfortunately, the
pressures of the Federal discretionary budget are great and
increasing, and will the impact the necessary funding we need
to stabilize our tribal governments.
To illustrate the need for this, we need adequate
appropriations, but, most importantly, the land-into-trust
application, which can obviously be very, very cumbersome,
especially as it relates to the regulations currently outlined
in separate processes for on-reservation and off-reservation
applications, as well as the administration appeal that can at
least take two levels of administration. I feel the
appropriations of this fee-to-trust process must be mandatory,
specifically because the Federal Government has a trust and
treaty responsibility, but also because of the time constraints
that are associated with this. Ideally, it takes 1 to 2 years,
but in our instance, it has taken sometimes from 9 to 10 years
in most instances because of the two application fee-to-trust
process, which also gives the validity of the local
municipalities and townships to weigh in with the appeal
process that causes pending implications to that.
So I will say this. I shared the background specifically
because of the complexity of it, and also because of the
multiyear process need to create consistent appropriations, not
only for the purposes of the tribes, but also to ensure the
staff has the necessary time and attention that is needed for
the Federal Government to fulfill their obligations. We also
need funding and adequate staffing of trained Federal employees
at all levels of the fee-to-trust process to keep it moving
smoothly and quickly. For example, we suspect the processing of
fee-to-trust applications was slow at our agency because of
current staffing issues or limitations to staff. We had
previously two employees working now. They have been vacated
and they have moved to a new region.
So with that said, I thank you very much for your time and
your consideration.
[The statement of Ms. Holsey follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Fox.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
MANDAN, HIDATSA, ARIKARA NATION
WITNESS
HON. FRED FOX, COUNCILMAN, MANDAN, HIDATSA, ARIKARA NATION
Mr. Fox. Good afternoon, Chair McCollum and ranking
members. My name is Fred Fox. I am elected councilman on the
governing body of the Tribal Business Council of the MHA
Nation, serving as the representative for the White Shield
segment on the three affiliated tribes of Fort Berthold
Reservation. Our chairman, Mark Fox, could not travel to be
here today, so he asked me to testify on his behalf and behalf
of MHA Nation.
Our good news at MHA Nation has also created bad news. The
MHA Nation has experienced an explosion of economic activity on
our reservation in recent years from oil and gas production.
That growth has brought with it an explosion of our reservation
population, combined with our phenomenal growth, has completely
stressed our reservation infrastructure beyond its breaking
points. Years of BIA neglect of our roads, bridges, and public
safety programs is now compounded by the pressure of rapid
growth. We not only need to replace our old transportation
facilities, we also must expand the transportation system to
accommodate our growth.
The MHA Nation is in the middle of the Bakken formation
with one of the most active and productive oil and gas
formations in the United States. Much of our infrastructure
needs to come from the pressure of the heavy equipment traffic
necessary for oil and gas work. The intense congestion on our
poorly-designed roadways poses an increasing threat to our
reservation highway safety. In the next decade, we estimate the
MHA Nation will need $3.6 billion to repair our transportation
system and keep pace with our projected growth.
We need to increase Federal funding to support reservation
public safety at Fort Berthold. Our tribal law enforcement
officers already handle 14,000 calls each year, and our crime
rate is growing as fast as our economic development. Without
more funding from Federal law enforcement resources, we cannot
handle the influx of unsavory characters and drug dealers that
are flooding our reservation as our economy expands. We built
our own drug treatment facility, but need operational funding
to go along with additional funding for many more police
officers, investigators, drug counselors, and equipment to
support their work.
The solution is not just mere Federal money. The MHA Nation
has committed much of its new resources to building our
reservation and making it a safe and healthy place for our
people. But our capacity to help ourselves is hobbled by the
dual taxation that keeps our tribal government from realizing
the fair and full benefit of all this economic development
activity on our lands. The State of North Dakota taxation of
our reservation resources diverts our reservation money away
from solving our reservation challenges. It is long past time
for the Congress to change Federal law that now allows the
State of North Dakota to place a dual tax, in addition to the
tribe's own tax, on the development of energy resources within
the Fort Berthold Reservation.
So long as this Federal law stands unchanged, our efforts
at solving our problems will be sharply limited, and you will
find our reasonable request for additional funding unbearably
high. We ask you to work with other committees of Congress,
including the Ways and Means Committee, to eradicate this
mistake in Federal policy that permits North Dakota to impose a
dual tax on tribal resource development as North Dakota piles
up billions of dollars in its legacy and rainy day funds. That
tribal money should be left with our tribe to spend on our
reservation roads, law enforcement, healthcare, housing, and
other infrastructure so critically needed by our citizens.
If the subcommittee invests now in additional Federal
funding and simultaneously compels the Congress to end dual
taxation, our MHA Nation will be able to make our reservation a
safer place to live. It will also significantly reduce our need
to keep coming back to you for more Federal funding in the
future. Thank you for this opportunity to testify.
[The statement of Mr. Fox follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Stewart.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and for all of
you, thank you for being here. It is, I think, a great panel.
You bring up different issues, and many of the others have, at
least in the time I have been able to be here. And, Mr. Fox, I
am going to say something very quickly to you, then you will
forgive me, Mr. Chapoose, I want to spend the primary amount of
my time with you both of us coming from Utah and the Ute Tribe.
Tell me, you know, you sit on, as you said, one of the
largest oil fields in the United States. You talked about this
has been a good thing, but a bad thing that has brought its
challenges. On the whole, has this been good for you, and what
has it meant to the tribes? You know, you talked about some of
the challenges, but what has it meant in a positive fashion as
well
Mr. Fox. The positive fashion is not only have we, you
know, have increased, I guess, activity and crime and road
damage, you know, to our Federal roads, we have also had really
good resources put into education. We have built several new
schools on our reservation. Our reservation had schools built
back in 1957 and 1958 when we were flooded by the Pick-Sloan
Act. And our schools were probably 60 to 70 years old at the
time, and so most of our communities have had the opportunity
to have new schools in----
Mr. Stewart. Do you have trouble recruiting teachers and
staffing your schools?
Mr. Fox. That is one of the bigger problems because a lot
of the teachers would like school housing, and we are not able
to offer that housing to give them. But we are slowly getting,
you know, ahead on the game trying to provide that housing,
but, you know, it is a long time coming, so.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah. Yeah. Shaun, if I could, you said
something about dialysis, for example. You talked about some of
the medical needs.
Mr. Chapoose. Yes.
Mr. Stewart. And I think you said it is $43,000 a month per
person? Is that true?
Mr. Chapoose. Per person, yes.
Mr. Stewart. If you were to provide your own facilities,
what do you think it would cost you then? How much could you
save by doing what you guys would hope to do that in?
Mr. Chapoose. Well, I don't think you are going to save
nothing. It is just that Federal dollars right now that
normally would be infused to help the tribe itself, they are
being spent off reservation. So with our tribe, in particular,
you know, we are in a position where we are going to commit our
own dollars to build this facility.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah.
Mr. Chapoose. But if you don't fund the Federal side of it,
it is kind of like you have got the greatest building in the
world, but you have no way of operating it, right?
Mr. Stewart. Yeah.
Mr. Chapoose. And that kind of goes along with, you know,
like I stated before, we built a justice center, you know, a
$38 million justice center, state of the art. But it still
requires----
Mr. Stewart. And you did that facility with your own
internal dollars.
Mr. Chapoose. Yes, we have always because, you know, we
understand the need and, you know, our tribe, we are fortunate,
you know. We are an oil and gas tribe.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah.
Mr. Chapoose. But we have also realized that, you know,
sometimes we are not going to get that assistance from the
Federal Government, so we have an obligation as tribal leaders
to use our resources. And so we do that with the understanding
that, you know, we are going to come back here to the Federal
level, and they are going to help at least provide staff for
the agreement they made with us. But when it comes down to it,
what happens is usually them funds are cut first. They take
them off.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah.
Mr. Chapoose. So we are committing our own dollars to
fulfill the obligation that we created when we ceded our lands
and stuff, and it is frustrating, but at the same time, we know
it is important. But we rely on you guys at this level, you
know, to remind them that tribes are putting forth the effort,
you know, and you have your responsibility on your side to at
least provide them services and quit cutting them.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah. I appreciate that, and I want to clarify
one thing. In this facility, you showed us a map. Did you have
some dialysis rooms in that building?
Mr. Chapoose. Yeah, this particular one actually goes
beyond just the dialysis center. It is an elder facility and a
dialysis center.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah.
Mr. Chapoose. And so when we do it, because, you know, when
you start spending them type of dollars, you know, addressing
one need doesn't solve your problem, so when you have the
opportunity, you attempt to, you know, capture all of it. And
what you will find is most of the dialysis patients happen to
be the elderly people on the reservation.
Mr. Stewart. Sure.
Mr. Chapoose. And I think this is a real important
discussion is, the healthcare system isn't designed to actually
keep them healthy. It is designed to keep them alive, if you
want to be truthful.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah.
Mr. Chapoose. And so a lot of the diabetes that we are
starting to encounter on reservations is due to the inadequate
health service itself.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah.
Mr. Chapoose. So we are trying to address the elder
population as well as the diabetes and other programs in that
one facility.
Mr. Stewart. And let me do one more very quickly if I
could, and I think it mostly concerns some tribes in southern
Utah, but it may be some of your band as well, and I don't know
the answer, and maybe you can help me understand that. But in
southern Utah, we had EMS services, helicopter services, that
were, you know, providing rescue and emergency evacuation to
the tribal territories. But, I mean, my gosh, it was a long way
to go, and, in some cases, the only way they could get someone
who was an emergency and just didn't have time to go over the
roads and others. And they have had to cut back just because,
as I think you probably know, some of the reimbursement rates
just weren't sufficient for them, and that was, again, through
BIA. Have you experienced those same problems? I think in
northern Utah, you probably haven't, but I just want to confirm
that hasn't been a thing for you.
Mr. Chapoose. I don't think we have the same problem
because you are talking more like the Navajo Nation down in
that rural are where, you know, they are still running----
Mr. Stewart. In the Four Corners area.
Mr. Chapoose. Yeah, they still have got the unimproved road
system.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah.
Mr. Chapoose. But we feel the same impacts, not the same
way they do. But the simple fact is the cost associated with
providing service has not kept up with the economics of the
service. And so what happens is they have limited dollars, and
so they kind of pick and choose what meets the criteria under
the pot of money they have, so somebody gets lost in the
cracks. And then when you expend dollars, like if our tribe was
to put money out, then we have to fight tooth and nail to
actually recover what we have put out. So, you know, it is
interesting how you are still operating or trying to provide a
service, but cutting the dollars that provide it and not taking
into account the costs associated with it, so.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah. All right. Thank you. I yield back,
Madam Chair.
Ms. McCollum. I have got a couple of different ones. Could
I ask both you and Mr. Fox about the Administration's proposed
removal of the Division of Energy and Mineral Development, to
put it under the BIA? I should assume that you were consulted
on that. You are shaking your head no. I mean, obviously you
know why it is not going to work, and you are supposed to be
consulted.
Mr. Chapoose. Well, I will go first. The consultation we
received was we went to a listening session yesterday.
Ms. McCollum. Oh, yesterday.
Mr. Chapoose. Yeah, actually the first word I heard about
it was yesterday. I was at the NCI thing, so there was a
listening session. Well, you know as well as me, listening
sessions aren't consultation. So they proposed it. They had
their great plan in front of us, and then they proceeded to
tell us, but by the way, we have all these scheduled
consultations in various locations, and if you really feel the
need, you need to attend them here. Well, the dilemma with that
is Indian Country is big. We all know this, right? And like a
consultation location, the cost for me to attend that and then
get in a room where you have got everybody in the room, the
chances of actually getting something forward, it don't go
nowhere.
And so we constantly stress this, that true consultation
from the agencies needs to occur at the tribal level. They need
to go to each tribe, you know, because we are not the same. We
have different, you know, issues and stuff. But they really
need to take the time to go to the tribes themselves and have
true and formal consultation. But the only thing, like I
stated, was I went to the meeting, and the way they peddled it
to me was more or less it was a done deal. We were just there
for the show, so.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. Mr. Fox.
Mr. Fox. That office, the Office of Energy, I guess it was
one of our main offices for having a petroleum engineer. And
when we have petroleum engineers inside that office, it gives
us access to many, you know, maps. And I guess their views on
our reservation on development, and where it is going, and how
they can give us their expert opinions, and giving, you know,
that resource that is much needed in Indian Country, is we
don't have that availability to hire petroleum engineers and
all these staffing on our reservation. And not every petroleum
engineer is going to say, hey, I want to work in Fort Berthold.
I want to work where----
Ms. McCollum. Right.
Mr. Fox [continuing]. You know, there is no housing. So it
is tough for us when we are losing, you know, an office with
petroleum engineers and other technical staff, and then put it
under the Bureau of Indian Affairs where it gets pretty much,
you know, swept under the rug. And a lot of times, you know, it
is a major office that we are losing, and with the reservation
with 1,700 wells that were developed in the last 5 years, it is
a major, major hit to us.
Ms. McCollum. I wish I could say it is surprising, but it
is not. We went through this with the Department of Interior
reorganization. I am sure you were not consulted on what is
happening now with BLM with their relocation. And this
committee has made it very, very clear to the Administration
when they are here, they are to follow the law, which is
consultation. Recently they figured out just, they just do it.
They just move things on their own and move money around on
their own, and we are trying to put a stop to that because we
want the law to be followed. And when we appropriate money in
certain accounts, especially in Indian Country, we expect that
that is where it is going to go after hearing from their
testimony. So thank you for that, and as I had mentioned
earlier, one of the reasons why I like doing this at this time
early is so that when the Administration is before us and
defending the President's budget, we can pass on your
questions, concerns, and comments.
Mr. Norris, I wanted to ask you, it appears to me you have
got a real good handle on how much it is costing you to
supplement. You are supplementing what Customs and Border
Patrol is not doing. It wouldn't be a good thing for the tribe
if you stopped it from not happening, but if you weren't there
doing it, Customs and Border Patrol would have to do it, would
they not?
Mr. Norris. Well, I would expect----
Ms. McCollum. I mean, if you were to say to them we are
going to give you access to BNLI to carry out your mission, but
we are not going to do it, you know. I am trying to figure out
how to get the funding back to you because you shouldn't be
supplanting Federal U.S. Customs and Border. It should be
transferred back, and Congress has kind of talked about it
doing it, but it appears it is not happening, a 30-year police
force, the roads, other things like that. So you have got a
pretty good handle on the accounting on that?
Mr. Norris. Yes, we do, and at least for law enforcement,
we are, like I said, spending about a third of the law
enforcement budget, which is about $1.6 million annually. The
autopsies that we are having to deal with are about $2,600 per
autopsy, and there could be a variety of autopsies in one
particular month. You would expect that, we would expect that,
the Border Patrol would assume a lot of that responsibility. My
experience has been, and I have worked for my nation for over
40 years now, and this is my third term as tribal chairman
dealing with this. And it is sort of like if they don't have a
physical body, a live body, to deal with, or if they have got
migrants that are needing medical attention, they basically
take them to the Indian Health Service hospital and basically
leave them there. And then we are obligated to provide the
medical care attention to those migrants.
As far as the autopsies, you know, if they have got a
deceased migrant out there that they have recovered the body
on, they don't assume any of that responsibility. And many
times, it is important to put some closure to whether it was a
medical issue, whether it was an exposure issue, or whatever
the cause of death was. And so many times, if not always, those
debts are turned over to the nation's responsibility.
Ms. McCollum. Well, you have given me food for thought. I
want to find out if the border States, in fact, are beginning
to reimburse back, or if the States are absorbing the costs,
because if, and I don't know this. I don't serve on that
committee. They are right next to door to us. I am going to
find out. If the States are reimbursed, if they are reimbursed,
you certainly as a tribal nation under sovereignty, you should
be reimbursed.
Mr. Norris. And the whole issue with regards to the roads,
the road conditions, I mean, the Border Patrol has increased
significantly on our tribal reservation, and there are pros and
cons about that.
Ms. McCollum. Right.
Mr. Norris. You have got members that accept it and those
that haven't. But for the most part, they are the primary user
of our BIA roads, and they wear and tear the roads more so than
our own tribal members. And so part of the question was a legal
question because we were trying to do what we could do to work
with the Border Patrol to try and fill potholes, to try and do
some maintenance on the roads. And many times the Bureau would
come back and say, well, you are creating a liability for us,
for the Bureau because this a Federal Indian reservation road.
And if we as a tribal entity try to do some maintenance, it is
creating the liability.
But we have always known that they are not going to have
the resources necessary. So even if we try to work out, and we
have in the past, an arrangement with the Border Patrol where
maybe the nation's community would buy the asphalt, and the
Border Patrol agrees to fill the potholes, that is still a
liability that is created. And so it is kind of a catch 21. We
are danged if we do, and we are danged if we don't.
Ms. McCollum. Mm-hmm.
Mr.Norris. And so one of the ways was when the language was
put in the Fiscal Year 2018 budget, which basically allowed for
the Border Patrol and the BIA to receive some of those fundings
to help maintain the roads, that has helped out quite a bit.
But the problem is much more significant. We are only
addressing one road, one Federal route at this point. We got
735 miles of Federal BIA roads. And I would say that the
majority of those roads are being traveled and used by the
Border Patrol themselves, which damage the road and create this
problem for us.
Mr. Stewart. Would the chairwoman yield for a moment?
Ms. McCollum. Yeah.
Mr. Stewart. I agree with her contention on this
reimbursement. I am wondering, have you requested
reimbursement, and what has been the response?
Mr. Norris. We have raised the concern. We have spoke
before different committees, we have spoke before our
congressional delegation, and we just haven't gotten anywhere
until the Fiscal Year 2018, which helps a little bit.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah.
Ms. McCollum. Mm-hmm. Anything you want to add?
Ms. Holsey. No, and I appreciate the fortitude of this
committee and the members. Thank you for joining us this
morning at NCAI. We understand the good work that you are
doing, so whatever we can do. I appreciated the questions you
asked about quantification because it is the economics of
things oftentimes, and so the questions you asked the panel
with regards to that is very helpful. So whatever we can do to
quantify or extrapolate that information is very helpful for
us, too.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Amodei.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you, Madam Chair. President Holsey, you
were talking about from trust to fee and all that, so that is
something that the folks in my neck of the woods have had a
problem with, with real estate.
Ms. Holsey. Right.
Mr. Amodei. And the problem that they have had is it is,
like, okay, you have paid, you know, your deal off, and so you
are waiting for it to be conveyed.
Ms. Holsey. Right.
Mr. Amodei. And you are waiting.
Ms. Holsey. And waiting.
Mr. Amodei. And you are waiting, and it is like, well, it
is your property supposedly, but I can't go get a loan on it if
the title is not in my name.
Ms. Holsey. Right.
Mr. Amodei. And so my question is, if anybody can pipe up
here, but I want to start with you since some of this is about
land, is, I mean, we have had lag times from 5 to 10 years, and
this is a simple lot.
Ms. Holsey. Right.
Mr. Amodei. This is not large amounts, casinos, anything
else like that. It is just, hey, I now own a piece of ground
that I can build a home on.
Ms. Holsey. Right. Well, it creates an infrastructure
problem because of that delay or delayed response to that
because it is the multifaceted, multi-analysis of putting fee
to trust. So with that said, you continue to pay the taxes on
that land until it becomes trust. So there is still the
economics of it, so----
Mr. Amodei. So what is your time frame, though, in your----
Ms. Holsey. Ours on average is 10 years because we have the
local municipalities that oppose and appeal, so there is an
appellate process that continues on for years. And then, of
course, you know, when you have vulnerability within the agency
because there is either lack of staff to do it, to process it,
or they have moved.
Mr. Amodei. So when you say ``the agency,'' so my people go
through Phoenix and Albuquerque.
Ms. Holsey. Our regional office is in Ashland, but then,
you know, but----
Mr. Amodei. So it is not different in that neck of the
woods than it is in mine.
Ms. Holsey. No, but they have just shifted. There has been
a significant shift of the staff. For example, we had a
regional agent. She is a tribal member named Kim Bouchard. She
was with our agency since she started. Now they have moved her
to the national region. But I am under the auspice that perhaps
it is intentional because then it creates more chaos. It takes
more time, and there is not the continuation that once existed
or the relationship working with your agency partners in order
to facilitate that, because, you know, in the rulemaking
process, they have that ability to appeal, you know. And we
keep telling them we are not sub-sovereigns to the State or a
local municipality. We are sovereigns, so there is always that
issue or challenge associated with it.
So you are talking about, you know, you can't really make
any plans because you figure if it is 10 years, I can't create
or deem it for agricultural purposes, for economic development,
or anything else because----
Mr. Amodei. You paid for it, but you don't own it of
record.
Ms. Holsey. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Mr. Amodei. So is it fair to say that you are experiencing
the same problem in your region or whatever?
Ms. Holsey. It depends. There are some tribes, based on the
municipality or the county they live in----
Mr. Amodei. They do their own?
Ms. Holsey. Yeah.
Mr. Amodei. Yeah. There are some in southern California.
How about the rest of you chairmen here?
Mr. Norris. I would just like to comment that we are not in
a predicament right now that has been described. But I can
share with you that even under mandatory acquisitions where you
have got a settlement, a mandatory settlement, and the language
is that you shall take the land into trust, even in our first
settlement acquisition of land, that process where the language
was ``you shall the land into trust, and it shall be deemed a
Federal Indian reservation for all intended purposes.'' Our
first acquisition under our settlement law took 10 years, even
though it was a mandatory acquisition.
Mr. Amodei. Okay.
Mr. Norris. So, you know, I am not sure why it took so long
for that first acquisition to take place, but that was our
experience.
Mr. Amodei. Yes, Chairman.
Mr. Chapoose. We have been dealing with the land-into-trust
issue forever, and it does take forever. I mean, children are
born before it happens, right? And what happens is for like our
tribe, for instance, you know, a large tribe, we have a mineral
ownership below. We purchase the surface. So you are trying to
consolidate. You are trying to make yourself whole, right? And
in Utah, what you always got to remember is you got
jurisdictional issues that are created over ownerships. So you
are trying to consolidate land to define boundaries so that we
have law enforcement and stuff. But because the land-into-trust
process is so cumbersome, it just takes one person out of the
blue to throw a wrench into gear. And then tribes who are
limited on resources to begin with, right, I mean, some of them
are spending a lot of money to acquire these acreages because
they are in critical locations.
And so our experience has been it is a mess, right, and it
was always written into law, you know, in 1934 actually, you
know, the land-into-trust policy existed. And we are one of
them tribes that was part of that, so you are thinking, well,
you got a clear route, but it does not exist, and you just run
into roadblock after roadblock.
Mr. Amodei. And I appreciate----
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Amodei, I will let Mr. Kilmer question
before we leave.
Mr. Amodei. Just one real quick. When you referred to the
briefing you got about oil and gas, who was briefing you?
Mr. Chapoose. Actually it was some people from, I think it
was the EMD-side.
Mr. Amodei. Of Interior?
Mr. Chapoose. Yeah, and I think what is funny is because I
think people forgot, when that was introduced, our tribe was
one of the pivotal writers to try to create this quick
permitting system.
Ms. McCollum. Right, I remember.
Mr. Chapoose. So we figured this all out, and now they are
reinventing the wheel, and then we will wind up going back. And
then to move archives and the technology that he is talking
about, you know, all you are doing is delaying the process even
more, so.
Ms. McCollum. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Yeah, I agree. Mr. Kilmer.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. Well, the hearing stands adjourned
until the call of the chair after the last votes. Oh, I am
sorry, recess. That is right. We are not adjourned. We are in
recess until the last vote and the chair comes back. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 1:45 p.m., the committee recessed subject to
the call of the chair.]
Ms. Pingree [presiding]. We will come to order, and we will
start with our second panel for the afternoon. Welcome. Thank
you all for waiting. I know we are a little delayed because we
had votes, so we will try to get going and keep moving. And we
are not going to going to introduce anybody this afternoon. We
will just have you go ahead and start, and give us your
testimony, and talk about yourselves, and that will save a
little time from me talking about all of you. You can talk
about all of you.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
FOND DU LACK BAND OF LAKE OWGIBWE TRIBE OF LAKE SUPERIOR INDIANS
WITNESS
HON. KEVIN DUPUIS, FOND DU LACK BAND OF LAKE OWGIBWE TRIBE OF LAKE
SUPERIOR INDIANS
Mr. DuPuis. [Speaking native language.] Hello, everybody.
Thank you for this opportunity. In our language, we are always
taught to speak in our language when we introduce ourselves,
and I believe that everybody has what Fond du Lac has sent in.
So I am not going to talk what is on the paper because I think
everybody has the time to read that and review that. I want to
talk about the real issues that are there, not just the things
that are on paper.
First I want to talk about CWD, chronic wasting disease. It
has severely affected the State of Wisconsin, all over
Wisconsin. It is moving into Minnesota now, which that
definitely affects our 1854 ceded territory. Minnesota is
broken up into ceded territory all the way across the State,
the 1854, the 1855, and the 37 which goes into Wisconsin.
We have spent a lot of money to deal with our issues within
our natural resource department. This is another pot of money
that we are going to have to spend to maintain testing, to do
testing, to find a way to get rid of the carcass of these
animals. But, most importantly, I want to address this issue.
If this were beef cattle, chickens, turkeys, or whatever it
would be, Federal law says you have to wipe out the entire
population. So I am asking why an individual farmer who owns a
deer farm or elk farm in CWD, it is found in that, why are they
not wiping out that entire population? It is affecting our way
of life, and we here as tribal leaders raise our hand to our
people and make a vow to our people. And we can't protect our
people if the United States government is going to allow double
standards on issues in this manner, which it affects everybody.
The question was we didn't know what CWD really was. We
brought in the experts. They sat down with us and told us what
CWD is. And for the ones who don't know what, take an
understanding of a parvo that affects dogs, right? It is a
disease that stays down dormant in the ground up to 7 years.
Same thing with same thing with CWD.
It is our way of life. If we can't eat the animals the
Creator gave to us, then we cease to become who we are as human
beings, as Anishinaabemowin. This has to be addressed. It has
to be looked at on the other side of it. There has to be
regulations put into place. Who is going to take care of this,
and why are these independent farms are not wiped out
completely? If you have a disease that we don't know how it
affects humans, or if you end up with infections because the
only way they can test it when the animals dead, that is a
serious issue.
We don't know about the birds of prey and the other animals
that feed on these dead animals and travel throughout our
communities and through the ceded territory. I was a trapper
since I was 5 years old. I can't trap him anymore. I can, but
you are worried about it because you don't understand what this
is.
We are giving the deer and other animals to eat from the
Creator, and if we can't eat these animals, it is like rice. If
we can't eat the rice, one of my arms leaves. If we can't eat
the animals, the other arm leaves. If we can't drink the water,
one of my legs leave. If we can't take the stuff that grows in
the woods that the Creator gives us, my other leg leaves. I
cease to exist as a human being. And these are very, very
important things that exist within us right now.
It is a big concern that we have. I can't speak for another
band or tribe, but it is a concern, and it is a concern in a
manner that we ask why CDC is involved. The question and the
answer was if this would be a beef cattle farm, if this would
be a turkey farm, if this would be chickens or whatever it is,
domesticated that they sell in a store, CDC would be involved.
But since they don't sell these animals in stores, the CDC
isn't involved.
Well, there is a trust obligation from the Secretary of
Interior down within the structure of the United States
government. My question is, where is the Secretary of Interior
to ensure that our treaty rights are being upheld? This
directly affects the ones who have treaties and established
treaties with the United States government. And the ones who
have that ability and that right to hunt fish and gather as
they choose, this is affecting in that manner to all of us, and
it is a big concern for Fond du Lac and the Minnesota Chippewa
Tribe.
So the six collective bands that belong to the Minnesota
Chippewa Tribe, and Fond du Lac is one of them, and I believe
all the way to Michigan actually, we have that right to hunt
fish and gather all the way to Michigan. And I am in fear that
if it gets to a point where I think it is going, we are not
going to be able to eat the deer. And when my family is hungry
or another family is hungry, I can't go get them an animal
because they are not able to eat it.
One of the other things I want to talk about in simplicity
is the Clean Water Act. In Minnesota, everyone understands what
the Federal allowed is, 10 parts per million. It is not being
exercised in the State of Minnesota, and there are always ways
that people are trying to change this regulation. It is simple.
If I can't drink the water, nobody can drink the water. If I
can't eat the fish, nobody else can eat the fish. How hard is
that to understand, and why we are having so many problems to
get in this fix and get in the order the way it is supposed to
be?
Whereas tribal leaders come and we talk, and we write
things down, or we have attorneys write things down, and the
same thing comes over and over, I am here today to just talk to
one simple thing. If it is that simple, and it is, why hasn't
it changed? If you can't drink the water, I can't. If you can't
eat the fish, I can't. So why is this so hard to understand
that we are all human beings. We have a right to eat. We have
the right to drink fresh water, and we have the right to
breathe clean air.
Again, sorry. Megwitch.
[The statement of Mr. DuPuis follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much.
Ms. Dana. Thank you for your time.
Ms. Pingree. No. Thank you. Ms. Grussing.
Ms. Grussing. It is Grussing. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Grussing. Thank you.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
NATIONAL TRIBAL HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICERS ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
VALERIE GRUSSING, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL TRIBAL HISTORIC
PRESERVATION OFFICERS ASSOCIATION
Ms. Grussing. Valerie Grussing, executive director of the
National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers,
NATHPO. We are based in D.C. here representing a diverse
membership across the country.
I want to talk to you about just really one of the things
that is in my written testimony, and briefly, first, I do want
to mention an item that we have added new this year in addition
to BLM's reorganization, which has already been mentioned here,
was not consulted on. I have recently learned that of the 12
State offices, each of which are supposed to have a tribal
liaison position, 10 of those are vacant. And in addition, the
headquarters tribal liaison position has been vacant so long,
it has been removed from the org chart. So one of the things we
are requesting is money to backfill those vacant positions.
That is part of the problem with what we are seeing with that
agency, just a part.
But primarily, I want to talk to you about what our members
do. Tribal historic preservation officers, THPOs, they are an
exercise of tribal sovereignty. They are appointed by their
governments, and they have an agreement with the Department of
Interior where their funding comes from to assume a Federal
compliance role of the State historic preservation officer on
tribal land. And also they are available to be consulted on
places off tribal land. They do this under the National
Historic Preservation Act, and so this funding is in the
historic preservation fund, which comes from oil and gas
revenues, right, and it has never been fully appropriated at
the level that it should be.
They are, as I mentioned, an exercise of sovereignty, self-
determination. The plans that they have to get their funding
from the Park Service, it is a grant that they have to apply
for to get their apportionment. They are founded and grounded
in traditional knowledge and cultural values, and, of course,
they touch on everything that happens in Indian Country. They
are first responders when a sacred site is threatened, when the
ancestors are disturbed--we all know about that in the news
recently--and they are often also responsible for their tribe's
oral history programs, any museums or cultural centers that
they may have. And they lead in the revitalization of
traditions and languages and many other functions in Indian
Country. And a lot of times, like myself, they happen to be a
one-person show. If they have funding from additional sources,
they may have a second staff member.
NATHPO, my organization, we are a non-profit membership
association. THPOs may choose to become members, and this is
one of the primary functions that we perform, elevating their
voice within Washington, D.C., and then coordinating, helping
them coordinate among each other, and getting any education and
training that they may feel they need beyond what they already
have. There are 195 THPOs out of 574 federally-recognized
tribes.
The main thing I want to talk about is funding. So the
first year that they received this funding was in 1996, and the
average amount that each THPO received was $80,000. Last year,
we received the biggest increase ever from the HPF, and that
was $2 million total in the appropriation. That works out to
about $5,000 more per tribe. There are more THPOs every year.
So as opposed to that, $80,000 in 1996, 185 THPOs last year got
$70,000. So we are going in the wrong direction, even though we
have the total appropriated amount increasing. And I have a
chart in my testimony that I have here in color for you to see
as well, and the important line is the red one. Both the
appropriation and the number of THPOs is going up, but if the
appropriation doesn't go up much more than it is, then we have
got the total amount that each THPO gets is flatlining. Seventy
thousand dollars is not even an entire staff person.
So this is the gap that we are talking about starting to
close, and there are two primary talking points that I want to
make, and one is about the importance of the work that the
THPOs do. The epidemics that we see rampant in Indian Country
are the symptoms of the cause of historical trauma. When you
have people that are systematically disconnected from who they
are as people from their heritage, then this is what we have.
This is the work that THPOs do. They rebuild that framework.
And the other thing is that if this Administration is truly
interested in streamlining required environmental and historic
review processes, and they are still required, then there has
to be somebody there to pick up the phone, and that is THPOs,
and they need funding.
We are reminded recently of the importance of place by the
ongoing atrocities at Tohono O'odham, literal destruction of
ancestors. History, culture, identity, survival are grounded in
place. Our members are charged with protecting those places,
but they need support from you in the form of funding to
continue the work that they do. Thank you for considering our
testimony.
[The statement of Ms. Grussing follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.Pingree. Thank you very much.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
CHEYENNE AND ARAPAHO TRIBES
WITNESS
HON. REGGIE WASSANA, GOVERNOR, CHEYENNE AND ARAPAHO TRIBES
Mr. Wassana. Good morning, Chairman McCollum and
distinguished members of the Committee on Appropriations,
Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. I
am Reggie Wassana, governor of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.
We are 1 of 39 tribes in the State of Oklahoma. I appreciate
the opportunity comment on our land trust and natural resource
management. Today I would like to discuss land and trust
issues.
In general, it is my feeling that the land and the trust
program still does not act expeditiously in the conversion of
land held in other-than-land-trust status by tribes or
individual Indians into trust status. I am here today because
my tribe has been far less fortunate. Under the Medicine Lodge
Treaty of 1867, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes were assigned a
total of 4.3 million acres of land. Today we only own about 15
million acres, and of this amount, less than 11,000 acres are
100 percent owned by the tribes. This greatly limits our
opportunity for economic development, cultural preservation,
and self-sufficiency.
The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes are under the BIA Southern
Plains Region, more specifically, the Concho agency, and it is
important to note that we are the only tribe in the Concho
agency's jurisdiction. Research going back 40 years has shown
that the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes have never successfully
placed 1 acre of land into trust.
While the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes now work
cooperatively with the BIA Concho agency and the Southern
Plains Region agency, still the trust application process has
proven to be burdensome due to unnecessary and unrealistic
demands in the land description review portion of the
application. The Cheyenne and Arapaho trust applications are
frequently and significantly delayed and then returned because
of standards applied by the Bureau of Land Management surveyor,
and the rules for land into trust are not enforced uniformly.
Over the past several years, the Cheyenne and Arapaho
Tribes have purchased or acquired several properties in fee
status that are within our original reservation boundaries,
specifically, the tribes on prime tracts of land along
Interstate 40 in Oklahoma and Towns of Gary, Oklahoma, El Reno,
Clinton, and Elk City. Additionally, we own two different
tracks in the northwest part of our original reservation in
Woodward, Oklahoma, as well as other properties in fee status
throughout our original reservation boundaries. Although our
tribe has been unsuccessful at placing any land in a trust, the
Department of Interior recently allowed the Shawnee Tribe of
Oklahoma to place a 103-acre parcel of off-reservation land
into trust on land that is contiguous our original reservation
boundaries, and land that is 400 miles away from their actual
homeland.
Specifically, these four properties that range in 49 acres
in Elk City, 91 acres in El Reno, a 1-acre lot block in Gary,
Oklahoma, and 18 and Clinton, Oklahoma, have been denied and
returned for further corrections, such as name of the tribe,
legal description, purpose of use of land, tax concerns,
possibility of contamination, four-tenths of a mile away from
one property for instance, but not a report with cites
reflective of such a case. We were made to pay back taxes when
not required because none were assessed, but BIA required it
being done. The solicitor in Tulsa agreed with the tribes that
we did not have to pay that. This process in the meantime cost
the tribes tens of thousands of dollars to fulfill.
In conclusion, the Trump Administration has gone through
great lengths in deregulation efforts to roll back red tape
that has burned Americans and stifled economic growth. Today I
am asking that the same effort of deregulation also be geared
towards land-into-trust process. By making the land-into-trust
process burdensome for Indian tribes, it is still stifling our
economic growth. Many of our tribal nations are in rural parts
of the country. Easing the burden of tribes placed in land into
trust and protecting tribal areas will provide an economic boom
for not only Indian tribes, but also for the rural communities
that are near and within the tribe's reservation areas.
At this time, I would like to thank all of you for allowing
me to speak before you as governor of the Cheyenne and Arapaho
tribes and as a tribal member. So I appreciate it graciously.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Wassana follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.Pingree. Thank you very much. Mr. Newland.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
BAY MILLS INDIAN COMMUNITY
WITNESS
BRYAN NEWLAND, PRESIDENT, CHIPPEWA OTTAWA RESOURCE AUTHORITY, BAY MILLS
INDIAN COMMUNITY
Mr. Newland. [Speaking native language.] I would say
Megwitch to the chairman over here for reminding me of the
importance to introduce ourselves in that way. And I want to
co-sign everybody's comments before the committee, and thank
you, Chairwoman and members, for allowing me the opportunity to
testify.
So I presently serve as the chairperson of the Bay Mills
Indian Community, which is one of the five member tribes of the
Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority. Together, our five tribes
were the signatories to the 1836 Treaty of Washington. That
treaty ceded nearly half of the lands that comprise the State
of Michigan today, and the signing and ratification of that
treaty in 1836 paved the way for Michigan statehood just 1 year
later in 1837. But in exchange for the big cession of our
homelands, we reserved the right to hunt and fish throughout
the ceded territories and throughout the ceded waters in the
Great Lakes.
Despite enjoying the benefits of that treaty for many
years, the State of Michigan did not always respect the rights
that our tribes expressly reserved in those treaties, which, as
the members of the committee note, constitutes the supreme law
of the land under the United States Constitution. In
particular, the State of Michigan failed to protect our tribal
citizens from violent attacks just for exercising the right to
fish, and they even went so far as to arrest and prosecute our
tribal members for exercising that treaty right to fish.
So before I was born in the 1970s, the United States sued
the State of Michigan to vindicate and protect our treaty
rights, and the tribes, together with the United States Federal
Government, prevailed in that case in 1979. It was the United
States v. Michigan. Ever since that case, we have negotiated a
series of settlement judgments together with the Federal
Government to manage and regulate the exercise of our treaty
rights, first, in 1985, then again in 2000, 2007, and we are
going through the process again of working on another consent
judgment.
These judgments impose an obligation on the tribes with
respect to how we manage and regulate our hunting and fishing
rights under our treaty throughout nearly half the State of
Michigan. So we have to cover a lot of grounds when we fulfill
our responsibilities under those agreements. Now, Congress
funds our obligations every year through a line item in the
Interior budget known as RPI, rights protection implementation,
and I want to make sure that I emphasize that the acronym, you
know, we are in D.C., so a lot of acronyms get thrown around.
But that acronym is important because it signals that the funds
are to implement and protect the treaty rights. This funding is
critical to ensure that our treaty rights, or our treaties
themselves, excuse me, retain vitality for all of the parties,
including the United States. And I do want to express the CORA
tribes' appreciation for the committee and the Congress to work
in a bipartisan way to continue to provide and protect this
funding.
CORA is asking that Congress increase CORA's share of the
rights protection implementation funding by $1 million to $7.3
million in the coming Fiscal Year and thereafter. I also want
to make sure that I state that CORA understands that there are
other tribes in different parts of the country that have
similar treaty rights cases regarding fishing and hunting. And
some of those folks are representatives who will be testifying
today, and indicate that we also support their request that
Congress meet their funding needs.
The extra money that we are requesting going forward will
work out to $200,000 per year per tribe. That will fund staff
to enforce the regulations that we have to abide by under our
settlement agreements in the U.S. v. Michigan case. It will
also fund staff and research that protect the Great Lakes
themselves. Without a healthy Great Lakes, there won't be any
fish to harvest, and without any fish to harvest, the bargain
in the treaty itself is hollow. So that research funding
through the RPI line item will help us monitor invasive species
and contaminants. It will monitor the fisheries themselves. It
will also allow us to work directly with tribal fisheries in
the exercise of their treaty rights.
So, again, I want to say Megwitch. Thank you to the
committee for allowing us to come today and testify on this
important issue.
[The statement of Mr. Newland follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you all very much for your testimony and
for taking the time to come and speak with us here today. Mr.
Kilmer, any questions or thoughts?
Mr. Kilmer. No.
Ms. Pingree. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you all for being here. Certainly, Kevin,
I appreciate your comments and understand exactly what you are
saying. Certainly CWD isn't limited to your lands. It is
something we are fighting in Ohio as well, and I wish we would
get some answers to it. We are going to continue to fight CWD
on all fronts. Bryan, I understand that there has been a
consent decree that has been worked out over the years. Is the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continuing to be helpful? Are
they being constrained by their present budget in helping you?
Mr. Newland. I can't speak to whether they feel
constrained. I mean, really our goal----
Mr. Joyce. Do you feel they are helping?
Mr. Newland. Actually, to their credit, in the current
process of working through the next iteration of management
plans in this case, they have been helpful so far. I always
make sure to include that qualifier, but really our goal is to
work hand in hand with other agencies, including the State of
Michigan and Federal agencies, to co-manage the resource
because it is shared. But, you know, first and foremost, as a
sovereign tribal nation, our goal is to do it well enough to do
it alone if we had to, and so that is really what we continue
to push for with this funding.
Mr. Joyce. Again, thank you all for being here. I yield
back.
Ms. Pingree. Mr. Amodei.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you, Madam Chair. President Newland,
thank you for your presentation. Very well spoken. I really
appreciate the fact that part of it was reminding those of who
were born in the 50s that you were born in the 70s. [Laughter.]
Mr. Newland. The 70s were before I was born, Congressman.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Amodei. Thanks for putting an exclamation mark----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Amodei. I can see there are some things that there are
no cultural differences about. [Laughter.]
Governor Wassana, you have talked about land. You included
some stuff in your testimony, and I am just wondering if maybe
one of the things that those of us that represent districts in
the West where the United States government owns a lot of
ground, occasionally we resort to a thing called the Lands
Bill. And since none of this is happening very fast, which is
not unusual for Indian Country, and we talked about the last
panel about that, so I won't put you through that again.
But I am wondering if perhaps maybe your tribes would be a
good test case for this committee to say give us the stuff that
you think has been in the hopper for however long. Give us the
legal descriptions. Tell us what estate you want, and let's do
a lands bill, and if that one works, there is probably some
interest for some other sovereign nations. And so even if it
took 5 years to get through, it would be faster than the
present trajectory. And so I am spit balling it here, but, I
mean, it might be something to say, hey, basically, if Congress
says we are conveying it to you, you get it in a specific bill.
And so, and let me tell you why I am doing this. It is not
because I am a smart guy. It is because I am a guy who shares
the frustration in terms of how long it takes the Federal
Government to act sometimes even if they agree with you, and so
maybe it is something that is worth a try. And I certainly
won't speak for the chair, the vice chair, or the ranking
member, but it is like, hey, you know, you mentioned the four
towns, and this one is 91 acres and that, it is like, mmh, what
the heck? I am guessing if it was written the right way, you
might get it through, and then we will just see who supports
Indian Country and who doesn't. But anyhow, food for thought.
Madam Historic Preservation Officer, when you were
referring to those number of tribes and spots and stuff like
that and that weren't being funded, who was it that you were
referring to that wasn't funding them? Was it Parks? Was it
BIA? Who was that?
Ms. Grussing. The dedicated funding for tribal historic
preservation officers comes from the historic preservation
fund.
Mr. Amodei. Okay.
Ms. Grussing. Which is in the Interior bill.
Mr. Amodei. Okay.
Ms. Grussing. It is a----
Mr. Amodei. So it is the Park Service.
Ms. Grussing. Yeah, Park Service. It is a division of that.
So state historic preservation officers also get----
Mr. Amodei. So if we wanted to do something about that, we
would go to the Park Service and go, here is this for that.
Ms. Grussing. The total amount appropriated for the
historic preservation fund comes from here. So there are civil
rights grants. There are historically black colleges. There are
State historic preservation officers. There are a number of
pieces of the pie, but it has gotten, I will be honest with
you, disproportionate in the amount of competitive grants. And
no one is going to say that something like civil rights grants
need less money, but they don't need a 75 percent increase. And
then also there is a new pot this year of civil rights grants
for all Americans instead of just African-Americans. Our
members don't have time to apply for additional competitive
grants. They just don't. They need an operating budget, and
that is what this is.
Mr. Amodei. Well, because I got to tell you, I mean, we
have got a lot of tribes in Nevada, and we have got a State
historic preservation officer in Nevada, and I am not blaming
any of them. This is the first time I have heard of a tribal
historic preservation officer. So if we want to help you----
Ms. Grussing. Right.
Mr. Amodei [continuing]. That is where we go. Okay.
Ms. Grussing. When THPOs get funded, it lessens the burden
on CHPOs.
Mr. Amodei. Got you.
Ms. Grussing. It is less work for State historic
preservation officers when tribes can do their own work.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you. I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Pingree. Thank you all for your presentations. I have
learned a lot from you today, and I concur with everything my
colleague said. I am on the Agriculture Committee, so we think
a lot about diseased animals, and you brought up a lot of good
questions. We don't have chronic wasting disease yet in Maine.
We have a terrible problem with ticks in our moose and deer,
and certainly fully understand the issues that you are talking
about, so I am happy to do a little more work on that. And
thank you for filling us in more about the lack of funding for
historic preservation.
I am extremely sorry about what happened on the border wall
and the, devastation there, and I am increasingly interested
about this topic. I think we should all be. And I have heard
more people discussing it in my home State about who owns
tribal artifacts, how to appropriately take care of them in
museums. And there are an awful lot of questions that I think
should be discussed. So I won't ask you all of them today, but
maybe I will give you a call since you are here in Washington,
D.C. So thank you both for your articulate testimony. I hope we
figure out a way to get that land back.
Voice. I like the idea, though.
Ms. Pingree. Yeah. No, it is a good one. And we will
dismiss this panel. Thank you very much for being here today.
Voice. Thank you.
Ms. Pingree. Okay. We will keep going, and very grateful to
have all of you here today. So we will just go ahead with Mr.
Johnstone. We will start with you.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
NORTH WEST INDIAN FISHERIES COMMISSION
WITNESS
ED JOHNSTONE, TREASURER, NORTH WEST INDIAN FISHERIES COMMISSION
Mr. Johnstone. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I want to
acknowledge my congressman from the 6th District of Washington
State, the 6th District where my grandfather was born in 1877
on Dungeness Spit, Makkalum Indian, with an English father from
Victoria. In that year 1877, his folks, his mom and dad both
perished, and he was raised by his aunt. 1877 was 12 years
before statehood in the State of Washington, and thankfully the
United States had a vision of the West. But they learned after
they came to this country on the shores of the East Coast and
the contact by these people that came to these shores, they
were treated, you know, in a good way. But that westward
expansion history of the United States is not very good towards
our people.
And when they came to the West after Lewis and Clark in
1804 and 1805, they figured they had to do it a different way,
and there were still a lot of terrible things happening, and we
signed treaties in 1854 and 1855. Isaac Stevens was sent out to
do that, and the date and time really resonates with me because
of my grandfather's birth in 1877. And Billy Frank, Jr., who
sat at this table many times, and others talked about the
treaties and what it means to us, and told us at different
times that the treaties were signed so that there could be a
State of Washington, that there could be cities and counties,
there could be municipalities, there could be colleges and
universities. But they forgot about us, us Indians, as Billy's
words are always in my ear and in my heart.
In this committee right here, we have done a lot of work
over the times, and I was proud to say that I worked with
Congressman Norm Dicks for the 6th, and that we saw great
changes in the way we would do business around here. And we
prevailed in some very tough times in these different
Presidents and different congresses. And very happy and proud
to say that this committee has stood with Indian Country, stood
with us when we looked at the quiet crisis and the broken
promises, the renewal of the quiet crisis in December of 2018
that my congressman had a voice in. And your support is very
much appreciated.
To the degree that you came out to our homelands and this
committee visited us, the chair, and the ranking member, and
others came to our villages, to our homelands, and witnessed
what we put on paper, this valuable testimony that we write,
what you heard from CORA, what you hear from the Great Lakes,
what you hear from our tribes. You know, sitting here for a
couple of hours, your heart just pours out in crisis for our
people, for our food, for our burial grounds, for our
subsistence, subsistence that is wound into our request here in
our written testimony. Complicated agreements between the
United States and Canada, Pacific Salmon Commission. A lot of
what we do is heavily laden with technical work that needs to
be done, and I am talking about the Pacific Salmon Treaty. I am
talking about the young man that talked about rights
protection, you know. You are going to see rights protection in
here in a couple of places in our testimony.
Pacific Salmon Commission. You are going to see in our
written testimony we talked about hatcheries. Hatcheries are
more important than ever with the demise of our habitat,
hatcheries, habitat, in order for us to have harvest. We get
deep into the weeds of management because we are the co-
managers of the resource, the co-owner with the State of
Washington that those treaties, the United States said here to
you, your designation document when you became a State in 1889.
That relationship requires us to heavily, heavily regulate it
right down the line.
And, you know, what we put in the request is threaded with
all these different places that you would see us in U.S. Fish
and Wildlife, and Parks, and you would see us in Interior BIA.
And, you know, I think what we have learned over time is when
you look at the staffs that you employ and the relationships,
when we come through and talk to you, it is about how do we
work together to relay that information. How do we tell our
story, as Billy Frank would say, to connect this, you know, to
give you the information where you can stand up for the work
that you do in this committee for us Indians, us that rely on
that assistance?
I don't have much more of a message from that. You know, I
go through these talking points, and I talked about the pools
of monies. That is so important: EPA, geographic funds through
EPA for Puget Sound. The mass marking, you know, requirements
under the treaty with Canada, and assessment work that we can
tell what is happening out here where our salmon go to
eventually come home, which is really burdened now by the ever-
changing conditions of that habitat. And those things are
really troubling where you see that in these documents when
they talk about climate.
And I appreciate your time. I really respect everybody that
works so hard for us. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Johnstone follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you. Mr. Red Star Wolf.
Mr. Wolf. Jeremy Wolf.
Ms. Pingree. Jeremy Wolf.
Mr. Wolf. Red Star is my Indian name.
Ms. Pingree. I see it is either Jeremy Wolf or Red Star,
yeah. Go ahead.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
COLUMBIA RIVER INTER-TRIBAL FISH COMMISSION
WITNESS
JEREMY RED STAR WOLF, CHAIRMAN, COLUMBIA RIVER INTER-TRIBAL FISH
COMMISSION
Mr. Wolf. I am the vice chair of the Umatilla Tribe, also
the chair of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission,
and I wanted to thank you for assembling this panel. The Treaty
Resource Commission's Inter-Tribal Commission, we have long
histories together, and I want to continue those collaborations
into the future.
So as the CRITFC tribes, it consists of the Umatilla, the
Yakima, the Nez Perce, and the Warm Springs tribes. So the
tribes, we are active managers in an area equal to size of
State of Georgia, spanning across 3 time zones, so it is quite
an endeavor, a challenge that we take on. Collectively, we work
obviously on fisheries, but in a more overall sense, it is for
our first foods. And we identify our foods with water, fish,
deer, roots, and berries, and those also have animals and
species that fit underneath them categorically. And there is
water which serves as the life food for everything, the fish
which are the aquatic species, the deer which are the
terrestrial species that live above the ground, and the roots,
the plants to grow underneath the ground, and then the berries
which survive above.
And so those take us in time and space, and we address
those not only culturally and throughout the seasons, but we
address those scientifically. So we have been able to identify
how these are affected, and that goes into climate change
resilience. And how we address these things is not only
expressed throughout our culture and how we gather these things
in time and space, but how we can define it and communicate
that to the contemporary world as well.
Another collective goal that we have is workforce
development for our people. So we have over 700 members, 700
tribal employees between the tribes, and it is something that I
think goes to say a lot towards what we are trying to
accomplish, not only for the employees, but our youth that are
up and coming. We want to make sure that we are training our
youth as they come up, training our youth not only in the
workforce, but we also have a salmon camp that we have every
year for the middle school. So that is something that we are
trying to address so we can speak on these first foods, speak
on the things that are important to us.
So BIA's Columbia River fisheries management budget
supports the core fishery program efforts of CRIFTC and our
member tribes, which span across 3 time zones, as stated. We
request an increase of $5 million over the current levels of a
new program at a base budget of $10.7 million. This increase
will prioritize support for enforcement, harvest monitoring,
implementation of our four primary agreements, including the
negotiations to modernize the Columbia River treaty. The
Columbia River treaty is something that I am specifically
delegated to as far as CRIFTC goes, and my Umatilla Tribe has
been asked to be a part of the most recent Cranbrook
negotiations as a technical advisor, and was able to express
the first foods that I just briefly described; but also what we
have deemed through the regional recommendation, which is a
recommendation addressed through not only State, but Federal
and tribal, entities.
Fifteen tribes are identified, U.S. tribes identified as
Columbia River treaty tribes, also working with the First
Nations. But I think it is really important that the tribes
themselves be a part of this negotiation as we were not a part
of the original negotiation. So that is something that is
really important that we move forward because that is going to
be the lifeblood. It is going to be the water flows that are
necessary in a very unnatural system for the returns and all
that we have invested as far as the fish coming back.
Ecosystem. Proper ecosystem flows is going to be really
important.
So also I am going to just touch on a few things here, but
climate change resilience is something I think that is very
important for us moving forward. It goes right along with our
first foods concepts that we have. And we have had some issues
recently concerning first foods, but one thing I guess I wanted
to kind of get into is the people that are being affected. And
one of the things that goes along with that is the treaty
fishing access sites that we have underneath. I want to thank
the Congress themselves for Public Law 1699. It is the Columbia
River In-Lieu Treaty Fishing Site Improvement Act. So with
that, we will be addressing the sites and O&M funding. We
recently talked to the BIA about where those would fit and
where those funds would best be allocated. But we also want to
ensure that the operating and maintenance monies are addressed
as well.
So with that, I also wanted to, with the time running out
here, I just wanted to say that our chair, Cath Brigham, who
was supposed to be here tomorrow, just wanted to say that she
gives her regards, but she is not able to make it. We recently
had some devastating floods in the Umatilla River, unforeseen
in recorded history, so we have a lot of homes that were lost.
We had one lady who lost her life in the community. But she
will not be able to attend, but we did provide our written
testimony for that. But it does go to say that it is a part of
the changing climate that we have and why we need to ensure
that we are adequately funded to address those issues.
Tribes have proven to be at the forefront of all these
issues, so I just want to thank you for your time.
[The statement of Mr. Wolf follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much. Mr. Isham.
Mr. Isham. Isham.
Ms. Pingree. Isham.
Mr. Isham. The nuns would say it that way, but I never
corrected them, so. [Laughter.]
Ms. Pingree. You can't mistake me for a nun.
Mr. Isham. I was scared of them.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
GREAT LAKES INDIAN FISH & WILDLIFE COMMISSION
WITNESS
MICHAEL ``MIC'' ISHAM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GREAT LAKES INDIAN FISH &
WILDLIFE COMMISSION
Mr. Isham. [Speaking native language.] Greetings, Madam
Chair and committee. My name is Michael ``Mic'' Isham, Jr. I am
a citizen of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior
Chippewa Indians, and I am currently serving as the executive
administrator of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife
Commission, or GLIFWC for short. And I want to thank you for
the opportunity to testify on behalf of GLIFWC.
For those of you who may not know us, GLIFWC is a natural
resource agency that represents 11 member Ojibwe tribes, these
areas here in what are now known as Wisconsin, Michigan, and
Minnesota. GLIFWC represents over 43,000 tribal citizens, and
GLIFWC, with our Federal and State partners, co-manage the
resources in over 32-and-a-half million acres of land this
land. This land encompasses 60,000 square miles of our
ancestral homeland where we continue to hunt, fish, and gather
as we have for thousands of years.
And in the mid-1800s, the GLIFWC member tribes entered into
several treaties with the United States of America. Our tribes
entered into military alliance treaties, not against, alliance,
and still to this day we are in the armed forces in large
numbers. Besides the military alliance treaties, we also
entered into a lot of cession treaties. And in cession
treaties, we sold many things to the United States of America,
such as billions of board feet of timber, minerals, ports,
gravel, and eventually millions of acres of land, which added
to, and continue to add to, the United States Treasury. In
those treaties, however, we did not sell, and, in fact,
specifically retain those rights to use the land as we always
have--hunting, fishing, gathering, as you have heard from the
other treaty commissions--and also to maintain our traditional
life ways, and we never sold our sovereignty.
However, for hundreds of years or so after the signing of
these treaties, and as the States became more established, the
opposition to the exercise of our off-reservation treaty rights
grew. It took court action in the 70s, before chairman was born
in the 70s there, 80s and 90s to get our rights reaffirmed. The
Gerno case on Lake Superior, the Lac Courte Oreilles v.
Wisconsin case, and the Mille Lacs v. Minnesota court cases all
were decided in favor of the tribes. The courts all agreed that
the tribes' right to hunt, fish, and gather off reservation was
guaranteed by treaty.
Another thing the courts all agreed on was that these
resources are now shared resources, which also other people had
touched on. And so the tribes, along with our State and Federal
Partners, must work together to ensure both State and tribal
harvest occur in a manner that does not deplete the resources,
and that decisions relative to the land use to be done together
as well. This is why GLIFWC was formed.
GLIFWC assisted our member tribes in implementing those
treaty-retained rights consistent with all those court decrees,
such as working with our State and Federal partners on harvest
quotas and season parameters, along with land use decisions
that will help keep those subsistence harvest free from
environmental contaminants. For 35 years since GLIFWC was
formed, you, Congress, specifically this committee, has
supported GLIFWC and the other treaty commissions with funding
through a rights protection implementation line item. On behalf
of my family, on behalf of my tribe and all the tribes and
families that I represent, I want to thank you all for that
support. [Speaking native language.] Big thank you.
Good science and culturally-based natural resource
management with a goal of clean and plentiful harvest does not
just benefit the tribal citizenry. The people of the North
Woods also should be up here thanking you because those
programs that GLIFWC administer benefit them as well. The Great
Lakes Restoration Initiative, or GLRI, is one program I wanted
to specifically thank you for. The GLRI is a very important
program for our member tribes, and the congressional language
that provides for a distinct tribal program will help ensure
that tribes have the flexibility to develop the programs that
are highest priorities to their own communities.
This bipartisan effort by Congress to protect and restore
the Great Lakes will not get much news, although it probably
should because obviously the fighting is what gets the news.
But, again, certainly it should get some news. Now, before I
left for Washington, D.C., we have a tribal Facebook page, and
there was a recent post on there with at tribal harvest of
walleye, and the heading read, ``We will be eating well
tonight.'' And what was most encouraging in that picture was
the fact that it was a grandfather, a father, and a daughter
that participated in this harvest. The intergenerational aspect
of this activity, coupled with the knowledge gained from our
GLIFWC biologists that it is a safe and clean harvest and they
can eat it, shows the success of our collective efforts.
Our success is your success, and with continued support our
RPI line item, the success will hopefully continue for seven
generations and beyond. Megwitch [Speaking native language].
Thank you for listening to me.
[The statement of Mr. Isham follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much. Thank you all very much.
Mr. Kilmer, do you have any questions?
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair, and, Mr. Johnstone, I
want to thank you and the North West Indian Fisheries
Commission for your terrific leadership in protecting treaty
rights in our region, and for the time you spent with Ranking
Member Joyce and with Chairwoman McCollum when they came out to
the district. The work you are doing is just so vital in
recovering our salmon populations, and I actually do want to
thank our chair and ranking member for taking the time to come
out and really take the time to understand some of the
challenges we face. In your written testimony, you wrote about
the salmon and Steelhead Habitat Inventory and Assessment
Program, and I was hoping you could just take a second and talk
about how that helps to inform the recovery efforts that the
Indian Fisheries Commission is taking the lead on.
Mr. Johnstone. Thank you, Congressman, especially for
mentioning the North West Fish Commission, which I failed to do
when I opened up this panel. What it does is it is a shop that
is housed at the North West Indian Fish Commission, and it is
tied directly with our GIS programming. And, you know, the
dynamics of that, you know, I can tell what the outcome is, but
the inner working is we do an assessment on those watersheds. I
mean, that is what that inventory talks about, and salmon and
steelhead. And so that gets into the basic ecology piece of
those individual streams.
And then we take that into our shop, and we use that GIS
programming and we use our planning, and put it together. It is
called the ``State of the Watershed.'' It is a document about
this, and we are just about ready to roll out the third
iteration. And in our Puget Sound area in the coast is the
document, now that the State agencies, the WDFW, ecology, so
forth. In the Federal Government, it is the bible. We have done
the work, you heard Mic say, and Jeremy, and others that our
work is top notch. And once that is assembled and we put out
that document, others don't even try to do it anymore. That is
the go-to document. Real critical, and you see that in that
request.
And we had a little bit of trouble maintaining that, and
now we have got it well placed in BIA. And, you know, it is
very important, and we appreciate that we are on kind of firm
ground right now.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. I will also just thank you for
referencing the great leader, Billy Frank, Jr. I have a
painting that is just of his face that is in my office, and I
am conscious that he is watching us, so thank you. I yield
back.
Ms. Pingree. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all for being
here, and, Mic, thank you for your support on the Great Lakes
Restoration Initiative. I was wondering if you could tell us
how GLRI has helped the tribal community there, how the funds
are allocated, and who makes the decisions.
Mr. Isham. Some of it is capacity, so we can----
Mr. Joyce. Also whether you are happy with the process.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Isham. We are happy with the process. Some of it is
capacity money, which allows us to hire some experts that, you
know, can work on Great Lakes issues. It also helps us get to
the table where decisions are made. You heard talk about
consultations earlier or listening sessions. When you are
actually at the table when the decisions are being made, that
helps a lot. You know about the project up in Michigan, the
Buffalo Reef restoration project. We have a lot of money
invested in that from our budget, but the biologists and people
that work on it we kind of fund with some GLRI money.
Now, the new language, the congressional language that is
in there talks about a distinct tribal program, and so although
it is not up and running yet, we are working on it, and
hopefully that funding will allow us to kind of tweak the
program to kind of fit our own needs instead of trying to fit
into what the EPA needs are. You know, all the lakes are
different. We are up in Lake Superior, and it is pretty clean
up there, so how do you get funding when things are clean? You
got to mess it up to restore it, so we pushed for protection
and things like that, but we will see where it goes. We are
very hopeful with that new language in the bill.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you all for coming.
Ms. Pingree. Mr. Amodei.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you all for coming, and I appreciate your
time.
Mr. Amodei. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Isham, I appreciate
you answering that question because some of our colleagues
accuse my colleague here from Ohio of being a one-trick pony
for the Great Lakes, in good fun. And so now I can help protect
him to say, well, I have been in a hearing where, by gosh, you
know, blah, blah, blah. So I appreciate your helping him out a
little bit on that. And beyond that, I have nothing of more
substance than that. So, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. Pingree. That is great. Well, I just appreciate all of
your testimony. Thank you so much for talking about issues that
are so vital to all of us and for acknowledging the committee's
support. I think you would find on both sides of the aisle we
are very concerned about all of the issues that you brought up
with us today, and look forward to working with you. Thank you
very much.
Voice. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum [presiding]. Perfect. Thank you for coming. I
think we have all the paperwork in order now. Welcome, and
thank you. This is our last panel of the day, and so I am sure
you heard Ms. Pingree when she was chairing. I just remind
people we have a timer, and it is for 5 minutes. And when it
goes yellow, you have 1 minute remaining, and so if you start
thinking about wrapping things up. And then when it is red, and
I want to thank you for your patience and everything because
with the votes and all that, I know you waited a while to
testify. So thank you so much for that.
So with that, to speed things up a little bit, I will let
Mr. Whitehead introduce himself and go right into his
testimony, and then we will go right down the line. Mr.
Whitehead?
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
ASSINIBOINE AND SIOUX RURAL WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM
WITNESS
BILL WHITEHEAD, BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS CHAIRMAN, ASSINIBOINE AND SIOUX
RURAL WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM
Mr. Whitehead. All right. Madam Chair and members of the
committee, my name is Bill Whitehead. I am the chairman of the
Board Assiniboine and Sioux Rural Water System created by----
Ms. McCollum. We are going to turn your mike on there.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Whitehead. I hope I don't have to repeat that.
[Laughter.]
Ms. McCollum. You are good.
Mr. Whitehead. Okay. Yes, we were recruited by the Fort
Peck Tribal Council. I am also joined by the general manager of
the project and our general trainer, Major Russell. Our project
was authorized by Public Law 106 in December 2000. We are
completely fixed with running of the project. We are on budget
and close to the finish line. Our project will be the first in
the Nation of a reauthorized rural water project to finish
construction. I have been informed that our project is highly
regarded by the Bureau of Reclamation due to it adherence to
budgets, schedules, Federal rules, and quality of construction.
Actually, my board will oversee all the functions of the
project within Fort Peck Indian Reservation. We operate a safe
and reliable drinking water system for 31,000 residents of
northeastern Montana in an area larger than New Jersey, and
just smaller than Massachusetts, which also covers four
counties in northeastern Montana.
When completed, our water treatment plant will deliver
water through 3,200 miles of pipeline on the Fort Peck Indian
Reservation and throughout the adjoining Dry Prairie Rural
Water System. The project uses our water rights in the Missouri
River as confirmed by a water compact with the State of Montana
in 1989. Dry prairies are operated and they have been with us
for 25 years. Together we have improved the understanding of
our cultural differences, and we work hand in hand in a
historic relationship for a common purpose.
I always maintained that our water project through our
treaty rights enables us to provide water for Indians, non-
Indians, Democrats, and Republicans----
Ms. McCollum. Great.
Mr. Whitehead [continuing]. You know, in one of the most
cooperative manners that I have ever experienced. Dry Prairie
shares in the cost of operating state-of-the-art facilities in
rural communities to secure funds for the project. We meet
quarterly on project construction and operating issues. Rural
Water is very committed is very committed to maintaining the
state-of-the-art infrastructure, which is held in trust by the
United States. When Dry Prairie is delivering drinking to a
joint system valued at $350 million to meet our responsibility
to the Assiniboine and Sioux Rural Water Supply System, employs
19 highly-skilled tribal members, including certified operators
for the water treatment plant and the pipeline district niche
system.
All Federal and State standards for water quality are
consistently met. We [Audio malfunction in hearing room] to
ensure there is no disruption in service and are proud of that
record. As a community organizer for the last 50 years, I
recognize and applaud the example our employees are setting for
your young people on the reservation where opportunity has been
wanting. Our employees are reliable, dedicated, and highly
skilled with modern technology. They are advancing the hopes
and dreams of our community's next generation.
The project is a success at every level, and we have a
responsibility to keep it that way and make perpetual
improvements for the benefit of the tribal members and other
residents of northeastern Montana rely upon this all-community
approach we need for continued success of the project. We were
never short of funds thanks to the work of this committee. In
2021, the amount needed $3.2 million. We thank you for
recognizing our needs for the past 10 years of operation and
for the time you are spending with us.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that upon this
successful attaining of funds that you have helped us with, our
congressional delegation, we have evolved to a point of
understanding. When we first started 20 years ago, we didn't
recognize that Keystone pipeline was coming along, and we are
very concerned about that when you take in consideration the 13
schools, four hospitals, and the 30,000 people there. It may
not seem like much when you live in an urban area, but out
there where we live at, it is so valuable. And I just wanted to
put that on record that we are concerned about whatever
happens. You know, pipes will break, and I just wanted to leave
that with you. Thank you very much.
[The statement of Mr. Whitehead follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Francis.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
UNITED SOUTH AND EASTERN TRIBES SOVEREIGNTY PROTECTION FUND
WITNESS
KIRK FRANCIS, PRESIDENT, UNITED SOUTH AND EASTERN TRIBES SOVEREIGNTY
PROTECTION FUND
Mr. Francis. Good afternoon, Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking
Member Joyce, and my home State congresswoman, Ms. Pingree. It
is great to see you again. My name is Kirk Francis. I am
currently serving as the president of the United South and
Eastern Tribes Sovereignty Protection Fund representing tribes
from Maine to Florida to Texas. I am also the chief of the
Penobscot Indian Nation.
We are here today, as we are every year, with the Federal
Government's failings in delivering upon the obligations to
tribal nations and native people. This failure has persisted
regardless of changes in Administration or Congress despite
numerous reports, investigations, recommendations, and
consistent advocacy from Indian country, and, of course, the
great work of people like that around this committee.
In 2003, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued ``The
Quiet Crisis Report,'' which found that, ``Measured by honor of
funding commitments, none of the agencies reviewed met its
obligations to tribal nations.'' In 2003, Congress and the
Administration had that information and the opportunity to
reverse course, yet the ``Broken Promises Report'' issued in
December 2018 by the commission found that, ``The funding of
the Federal trust responsibility and obligation remains grossly
inadequate in a barely perceptible and decreasing percentage of
agency budgets.'' By some measures, since 2003, we have
actually lost ground on tribal sovereignty and self-
determination.
This is not a question about addressing poverty and needs
across Indian Country. Our relationship with the United States
is ultimately about honor, fulfilling commitments and its
promises. So when will we truly pay the debt to tribal nations
owed in perpetuity for the extensive lands and resources ceded
by our ancestors? Deep and chronic failures require bold,
systematic changes.
The solutions we offer involve a fundamental shift in
Federal Indian policy and funding. They will allow Indian
Country to realize its great potential and create lasting,
positive change for tribal nations and our people.
Additionally, an appropriately strong and just domestic
investment into Indian Country benefits America as well.
It is critical that the Administration propose and Congress
demand budgets containing full funding for all Federal Indian
agencies and programs. Given our history and unique
relationship, this funding can no longer be subject to the
instability of discretionary spending. In the short term, we
are urging the passage of legislation providing advanced
appropriations for IHS and BIA. In the long-term, we must
achieve full and mandatory funding for all Federal Indian
agencies and programs.
The processes under which OMB develops budgets and policies
that impact us also require reform. We believe a strong tribal
affairs office should be created at OMB. In concert with this
office, OMB must be required to produce a full, detailed
accounting of the funding distributed to Indian Country,
including only what tribal nations access, not what funds were
technically available for them. As are other agencies, OMB must
also be subject to the consultation requirements. As Congress
once again discusses an infrastructure package, it must include
the rebuilding of tribal nation infrastructures and economies
similar to the U.S. investment in rebuilding post-world War II
Europe in the Marshall Plan. The legislative and executive
branches should commit to the same investment to rebuild tribal
nations given that our current circumstances are a direct
result of the acts and policies of the United States.
Regarding our priorities for Fiscal Year 2021, we urge the
prioritization of the trust obligation in the 302(b) allocation
for Interior. For BIA, our region's funding priorities are
included in our written testimony. We continue to be frustrated
by the Administration's refusal to include a calculation of
BIA's unfunded obligations in the budget formulation process.
In addition, we join others throughout Indian Country in
advocating for funding within the Interior and CJs bills for
risk management measures to protect tribal sovereign immunity.
For IHS, again, our regional priorities are in our written
testimony. We are working with other tribal advocates, though,
and the IHS to calculate the true unfunded obligations of the
Agency. We are projected to be far lower than the current
figure of approximately 50 percent. Finally, we urge the
subcommittee in the strongest possible terms to provide
separate and indefinite appropriations for 105(l) leasing. Our
healthcare should not suffer due to the Agency's inability to
accurately predict these costs.
So in closing, it is time for a comprehensive overhaul of
the trust relationship and obligations, one that results in
promises kept to tribal nations. Keeping promises starts with
ensuring that Federal spending better reflects trust and treaty
obligations. I want to thank you all again for having me here,
and on behalf of our organization, we are happy to answer any
questions.
[The statement of Mr. Francis follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Carlson.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
INTERTRIBAL BUFFALO COUNCIL
WITNESS
ERVIN CARLSON, PRESIDENT, INTERTRIBAL BUFFALO COUNCIL
Mr. Carlson. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, honorable members
of the Committee and the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment,
and Related Agencies. My name is Erwin Carlson, and I am member
of the Blackfeet Nation and president of the InterTribal
Council. I am here today to respectfully request an increase of
$12,600,000 in funding for the Tribal Buffalo Restoration and
Management. This amount added to the current funding level of
$1,400,000 will increase funding for Fiscal Year 2021 to $14
million.
Buffalo are sacred to American Indians. Historical records
can indicate that American Indians relied heavily on buffalo
for survival. Buffalo provided us food, shelter, clothing, and
essential tools. In the early 1800s, the buffalo population in
North America exceeded 30 million, and the American Indian
population was near 7 million. By the turn of the century, only
500 Buffalo survived, and the Indian population was reduced to
250,000. With confinement of Indians to reservation lands,
Indians lost their primary food source, lifestyle, and
independence.
Recovery from this devastation began in earnest in 1991
when a handful of Indian tribes organized the InterTribal Bison
Cooperative, now the InterTribal Buffalo Council. To begin
restoration of buffalo with the Indian tribes, today the ITCB
is comprised of 69 tribes with populations totaling 1 million
tribal members across 19 States with 55 buffalo herds,
collectively, the largest herd in the United States. ITBC has
received Federal appropriations since 1992 in the form of
earmark, inclusion in the President's budget, or through DOI
administrative action. Funding has been stagnant for many years
now with $1 million for herd development grants and $400,000
for administration. Actually for the past 10 years.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs has had discretion over the
actual amount of funding allocated to ITBC from various line
items in the BIA budget. ITBC has worked to create a permanent
buffalo restoration and management program within the Bureau of
Indian Affairs with an authorization for an annual
appropriation. Representatives Don Young, Deb Haaland, Tom
Cole, and Norma Torres introduced the Indian Buffalo Management
Act, and the hearing was held last week before the House
Resources Subcommittee for indigenous people. The
Administration testified that it agreed with the authorization
for an annual appropriation for buffalo restoration and
management.
At the request of, and I must say, at the request of the
Department of Interior, ITBC compared its funding with other
wildlife programs, and primarily the fish commissions, exceed
$140 million from various branches of the Federal Government
last year. This level of funding is largely based on the well-
known Boldt decision that awarded co-management over salmon to
tribes and States, and that declared the security of ending
fishing rights. A review of the Boldt decision supports all
American Indians having a right to their traditional foods,
including the return of buffalo to tribes.
ITBC seeks Federal Government commitment through
meaningful, full funding for tribes to restore, manage, and
consume buffalo. Additionally, the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868
guaranteed tribes access to buffalo so long as buffalo may
range. Meaningful funding for buffalo restoration and
management provides an opportunity for the Federal Government
to honor this treaty provision. Recently, the United States
Supreme Court upheld another provision in the Fort Laramie
Treaty regarding hunting rights in the Herrera case. Increased
funding will enhance ITBC's herd development grants to tribes
for tribal infrastructure, including job creation, fencing
corrals, handling facilities, and supplemental feed, all to
provide buffalo to a larger segment of the Indian community.
The act will also allow ITBC to enhance technical services to
tribes, create marketing opportunities, and for ITBC to serve
as a more meaningful partner with other Federal agencies in
national buffalo management issues.
For tribes, the restoration of buffalo signifies much more
than simply conservation of the national mammal. Tribes restore
buffalo to counteract the near extinction that was similar to
the tragic history of American Indians. The killing of the
buffalo was an effort to exterminate the Indians. However,
buffalo survived, and we are still here. The he Indians are
still here.
Now we need meaningful funding for the Buffalo to again
provide food and economic opportunities for Indian tribes. And
I thank you for allowing me once again to testify in front of
you for buffalo and increased for them. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Carlson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Desautel.
----------
Tuesday, February 11, 2020.
INTERTRIBAL TIMBER COUNCIL
WITNESS
CODY DESAUTEL, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, INTERTRIBAL TIMBER COUNCIL
Mr. Desautel. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of
the subcommittee. I am Cody Desautel. I am the natural resource
director for the Colville Tribe, also a member there. And I am
here to speak on behalf of the Intertribal Timber Council, who
represents tribes across the United States and Alaska. It is a
44-year-old organization that represents 18.7 million acres of
woodlands and tribal forests.
So from the outset, the ITC appreciates the committee's
recognition of the importance of tribal force management. Your
investment in Indian forest management directly improves the
lives of Indian people in every region of the United States.
Specifically, Indian forest management creates $3 for every
dollar of Federal funding invested. It employs nearly 20,000
people and manages wildlife habitat, provides clean water and
air, and provides sources of culturally-important food and
medicine for Indian people. Management of Indian forests also
generate significant revenue for tribal governments to fund
essential government search services, such as healthcare, law
enforcement, and education. For example, my tribe specifically
generated $15 million from stumpage revenue a couple years ago,
so a significant amount of money.
You might be surprised that 80 percent of all timber
produced from the Department of interior lands come from Indian
forests, yet this harvest level is only half of the sustainable
annual target set by tribal governments. Imagine what tribes,
big and small, would be able to do with twice the revenue and
economic activity they see from current funding levels.
Indian forestry literally multiplies investments from
Congress and makes lives better. Chronic underfunding, however,
limits the social, environmental, and economic potential of
Indian forestry. Indian forests are funded at one-third of the
per acre level of the U.S. Forest Service. As such, tribes have
forgone over $700 million in stumpage revenue since 1991. For
several years, this committee has made modest, but much-needed,
increases to BIA forestry. Last year, the committee
recommended, and Congress enacted, $118,000 reduction BIA
forestry funding, and yesterday the Trump Administration
released its Fiscal Year 2021 budget justification, which
recommends a $1.3 million reduction in Indian forest
management. ITC is concerned about the change in funding
direction.
Our full funding requests are in the written statement, so
I will just mention a few highlights here. The BIA forestry
account is divided into two parts: the tribal priority
allocation and forest projects. We recommend a $5 million
increased each of those. For TPA, a $5 million increase could
hire 67 new foresters and increase tribal timber harvests by up
to 295 million board feet, creating about 15,000 jobs based on
our current harvest levels. For BIA forest projects, a $5
million additional investment could reduce the backlog of
forest thinning and reforestation that plagues Indian lands.
These backlogs deprive Indian communities of vitally-needed
jobs and income and forest health.
I can personally tell you that large wildfires and
subsequent replanting will add to the thinning backlog over the
next 15 years. At Colville, we had, as our chairman stated to
the committee earlier today, we burned 255,000 acres just on
our 1.4 million acre reservation in 2015. So substantial forest
fires investment are needed now. Reforestation. The BIA reports
it has a backlog of 263,000 acres. But talking with the chief
forester and staff, they are not completely confident in that
number, so the number may be more. Every acre that remains on
this backlog detracts from the tribe's ability to sustainably
manage its forest for ecosystem services and revenue. Indian
forests are also impacted by large wildfire suppression and
recovery priorities. Tribes have historically struggled to
obtain funds fast enough to rehabilitate their forests after
wildfire. There is generally a 5-year window to replant after a
fire. If that doesn't happen, those lands remain unproductive
and become part of the reforestation backlog I just mentioned.
ITC recommends a $10 million set aside within the
Department of Interior for burned area rehabilitation,
specifically for Indian forests that are burned. Again, as my
chairman mentioned earlier, that pot is about $3.2 million
nationally now. In just Washington and Oregon, Idaho, in 2015,
we saw what was projected by the Department of Interior to be
about a $55 million need for that year alone. For RTRL, the ITC
also supports increasing DOI fuels management to $206 million.
The Administration's for Fiscal Year 2021 budget justification
appears to request a $35 million increase that would bring the
fuels account to $228 million. Within this program, the ITC
supports the continuation of the Reserved Treaty Rights Lands
Program. Tribes use these funds for proactive fuels and forest
health projects on neighboring Federal lands. To make this
program more flexible, we would request that these funds to be
usable on both Federal and trust lands.
And in conclusion, I want to thank the committee, and you
personally, for the attention you have paid the Indian forest
management, and its potential to improve the lives of Indian
people across the Nation. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Desautel follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you very much. Ms. Pingree, I know you
have a meeting coming up. Do you want to take the first
question?
Ms.Pingree. Thank you very much. Thank you all for your
testimony. You are all talking about resources that I think we
feel committed to support, and I hope the chair and ranking
member will pull in a considerable amount of money so we can
fund more of these things. And I particularly appreciate Kirk
Francis, Chief Francis, being here today. Thank you for the
great work that you do in Maine. And I really enjoyed hearing
your testimony because you didn't hold back, and you were there
in the strongest of terms about all of the obligations that we
are not meeting at this point. And we know the devastation and
damage that does. So I think we will work very hard this year
to see what we can do, and thank you again for being here.
Mr. Francis. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you all for being here, and, I, too,
President Francis, appreciate and am curious about your
commentary on reforming the OMB. You probably have some friends
up here on the panel who agree with you on that proposal.
Ms. McCollum. Yeah.
Mr. Joyce. I was just wondering how you think we can make
them account for the funding to show that they are being fair
to Indian Country? Maybe an annual GAO report would be helpful,
but I am curious to hear your insight on this.
Mr. Francis. So, you know, one of the things we have been
trying to do at USET is work very hard on, you know, just trust
modernization, but also being able to quantify what is exactly
getting into Indian Country. How are the resources you all are
working hard to appropriate, how are those being used? And when
you look at the $3 billion BIA budget, for example, and we have
an Interior right now that refused to participate and doesn't
think it is their responsibility to show that they are
impacting tribes in a positive way, or meeting their treaty
obligations, trust obligations rather. So that is concerning in
not being able to understand where the unfunded need are and
all of that.
But to your question, at OMB, we will get a cross-cut from
them that will say $21 billion went to Indian Country, for
example. That is not really reflective of exactly what is
getting to Indian Country because you might have $3 billion of
that that went to States in block grants or other things that
tribes didn't know about. Now, in our region at USET, this is
prevalent because relationships in the northeast with states
and tribes is one that is growing still. And so I think tribes
may not even understand those resources are in the State, so
they may not be getting access to those.
So we would just like a more detailed accounting from them
of exactly what tribes are accessing, not what they were
eligible for. And their stance on consultation is the executive
orders don't apply, and so it has been challenging to sit down
and really get that kind of accounting. And so I think we need
more focus on exactly, and I am sure the committee would be
concerned about between BIA and IHS, you know, where is the $9
billion going. We know it is not enough, but we need to know
exactly how you are spending it to meet the needs of Indian
people, and that is not happening right now.
Mr. Joyce. Well, I wholeheartedly agree with you that we
need to have better oversight of how the money is being spent,
and I think we can find some agreement here that we would like
to work with you and the OMB in trying to get some bottom lines
so we can better analyze where the money is going and how it is
being spent. Thank you all again for being here.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Whitehead, I just have to admire your
suit coat there. My grandfather had one, but it was black, and
used to take me perch fishing up and around Fort Peck. So thank
you for being here, and congratulations on all the work that
you have done in the community to provide water for not just
tribal nations, but for your neighbors. And we see your needs
list here, so thank you for that.
And I think, Mr. Joyce, you kind of summarized what I was
going to say to Mr. Francis here. We know if your allocation,
for example, our subcommittee's allocation, doesn't get any
bigger this next year, we are going to be fighting just to keep
on what we have and that we don't get cut. And that is not
something that makes the members on this committee, as you
know, both Democrats and Republicans, very happy because we
want to see progress moving forward. The idea of really putting
numbers down and seeing where they are going, I think, would be
very helpful to this committee as well, too. When we ask
questions, when we ask for school lists, when we ask for
construction projects, we find ourselves not receiving the
information we have requested. And then consultation as well,
too. I am not a big fan of executive orders either, so I share
your pain with those.
Mr. Carlson, you are adding more school lunches with the
buffalo. Congratulations.
Mr. Carlson. We are trying to do that and get it out to
[Audio malfunction in hearing room.]
Ms. McCollum. I do my share of eating buffalo when I am
back in Minnesota. We had a hearing on chronic wasting disease,
and right now it does not seem like it is affecting buffalo
herd. But just knowing that it is in Minnesota kind of going
west, is that anything that you feel that more research or
anything needs to be done on?
Mr. Carlson. Well, you know, I think it would really help.
It would really help, you know. You know, it hasn't affected
any of our animals yet.
Ms. McCollum. Right.
Mr. Carlson. But you never know. I mean, it is moving west,
and it would be a concern, you know, and be a devastating
effect if it got into our herds.
Ms. McCollum. So far, so good. None in buffalo, but as we
know, sometimes these diseases sometimes all of a sudden will
spring a surprise on you and cross over.
Mr. Carlson. Yeah.
Ms. McCollum. One of the things that I asked some of the
other people on forestry is climate change is a concern.
Climate change and invasive species sometimes go hand in hand.
Sometimes it is just invasive species on their own. What you
brought up with fire, I think, was a little surprising to me. I
am going to look more into the backlog on that. So could you go
over again what happens, you have got 5 years to replant, and
then it goes into a backlog? What is special about those 5
years that it didn't go into a backlog right away?
Mr. Desautel. So BIA has allocated a certain amount of
funding for burn area rehabilitation, but you are only eligible
for that funding for 5 years past the containment date. If it
isn't accomplished during that 5 years, then it just gets added
to the BIA backlog, and that can be reforestation or thinning.
But we have seen across the West, and it compounds every year,
so if you have a big year like you did in 2015, there is $3.2
that were allocated for that year, but the BIA speculated that
there was a $55 million need. And if you look at that $3.2
million over the next 5 years to support that, you still would
not have had enough money, and that assumes you don't have any
fires over those next 4 years.
So what we tend to see is a compounding of unmet needs in
Indian Country, and for those forested acres that were forested
and don't see post-fire rehab, they tend to come back to
something else other than forest, and they just don't
contribute to the natural resource goals of many tribes. They
want those to be perpetually productive forests, providing
clean water, clean air----
Ms. McCollum. Right.
Mr. Desautel [continuing]. Cultural plants, all the things
that are important to tribes.
Ms. McCollum. That is good to know because the fire effects
part of what we want to do is fix some of the other things that
the Forest Service kept borrowing from. And as you know,
forestry has a bit of a foot in this committee and also on the
Ag Committee, so Ms. Pingree and I on the Ag Committee, as
well, too. So we will be watching to see how that balances out.
Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I didn't realize
that. So that is what I love about these hearings. I always
learn something.
So thank you all for coming. Thank you again for your
patience. It is not fun waiting around while we are off on the
floor voting. So this concludes the afternoon hearing, and we
stand adjourned until tomorrow morning begins at 9:00 a.m.
Thank you.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020.
TESTIMONY OF INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS
----------
AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE PUBLIC WITNESS DAY 2
WITNESSES
TERRY RAMBLER, CHAIRMAN, SAN CARLOS APACHE TRIBE
TIMOTHY NUVANGYAOMA, CHAIR, HOPI TRIBE
MICHELLE DEMMERT, CHIEF JUSTICE, CENTRAL COUNCIL TLINGIT AND HAIDA
INDIAN TRIBES OF ALASKA
TAMRA TRUETT JERUE, NATIVE VILLAGE OF ANVIK
Ms.McCollum. Good morning, and welcome to the second day of
public witness hearings on tribal programs under the
jurisdiction of the Interior, Environment, and Appropriations
Subcommittee.
Once again, in the hopes of having a more in-depth focus on
issues facing Indian Country, we have organized witnesses
according to the following topics: healthcare, land, trust,
national resource management, including climate change, public
safety and justice, education, tribal government, and human
services. Yesterday we heard from witnesses about the urgent
need for healthcare and the important issues facing and
impacting land, trust, natural resources, and climate change.
This morning, we will begin with panels on public safety and
justice issues, and conclude with witnesses on educational
issues. This afternoon, we will welcome native leaders to
discuss tribal government and human service issues.
I welcome today's distinguished elected tribal leaders and
non-elected tribal leaders, all who play an important role in
educating others on native issues and challenges. The issues we
will be hearing about this morning, once again, are part of
treaty and trust obligations that the United States owes to
Native Americans. Although the subcommittee has been focusing
on increasing funding for public safety and justice issues, we
know how much more is needed to address the unique challenges
facing Indian tribes, such as being in rural, isolated areas,
insufficient staffing, and salary challenges, and inadequate
buildings. This morning, we will learn more about these needs.
Unfortunately, the situation is the very same when it comes
to education. We have a responsibility to provide a quality
education and safe buildings to all students, and this is not
happening in Indian Country with dilapidated buildings, teacher
recruitment, and retention challenges, and, I might add, roads
that are so bad, they cause delays, longer bus rides, and
damaged equipment. These are just a few of the examples
creating challenges to the education of Native American
children. And similarly, tribal colleges have unique challenges
compared to other colleges and universities. Yet these schools
continue to operate and successfully graduate students, native
and non-native, despite the obstacles they face.
So I am eager to learn more about your priorities today
along with the rest of the committee. We look forward to our
discussions on these issues because I believe it will help
inform us as we begin to develop our 2021 appropriations bill.
Mr. Joyce will be joining us shortly, and out of respect
for the people who have testified, he wishes for us to start so
we don't delay people. And I thank Mr. Joyce for that courtesy
to the committee and to all of you.
So here are some logistics. I will call each panel of
witnesses to the table. We have our first panel of
distinguished witnesses already here. Each witness will have 5
minutes to present testimony, and we will use a tracker to
track the time. So when the light turns yellow, you have 1
minute left, and when the light blinks red, I will lightly tap
the gavel and ask the witnesses to conclude their remarks so
the witnesses can begin. And I do mean lightly. I was maybe a
little too light yesterday. So when you hear that, that is the
light ``tap, tap, tap.'' I don't want to swing it down hard and
cut you off mid-sentence as you are closing.
Each witness, your full statement is in the book. We have
access to it. We thank you for that, and I know sometimes you
elaborate on other things important to your tribe and your
region. We thank you for that information as well. So don't
feel pressured to cover everything, and you are going to be
getting some questions from us, too.
I would like to remind our guests in the hearing room that
committee rules prohibit the use of cameras and audio equipment
during the hearing by individuals without a House-issued press
credential. So when this morning's hearing concludes, we will
adjourn. No, we will recess.
Voice. We will adjourn.
Ms. McCollum. We are going to adjourn? Okay. We got into
this whole thing about recess and adjourning yesterday. I want
to get it right. We are all in agreement. We are going to
adjourn. We are going to adjourn and reconvene and 1:00 p.m.
for the hearing this afternoon. With that, I am happy to yield
to Mr. Kilmer, who says he wants to get right into testimony,
so we will do that. We will not have any votes this morning, so
that is why we won't be recessing. We will go straight to
adjournment at 1:00 when we are done. So that is fabulous news
for all of us.
We will start with Mr. Rambler to introduce yourself. We
won't count that against your time, and then we will start,
just after your introduction, start right into your testimony.
We found we gained time, and we didn't run as far behind rather
than doing a double introduction with me doing one and then you
doing one. Is that okay with everybody? Okay. Great. Mr.
Rambler, will you lead us off?
Mr. Rambler. Okay. Good morning. My name is Terry Rambler.
I am the chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe located in
Southeast Arizona. We are about 16,900 tribal members strong,
and we are located in Gila and Graham and Pinal Counties. Our
environment is very unique in that half of our area is desert
environment and the other half is pine country, so it is very
unique.
The current size of our reservation is 1.8 million acres. I
appreciate this opportunity to testify. My verbal testimony
focuses on the following: one, the dire need for BIA to replace
Building 86, which house our police department and tribal
courts before BIA condemned it in 2009 without an adequate
replacement. Two, the need to increase funding for BIA public
safety and justice operations. Three, the need to support
education for juvenile detainees. And four, the need to ensure
that IHS can demolish its old hospital on our reservation
without appropriations language preventing this.
The BIA built Building 86 in the 1970s to house our police
department and courts. The BIA owns Building 86 and had the
responsibility to maintain it. In 2009, the BIA condemned it
and tried to hand us the keys. BIA renovated a nearby Federal
building and moved its investigators there. However, BIA left
our police department and courts in this condemned building.
Six years later, BIA finally moved our police department and
courts into a modular building with the promise to permanently
replace the facility. The BIA modular is not functional. The
electricity and A/C go out consistently. The water and sewer
doesn't work. The doors don't lock, and the walls and floors
are flimsy. Here is a picture of our police officers in front
of the modular building.
Ms. McCollum. If you could move it a little closer. I thank
you for bringing it.
Mr. Rambler. I would ask you to walk in their shoes. What
would you do if you and your staff had to work in 120 heat with
no air conditioning, no running water, disgusting port-a-johns,
and little workspace? What would you do if your constituents,
including elderly and children, had to also deal with these
conditions at the facility when they are already going through
traumatic situations? We request an increase in funding for the
replacement of public safety facilities in fiscal year 2021,
and continue direction to BIA to replace condemned non-
corrections facilities, including Building 86.
Our committed law enforcement personnel risk their lives
daily. Last year, the San Carlos Police Department handled
almost 54,000 dispatch calls resulting in 32,000 calls for
service and 3,000 arrests. Police patrolled over 323 miles. Our
police officers work 12-hours shifts and overtime regularly.
They endure extreme situations made worse by the lack of an
adequate facility. To give you a sense of the conditions our
officers face, here is a picture of our police officers
blocking off a major road while working to contain a gang
shooting, which also involved drugs and a hostage situation.
We request an increase in funding in Fiscal Year 2021. The
volume of law enforcement needs increases every year as we face
countless rising costs. On our own, we provide classroom
instruction for our most at-risk youth and have made much
progress on a shoestring budget. Thank you for providing BIA
with funding for juvenile detainee education. BIA has told us
that it will only provide this funding to direct service
tribes, not 638 tribes like us, who have worked to improve our
self-governance on detention needs. We seek the committee's
assistance so that we can access this funding. There is another
picture there, an example of what can be done to turn young
lives around. Here is a photo of a young man who earned his GED
at the detention center. We are proud of how far he has come.
IHS built a hospital on the reservation in 1962. Over time,
this facility became antiquated and needed to be replaced. It
took 30 years, but a replacement healthcare facility finally
opened in 2015. Here is a picture of the old hospital. The old
hospital is centrally located in a busy area and has sat vacant
for over 5 years. It poses safety hazards, and we are worried
about the potential for criminal activity there. IHS planned to
demolish the old hospital this year. However, the final Fiscal
Year 2020 appropriations package contain a sentence that
prevents IHS from proceeding with demolition projects that cost
over $500,000.
IHS reports that the demolition of the old hospital will
cost more than that given the size of the compound, a remote
location, and rising costs. We request the committee support
for IHS' efforts to demolish the old hospital, and that
language preventing IHS from doing this does not make its way
into the final appropriations bill.
In closing, my elders have instructed me to remind the
committee that we are not here asking for welfare handouts.
Instead, we are here asking the Federal Government to honor its
obligations to my people under our treaty of 1852 for the many
things done to my people. And I thank you for your time.
[The statement of Mr. Rambler follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Good morning, sir.
Mr. Nuvangyaoma. Good morning. Let me get that going. Okay.
There we go.
Ms. McCollum. I forgot to----
Mr. Nuvangyaoma. And I just read the instructions, and I
overlooked it, so it is my fault. [Laughter.]
Good morning. My name is Timothy Nuvangyaoma. I am the
chairman of the Hopi Tribe, and we are located in northeastern
Arizona, and I am glad to be here to offer testimony this
morning.
And good morning, Chairwoman McCollum, Congressman Kilmer.
My name is Timothy Nuvangyaoma, and I have the honor of serving
as chairman of the Hopi Tribe. My testimony will focus on the
needs related to the Hopi Arsenic Mitigation Project, the Hopi
Detention Center, and the Hopi Unified School District.
First, the Hopi Tribe requests the subcommittee provide
funding for the completion of the Hopi Arsenic Mitigation
Project, or HAMP. During my testimony before this subcommittee
last year, I discussed the issue of arsenic contamination in
the Hopi Tribe's water supply. The water for eight of the
tribe's villages is contaminated with high levels of naturally-
occurring arsenic, levels that exceed the EPA's safe drinking
water standards by as much as 3 times the allowable
contaminants. This troubling situation led the tribe to create
the HAMP, whose mission is to find a solution to the arsenic
contamination. Since I appeared before the subcommittee last
year, there have been some positive developments. First, the
tribe greatly appreciate the subcommittee staff, along with
Indian Health Service's representatives visiting us to tour
HAMP. We are pleased to report that HAMP is now ranked as a
priority project by IHS and the EPA. This designation provides
full funding for Fiscal Years 2020 and 2021 through Safe
Drinking Water Act Program allocations. However, those funds
are contingent upon receiving the respective annual budget
appropriations.
In addition to HAMP, we are working with the BIA on the
Hopi Regional Water Expansion Project. This project would
extend the HAMP water system to schools, residences, and
institutional facilities. The estimated project construction
cost is approximately $7.5 million. The tribe is also working
with the Bureau of Reclamation on a regional water master
planning project. These critical water safety projects are not
funded beyond the planning phase and are dependent on future
congressional support.
The Hopi tribe's second request may also be familiar to the
subcommittee; that is, to help ensure timely completion of the
permanent Hopi detention center. In response to the abrupt
condemnation and closure of the Hopi detention center in 2016,
the BIA worked with this subcommittee to identify and
ultimately approve $5 million for the construction of a
permanent detention facility, quoting a July 17 letter from the
Interior Department to the subcommittee. ``Once initiated,
project completion could be accomplished within 7 to 9
months.''
As of today, 2-and-a-half years after that letter, there is
still no shovel in the ground. The BIA was supposed to install
a pre-fabricated building because it was the quickest to
deploy. However, without consulting the tribe, the BIA switched
to a design build. Currently, an architect is designing a new
detention center, but it is unclear when any actual
construction will begin. To say that the tribe is frustrated is
an understatement. Even yesterday, the BIA informed the tribe
it was changing the size of the facility from 80 beds to 60
beds. This was a unilateral decision by the BIA without
consultation. We cannot wrap our heads around the fact that
this subcommittee approved the $5 million 2-and-a-half years
ago, and we have no broken ground, only a broken promise.
Finally, the Hopi Tribe is asking for the subcommittee's
support as we work to unify our seven tribally-controlled
schools under a single school district. Our seven schools were
originally operated by the BIE and the BIA. From 1991 to 2014,
the Hopi Tribe gradually took over management of these schools
under the Tribally-Controlled Schools Act. However, the schools
remain individually operated by local school boards with little
communication between the schools, our students struggled to
achieve academic success.
In order to address this issue, the tribal council enacted
a new Hopi education code in August 2019. The code creates a
new unified Hopi school system that will improve collaboration,
consistency, and educational services within our schools. As we
transition to a new unified Hopi school system, we will need
assistance for several components of this undertaking,
including funding to manage the transition and construct the
central administration office. We have already identified the
site for the administration building, and estimated total
construction costs will be $2 million. Two, funding for new
school construction. Four of our schools, including the nearly
100-year-old Hopi Day School, are in very poor condition.
And finally, more flexibility. Under the Tribally-
Controlled Schools Act formula, once the tribe is under a
unified school system, application of the current formula would
reduce our administrative cost grant by 25 percent. This will
result in the annual loss of over $1 million to Hopi schools.
The Hopi Tribe appreciates any support the subcommittee can
lend to this positive transformation of our school system. I
want to thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I am
happy to answer any questions.
[The statement of Mr. Nuvangyaoma follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Ms. Demmert.
Ms. Demmert. Good morning. My name is Michelle Demmert. I
am a citizen of Central Council, Tlingit and Haida Indian
Tribes of Alaska, and I am the elected chief justice of our
supreme court. I am also the violence against woman co-chair
for the National Congress of American Indians.
So today I would like to speak to the public issue safety
issues in Alaska, which suffers as a result of the complex
jurisdictional structure, the vast geographic challenges, and
Public Law 280 issues. In addition, I will be making a
suggested amendment to an appropriations statute from the 90s
regarding legislating background checks. We desperately need
this amendment for all of Indian Country.
The 2013 Indian Law and Order Commission issues the report,
``A Road Map for Making Native Americans Safer,'' and devoted a
chapter to the unique issues in Alaska. The report found the
absence of an effective State justice system has
disproportionately harmed Alaska native women who are
continually targeted for all forms of violence. Alaska Native
women are overrepresented in the domestic violence victim
population by 250 percent. They comprise 19 percent of the
State population, but are 47 percent of reported rape victims.
The report further stated that decentralized law enforcement
with the State puts women at risk? Why is decentralized law
enforcement? Because of Public Law 280.
In the September 2019 report, Alaska ranked first as the
State with the highest homicide rate among female victims
killed by male offenders, 3 times the national rate. In the
victims murdered, 40 percent were Alaska Native or American
Indians. These staggering statistics have to stop. There are
many barriers that make it difficult for Tlingit and Haida to
adequately protect our Alaska Native women residing in what are
often remote villages. The crux of the problem is that Alaska
is a mandatory PL 280 State, which, in the 1950s, required the
State to assume criminal and civil jurisdiction in matters
involving Indians, an unfunded mandate.
The National Institute of Justice has observed the impact
of PL 280. The act violates tribal sovereignty by giving States
concurrent criminal jurisdiction. The act is often cited as a
rationale for denying PL 280 tribes funding for law
enforcement. Public Law 280's impact on crime is largely
unknown. This is because crime in an associated jurisdiction is
often underreported or not reported at all. Forty percent of
our communities in Alaska lack any law enforcement whatsoever.
Legal scholars point out the issues. Although data is
difficult to obtain from the BIA, we did determine that for
Fiscal Year 1998--this is how long ago they have even looked at
this issue--mandatory Public Law 280 tribes receive less than
20 percent per capita of what non-Public Law 280 tribes
received. So we need direct funding to tribes who are providing
the solutions in their communities. We need regular funding for
this effort that we can count on from year to year.
In addition, funding barriers regarding domestic violence
programs. While U.S. DOJ has attempted to direct funding
towards domestic violence and sexual assault, many Federal
programs do not allow us to spend money to serve perpetrators.
If we can't get our perpetrators healthy, then we are setting
them up for failure and more abuse of our women and children.
Finally, we need equal access to the National Database for
legitimate governmental purposes. In 2015, DOJ created the
Tribal Access Program, also known as TAP, which provides
eligible tribes with access to the Criminal Justice Information
System.
There are two issues with this access. One, we need a
dedicated funding stream created for expanding the TAP Program
and making it available to all interested tribes. Two, we need
an amendment to what was originally an appropriations statute.
Public Law 92-544 has been codified in 34 U.S. Code 41101. This
statute allows States to legislate for legitimate governmental
purposes to access the criminal database. We need to be
included in this statute and need a technical fix. Right now,
we can only access the database through a State or Federal
purpose. We cannot legislate for our needs. Tribes have the
same legitimate governmental needs for access to these records
for possible elected official background checks, a person
overseeing the tribe's finances, or caretaking for our elders.
We need to be able to create these laws and put them in place
to ensure the safety and health of our communities like any
other sovereign.
Instead, tribes have to use FBI channelers, non-
governmental agencies who have access to these databases, for
these legitimate governmental purposes. Tribes should not be
prejudiced. I have copies of the proposed fix with your staff.
It is two amendments with three words, and I am told that the
Department of Justice supports this amendment.
So in summary, fully fund all tribal governmental needs,
regardless of whether a tribe is located in a Public Law 280
State. Expand grant programs that take into account the unique
circumstances of Alaska tribes. Direct DOJ to create funding
for perpetrators of gender-based violence, and amend 34 U.S.
Code 41101. Gunalcheesh Haw'aa. Thank you taking the time to
listen to our concerns. We look forward to the results of this
committee.
[The statement of Ms. Demmert follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Good morning.
Ms. Jerue. Good morning. My name is Tami Truett Jerue. I am
a citizen of the Anvik Tribe on the lower Yukon in Alaska. We
are a Deg Hit'an Athabascan tribe, extremely remote. [Speaking
native language.] I have just recently actually moved out of
Anvik and moved to Fairbanks recently to take over the
direction of the Alaska Native Women's Resource Center that I
am also the executive director of.
The Anvik Tribe has asked me to speak today regarding the
following House appropriations considerations: support of the
authority of the Alaska Native tribal governments to design and
carry out local, culturally-relevant solutions to public safety
and justice by appropriating funds, and specifically for Alaska
tribes; develop and strengthen tribal law enforcement and
judicial responses.
For the past 3 years, we have seen new Department of
Interior Office of Justice Services tribal justice support
appropriations for tribes in Public Law 280 States. In the past
year, there was a $10 million appropriation regarding tribes
and tribal courts in Public Law 280 States. We thank the
committee, and we ask that you continue funding this program
and consider an increase, and support comprehensive tribal
justice services as defined by the Alaska Tribes Beyond Funding
Only Tribal Courts.
Provide dedicated Federal funding through the Department of
Justice and Department of Interior's various laws enforcement
programs for Alaska tribal law enforcement; training officers
for Alaska Native tribal governments since the State of Alaska
has seriously underfunded and actually cut State funding for
the VPS, Village Public Safety Officers, to ensure the greatest
accountability; continue appropriating increased tribal funding
under 42 U.S.C. Chapter 110, the Family Violence Prevention and
Services Act, within the Department of Health and Human
Services for lifesaving shelter and supportive services to
ensure adequate shelter services are accessible in the villages
for native women.
Current appropriations for the tribal governments are 10
percent funding stream, plus the $7 million that was
appropriated. Thank you very much for that extra appropriation.
Continue appropriating dedicated tribal funding under the
Victims of Crime Act to support much-needed tribal crime victim
services designed and managed by tribal governments. I think
that is imperative, designed and managed by tribal governments.
The Anvik Tribe is a Deg Hit'an Athabascan community with a
rich history. We are located on the west bank of the Yukon
River in the interior of Alaska. We are an isolated tribe with
378 enrolled members, with only 100 members living on our
tribal traditional lands. Access to Anvik is by small plane,
boat, or snow machine, depending on the season. With permission
and support of the Anvik Tribal Council, I am here today to
testimony on the harsh realities that we fact every day.
When we talk about public safety and justice for Alaska
tribes, it is a very complex discussion. Chapter 2 of the 2013
Indian Law and Order Commission report to Congress and the
President documents very well our challenges and barriers. Like
over half of Alaska's tribes, Anvik does not have law
enforcement and continues to not have law enforcement. This
absence of law enforcement, combined with other challenges
facing Alaska tribes, results in an unacceptable lack of public
safety and justice.
Lack of resources, such as safe shelter, sexual assault
advocacy, crisis services, jails, treatment, and other
interventions continue to impact victims, survivors, and their
families, their community, and the perpetrators. My home has
often been the safe house in our community in many instances.
For victims and their children of violence, some villages have
these safehouses, and some do not have that opportunity. My
husband was a former chief for 28 years, and other tribal
citizens who are the intervenors in basically in anything that
happens oftentimes in terms of crisis, including the dangerous
ones. Given the lack of law enforcement and resources, we
respond to violence, search and rescue, medical emergencies,
and deaths.
Is there law enforcement? Not law enforcement as defined by
the State or Federal Government, but tribal citizens have had
to maintain order as best they can to keep women and children
and other safe. This is a common occurrence in our rural
communities in Alaska, and unfortunately has become a normal
part of village life. At this point in time, Anvik does not
have law enforcement, again. The only other law enforcement
options are the Alaska State troopers, who are located in
Antiak, a hub community that is an hour-and-a-half by airplane
away from the community, and their responsible for 46 other
remote and rural communities, and they take two week on, two
week off, so there is never more than two troopers at the post
at one time.
Anvik often has impassable weather for days, leaving
victims vulnerable and crimes neglected. This seems like an
unending complaint, but in reality, we are repeating ourselves.
To help understand the unique conditions that exist in Alaska
and all over the U.S., demand that we become creative and
resourceful in our ability to provide that response. As I just
shared, there has been a consistent pattern in adequate State
law enforcement response and a lack of Federal appropriations
for tribal justice responses, including the lack of
comprehensive systemic infrastructure to address safety and
accountability for the extreme levels of domestic and sexual
violence in Alaska's villages.
Please review the findings and recommendations from the
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights 2018 briefing report titled,
``Broken Promises: Continuing Federal Funding Shortfall for
Native Americans.'' I will go ahead and cut this short a
little. I do want to repeat a quote that my daughter----
Ms. McCollum. I am doing that because I was going to pull
it out and made sure you read it. Please.
Ms. Jerue. My daughter had the opportunity to provide
testimony at the 2019 Annual Violence Against Women Government
to Government Tribal Consultation. She said, ``As a young girl,
I had never imagined that I would have to be here today
pleading to have adequate funding and assistance to protect my
sisters, my aunts, and my cousins. I had sworn that I wouldn't
get into this line of work because I saw the toll it took on my
mother and my family. I have seen how hard our advocates work
with little resources that they have. I have seen how hard our
people are trying to make a change. I am honored, but I am also
saddened that I am here as the next generation to provide my
testimony on the realities that we face day in and day out."
And as her mother, of course, I am very proud of her, but I
really am not proud that she has to continue telling this same
message. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Jerue follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you. And thank you for sharing that.
That was very powerful when I read it. I have read it twice.
And when we do our final vote on the passage for Women Against
Violence Act, I am going to submit that as part of my statement
to the record. Thank you for sharing that. Thank your daughter
for her work. My daughter has been in similar lines of work,
but not facing the same challenges that you and your daughter
and your sisters are facing. So thank you.
Ms. Jerue. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Kilmer, do you have a question, concern?
Mr. Kilmer. No. Thank you for your testimony.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Joyce, welcome. I told people you wanted
us to get going so that we didn't hold anybody up. Thank you
for your professional courtesy.
Mr. Joyce. Well, I appreciate your moving forward. I
apologize for being late. I was at a breakfast with tribal
members that Congressman Cole was hosting, and even though I
said I was getting out on time, we kept chatting. So I
appreciate the opportunity for all of you being here. Chairman
Rambler, I missed your testimony, but I know that you have a
very interesting initiative on juvenile justice. Could you
explain why the BIA is refusing to fund that?
Mr. Rambler. On that issue, what we have learned is that on
the juvenile detainees is that in spite of the services being
in our scope of work within our 638 contract, in spite of that,
the BIA is only funding direct service tribes and not 638
tribes like us. You know, Congress intended us to grow as a
people to empower ourselves and to enhance our sovereignty by
providing this opportunity to contract through the Self-
Determination Act. So that what is we have done. And it seems
like we are being penalized to enhance our growth, and these
funds are just reserved for the direct service tribes. And
whatever is there, I know it is not sufficient as it is, too.
Mr. Joyce. I am sorry to hear that. Maybe it is something
we could talk about further.
Ms. McCollum. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Joyce. I look forward to working with you all, and
thank you all for being here and your powerful testimony.
Ms. McCollum. Chairman Rambler, the language that you
referred to with a cap is something that we sought to remove on
the House side. If you would talk to our colleagues in the
Senate, I think that is something that we are hopeful could be
removed. It is awkward to say, but I am going to say it. I
don't think the Senate understood the impact of that language.
We do, and if you could share that with either their counsel or
with some of the members both on the Appropriations or the
authorization, think we can see that go away.
Mr. Rambler. I sure will.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. The EPA under the President's budgets
had severe cuts in the Clean Drinking Water Program. That was
the President's, you know, he proposed that. We are going to
protect clean drinking water out of this subcommittee. We did
last Congress, bipartisan. We will do it again this Congress.
So we hope to be able to see your project move forward, so
thank you for sharing with that.
And then, you know, this time and time again is very
frustrating for us. We make it very clear that we expect the
BIA, Department of Interior, the Bureau of Indian Education,
IHS, we expect all of them to do meaningful, deliberate,
thoughtful, fully participatory consultation. And it is a great
frustration to all of us when they hear that they are not doing
that. And we have been trying to get their attention, and we
are going to have to maybe figure out a way to really make sure
that we have their attention. And I know this is something that
our Senate colleagues feel frustration with, too. Repeating a
broken promise to us on consultation is something we don't want
to hear. We want to heart that, so thank you for sharing that.
The public laws that you, who spoke on behalf of our
sisters, whose lives are under, you know, threat and
intimidation, they have to go through either the authorizing
committee. Maybe we can start either in the justice committee
or we can start in the authorization for natural resources. We
would like to work with you on that because they are not even
public laws that I on this committee with my colleagues, you
know, directly are involved with. For us to put something like
that in an appropriation bill could be a fool's errand because
it could end up coming out on the floor because of
jurisdictional issues. And then I don't want to start down a
road that is not going to have a good ending for us. So we
would like to work with you to resolve that, but that is
something at this time that we would find very difficult.
The TAP funds, I will bring that up to our colleague, and I
know Mr. Joyce will bring it up with the ranking member of that
appropriations committee, too. And thank you for sharing that,
though, because they don't have the public witness for Native
American improvements the way that we do, so this gives us an
opportunity to have a conversation with our colleagues.
So thank you all for your testimony. We took lots of notes,
and we look forward moving together to make sure that Indian
Country has the justice it deserves. Thank you.
Voices. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. If the second panel would please come up, and
we will switch out the nameplates.
----------
Wednesday, February 12, 2020.
AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE PUBLIC WITNESS DAY 2--PANEL 2
WITNESSES
RODNEY BORDEAUX, PRESIDENT, ROSEBUD SIOUX TRIBE
DAVID BEAN, CHAIRMAN, PUYALLUP INDIAN TRIBE
RICHARD PETERSON, CHAIRMAN, RED CLIFF BAND OF LAKE SUPERIOR CHIPPEWA
TRACEY TREPPA, VICE CHAIRPERSON, HABEMATOLEL POMO OF UPPER LAKE
Ms. McCollum. Good morning. So once again, the green light
will start after you start your testimony, so please introduce
yourself. Start your testimony. The light will go on for 5
minutes. The yellow will mean 1 minute remaining, and then the
red means please conclude. So if you would lead us off, sir.
Thank you, and welcome.
Mr. Bordeaux. Good morning, Chairwoman McCollum and members
of the committee. My name is Rodney Bordeaux. I am president of
the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. I want to thank you, Chairwoman, for
coming out to Rosebud last October. We appreciate it, and we
were glad to host you.
The Rosebud Sioux Tribe is amongst the top 10 land-based
tribes in the United States. Our land consists of approximately
1 million acres. We have close to 35,000 enrolled tribal
members, 30,000 of which live on or near our reservation.
Through our 1851 and 1868 treaties with the United States, we
have ceded millions of acres of land, and remain steadfast and
resolute in our pledge of peace in exchange for the U.S.
agreeing to ensure that our lands will remain livable and
peaceful.
A key responsibility of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the
U.S. is provide public safety and justice services to our
tribal members, others living and working on our lands, as well
as the general public visiting and traveling through our
reservation. Some of our main priorities are our adult
correctional facility and the juvenile detention center. Our
ACF, which is adult correctional facility, is a 220-bed
facility and houses 130 inmates on the average. Eighty-nine
percent of the population is meth related, I mean, in terms of
arrests. The facility is in need of $600,000 in additional
funding for personnel, food, transport, training, and
counseling services. Our JDC, juvenile detention center, has 21
employees and has a need for 30. This facility has a lot of
structural problems, and we basically need a new facility.
Our law enforcement services covering the 1 million acres
responds to 22,000 service calls every year. We only have 25
officers and four criminal investigators, so we need an
additional 20 officers at a cost of approximately $1 million,
and we need to acquire 20 additional police units at an
approximate cost of $800,000. To give you an idea of the
magnitude of our meth problem, last week, our officers
confiscated and busted a young lady, and we recovered 3 pounds
of meth, marijuana, and opioids. The street value of the meth
alone came to about $240,000. So we are really aggressive in
our busts, and we are leading all the tribes in our area in
regard to busts.
So despite our funding levels, we are working with local
counties, sheriffs departments, city officers, and we are
developing memorandums of agreement. We are also working within
southcentral South Dakota. We are working with Cherry County in
Nebraska law enforcement, and we have good relationships with
them. We share information, and we are going forward. And those
departments are vastly underfunded as well, so they don't bring
nothing to the table, just sharing information and working
together. So despite that, we are building a good relationship.
Although we are opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline that
will be coming through our territories, there is a likelihood
that it may begin construction in August 2020. With that comes
the man camps, so we must protect our women and children, and
we support the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization with
enhanced tribal jurisdiction. Our tribal courts, we have a
current budget of $1.5 million with BIA and other grant
funding. The grant funding is conditional. It is very limited.
So we request another $500,000 to keep our current level of
funding. A new courthouse. It is a facility built in the 80s,
and it is just seen its day, so we need a new courthouse
facility. And we working with an A&E firm on trying to get some
figures in that regard.
Another big service that provides needed ambulatories are
our ambulance service. It was founded in 1968, and it was first
American Indian ambulance service in the country. It serves
over 30,000 tribal members 24 hours a day and responds to 6,000
calls on the average per year. It remains chronically
underfunded, and the Indian Health Service does not provide any
funding for medical transports. Mental health patients, it is
kind of dangerous for our crews, so we are working with IHS to
resolve that issue, and it is their job to do that, and they
don't provide the funding for that.
So in conclusion, we need a detox facility, a new JDC
facility, a new courthouse/justice center, and a new ambulance
facility as well as increased law enforcement and court
personnel costs. We would like for you to explore options to
combine public safety-related funding from the Interior, Health
and Human Services, and the Justice Department, that would
allow tribes on a need-based criteria. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Bordeaux follows:]
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Mr. Bean. [Speaking native language.] Good day, honorable
friends. Thank you for this time on the floor. My name is
[Speaking native language] My English name is David Bean, and I
am the chairman of the Puyallup Tribe. The Puyallup Tribal
Council is responsible for providing for our 5,500 members and
25,000 Native Americans who live within our service area. We
provide healthcare services, educational services, social
services, public safety services, and a myriad of social
service programs to people in or community. People in our
community rely on the continued resources and support through
Federal appropriations, which reflect the trust responsibility
and treaty obligations to American Indians and Alaska Natives
and tribes.
Today I am going to talk about the tribe's top priority:
public safety. Keeping citizens safe and secure is the most
basic of duties for any government. This is no less true for
tribes. My focus today on public safety is the result of this
past summer that none of us ever want to relive. There were a
series of shooting on or near our reservation resulting in
seven people being hospitalized and three dead. Our staff, they
felt terrorized. Our council struggled between balancing the
concerns and safety of our staff with providing services to our
community. This occurred in the height of summer when people
are outside enjoying the warm sun, enjoying the beautiful
northwest, you know, a time when our communities are
celebrating one another. This occurred in a place where our
families are supposed to feel safe, where our employees are
supposed to feel safe in their work environment, where our kids
are supposed to play outside without fear of any stray bullets.
Our law enforcement staff, they work 12-hour days, 6 days a
week. They are tired. They tell me that this escalating
violence is associated with a resurgence of gang violence. At
one time, we identified 28 gangs within our reservation. We
worked collaboratively with our neighboring governments and
fellow partners to address this gang problem. Unfortunately,
what we now know today is that the gangs did not go away. They
moved. The gang activity that they are involved in--drug
trafficking, human trafficking, weapons sales, and turf wars--
moved with them. They moved blocks away from our administration
and our housing community, our tribal housing developments.
They moved within blocks of our administration, our elder
center, and our health facility.
We are in the middle of a deadly game of whack-a-mole. What
we are lacking is dedicated Federal resources needed to combat
this problem. Our officers, like I stated a moment ago, are
working numerous hours of overtime. And when we reached out to
the BIA, we were told that they had no resources to help us.
The BIA's response was simply inadequate. It was irresponsible.
It left me wondering how the BIA found the resources to send
multiple law enforcement agents to set up a command center to
monitor and arrest people who were engaged what was one of the
most historic and positive gatherings in Indian people in a
generation at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. But they
could not find even one officer to send to help us during our
time of crisis, during our time of fear, during a time of
terror.
Apparently, oil pipelines are more important than our
tribal health centers and our elders' care centers. In short, I
said it once, and I will say it again, our officers are tired,
and they need reinforcements. We ask that the subcommittee
provide increased funding for tribes like Puyallup, who are in
PL 280 States and have received minimal directed law
enforcement funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
A critical part of our law enforcement program is our
detention facility. We have a 28-bed adult correction facility.
We work closely with the OJS to develop and agree upon
operating costs of $2.7 million. Sadly, the BIA only provides
26 percent of the need to operate the facility. We appreciate
the $105 million that Congress provided for additional
correctional detention centers. We know this is not enough to
keep pace with inflation. This is not enough to make the
Puyallup Tribe whole for the job that we are doing on behalf of
the United States government. This is equally true for our
tribal courts and programs.
As I conclude my remarks, I do want to express the tribe's
strong support for our natural resource programs. As we work to
make our communities safer, we must work to make it healthier.
This means strong support for our natural resources programs,
which are critical to our culture, our lifestyle, and our
diets. We also want to emphasize the need for increased funding
for BIE and for our Chief Leschi School. And finally, I would
be remiss if I did not join my fellow tribal leaders in calling
for increased funding for Indian Health Service. We support the
comments and testimony of the Northwest Indian Fish Commission
as well.
Thank you for this time on the floor.
[The statement of Mr. Bean follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Peterson, before you start, we
have a group of young Native American leaders, the future, walk
into the room. And if one of you would come forward and
identify what group you are with, that would be terrific, and
thank you so much for being here. Just press the little red
button there.
Ms. Owens. Good morning. My name is Tyler Owens, and I come
from the Gila River Indian Community. Here we have three
members of our Akimel O'odham/Pee-Posh Youth Council that has
been going for over 25, 30 years. And we are one of the
longest-standing tribal youth councils that takes place in the
U.S., as well as we have our Junior Miss Gila River, and myself
as Ms. Gila River, here. Thank you for having us.
Ms. McCollum. We are so welcomed to have you here, and we
look forward to you taking good care of not only Indian
Country, but the United States, our future leaders here. Thank
you for coming. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Peterson, for indulging.
Mr. Peterson. Is it working? [Speaking native language.] My
name is Rick Peterson. I am the tribal chairman of the Red
Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in northern Wisconsin.
Well, first, I want to thank Chairwoman McCollum and the
committee for allowing us to come and voice our concerns. I was
here last year and another time before, and what I am here for
echoes the testimony of my fellow tribal leaders since I have
been sitting in this room.
I have two issues today. Again, I bring back the issue of
the need to increase the funding for tribal police departments.
Our police department, well, the drug epidemic, as we know, the
meth, especially, our community is under assault by the meth,
and the funding that we get from the BIA is totally inadequate.
Our budget that we submitted was for over $500,000. We have a
five-member police force. We were awarded $160,000.
Multiple times we have put in for end-of-year funding for
equipment. Our police chief, he had the newest vehicle, and his
vehicle was 12 years old. We, again, put in for end-of-year
funding last year, and we were given some, but police equipment
was not part of it, vehicles. I want to tell you a little story
about what we had to do to get new police vehicles. We reached
out to another tribe in Wisconsin and asked if they would help
fund two new police vehicles for us. That is a travesty. It
really is. We thank the Forest County Potawatomi Tribe of
Wisconsin for funding that. They gave us enough money to get
two new police vehicles.
But this is an ongoing problem. This is something that not
only our tribe faces, but tribes throughout Indian Country
face. We are doing our best to fight these issues, these drug-
related issues. With the drug-related issues, our police
department is increasingly stretched. ICW. Our cases have
increased tenfold, and every time ICW staff has to go to a
house, it requires a police officer to be there, and they are
so inadequately funded. And, you know, I come back to the table
again asking that the Appropriations Committee increase the
base-level funding. We need to depend on that money year in,
year out. Right now we don't. You know, every year, you know,
we ask ourselves are we going to be able to support this police
department a year from now, and that is a question that we
can't plan around.
The second item I am here for is the need for the BIA to
increase the funding for tribal roads department. Our tribal
roads department, I will read a statement here, it says, ``The
Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has reached a critical
impasse in its ability to effectively maintain BIA roads within
the reservation boundaries. This is due to the practice of
deferring maintenance due to the lack of funding provided in
self-determination contracts with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
All reasonable attempts have been made to secure additional
funding to meet the needs of the programs, including U.S. and
Wisconsin Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban
Development, BIA programs, to provide new equipment and
maintenance facility.''
With that statement I want to wrap up. I am running out of
time here. Right around Thanksgiving, we had a storm where we
had 3 feet of snow overnight. Our community was shut down for 5
days. Every piece of equipment we had broke down. Our grater is
25 years old. There was an emergency call in the middle of the
night. The ambulance got stuck in the middle of the road for 2
hours. Community members had to come out with their trucks to
plow him out. Again, as I mentioned with the police vehicles,
this is a travesty, and it is a health and safety issue now.
Miigwetch. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Peterson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Please.
Ms. Treppa. Good morning, Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking
Member Joyce, and honorable members of the subcommittee. Can
you hear me okay? My name is Tracey Treppa. I am the vice
chairperson of Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake. We are located
in a rural county just northwest of Sacramento.
Like most tribes, we have had a complicated and often
tragic relationship with the Federal Government. My people
survived the U.S. Army's attack during Bloody Island Massacre.
We persevered through termination. We have overcome the loss of
our lands, and today we are still here and committed to
building a better tribal nation for the next general of
Habematolel children. We have just under 300 tribal members and
a land base of 11.24 acres. The tribe's executive council is
working to restore our lands, provide for our children, and
build a robust tribal legal system to protect the rule of law.
Today I want to discuss two funding priorities that are
absolutely essential to the rule of law in fostering healthy
and safe communities. The first is tribal court funding for
tribes in Public Law 280 States, and the second is funding for
private safety training. I will address those priorities now.
Tribal courts are essential to the effective exercise of
tribal sovereignty. Tribal courts administer justice in our
communities, provide a forum for tribes to receive child
welfare cases, and ensure that law and order is upheld and
protected. Unfortunately, for years, tribes located in Public
Law 280 States have not had access to Federal funding to create
and sustain tribal court systems. This lack of resources
hindered my own tribe's ability to create a court. For years,
the BIA prioritized tribes in non-Public Law 280 States since
the Federal Government was primarily responsible for criminal
jurisdiction in Indian Country there. That left tribes in
public States, such as California, with no Federal support to
create or sustain a tribal judiciary. They Habematolel
advocated for change and pleaded with Congress to provide us
with the same tribal court funding support as tribes in non-
Public Law 280 received.
Fortunately, in 2015, Congress acted and required the BIA
to quantify how much it would cost to provide tribal court
funding to tribes in PL 280 States. The BIA sent a report to
Congress, which found that it funded tribal courts in non-PL
280 States at a mere 6.814 percent of the true cost of
operating and supporting the court. Further, the report
estimated it would cost $1.69 million to fund tribal courts in
Public Law 280 States at the same level. The BIA's report noted
that while----
Ms. McCollum. We are fine.
Ms. Treppa. Okay. $16.9 million would not be widely viewed
as robust, or perhaps even adequate. It would match existing
levels of funding in non-PL 280 States, which reflect a
constrained physical environment. Congress took the BIA's
report and acted quickly to appropriate money for tribes in PL
280 States. In the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act,
Congress made $10 million in tribal court funding available to
tribes in PL 280 States. This was the first time that ever
happened.
After this law was passed, our tribe submitted a funding
request to the BIA to help us create a tribal judiciary. The
BIA awarded us $72,000 to begin the work on the system. This
may not seem like much, but our tribe has made a significant
difference. It allowed us to cover the startup costs that
previously had hindered our ability to create a judiciary. The
tribe used the funds to develop a judicial code, court rules,
bench book, child welfare code, and conduct site visits to
other tribal courts.
I am proud to say that now the legal infrastructure has
been created to support our judiciary. We will be looking to
retain our first judge and begin hearing cases within a year.
This would not be possible without the support of the
subcommittee in funding direct to tribal courts in PL 280
States. I strongly urge you retain this funding and expand upon
it.
The second priority I want to discuss is funding for public
safety training. The tribe strongly supports the mission of the
BIA's Office of Justice, or OJS, and its support for training
opportunities in Indian Country. The tribe received funding
from OJS in 2019 to host a jurisdictional training in our
homelands. The training took place in February of last year.
This intergovernmental event convened tribal, State, local, and
Federal Governments and governmental agencies.
The training covered PL 280 jurisdiction, Violence Against
Women Act, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and the opioid crisis.
It was great to see the different governments and government
agencies come together to learn how each of our jurisdictions
interact and impact the others. The event was one of the
biggest and most diverse intergovernmental trainings to ever
take place in Lake County.
We have seen a noticeable positive impact in our
coordination with neighboring jurisdictions. The tribe
appreciates Congress' commitment to fund these training
opportunities, and we strongly encourage the subcommittee to
maintain and expand these training funds.
That concludes my testimony. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Treppa follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Kilmer.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to each of
you for your testimony. Chairman Bean, I want to thank you for
your testimony. Your words are important. Your work is really
important, too. You appropriately called out just how big a
role the tribe plays in employment in our region and providing
services in our region, natural resource leadership. And I know
this is a public safety panel, but I want to just have you
speak a bit to the work that the tribe is doing around natural
resources and how important those issues are from a treaty
rights standpoint, from the standpoint of the economics and
culture of your tribe.
Mr. Bean. Thank you, Congressman. That is a great question.
And, you know, when we signed the Medicine Creek Treaty of
1854, that treaty guaranteed our right to fish and hunt and
gather, as we have done so since the beginning of time. And,
you know, we are partners with the Federal Government in
protecting the natural resources, and that extends to
protecting the habitat that provides nourishment and protection
for our natural resources, be it fish, elk, roots, and berries.
You know, it is a part of our way of life. It is a part of our
culture. It is part of our DNA. And so it is vitally important.
These natural resources are under attack by natural threats
and manmade threats, and we need our Federal partners' help in
protecting the habitat and continuing to raise fish in our
hatcheries that benefit not just tribes, but non-native
fishermen throughout the State of Washington. It is vital to
the economy in the State of Washington. It is vital to tribal
economies. It is vital to our culture and our traditional ways.
You know, we are taught that we are connected to Mother
Earth, and that, you know, being salmon people, we are taught
that when our salmon go away, then we cease to exist. And, you
know, for the first time in many years, our fishermen are
sitting on the banks of the river. There are no fish for our
fisherman to catch, you know. We are having ceremonies, and
when we open our ceremonies, there are no fish to open our
ceremonies, and that is something we have never seen before. So
we need our Federal Government to help in protecting our salmon
and our natural resources. So thank you for that question.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all for coming
today and for your testimony. Chairman Bean, I want to go back
to you. I heard you talking about how you do get some funds
from BIA, and then you supplement those funds with your own
funds, but I don't believe I heard you discuss the Department
of Justice or any of the grants that are available through DOJ.
Is there a reason?
Mr. Bean. We turn over every stone, and we apply for every
grant available, and it is quite simply the funding is not
there.
Mr. Joyce. So do you think it might be better if the
Department of Justice moved that money to the BIA and let them
award it in the grant programs?
Mr. Bean. I would love to see, you know, some additional
funding in whatever form----
Ms. McCollum. Yeah.
Mr. Bean [continuing]. In whatever form because, for
example, with limited time, I didn't get to talk about, you
know, our law enforcement program is a $5 million budget. The
BIA provides 10 percent of that, which means the tribe is
carrying the water for our Federal relatives, and carrying the
trust responsibility to not just our Puyallup tribal community,
but the 25,000 natives that live in and on and around our
reservation, on top of our non-native neighbors. You know, we
are we are doing our best to stretch the resources. So however
Congress sees fit to, welcome expanded funding because the need
and what is actually provided to meet that need is vastly
different.
We are working with our neighboring jurisdictions. You
know, we are thankful for the City of Tacoma Police Department,
Pierce County sheriff, and then the State patrol. You know,
they came and they responded during the gang violence this
summer. And we are having to partner with them, and we are
having to share resources. So when Congress sends money to
tribes or States, it is not just benefiting one over the other.
It is benefitting the region. So we welcome expanded resources
however we can get them, sir.
Mr. Joyce. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Bean. Thank you.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you all for coming.
Ms. McCollum. People are leaving. I'm going to ask a
question.
Voice. Oh. [Laughter.]
Ms. McCollum. So one of the things that I heard, and I'm
glad that you brought it up, especially with what is happening
in Rosebud, is meth is still a problem. And there has been such
a focus on opioids, and rightly so because pharmaceutical
companies, through deceptive marketing, hooked, you know,
millions and millions of Americans in Indian Country and
throughout the country. But meth is still a huge problem, and
it presents different challenges for law enforcements and for
communities in general. So I am assuming that you are seeing if
someone is cooking and manufacturing meth in a house, all of a
sudden you lose housing on a reservation.
Mr. Bean. Yeah.
Ms. McCollum. That is correct. Thank you for pointing that
out. So the whole issue about, you know, grants kind of looking
at each other, I think one of the challenges and frustrations
that I have had is tribal nations have to have you know, like
full-time grant writers, and that costs money out of the tribal
budgets to begin with. And then if you are applying to a
Department of Justice grant and a BIA grant, and one comes
through, but the other one doesn't come through, you don't have
a holistic approach that you need. Mr. Cole and I have been
kind of working together on kind of consolidating some of the
healthcare needs. We are not there yet, but at least we are
having those discussions.
So I want you to know I am going to reach out, along with
Mr. Joyce, to our colleagues on the other committees that you
apply for grants. Do you have any anything that, you know, Mr.
Joyce, and Mr. Kilmer, and I should kind of keep in the back of
our head of when we talk to our colleagues about what would a
grant application look like if you are applying to different
agencies to solve a problem? If you can give me one or two
things I should be thinking about as I have a conversation with
my colleagues.
Mr. Bean. Thank you for raising that issue. Just to be
clear, I want to make sure that tribes, we do our best to leave
no stone unturned. So lack of funding, it is not for a lack of
effort, you know. They are highly competitive, and there are
complex formula. So if you simplify the formula, it is just
competitive. If you have a larger population, guess what? Then
the funds follow the larger population into a small tribe. You
know, how do we compete with tribes with larger populations?
And so I think that is one thing to be mindful of because
while we are 5,500, we serve a native population of 25,000. The
City of Tacoma is a part of the Federal relocation efforts that
has resulted in these large populations of natives from over,
you know, 200 tribes across the United States. Now, if we go up
against a tribe, let's say, for example, has, you know, 50,000-
, 60,000-member population or a quarter million population, the
competition is just not there. We are considered a small tribe,
but we provide for a lot of people much larger than the size of
our enrollment.
Ms. McCollum. That is a great point to make. And, Mr.
Peterson, I know what you mean about our rural communities
being extraordinarily isolated. I have been in your part of
Wisconsin, and you are very isolated, whether it is a blowdown,
a tornado, a snowstorm. And not to have the right equipment to
get in, it can take hours, and, as you said, days to take care
of people. You can lose electricity, and then you are not
charging your cell phone. I mean, it is a whole cascading
effect. So when you look at doing equipment grants, life,
health, and safety really isn't one of that the factors that
comes into it when you are applying for road maintenance help,
for graders and things like that, is it?
Mr. Peterson. No, it is not at all. And that would
definitely, you know, adding that aspect to any sort of a grant
application, even if it was a single question, I believe would
open the eyes of, you know, the reality of the situation that
we face. Our equipment, like I said, every piece of major
equipment that we had failed. Our grader is 25 years old. Our
trucks are zip-tied together, and I don't say that
sarcastically.
We are not by any means a wealthy tribe. We had to take
money that we don't have, and we had to hire private
contractors to come in and clear Federal roads and take away
the snow. We actually had to, yeah, get construction companies
to come in and remove this snow because our equipment was all
down. That is the reality of what we face.
Ms. McCollum. You know, I am from Minnesota. Certain
weather events can trigger a natural disaster response, FEMA,
other kinds of help. But snow-related events and extreme cold
weather events don't qualify for that, only under very, very,
very few circumstances. And by the time the help gets there,
you know, people have really suffered. So thank you for
bringing that up, and that is what is so great about having
such a diverse panel. Yes, did you want to add something?
Mr. Bordeaux. Yeah. I would like to add in regard to Public
Law 102477, I think there is a good model for DOJ to work with
the Department of Interior and the tribes to create a good
model for that funding.
Ms. McCollum. Yeah.
Mr. Bordeaux. We talked about, you know, CTAS and all of
that coming over to the bureau. I think if you can call on
Interior to develop a plan for that, I think that will really
work for us.
Ms. McCollum. Well, we want Interior to develop a plan, but
also do a consultation.
Mr. Bordeaux. Definitely.
Ms. McCollum. And congratulations on moving forward in
California. Thank you all for your testimony and your time.
Voice. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. And if our next panel on public safety and
justice could come forward to the table, please. So we will
wait for a second for the door to close and for the other panel
to leave.
----------
Wednesday, February 12, 2020.
AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE PUBLIC WITNESS DAY 2--PANEL 3
WITNESSES
KEVIN ALLIS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NATIONAL CONGRESS OF AMERICAN
INDIANS
JAMIE HENIO, RAMAH NAVAJO COUNCIL DELEGATE, RAMAH NAVAJO ABIGAIL ECHO-
HAWK, DIRECTOR, URBAN INDIAN HEALTH INSTITUTE
Ms. McCollum. Thank you all for being here. Five minutes to
testify. Your introduction does not count against those 5
minutes. Yellow light, 1 minute remaining. Red light and then I
have to start thinking about lightly tapping with the gavel.
Good morning, sir, if you would please lead us off.
Mr. Allis. Good morning, Chairman McCollum, Ranking Member
Joyce, members of the committee. My name is Kevin Allis. I am
an enrolled member of the Forest County Potawatomi Community in
Wisconsin. I am very proud to hear that my tribe assisted a
neighboring tribe with their situation. I am also the CEO of
the National Congress of American Indians.
Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, and members of
the subcommittee, thank you again for holding this hearing and
tribal appropriations priorities. My name is Kevin Allis, an
enrolled member of Forest County Potawatomi Community, CEO of
National Congress of American Indians. And I will say I have 10
years as a Baltimore City police officer, so I was on the front
lines of law enforcement and criminal justice, and know what
happens to communities when the resources and the personnel
aren't there to make it happen.
NCAI's requests are rooted in the treaties and agreements
that our tribal nations made with the United States government.
However, as you know, a recent assessment by the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights found that Federal funding for
Native American programs across government remains grossly
inadequate to meet the most basic needs the Federal Government
is obligated to provide. Tribal leaders and citizens have known
for decades, and we urge Congress to fully fund the U.S.
government's treaty and statutory obligations. Before talking
about our specific request, I would like to address the
significant challenges tribal nations must contend with due to
persisting uncertainty in the Federal budget process.
Last year's government shutdown was a particularly
prominent example of the negative effects of breakdowns in the
Federal budget process, but tribal nations also must regularly
contend with uncertainty when planning and delivering services
to their citizens because of Congress' reliance on short-term
continuing resolutions. Basic healthcare provided by IHS and
essential services, like law enforcement and emergency response
provided by the BIA, are regularly impacted. NCAI for years has
urged Congress to provide advanced appropriations for IHS and
BIA to protect tribal programs from further uncertainty, and I
thank the leadership and members of this subcommittee for your
support of this legislation.
As we did last year, NCAI chose public safety and justice
programs to focus on today because it is one of the most
fundamental aspects of the Federal Government's trust
responsibility. The BIA was required to submit an unmet needs
report in this area every year, and, based on past assessments,
to provide minimum base-level service to all federally-
recognized tribes. One billion is needed for law enforcement,
$1 billion for tribal courts, and $222 million are needed for
tribal detention. At about 40 percent of the need, tribal
courts receive about 5 percent of the need, and law enforcement
is only receiving about 20 percent of the need. We will not be
able to address crime and ensure safety in Indian Country until
our tribal justice systems are adequately funded.
Ten years ago, DOI established an initiative to reduce
violent crime by at least 5 percent over 24 months on four
reservations with high rates of violent crime. All four
received an increase in base funding to support additional
sworn officers. The additional resources help close the
capacity gap by bringing the staffing-to-population ratios
closer to the national standard. It worked, producing a 35
percent decrease in violent crime across four states. Funding,
similar to what States and the Federal Government gets in this
area when given to Indian Country, has been proven to work in
the past.
Equitable funding for tribal nations leads to success. We
need sufficient resources to put our tools to work so tribal
nations can protect women, children, and families address
substance abuse, rehabilitate first-time offenders, and put
serious criminals behind bars. Accordingly, NCAI requests a
total of $83 million for tribal courts, including those in
Public Law 280 jurisdictions. NCAI also recommends an increase
of $200 million for BIA law enforcement for a total of $573
million.
I would like to add that the inadequacy of BIA-based
funding forces tribal nations to see short-term competitive
grants to try to make up a portion of the shortfall. I don't
think any of our tribal nations will agree with a premise that
when we entered into treaties hundreds of years ago and ceded
millions of acres of land, that funding and adequate care for
these things would be through grants, a competitive grant
program, between the different tribes. That wasn't part of the
deal.
Short-term competitive grants cannot be viewed as a
substitute for base funding. We must have long-term stable
funding to address the public safety challenges our tribal
nations confront. We respectfully request both honorable
fulfillment of the trust and treaty obligations as well as
budget certainty for both IHS and BIA through advanced
appropriations. The increase NCAI is requesting will be an
important incremental step towards providing the resources
necessary for tribal nations to ensure public safety on their
lands. We only ask for what was promised to us and owed to us
when tribal nations entered into treaties in exchange for acres
of land so settlement could ensue.
Thank you very much, and we would be happy to answer any
questions you have.
[The statement of Mr. Allis follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Please, sir.
Mr. Henio. [Speaking native language.] Chairwoman McCollum,
and Ranking Joyce, and honorable members of the subcommittee,
my name is Jaime Henio, and I am a member of the Navajo Nation
Council, and also chairman of the budget and finance committee
for the council. And I also represent the Ramah Navajo
Community, which is located in New Mexico. And so our community
is a political subunit of the Navajo Nation, and what we have
enjoyed is 30-plus years of 638 Public Law funding to contract
different services for our communities, such as law
enforcement, real estate, aid to tribal government, and, most
recently, the roads department.
So, therefore, we are here is to talk about four areas that
we feel are very important. And the first one is the inadequate
funding for tribes that are operating 638 programs, and where
we should be funded to equally with the BIA-operated programs.
The second one is a lack of funding when it comes to
distribution of funds when they are untimely and late. And the
third item I would like to talk about is public safety, and the
last item is road maintenance.
So the first one I would like to expound on is public
safety. As expressed earlier by other tribal leaders, public
safety is important for our community. We operate a police
department that is different from the Navajo Nation police. We
have our own police department, which consists of six officers
that patrol the area of 15 by 25 miles, which is about roughly
400 square miles of land there. But the land is checkerboarded,
meaning that it is trust land, allotted land, and also State
fee land.
So our police officers, they are required to be federally
certified and commissioned by the tribe, and also State police
officer certified, too. And so when we pick up young recruits
and we take them through the process of taking them through the
Indian Police Academy, get them fairly certified, then they
also are required to go through the New Mexico State Police
Academy, and they become State peace officers certified.
So in the eyes of the New Mexico State Police, Albuquerque,
the county, this is a prized officer right here. And,
therefore, what happens, they are recruited to the other police
agencies, and we end up losing thousands and thousands of
training dollars training these young officers for better pay,
better packages. So, therefore, what we are asking here is for
the BIA to fully fund the police department in our area so,
therefore, we are competitive in pay and benefits, and so we
retain our police officers.
And, of course, equipment is another big issue, too. If you
were to compare that BIA police unit with a Ramah police unit,
you would see a big disparity where you would see the BIA
police officer unit with a lot of antennas, and with the Ramah
police officer with just one antenna, meaning that they have
hardly any equipment in the police unit. So that is one of the
biggest things that we are asking here.
The other one is to have BIA treat the 633-funded programs
equally. When it comes to funding distribution, what we are
looking at is that BIA decides that well, let's feed ourselves
first, give ourselves a biggest part of the pie, and then
whatever crumbs are remaining, let's send them out to Ramah,
and Zuni, and Laguna, and other tribes that are doing 638
programs. So that is what we are asking the Appropriations
Subcommittee is they put a little bit of pressure on BIA to get
their act together, so to speak, because of the fact that we
did provide direct services there at the local community. And
just as Mr. Allis stated earlier, I spent 10 years as a police
officer in the rural communities, out there, too, so I know
what it is like to be there by yourself late at night with no
backup. And so I understand what our police officers are going
through there in the rural communities.
And the last point I wanted to make was road
transportation. As we speak, right now, we have, like, 5 inches
of wet snow back in our community, and we have a three-member
road crew in our community working almost 24 hours a day
cleaning the roads as we speak right now. So, therefore, when
we contracted the road maintenance contract, also it came with
inadequate funding. And, therefore, we are asking subcommittee
to take special note to have BIA provide us adequate funding so
we could take care of our roads because roads the big issue
across the United States, Indian Country. Everywhere we go,
roads is one of the biggest infrastructure that we have.
So, therefore, we are asking that we be fully funded to
build a sustainable community and future for our children.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Henio follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you. Good morning.
Ms. Echo-Hawk. Good morning, Madam Chair, and Ranking
Member Joyce, and members of the subcommittee of the committee.
I am so excited to be here today. My name is Abigail Echo-Hawk.
I am a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, and I am the
director of the Urban Indian Health Institute and the chief
research officer at the Seattle Indian Health Board. I am here
specifically today to talk about the tribal epidemiology
centers, which I direct one of. There are 12 nationally. We are
under the Indian Health Service. We were established as public
health authorities under the Affordable Health Care Act.
The Urban Indian Health Institute, which I direct, is
unique. Out of the 12, we are the only one with a national
focus that looks at the urban Indian population. Urban Indians
are tribal people currently living off tribal reservation land,
village lands in urban areas, yet we are tribal people
regardless of where we live. And so as we look to ensure the
health and well-being of our people, the tribal epidemiology
centers were established by tribal leadership to ensure that
there was quality data for decisions that could be made both at
the tribal level, the urban Indian level, and also State and
Federal. Without us, that data doesn't exist.
And I want to provide you an example: the SDPI Program,
which has had such an incredible impact across Indian Country.
My organization works every year and provides reports for the
urban Indian programs, 31 of them across the country, on the
outcomes of their SDPI funding every single year so that they
can see where they need to direct their efforts. And we know
from a paper that was published in 2017 that the largest
decrease in end-stage renal failure as a direct result of
diabetes is in the American Indian and Alaska Native
population. And we know from that paper and the data that came
out of that, that that is a direct result of the programs like
SDPI and other Federal efforts to halt diabetes within our
communities. And we are doing better than the rest of the
country now in decreasing those numbers.
With my program, one of the things we do is allow those
programs to begin to direct and understand where they need to
on a yearly basis direct their efforts. However, with the
funding that I received from the Indian Health Service to do
this, I don't even have the money for the one person who does
this for 31 organizations. And so I supplement her funding with
other fundings. I can't even print these reports anymore that I
give them. I used to have money to do that, but it keeps
decreasing. I can't even print them off to give them to these
organizations. And we have to figure out how to get them their
reports in a way that is usable to them. It is one of the
hardest things to do is to tell them I can't even simply print
what they need, yet we know this program is so integral to
ensuring the health and well-being of our communities.
The tribal epidemiology centers do this for a variety of
different things, and I am going to switch over now to talking
about one of the reasons that I am so excited to hear all of
the tribal leadership today talking about public safety. The
urban Indian community is deeply impacted by this also,
specifically within the missing and murdered indigenous women
and girls. When I look at the funding that I get from the
Indian Health Service, we are looking for an increase for the
tribal epidemiology centers because my organization has been
the one that has produced the data on missing and murdered
indigenous women and girls with three reports that started in
2018. Out of those reports, we have seen significant
legislation passed both at the local, the State, and the
Federal level.
Efforts are being made to change this outcome for missing
and murdered indigenous women and girls. I self-funded those
projects. I had no money to do that. At this point in time,
through the tribal epidemiology center funds, I provide
technical support to tribes and urban Indian organizations,
which means they give me a call, and I say, you could do it
this way, but I can't help you because I don't have the
resources to give you the expertise to do this. So we help them
to the best of our ability. We are asking for $24 million
increase for all of the tribal epidemiology centers to be split
across us to be able to provide this support, because we need
to gather this information on this crisis of violence against
our women, and be able to get that to our tribal leadership so
they can make these decisions.
And we also have to look at the services that are provided.
So urban Indian population, we receive less than 1 percent of
the overall Indian Health Service budget. We do not want to
touch the tribal dollars, but we need an increase in the urban
Indian line item, and we are asking for a hundred and six
million dollars to do this. And I think to this grandma who I
met recently. Her daughter was murdered in front of her three
young children. She was shot in the head. It took that grandma
4 months to get her grandchildren out of the foster care system
because that county that she lived in, she was not living on
tribal lands. That county did not apply the Indian Child
Welfare Act, and they put those children outside of her home,
outside of the family, and outside of the tribe. It took her 4
months to get those babies back, and those children witnessed
the murder of their mother. And she cannot find them
culturally-attuned care to treat the psychological impacts that
are happening to those young babies.
And we know that kind of trauma is why we have an opiate
crisis. It is why we have a suicide crisis. Unless we address
this kind of trauma at the ages when it happens, we are not
going to be able to solve any of these things. We will be
sitting at this table 10 years from now. So we have to increase
the investment both for the tribal epidemiology centers, and,
in addition, to the urban Indian programs, and to all programs
through the IHS that serve our people because we cannot
continue to let this trauma continue for our young ones.
[The statement of Ms. Echo-Hawk follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Kilmer.
Mr. Kilmer. First of all, Ms. Echo-Hawk, I just want to
thank you for your leadership on the issue of missing and
murdered indigenous women and girls. Your comments about making
sure that not only do we have the data, but we also have to
have the action to address the issue. So thank you for your
leadership.
Mr. Allis, you referenced in your remarks, and, again, I
know this is a public safety and justice panel, but you
mentioned the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights ``Broken
Promises'' report. And you talked about some of the substantial
funding shortfalls and the failure of the Federal Government to
step up, specifically in the area of public safety. I want to
just give you the opportunity. Obviously that report touched on
a whole lot of other areas that the Federal Government is
coming up short. As a leader in NCAI, I wanted to just give you
the opportunity if you wanted to speak to any of those
shortcomings as well. I just think it is important.
Mr. Allis. Well, thank you for that question. They are so
interconnected, right? I mean, one of the important things for
the safety, and I will link this to public safety, is
infrastructure, right? Our roads, our road system. It is the
lifeblood of the tribal economy and safety. In that same
report, you know, enormous shortfalls and the backlog of work
that needs to be done. When I speak to some of my tribal
leaders in the Great Plains and other parts of the country,
where their roads are impassable, and they can't get to people
to the grocery store, let alone try to get them to the hospital
or try to respond to some, you know, law enforcement situation.
It is really.
And in most of these cases, it is not only the low levels
or lack of adequate funding, as I mentioned, in the grant, it
is how it is funded, right? And a lot of these short-term
programs that are gap fillers, if you will, and then are
scattered across numerous different agencies. Also filtered
throughout that report, it speaks also to the lack of
coordination between the different agencies that provide these
services which, you know, moving in the 477 program to try to
coordinate and have tribes have more of an impact, we need a
lot of work there, too, as well to try to bring that together.
So we could talk about question for hours, but I thank you
for bringing it up because healthcare, infrastructure, law
enforced public safety, all linked together.
Mr. Kilmer. I feel like it should be mandatory reading for
every member of Congress. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all for being
here today. Ms. Echo-Hawk, touching on this horrible issue, I
am part of a panel where we did a hearing on sexual violence,
and we now have some members of Congress who are Native
Americans, who brought forth some of the issues. It is just
heartbreaking that we don't use what we have in place in local
governments and tribal justice systems to be able to go after
these offenders, because one of the most sickening comments I
heard was where else would these people go to pray except for
where they know they are going to get help. There is nobody
really chasing after them, and there is no backup, SANE nurses,
and cataloging the DNA to go after these folks. It is something
we need to continue to address, and I appreciate the fact that
all of you are standing up for the justice that needs to be
done on your reservation. So thank you very much for your time
here today.
Ms.McCollum. I just want to put a statistic out there:
$9,726 average per person in the United States spent on
healthcare, $9,726. Four thousand seventy-nine dollars on
average per person spent on healthcare in Indian Country. I am
going to round it up. It is almost a $6,000 discrepancy. That
is why we have healthcare disparities in part, so thank you for
sharing that. And then your story, Ms. Echo-Hawk, which is
repeated time and time again of children witnessing horrific
acts of violence. It affects their school, even how they are
going to eat and their nutrition for their growing bodies,
their mental health. It impacts them, and we need to have
intervention with specialists who are culturally appropriate in
the area.
And so that is something that is not addressed as fully as
it could be in the Violence Against Women Act, and that is
something that even before it comes up for reauthorization,
something we should be focused on. And I know that their
support in the Native American Bipartisan Caucus, as Mr. Joyce
was pointing out, to do more, to do more in that. If you added
mental health into the numbers that I just gave, it would even
be more out of balance.
The Affordable Care Act, I just want to also point out,
which is in court right now, it would eliminate the permanent
reauthorization for Indian health, and I don't think that that
gets mentioned often enough. And what we need to do to make
sure that that is protected. I want to protect the Affordable
Care Act in its entirety, plus some of us worked very hard to
get the permanent reauthorization as part of that.
And I think because you talked about after a woman, and men
are assaulted, too, the first thing that they usually want to
do is try to wipe away the crime, wipe away the violence. Could
maybe the three of you just talk in your own perspective what
it means, and to your point, when you are training officers and
then you can't compete with salary and they go some other
place, how important it is to have that whole of public safety
for the person who is there for witness protection and the
rest. And if we keep training people and we can't keep up with
the salaries, whether it is witness protection, and I know how
little that pays in the private sector.
I can't hardly imagine what it pays in the tribal areas,
how we are not going to be able to really address crime. You
know, is it equipment? Is that wages? Is it both? Should we be
taking the training dollars out of the way that it is funded
and look at a more holistic way of funding it, because other
people and other communities, and you don't blame them, take
advantage of the training and the resources that you have put
into what you are doing. And I am not trying to diminish the
importance of this conversation, but if you could just take a
minute so the other panel could get started. But give me some
more food for thought as I have this discussion with my
colleagues.
Mr. Allis. Chairman, I think you hit on something that is
not only relevant for Indian Country, but the training, and the
environment, and the equipment, and what the officer will be
faced with every day they come into the office, right? They
have enormous challenges when they go out on the street and
they go out on the reservation, they go out on the roads to
combat crime and deal with crime. If the police cars and their
equipment are substandard stuff, it makes it that much more
difficult. And certainly, whatever training they get in, and if
it is a higher level of training, they will go to another
jurisdiction because they just won't stay there similar.
It is similar to educational systems. You got to create an
environment from the minute they walk into the door to the
second they get in that patrol car, and when they go home and
be able to take care of their own families. It all has to come
together in a way where they will stay there and you will have
a consistent workforce and strategy. So funding, if we are just
talking about law enforcement officers, the training needs to
be there and the funding needs to be competitive with other
jurisdictions, or they are just going to roll. They are just
going to go somewhere else.
You see it in Indian Country, and you see it in
metropolitan areas, going to different county police
departments that are nicer, you know, pay more money, you know.
What you see outside of Indian Country around criminal justice
is the same stuff that is happening Indian Country, but just on
steroids, okay? It is just the delta is that much bigger.
Ms. McCollum. Anything you would like to add?
Mr. Joyce. The same thing with nursing. It is tough to get
nurses, let alone retain them.
Mr. Henio. Thank you for the question, Chairwoman. When it
comes to funding and the contract, it allows for the 638
officers to be paid at the same level as a BIA police officer.
For example, a BIA makes $20 an hour. Our officers should be
making $20 an hour, too. But when it comes to funding
distribution, our officers are given just enough money to
possibly even make $13 an hour or $14 an hour, while the BIA
officers enjoy what they are making right now.
So what we are asking is that the subcommittee ask the BIA
to fully fund their contract obligations when it comes to 638
contracts. And it is true that equipment is important. We need
equipment out there in the rural areas. Sedans will not cut it.
We need 4 by 4's and with adequate equipment to cover the rural
parts of the Navajo Nation as we speak right now. And like I
said earlier, there are 4 inches or 5 inches of wet snow, so,
therefore, what happens after the snow melts? A lot of muddy
roads, and we need policing that will cover those muddy roads
in order to respond to emergency calls. So that is what we are
asking. So equipment and salary is what we are asking, but at
the same time, to be treated just as equally as what BIA
officers are making through our 638 contract.
Ms. McCollum. Ms. Echo-Hawk, I know how important it is to
have the non-police be part of the solution for everything from
witnesses to survivor help, to what you spoke to wit children.
Ms. Echo-Hawk. Yeah, absolutely, and particularly as we
talk about, and you brought up SANE nurses, so sexual assault
nurse examiners. And in my testimony, one of the things I
shared was of a young woman, and this was in an area where she
could have possibly accessed either an urban program or an IHS
program, but neither of them on that weekend had a SANE nurse
available. And so she was not comfortable going anywhere else,
and so instead of getting that rape kit done, they said you can
wait and not shower, after being raped multiple times, until
Monday, or you can just take your shower now, which is what she
did. And now evidence of those rapes has been washed away.
And so when we look at these services, it is integral. And
one of the things when we look at particularly how VAWA dollars
flow into the counties that are then dispersed across
organizations, are then used across the counties, they very
often do not reach the organizations like the Seattle Indian
Health Board and other tribal organizations. They are held in
the county. And we also know that there is no access to data
because they are not gathering at those levels that say how
many victims that they have that are American Indian/Alaska
Native.
So I currently have an effort happening in King County, one
of the largest counties in the country. I am excited to say
that we have partnered together, and I am working with them to
redo the way the prosecutor's office collects data from victims
of crime, particularly sexual assault and domestic violence.
And I am going to be training their officers and all of the
prosecutors to do that differently. We are going to use that as
a national toolkit that could be used across counties, across
Federal agencies, because we can't wait for somebody else to
create the solution for us.
And I am very fortunate to be in King County and to have
them working with me to do that. But I will say that I am doing
this at night in my other office called Starbucks. [Laughter.]
Ms. Echo-Hawk. And I would like at some point in time for
somebody at the county levels, the State levels, the Federal
level to say, you know what? Native women are important. We are
going to make sure that you get the funding that you need so
you can have the resources that you need, because my
organization is going to create the national framework, and you
will see it in about 6 months, and we are just going to do it.
We need the resources to do it well, and I could do it faster
if I had the resources.
Ms. McCollum. And that the misclassification that you are
talking about.
Ms. Echo-Hawk. Yes, data misclassification.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much for your testimony, and
thank you both, sir, and Ms. Echo-Hawk, for serving people at
times of crisis when that is the last thing they want to be
doing is picking up the phone and making that phone call. Thank
you. Thank you for your past work in that.
Voice. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. The next panel, please join us.
----------
Wednesday, February 12, 2020.
AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE PUBLIC WITNESS DAY 2--PANEL 4
WITNESSES
LOUIE UNGARO, COUNCIL MEMBER, MUCKLESHOOT TRIBE
STEPHEN ROE LEWIS, GOVERNOR, GILA RIVER INDIAN COMMUNITY
MARITA HINDS, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL INDIAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
Ms. McCollum. Good morning. As I mentioned earlier, who is
going to close out this morning's panel is we are going to have
a robust discussion on Indian education in Indian Country. And
I know some people come in and out, and that is wonderful, so I
will just go over what we are doing the time again really
quick. Please introduce yourself. That will not count against
your time. You will get your full 5 minutes, and at 4 minutes,
a yellow light will come on. That lets you know you have about
1 minute to start wrapping up, and then the red light comes on
at 5.
Your full testimony will be entered into the committee
record, so we want to thank you for that, so don't feel rushed
if you don't get to everything. As you can see, we are running
a little late because we are trying to ask really, really good
questions. So we are going to for the recorder go in order of
the table. So if you would please start, sir.
Mr. Ungaro. Good morning, honorable committee members.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Ms. McCollum. Is the red light on on your----
Voice. It is.
Ms. McCollum. Good. Thank you.
Mr. Ungaro. Thank you for the opportunity to testify here.
My name is Louie Ungaro. I am a Muckleshoot Tribal Council
member. I have the privilege to serve as the chairman of our
tribal school commission.
A little background on the school. Muckleshoot Tribe is
committed to the success of our children through culturally-
appropriate education to prepare our future generations for
what is ahead. The Muckleshoot Tribal School is the first
tribally-controlled school to enter a compact with the BIE in
the State of Washington. The tribal school provides a K through
12 instruction. It infuses Muckleshoot cultural practices, the
history and the language
Muckleshoot leadership has worked hard to meet the needs of
our students through the adoption of new exciting programs. One
of those programs is a language and cultural instruction
program. It is training our teachers through the Muckleshoot
cultural experience and the traditional teaching styles,
creating bilingual signage and visual communication in every
classroom, as well as morning drum circle which provides song
and dance for the day; nutrition programs which we integrate
traditional foods and all of that; culture night and the annual
potlach we have once a year; and as well as we have the
woodshop curriculum that we are bringing back into the school.
So it is about our sciences and our techniques and traditions
through carving practices, tool-making, and technologies.
While much of this work has been done to bring our
ancestors' vision to fruition, we have a lot more work to do.
With the subcommittee's assistance, we can continue improving
the learning environment for our students. The tribe's requests
today stem from our experiences at the Muckleshoot Tribal
School. During the planning phase for Muckleshoot Tribal
School, disagreement quickly emerged between the tribe and the
BIE the size and capacity of the school.
Disregarding the tribe's student population projections at
the time, the BIE constructed the tribal school to accommodate
the student population was it was. And, as anticipated, the
tribal school reached capacity shortly after the construction
in 2009. Today, the school student population alone is 565,
making it over capacity by nearly 100 students. That is not
even counting staff.
The overcrowding at the tribal school reached the point
where we were forced to hold classes in hallways and repurpose
other spaces. As a result, the tribe and the BIA began working
together to secure modular classrooms in order to accommodate
the growing student population. Ultimately, the BIA's division
facility management and construction, DFMC, recommended six
modular units, which would house 12 classrooms.
During that time, the DFMC stated that it anticipated the
modular classrooms would be delivered in advance of the
upcoming school year, which began in August of 2017.
Unfortunately, the modular classrooms were not delivered on
time, and the project was lingering. This led us to assume the
role of general contractor in March of 2019. Even after doing
so, we had trouble getting the DFMC to release the funds.
Last spring, the tribal council raised the issue directly
with you, Chairwoman McCollum. With the assistance of you and
your staff, modular classrooms were delivered this week and
still being delivered. We have three that are being set up as
we speak today. While the tribe is forever grateful for your
assistance, it should not be this difficult for us to provide a
healthy learning environment for our students.
The Muckleshoot Tribe urges the subcommittee to prioritize
construction funding that so that Indian Country children can
obtain quality education in a safe environment. The tribe also
requests the subcommittee to inquire about the organizational
structure of the DFMC and how it deploys its funding provided
by Congress. Finally, the tribe urges subcommittee to provide
funding for culturally-relevant education programs.
Since it is been implemented in 2016, the tribal school's
emphasis on incorporating culture into the education system has
proven successful. This is evidence is in rising graduation and
our students' strong sense of identity and community. The BIE's
immersion demonstration grant program supports such efforts by
providing funding for initiatives aimed at increasing language
proficiency and protecting against indigenous language loss.
The tribe urges the subcommittee to expand the funding to
implement culturally-appropriate teachings.
So in conclusion, I really want to thank you all for your
time and for allowing me to come here and speak.
[The statement of Mr. Ungaro follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Lewis, good morning.
Mr. Lewis. Good morning. Chairperson McCollum, Ranking
Member Joyce, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for
the opportunity to testify on education priorities in the
Fiscal Year 2021 appropriations. My name is Steven Earl Lewis,
and I am governor of the Gila River Indian Community. [Speaking
native language.] Good morning. I am here to testify
specifically on the Section 105(l) school construction and
leaseback program that was piloted at the Gila River Indian
Community last year. I am joined today by Councilwoman Monica
Antone, Councilman Avery White, our youth council delegation
from the community, our Ms. Gila River, Tyler Owens, and Junior
Miss Gila River, Susannah Osef.
For this year, this committee has been asked to address the
school construction backlog that exists for BIE schools at the
Department of Interior, a backlog that would take approximately
60 years, or 3 generations--3 generations--to clear at current
funding levels. Even though this committee has increased
funding wherever possible, incremental funding was insufficient
to address the backlog. So you challenged the Administration
and tribal nations to bring you innovative solutions to the
problem.
Two years ago I brought you a proposal from the Gila River
Indian Community to pilot the first school construction
leaseback Indian country, and I have two packets of actual
photos of the finished Gila Crossing Community School. The
proposal relied on existing statutory authority under Section
105(l) of the Indian Self-Determination and Education
Assistance Act. Under the leaseback program, the community
financed construction of the school, and upon completion,
leased the school back to the Department of the Interior
through a negotiated lease. Utilizing this program and working
with this committee to secure appropriations for the lease
payment, the community was able to complete construction in a
little over 1 year, 13 months, and under budget, for less than
the amount the Department would have spent to replace the
school in the first place.
Gila Crossing is truly the community's school. The
community's culture is evident in the school curriculum, and
there are reminders of [Speaking native language.] and Pee-Posh
heritage everywhere you look. We are proud of the school and
even prouder that we were able to pilot a program that can be
replicated through throughout Indian Country. As with all pilot
programs, it was a learning experience, and the community also
took a great deal of risk. But together the community, the
administration, and you, the appropriators, ensured that this
was a successful project.
Based on our experience, we have a few recommendations to
share. We recommend continued funding of the 105(l) Program at
the Department of Interior. With the completion of the Gila
Crossing Community School, we are first requesting continued
funding to meet the annual lease payments for this school. In
addition, for Fiscal Year 2021, we are proposing an additional
$20 million dollars for school construction under the 105(l)
Lease Program.
As indicated earlier, the need for new school construction
in Indian Country is significant, as you have heard. At Gila
River alone, we had three BIE schools in poor condition and
overcrowded. It took decades to get the Blackwater Community
School on the school replacement list to begin with, and even
with the construction of Gila Crossing, Casablanca Community
School remains overcrowded and in poor condition. The
additional $20 million in Fiscal Year 2021 would allow for
another four or more schools to be constructed using the
construction leaseback program.
The community also supports the language in Fiscal Year
2020 appropriations report to explore mandatory funding for the
105(l) lease program. Mandatory funding would alleviate the
need to reprogram the statutorily-mandated funding from
critical programs and staffing for tribal programs at the
Department of Interior and the Indian Health Service. Mandatory
funding is also supported by the National Congress of American
Indians, and was included in the Indian Country budget request
to Congress for Fiscal Year 2021.
Another key component to making this program even more
successful is access to other Federal financing tools,
specifically new market tax credits. The lack of credits
designated to projects in Indian Country make it especially
difficult to compete for new market tax credits, even though
tribal access would save the Federal Government up to 20
percent on much-needed infrastructure construction in Indian
Country. We urge this committee and all of Congress to support
tribal-specific language in legislation that increases tribal
access to new market tax credits.
In conclusion, I am honored to sit here today and share my
community's success story with you. Your commitment to Indian
Country's self-determination is commendable and can serve as a
model across Congress and the Administration. We look forward
to coming back with more success stories that can enhance this
program, and stand ready to assist this committee and other
tribes across Indian Country as they explore the 105(l) Lease
Program. And as always, you are always welcome to the Gila
River Indian Community to see this wonderful school. Thank you
so much. [Speaking native language.]
[The statement of Mr. Lewis follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Hinds. Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to
provide testimony on behalf of the National Indian Education
Association. My name is Marita Hinds. I am from Tesuque Pueblo.
I am the President of the NIEA Board.
NIEA is the most inclusive national organization advocating
for culturally-based educational opportunities for American
Indians, Alaska Natives, and native Hawaiians. Each day, our
organization equips tribal leaders, educators, and advocates to
prepare the over 650,000 native students across the Nation for
success in the classroom and beyond. Native education is a
bipartisan effort rooted in the Federal trust responsibility to
tribal nations and their citizens.
NIEA thanks the subcommittee for its ongoing commitment to
fulfilling this constitutional responsibility by advancing
native education programs and services in Fiscal Year 2020. In
particular, we appreciate the subcommittee's oversight of BIE
programs and services for native students. NIEA urges you to
continue your commitment to native students by fully funding
native education within the BIE and Fiscal Year 2021
appropriations.
I will highlight several of NIEA's key appropriation
priorities for Fiscal Year 2021. Bureau-funded schools must be
appropriated $430 million for urgent school construction and
repair. NIEA appreciates recent steps to address immediate
infrastructure needs in Bureau-funded schools through increased
school construction funding in Fiscal Year 2020. Despite such
strides forward, funding continues to fall short of the full
need. In 2016, the Office of the Inspector General at the
Department of Interior found that it will cost $430 million
dollars to address immediate facility repairs in the BIE.
In addition, that report estimated over $1.3 billion
dollars in overall need for education construction at BIE
schools. By the end of Fiscal Year 2019, the maintenance
backlog in Bureau-funded schools had ballooned to over $720
million. Continued funding shortfalls for the high-quality
construction repair and maintenance of Bureau-funded schools
have impacted my own community of Tesuque Pueblo. In addition
to my role as the NIEA president, I work at that the Tesuque
Wingate School, a Bureau-funded school by my tribe.
Our classrooms are at the seams. The school has grown to
over 55 students from when it began in 2012, which had 17
students. Despite several renovations to retrofit outdated
wiring, heat, and air over the years, the electrical system
regularly overloads a fuse when using even a printer or a
shredder. Our school is 84 years old. Our classrooms share one
IT maintenance technician with all tribal facilities, while our
classrooms and our administration offices have problems with
Wi-Fi and internet services. Even with these hardships, our
phenomenal staff and educators have done amazing work to
advance education for our students, and parents continue to
send their children to our school because of the incredible
progress that we have made over the past 8 years. However,
additional funding is critical to ensuring safe access to the
facility and providing technology critical to a 21st century
education. Sadly, our story is not unique.
The current funding levels fail to fully address the $727
million in immediate school need. The need for construction and
repair in BIE schools is too great to wait for a possible
infrastructure package without ongoing funding to address
construction needs. Seven schools on the 2016 construction list
have yet to receive funds for design and construction. Limited
funding continues to hold up progress for schools, Greasewood
Springs Community School in Arizona, where students and
educators continue to face overcrowding and unsafe facilities.
Native students deserve to learn in a safe and healthy school
where they can thrive.
The Indian School Equalization Program, ISEP, should be
fully funded at $431 million for Fiscal Year 2021. ISEP funds
the core budget account for BIE elementary and secondary
schools. Through this program, schools and including my own
School in Greasewood Springs, receive funding to pay salaries
for teachers and other personnel. While ISEP is funded at
approximately $2 million dollars per school, each public school
across the country receives on average for infrastructure-
related salaries, wages, and employee benefits.
Each year, schools are forced to further stretch limited
ISEP funds to fulfill regulations that require educators to be
paid salaries comparable to those at the only other Federal
school system, the Department of Defense Education Activity,
DODEA. This requirement is meant to support equality and
access. However, Federal appropriations have failed to account
for increase in competitive salaries both at DODEA and in
States where BIE schools are located. Good teachers matter.
Increased investment is required to ensure access to a highly-
qualified culturally-competent educators at all schools.
In addition, NIEA supports the request to fully fund and
support tribal colleges and universities through Fiscal Year
2020 recommendations provided by the American Indian Higher
Education Consortium. Thank you very much.
[The statement of Ms. Hinds follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Kilmer.
Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair. Governor Lewis, I liked
your after photos better than your before photos. [Laughter.]
So thank you for sharing those. I am not quite sure who to
ask this to, but, Councilman Ungaro, you talked about the fact
that, you know, the day you opened your new school, it was
already at overcapacity, and it drove this need to build
portables. I mean, obviously there is a systemic problem of
underfunding, but is there another systemic problem that our
subcommittee ought to be looking at to try to prevent that type
of dynamic from occurring? Ideally, when you open a school, you
are not already over capacity.
Mr. Ungaro. Thank you for the question. Yeah, I believe
looking at the enrollment as well, like, our general enrollment
of the tribe, a third of our tribe is under the age of 18. I
mean, it is no mystery the wave of kids that are coming, these
schools and what we are doing to set our kids up for success
through natural resources and create leadership in those kids
to not only just set them up for success in Indian Country, but
success here in Washington, D.C. wherever they want to go. The
opportunity has been left up to us to create that.
And what is not happening is the funding isn't coming
through for us to be able to stay ahead of the curve. And the
challenge is in Indian Country for education is no mystery of
what is going on here. I mean, we weren't set up for success
all the way back from 1863, so just a little over 65 years ago
we won the Supreme Court case where our kids and people of
color would be welcomed into the classroom. So, you know, that
is not very many generations ago.
And in Indian Country where I am at, I am the first
generation graduate in my household, high school graduate So,
you know, we don't have people to fall back on to help us
navigate the State institutions through college and all of that
stuff, but we are setting up in these tribal schools is we are
giving our kids a place in the classroom, a sense of identity,
but as well as being able to teach them not just their own
traditional ecological knowledge, but making them proud and
giving them that spot in the classroom, but as well as being
able to comprehend and understand OSPI and the STEM curriculum,
and infusing that together which makes them stronger and gives
them the ability to make the choice if they want to stay home
on the reservation or if they want to come and be your staffer
someday. So that is what we are trying to do.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Kilmer, this is a problem. The Beatrice
Rafferty School in Maine was delayed for years because of a
disagreement on population size, because the BIE decided that
it knew, and it was the BIA at the time, knew what the
enrollment was going to be and did not listen to the community
and did not listen to the parents. And Ms. Pingree, and I, and
others found ourselves, you know, listening carefully to the
community and then questioning the decision making that was
moving forward.
And the tragedy about what has happened at this new school
is the gym space, the cafeteria space, all the community spaces
now have been built on a certain size population, which was too
small. So even with the modulars being added, if you want to
have an all school were younger children are, you know,
practicing being in larger groups and performing or giving
presentations, they can't get together, or the older kids
can't.
I mean, you and I have been parents. My kids are much older
than yours. I am a grandmother now. But you know how schools
work. And when you undersize them, you know, gymnasium space,
community space, cafeteria space, cultural areas all get
impacted on this. And so I am going to make a plea here before
I turn this over to Mr. Joyce.
The census is coming up, and I had some young Johnson
O'Malley students from St. Paul, Minnesota schools in my
office. And I was telling those students, you need to when you
see that census form come in and you hear about the census, you
got to get excited about it, and you have got to get the head
of household, your elder, your parents, or whoever it is, you
need to get them to do an accurate census. And you need to
identify in the census Native American because formulas will be
based on that. And, you know, if it is not right and then you
add ten years into the future, a lot of decisions facing Indian
Country and for how Mr. Joyce and I go back and allocate for
top-line funding at the 302b account, the Census is something
everybody is looking at.
And there are also some good-paying Census jobs out there,
if I can make a plug for that, too, because we need to hire
more people. But the census is really important. I know Indian
Country is working on it, but we can't spread the word enough
about how important the Census is going to be. So thank you for
letting me tag onto your question because it is a good one, and
it has been a frustrating one for this committee for a while.
So excellent question, Mr. Kilmer. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all for
being here. I certainly appreciate, Chairman Lewis, your
invitation to come out. I know that time is getting late, and
we are already behind, but I was wondering if you could explain
your frustration with the New Markets Tax Credit and your
inability to secure it for Indian tribes.
Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the
committee, Congressman Joyce. For the new market tax credits,
access is limited to Indian Country. We are working with NAFOA,
the Native American Finance Officers Association, and the Ways
and Means because when we were working on financing the 105(l)
lease and the design build, the allocation cycle, the
construction cycle, and the appropriations were out of sync
while we were building this. You know, we built this school and
designed it within 13 months. And so all of those moving parts
just weren't in sync for us to be able to take advantage of the
new market tax credits.
Mr. Joyce. Do you think a legislative fix is necessary?
Mr. Lewis. Definitely. For tribes, and this is a policy
issue among all issues having to do with tribal nations. You
know, for policy, tribal nations need to have specific language
that includes tribes and not excludes them, and the new market
tax credits is no exception.
Mr. Joyce. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Lewis. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. I just want to say congratulations on getting
your modulars delivered. How serendipitous that it happened at
the same time that you are testifying in front of the
committee, but we will take it. But we are putting together an
infrastructure bill, and I know that what we are looking at is
green. We are looking at technology, and this is
infrastructure, and many of us, our voices are at the table to
make sure Indian Country is included in that. So stay tuned,
and it needs to have an infusion of spending in it that is
really going to be impactful and make a difference.
So Mr. DeFazio is kind of taking the lead on that, but we
are doing some things in consultation through our staff. And I
know Indian Country is at the table with us moving forward, but
that will include schools, roads, bridges, Broadband, all the
things that come together to make a school successful, as you
pointed out. Thank you very much for your testimony. Thank you
for your time here. And we will have the next panel come up.
And as the next panel comes up, I know a couple people saw
me dashing out of the room. We were accommodating later on this
afternoon with two people who were willing to switch on
testimony so someone could make an earlier flight to get home.
----------
Wednesday, February 12, 2020.
AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE PUBLIC WITNESS DAY 2--PANEL 5
WITNESSES
ANGELISA BEGAYE, ADMINISTRATIVE SPECIALIST, DZILTH-NA-O-DITH-HE
COMMUNITY SCHOOL
SYLVIA LARGO, DINE GRANT SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION, INC. BOARD MEMBER AND
PRINCIPAL OF PINON COMMUNITY SCHOOL
BEVERLY COHO, SECRETARY AND TREASURER, RAMAH NAVAJO SCHOOL BOARD, INC.
CHARLES CUNY, JR., LITTLE WOUND SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT, OGLALA LAKOTA
NATION EDUCATION COALITION
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. We will let the next panel get
seated here. We got a little bit of a traffic jam, but that is
a good thing to have. That means that there are a lot of people
here participating. So really quickly, please introduce
yourself and then start into your testimony. The time that you
use to introduce yourself will not count against your time. You
have 5 minutes. We have your testimony in the record, so we
have all of it. So don't worry about getting through
everything. There is a lot to cover, and the staff and I will
be reading through it and using it to formulate questions and
responses to your concerns.
So if you would please start off. When you see the yellow
light, there is 1 minute left, and that will go on the timer
right here. There is a little red button. Make sure it is lit
up on your mike before you start, and if you would lead us off,
please. Thank you.
Ms. Begaye. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Good morning, Madam
Chair and members of the subcommittee. My name is Angelisa
Begaye, and I am here speaking on behalf of the Dzilth-Na-O-
Dith-Hle Community School.
Okay. So the Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community School would
like to thank the subcommittee for your effort, your support,
and your dedication in prioritizing the appropriations and
oversight for school repair and construction throughout the
Bureau of Indian Education school system. With that, we are one
of the schools from the 2016 school replacement list to receive
funding for school replacement construction. Thus far, we have
completed the planning phase and 20 percent schematic design
phase. We are currently in the design bill phase of the
construction project. This whole process has taken us much time
and effort, so, to reach this milestone.
Our students, parents, and staff are excited with the
school that is coming up, and we have been working diligently
and promptly and putting our new school into operation. The
efforts we have set forth are for the well-being of our
students and in them with an adequate learning environment. Of
course, it requires a team effort, and we had to establish a
positive relationship and a partnership with the Bureau of
Indian Education and the Indian Affairs division of facility
management and construction so that we will be able to be
successful in this for the school, the Federal Government, and,
of course, for our students.
Okay, which brings us to our written testimony, which you
guys have a copy of. And in our written testimony, we have
outlined some concerns we have been experiencing through this
process. At one of our meetings this week, we met with the
Office of Facility Property and Safety Management, which
oversees the division the division of facility management and
construction. We had the opportunity to bring to light with
them and to discuss some of these issues, which we hope will be
taken into consideration.
We believe with the path moving forward that we have a
clear and transparent line of communication, that we are
consistent with timelines and deadlines and alleviating
unnecessary delays, which is imperative to our success and
completing this project. As our partner, we ask the
subcommittee to emphasize and reinforce the importance of clear
and timely expectations, and also to continue oversight of this
project, and to keep in contact with the Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle
Community School, the Office of Facility Property and Safety
Management, and the Division of Facility Management and
Construction on the progress of our school replacement project
and all those that were on the 2016 replacement list.
In closing, the Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community School
thanks the subcommittee for the important funding increases and
oversight directed to school repair and replacement
construction. Consistent funding is needed to complete the
construction on the 2016 replacement list, which direly impacts
our children's future. In Fiscal Year 2021, we ask you to
continue these funding levels. We believe all children should
be given the opportunity to reach their potential and go to
school in safe buildings. Thank you for remaining Pacific
Islander steadfast partners this critical endeavor. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Begaye follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Ms. Largo.
Ms. Largo. Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair, Ranking
Member, and members of this Appropriations Committee. I
appreciate the time to share with you. I am coming from the
Navajo Nation. I speak on behalf of nine Bureau-funded schools
that are operated as tribally-controlled schools. The executive
board from these nine schools and the administration are
committed to providing the best educational services for the
children in our communities.
We want to make sure that we continue to receive funding to
operate instructional classrooms, residential programs,
facility programs, transportation programs. Our technology is
so crucial in providing the learning process to our young
people; for our business offices to make sure that our funding
is always accounted for. We want to make sure that is always
taken care of. We want to make sure that our administration and
the school board remain on par and meeting the needs of these
young people.
While we are doing this on a day-to-day basis, there are
some challenges our schools experience. One concern is that we
are seeing an increase in the number of suicide ideations of
our young people. To meet their needs, we have to make sure we
get them the proper professional people, which means I have to
find funding to pay specialized counselors. We also end up
providing support services. Although we are teaching, we will
take the time out to make sure we provide these young people
the kind of support they need. So we really need to pay
attention to the monies that come in to pay the personnel cost.
We are already stretched with the ISEP funding that we get,
but we want to make sure we continue to meet costs. So we want
you to help us in paying attention in the BIE teacher pay
parity. The law requires that teachers and counselors and the
BIE school system are paid at the same rate as their
counterparts and the overseas Department of Defense school
system. For some reason, our administration did not request for
those fundings. We did meet with them. We did make it a point
to mention to them that we need their help in making sure that
they request for these fixed costs to account for the 25 U.S.C.
Subsection 220. They could use that as an authorizing status in
requesting for this fixed cost. So we ask for your support in
making sure that we get that because we do need the monies in
operating schools.
The other latest concern that we are experiencing is on the
reservation, we are spread into New Mexico. New Mexico has
provided their State teachers a 10 percent increase. Arizona
has spread 20 percent over three years, which is making it
really tough to maintain our teaching staff. We have excellent
teachers. We have done very creative, innovative professional
development to keep our teachers on our campuses. We are going
to need help there.
Another area that would help our school's ISEP funding is
if we don't have to pay so much for the insurance. We do have
challenges in making sure that our staff is provided stellar
benefits. Right now, a great deal of our funding goes there.
But if we could get assistance and helping to make sure that a
tribally-controlled school would have the same access to
Federal employee health benefits programs and the Federal
employee group life insurance would be of great assistance. It
would not cost the government anything, but it would help us at
least maintain some of the monies that we now spend. At least
50 percent of the monies we spend stay within the school pots
for our children to have access to those monies.
The other one is our native language programs is having a
big impact. I am so happy that our teachers are now teaching
the Dine language to our children. They are speaking. They are
now hearing the language. I see that there is more confidence
in them. It must continue to be funded. I can't say enough as
to how well that program has changed our children.
Thank you. I appreciate your hard work. You have got us
supporting you, so keep doing what you guys are doing.
[Speaking native language.]
[The statement of Ms. Largo follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Please.
Ms. Coho. Good morning. I am Beverly Coho, recent past
president of the Ramah Navajo School Board, Incorporated, and
also secretary-treasurer at this current time. And the Ramah
Navajo School Board, Incorporated operates the Pine Hill
schools and other community services in West Central New
Mexico. And I concur with the statements made by my colleagues
at this table because it also reflects the needs that we have
in the Ramah Navajo community, and particularly the Federal
employee health benefit initiative.
With 50 years--50 years--of institutional history at this
first institution, where we took over community control and
self-determination, the Ramah school board has unique capacity
to administer its own program, and true to its founding
measure, to educate the community people. The Ramah community
people have come a long ways along the road of self-
determination and establishing capacity and the ability to
educate its people.
This month, we celebrate our golden anniversary, and thank
you in large part to the early partnership established between
the U.S. Congress and the Ramah Navajo school board. Our
Founders came here, talked to your predecessors in 1970, and
ever since we have been operating our own. Thank you, [Speaking
native language] also on behalf of our constituents, who are
very thankful for the funds that were made available recently.
These funds were for improvement to the HVAC system, also to
the renovation of the existing school buildings, also the
building of a new gymnasium. And students are fortunate for the
opportunity that they will be learning in an environment that
is conducive to learning.
But to fully realize the potential of operating in new or
refurbished, the infrastructure have to be undergoing major
rehabilitation and upgrading. For example, the water system,
sewer and waste system, electrical system, gas system, roads on
campus, broadband, and improved IT systems. Right now, the
infrastructure is life threatening. There is a constant water
crisis causing the school to shut down every now and then, and
this causes a great deal of interruption. And we hope when we
get new funds that it would help us to conduct comprehensive
hydrology stud to assess the water availability and the water
table.
Also secure the service of qualified engineers to conduct
preliminary scope of work repair and/or replace the wells,
rehabilitate the water treatment plant, including upgrading and
replacing control systems, install water tower storage at
perhaps 500,000 gallon capacity on campus, which we don't have
at this time. Replace the water main throughout the campus.
Initiate and maintain water testing so that we are in
compliance with EPA standards and regulations; and the roads
would be repaved because a lot of the infrastructure are
underneath the pavement.
Also security cameras will be upgraded. The operation of
the facility management will be enhanced. As it is, we use only
51 percent of funds for facility management, and we get a
little bit from ISEP, but then if we get additional funds, we
would be complementing the ISEP funds. Also the patchy
unreliable internet system will be improved to serve as the
lifeline for not only the schools, but the medical clinic that
we operate there on campus.
There is still a way to go on the road to self-
determination, and the best way to do this is to stay the
course, continue to make progress by working with one another,
tribal, Federal and State partners. We wholeheartedly
appreciate the bipartisan support and partnership while we work
to provide a safe and promising future for our students. Thank
you very much.
[The statement of Ms. Coho follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Cuny. [Speaking native language.] Good morning,
Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, and the honorable
subcommittee. Thank for the opportunity to testify on behalf of
the Oglala Lakota Nation Education Consortium, which represents
the Oglala Sioux Tribe authorized grant school. I serve as the
superintendent of one of these schools, Little Wound School
District, in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
My testimony today focuses on challenges are tribal grant
schools face as a result of underfunding within the Bureau of
Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education.
Today the primary means of the support is the Indian School
Equalization Program, also known as ISEP. It provides per pupil
allocation to the Bureau of Indian education grant schools for
general operations expenditures. These funds, according to the
Bureau's own documentation, are designed for educational-
related programming, such as staff salaries and benefits,
classroom supplies, textbooks gifted and talented programs, and
extracurricular activities. Unfortunately, funding is not
sufficient to operate our schools.
So today, I really want to paint a picture for you as an
active school superintendent in a tribal grant school, and just
give you some key financial challenges we face with today's
current BIE/BIA policies and the application of attaining well-
qualified teachers and operating within our means. And so I may
skip around a little bit, but I will try and touch on the main
points.
One reason why is that federally-funded programs like
transportation, food service, special education, and
facilities, are themselves underfunded, and ISEP dollars must
be used to plug in these budget holes. So we are constantly
pulling ISEP dollars that were intended for education for
school operations, so that is a huge challenge across the
board. The other thing is facilities. BIA Facilities Operation
and Maintenance Program is a primary example. Since 1981, our
school has only received full O&M funding once, and between
2000 and 2016, our school received $5 million less in
facilities funding that is needed.
So if you look at chart A, it gives kind of a 16-year
account of our O&M funding. So generally, I think last year we
received about $1 million dollars for O&M funding, but if you
calculate that figure of needs for O&M funding, our school has
missed out on about $5 million dollars of facility O&M funding
over the last 16 years.
At Little Wound School, our elementary school building is
75 years old. Our middle school is 40 years old. It is a tin
building. They are both very dilapidated schools. We recently
had an energy efficiency study conducted by BIA in 2010, which
described a $5 to $8 million repair that still hasn't been
funded, and so we still are paying high energy efficiency costs
to operate our school. The other key point that I want to touch
on today is FEHB benefits. One of the biggest critical factors
for Little Wound School is we currently have a health plan
where we pay individual coverage at about $900 a month per
staff member. If we qualify for FEHB benefits, that would
reduce that cost to the school to about $425 a month.
So Little Wound School operates on $13 million a year. This
change would save us $1.4 million annually. If we receive this
change, we would be utilize those funds to support education,
and so I think that is a quick fix that you guys have already
taken steps towards. I think it is a bipartisan agreement that
would help all the tribal grant schools across the country.
In conclusion, you know, as we move forward, I am honored
to be here today. The Ramah School was the first local
controlled tribal grant school. The second school was Loman
School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. And so over the
course of the last 45, 50 years, our tribes have had local
control. But if you look at the way policies have been applied
historically, tribal grant schools are falling further and
further away from fully being funded. And I am hoping that my
testimony today will support the appropriations as we move into
the 21st century and help support the children of Oglala Sioux
Tribe and their future. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Cuny follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all for
coming here today and providing your testimony. It is well
received. I think certainly with, Madam Chair, being a former
schoolteacher herself, anything that has to do with education,
she certainly guides in whatever direction she wants to. I am
certainly in line as well. I come from a line of teachers, my
grandmother, my aunts, my sister, and now my cousins, so I
appreciate the hard work that goes into educating people. It is
much more than just a school. It requires truly an educational
community to make it happen. So we got to make sure that we
provide for you. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. We are going to look into what is going on
with the school replacement that you talked about for the DSSG
School District. So the division of facilities management
construction, I have been passing notes because I have been
trying to get the question up here good, as located in the
Bureau of Indian. You are in Albuquerque. That is the region
you have been dealing with?
Ms. Begaye. Yes.
Ms. McCollum. Or have you been dealing with the D.C. office
and it hasn't gone well?
Ms. Begaye. The Albuquerque office.
Ms. McCollum. So just the Albuquerque office.
Ms. Begaye. Yeah, mm-hmm.
Ms. McCollum. Do you know from talking to other colleagues
in Indian Country if they have experienced in other parts of
the United States and other regions some of the challenges that
you have had, like all of a sudden you are moving forward and
there is no consultation, and you feel like the rug has been
pulled out from underneath your feet because now you have to do
a sewer lagoon?
Ms. Begaye. Yeah. Well, when I was here earlier listening
to some of the other schools, they did mention some of the same
problems and did bring to light that DFMC was kind of doing the
same thing to them as well.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. That----
Ms. Begaye. But in their region.
Ms. McCollum. That is good for us to know because what I
love about having the tribal public witness before we have the
agencies here is you give us the questions to ask and to do
follow up, so thank you. Everybody's testimony is a little
different----
Ms. Begaye. Right.
Ms. McCollum. And so kind of put the bright red light on
top of that, so thank you for that. The insurance, as I was
said, I was passing notes. No disrespect, but there is a bill.
It is H.R. 8595. It was introduced, and it dealt with the
insurance issue that you have all brought up, which is very
enlightening to me and something that you have done an
excellent job of highlighting how we can save dollars so you
can put them back into serving students. On January 5th, it was
ordered to be reported by unanimous consent out of Natural
Resources. So I am going to follow up and see what other
committees it has to go through, and I will talk to our
leadership about that. And if it came out of a unanimous
consent, maybe you can talk to Mr. McCarthy as I am talking to
Mr. Hoyer, and maybe see if we can get this on the floor,
because that would be great, or if there is a holdup, find out
what it is so maybe we can work together and fix it.
The infrastructure package that I was talking about
earlier, you know, looking at the whole school, you know, you
move a school, you have to move pipes. You don't want to just
move the pipes in the school and get them up to good standards.
Everything that makes the connection, right? So I think you did
an excellent job of highlighting that. And then I am going to
have to look into, after the school shootings that took place,
and we had one on our Indian reservations in Minnesota several
years ago. We went in and put in some safety features. And I am
hearing you talk about safety features. And as a
superintendent, you are nodding your head yes.
I want to figure out what that Safe School Grant looks
like, and I, quite honestly, don't know whether or not that
those are grants you are available for. Do you know if you are
available for the Safe School Grants, sir?
Mr. Cuny. I think we may be available for it. I know we
have had conversations with BIA and BIE in terms of, you know,
possibly filing for a DOJ that would provide an SRO and tribal
grant schools. But the safe School Grant, I am sure we are
available for it. It is just a matter of applying for it. But
there are some capacity measures that could support school
safety at the Federal level.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. So there are other issues we can look
at, too, but we don't want to make this so complicated that you
always have to be hiring a grant writer or taking time away
from your other duties to write grants. So we want to try to
work together with you to make this as seamless as possible.
Thank you so much for your testimony. I have got some homework.
You did a good job as educators. Thank you.
Voice. Thank you.
Will the next panel please come up?
Voice. Thank you so very much.
----------
Wednesday, February 12, 2020.
AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE PUBLIC WITNESS DAY 2--PANEL 6
WITNESSES
CARRIE L. BILLY, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AMERICAN INDIAN HIGHER EDUCATION
CONSORTIUM
LAURIE HARPER, PRESIDENT, TRIBAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENTS NATIONAL
ASSEMBLY
LAWRENCE MIRABAL, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, THE INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN
INDIAN ARTS
RYAN WILSON, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ALLIANCE TO SAVE NATIVE LANGUAGES
Ms. McCollum. And as the next panel comes up, I want to
thank you for your patience. You have waited 45 minutes extra
to testify. I have got a big clock I am trying to watch, but we
also want to hear from your colleagues. So thank you for your
patience with the committee. And are you familiar with how the
testimony is going to work, or would you like me to go over
that again?
Ms. Billy. Go over it again.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. Happy to do that. So I am going to ask
you to introduce yourself. That will not count against your
time. You will have 5 minutes. We will go a little faster if we
don't do double introductions, and when you see the yellow
light, you have 1 minute left. When the light goes red, we ask
you to conclude your testimony. All your testimony will be
submitted into the committee record here, so we thank you for
all of it. And please don't feel rushed, and Mr. Joyce and I
will ask a few questions when we are done.
But let's get started. So, Ms. Billy, will you lead us off?
Ms. Billy. [Speaking native language.] My name is Carrie
Billy. I am the president and CEO of the American Indian Higher
Education Consortium, which is this nation's 37 tribal
colleges. Madam Chair, and members of the subcommittee, thank
you for your tremendous past support of tribal higher education
and for your faith and the power of place-based culturally-
grounded education and workforce development. They surely are
the means for bridging the swirl of generational poverty and
all that flows from that oppressive river.
Our tribal college requests are described in our written
testimony, so I will not mention all of them. Briefly, we are
close to full operating funding. We only need about $8 million
dollars to feel fully fund the 30 tribal College Act
institutions and a total of about $17 million in new support to
fully fund all tribal colleges. We also ask for your help in
meeting TCU construction and rehabilitation needs, beginning
first with a study of tribal college facilities that was
mandated, but never done, more than 4 decades ago.
Today, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you
today, but let's not make this a once-in-a-year event. We
invite you to visit any of the tribal colleges, in fact, all of
them, any time so you can see and experience the impact of your
annual investment in our Nation's 37 tribal colleges. The
return on that investment between, $6 and $17 for every one
Federal dollar, is visible every day at the tribal colleges and
their communities.
At Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, you will meet pre-engineering student,
Bobby Thomas. A SIPI student government president, Bobby can
tell you how in just a few short years, SIPI tripled its
completion rate while growing its enrollment by 25 percent. You
will see 100 graduating students who already have jobs as
optical and computer technicians, chefs, natural resource
managers, early childhood educators, and more.
At Navajo Technical Institute University in Crown Point,
New Mexico, you will meet Leslie Notan, Erica Bogoti, students
enrolled in one of two ABET-accredited engineering programs and
advanced manufacturing programs, where they use state-of-the-
art 3D printers to make parts for Boeing, Honeywell, and
Lockheed Martin. You will see those same students in their
spare time using those same printers to make tiny little
customized races for res cats and dogs with broken limbs.
Leslie even reversed engineered parts for his old car to get to
class every day, and Erica designed a now patented solar
medical cooler, and a 3D print finger for her off-the-grid
elderly family members with diabetes.
At Salish Kootenai College Pablo, Montana, you will see
high school students spending their afternoon at SKC's
innovative STEM academy working with college professors,
engaging in community-relevant experimental learning and
completing high school, already on a direct pathway to college.
At Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota, you will
visit their Lakota immersion nest and meet two and three-year-
olds speaking only Lakota, part of the generation that will
save their ancestors' language.
At Red Lake Nation College in Minnesota, you will meet high
school senior, Emma King Bird, who through Red Lakes early
college program, has now already earned more than half the
credit she needs for an associate degree, and she has also
completed basic training to join the U.S. Army.
At Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt, North
Dakota, you will learn that when the college was established in
the early 1970s, you could count the number of Ojibwe teachers
on three fingers. Today, you will meet Billy Howell, a Turtle
Mountain grad and one of 280 or so native teachers on or near
the reservation.
Currently, more than 90 percent of the reservations
reservation area teachers are native thanks to Turtle
Mountain's elementary education and secondary science programs.
That is the transformative power of tribal colleges, and you
are responsible. I could go on, but you get the idea. Success
story after success story. Native teachers, native scientists,
native leaders, native nation builders. The future of our
America is there at the 37 tribal colleges. Come and see it and
be part of this native renaissance.
We are so close to full funding of the tribal college and
universities assistance ask. We only need and ask for
additional $8 to $7 million dollars. I know it is really
difficult. But in closing we have one great need: 21st century
technology-enabled facilities that TCUs need to help our tribes
fully rebuild our nations. When Congress enacted the Tribal
College Act 41 years ago, it directed Interior to conduct the
study of TCU facilities, and authorized a construction program.
Forty-one years later, the study has not been completed, and
the construction program was never funded.
We ask this subcommittee to direct the Department to
complete the study and fund the Tribal College Construction
Program. Our tribes cannot be competitive in the 21st century
without the ability to train a 21st century workforce. Let's
end generational poverty in Indian Country. Thank you so much
for all you do, and let's work to create a native renaissance.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Billy follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Harper. My intro is like 5 minutes. Aaniin
wedaakewaad, Ogaabewisiikwe indizhinikaaz. Gaazagaskwaajimekaag
indoonjibaa. Niminwendam waabamininim igaye go ji-ni-dazhindaan
gidinwewininaan noongom.
Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, and members of the
subcommittee, I am Laurie Harper. I am from the Leech Lake Band
of Ojibwe in present-day Northern Minnesota. My whole life has
been steeped in educational equity of our people. I currently
serve as the director of education for the Leech Lake band of
Ojibwe. I am the elected chair of the Bug O Nay Ge Shig School
board, and I am also president of the tribal education
department's national assembly.
The Leech Lake band is one of 11 tribal nations in
Minnesota. TEDNA is a national nonprofit membership
organization for the education department of American Indian
Alaska native tribes. Thank you for the opportunity to speak
today for funding for TEDs
First and foremost, our sincerest gratitude for
appropriating funds for the past 6 Fiscal Years to support TEDs
through the Department of Interior's Title 25, Section 2020
grants. This subcommittee clearly values the crucial role of
TEDs in providing support and coordinating education programs
and services to Native American students. TEDs are making
historical progress in defining educational programs and
services, a role that Federal education policy ignored for too
long and Congress has sought to change. Continued funding is
required to maintain and expand essential and successful work
of TEDs for our Native American students, particularly those
served by the Bureau of Indian Education funded schools.
For this, the Leech Lake band of Ojibwe and TEDNA
respectfully request $10 million dollars to support TEDs Ted's
in the Department of Interior Environment and Related Agencies
appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2021. The funding for TEDs
through the Department of Interior is authorized in the 25
U.S.C. Section 2020, and this authorization dates back to 1988.
Since its enactment, Congress has retained this important
authorization in every major reauthorization of Federal
education laws. However, the authorization remained unfunded
for more than 25 years. Outstandingly, due to the commitment of
this subcommittee, Section 2020 grants finally received funding
in Fiscal Year 2015. There are currently 11 Section 2020 TED
grantees, whose vital work and initiatives under these grants
have only just started. They and many other TEDs need continued
and increased Section 2020 funding.
For some Native American students, the 183 BIE-funded
schools remain the only educational option because of the
unavailability or unsuitability of State public schools for
geographic or other reasons. Tribes operate most BIE-funded
schools through contracts or grants. A few remain directly
operated by the BIE. All BIE-funded schools are and
historically have been drastically underfunded as the
subcommittee is well aware. As the GAO stated, ``Funding
factors seriously harm Native American students and hinder
their academic success. The BIE-funded schools and the students
they serve are most in need of the assistance of tribal ed
departments.'' This is exactly what Section 2020 grants are
intended to address.
A crucial area that Congress identified for Section 2020
grants is the development of tribal education codes, including
tribal education policies and travel standards applicable to
curriculum, personnel, students, facilities, and support
programs. Given this congressional intent and mandate, I would
like to speak to my own experience as a tribal education
director.
Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Tribal Education Department
houses multiple programs. The Leech Lake TED in Minnesota
serves students attending 10 State K through 12 public schools
as well as the Bug O Nay Ge Shig School, a tribally-controlled
school funded through the BIE. In prioritizing capacity
building and crafting our education policy, we have actively
sought the input of our community, including our students,
parents, and caregivers in how they identify and define success
in a school educational setting.
The Leech Lake Tribal Education Department is fluid. We are
striving to build the capacity of our current staff, and at the
same time identifying areas within the TED that needs to be
built up. This has been a multipronged approach to policy and
capacity building. This includes data gathering of our post-
secondary students in what areas they are graduating in,
working with the tribal workforce development to identify
current and future workforce needs, and coordinating the
Minnesota Family Investment Program to ensure family financial
stability so our students and families can focus on education.
Our Section 2020 grant funds are an essential component of
building our capacity. In order to meet our student needs, we
are using the Section 2020 funding to develop the tribal
education code and the comprehensive ed plan that will be
culturally specific and relevant to us as Leech Lake Band of
Ojibwe. The activities funded by the Section 2020 grant has
assisted us in strengthening our relationships with outside
entities and the impact on the Leech Lake band of Ojibwe's
involvement in areas beyond the grant. Our approach to
supporting students emotionally, culturally, physically, and
mentally will foster our student success in any educational
setting.
The Section 2020 grantees are just beginning to demonstrate
the positive impacts we have in Native America education. We
want to continue our important work and build upon our
successes. Increased funding will help us do that. Section 2020
grants help facilitate local tribal control of education
through supporting early education initiatives and development
of culturally-relevant curriculum and assessments, increasing
tribal participation through TEDs, providing coordination,
administrative support services, technical assistance to
schools, and education programs, including maintaining and
sharing electronic data regarding Native American students, and
enforce tribal education codes, including tribal educational
policies and tribal standards applicable to curriculum,
personnel, students, facilities, and support programs. As
Congress has recognized, these are core educational governance
functions that are most appropriately left to the local
government closest to the students being served, the tribes.
Section 2020 grants clearly help facilitate this local control.
While TEDNA recognizes this subcommittees longstanding
commitment to funding TEDs, we would like to point out that we
view a $10 million authorization as the bare minimum required
to fulfill the intent of funding the important work of TEDs and
Native American education. Further, while Section 2020 funding
goes directly to TEDs, TEDNA is working closely with the BIE
continues to play an important role in providing technical
assistance to TEDs. TEDNA's role is one that the subcommittee
understands and has long acknowledged. We respectfully request
that this be memorialized in the report issued by the
subcommittee.
The continued investment in TEDs is sound Federal policy.
It efficiently focuses and maximizes scarce resources for
historically underserved populations. It encourages and
supports local control and tribal self-determination and
education. This subcommittee has an exceptional opportunity to
further these goals and help generations of Native American
students. We respectfully request $10 million for the TEDs in
the Department of Interior Environment and Related Agency
appropriation bill for Fiscal Year 2021 to continue the
groundbreaking, challenging, and most beneficial work being
done through the Section 2020 grants. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Harper follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Mirabal. Mr. Mirabal. Thank you, Madam Chair, and
members of the subcommittee. My name is Lawrence Mirabal, and I
am the chief financial officer at the Institute of American
Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I am grateful for the
opportunity to present testimony on behalf of the college. IAIA
was established in 1962 as the only BIA boarding school
teaching native arts and culture. In 1986, IAIA became an
independent college, chartered by the United States Congress to
empower creativity and leadership in native arts and culture.
First and foremost, IAIA is a community, a community that
embraces the past, enriches the present, and creates the
future, while provoking thought and providing exceptional
educational opportunities. Our college is one of only three
higher ed institutions in the Nation chartered directly by the
Congress. The Institute of American Indian Arts is a national
treasure and is where contemporary native art was born.
IAIA offers bachelors programs in studio arts, cinematic
arts and technology, creative writing, museum studies,
indigenous liberal studies, and the performing arts, as well as
a graduate degree in creative writing. Additionally, the
college is very close to establishing a second graduate program
in studio arts. The college serves more than 500 students
representing 34 States and 93 tribes from across North America.
Over 80 percent of IAIA students are Pell eligible, and many
are first generation attendees. These numbers translate into
dreams fulfilled, new opportunities, and a generational shift
for Native students and the communities that they come from.
The impact and importance of the work being done at IAIA are
undeniable.
To ensure financial sustainability, the college continues
to vigorously pursue revenue sources to augment its
congressional funding. Evidence of this can be found in the
college's operating budget. As of the most recent Fiscal Year,
almost 30 percent of the budget came from non-appropriation
sources. The students, faculty, and staff of IAIA are deeply
appreciative of this subcommittee's strong record of support.
It is clear that the unique mission of the college is
understood and valued by the members of this body.
The college's 2021 budget request includes a modest
increase of $252,000 over the amount enacted in Fiscal Year
2020. The Fiscal Year 2021 budget funding request will assist
IAIA in addressing several key priorities. Like many
institutions around the country, the college is placing a
renewed focus on student safety. The college's community is
diverse and dedicated to providing an environment for learning,
living, and working, that is free from discrimination,
harassment, misconduct, and retaliation. To ensure continuous
improvement in this area, the college has established the
position of coordinator of Title IX Equity and Inclusion, and
will soon make a permanent hire to fill this role.
IAIA will soon embark on the creation of a native arts
research center on the college's campus. This project will be
partially funded by the college's partnership with the Mellon
Foundation, with the college eventually absorbing ongoing
operational costs. The research center will coordinate
resources at the college and scholarly fellowships to support
research about contemporary Native American and Alaskan Native
arts. It is anticipated that the research center will serve as
a world-class destination for scholars throughout the country.
Offering a competitive benefits package is essential for
recruiting and retaining the most talented employees. The
college continues to absorb cost increases associated with
health insurance, maintaining an equitable faculty rank and
step schedule, and providing staff with competitive wages.
However, rising costs in these areas continue to be a reality
that the college must deal with.
In summary, AIAI's top priority is ensuring the success of
our students, affording them the opportunity to achieve
greatness and give back to their communities. This is how
generational change is made, and IAIA is very honored to be a
key part of that process. To continue this important work, we
respectfully request that the subcommittee act again in fiscal
year 2021 as you did in fiscal year 2020 by supporting the
Administration's request of $10.71 million in the independent
agencies title of your bill. The students, faculty, and staff
of IAIA greatly appreciate your support. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Mirabal follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Wilson. [Speaking native language.] Madam Chair and
Ranking Member Joyce, I got to meet you yesterday, and I am
really happy you went to NCAI. And, you know, we worked with
you, Madam Chair, for many years. I am Brian Wilson, the
president of the National Alliance to Save Native Languages. I
am also the co-chair of the National Congress of American
Indians Native Language Task Force, and former president of
National Indian Education Association and 20 years on their
board. So we have kind of been doing this a while.
I also want to acknowledge one of our founding board
members of the National Alliance and my also co-chair of NCAI
Task Force, my brother Joe Garcia, former president of NCAI. He
came to support us, and later on in my 5 minutes, perhaps,
Madam Chair, with your permission, you know, he can introduce
himself as well. I will talk fast. Brevity is not our strength,
but we are going to show some today [Speaking native language.]
Ms. McCollum. We save the best for last, and that includes
Mr. Garcia. So go ahead.
Mr. Wilson. Good. Good. You know, and I want to thank your
staff. Janet Erickson has been working on this language issue
for 20-some years up here. The prodigious record of Darren
Benjamin belongs in the Pantheon on this issue as well, and I
appreciate his presence here. He's got a lot of patience as
well.
We have got a very simple ask. You have got a program that
people are talking about throughout Indian Country. It has
created a wonderful buzz. And if you think of our languages as
kind of like a sleeping giant, you know, they are getting up on
one knee now and really trying to rise and be a part of what
culturally-based education should be. And what we are asking
you is to once again in this appropriations budget codify this
immersion program in it.
And I asked for $4 million in the testimony. I just want to
get in step with NIEA because I just read their testimony which
was $5 million. I know if we start saying $1 million here and
there, pretty soon we are talking about real money. But we have
a chance here to do something really dynamic, and this started
5 years ago. You guys offered support of report language that
encouraged the Bureau to look into this. Eventually that turned
into, you know, some initial funding for the projects. We have
had 30 schools receive this money over the last 2 Fiscal Years.
And the main primary point I want to make is the Bureau is
funding these schools on 1-year grants, and that doesn't really
make sense to me. What I would like to see is that you go ahead
and authorize them on at least a 5-year cycle on this, and the
reason for this is simple. You would never say to a BIE school
we are only going to fund your math department 1 year. How
would you get good personnel? How would you get traction? How
would you have a stable leadership, you know, within that
department?
What we are really looking at is for these schools to
create and engender in their culture or their site-based
management these language efforts that are going to be
impactful, dynamic, and solvent, and lasting. And that can't
happen by just one grant this year, next year you are out of
the loop, someone else is going to get it. And it is really
disrespectful to the last remaining language speakers that we
have because they are making commitments to go to these schools
and teach and be there without even knowing if they are going
to be hired, you know, the next year and so forth. So I wanted
to bring that forward to your attention.
And I want also say because Nagani is here, and you are
from where you are, Madam Chair. They precipitated this effort
when the Bug O Nay Ge Shig School hosted Nagani, they wouldn't
count them towards their ISEP student count, the immersion
students there. And so they were having a school within a
school, but without getting any benefit of those students on
the student count numbers. And when we talked to the Bureau
about it, they were like, well, that is just how it is. There
is no statutory authority or whatever. We go, yeah, there is.
And these BIE schools have had the authority for many years to
teach languages, but the budget constraints and really the
profound sense of urgency to fund their primary core academic
areas superseded that.
So what we wanted was a complete separate set aside that
wouldn't be commingled with ISEP dollars or with their
operating budgets for immersion so that those schools would
have a chance to have traction, to have solvency, and to be
able to exist in our kind of ever-changing world. And I want to
impress that point. There is a difference between teaching
Indian for a classroom, an hour-long class, and then another
group of 30 students comes in and all that versus using the
using the language as the medium of instruction, and having an
immersion program in your school. And this is what we are
asking you to really clarify in your report language. And also
that we authorize them for multiyear grants.
Now I am going to just tell you a quick story, and if it is
okay with you, I just wanted my brother to be able to introduce
himself because he is older than me, and I respect him a lot.
Madam Chair, when we started this effort, you know, this was
almost 20 years ago now, there was $1.4 million in another
department called administration for Native Americans, the
Native American Language Act. Five hundred and sixty-three
tribes, plus native Hawaii, plus all of our U.S. territories
and micro Asia were sharing in competitive grants to get that
money.
Where we are at today is phenomenal, and I want to just
take time out and thank all of you for us getting there, you
know, together because we have got a lot of good money in ANA
now. We have money in the Department of Education for this, and
then what you guys are doing, it is awesome. So, you know, I
wanted to put a context there, but with the Bureau's schools,
this is kind of my last example. My dad went to St. Stephen's
Indian School on the Wind River Indian Reservation, and he was
one of the many thousands of Indian kids that were spanked for
talking Indian in school, and on the playground, and in their
dorms. He was so excited. He died 4 four weeks ago. He was so
excited that his alumni school is receiving one of these
grants, yeah. And that is a real story. There are thousands
others like it, but that was a real personal one with me.
[The statement of Mr. Wilson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Wilson. And just real quick, I know I got 10 seconds,
brother, if you want to stand up and introduce yourself.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Garcia, see if you can get close enough
to a microphone so we can hear you, and we are honored to have
you with. Please.
Mr. Garcia. You want to look into my eyes, huh? [Laughter.]
[Speaking native language.] With all due respect, thank you
the time, and thank you, brother, for allowing me a little bit
of time. We do co-chair the Native Language Task Force at NCAI,
but it was an initiative that was started after we have talked
about languages every year, every year, every year, but we
never had any action on and how we are going to move this this
effort forward. And we saw that we are working with in a
bureaucratic system, being the United States government, and
how grants, and how funding, and all of that is put into place.
And so we cannot piecemeal this, and that is sort of what
we are talking about, what Ryan is talking, that we are
piecemealing everything that want to do. And so you cannot
sustain a function or an operation or a program if you don't
have funding for multiyear because you cannot build the
resources that you need to sustain that. And just like the
example he gave, you don't build a store like that. You don't
build a research facility like that.
And I like data and stuff. I am electrical engineer by
profession, but I am also fluent in my language, and we support
Esther Martinez bill. She was part of our community, and
unfortunately, we lost her after she received the National
Endowment here in Washington, D.C. And she was going home, and
she had an accident, and she was gone. But consequently, the
bill was named after her.
But the efforts that we talked about is not just New
Mexico, not just the Pueblos, but it is all across the Indian
Nation. All of the Indian nations are impacted by this, whether
they are in a public school or a BIE-controlled school or a
tribal-controlled school. So education is education, and I
think we all got to be on the same boat, the same platform, got
to be fair for all of our children because that is how our
future is going to be. We depend on our children and the
knowledge that we set forth for them, and including our
culture, our language, and the dominant society's language and
approach as well. So thank you for the few moments. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Always good to hear from you, Mr.
Garcia. I passed a note to Janet, and Mr. Joyce and I, we will
work with Darren, too. We are going to see if we really need
any authorization to go from 1 to 5 years, but then we have to
look at the impact for how OMB scores things because then we
are scoring for multiple years, and if that would mean that
they want us to fund the 5 years up front. Anyways, we will be
in touch, and thank you for bringing that up.
We heard from the secondary schools about the cost of
insurance. Is that something that you would agree that for
tribal schools to be on? I have to get a copy of the bill
language in front of me that I just referenced earlier to see
if it is, you know, K through 12 or if it includes Head Start,
or what all it includes. Is insurance something that that you
are paying extra for that if you were in the Federal plan, you
would have more money? You mentioned in your testimony you
would have more money to put back into student services?
Mr. Mirabal. Madam Chair, members of the subcommittee, it
is definitely something we would be open to exploring. Right
now we are insured privately like any college with a carrier or
broker, and we actually self-insure. We moved to a self-insured
health insurance model, but it is still a challenge with about
110 employees. That puts us right in the sweet spot for being
too small to be what they call credible, but still large enough
to be expensive.
Ms. McCollum. Okay.
Mr. Mirabal. So we would love to explore that option.
Ms. McCollum. So we will look into it.
Ms. Billy. Can I answer for the tribal colleges, just all
the trial colleges? Tribal colleges are eligible under the law,
the new law, to participate as long as their tribe has a 638
contract.
Ms. McCollum. Oh.
Ms. Billy. So if their tribe has a 638 contract, they can
participate. Any within the tribe can. So some of our tribal
colleges have switched over and had tremendous savings. But for
the colleges, and I imagine IAIA does not have a 638 contract,
so they are not eligible to participate in the Federal
employees program now. And they would see cost savings. One
college, I think their costs went down 30 percent, so it makes
a huge difference.
Ms. McCollum. Anything that we can put back into student
services----
Ms. Billy. Right.
Ms. McCollum [continuing]. Well worth it. Ms. Harper, it
was so great being out there at Bug O Nay Ge Shig School, and
seeing everything, dual language immersion. So it was friendly
for me to find the cafeteria and the ladies room, but the
children also in that school knew that their language was
important----
Ms. Harper. Right.
Ms. McCollum [continuing]. By looking at it, and that is so
impactful, so the work that you do in languages is very
important. And give a plug, I hear from my son who is a
linguist all the time just how important they are, but one fact
that hasn't been brought up that I want to put on the record is
children who learn two languages excel in math. They excel in
creativity, and they go off and on to learn other languages
because they crack the code of what it means to communicate. So
thank you all for your work and what you do.
And with that, we are going to adjourn until 1:00. Thank
you so much.
Voices. Thank you.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020.
AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE PUBLIC WITNESS DAY 2
AFTERNOON SESSION
----------
WITNESSES
DARRELL G. SEKI, SR., TRIBAL CHAIRMAN, RED LAKE NATION
TEHASSI TASI HILL, CHAIRMAN, ONEIDA NATION
CHERYL ANDREWS-MALTAIS, CHAIRWOMAN, WAMPANOAG TRIBE OF GAY HEAD
(AQUINNAH)
FLOYD AZURE, TRIBAL CHAIRMAN, ASSINIBOINE AND SIOUX TRIBES OF THE FORT
PECK RESERVATION
W. RON ALLEN, TRIBAL CHAIRMAN AND CEO, JAMESTOWN SKALLAM TRIBE
Ms. McCollum. Good afternoon, and welcome back to our last
public witness hearing covering tribal programs under the
jurisdiction of the Interior, Environment Appropriations
Subcommittee. Once again, we have organized these witnesses
according to testimony topic. This morning we heard about the
failure of trust and treaty obligations as it relates to public
safety and justice needs, and challenges facing schools, K-12,
and we have heard from the tribal colleges as well. We begin
this afternoon's hearing with the last panel related to
education before moving to our last topics, tribal government
and human services.
Before we begin, I would like to briefly touch on the
hearing logistics. We will call each panel of witnesses to the
table, and I thank the first panel for coming up, and each
witness will have 5 minutes to present their testimony. Janet
will be operating the timer here. When the timer goes to
yellow, that means you have 1 minute left of your 5. When it
goes to red, I usually kind of give you an extra minute, but
then I am going to lightly tap the gavel. So that is what it
sounds like because yesterday no one knew what it sounded like
because I didn't do it ahead of time. So that is what it sounds
like, so you would be over then.
We have all of your testimony, and it has all been entered
into the committee record here, and so don't feel rushed. Don't
feel, you know, like it won't get in unless you say it. I don't
anticipate any votes, so we are going to keep this going. So
yesterday we had a 45-minute break, and so there were people
who stayed an extra 45 minutes, and we appreciated the tribal
leaders' patience on that. So I think we are going to be okay
without any votes. If there are votes, I will ask people to
stay close to the witness room.
And I would like to remind members here the committee rules
prohibit the use of cameras and audio equipment during the
hearing by individuals without House-issued press credentials.
And Mr. Joyce would like us to start. He will be here shortly.
He wants to be respectful of everybody's time, and I appreciate
that, and we work together as a team, so we will get going. In
order to save time, rather than do double introductions, I am
going to have you introduce yourself. We won't count that
against your time. Once you start your testimony, then Janet
will start the 5 minutes, but we found that that went a little
smoother and kept things moving a little moving a little more
orderly. So if you would, please start, sir.
Mr. Seki. [Speaking native language.] My name is Darrell G.
Seki, Senior, chairman of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa
Indians. Good afternoon, Chair McCollum, and Ranking Member
Joyce, and other friends on this committee. Miigwetch for this
opportunity to testify today on appropriation needs of the Red
Lake band of Chippewa Indians.
The Red Lake Band's 840,000-acre reservation is home to
more than 13,700-plus tribal members. While we are rich in
culture and language, we face difficulties in meeting the needs
of our members with regard to healthcare, public safety, and
road maintenance as a direct result of the government's failure
to uphold its trust responsibility and respect our treaties. As
you consider Fiscal Year 2021 appropriations, we ask you to
remember the important role you have to play in changing this
course.
Today, we have five appropriations requests along with
others that can be found in my written testimony. First, Red
Lake requests that you continue to protect funding for Indian
Country from drastic and dangerous proposed cuts by this
Administration as you have done for the past several years.
Second, we request that you provide advanced funding for BIA
and IHS programs to help us avoid painful disruption to our
administration of vital services caused by the uncertainty of
continuing resolutions and government agency shutdowns. Third,
we request that you make permanent and expand BIA's Tiwahe
recidivism reduction initiative.
Chair McCollum, you are well aware about the important work
that these programs are doing in Minnesota. We have not had a
youth suicide in over 2 years. We are training our tribal
members to get good-paying jobs. We are providing our youth
with mental health and substance abuse services that are
culturally appropriate and effective. We are providing our
members with services that they desperately need. Failure to
continue increased access to these important programs would not
only be a disserve to Red Lake, but to all of Indian Country.
Fourth, as we work to make our reservation safer and free
of dangerous drugs that have taken too many of our members
lives, we request an additional $20 million in Fiscal Year 2021
for tribal law enforcement operations, an additional $3 million
specifically to combat our opiate crisis. In 2017, Red Lake
declared a public health emergency because of the sharp
increase in opiate overdoses. Since then, our law enforcement
has been successful in confiscating heroin, fentanyl, and other
drugs. We also have stepped up training for our members to save
lives. In the past 3 years, we have had 214 drug overdoses. We
are fortunate to have saved the lives of 104 members by using
Narcan. At Red Lake, we have actually saved more lives with our
Narcan program than all of BIA law enforcement nationwide.
Ms. McCollum. Wow.
Mr. Seki. Despite this progress, every year we have to
transfer money from other critical unfunded budgets to maintain
the level of public safety that our members need. We need you
to stand with us in this war on drugs. Our community deserves
to be healthy and safe.
Fifth, we ask you to add the indefinite appropriations
authorization language regarding the financing of 105(l) lease
costs that are included in my written testimony. This language
is modeled after what has been requested by the Administration,
adopted by Congress in prior years for contract support costs.
At Red Lake, we were pleased to recently finalize Section 105
leases for our criminal justice complex and two new fire halls
after our good and productive negotiations with the Department
of Interior.
We are confident this language would facilitate the funding
of lease payments without impacting other tribal programs and
would help avoid the time-consuming, costly reprogramming
process that frustrates both Federal and tribal administrators.
And I want to say Chi Miigwetch for allowing me to request your
support for some of our most immediate needs at Red Lake as you
enact Fiscal Year 2021 appropriations that directly impact my
constituents. We are counting on you. Chi Miigwetch.
[The statement of Mr. Seki follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. No pressure. No pressure from one of my
tribal leaders back home. Please, sir.
Mr. Hill. [Speaking native language.] Hello, everyone. My
name is Tehassi Hill, chairman for Oneida Nation. Chairwoman
McCollum, Ranking Members Joyce, and the committee, thank you
for inviting tribal leaders to testify before you today. It is
an honor to be here on behalf of more than 17,000 members of
the Oneida Nation. I am here today to advocate for a number of
critical programs and policies that directly impact the Oneida
Nation and Indian Country as a whole.
As you know, tribes and tribal organizations face many
challenges as identified in the ``Broken Promises'' report. In
addition, both the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of
Indian Affairs are on the Government Accountability Office's
High Risk List. Indian Country has been underfunded and
underserved for too long. Below are just some recommendations
the Oneida Nation has to improve the health, safety, and
welfare of our community.
One of the fundamental trust responsibilities of the
Federal Government is healthcare, and the committee has our
thanks for the substantial funding increase it provided in the
Indian Health Service in the appropriations measure enacted in
December. I would like to highlight the growing use of Section
105(l) leases through which IHS enters into a lease for
facilities owned and/or leased by tribal or tribal
organizations, and used to deliver the healthcare services
under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance
Act. Section 105(l) leases have been a great success for
reimbursing tribes for the cost of providing healthcare
facilities that IHS would otherwise have to provide. They
provide much-needed funds to help with maintenance and
improvement of facilities we are providing to carry out our
Title V compacts with IHS.
Unfortunately, IHS has failed to adequately plan for the
widespread adoption of Section 105(l) leases, and while this
committee has increased funding for the program, IHS budget
requests have not kept pace with demand. Of the $125 million
the committee appropriated in Section 105 leases in December,
we understand that at least 95 percent is needed to support
existing leases. In order to address this deficiency, I request
the committee take two actions. First, the committee should
consider creating a separate funding line for Section 105(l)
leases to ensure the use of the program is fully recognized.
Second, the committee should classify Section 105(l) lease
appropriations as separate and indefinite in the manner it did
with contract support costs.
Next, I would like to reiterate Oneida's strong support for
tribal self-governance. This is tribal control of the
distribution and administration of Federal funding. At Oneida,
we have assumed responsibilities for our healthcare, education,
and most BIA programs, and the results have been undeniably
positive. Environmental, health, and education indicators have
gone up while administrative costs have gone down. Just as
important, our tribal government capacity has also improved.
Our staff now have the knowledge, skills, and experience to
take on new and more complex governance operations, and they do
so on a regular basis.
Every culture has a story of how the world was created.
Oneida Nation's creation story teaches us that everything is
connected. There must be balance for the environment to thrive.
It is philosophy that has let us become long-term partners with
the EPA on the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. Launched in
2010, the initiative protects and restores the largest system
of fresh surface water in the world, the Great Lakes, which
happens to be in our backyard. Since then, Oneida Nation has
been awarded nearly $4.5 million for watershed improvement
projects, which not just benefit our community, but the greater
region. Oneida Nation strongly urges the committee to fully
fund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
Lastly, I ask Congress to fully fund the Native American
Languages Program. For more than 80 years, we have worked hard
to preserve and revitalize the Oneida language. In the 1930s,
the Oneida Nation began documenting our language and how it has
evolved. In the 1970s, we partnered with a linguist from the
University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, to develop a dictionary
that is still in use today. Unfortunately, our people have not
spoken Oneida as a first language for more than a century. To
combat this, we launched a 10-year language immersion plan in
1996 that created the Oneida language curriculum available to
hundreds of students.
In 2010, thanks to a Native American language preservation
and maintenance grant, we developed and implemented an 18-unit
course curriculum coupled with an online learning program that
has provided Oneida language learning access to thousands of
students and Oneida citizens. Oneida language is a key
component of our cultural identity. Language [Speaking native
language]. When we use [Speaking native language], the good
medicine of our language, we begin to heal our students and
community. For these reasons, we respectfully request you fully
fund the Native American Languages Program at the $13 million
level as just been recently reauthorized with the passage of
the Esther Martinez Language Revitalization Act.
[Speaking native language.] Thank you again for this
opportunity.
[The statement of Mr. Hill follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Andrews-Maltais. Good afternoon, Chairwoman McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. Is the red light on? And would you like some
more water than that? We can pour you a glass now.
Ms. Andrews-Maltais. Sure. That would be great.
Ms. McCollum. I can hear it in your voice.
Ms. Andrews-Maltais. But good afternoon, Chairwoman
McCollum----
Ms. McCollum. Good afternoon.
Ms. Andrews-Maltais [continuing]. Ranking Member Joyce if
he was here, and members of the committee. And thank you for
your commitment to Indian Country and your continued effort to
help fulfill the United States trust and treaty obligations.
And thank you for inviting me to testify here today.
My name is Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, and I am the chairwoman
of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah in Massachusetts on
the island of Martha's Vineyard, and I am currently serving in
my fourth term. I also serve on the board of directors of the
United South and Eastern Tribes, USET, and the BIA/NIH's Self-
Governance Advisory Committees, the Tribal Interior Budget
Council, and the HHS Secretary's Tribal Advisory Committee. And
I also previously served as a senior adviser to the assistant
secretary on Indian affairs in the Obama Administration.
My tribe, the Aquinnah Wampanoag, is part of the great
Wampanoag Nation known as the people of the first light. We
have occupied our homeland since time immemorial. Our ancestors
were the people who met and helped the pilgrims survive in
these lands, and we were signatories to the original Treaty of
Peace between our nation and King James of England. As one of
the first Indian nations to encounter European explorers and
settlers, we have endured centuries of warfare and disease,
legal prohibitions against our culture and language, loss of
our aboriginal homelands, discrimination, and forced
assimilation. Indian people have suffered incalculable losses
and we have paid dearly with our lands, our resources, and the
lives of our ancestors.
So in an effort to end the centuries of slaughter, tribal
nations agreed to settle these bloody conflicts with treaties
and negotiated settlements with disproportionate concessions
from us. Indian Country has paid it forward, and I will repeat
that: Indian Country has paid it forward. We trusted the United
States when they promised that in exchange for our lands and
our vast natural resources that they would, in turn, provide
for the health, education, and well-being of our people. And
today, the trust obligation that resulted from those agreements
has not been honored. We have honored our end of the bargain.
However, the United States has not honored theirs.
As this committee understands and tries to address, the
United States owes us a financial debt, an obligation to fund
the tribal governments to ensure our continued health,
education, and well-being. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
report, ``Broken Promises,'' describes how grossly inadequate
the Federal funding is, and it exposes the utter failure of the
United States to live up to its trust and treaty obligations,
resulting in devastating impacts across Indian Country that
this committee is all too familiar with.
Federal Indian funding should not be discretionary or
subject to political discourse of Congress. This solemn
obligation is not discretionary, and Congress' failure to fund
the rest of the Federal Government should not diminish its
obligations and fiduciary responsibility to tribes. We
appreciate your efforts and your attempts to appropriate
critical funding necessary to help meet the United States'
obligations. However, tribal governments need full funding and
in parity with other Federal programs.
We fully support H.R. 1128, the advanced appropriations
bill, and thank you for putting that forward. We also thank the
subcommittee for rejecting the Administration's proposed cuts
to the Fiscal Year 2020 appropriations and for the increases
you have proposed as outlined in more detail in my written
testimony.
What I would like to articulate are some of the more
specific asks. I ask that the committee when developing
appropriations language truly consider the United States'
unique relationships with tribes, and how tribes are capable of
governance. Tribal sovereignty should not be subjugated to
States by having to receive our Federal funding through grants
or set asides administered by States because many tribes never
receive those funds. Funding should be disbursed to us through
our compacting and contracting agreements, not through States
or competitive grants, pitting tribes against each other for
those desperately-needed resources. Funding needs to be
consistent and sustained. Our governments cannot create or run
programs or services on small grants or inconsistent funding.
Tribes, especially small tribes like mine, who have no economic
development and rely completely on our Federal funding. And
last year's shutdown was devastating to us.
Unlike States and municipalities, tribes do not have a tax
base to supplement the cost of running our government's
essential programs and service. If special language or
authority is needed, then I ask that the committee consider
including such language that allows the exercise of
discretionary authority to fully fund us and includes as much
flexibility as possible so we can develop our programs and
services in a manner that best meets our unique and individual
tribal nations' needs.
Funding also needs to be timely. As a self-governance tribe
for almost 2 decades, my tribe has not received our lump sum
full annual payment required by law since 2001 or 2002.
Finally, I ask that the committee include language in its
appropriations accompanying report that directs the BIA and the
IHS to explain the reasons that prevent their offices from
complying with the statutory mandate which requires the
Secretaries to award funds to tribes not later than 10 days
after the apportionment of such funds by the Office of
Management and Budget; and that the departments identify
remedies to overcome these challenges, including any required
funding to implement such changes.
Thank you again for the opportunity to be here today, and I
am happy to answer any of the questions you may have.
[The statement of Ms. Andrews-Maltais follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Please, sir.
Mr. Azure. Thank you, Chairwoman----
Ms. McCollum. You might want to pull that a little closer.
Mr. Azure. Okay.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Azure [continuing]. And your committee for allowing me
to speak here for the Fort Peck Tribes. I am Floyd Azure. I am
the chairman of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort
Peck Reservation. We appreciate the subcommittee's continued
commitment to addressing the substance abuse and consequential
challenges that arise from this plague. When someone is
suffering from addiction, it is not just the person who is
impacted. It is the entire family, and, for tribal communities,
it is the entire tribe. The addictions our people are facing
today, and, in particular, meth and heroin, are so much more
destructive than alcohol. I am not sure we can survive another
generation with our people locked in the grasp of the addiction
of these drugs. Thus, I would like to take my time today to
talk about the importance of supporting the Indian Health
Service and the need to support the Indian Health Service's
capacity to collect from third-party payers, like Medicaid,
Medicare, and private insurance.
At the Fort Peck Service Unit, the increase in third-party
collections from expanded Medicaid in Montana has allowed the
Indian Health Service to actually provide healthcare rather
than band-aids, which all too often were prescription
painkillers. It is an old story across Indian Country that the
biggest drug dealer on the reservation is IHS clinic. This is
because the IHS historically did not have the resources to
treat serious conditions like torn ACLs, rotator cuff injuries,
or even gallbladder disease. Because these conditions are not
life or limb conditions and would not qualify for PRC contract
care, consequently the private providers, who were led to
believe that painkillers would be a safe alternative to real
care, prescribed painkillers. Thus, for a generation we had to
deal with people who were given pills and became addicts----
Ms. McCollum. That is right.
Mr. Azure [continuing]. Which led to the destruction of
lives, families, and, in the end, compromised the very
foundation of our community and our future. However, since
Medicaid expansion, the numbers tell us that the people are
getting real healthcare, and their quality of life is
improving, which means the quality of life for our children is
improving. No longer are people being told that they are not
sick enough to get quality healthcare and given a bottle of
pills for pain.
Specifically, we have had scores of hip and knee
replacements and other orthopedic surgeries, and other
preventive and screening healthcare includes substance abuse
treatment. While there is no magic solution to combatting the
many issues that are caused by drug and alcohol addiction, I am
certain that ensuring people have access to quality healthcare
is a big part of the solution. As our people here, we must work
to heal our families, and that is why I am here again asking
for additional funding for our tribal social services program.
Over 36 percent of children in the foster care system in
Montana are Indian children. Indian people represent only 10
percent of the State population. More than 100 Fort Peck
children are in the foster care system today.
Montana is one of the six States in the country to have
instituted an ICWA court. The court handles State ICWA cases in
Yellowstone County from Fort Peck, Northern Cheyenne, and Crow
Tribes. The team approach of the ICWA court in Montana fosters
collaboration between the State and tribal stakeholders,
promotes meaningful State compliance with the Child Indian
Welfare Act, and improves outcomes of Indian children and their
families involved in the foster care system. This kind of
support and dedicated staff can only continue with that
additional funding for the BIA tribal social services and the
ICWA programs.
Relatedly, while we appreciate increased funding for tribal
courts that Congress has provided, it has not been enough.
Tribal courts are the backbone of tribal sovereignty. Without
sound tribal courts, we would not be a community where people
feel safe, where businesses want to open, and our children, who
are the most vulnerable, receive protection. Currently, the
Bureau of Indian Affairs only provides a fraction of the
funding to operate our tribal court. Our court is one of the
few tribal courts in the country exercising an expanded VAWA
jurisdiction. This work is important to making our reservation
a safe place for women and children. However, it takes
additional resources to retain legal-trained defense counsel,
prosecutors, and judges.
Finally, my tribes and others are resisting the
construction of the Keystone pipeline that will cross the
Missouri River, just one-quarter mile from the western boundary
of the Fort Peck Reservation. This project presents a grave
threat to the land the water resources of the Fort Peck Tribes.
Thus, while we remain hopeful that the legal process will stop
this pipeline from becoming a reality, we fear we will lose,
and my community will be left to do deal with the consequences
of this pipeline. We are worried about the man camps that will
be built and the increased burden on our law enforcement and
social services programs as a result.
We know too well about the impact that the Bakken boom had
on our community with increased drugs and violence and the
introduction of modern human trafficking. We believe most of
the increased activity will be from the company's man camps. We
ask Congress to provide us with additional resources to be able
to address these impacts if Keystone is built. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Azure follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Allen. Well, good afternoon, Madam Chair and committee
members. I am Ron Allen, chair and CEO for the Jamestown
Skallam Tribe located in western Washington State. It is always
an honor to come here and advocate not just for my tribe, but
for many issues that I am very familiar with with Indian
Country. I have many hats. I participate on behalf of Indian
Country, and one of the co-chair of the TIBC, and I think the
TIBC for the BIA is going to be testifying. If not, I am going
to highlight some points.
It is often tempting to look down at my colleagues and say
``ditto,'' and I am sure you hear that regularly through the 2
days of hearing of testimony from the tribes. We want to thank
you, Congressman Kilmer, with regard to updating the civil
rights crisis, ``Broken Promises.'' Without a doubt, it should
be a roadmap for the committee and for Congress with regard to
the needs of Indian Country. I have been involved for many
years advocating for budgets across the board--IHS, BIA, HUD,
and transportation, and on down the line--and we are well aware
that as a result of the original crisis report, and we forced
OMB to give us an update on what are the numbers available for
Indian Country.
So we know that there are probably $20, $21 billion
available for Indian Country across all Indian programs. That
is not enough. So we can tell you just by some analysis that we
have done on some of the programs, the need of Indian Country
is probably north of $200 billion. That is a big gap.
So how do we do that? How do we fill that gap, and the gap
really is about how you can help us empower tribes to become
more self-reliant the way we were historically, but being self-
reliant here in the 21st century. So that is a huge issue for
us in terms of how we are going to move that agenda forward and
how we are going to try to advance any country's agenda.
So I am advocating also for the 105 budget. We know that in
2020, that there is a good number in there for the 105 leases,
and I just want to underscore the point that we can't wait for
the Federal Government to deal with schools, and incarceration
facilities, and clinics, and the other kinds of facilities we
need or upgrading of any of those facilities that carry out
Federal functions. So we have to go out and build themselves,
borrow money to make it happen. So that program is a way to
help us get to effective programs and effective facilities to
carry out these Federal functions. So that is a huge deal.
We want to underscore to you and your committee the need
for your support for the advanced funding. These CRs are a
pain, and they really are a pain and shutdown for Indian
Country. So in the same way that you recognize the importance
of veterans, we want you to recognize the unique important
relationship with Indian Country. The number is not that big
when you are thinking about the one-plus trillion-dollar budget
that the Federal Government deals with in order to get those
resources out to the tribes. And many of our sister tribes just
don't have the resources to lean on to carry out their Federal
functions. So that is a huge issue that we want to advocate.
The base funding for the BIA is going to be a big issue for
us, and so we are continuing to advocate. We continue to
encourage you to make sure that you don't let them zero out HIP
programs, general assistance type programs, things that they
just constantly put on chopping blocks that actually serve our
people in the economically disadvantaged. So that is a huge
issue for us.
Infrastructure is a huge issue, and with the BIA program,
primarily you are dealing with road maintenance. Road
maintenance, you know, it is well over $300 million queue list
that is sitting out there. And those Indian roads out there
need help, and we know you have been bumping it up, but we are
still losing ground. I just want you to know we're losing
ground if we show you the inventory updated, it will show you
what is going on here. It is just basically those road and
infrastructure is essential whether it is healthcare, getting
the kids to school and so that they have safe programs.
I want to emphasize my point about the bridging of the gap
of the $20 billion to $200-plus billion is economic
development. So we enhance an economic infrastructure, but also
loan guaranty programs, surety guaranty programs. That is how
you can help tribes, you know, get businesses off the ground,
generate unrestricted revenues for tribes to become more
successful themselves, develop their own unrestricted revenues
in order to fill that gap of the need of our communities. Last
but not least, I just want to underscore I am from the
northwest where natural resources are a big issue for us. I
serve on the U.S./Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty. We have
resources that we need in order to deal with that. You bumped
it up this year. We appreciate that, but it is a very
complicated process between us, Alaska, and Canada to get our
salmon back to a healthy state.
So I will close with the urging of the recognition that you
did help some programs in Alaska with regard to that matter,
but we also need help with the tribes and our programs, our
rivers, our stocks, that are very important to us in Washington
State and Oregon. So with that, I thank you and look forward to
answering any questions you may have.
[The statement of Mr. Allen follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Stewart, do you have a
question at this time?
Mr. Stewart. No. I am sorry I missed it, and just would
thank the chairwoman and members for being here.
Voice. We can repeat it for you. [Laughter.]
Ms. McCollum. I am sure Mr. Amodei will fill him in on the
floor. So, Chairman Seki, I have got a question for you. I
think I know the answer. You spoke of opioids and other things,
but we heard it in testimony today. I have heard it from other
tribal members that meth is making a comeback. And with that,
on top of the opioid epidemic, and congratulations for saving
as many lives as you have. Meth also brings other problems with
pollution, sometimes losing a house and other things like that.
Are you seeing that as well?
Mr. Seki. Yeah, you are correct on that statement regarding
the drugs because we got one of the largest lakes in Lake
Superior is Red Lake, and, yes, because we have fishermen all
in our lake, and, you know, it does pollute our lake somewhat.
But we deal with it because of our law enforcement, and all the
different programs we have, just like this Tiwahe program for
our youth. We have this children's healing center to advocate
for our kids to be reunited with their families. And as you are
aware, we do a lot, but we question it expanded. This program
expanded to other tribes and pilot tribes be kept where they
are at in the funds because these help families to understand
the teachings that they are being given by this healing center,
you know, what the effects are on the drugs that are being out
there on our reservations, and not just Red Lake. It is
throughout Indian Country, even our surrounding communities are
like that. They have the same problems.
Ms. McCollum. That is true.
Mr. Seki. We ask that you get the Appropriations Committee
to assessment on this endeavor to try and keep our families
healthy because are almost complete building on our treatment
center, because that is what you need to do is to heal our
people, to understand, to train them, to treat them so they can
have healthy lives and get their families together and have
appropriate jobs and all that, because, you know, like you say,
sure, even if it is the water, the drugs. Sure that trickles
down to the water, and rivers, and the rec center.
Ms. McCollum. So you mentioned fire stations and firehouse.
And we were talking about climate change, and we heard from
some of the tribes that were dependent upon timber harvests for
economic development about, you know, what's happening with
climate change and the threat of fire, and probably because of
invasive species, and drought and that. So how close is your
fire station if you don't have good fire halls?
So this is the first time I think that I can remember in
testimony anybody talking about it. You think about how
isolated tribal areas are, and some of the situations you are
in, especially in the northwest, in the Midwest. So you have
two fire stations for the whole reservation?
Mr. Seki. Yes, we have four districts. We have Pima, Rugby,
Red Lake. We are a large-based tribe. We have members that live
off our reservation, so we have a fire hall at Pima. And we had
a whole fire hall that was under the Bureau of Indian Affairs,
and we had to borrow money to fill our new fire halls. Right
there, it is the trust responsibility of the Federal
Government. We did ask, but there were no funds available, so
we didn't do Red Lake because the other one was contaminated
because it was falling apart. The rest of them were falling
apart, so we had to borrow money from the USDA to build these
fire halls, plus fire trucks.
Ms. McCollum. So that funding comes from USDA.
Mr. Seki. Yeah, we got a loan.
Ms. McCollum. That is a loan, okay.
Mr. Seki. That is a loan.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. You have given more food for thought,
talking about firehouse when we talk about public safety.
Mr. Seki. So that is why we went through that lease
agreement so we could pay for the land.
Mr. Allen [continuing]. Line item in the budget.
Ms. McCollum. Yeah, you know, you see things sometimes in
the budget, and until somebody says something, then all of a
sudden a light goes off. And it is like, okay, another of our
underfunded promises.
Mr. Seki. Yeah. We already get $47,000 a year for----
Ms. McCollum. Okay. You mentioned about, you know, you were
supposed to get the tribal awarded grants in a timely fashion,
and you are not getting them. About how long does it take it
before you are seeing the----
Ms. Andrews-Maltais. It really just depends on where the
continuing resolutions are. But according to our Self-
Governance Compact, we are supposed to get it October 1st, you
know, so that we have our full amount pending in advance so
that we are able to really continue our programs and services.
It has been years since we have gotten a lump sum, and it comes
in incremental installments during the course of the year. And
we continuously ask the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Office of
Self-Governance, why they have it going from Treasury to Bureau
to the region to Self-Governance to the region, and then back
to us. It does this crisscrossing. We have discussed how some
[Audio malfunction in the hearing room], and it delays us.
So for a group that is supposed to show status and we see
there are no monies right up front, we wind up getting our
monies no later than some of the contract times do because of
the redundancy and how they allocate it. And we are also
concerned with all the increases appropriated through this
committee, even with the Tiwahe increase in 2016. A majority of
these self-governance tribes weren't even going to be receiving
that money until the Asia office actually stepped in and
required the Office of Self-Governance to work for the tribes,
and then to find what those funds were when they actually had a
line item 15, 20 years ago.
So they are working on obsolete and incorrect information,
and if you look at the funding on a lot of the self-governance
tribes, there hasn't been increases because as Congress is
appropriating it, if it is not specifically said, oftentimes it
is self-governance tribes get left out of the loop, so we don't
receive those increases as we are supposed to. And it has been
very difficult trying to unpack all of that. We have been able
to just kind of accumulate with confusion. And a failure for
transparency is why we are asking for a report from BIA and IHS
to show or demonstrate to you how come they are not able to
fulfill their obligation as mandated by the statute?
Ms. McCollum. Well, I hope the report shows how they can do
it quicker. In just the few minutes remaining, Medicaid
expansion came up, and that is in the Affordable Care Act,
along with permanent reauthorization for Indian healthcare and
health services, so I know that we are all waiting to see what
happens with that. I am just kind of doing the States in my
mind. I know we did the expansion in Minnesota. You don't have
it.
Mr. Hill. Not in Wisconsin.
Ms. McCollum. Oh, that is right. I remember your former
governor. That is right, yeah. You have it in Massachusetts,
Montana.
Voice. Washington.
Ms. McCollum. Washington. It makes a huge difference, so it
makes a huge difference. And I will just mention it, I am going
to figure out more about if there is anything that could
happen. You are the second person to bring up man camps with
Keystone pipeline. Having spent a lot of time in western North
Dakota, eastern Montana, I know what happens with the oil bust
booms and what happened with the man camps there. And for the
tribes all of a sudden to be picking up an extra cost when
Keystone is being put in because of all the jobs it was going
to bring, and all the money that was going to happen with the
oil moving forward. And then you have a pipeline running
through your property, and then you are paying, you know, well,
you are paying public safety dollars to keep the tribe safe. So
thank you for bringing that up. I am going to look into that a
little more.
Thank you all for your testimony. I appreciate it.
Voices. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Miigwetch.
----------
Wednesday, February 12, 2020.
AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE PUBLIC WITNESS DAY 2--PANEL 2
WITNESSES
JULIAN BEAR RUNNER, PRESIDENT, OGLALA SIOUX TRIBE
JONATHAN M. NEZ, PRESIDENT--NAVAJO NATION, NAVAJO NATION
MARTIN HARVIER, PRESIDENT, SALT RIVER PIMA-MARICOPA
DAVID HILL, PRINCIPAL CHIEF, MUSCOGEE (CREEK NATION)
Ms. McCollum. So, gentlemen, we have a timer. It is set for
5 minutes. I am going to ask you to introduce yourself, but
your introduction will not count against your testimony. And
when the light is yellow, that means you are at 4 minutes, and
when it turns red you are at 5. And so if we could start with
you, sir. Introduce yourself, and then when you start your
testimony, we will start recording. And the red button needs to
be on in order for you to be recorded. Thank you.
Mr. Bear Runner. Thank you, Chairwoman McCollum. My name is
Julian Bear Runner. I am currently serving as the 43rd
president for the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation in South Dakota. Thank you, again, Madam Chair and
members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify on
Fiscal Year 2021 funding recommendations for the tribal
government and human services programs.
In 1868, the United States agreed to the terms of the Fort
Laramie Treaty, cementing this country's obligation to the
Oglala Sioux Tribe. While this should guarantee our well-being,
the chronic underfunding of Indian Country programs has taken a
detrimental toll on our tribe and our members. Throughout the
Federal budget process, we can improve the safety of our
communities, strengthen families, and promote tribal health
with this goal. I offer the following recommendations. Public
school safety communities are safe when the roads are well
maintained, law enforcement is supported, and detention and
substance abuse treatment facilities are well resourced. Yet
public safety programs in Indian Country are constantly and
consistently underfunded. And the Oglala, we bear this burden.
Tribal members must confront dangerous road conditions on a
daily basis. Law enforcement is grossly understaffed. Detention
facilities are deteriorating. Meanwhile, methamphetamine
ravages our communities, and these issues undermined our safety
and our self-sufficiency. I did declare us in a state of
emergency due to the meth epidemic, and, you know, I fell on
the BIA and relied on them for additional law enforcement
support.
With the subcommittee's support, our roads can become safe
passages to work and school, our law enforcement officers can
respond quickly to public safety threats, and we can treat more
people for drug addiction, and safely detain those who break
our laws. Accordingly, we urge Congress to increase funding for
the BIA road maintenance and ensure funding for our tribal
roads. We currently don't receive any funding for our tribal
roads, only for the BIA roads, as well as for the tribal law
enforcement and detention services, and to maintain funding for
the tribal opioid response grants while expanding these grants
to include other drugs other than just the opiates, like
methamphetamine. We also need to increase the funding for our
tribal court systems. Our Supreme Court is woefully
underfunded.
Families and children thrive when given the access to
robust social services and adequate housing. While many
Americans access these resources, my tribe must contend with
high rates of infant mortality limited to the non-existent
economic development and extreme housing shortages. Yet these
challenges are not insurmountable. When we promote the personal
development of tribal citizens and provide safe and stable
living environments, Indian children and families and
communities can flourish.
You know, a lot of our communities, and I want to thank you
for coming out to our reservation, Madam Chair. And, you know,
some of these roads are almost, you know, non-existent. And,
you know, for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, I mean, I mean, we are, I
think, severely, severely underfunded when it comes to roads,
and that is why I chose to come here today and ask, you know,
and share, you know, some of our information with our roads,
because some of these communities are, I mean, was once paved
and now it is just like craters hit the road, you know. And we
have school buses or ambulances are on these roads, and you
know, we are still waiting on FEMA funding from our emergency
from the last year. And, you know, for us to have so many miles
of road, I believe, 516 miles of BIA road, and approximately
1,900 miles of tribal roads. And like I said, we don't get no
funding for the tribal roads. It falls on the tribe itself to
maintenance.
And, you know, it is really detrimental, you know, to the
people, I mean, and then it creates such an obstacle for our
law enforcement and our ambulances, you know. Our ambulances
are already being, you know, mileaged out so quickly because of
the, you know, the distance between the hospital and wherever,
you know, they receive their medical calls at, you know. But,
you know, these are just some of the things, you know, that we
face every day in Indian Country, you know, and especially for,
you know, not only the Oglala Sioux Tribe, but the Great
Plains, you know. It seems like nobody knows that we exist.
Yes, ma'am. I appreciate that.
But, you know, anything that you all can do to help, you
know. It is just these roads have been like this since I was a
child, you know, and still, you know, they just continue and
continue to deteriorate. And a lot of them are gravel road, you
know. And our dialysis patients live on these roads. Our elders
live on these roads. And especially during a storm, you know,
it is very hard and it is very critical for them to receive the
care and report to dialysis, you know. It is just tremendous,
and it just continues to pile up and create more and more
problems.
[The statement of Mr. Bear Runner follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you. Thank you, and you have very
comprehensive testimony. It has been entered into the record.
Thank you. Sir.
Mr. Nez. Good afternoon, Madam Chair McCollum, Rep.
Stewart, Representative Stewart, tribal leaders. My name is
Jonathan Nez. I am the president of the great Navajo Nation,
and I am also joined today by my wife, the first lady of the
Navajo Nation, Phefelia Nez. Also members of our lawmaking
body, delegate and chairman Oto So, Raymond Smith, and Pernell
Halona. In addition, we have cabinet members of our
administration and our staff here today. We appreciate this
opportunity to testify on the Navajo Nation's funding
priorities and needs in Fiscal Year 2021, and it can take more
than 5 minutes to let you know our priorities, but we
appreciate the opportunity to be before the committee.
Funding allocations to programs must consider the
commitments the United States government made when they entered
into treaties with Indian nation. And as you know, Madam Chair,
to this day, tribal nations have honored and respected this
sacred agreement. American Indians serve in the U.S. in greater
numbers than any other ethnic group. And we need remind the
U.S. government of that. A lot of our warriors are the biggest
percentage to volunteer among American Indians today.
In the interest of time, I would like to focus my testimony
on the importance of transportation and infrastructure and the
related nodes of the Navajo Nation, and there are a lot of
commonalities with other tribes that have testified before you.
I won't highlight other Navajo Nation appropriation priorities,
all of which can be found in more detail in my written
testimony.
In regards to transportation and infrastructure, the Navajo
Nation has the largest land base, Native American tribe, in the
country, 27,000 square miles. It has more than 11,200 miles of
roads with over 9,500 remaining unpaved. Additionally, there
are 179 bridges on the Navajo Nation. Thirty-eight are eligible
for rehabilitation, and 28 are eligible for replacement. The
Navajo Nation transportation officials estimate that it would
take 116 years and $7.9 billion to meet current transportation
infrastructure needs. It costs the Navajo Nation nearly $3
million--$3 million--to pave 1 mile of new road, and a lot of
the material has to be brought in off our nation.
Funds appropriated each year only allows the Navajo Nation
to build 12.2 miles of new roads annually. The Navajo Nation's
roads lifelines and provide critical thoroughfare for school
buses, public safety services, emergency responders, as well as
access to governmental and public services, shopping, and
utilities. It is imperative that the Navajo Nation is
appropriated funding for investment in maintenance and
infrastructure of on-reservation highways, roads, and bridges.
And I think my brothers and sisters throughout the country,
tribal nations, are looking forward to the infrastructure bill.
Education and scholarship. The Navajo Nation commends this
subcommittee and Congress on authorizing an independent budget
for the BIE. Many BIE schools are in severe need of upgrades
and replacements, so we hope to see an increase in the line
item. We also request $51.5 million for the academic year in
order to provide scholarships to our nearly 16,000 scholarship
applications. And you know that was taken out of the budget as
well, the President's budget.
Healthcare. The IHS has a Federal trust responsibility to
provide access to healthcare and health services for American
Indian and Alaska Native patients, which also includes funding.
The Navajo Nation has declared war on diabetes. The Special
Diabetes Program for Indians is a beacon of hope in a Federal
tribal healthcare system that struggles in the shadow of
Federal funding shortfalls. The Navajo Nation respectfully
requests SDPI receive a permanent reauthorization in the amount
of $200 million per year.
In terms of the [Audio malfunction in hearing room] mine
cleanup, according to the U.S. EPA, there are approximately 524
burial sites on the Navajo Nation, but only 219 of those sites
have available funds for cleanup and remediation efforts. That
leaves 305 sites unaddressed. The Navajo Nation estimates it
will cost $4 to $5 billion to address the remaining 305 sites,
which doesn't include the cost monitoring and maintenance of
areas where hazardous waste maybe containing disposal soil. The
Federal Government is responsible for funding the cleanup of
the remaining sites. Therefore, we urge Congress to appropriate
funds to develop a comprehensive cleanup plan and funding
package to remediate the remaining sites.
Navajo Indian irrigation project. The Navajo Nation
established NAPI to operate the Navajo Indian irrigation
project to manage the nation's industrial agribusiness to build
a profitable commercial enterprise, provide jobs and training
for Navajo people, and to expand markets for NAPI's products.
The Navajo Nation respectfully requests that the subcommittee
consider full funding of NIIPs operation and maintenance
expenses in Fiscal Year 2021 and beyond. Increase the funding
for irrigation projects in the Water Infrastructure Improvement
for the Nation Act from $10 million annually to $35 million,
and increase the funding level for resources management
construction fund. We request that NIIP, as we call it,
receives $4 million from this fund in Fiscal Year 2021.
In conclusion, the priorities outlined by the nation seek
to strengthen the sacred trust relationship and assistant the
Navajo Nation's furtherance of self-determination and tribal
sovereignty. These programs provide critical services to the
Navajo Nation neighbors and to our communities in the Indian
Country.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today,
and, again, we invite you out to the Navajo Nation once again.
I know a few years ago, committee members joined us on the
Navajo Nation, and we welcome you to see what has been done,
and little has been done since your last visit. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Nez follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. So many reservations, and so little time. Mr.
President.
Mr. Harvier. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairwoman
McCollum, members of the committee. Thank you for this
opportunity to testify on the Fiscal Year 2021 Interior
Appropriations. My name is Martin Harvier. I am the president
of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, located in
the metropolitan Phoenix area in Arizona.
From healthcare, transportation, to law enforcement, annual
funding provided to our community is vital to the day-to-day
operations of many programs. Although I will focus on just a
few items for this testimony, it is fair to say the Federal
Government must increase funding for nearly every Indian
program to fulfill its trust responsibility. First, as a matter
of policy and practice, our community believes in self-
governance. We fully endorse the philosophy of removing Federal
bureaucracy from tribal programs to allow tribes to directly
use Federal funding in the most efficient manner to meet the
tribal needs. Congress must ensure that IHS implements self-
government agreements in a way that is consistent with Federal
law.
Second, Federal tribal transportation programs are woefully
underfunded. For example, an annual basis, our community
receives $92,000 from the BIA for road maintenance. This
represents 6.5 percent of total need. As a result, we must
supplement Federal funding with nearly $1.4 million each year.
Put another way, we receive only $1,300 per mile per year to
maintain BIE roads. Even according to the BIA, they estimate an
annual cost of $10,000 per mile per year. However, according to
our own staff, the true cost succeeds $11,000 per year per
mile.
In total, according to the BIA's own estimate, our annual
road maintenance need for our community is $720,000, separate
from regular maintenance costs. If we look at the community's
5-year new construction plan, BIA funding will provide only 3
percent, or $7 million, of the overall budget. In short, we
believe an increase in funds for tribal transportation programs
will help tribes establish, maintain, and sustain these vital
activities. We are hopeful the committee and the Congress will
increase the level of funding to these programs.
Madam Chair, I also want to make you aware of an issue we
are having with the U.S. Forest Service. This issue will impact
cultural resources on Forest Service lands that border our
community. While many stakeholders work to solve an issue
related to the management of wild horses, the Forest Service
just informed us they are going to build a large fencing
project. We believe this project will impact the cultural
resources in the area, and we have formally requested the
Forest Service to complete a full environmental review so that
all impacts are studied, and provide reasonable options. We
would ask the committee to support our efforts to protect
cultural resources.
In closing, Madam Chair, the community is excited to have
recently broken ground on a large Phoenix Indian Medical Center
Northeast Ambulatory Care Center. Working in partnership with
the Indian Health Services, it is expected the construction of
the facility will be completed by December 2021. First, I want
to thank the Congress for funding this important project
because it will better serve the needs of our community and the
tribal population throughout the Phoenix area.
We will be working with IHS in the coming year to include
the NEACC staffing package in Fiscal Year 2022 budget. We look
forward to working with this committee to ensure the staffing
package is executed in a timely manner. I want to thank the
committee for working with Indian Country to fund critical BIA
and IHS programs. Thank you for the time.
[The statement of Mr. Harvier follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Hill.
Mr. Hill. Good afternoon, Chairman McCollum and
subcommittee members. It is my pleasure during my first trip to
Washington, D.C. as principal chief to testify on behalf of the
Muscogee Creek Nation. This committee and its members play a
crucial role in upholding the United States trust
responsibility and holding executive agencies accountable in
the government-to-government relationship.
The Muscogee Creek Nation and United States Congress have a
relationship more than 200 years old, resulting from an
exchange of millions of acres and removal from our southeastern
homelands. Today, the Muscogee Nation is the fourth largest
federally-recognized tribe with nearly 90,000 tribal citizens
across the nation, building on Muscogee cultural and
traditional lifeways.
A modern government assumes responsibility to provide
decisional services, such as health, public safety, social
services, and natural resource management. Collectively, these
efforts support and protect our citizens, bolster our historic
institutions, and protect Muskogee traditions.
First, I want to thank the hard work and leadership of this
committee to honor our historical relationship with the United
States through continued support for advanced appropriation.
Without your commitment to these initiatives, tribal government
will continue to face a difficult decision between filing
short-terms lapse in government funding and long-term
investments for ongoing, critically-needed services across our
communities. I hope that both chambers can come to agreement
and pass advanced appropriations soon to prevent future
instability in Federal funding owed to tribal nations.
The nation takes seriously our responsibility to provide
stability within reservations for all our citizens. That is why
Muscogee Creek Nation invests more than $5 million annually to
support policing and patrol activities and fund investigative
and special operation divisions. The Muscogee Creek Nation
light horse department offers resources and technical capacity
that are leveraged by local, county, and State, and Federal law
enforcement agencies to support regional drug enforcement,
anti-trafficking patrolling, and interagency investigations
alike. Our investment is 7 times the funding available on a
recurring basis from BIA, and our police officers work
tirelessly to maximize the little funding we do receive.
I hope this committee will consider additional reoccurring
investment in tribal policing and investigation funding.
Interagency cooperation will remain critically important as we
work under our leadership to encourage the Senate to pass the
Violence against Women reauthorization Act that had bipartisan
support in this chamber. This legislation's ongoing efforts to
support missing and murdered indigenous women initiatives are
crucial to protecting our most important resources, our
citizens. The nation makes every effort to support and assist
citizens during their most difficult times. Muscogee Creek
Nation provides tribal funding to citizens who experience
natural disaster, high energy costs, and loss of employment. We
also leverage funds from the BIA welfare assistance program to
support citizens and their family during the loss of loved
ones.
However, funding available for burial systems remains
wholly inadequate. The BIA funds do not cover a third of the
amount needed for proper burial, and to make matters worse, BIA
funds do not last the entire Fiscal Year. This leaves a nation
with no choice but to further subsidize Federal funding. I ask
that the committee fully fund the welfare assistance program
and encourage agencies to update to 1990 regulation to reflect
tribal operations in the 21st century.
Muscogee Creek Nation provides resources for citizens at
all points in their lives, including those families who are not
well positioned to appropriately support children. In Fiscal
Year 2020, Muscogee Creek Nation invested more than $2 million
to provide ICWA services to Muscogee Creek Nation families and
State and county governments. In Fiscal Year 2019, our ICWA
program provided service to more than 500 families and nearly
2,000 Indian children. The work these social services do on a
day-to-day basis is critical to ensuring the safety and well-
being of Muscogee Creek Nation youth and families. Additional
resources are critically needed to increase the number of
Indian foster families and homes, and to focus on risk
prevention earlier in the case process.
Though citizens' needs our top priority for me, I am
equally committed to protecting our natural resources, existing
lands, and sacred sites. Muscogee Creek Nation leveraged
funding provided through National Park Service to protect
sacred sites across the nation. We appreciate the increase that
this committee supported in Fiscal Year 2020 and hope future
investments are possible to continue the important work.
Further, I hope this committee will consider the critical role
tribal historic preservation offices play, and encourage
agencies to suspend or conclude funding to those offices that
fail to adequately protect sacred tribal sites. In its history,
this committee has consistently supported tribal sovereignty
and respected the unique government-to-government relationship
tribes have with Congress.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide Muscogee Creek
Nation's funding priorities for Fiscal Year 2021. I look
forward to working with this committee and the appropriation
process as it moving forward. And I also want to acknowledge
the other tribal members: Second Chief Beaver, Speaker Hicks,
and Second Speaker Proctor, as well as our ambassador, Jonodev,
and our family members as well. Thank you, and it is an honor
to be here.
[The statement of Mr. Hill follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Something that has happened in
passage since we have been doing public witnesses talking about
roads, and obviously the backlog has gotten worse and worse,
and everybody has described it. Roads, from what I am hearing,
are really a public safety issue at this point. You mentioned,
you know, someone who is injured in an ambulance, kids going to
and from school so the school bus is safe, and then the wear
and tear on the equipment, people going to dialysis back and
forth and that.
I think everybody has made the case on it, so I am not
going to use one of my questions for that. But I think we need
to have a conversation with the Transportation Committee and
the authorizers about what we are going to do about America's
roads, right, and make sure it is always including tribal roads
as well. The other thing we heard, too, along with the roads
comes the equipment, and the equipment aren't considered life,
health, and safety.
So we know snowplows, and graders, and all those other
kinds of things, and, you know, I am going to use the term
``our neck of the woods,'' but the Plains, too, where there
aren't as many woods, can really be life or death. And that is
even true in other parts of the country with climate change.
Now you have these snowfalls that just come out of nowhere, and
it can take you 2 or 3 days to dig out of it those of you who
are not from that area.
What I would like to ask, though, is the Forest Service
fencing wild horses. Mr. Stewart, who left, we have been
working on wild horses trying to humanely control. Our goal is
to humanely control the populations that doesn't destroy the
environment and horses don't starve. So I am going to look into
this because the solution was not dilution to start moving them
around to other places and having something. So I want you to
know you got my attention with the wild horses.
A couple of things have come up with drinking water, and I
just want to put on your radar screen, it is not going to be
Mr. Joyce's and my intention. But President cut the drinking
water funds in his budget as well as sewer and that. So that is
something that this committee now has to come up with, you
know. We want to be taking more and more steps forward and not
just standing still, but President's budget wasn't helpful in
that regard with, you know, no light at the end of the tunnel,
that we were getting the signal that more investments were to
be made in Indian Country, especially for things that you folks
have identified.
So you have given me, as I said to the other group, a lot
of homework, so I want to thank you for your testimony. And
everything is in the book, and it was a lot more than what you
had the 5 minutes to do, and I want to acknowledge that. Thank
you so much.
Voices. Thank you.
----------
Wednesday, February 12, 2020.
AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE PUBLIC WITNESS DAY 2--PANEL 3
WITNESSES
GERALD GRAY, CHAIRMAN, LITTLE SHELL TRIBE OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS
BRANDON MAUAI, COUNCILMAN, STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE
TILFORD DENVER, VICE CHAIRMAN, BISHOP PAIUTE TRIBE
Ms. McCollum. We are minus one person on this panel, and
that is Chairman Kat Brigham with the Confederated Tribes, I
want to say it right, Umatilla Indian Reservation. The
chairwoman is not here today because of the devastating
flooding going on in Oregon, and I want to acknowledge that
because people have been displaced, livelihoods have been lost.
It is a very serious issue, and climate change is having a real
impact on households and, as I said, being evacuated. And even
more seriously, we have learned of the death of a tribal
member. So we understand her absence. Our thoughts and prayers
and my prayers are with her and the tribe and all the people in
that part of Oregon and Washington State that are just kind of
dealing with with climate change in a very devastating way. And
her testimony will be entered into the record, but I just
wanted to acknowledge that.
Ms. McCollum. So I am going to just kind of go through the
timer really quick. It is 5 minutes. When the light goes
yellow, there is 1 minute remaining. When it goes red, all 5
are gone. We would like you to please introduce yourself, but
we will not count your introduction against your testimony. All
your testimony will be entered into the record, so don't feel
rushed if you don't get to everything because there is so much
to cover. So if we could start with you, please, sir. The red
button has to be on in order for it to be on. Thank you, Mr.
Grey.
Mr. Gray. So I am Gerald Gray. I am chairman of the Little
Shell Tribe. We are the newly-574th recognized tribe, and I
want to thank all of you for your votes that helped pass us our
legislation through Congress.
Ms. McCollum. Historic. First time testifying.
Mr. Gray. Yeah, here, definitely. Introduce?
Ms. McCollum. Go ahead.
Mr. Gray. Okay. So good afternoon, Chairwoman McCollum,
Ranking Member Joyce, and honorable members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify about
the tribe's funding. With the enactment of our legislation, the
Little Shell Tribe is now taking the first few steps of a new
journey to fully restore our relationship with the Federal
Government, rebuild our tribal government, create a tribal
economy, provide services to our tribal citizens, and establish
a land base. As we undertake this challenge, we keep in mind
those who have passed on waiting for this day as well as our
future generations.
As a newly restored tribe, we have numerous funding
priorities. First, new tribes funding at the Bureau of Indian
Affairs. The BIA's new tribes funding is intended to assist
newly-recognized tribes carry out the day-to-day
responsibilities of establishing and operating tribal
government. Once recognized, the tribe remains in the new
tribes category for 3 Fiscal Years. This funding is critical
for newly-recognized tribes because it provides seed money to
hire staff, purchase equipment, and begin developing procedures
and law.
The Fiscal Year 2020 budget contains $1.28 million for new
tribes under the BIA's operation of Indian programs. This
funding was to continue Federal support for the six Virginia
tribes recognized in January 2018. The Little Shell Tribe
requests that the subcommittee provide an increase in funding
for new tribes in order to assist the tribe in operating our
government. Knowing well the struggle that the Virginia tribes
endured, we would like to ensure their funding levels are not
decreased as a result of our recognition.
Second, the new tribes funding at the Indian Health
Service. IHS new tribes funding assists the agency in carrying
out its mission to provide direct healthcare services to
citizens of newly-recognized tribes. The fiscal year 2020 deal
contained $11.4 million for new tribes under IHS hospitals and
health clinics category. That funding was to provide direct
healthcare services to the six Virginia tribes. The Little
Shell Tribe requests that the subcommittee provide additional
funding in order for the Indian Health Service to be able to
provide services to Little Shell tribal population for
approximately 5,400 citizens. Once again, the tribe would like
to ensure that the funding levels for Virginia tribes are not
decreased as a result of our recognition.
Next, funding for Indian Health Services care facilities
construction. With a long-term goal of establishing a tribal
health clinic, the tribe would like to see an increase in
funding for healthcare facilities construction. I recently met
with IHS in Billings, Montana to discuss healthcare options for
my people. The IHS staff were very helpful in discussing the
tribe's status as a direct service tribe and outlining options
that the tribe could pursue when providing healthcare to our
people. However, when I asked IHS if the IHS could construct
the clinic for the tribe and Great Falls, Montana to serve our
people, their answer was no. IHS informed me that there is a
list for replacement facilities that it must follow when
constructing new facilities.
Unfortunately, from what I understand, it could be
generations before the Little Shell Tribe would be eligible
under the list for funding because the list is so long and the
funding is so limited with the IHS. IHS said I would need to
take my plea to Congress, so here I am. I am hopeful that
something can be done to provide my tribe with funds to
construct a clinic.
Finally, funding for BIA and BIE construction. I have had a
lot of meetings over the past month since my tribe's
recognition was restored, and I appreciate our Federal
partners' proactive outreach and offers to assist us. One of
the things that I learned through these meetings is that
facility construction funding for schools, government
facilities, public safety complexes, and similar buildings is
very sparse. Most of the facility construction dollars are tied
to a priority list, none of which the Little Shell appears on.
The tribe does not want to take funding away from other tribes
or to jump over those that have waited on the priority list,
but there should be some sort of funding directed for newly-
recognized tribes so that they can construct the essential
government building that they need to support services.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify, and I am happy to
answer any questions.
[The statement of Mr. Gray follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you. Sir, please go ahead.
Mr.Mauai. Thank you. First of all, my name is Brandon
Mauai, councilman from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and with
me I have to my right Councilwoman Avis Little Eagle, and right
directly behind me, Councilwoman Nola Taken Alive. Madam
Chairperson McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, thank you for this
opportunity, an honor to present this testimony here concerning
the President's 2021 budget. I would like to express our
appreciation for the strong support of Indian tribes of this
community this committee.
The Administration's proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2021
came out on Monday. It would do great harm to the Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe by cutting Federal social service and other core
programs that we contract from the BIA. And I am here today to
ask you to increase those funds. Our reservation encompasses
2.3 million acres in North and South Dakota. The reservation's
population of some 8,500 tribal members and 2,000 non-members
reside in eight districts and in smaller communities. Our main
industries are cattle ranching and farming. The tribe struggles
to provide core services to our members, and we work hard to
provide jobs and to improve the standard of living on the
reservation, but we need a strong Federal presence. The
appropriations by this subcommittee spell the difference
between the success or failure of our tribal programs.
Today my focus is on the tribe's children, our most
precious resource. And in North Dakota, Indian children make up
about 40 percent of the children in foster care. In South
Dakota, Indian children make up about 50 percent of the
children in foster care. And according to the Department of
Justice, Indians have the highest rate of victimization in the
country. The statistics tell us a powerful story. Our families
are in crisis, and if our families are in crisis, our children
are in crisis, and this means we are not breaking the cycle of
trauma and abuse, but we are perpetuating it. And because of
the continuing addiction to drugs, like meth and heroin,
violence and crime in our community is escalating.
We are raising a generation of children at risk. And
without increasing Federal support to provide more social
workers, case workers, law enforcement officers, and teachers,
and provide them with community stability, their futures will
be far worse than mine. I appreciate and encourage Congress'
support for Tiwahe initiative. According to the recent OIG
report, the program is designed to support child welfare and
family stability, and to promote an integrated approach to
addressing the interrelated problems of poverty, violence, and
substance abuse in tribal communities. Tiwahe is intended to
expand social services and similar programs to address children
and family welfare, job training, and incarceration issues.
And this is the kind of initiative that tribes have been
demanding for decades. But unfortunately, according to the OIG,
the BIA has failed to properly distribute the funding for the
lifesaving initiative. The tribe should have long ago received
$54,000 in additional social service funding for 2019, and an
additional $23,000 for ICWA funding for this initiative. We
learned only Monday that the funds are available for us to draw
down, and we are now five months into Fiscal Year 2020, and we
have not received any of the 2020 funds for these two critical
programs.
As a result of long delays in funding, our tribal social
service programs are in crisis. The tribe has done what it can
do to sustain child social services, but with a nearly $1
million dollar, shortfall the tribe must consider returning or
retro-ceding this program to the BIA. This would be a step
backwards in self-determination, and we need additional funds
to take care of the most vulnerable in society, our children.
Our tribe learned the hard way that sexual abuse, and
alcohol, and substance abuse are leading predicates to youth
suicide. We learned this only after a cluster of seven suicides
occurred among our children 1 decade ago. We learned that they
did not feel loved, respected, or safe, and when they do not
feel loved or safe, they self-medicated, and, tragically, in
some cases, they hurt themselves and took their own lives. I
don't want to bury any more children, but we want to celebrate
them.
Our ICWA office, which handles foster care placements off
the reservation, is staffed by one person. She has 92 open
cases in 18 different states, totaling 172 Standing Rock
children in foster care across the nation. Our 92 cases
represent less than 10 percent of the cases that we are
notified about. This means the tribe has to decline to
intervene in 90 percent of the cases where our children are
being placed into foster care systems. ICWA lacks sufficient
funding, and I ask Congress to provide additional support to
tribes so that we can uphold our obligation to our children.
With that, I thank you for your time.
[The statement of Mr. Mauai follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Denver. Chairwoman McCollum and members of the
committee, good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to
testify before the committee today. [Speaking native language.]
I am Vice chairman of the Bishop Paiute Tribe. I also like to
recognize my councilman, Brian Pancho, who is with me today. We
are located on the foot of the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains
and California's Hunt Valley.
The Bishop Paiute tribe's faces a unique set of challenges.
With more than 2,100 tribal members, the Bishop Paiute Tribe is
the fifth largest tribe in the State of California. Our
reservation encompasses less than 1 mile of land. The majority
of the tribe already developed with housing and government
footprint on it. The tribe has historically used and is
currently seeking out a number of Federal grants and loan
guarantees to provide services to our people.
ICDBG funding. We are particularly proud of our
comprehensive elders program that supports elders living on the
Bishop Paiute Reservation. Our tribal elders program offers
nutrition support, a caregiver support program, and countless
other supportive services for our tribal elders. I am honored
to say that the current population of 396 elders is the largest
elder population the tribe has ever had. Unfortunately, our
existing elder facility is struggling to accommodate the
growing population. To address this, the Bishop Paiute Tribe
has cemented an ICDBG grant to upgrade the current elders
building. If funded, this grant will allow us to make dozens of
improvements to the facility and further support our elders. I
respectfully request the Congress provide robust funding for
this program so that meritorious notorious applications like
ours all across Indian Country can be fully funded.
I would also like to talk about the criminal justice
funding. The Bishop Paiute Tribe also requests the committee
direct the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide equitable law
enforcement and tribal court funding to tribal governments and
to Public Law 280 States. As you know, Public Law 280 takes
primary criminal jurisdiction away from the Federal Government
and gives it to the State law enforcement agencies in
California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Wisconsin and Alaska.
Notwithstanding the limited Federal jurisdiction, our people
still are entitled to a functional law enforcement and judicial
system. Insufficient funding and support has led to a
significant miscarriage of justice for our tribal members and
tribal Police Officers. To address this, the Bureau must
allocate more robust funding under the operation of Indian
programs, public safety and justice account to strengthen these
services to PL 280 States.
And my final issue is fair market rent for tribal TANF
facilities. Lastly I would like to once again draw the
committee and Congress' attention to an injustice our tribes
continued to struggle with, the inability for tribes to recoup
fair market rent for TANF facilities on reservation lands. As I
mentioned, our tribe's land base is woefully inadequate to
support our tribal membership. Many tribal members who want to
live on the reservation are unable to do so. Still, the tribe
chose to provide facilities and land in the center of a
reservation for tribal TANF services and headquarters because
we wanted to make it easy as possible for our tribal members to
access these critical services.
Unfortunately, in a contradiction of how every other
program operates under Indian self-determination and Education
Assistance Act, HHS has interpreted tribal TANF statute to
prevent us from recouping fair market rent for the facilities
and lands used by the program.
We knew we do not believe that Congress intended for this.
In fact, the underlying statute specifically provides that HHS
to regulate rent like other self-determination programs, such
as IHS. Instead HHS follow the interpretation for tribes with
limited land bases and economic opportunity to locate TANF
facilities off reservation and far removed from target
populations.
Several years ago, Congress included report language
directing HHS to work with tribes to resolve this issue.
Despite this, HHS has demonstrated a continued unwillingness to
consider a more sensible interpretation of statute. The Bishop
Paiute Tribe will continue working with the authorization
committee, the Administration, and the committee to address
this issue.
In conclusion, I would like to thank you for listening to
my testimony and for the committee to support tribal programs,
and the opportunity for us to testify here today. We look
forward to working together to address these critical issues
across the Indian Country.
[The statement of Mr. Denver follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. I would like to thank you all for being here
today. Your testimony before this committee helps us make
educated decisions on how to ship receipts. So thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Well, Chairman Gray, congratulations on being
recognized. But now you are recognizing a whole lot of
challenges in getting some of the programs that you want up and
funding. It has been a while since we have had one of our
tribal nations come forward and talk about the challenges that
you are facing, that you are presenting, so that gives Mr.
Joyce a lot to think about along with me about how we try to
fully embrace your sovereignty, recognize it, including the
benefits that you are entitled to under treaty obligations. So
thank you for sharing that, and we are going to see what we can
do.
You talked about line items in that. I appreciate you
saying that you don't want to take away anything from any of
the other tribes, so we have to figure out a way to try to make
everybody a little more whole. So thank you for that, and talk
to the Senate about that, too. I hope you are having
conversations with our Senate colleagues.
Mr. Gray. Oh, of course. Yep.
Ms. McCollum. Sometimes we have great ideas, and we go to
conference committee and the Senate hasn't thought of them, so
thank you for that. We have had a couple of panels talk about
children and ending the cycle of violence, and if kids don't
feel loved and supported, they don't do well in school, and it
can create a downward spiral. So you spoke very eloquently
about that. I am not asking you to pick one thing, but what
might be the two or three things that you think this committee
should be focused on?
And I heard fully what you said about Tiwahe. I am a big
fan of it, and I helped to work to get it started. Would it be
that, or----
Mr. Gray. Yes, and right now, you know, Child Protection
Services, ICWA is not sufficiently funded right now. And you
have heard panels before is that the root of a lot of these
problems are the drug problems in the communities. You know,
the drug problems throughout the system are affecting
especially our children. And one way that we can continue to
battle that back on Standing Rock is we don't have to utilize
as much resources in the CPS area. We are already, you know,
understaffed, severely understaffed. And by sufficiently
funding that, it is something that we can hopefully take other
resources and focus on what is the root of the problem. How can
we funnel these other resources to that, such as drug problems
or what have you.
And so that is something that, you know, in the testimony
we wanted to be sure to emphasize is that Child Protection
Services, social workers, case managers, all of these areas is
something that we need to focus on because it ultimately
affects the children on all reservations.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you for bringing that up. I mean,
Tiwahe looks at a whole of community, whole of family approach
because it is inner generational trauma, right? But was the
number again, 92 cases the social worker had?
Mr. Gray. Yes, it was 92 open cases. The ICWA office had
open cases. The Chairman Perez, those numbers are a lot higher
per case manager. I know one case manager was working on 170,
around there, cases that they were constantly trying to push
through. And keep in mind, we are both in North and South
Dakota, so.
Ms. McCollum. Right, so you have to deal with both
jurisdictions.
Mr. Gray. Yeah, two caseworkers maybe on one side, and two
cases to caseworkers on the other side, and to try to get
through that many cases is nearly impossible. We are allowing
our children to fall through the cracks, and that is something
that we can't continue to do.
Ms. McCollum. I mean, the caseworkers have too much----
Mr. Gray. Correct.
Ms. McCollum [continuing]. On their plate. So, first, I
want to recognize that before I say the following. Do North and
South Dakota, because you are dealing with State laws, and if
you are dealing with out-of-reservation placement in that, are
they allowed to work together? Because your reservation is a
reservation. You are one whole nation that straddles two State
jurisdictions.
Mr. Gray. Right.
Ms. McCollum. Do you feel that that adds to the problem, or
have the states and the Federal Government worked through that,
that is not part of the problem?
Mr. Gray. Now we are moving forward and working closer with
the State. I know North Dakota through Title IV-4E is something
that we are trying to, you know, move forward to make sure that
all the children are taken care of. South Dakota, same thing.
It is a work in progress. We are trying to work through that.
It is just that the bureaucratic stuff, it gets to be
frustrating. And I know both council people here with me today
have backgrounds that worked with children, and can also attest
about frustrating that is to try to get to a point where we can
work together as one unit, I guess, in a partnership with both
Federal and State. And it is just something that it is
constantly roadblock after roadblock.
Ms. McCollum. So you have an appropriations problem.
Mr. Gray. Right.
Ms. McCollum. But you also have a bureaucratic problem,
too----
Mr. Gray. Yes.
Ms. McCollum [continuing]. That might be better addressed
by our colleagues in the authorizing committee. So we will
follow through with them with the testimony and make sure that
they have your contact information. Sometimes you just need to
have to get everybody at the table and say who is going to take
lead. Sometimes no one is willing to do that. Sometimes
somebody stands up and says they are willing to do that, so
thank you.
Mr. Gray. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. So both Janet and I wrote down the HHS issue
that you brought up because that is not our jurisdiction, but
we will be looking into it. And then so you mentioned senior
housing, because some States, some tribal nations, some
countries, their populations are shifting where it is more
elder and not a lot of youth. Do you have the situation of both
youth and elder, or you facing more of an elder population
explosion?
Mr. Denver. It is an elder population explosion. And,
again, our current facility that the elders we serve all our
meals out of, actually it used to be a youth treatment center.
But because we were unable to acquire funds to continue
operation of that, we moved our elders into that facility. So
we are serving over 300 meals out of there, but the kitchen is
so small. So we did put the grant in for expansion. We
currently serve about 150 meals a day to shut-ins, and that way
we get their nutrition out to them. Otherwise, you know, we are
in such a rural area, there is nothing there for them.
Ms. McCollum. Well, and that is really important if
somebody is recovering from surgery and they have to have a
nutritious meal, and the diabetes issue and everything on
reservations. Well, thank you gentlemen. Thank you very much.
Voices. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. And our last panel, if they would please come
up to the table.
----------
Wednesday, February 12, 2020.
AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE PUBLIC WITNESS DAY 2--PANEL 4
WITNESSES
AURENE MARTIN, BOARD MEMBERS, NATIONAL INDIAN CHILD WELFARE ASSOCIATION
MELANIE FOURKILLER, SENIOR POLICY ANALYST, OFFICE OF SELF-GOVERNANCE-
CHOCTAW NATION OF OKLAHOMA
OTTO TSO, CHAIRMAN, NAVAJO HOPI LAND COMMISSION
LLOYD B. MILLER, NATIONAL TRIBAL CONTRACT SUPPORT COSTS COALITION
Ms. McCollum. So would you like me to go over how the
timing works, or were you in the room before? I am happy to do
it. Everybody is okay? Everybody is good? Well, welcome, and,
Ms. Martin, how timely to have you kind of close up what we
have heard about the children in Indian Country, the children
of the United States country, too. So, Ms. Martin, if you would
please lead off.
Ms. Martin. All right. So good afternoon, Chairwoman
McCollum, Ranking Member, staff. My name is Aurene Martin. I am
a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in
Wisconsin, and I am a member of the National Indian Child
Welfare Association board of directors. NICWA is a national
American Indian and Alaska Native organization with over 25
years' experience in policy development focused native children
and families. Our mission is twofold. First, we address issues
of child abuse and neglect through policy research, community
and policy development, and we support compliance with Indian
Child Welfare Act.
Before I start going into my comments, I would like to
thank you for your bipartisan support of native children's
issues. Because of that, we have seen a lot of gains over the
last year, in particular, on our issues. Two of those
developments over the last year I just wanted to mention
quickly before going to my requests. First, I think after
discussion with staff, it was clear that the Indian Child
Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act, which we are
huge believers in, needed to be reauthorized. And H.R. 4957,
the Native American Child Protection Act was introduced, and it
was referred to House Resources and passed out of committee, so
that reauthorized all those programs. And then more
importantly, thanks to you, the ICWA Off-Reservation Program
was funded for the first time since 1996 with a $1 million
allocation. So thank you for that.
The Standing Rock testimony was very moving to me, and I am
kind of throwing away the rest of my comments because I would
like to talk a little bit about that. One thing I have
testified about a few times is the Indian Child Protection and
Family Violence Prevention Act, and that act, it is very
important because it created two things. One, it created
mandatory reporting and background check requirements for
people who deal with native children at the Federal level, but
the other thing that it did was it provided for two programs,
funding that doesn't appear anywhere else in the Federal
scheme, which is, one, it provided for prevention activities to
help prevent Indian family violence. And the other thing it
provided for was direct funding to tribes to treat victims of
family violence, children. And those programs have never been
funded. And after discussions with your staff last year, it was
clear that we needed to reauthorize that act, and so it is our
priority to get that working in tandem with you, to get it
reauthorized and get those programs funded.
But I can't see how much time I have left, so I am trying
not to overstep. But the reason I wanted to concentrate on that
today is that after hearing the testimony of the Standing Rock
witness--sorry, I don't recall his name--those programs dealing
with the mental health issues of children who have been taken
into custody, who are part of the system, that is so vitally
important because if you don't take care of them, and they
don't get to heal, then they become part of the system later
on, and it perpetuates the cycle. So just providing for them to
be in foster care isn't enough. You have to provide for their
well-being and their ability to heal. And we think that the
programs under the Indian Child Protection and Family Violence
Prevention Act, they meld with what you have for the Tiwahe
initiative, what you have for the Indian Child Welfare Program.
They all create a system that supports children. So we are
continuing to advocate for those programs to be funded, and
fully funding those programs on an annual basis would be $43
million. And I am happy to continue to talk with you and your
staff about how that might work.
The other programs that we are supporting are the ICWA
funding for both on-reservation activities and the off-
reservation activities. And as I said, we are hugely
appreciative of the $1 million that you have appropriated. It
is still to be seen how those funds might be disbursed or
allocated. BIA is still working on that, but just having them
out there for the first time in so many years is tremendously
helpful. So we are asking for, and I think, you know, the prior
witness made a much better case than I could about why they are
necessary and why increased funding is necessary for those
programs.
So I think the last point I would like to make is that
statistics tell us that prevention, early intervention, and
treatment of childhood trauma saves not only lives but dollars
because children who experience violence are more likely to
have problems and move into the system if these issues are
unaddressed. So it is imperative that both tribes and off-
reservation Indian child welfare programs receive funding to
provide these services for children who are in need.
So thank you for the opportunity to testify. I appreciate
it, and I am happy to answer questions.
[The statement of Ms. Martin follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Ms. Fourkiller.
Ms. Fourkiller. Thank you, Madam Chair McCollum and Ranking
Member Joyce. My name is Melanie Fourkiller. I am with the
Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, which is the third largest tribe in
the Nation, and we are located in the southeast 13 counties of
Oklahoma. I bring greetings from Chief Gary Batton and
Assistant Chief Jack Austin, Jr., and we really appreciate the
opportunity to be able to share budget priorities for 2021.
First of all, I wanted to say and share our appreciation
for your support of advanced appropriations for both Indian
Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It is very
important that we be able to continue to operate uninterrupted,
especially when we have such life and limb services often that
get interrupted when appropriations don't come through.
The second item I wanted to mention is to talk about the
special diabetes program for Indians. Unfortunately, we saw in
the President's request that it seems that he's trying to phase
that out over a 10-year period, and it just seems extraordinary
to us given the health outcomes that are proven with this
program, even in HHS' own report that 54 percent of end-stage
renal disease has been reduced as a result of this program
since 1996. It is just astounding to us that you would want to
disrupt that kind of accomplishment, but rather we had like to
see it permanently obviously authorized.
And I want to take a moment to talk a little bit about
workforce development as it goes to our Indian health programs.
We have a hospital that is located in a very small community.
It is 1,100 folks in southeast Oklahoma, and from there, we
have got eight outlying clinics across 13 counties. It is
really difficult for us to attract and retain health
professionals in such a small community because there just
aren't amenities for docs and their families. The schools
aren't large. There is not a lot to do out there. So it is
really a challenge for us to be able to keep staff, and we use
a number of tools to try to do that.
We maintain low vacancy rates as compared to other Indian
health facilities, and it takes a lot of work. A couple of the
tools we use are graduate medical education programs, residency
programs, as well as loan repayment programs, and other types
of things to be able to attract and retain those folks for at
least a period of time. And we typically, because we are a good
employer, we can keep them longer than that. But graduate
medical education we started in 2010 through a grant from HRSA.
It is competitive grant. We have got to compete with the world,
hospitals across the nation. And as far as I know, we are the
only tribal location that has been successful in getting one.
But that program has been the single most valuable tool to is.
Most of those residents stay in rural Oklahoma, and of
those, most of those stay within our health system. So it has
been very incredibly valuable for us to grow and keep those
health professionals in our system. So the problem there is
that it is the funding is intermittent. It is competitive. It
is not recurring so to be able to build and sustain a program
is really difficult, and we think this is a program that could
be replicated in Indian Country and provide that kind of
support in rural areas, remote areas oftentimes to get those
health professionals there. So if we could talk about some kind
of steady recurring funding in that area, that would be very
helpful.
We have a number of other priorities as well, but I just
wanted to mention a couple of other things. One is the 105(l)
lease situation. We did appreciate the President requesting an
indefinite appropriation for that. We have been supportive of
that, so we are hopeful that there will be support as that
moves forward. Unfortunately, it has been affecting services,
even though those inflationary increases didn't get distributed
at all, so it was funding we never saw. Certainly those
inflationary increases were intended to go to health services,
so we are hopeful that that will move forward.
There are also a number of Bureau of Indian Affairs
programs that are either eliminated or reduced in the
President's request. A couple of them like the Indian Loan
Guarantee Program, the Welfare Assistance Program, are being
described as being duplicative, which is interesting because in
the instance of welfare assistance, you have to exhaust every
other resource before you are even eligible for welfare
assistance, so how can it be duplicative? So many of these are
unique and safety net programs that you know, we certainly want
to see restored as considerations on the budget move forward.
So, I know we have a number of other priorities that is in
our written testimony, so with that I appreciate again
opportunity to speak with you today, and I would be happy to
answer questions. Thanks.
[The statement of Ms. Fourkiller follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Tso. Thank you very much. Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking
Member Joyce, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for
this opportunity to testify on behalf of the Navajo Nation
Council. I serve as the chairman of the Navajo Hopi Land
Commission, and we are deeply, deeply appreciative of this
subcommittee's commitment in addressing the hardship inflicting
of the Navajo people during the relocation law, and the 40-
year-old long construction freeze. Please know that more than
anyone, the Navajo Nation at the end, we ONHIR to close. We
want the funding to continue to move forth and Congress to
continue to move those fundings to fund that program so that
the Navajo Hopi Land Office of Navajo Hopi Indian Relocation
Program can continue to complete their mission and their job,
which is impose on the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act.
So we want to make sure that Congress and then the United
States fulfill their obligation to make sure that the people as
they are relocated off the lands that was given to another
tribe, and moved into such communities of Flagstaff or
Newlands, or to a city within the Navajo Nation. And there was
a commitment that was made to the Navajo people there, and the
commitment is that we will relocate you, and you will have
jobs. You will have health benefits. You will have all these
amenities because relocated you. And out of this decision,
right now, the health aspect has really impacted the Navajo
people there. And I really, really, really hope that, you know,
for the committee to strongly urge and help and support the
need for that office to continue to stay open.
The other is that, you know, the promise. You need to
fulfill the promise. And with that, you know, the Navajo Nation
has initiated a plan called the Navajo Nation, or the Navajo
Thought Plan with that. The Navajo Thought Plan is addressing
another aspect of land that had been put into dispute for more
than 46 years. People living in that area that was impacted
lived on 1.6 million acres of land that halted construction,
economical opportunities for these families, and to this day,
since the freeze has been lifted, that freeze has no dollars
tied for the rehabilitation.
Countries oppress people. In this case, the Navajo people
had been oppressed, and people had to move to a certain
community in order to have water, in order to have electricity,
in order to have the basic necessities of life, or try to make
that American Dream. But yet the land was frozen for 46 years
economically. Where in the United States has that happened, and
that happened on the Navajo Nation. To this day right now, the
rehabilitation of the former Bennett Freeze is something that
Congress needs to look at. And we need help in social,
economical, and even the health aspect, you know, cancer
treatments, and so forth, uranium issues, and we need help in
those areas that will benefit the Navajo people.
And we really hope that as Federal appropriators you do
address those concerns. We are American citizens also, and we
appreciate your help and trying to help the Navajo Nation. And
under the Navajo-Hopi Indian Relocation, as it is reauthorized.
We want to make sure that this office is able to fulfill its
duties so that, you know, we can make sure that the need and
the mission is completed. And with the closure issue, we want
tribal consultation. To this day right now the Federal
Government has not reached out to the Navajo Nation and said,
hey, we are going to close right now, we need to talk.
But right now, the Navajo Nation's position is that we are
not supporting the closure due the issue of the tribal
consultation. Their job is not done, and we appreciate your
help in that area to help us complete the mission. With that
funding moves forth, we want you to help the Navajo Nation and
try to help Navajo people that have been affected by the land
settlement case. And just hoping that they can make the
American Dream. That is all we want. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Tso follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Joyce, good
afternoon. Can you hear me now, as they say. I have two copies
of an outline of remarks. I thought I would share that with
Chairwoman McCollum and Ranking Member Joyce.
I am here representing the National Tribal Contract Support
Cost Coalition. The Coalition represents about 260 tribes,
including all of the tribes in Alaska through the Alaska Native
Tribal Health Consortium, down to the Choctaw Nation, and the
other great nations in Oklahoma, Chickasaw, and Cherokee, as
well as tribes in the Pacific Northwest and California. The
Coalition has been centrally involved in litigation involving
contract support costs. I was privileged to be able to work on
the Cherokee case at a time when Melanie Fourkiller was there
and a vital person in the success of that case before the
Supreme Court. In the wake of that litigation, this committee
did the single greatest thing you could have done to provide
stability and predictability for contracting and compacting,
and that was to establish an indefinite appropriation for
contract support.
Today in theory--I will talk about the practice in a
moment--in theory, tribes know how much they are going to be
getting from year to the next, and they get it. Contract
support, cost appropriations. They know that they don't have to
but out of the programs in order to take care of their
overhead, in order to pay for worker's compensation, in order
to do procurements, in order to pay for their audits and their
accounting services. They know that that money is going to be
coming from the government thanks to the indefinite
appropriation that you established in 2016. So thank you very
much for the work that you did at that time. I cannot thank you
enough for that improvement. And as I will talk later, it is
exactly why the same improvement is needed for the 105(l)
leases, but we will get to that in a moment.
Necessarily, if somebody like I sitting here talking about
the agencies, I am going to sound critical, and I will sound a
critical tone. But before I do that, I want to pay tribute to
the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
They are trying, and they have improved. They have each
developed important new policies on contract support costs.
Those policies are permanent in their manuals. If they are
falling short, it is not for want of trying, and I do salute
their efforts in this area. Certainly the world is much
improved today in 2020 than it was years ago, the years that
brought along all of that litigation, and caused so much pain
for this committee along the way.
The first thing I want to mention is the payment delays.
The payment delays of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the
Office of Self-Governance, in particular, are daunting. I was
talking over the last couple of weeks, my colleagues and I, to
one of the tribes, the Chugach Regional Resource Commission.
They had to get a loan, and they paid interest until the
funding was just worked out a couple of days ago, and they are
going to be able to retire the loan without a penalty because
they were not getting their contract payments, including any
contract support payments in 2020, and they still don't have
all of their 2019 payments. There is an institutional problem
in the Office of Self-Governance and in the BIA in getting
those contract support cost payments out.
They will tell you that there are 18 or 20 steps, that
money and approvals have to move through in order for the money
to actually get out the door. Reform is needed in this area,
and with the committee's gentle nudging, perhaps a committee
could be put together, a work group committee could be put
together to try to get to the bottom of those impediments and
eliminate them, certainly not by legislation, we would hope.
The second thing I wanted to talk about, and there were
four items on contract support costs, is reporting. Reporting
has been a problem. It has been a perennial problem. Last year,
the Indian Health Service caught up on their reports for 2018,
2017, and 2016. So they were behind, but they caught up. The
BIA, so far as we know, hasn't made a report since Fiscal Year
2014, 6 years behind. They were supposed to make a report by
May 15 every year. That is in Section 106(c) of the Indian
Self-Determination Act. They don't do it. I think there is
nothing more one could do than have a law that commands that it
be done by a date certain, but perhaps this committee can urge
the agency to honor the obligations that it has under the law.
The third issue also a recurring issue. There was a lot of
interaction with tribes up until those manuals were adopted.
Tribal consultation is important, and it is effective. The
manuals that IHS and BIA adopted reflect a lot of tribal input.
It was wonderful. It was hard, but it was wonderful. Since
then, we don't have annual meetings anymore unless there is an
emergency, an urgent matter. There has been one face-to-face
meeting with the Indian Health Service since their manual was
adopted, and none since the BIA. So a gentle nudging of greater
tribal consultation with the Tribal Federal Contract Support
Cost Work Group would be much appreciated.
The fourth issue is much more consequential, and it is
financial, and so I do want to bring this to the committee's
attention again. We have talked about this annually. It is
probably the 5th year, maybe the 6th year that we are raising
this. The seventh proviso in your bill address substance abuse
funding, domestic violence protection funding, suicide
prevention funding. This is funding is laid out in a separate
proviso so that IHS director can figure out how best to
allocate it, and that is good. No complaints about that. You
want the money to get where it is going to do the most good.
But the IHS director in 2012 decided to stop paying that
money. Once she decides how, or he decides how, to allocate it,
to stop paying it through compacts and contracts. And in that
one gesture, that denied tribes the right to contract support
costs.
That one gesture required tribes to take money out of those
funds to pay their overhead, which is fixed, which is set by
the National Business Center. It cannot be changed. So we have
asked repeatedly. The Indian Health Service has responded to
you by studying the matter, getting tribal input. It turns out
the consultation has led to no change whatsoever, despite the
uniform view of
the tribes that those funds should go through contracts and
compacts. If the seventh proviso could be amended, we would be
most appreciative.
[The statement of Mr. Miller follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The last thing I didn't address, may I, Madam Chair?
Ms. McCollum. We just had----
Mr. Miller. Oh, you have to go to a vote?
Ms. McCollum. We just had votes started.
Mr. Miller. Okay.
Ms. McCollum. And we have got----
Mr. Miller. Okay.
Ms. McCollum. We know how to get a hold of you.
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Ms. McCollum. And we know you talk to staff all the time.
Mr. Miller. Yes.
Ms. McCollum. And you give us a lot of food for thought, so
thank you for that. Mr. Joyce, I mean, we have time for a quick
question or two.
Mr. Joyce. I don't want to hold everybody up.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. So the good news is we got this panel
in before votes started, which did not happen yesterday.
[Laughter.].
And people waited 45 minutes for us, and I just looked, and
we have 10 votes, so you would have been here until dinner, so
that is the good news. Ms. Martin, we look forward to talking
to you more as we develop the bill. Ms. Fourkiller, I think
what you were saying about HHS is something that we need to
look into some of the tax provisions that you had have come up
on some other things. So we will be formulating some letters
and some ideas to share, David and I--excuse me--Mr. Joyce and
I with our colleagues on the Ways and Means Committee.
And were you present when we brought Congress----
Mr. Tso. Yes.
Ms. McCollum. Yeah, so Congress has worked hard to consult
with Navajo and Hopi on the closure, and we do need to bring
the program to an end, but we do need to follow the law when we
do that. So thank you for, you know, kind of highlighting how
you are feeling about the communication with the act as they
are moving to close it down. So we ask them for reports every
so often. I think they are due to come in and give us a report
shortly. So we will be sharing your concerns that there needs
to be better consultation.
And then we will follow up with you what we hear from them,
both you and the Hopi. And then if you still have questions, we
want you to pick up the phone, send an email. If you like snail
mail, you can use that, too. Let us know how you think it is
going and contact our offices. We take the fact that this needs
to come to closure seriously, but it needs to follow the law.
It needs to be done with consultation. And they are right
there. They are not in Washington, D.C. They are right there
close to you, so there is no excuse for you not to feel like
you are being consulted.
And I hear what you were saying about the Bennett Freeze,
which is different, but sidebar to what happened with the
freeze on that. So thank you very much.
So I want to thank you for being here, and with that, the
public witness that we have for the past 2 days with tribal
leaders and leaders in the tribal allied community comes to a
close. Thank you.
[The following statement was submitted for the record:]
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Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
MEMBERS' DAY
Ms. McCollum [presiding]. So good morning. The members'
witness hearing will come to order, and we are very pleased to
have as our first person up one of our newest members to
Congress, Ms. Slotkin. So you have 5 minutes, and we look
forward to hearing what you have to share with us. Thank you.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. ELISSA SLOTKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
MICHIGAN
Ms. Slotkin. Great. Thank you, Subcommittee Chairwoman
McCollum, and thanking the ranking member in absentia. So I am
a former CIA officer and Pentagon official, and so I look
through the world through a lens of security. And that is why
it is really very clear to me that we need to start thinking of
environmental security the way we think of homeland security
because it is about the safety of our kids and the preservation
of our way of life.
Nowhere is that more clear than on the issue of PFAS
contamination, which is a chemical that has been identified in
more places in Michigan than in any other State in the country.
We are looking for it harder than most people, so we are
finding it ahead of the rest of the country. And I have four
PFAS sites in my district, and if you have to worry that giving
your child a glass of water is going to give them early
childhood cancer, that is a threat to your family's safety. And
if you can't fish the rivers that your dad and your grandpa
took you fishing in, that is a threat to your way of life.
So I was very proud that my first six provisions that I
have had turned into law as a member of Congress are on all
PFAS, and they were all done through the NDAA, through the
Pentagon's budget. I am a pragmatist, so in a perfect world, it
wouldn't have to be done that way, but for the first time we
are doing more than just studying PFAS, which is extremely
important to me and to the people of Michigan.
We passed provisions that forbids the military from using
PFAS-laden firefighting foam after 2024. They cannot use it in
exercises in non-crisis situations. Our National Guard bases
now have access to pots of money that only active duty had
access to for environmental cleanup, which was at the request
of one of our base commanders. But the most important one that
I am the most proud of is the PFAS Monitoring Act, which I
actually introduced back in May and got incorporated into the
bill that the President signed off on in December, the
Pentagon's bill.
So under this law, large cities will be required to monitor
almost 30 types of PFAS. Smaller communities, so communities
under 10,000 people, like where I live in Holly, Michigan, will
get help paying for that monitoring. Small communities can't
afford to be adding additional things without some help. Six
PFAS substances were included in EPA's testing requirements
back in 2013 to 2015, but then they dropped those requirements
for 2018 and 2020. No idea why. This bill ensures that the next
round of testing will cover all 29 PFAS chemicals that EPA
knows how to test for in drinking water.
In Michigan, we are already diligently testing for PFAS. We
have decided to test for it ahead of any national requirement
thanks to our governor's leadership, but I want to make sure
that it is a requirement at the Federal level because Michigan
is just the tip of the iceberg on PFAS, particularly for States
with a manufacturing past. So this will not only help our
ongoing PFAS monitoring efforts, but it will help provide data
to the EPA and other State legislators to inform them on their
decisions about PFAS.
Now that it has been signed into law, I want to advocate
today that we have funds to implement it. In particular, I want
to ensure that the EPA has sufficient funding to support those
smaller communities like my hometown for PFAS testing. Thank
you for providing $43 million in new PFAS-related funding for
the EPA in the 2020 Fiscal Year, including funding to support
EPA's testing of drinking water that will now cover PFAS under
my bill. Today I ask the committee to increase funding for 2021
Fiscal Year for the EPA.
As the committee considers the Fiscal Year 2021 budget, I
would ask you to keep in mind the concerns of families in my
district, across Michigan, and across the Nation. This is a
widespread concern, and these chemicals are forever chemicals.
They are not going away. We must work to protect Americans
against this threat, just as we protect them from threats to
our physical security. Thank you for your leadership on PFAS-
related issues in 2020, and I ask you to increase funding in
2021. Thanks very much.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. So you don't support the President
where he has eliminated doing some of the work that needs to be
done with PFAS in some of this budget.
Ms. Slotkin. No, I mean, I think we have an existential
debate with the White House on the importance of PFAS. He
tweeted about it last July. We were shocked that it was such an
important issue to him, but the truth is it is extremely
bipartisan. I just held a big water-related event on private
well owners, like myself. Twenty-five percent of Michiganders
are on private wells, so we test, and we are responsible for
our own testing. And people across the board, people wearing,
you know, their Make America Great hats were deeply concerned
about PFAS and asking me how come we don't have a national
standard. How come we don't have money for our communities to
test this?
We are on the leading edge in Michigan of something that is
going to be a household name in the next few years. And I can't
agree to something that is, you know, for us, our water in
Michigan as the Great Lakes State, it is existential. We are
the stewards of the Great Lakes and of the groundwater that
comes with it, so people across the spectrum feel very
passionately about it.
Ms. McCollum. I couldn't agree with you more. We have been
filtering water for PFAS since 2006 in my congressional
district in Oakdale, Minnesota. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, and I apologize for being late.
Ms. Slotkin. No problem.
Mr. Joyce. But I want to thank you for being here and
discussing programs that are important in this budget, not only
for your district, but for our country.
Ms. Slotkin. Yeah, thanks. Okay. Thanks for having me.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much. You have left a copy of
your written testimony with the committee.
Ms. Slotkin. Yes.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Davis is going to be submitting. That is
our understanding now? He is going to try to be here. Mr. Posey
is going to be submitting his for the record.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. BILL POSEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
[The statement of Mr. Posey follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3677B.208
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3677B.209
Ms.McCollum. Is there another member out there? Yeah. We
are going to recess until the next member shows for testimony.
[Recess.]
Ms. McCollum. The Committee on Interior will come back from
its recess to hear some member testimony from Mr. Griffith.
Sir, you have 5 minutes.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. MORGAN GRIFFITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
VIRGINIA
Mr. Griffith. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I
appreciate you all holding this hearing today. One of the top
priorities that I have is the adequate need for funding of coal
communities in Virginia and throughout Appalachia. We need to
reclaim the abandoned mine lands in a way that both supports
economic development and helps us transition from an economy
that was build on coal. I have counties that just have
mountains and trees. That is what they have.
In fact, in Dickinson County, looking for flatland to
redevelop our economy is very difficult. About, oh, close to a
decade ago now, they started looking for a site for a new
school. All their former high schools were in a flood zone.
There were only two pieces of property in the county that were
flat enough to build a high school on, so they had a fight as
to which one they had to pick.
The Abandoned Mine Land Pilot Project, which has been
funded by this committee for some time, for a few years, it
allows the top three States with the most unmet needs--
Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania--to have spending.
And then subsequent to that taking off, I went and I got the
committee to agree and the floor ultimately to agree that the
next three States--Virginia, Alabama, and Ohio--also with a
legacy of coal mining, that include sites that need
restoration.
Over the past few years with the help of members on this
committee and my friend from Ohio, Mr. Johnson, we have worked
to expand this program to those next three Appalachian States
with the greatest needs. I have worked with this committee to
ensure additional support for one Appalachian community does
not come at the expense of another. So in total we have been
successful in securing $40 million, $10 million per year over
the last 4 years, in reclamation funding for Virginia. The top
three States get $30 million a year. We get $10 million a year.
That seems to be working out very well, and I could go
through all the projects. We have done everything from, you
know, closing off portals for new trails for horses, for
hiking, for other things, but also we are taking down a high
wall in the City of Norton. It is a little city of about 5,000.
And it is still in progress, but we are going to create a 200-
acre industrial park in an area that desperately needs
inventory because you don't have flatland ready to go.
In Russell County, we have another 200-acre project. Some
entrepreneurs came in, and they realized that with a little bit
of this money, they could clean up a coal fine pond, and let me
explain what that is. It was a coal processing plant for
decades and decades and decades, and whenever the coal pieces
were too small, they dumped them into this pond. And so you
have this huge area, but what they figured out is that with a
new fuel source plant not too far away that is a hybrid, they
can burn all kinds of different things. They could sell the
coal fines to that plant. They are cleaning it up. They are
taking out all the old coal fines. They are putting in rock to
replace that. They are going to put soil on top of it, and we
are going to end up with another 200-acre industrial park.
And while both of them have great advantages, this one,
just to give you some idea, it has rail because it used to be a
coal processing plant, so they had to get the coal out of
there. It has a road to get the coal in, by truck generally. It
has electricity coming in from two sides. It has water, and it
already has natural gas. And what these folks are going to do
is they are turning this entire site over to the county when
they finish. I would have to go back and look at the exact
numbers, but we gave them a couple of million dollars to clean
this up a little bit, over $2 million.
I was told by the folks who generally do this, the OSM, and
in Virginia it is the Virginia Mines, DMME, they told us that
our $2 million would have taken normal AML funding, about $7
million, to have done the same thing, and it probably wouldn't
have been on the top of the list. Therefore, they were
expecting they wouldn't get this project done for another 20
years with the money that they had in the AML funds. So with
this AML pilot project, we are taking care of problems, we are
getting outside money to come in and help, and we are creating
economic development in an area that people always tell us up
here, you know, we want you reinvent your economy. Okay, but we
need a little help, and this is one of the ways that we are
trying to do that is to create sites where businesses can come
in.
And I think it has been a real success thus far, both
environmentally and economically, and I would hope that you
would continue to fund us. We are not asking for anymore. Just
keep us at that $10 million level in the second tier of the AML
Pilot Project, and we will be thrilled. If you want more
information, I think my printed notes have lots of different
things in them, but that really is something that I have seen
that is actually working. And, you know, when will it bear
fruit in a big way? We are already seeing small signs on the
tourism and environmental side that it is working. Will we get
a new plant in? Well, as you all know, with economic
development, first you have to have the inventory, and we are
about a year away from having that inventory ready, maybe two
in some cases, and then you have to go out and find a facility.
So we are very hopeful. We think this is, though, a key
component to our part of Central Appalachia reinventing its
economy.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony, and
I saw that you are looking at even putting a solar project
where----
Mr. Griffith. Yeah, that is real exciting.
Ms. McCollum [continuing]. Where coal pollution is now.
Mr. Griffith. So if you have a minute, let me tell you
about that. That is real exciting.
Ms. McCollum. Well.
Mr. Griffith. You don't have a minute. Okay.
Ms. McCollum. I don't have, but what I am concerned about
with the President, you know, we increased a lot of funding to
support projects like yours in the bill, Mr. Joyce and I did,
and the President's budget came in with a cut compared to what
we had worked on bipartisanly with the Senate to do projects
like you are talking about. So we will have to see what our
allocation looks like. But I think we are going to do what we
can, and we would appreciate your help, too, as we move forward
not to support the bottom line of the President's budget and
the Department of Interior because I am sure you have a lot of
rural water projects you want to see worked on, too.
Mr. Griffith. Rural water projects. ARC is very important
to my district as well. And, you know, as we used to say in the
State legislature, the governor, in this case, the President,
proposes, and the House, you know, ends up making the decision,
disposes in many cases.
Ms. McCollum. We are going to need your support on the
floor. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you for being here, Congressman Griffith,
and I appreciate where you are coming from. My dear friend,
Bill Johnson, has talked about the same type of plight in his
community, and thank you for coming before the committee today
and providing some unique examples on how this can be of
benefit to those areas that have, for lack of a better term,
been left behind. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Griffith. You all have a good day.
Ms. McCollum. Have a good rest of your day. We are going to
go into recess again until the next member comes. Thank you.
[Recess.]
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms.McCollum. The Interior Committee members' hearing day
will continue, and we have before us the gentleman from
Massachusetts, Mr. McGovern.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
MASSACHUSETTS
Mr. McGovern. Thank you very much, Madam Chair McCollum,
Ranking Member Joyce, and members of the committee. Thanks for
the opportunity to testify. As you begin to draft this year's
appropriations bill, I encourage you to provide critical
funding for important conservation programs that preserve this
country's rich history and natural beauty.
This Congress has made significant progress in protecting
our public lands and spaces, in large part thanks to the
leadership of this committee. And I would like to share some of
the examples of the important stewardship work being done in my
district and highlight the ways in which the committee can----
[Audio malfunction in hearing room.]
The John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National
Heritage Corridor, which spans more than 2 dozen towns from my
hometown in Worcester, Massachusetts to Providence, Rhode
Island, tells the remarkable story of the birth of the
Industrial Revolution in America and the transformations that
followed. Vital to the success of the corridor and the unit of
the National Park Service within it is strong funding for the
Park Service, and a commitment to cooperative agreement that
NPS has undertaken with the local coordinating entity. I ask
that the committee fully fund the National Park Service and
encourage NPS to enter into a cooperative agreement for the
coming fiscal year. I have included draft language at the end
of my testimony for your consideration.
Next I want to highlight the importance of our National
Wildlife Refuge System. Specifically, I would like to draw your
attention to the Silvio O. Conte National Wildlife Refuge,
which spans the entirety of the Connecticut River watershed,
and comprises fully one-sixth of the entire area of New
England. Those who care for the refuge do extraordinary work
thanks to support from the Land and Water Conservation Fund,
which, in Conte's case, is administered by the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service. Yet despite a growing backlog of projects
across the refuge, Conte receives zero dollars in LWCF funding
for the current fiscal year, and Fish and Wildlife has not been
forthcoming in explaining the rationale behind this lack of
allocation.
I appreciate the committee's previous efforts to highlight
the uniqueness of Conte, and I am grateful for any further
efforts that might better prioritize or direct funds to the
refuge. I also ask the committee to fully fund the LCWF so that
Conte can receive the priority funding that it needs and
deserves.
I would also like to say a few rods about the newest of the
country's 11 national scenic trails. That is the New England
National Scenic Trail. Nearly 2 million people live within 10
miles of the trail, which spans 220 miles through Massachusetts
and Connecticut, and it has grown significantly in popularity
in the first decade. Federal funds must keep up with increased
demand for the recreational and educational opportunities that
the trail provides. I ask the committee to provide full funding
for the National Park Service so that the New England Scenic
Trail can be funded at $500,000 in the coming year.
Lastly, I would like to briefly mention something outside
of conservation that has been a priority of mine for a long
time. Clean, safe water is a right for every person in this
country, and I am asking this committee to continue to support
the highest possible funding for both the Clean Water and
Drinking Water State Revolving Funds. These programs help
communities across the country maintain safe and effective
water infrastructure, and they afford States the flexibility to
fund their highest-priority projects.
Once again, I want to thank you for the opportunity to
share stories of what our foundational conservation programs
make possible. I am grateful for the committee's longstanding
support for protecting our public spaces and shared heritage,
and I look forward to seeing what you produce for the coming
fiscal year. And, again, you know, as someone on the Rules
Committee, we meet an awful lot and under very intense
circumstances. I particularly appreciate the work of all the
appropriators, especially now, and the staff for what you are
about to go through. So thank you very much. I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. McGovern. Mr. McGovern, you
have on the last page of your testimony a language request for
the committee.
Mr. McGovern. I do.
Ms. McCollum. And so that is duly noted. Thank you for
submitting that. There is nothing any of us, I think,
throughout Congress, huge bipartisan support to support LWCF,
fully funded. Unfortunately, the President's budget makes that
impossible with the almost $2 billion cut to the bipartisan
work that Mr. Joyce and I did with our counterparts in the
Senate and we passed on the floor. And so we have the largest
increase to LWCF in literally decades. We are going to work
real hard to protect that and add to it if we can. But as you
pointed out, there is a need for clean drinking water and clean
water funding as well. So if you can do anything in Rules
Committee to give Mr. Joyce and I a larger allocation, we would
take your considerations very----
Mr. McGovern. Done. You won. Done. [Laughter.]
Ms. McCollum. We are counting on you. But sincerely, thank
you for the work that you do in the Rules Committee helping us
get our bills to the floor so we can move them forward, get
them to conference, and then bring them back.
Mr. McGovern. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you for your work. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. And I was just kidding about the tea, Mr.
McGovern, but it is always a lovely----
Mr. McGovern. No, and I----
Mr. Joyce [continuing]. For all of us.
Mr. McGovern. I will make sure you get some.
Mr. Joyce. And thank you for being here to discuss the
conservation programs and the importance of these programs and
the impact that they have in your district.
Mr. McGovern. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. We have your information. Go have
a wonderful day.
Mr. McGovern. You, too.
Ms. McCollum. I know you are really busy getting rules
ready and everything so that we can deal with the coronavirus,
and thank you.
Mr. McGovern. I appreciate it, but thank you again for all
the work you guys do.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. The committee stands in recess
until the next witness.
[Recess.]
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Ms.McCollum. So the Committee on Interior will come back
into our order for our members' priority day hearing, and we
are going to hear from Representative Casten. Welcome.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. SEAN CASTEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
ILLINOIS
Mr. Casten. Thank you. Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member
Joyce, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting
me to testify today. I have come to urge you to support robust
funding of the Urban and Community Forest Program at the U.S.
Forest Service in the coming fiscal year. I want to applaud all
your hard work in ensuring a funding increase of $2.5 million,
for a total of $22.5 million last fiscal year. The program
provides critical assistance to public/private partnerships
that address regional climate change challenges by promoting
healthy and diverse forests.
The scientific consensus could not be clearer. Climate
change is an imminent threat to our health, our economy, and
our national security, as well as the health of our forests.
The ``Fourth National Climate Assessment,'' released by the
White House in November 2018, spells it out clearly: ``As
growing season temperatures rise, reduced tree growth or
widespread mortality is expected.'' A loss of vegetation could
exacerbate the effects of climate change that we are already
seeing, but it also means that better managing our forests can
be a part of the solution to the climate crisis.
The Chicago Regional Trees Initiative, or CRTI, is a great
example of the solution. CRTI is a collaboration of more than
284 Chicago-area partners working to build healthier and more
diverse urban forests. Their work involves the Morton
Arboretum, U.S. Forest Service, and several other Federal
agencies, seven Chicagoland counties and municipal governments,
as well as business and community partners. CRTI has shown
great success leveraging the power of a public/private
partnership to strengthen and diversify our local urban
forests. We want to build on the success we have seen in
Chicago. Replicating the program elsewhere and solidifying CRTI
itself will greatly benefit urban forests across the country.
In addition, there is a critical need to restore and
improve the urban forests in Region 9 due to the catastrophic
losses from the emerald ash borer and build resiliency to
changing growing conditions by planting a diversity of trees
and protecting the existing trees. Eighty-one percent of
Americans live in urban areas where trees are critical to human
health and to address the environmental impact of climate
change. I urge the committee to prioritize the Forest Service's
regional multiorganizational collaborations in urban
communities most severely impacted by invasive species, like
the emerald ash borer. These urban forest conservation
partnerships provide models of best practices for effective
Landscape Scale and Community and Urban Forestry grants. Thank
you for your consideration of my request, and I hope you will
join me in harnessing the power of our urban canopy to help
solve the climate crisis.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you very much. The urban forestry
is near and dear to both Mr. Joyce and I, and we have been
working very hard to put dollars into it. As you know, the
President zeroed that out in his budget proposal, so we will be
not following the President's recommendation, putting funding
into it. But being able to do more is going to be dependent
upon what our topline number is. The President cut the Interior
appropriations portion in his budget by almost $2 billion, a
very substantial $1.9 billion cut.
I had some testimony when the Forest Service was in front
of us from one of my municipalities of how much money that they
are spending just on municipal trees and the disposal of it.
This is going to be a huge economic cost, and I think we all
need to reach out to our cities and start accumulating what
this cost is going to be so that we can make the case even
stronger that we need more funds in our overall allocation
especially to address this. Do you have any information from
any of your cities? And this is just public land that we have
counts on. We don't have on the private. What are you hearing
from your constituents?
Mr. Casten. So the Morton Arboretum is in my district, and
I have not reviewed their books to talk about the precise
numbers other than just to state the obvious. That $22-and-a-
half million is a trivial number here relative to the benefit
that we get from it. What is difficult is this is a long-term
project, right? You know, I tease the folks at the arboretum
periodically that, you know, I go with Sierra Club to clean
non-native species, and then they spend a ton of their effort
trying to figure out what species of trees around the world are
actually well adapted to the changing climates in the Chicago
area to urban areas where there is pollution and runoff from
trees. And I joke with them that if the Sierra Club ever comes,
they are going to have do a brush cleaning on their premises.
But the amount of effort that they have to put in is, and,
again, I don't want to speak to the financial, but it is a
long-term issue because they are sitting there with multiple
trees that are growing, looking at them over time, trying to
figure out how this evolved, trying to figure out which ones
are more sensitive to heat stresses. I don't mean to duck your
question.
Ms. McCollum. No, you are----
Mr. Casten. But I think making sure that they have the
resources to continue to do that research, and, frankly, expand
it, is going to be critical.
Ms. McCollum. Well, and the arboretums are places our
municipalities and homeowners go to for support with the master
gardener programs that that they offer. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Mr. Casten, for being here today to
provide some background on this issue that is important to you
as well as myself. In northeastern Ohio, we have the problem
with the emerald ash borer as well and its economic impact as
well as the damage to the forests of northern Ohio. It is
something that needs to be addressed, and I hope we can
continue to work together to protect against these invasive
species and protect our nature's forests. Thank you.
Mr. Casten. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. So as you can tell, it is a program the
ranking member and I are very passionate about. Thank you so
much for coming today and sharing your story.
Mr. Casten. Thank you. Thank you.
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Ms.McCollum. Thank you, Sean. Good morning.
Mrs. Trahan. Good morning.
Ms. McCollum. Representative Trahan, please share with us
your thoughts and suggestions for the Interior Committee in
this Members' Day meeting.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. LORI TRAHAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
MASSACHUSETTS
Mrs. Trahan. Thank you. Thank you, Chairwoman McCollum,
Ranking Member Joyce.
Ms. McCollum. Is it a green light in front of you?
Mrs. Trahan. There we go.
Ms. McCollum. There you go. Thank you.
Mrs. Trahan. Thank you for allowing me to testify today.
Many of the communities in your districts are in part defined
by their proximity to a body of water, whether it is the
Mississippi River, Lake Erie, the Snake River, or Puget Sound.
These are great waterways, and they contribute to our
communities' identity and provide a source of civic pride and
unity.
My district is no different. We are proud of the Merrimack
River's beauty and rich history. Fed by Lake Winnipesaukee in
the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the mighty Merrimack
River flows down through Concord, Manchester, and Nashua, then
it crosses into the Commonwealth and bends east near Lowell,
Massachusetts, before flowing through Lawrence and Haverhill,
and out to the Atlantic Ocean. Altogether, it runs over 100
river miles.
I was raised in Lowell, the birthplace of America's
Industrial Revolution, and there is no natural feature more
tied to the city's history than the Merrimack. The city's mill
buildings, including the one where my immigrant grandmother was
a mill girl and my congressional district office is located
today, once were powered by the Merrimack. Former Congressman
and Senator Paul Tsongas, alongside Senator Kennedy, gifted the
city a historical national park, which was founded to preserve
the industrial history, which the river produced.
Just as you and your constituents love their rivers and
lakes, we love the Merrimack. It is a place of commerce,
recreation, and quiet reflection, and it provides the drinking
water to more than half a million people. However, the river
and its watershed communities have suffered immensely over many
years from repeated releases of raw sewage. These communities
are among 900 nationwide that have outdated sewer
infrastructure known as combined sewer systems. Combined sewer
systems are named such because they collect waste from homes
and businesses as well as stormwater.
Equally important, they are designed to channel effluent,
called CSOs, into nearby bodies of water. This happens whenever
precipitation volume exceeds sewer system capacity.
Unfortunately, volume exceeds capacity all too often, and the
cost to fix these systems is enormous. Moreover, these
challenges can be exacerbated by the growing effects of a
warming climate. As it stands, according to the EPA's Clean
Watersheds Need Survey, the price tag to fix CSOs nationwide is
$50 billion. In Massachusetts alone, the price tag may be $1
billion or more.
For many years, the Federal Government, through the so-
called Construction Grants Program, supported communities'
wastewater infrastructure needs. However, in the 1980s, these
grants were largely converted into loans. To be clear, programs
like the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, or Clean Water SRF,
have been invaluable for meeting CWA requirements.
Nevertheless, I am seated here today because for many
communities, even long-term, low-interest loans are simply
beyond their means. Grant funding is absolutely vital when the
scale of wastewater infrastructure projects is so large, in the
tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.
Last year, thanks to the leadership of this committee, the
EPA's combined Sewer Overflow Control Grants Program received
funding for the first time in history. Your investment was an
excellent beginning, and I commend you for taking that step.
However, in light of the scale of the challenge before us, I
respectfully request that the committee commit to an ever-
greater appropriation for the CSO Grant Program in Fiscal Year
2021. In 2018, Congress enacted America's Water Infrastructure
Act, which authorized $225 million for the CSO Grant Program.
While each dollar counts, the scale of the challenge before us
suggests to me that an appropriation even twice the authorized
level is warranted.
I recognize that this subcommittee has a virtual Sophie's
choice when it comes to funding the important priorities that
protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land
that we hike, hunt, and farm. An increase in funding of the
scale I recommend might impinge on other priorities. However, I
hope that you will weigh the fact that the CSO problem is one
that has been many decades in the making, it harms communities
least able to afford the necessary improvements, and we can
solve it provided sufficient resources are available.
Thank you again for allowing me to testify. I would invite
you to the Merrimack Valley to see the river for yourself, and
I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you, and you were very passionate
on this program last year, and sought me out on the floor, and
talked to many other committee members about it. So thank you
for your passion. And I think I might have shared with you at
the time, I grew up in South St. Paul on the Mississippi River,
and we went through two stockyards that used to just put their
effluent, back in the early days, back in the Mississippi
River. The same issue with the combined sewer water treatment
that you spoke to. We spent a lot of money cleaning it up, and
there are some communities that we have to come up with
different solutions if we are ever going to clean up our
waterways.
But as you pointed to, it is a Sophie's choice, and the
President did not help us out with coming in with a very low
number, almost $2 billion lower, for the Interior bill. So Mr.
Joyce and I will, you know, do what we can, but part of it is
going to depend upon the topline number that we get from the
full committee as to whether or not we will be able to do any
increases. But with due notice, I am going to give you credit
and attribution. I love the water we drink, the land we hike,
hunt, and farm. So just to let you know, I am going to give you
attribution for that line, as I say, you know, several times,
then eventually attribution might disappear.
Mrs. Trahan. That is fine. Please take it away.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Thank you so much for your
testimony. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mrs.
Trahan, for being here today and joining us this morning in
discussing your interest in our Nation's water infrastructure.
I was pleased that we were able to provide $28 million for the
Combined Sewer Overflow Control in 2020. But you are right, we
still have a lot of work to do, and I just want to thank you
for being here. We in northeastern Ohio and the Great Lakes, we
have seen this all too often, and it is a problem that needs to
be addressed, but funding is always critical to get these
things done. Thank you.
Mrs. Trahan. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much.
Mrs. Trahan. Thank you.
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Ms. McCollum. And the next member we are going to hear from
is Representative Cunningham. And, Mr. Cunningham, the green
button should be on. Make sure it is on because we want to get
everything recorded that you would like to share with us.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. JOE CUNNINGHAM, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
SOUTH CAROLINA
Mr. Cunningham. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning,
Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Joyce, staff. I appreciate the
opportunity to be in front of you here today.
As you all know, I represent South Carolina's 1st
Congressional District, a district blessed with an incredible
coastline, good fishing, and clean waterways. And I am here to
relay my district's concerns about the Administration's
proposals to bring both offshore drilling and harmful seismic
airgun blasting to Atlantic waters, including those off my
district, as well as those off the Pacific and the Eastern Gulf
of Mexico, which together support over 2.6 million American
jobs and roughly $180 billion in GDP through tourism, fishing,
and recreation.
Beginning in 1982 and for nearly 3 decades, members of
Congress listened to the concerns of the people they served and
restricted funding for Federal offshore oil and gas leasing and
drilling activities via the appropriations process. Thank you
for working with me and our colleagues to reestablish similar
provisions through amendments to the Fiscal Year 2020 Interior,
Environment appropriations bills to limit spending on offshore
oil and gas leasing, along with the aforementioned coast, and I
would urge you to include offshore drilling and exploration
moratoria again as you craft the Fiscal Year 2021 base bill. It
is vital that we engage the Senate to ensure these provisions
are included in the final package. Without these moratoria
provisions, we relinquish our role in influencing the future
offshore drilling to the executive branch.
Across the board, the expansion of offshore drilling is a
threat to hardworking Americans, coastal economies, and marine
life. When oil companies drill, they spill. Oil spills have
lasting consequences, as well we know from the 2010 Deepwater
Horizon tragedy, which claimed the lives of 11 rig workers and
spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of
Mexico, as engineers tried and failed to cap the blowout.
Oil exposure destroyed fragile marine ecosystems. Tourism
dropped throughout the region alongside beach closures and
fishing restrictions, and real estate value declined in several
Gulf Coast communities. Next month marks the 10th-year
anniversary of this terrible accident, yet the dangerous and
dirty culture of offshore drilling remains largely unchanged.
In fact, last year, the Trump Administration took a step
backward by weakening one of the few rules that had been
implemented to prevent another Deepwater Horizon-like disaster.
Through the appropriations process, we have the power to block
funding for risky offshore development and prevent another
large-scale spill before it happens.
Despite the Administration's stated abandonment of its 5-
year OCS plan, harmful oil exploration is imminent in the
Atlantic Ocean if the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issues
final permits to seismic companies. Seismic airgun blasting in
search for oil goes directly against the interests and wishes
of my constituents. Creating one of the loudest manmade sounds
in the ocean, noise from seismic airguns can disturb, injure,
and even kill animals across the entire marine ecosystem. This
unnecessary harm to the environment stands to threaten Atlantic
Marine resources that support over 1.5 million jobs and
generate nearly $108 billion in GDP each year, mainly through
tourism, fishing, and recreation. Any potential benefits of oil
exploration are far outweighed by the stable recurring revenue
and jobs that our communities receive from healthy oceans.
Exposing our vibrant ocean resources to incredibly loud
seismic airgun blasting and dangerous offshore drilling is
simply not worth the risk. We are depending on your support
again this year as you write and negotiate the Fiscal Year 2021
Interior, Environment appropriations bill. I would ask that you
make it a priority to restrict funding for any new offshore oil
leasing or related activities, including seismic airgun
blasting, in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Pacific Ocean, and
eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Please back our coastal communities which have voiced
consistent opposition to dangerous oil and gas activities, and
I appreciate the opportunity to testify here today.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cunningham, and as
you pointed out, it did become part of our base bill, the
support of the entire body of members when that amendment was
rock solid, so, you know, bipartisan in that. And, Mr. Joyce,
we need to thank Mr. Cunningham for not bringing his airhorn
with him. He did when he was in Natural Resources and sounded
the alarm with it. So thank you for being here and sounding the
alarm on what could happen to our coastal communities. You did
an excellent job. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Mr. Cunningham, for being here and
discussing those issues that are important to your district,
and certainly urge you, and we will try to help where we can.
Mr. Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Joyce.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Cunningham. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Ms. McCollum. The gentleman from New York? Welcome, Mr.
Suozzi.
Mr. Suozzi. Suozzi.
Ms. McCollum. Suozzi. I am sorry.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. TOM SUOZZI, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW
YORK
Mr. Suozzi. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman and Ranking
Member Joyce, staff members. Thanks so much for the opportunity
to speak to you today about the Long Island Sound and about the
Land and Water Conservation Fund. These are very big issues in
my district. I represent the 3rd Congressional District of New
York, which encompasses the North Shore of Queens, Nassau, and
Suffolk Counties on Long Island.
I am the co-chair of the bipartisan Long Island Sound
Caucus, and we are requesting an increase in funding for the
Long Island Sound from $21 million in Fiscal Year 2020 to $30.4
million in Fiscal Year 2021 to help safeguard and continue
restoring water quality and the diverse habitat of the Long
Island Sound. For us, the Long Island is really our national
park. More than 25 million people from Long Island, New York,
and Connecticut live within an hour's drive of the Sound, and
over the past 30 years, because of your good work in
partnership with the Federal, State, and local agencies, as
well as citizen stakeholders, like Save the Sound, Coalition of
Safe Cohasset Harbor, the Citizens Campaign for the
Environment, the Friends of the Bay, and so many others, we
have helped make significant improvements, environmental
improvements.
We have made significant strides in reducing nitrogen
loading, habitat restoration, public involvement in education,
and water quality monitoring. And I am sure that both of you
are aware what the problem with nitrogen loading is. Nitrogen
is what makes things grow. Nitrogen is what is in fertilizer.
It is what makes your grass green. It is when you put horse
manure on your tomato plants and it makes them grow because the
nitrogen makes things grow. And the nitrogen from our sewage
treatment plants and the nitrogen from the runoff from
stormwater goes into places like the Long Island Sound and
other water bodies, and it makes the microscopic organisms
grow, and it makes things, you know, full of life, but that is
what makes the water brown. And when those microscopic
organisms die, they sink to the bottom, and they eat up the
oxygen as they decompose. And that causes hypoxia, and hypoxia
is what kills all the wildlife, the fish life especially.
So these efforts that you have done, along with the
critical Federal funding that you have provided, have helped
turn the Sound around. I grew up swimming and fishing in the
Long Island Sound. My children do today. I have devoted a
significant part of my 25-year career in public service to
cleaning up pollution, dramatically reducing nitrogen,
modernizing sewage treatment plants, and restoring shellfish
habitat. As a matter of fact, one year, the New York League of
Conservation Voters named me the environmentalist of the year
for all of New York State. There is so much more that we can
accomplish with your help.
Another critical issue for my constituents and throughout
the country is support for the funding for the Land and Water
Conservation Fund. Along with over 150 bipartisan colleagues,
we are requesting support for robust funding in Fiscal Year
2021. The Land and Water Conservation Fund supports public land
conservation and ensures access to the outdoors for all
Americans. It has helped fund access to outdoor recreation
opportunities in every State and in 98 percent of the counties
across America. Funding has helped in key areas for fishing and
recreational access as well as supporting working forests and
ranches, and acquiring and protecting critical lands in
national parks, national wildlife refuges, our national
forests, civil war battlefields, and other Federal areas. I am
proud to work with local organizations, like Lisa Ott, who
fight every day to protect these beautiful places.
Thank you for your time and consideration of these two
critical issues. My colleagues and I look forward to working
with you to support the Long Island Sound and the Land and
Water Conservation Fund to help conserve the natural beauty of
our great country and expand access to more people to
experience and learn about our Nation's history. Thank you so
much for your time.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you for sharing the passion about Long
Island Sound. It is truly beautiful. I have had only one
opportunity to be there. I would love to visit again.
Mr. Suozzi. Come visit. I will take you on a tour of
Theodore Roosevelt's home. Sagamore Hill is in my district.
Ms. McCollum. And that is in your full testimony, too. You
didn't get to it.
Mr. Suozzi. Yeah.
Ms. McCollum. So we are hoping to not have to implement any
of the proposals that President Trump had in the Interior bill,
which was to cut it by $1.9 billion. And thank you for pointing
out the importance of LWCF. We gave it its most robust increase
in decades. We are looking to protect that and add to it if we
possibly can. And you also made a $10 million ask. We have to
see what our allocation looks like, but you have given us great
food for thought, so thank you very much.
Mr. Suozzi. Thank you.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Suozzi,
for taking time out of your busy day to come here and discuss
with us the Long Island Sound and Land and Water Conservation
Fund. As Chairwoman McCollum and I both understand very
clearly, those runoffs can create and wreak havoc, as they have
throughout the Great Lakes, on the Sound as well. So we
certainly appreciate your being part of the solution.
Mr. Suozzi. Thank you, again, to the committee, not only
for your time, but the great work that you have done supporting
these environmental efforts for so many years. We are very
grateful.
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Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Representative--I should say Dr.--
Schrier, welcome, and please start with your testimony. Green
light on? You are good to go.
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. KIMBERLY SCHRIER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
WASHINGTON
Ms. Schrier. Green light is on. Thank you, Chairwoman
McCollum and Ranking Member Joyce. I am here today to discuss a
few issues of great importance to me, specifically funding for
Puget Sound recovery efforts, the U.S. Forest Service's Legacy
Roads and Trails Program, and increasing recycling and reducing
the use of single-use plastics. All that being said, I may not
have time to touch on all of these, and I will submit comments
at the end.
I, along with my colleagues, will soon be submitting a
formal appropriations request for $38 million in funding for
EPA's Puget Sound Geographic Program. Every EPA dollar spent on
Puget Sound recovery efforts has leveraged more than $24 in
matching funds from other Federal agencies and local partners,
an enormous return on investment.
The Puget Sound region is home to 19 federally-recognized
tribes, which include 17 with tribal treaty rights, and the
Federal Government is obligated to ensure these tribes' treaty-
reserved rights are protected. Several species of Pacific
salmon and steelhead in Puget Sound are listed as threatened
under the Endangered Species Act. The iconic Southern Resident
Killer Whale is on the brink of extinction with a population at
a 30-year low of 73 Southern Residents. Consistent dedicated
funding to the Sound would greatly benefit the region and
future generations to come.
Also I am planning to introduce legislation which will
codify the U.S. Forest Service's Legacy Roads and Trails
Program. This program leverages public and private funding to
address water quality and access for threatened and endangered
species, like the Chinook salmon, bull trout, and steelhead. It
was created in 2008 because the general Forest Service road
maintenance budget was unable to address the sheer volume of
blocked culverts, landslides, and washouts that were impacting
water quality and access for threatened and endangered species.
In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that Washington State had
an obligation to restore habitat to meet its promises to the
tribes. Washington State will have to replace each fish-
blocking culvert with a larger design. It is estimated this
will cost $4 billion to the State, and we have until 2030 to
meet that requirement. Narrowing a stream to a culvert forces a
waterway that could be 12 feet or more feet wide into a far
smaller pipe that might increase water pressure throughout the
culvert, often to the point that fish can't swim upstream. Some
culverts are also elevated too high for returning fish to jump.
That means that for a lot of them, the end of the journey may
be at that culvert, and for them, that will be the end of their
journey. Even if there are miles of pristine habitat beyond,
they won't be able to get there.
So while our State addresses culverts and downstream
barriers, there are thousands of upstream barriers on U.S.
Forest Service lands which desperately require similar fixes.
Now is the time to invest in upstream habitat so that when we
open those culverts, the salmon have a place to go. Funding has
been zeroed out since the program was moved under the capital
improvement and maintenance line item in the budget. The last
pot of funds provided for this was in 2018. I respectfully
request that the committee fund the program again at the 2018
level of $41 million under the capital improvement and
maintenance line item, and request the U.S. Forest Service
continue tracking and reporting of these projects.
Lastly, an issue that is of great importance to me and
others in this room is the overwhelming plastic waste stream
that is polluting our land and water. We need to reduce the use
of single-use plastics and increase recycling rates throughout
the country. I am leading a letter with Congresswoman Haley
Stevens of Michigan, which is currently circulating, which is
calling for increased funding for RCRA and further data
collection regarding the needs assessment of the U.S. recycling
industry. Strong data is the foundation of good policy. For too
long, the recycling program in the United States has been
characterized by its lack of reliable, comprehensive data.
Municipalities and stakeholders from across the spectrum
require strong data to make targeted and informed decisions.
By conducting a nationwide census on the types and
capacities of recycling programs in existence, we can better
determine our needs and investments. Having the authority of
the EPA behind this request is crucial. Private industry is
unable to comprehensively collect the information on a
nationwide scale. Better data will lead to better investments,
and we can help ensure materials can be recycled. Manufacturers
can use this to identify consistent sources, and they can look
for opportunities for the use of those materials.
In summary, I thank the committee for the opportunity to
testify on these issues of incredible importance. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you. Mr. Joyce and I both had the
opportunity to be out in the Puget Sound area and saw all the
great work, and the leverage, and the difference that it is
making, and we have many regional programs. Mr. Joyce and I
come from the Great Lakes, but we feel that they are all
equally important. We might have a favorite, but we don't pick
a favorite when it comes to supporting your request and others
throughout the bill.
And I thank you for your comments on recycling. We held a
hearing on plastic recycling, and we have been trying to work
with the EPA about we need a national standard so it makes
sense to people about what is going on. In my opinion, it is
just too confusing. People want to recycle, and they think they
are recycling, but they are not because the packaging is so
varied and so confusing for folks. So thank you for bringing
that to our attention as well. But with that, Mr. Joyce and I
are going to need some deeper pockets with a little more money
in them to work on some of these great things that have come
forward. We thank you for that. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Dr. Schrier, for coming here today,
and I would be remiss if I didn't say to our colleague here on
this committee, Derek Kilmer, has done a wonderful job
advocating as well as you on your behalf. Thank you for being
here.
Ms. Schrier. Thank you.
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Ms. McCollum. Good morning. It is wonderful to have you
here. We are so very interested to hear your testimony. Please
begin.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. AMATA RADEWAGEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM AMERICAN SAMOA
Mrs. Radewagen. Good morning. Thank you, Chair McCollum and
Ranking Member Joyce for----
Ms. McCollum. Is your microphone on? Is it green? We want
to make sure we can hear your testimony, Representative.
Mrs. Radewagen. Thank you, Chairwoman McCollum and Ranking
Member Joyce, for the opportunity to testify today. The Army
Corps evaluated the state of health infrastructure in American
Samoa's only hospital, the almost 60-year-old LBJ Tropical
Medical Center for DOI, as directed by this committee last
year. With the committee's permission, I would like to submit a
copy of the report into the record along with my written
testimony.
Ms. McCollum. Without any objections. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. No.
Ms. McCollum. So ordered.
Mrs. Radewagen. The report's findings are grim for
America's most remote community of 60,000 Americans living
nearly 7,000 miles away. Any cuts to this account would be
catastrophic to the Islands of American Samoa. American Samoa
maintains one of the highest Army enlistment rates in the
country and was first in recruitment twice in the past 5 years
on a per capita basis, and has one of the highest veterans
populations in the country. The VA spends $5 million per year
on flights and hotels to treat these vets in Hawaii, often for
care that could be done locally, but which is not available to
them or their families.
The Army Corps report states bleakly as follows: ``The
current infrastructure of the LBJ Territorial Medical Center
Hospital is in a state of failure due to age and environmental
exposure. Extensive repair and/or replacement of the facility
is required to ensure compliance with hospital accreditation
standards, and to ensure the life, health, and safety of staff,
patients, and visitors.''
While the facility's structure has held up relatively well,
it is not in compliance with current seismic and wind
requirements, and retrofits would be expensive and disruptive.
The electrical and mechanical systems are in poor condition and
in need of immediate repair. Architectural deficiencies have
led to mold and mildew growth in critical areas, exposing staff
and patients to significant health risks. Plumbing, water
treatment, and medical gas systems are all in failed or failing
condition. The facility is partly dependent upon funding from
CMS, and further degradation of the infrastructure will result
in noncompliance with standards, and will result in denial of
accreditation. LBJ is the only full-service healthcare facility
in the territory, and further degradation of the plant
infrastructure will hamper the delivery of care to American
Samoa's population.
Notwithstanding these poor conditions, our local government
officials and hospital staff were able to successfully avert a
major outbreak of measles that caused nearly 100 deaths in
children in independent Samoa just 100 miles away last year,
but no deaths occurred in American Samoa. The Army Corps
reports modernization costs will range from over $100 million
for minimum compliance improvements to over $500 million in
total hospital replacement costs. We seek any increase the
committee deems reasonable based on the Army Corps findings to
this committee.
With over 300 inches of rain and two tropical storms in the
past year, it is a challenging environment for our hospital
infrastructure. Modernizing the LBJ Hospital with the basic
emergency upgrades needed, as set forth in the Army Corps
report, are essential. This increase will help provide the
basic humanitarian health services which HHS/CMS compliance
requires. Considering the recent events with coronavirus and my
home district's proximity to Asia, this is even more important
now.
I want to thank the committee members again for allowing me
to testify, and I look forward to continuing working with you
on this most important issue to the American Samoan people.
Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you. So part of our charge is
funding Insular Affairs, and so we will look at the report, and
also look to see where there might be other funding revenues
that could be helpful on this. So thank you for bringing the
information, and that is so sad that so many children lost
their lives to measles. So having good public health
infrastructure that people can rely on is very important. To
have that happen so close to your population must have really
been disturbing because you have had some good public health,
and we want to keep it that way with having a good hospital. So
thank you so much for sharing.
Could I ask, do you have any reports or concerns you could
share with the committee about resiliency and climate change?
We are also working on that in here in the future. That would
be very helpful for me. As we move forward, we need to make
sure that, you know, all of our territories, all of our
brothers' and sisters' voices are heard at the table when we
work on these issues. So I thank you so much for coming
forward. It was a pleasure having you here. I look forward to
working with you and getting to know you better on these
issues.
Mrs. Radewagen. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. We will be
sure to get that information to you.
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Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair. We appreciate you being
here and for your discussion about these important programs.
Mrs. Radewagen. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much. Mr. Davis, you have had a
busy morning. We are so glad you were able to make it over
here, and when you are ready, we will let you get started. And
I think the green light should be on for you.
Mr. Davis. It is.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. RODNEY DAVIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
ILLINOIS
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Chair McCollum and Ranking Member
Joyce, for allowing me the opportunity to testify before both
of you today. I am here to speak in support of moving my bill,
H.R. 139, the Springfield Race Riot National Historic Monument
Act, which would designate the site of the 1908 Springfield
race riots as a national historic monument to preserve and
recognize it as an important part of our Nation's history.
The site and artifacts were unearthed during construction
of the Carpenter Street segment of the Springfield Rail
Improvements Project in my district, and consists of the
remains of five homes that were burned during the 1908
Springfield race riot, one of the three worst race riots in our
Nation's history. At the time, the event demonstrated that
racial injustice was not an isolated issue only in the South,
but one that needed to be addressed across this country, even
in the hometown of Abe Lincoln. Ultimately, the riots that
occurred at the site in Springfield played an integral role in
the formation of the NAACP.
Designating this site would commemorate an important piece
of history as a public reminder of how far we have come and how
far we have yet to go. Last year, the Department of Interior
released their reconnaissance survey which found that the site
is likely suitable for designation as a national historic
monument. The bill has also received a hearing in the House
Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and
Public Lands. Further, our national parks are a wise investment
with a return on investment of nearly $10 for every $1
invested. These investments support over 300,000 jobs and
contribute $36 billion in economic activity to our country
every year.
National monuments, like the Springfield race riot site,
would provide not only a tourism and an economic benefit, but a
critically-important historical and educational benefit that
can be combined with the current historical and educational
benefits currently being operated by the National Park Service
at the Lincoln Home Historic Site. And I will remind the
committee this race riot site is mere blocks away from the
already-existing National Park Service Lincoln Home Historic
Site.
I respectfully request that the committee appropriate
robust funding for our National Park Service and work to move
my bill through the House in order to give this site the
recognition that it deserves. Thank you, and I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. Are you currently in front of the Natural
Resources authorization committee with this?
Mr. Davis. We have had a hearing on this bill through the
subcommittee of jurisdiction, the Subcommittee on National
Parks, Forests, and Public Lands.
Ms. McCollum. And one of the committee members who is on
the authorizing committee is, like, shaking her head in very
strong support. Yeah, she will be testifying later,
Representative Haaland. So I look forward to being able to
support that bill on the floor. The Historic Preservation
Office, which is the group of technicians and archaeologists
and the rest that find these artifacts and work along with
especially Department of Transportation and other major
construction projects, is something that this committee has
worked very hard to keep the funding up on, even though the
President, I am not sure if he is at 80 percent cut or zeroed
it out totally. I don't have the numbers right in front of me.
But these historic preservation offices are very, very
important in our States and in our tribal nations. So you just
reemphasized that for us as well in this committee.
Mr. Davis. I agree with you, Madam Chair.
Ms. McCollum. So and you are right. I am from Minnesota,
and we have our own story to tell, whether it is with our
Native American brothers and sisters, or with other immigrant
populations, or with African Americans who were brought over
here through no choice of their own through slavery. We have
our own stories we have to share, our own stories we have to
teach our children. We are part of the story of the good, the
bad, and sometimes the very bad. So thank you. As a history
teacher, we teach the whole history. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Davis,
for coming here before our committee this morning to discuss
your important bill, H.R. 139, the Springfield Race Riot
National Historic Monument Act. Given the importance of this
event in our Nation's history, I want to be supportive of your
efforts and give this site the recognition that it deserves and
continue to provide robust funding for our Nation's parks.
Thank you.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Ranking Member.
Ms. McCollum. Anything else you want to add?
Mr. Davis. Thanks for your consideration. We really
appreciate the opportunity to come before you today.
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Ms. McCollum. We look forward to your bill being on the
floor, sir. Good morning, Mr. Schneider.
Mr. Schneider. Good morning.
Ms. McCollum. Representative Schneider, I think the green
light button should be on for you.
Mr. Schneider. It is.
Ms. McCollum. And we are ready to hear your testimony.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. BRAD SCHNEIDER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
ILLINOIS
Mr. Schneider. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me
today. Madam Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to testify
before this committee.
What I want to talk about is something called ethylene
oxide, or EtO. EtO is an industrial chemical used to sterilize
medical devices. It is also used as an intermediary chemical in
the manufacture of industrial products, for example,
antifreeze. A few years ago, EtO was reclassified as a known
carcinogen by the United States Environmental Protection
Agency, which was in December 2016. Consequently, EPA included
EtO in its Regular National Air Toxic Assessment, which helped
identify communities that faced high exposure to the chemical.
Two of these communities happen to be in my district,
Gurnee and Waukegan, Illinois. There are dozens of communities
like this around the country that face high EtO emissions from
suburbs in Atlanta, Georgia, Allentown, Pennsylvania, and even
the bayous of Louisiana. These at-risk communities need and
deserve ambient air testing. I have been pushing the EPA to
conduct ambient air monitoring in my district similar to what
the Agency did in 2018 in Willowbrook, Illinois. Only through
ambient air monitoring can my constituents be confident that
the air they breathe is indeed safe. Unfortunately, the EPA has
consistently refused.
I am deeply thankful that this subcommittee stepped up last
year in the absence of EPA leadership and increased funding for
EPA's Compliance Account, making particular note of communities
facing high EtO levels and the importance of ambient air
monitoring. While this funding did not make it into the final
omnibus, I am deeply thankful for the committee's leadership on
EtO. Thankfully, at home, my local community public health
department, in coordination with our State Illinois EPA,
stepped up and has been conducting ambient air testing in our
area, ambient air testing that the EPA should have been doing.
However, not all local governments around the country have the
resources to conduct similar air testing, underscoring how
important it is that this funding remains for dozens of
communities around the country.
Now the EPA is promulgating two rules on EtO. This further
highlights why funding is so important because of EPA's
approach to its rulemaking. EPA has insisted that computer
modeling is sufficient and does not intend to conduct any
ambient air monitoring as part of its rulemaking. However, the
experience we saw at Sterigenics facility in Willowbrook proves
the shortsightedness of this approach. It was not until after
the EPA conducted air monitoring in Willowbrook that we
discovered how significant a contributor to ambient presence of
ethylene oxide is, what are called fugitive emissions. These
would not have been included in the model and were significant
contributors to the community's exposure.
When conducting its computer modeling for EtO, EPA must
include variables for its estimate of fugitive emissions. As we
saw in Willowbrook, estimates are not a full picture of
fugitive emissions, and EPA cannot take into account fugitive
emissions without the necessary ambient air testing. All the
more reason why funding for ambient air monitoring is so
essential to inform any sensible regulation of EtO.
This subcommittee has been immensely helpful on this
important issue for my constituents, but we still need your
support. Ambient air monitoring is the only way to assure our
communities, known to be facing high EtO emissions, that the
air they breathe is safe, and it must play an integral role in
the EPA's rulemaking, especially given the shortcomings that we
have seen in computer modeling. Again, I want to thank you for
the opportunity to testify today, and I yield back the balance
of my time.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much. There is a recent GAO
report that I read on the airplane. I am going to read it
without being on the airplane again so that I can take more of
it in on enforcement and compliance. We need to do a much, much
better job. I think you have given a real good example of what
the expectation our citizens, the people that we represent have
of the EPA monitoring and doing air quality work. And you have
taught me a lot about this over the past year and a half, and I
am looking forward to doing more on this issue.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. We had a different chemical release in my
district, and we need to be present when those things are
happening and monitoring public health. So thank you for
bringing this to our attention, and also for you realizing the
hard slog it is sometimes for us to not only get the funding,
but then to get the person hours to do the compliance, to do
the enforcement, as well as just the basic monitoring that
needs to be done. So thank you so much.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you for your time here today, Mr.
Schneider.
Mr. Schneider. Thanks.
Ms. McCollum. I look forward to working with you.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you.
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Ms. McCollum. Representative Haaland, it is so wonderful to
see you this morning. Thank you, and when you are ready, please
begin.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. DEBRA HAALAND, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW
MEXICO
Ms.Haaland. Thank you. Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member
Joyce, members of the subcommittee, thank you for this
opportunity to speak about some key issues in the Interior
appropriations bill.
I want to start by thanking you for your great work on the
Fiscal Year 2020 bill. Last year, I asked for your help with
the Payment in Lieu of Taxes and Secure Rural Schools Programs,
and you delivered, including a 2-year reauthorization for SRS.
I appreciate your continued support for SRS and PILT, and I
will continue to work to get a permanent SRS solution through
my National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands Subcommittee.
I am also grateful to you for including a year-long
moratorium on new oil and gas leasing within 10 miles of the
Chaco Culture National Historic Park in Fiscal Year 2020, which
is my ancestral homeland, and for funding a cultural resources
investigation. Just last week, BLM released a resource
management plan amendment for the area that ignores the
recommendations of experts and would allow drilling much closer
than 10 miles. So I ask you to again include language that will
protect my ancestral homeland.
Thank you for reversing the President's proposed cut to the
Land and Water Conservation Fund in Fiscal Year 2020. He
proposed to cut it again by 97 percent in Fiscal Year 2021, and
I urge you to fully fund the LCWF at the authorized $900
million level, although last week the President did tweet his
support for making LWCF full funding mandatory, so perhaps it
won't be necessary, but we will see.
Last year, I asked for your assistance with funding for
public safety programs and healthcare for Native Americans, and
again you delivered. I appreciate the increase for Indian
Health Service and the language you included requesting a plan
from IHS on how it will fully fund and implement the Indian
Health Care Improvement Act. I am also grateful for your
efforts to increase funding for law enforcement and tribal
courts and to support programs to address recidivism in Indian
Country by providing mental health and substance abuse services
when needed by juvenile and adult detainees and prisoners. I
urge you to continue that good work in Fiscal Year 2021.
I am especially grateful that you worked to significantly
increase funding for implementation of the Violence Against
Women's Act in Indian Country because more than 4 in 5 American
Indian and Alaska native women have experienced violence within
their lives, and 56 percent have experienced sexual violence.
Your continued support in these areas will help change the
lives of Native American women and girls.
The government shutdown in early 2020 showed us how tribal
communities can be vulnerable during a lapse in appropriations,
which puts Native American lives in danger. I support your
efforts in the Fiscal Year 2020 bill to investigate the changes
needed to develop and manage an advanced appropriation for IHS,
and I welcome the opportunity to continue working with you on
this through the authorization and appropriations process.
Finally, there is a briefing tomorrow about water access in
this country. It will highlight a study released last year that
reported that Native American households are 19 times less
likely than white households to have indoor plumbing. Fifty-
eight out of 1,000 Native American households lack complete
plumbing, and an estimate 30 percent or more of people on the
Navajo Nation lack access to running water. I appreciate your
support for the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving
Funds to help build and repair water infrastructure nationwide
and across Indian Country, and I urge you to do what you can to
increase that funding level and set aside a greater portion for
tribes.
Thank you again for your great work, and I really
appreciate the opportunity to testify.
Ms.McCollum. Well, thank you. Thank you for your comment on
this committee's support for funding payment in lieu of taxes,
but it really belongs back in Ways and Means, and not in the
Interior budget. So we are going to work really hard to remove
it out of this committee and back into where it had been
before, in the mandatory funding. I thank you for your kind
words on the increases we were able to do in Indian Country,
and you are so spot on about access to clean drinking water,
especially in tribal communities. And now more than ever, as
clean drinking water and just clean potable water for washing
hands and that, especially, you know, all the talk about if you
want to be safe now, wash your hands. We have to have access to
water in order to be able to do that and keep you and your
family safe.
LWCF is a beloved program, and I want to thank you as an
authorizer for the authorization work that you did on it. Thank
you for the lofty goal that you are trying to hold us to on
$900 million. We gave it a robust increase. Mr. Joyce and I
hope we can show it some love again, but without a bigger
topline number, well, you know what would happen to clean
drinking water, EPA enforcement, and everything else. But it is
something that is near and dear to our hearts. We appreciate
all the work that you did in the authorization on that because
that gives us a wonderful opportunity to talk about how I need
a bigger topline number to work on all these programs and meet
the needs of people, not in Indian Country, but throughout the
United States. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ms.
Haaland, for being here today to discuss the importance of
funding for Indian affairs, for the Indian Health Service, and
the EPA's Clean Water and Drinking Service Revolving Funds. I
think it is fair to say that Indian Country programs manage to
be a non-partisan issue on this committee, and I am sure that
what Chair McCollum and I will continue to work for is making
sure that we fund them as best we can. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you.
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Ms.McCollum. Miigwech. Welcome, Representative Graves. If
the green light is on, when you are ready, we are ready.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. GARRET GRAVES, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
LOUISIANA
Mr. Graves. Fantastic. Well, thank you. I am Garret Graves.
I represent south Louisiana. I want to thank you for the
opportunity to come testify before the committee. I appreciate
you all opening the doors to allow us to come discuss
priorities.
Perhaps, Madam Chair, I will start with the Land and Water
Conservation Fund. I heard the previous speaker and your
dialogue, and certainly the Land and Water Conservation Fund is
an important part of the investment to preserve and protect
some of these important resource areas across the United
States. And like you, I also have seen recent action between
the Senate and the White House in regard to allowing some full
funding for the program.
I do want to make note, though, that every penny of that
program, the funds are derived from off the coast of the State
that I represent, and to be fair, there are five or six States
that produce offshore energy. Alaska does a little bit.
California does a little bit, but the majority of it is Texas,
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. And, as a matter of fact,
if you take the offshore production off the coast of our State
and you compare it to the other five States, we produce, well,
probably about 4 times as much as the other five States
combined. So the majority of this money by far is derived from
off the coast of Louisiana.
At the same time, we have lost about 2,800 square miles of
coast due to coastal erosion. That is equivalent to the State
of Rhode Island. And to see folks out there announcing
permanent funding and full funding for the Land and Water
Conservation Fund without investing in the conservation of the
very area where those funds are derived is unbelievable. It
really is. It is not sustainable. The funding stream is not
sustainable. You can't have land loss anywhere from, I think,
on the low end over the last 80 years, 8 square miles in a
year, to the high end, 200 square miles in a year, and expect
that we are going to be able to sustain the production that we
have today, which means the revenues that we have today. In
recent years, I think $5, maybe $6 billion, I believe, in most
recent years in terms of production of revenues from the outer
continental shelf.
So I strongly urge you take a look at the Mineral Leasing
Act that shares 50 percent of the revenues with States, and I
think we should have some sort of parity for the States that
host the offshore production because this is an important part
of our energy security. And although it may seem
counterintuitive, that natural gas that we are producing off
the coast has actually been the major reason why we have had a
reduction in emissions in the United States in terms of
greenhouse gases. And it is going to allow us to continue to
reduce emissions both domestically and globally as we export
natural gas to 35 countries around the world, our cleaner
natural gas. In fact, Russian gas is about 41 to 47 percent
greater or dirtier emissions than in the United States.
So number one, I support Land and Water Conservation Fund,
but I do not support it unless it is paired with coastal impact
assistance or revenue sharing for other States. I can speak on
behalf of the State of Louisiana and say we would dedicate
every penny of that revenue to the sustainability of our coast.
No other programs. Every penny would go to the sustainability
of our coast. As a matter of fact, there is a constitutional
amendment that would lock it in for that purpose. That is my
first request.
I also want to make note that as we move forward on this
legislation, folks are talking about full funding of the Land
and Water Conservation Fund, $900 million. Under current law,
12-and-a-half percent of new energy revenues post December of
2006 already goes to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. So
if we lock in $900 million, it is going to end up being over $1
billion in annual revenues just because of this other portion,
so we need to be thoughtful about that. We would gladly take
that other portion that currently is locked in, and you could
give it to us for impact assistance, and I think that would be
a great fix.
Number two, studies permitting last year. We had asked for
you all to include to for studies permitting, in particular
Louisiana. We have an abundance of alligators. They are
sustainably managed, in many cases on elevator farms, in other
cases in the wild, but we have a very robust management program
that ensures the sustainability. A domestic permitting system
would be very helpful. You included language in the
appropriations bill last year that allows any unobligated funds
to be used for this purpose, but we would appreciate direct
funding for a domestic studies program to where we can ensure
the proper utilization of that resource that we have.
Lastly, I just want to make note again, there is all this
emotional discussion on climate change and energy sources, and
certainly we have an obligation to ensure sustainable future
for our Nation and our planet. The United States has reduced
emissions more than the next 12 countries combined over the
last 15 years. We have exceeded the objectives of the Obama
Administration regarding the Clean Power Plan. He had intended
to reduce emissions by 32 percent by 2030. We have reduced them
from power sources by 34 percent last year, so we are already
exceeding it with our domestic energy resources. And I urge as
we move forward, that this subcommittee ensure that we have a
thoughtful, balanced approach to how we address our sustainable
energy future.
With that, I yield back, and happy to take any questions.
Ms. McCollum. Well, just thank you very much for your
testimony. This committee is trying to make sure that we do
things based on science.
Mr. Graves. Absolutely.
Ms. McCollum. I don't do things based on emotion, but I do
base things on science. But this Administration has not been
very forthcoming with making sure that we have the right
scientists at the table. Climate change is real. It is
something that we have to deal with.
Mr. Graves. Absolutely.
Ms. McCollum. You are in the eye of the hurricane literally
with it, and I want to do everything I can to build in coastal
resilience to make sure that your community and your
constituents continue to thrive as well as some of the climate
changes that we are seeing happening. I am from Minnesota. I am
right up the river from you, right?
Mr. Graves. That is right.
Ms. McCollum. And our river hasn't gone down, and I am
concerned about flooding in my district. But when I think about
flooding in my district, believe it or not, at night I think
about flooding in your district because I have been down there.
I was just recently down there in Louisiana. Very concerned
about it, so I am looking forward to making sure that we use
the best science available for coastal resiliency for how we
address climate change and some of the other things moving
forward. So I really thank you for your testimony and for you
being here today, and I learned a little something about
alligators along the way, too. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr.
Graves, for being here and for your advocacy on these issues. I
can tell you that adding in on the north coast of America, I
like to tell people on Lake Erie, we are suffering from the
same problems with coastal erosion at a much more rapid pace
than we ever felt before. So it is something we do need to
address on a nationwide basis. Thank you for being here.
Mr. Graves. Thank you. Madam Chair, just I want to thank
you for recognizing the impact to Louisiana. The Mississippi
drains, like, two-thirds of the United States, and most folks
don't think about it. We don't put water into the Mississippi
River for the most part. We don't. We are draining the Nation's
water, and it is flooding our communities and impacting our
fisheries.
Ms. McCollum. And I am trying to send you clean water.
Clean water.
Mr. Graves. Feel free to keep more of it if you like. Thank
you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Voice. Without Asian carp.
Ms. McCollum. Without Asian carp. Well, we won't get to
where they started from, so. Good morning Representative
Jackson Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Good morning.
Ms. McCollum. So wonderful to see you, and when you are
ready, please start your testimony.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
TEXAS
Ms.Jackson Lee. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair. Good
morning to the ranking member. Thank you for your courtesies in
allowing me to be here.
Let me, first of all, start with something that I am
normally excited about, and, therefore, I am coming to the
committee of importance, and that is the Emancipation Historic
Trail Act, 434, that was, I think, passed because of the
generosity and graciousness of my colleagues in meteoric time.
It was passed out of the House and Senate and signed by the
President of the United States. It is now law. It is only the
second commemoration of history of African Americans in terms
of a trail, and it is a trail commemorating the historic
announcement by Captain Granger west of the Mississippi of all
of those States that the slaves were free. It was 2 years later
in 1863. And it is the only trail in the State of Texas that is
solely contained in the State of Texas.
I am respectfully asking this committee, as you did for the
Sesquicentennial and as you did for 400 years of recognizing
slavery, but in any event, that this particular trail be
funded. Again, it is now law. I am not asking you to fund
anything that has not been placed into law. And, as you have
indicated to us, we needed to do everything that we had to do.
Well, we did everything we had to do, which is to include the
idea of the authorization and the passage by the House and
Senate, and the signature of the President United States. So,
Madam Chair, and to the ranking member, I would appreciate that
being a top priority in terms of the funding from those
particular accounts. And that is, again, H.R. 434, the
Emancipation Historic Trail Act.
I am in great support, and I will briefly just acknowledge
the National Endowment for the Arts. We were in Alabama with
the recognition of Bloody Sunday, and the representative or the
head of the National Endowment of the Humanities was there, and
it evidenced how important that work is in capturing the
history of the United States. I support the HBCU Historic
Preservation Program, would like to see if there would be, if I
am looking at the number correctly, may be additional dollars
to be placed in that. As you travel around, historic HBCUs,
they are mostly 1800 colleges, meaning built in that time or
before in the 1800s, and they are truly historic entities and
need our help.
I support the historic preservation funds of $95 million,
the National Heritage Partnership as well, and I have others.
And may I ask unanimous consent that the entirety of my
statement be put in the record?
Ms. McCollum. Without any objection.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. None.
Ms. McCollum. We will do that.
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Ms. Jackson Lee. I support the $2 billion--thank you, Madam
Chair--$2 billion for EPA Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.
I am just coming out of Michigan. Flint, Michigan is not in my
district obviously, but still in great need. I am in great
support of the amounts for the EPA brownfield assessment, and
if I have the number correct, I may want an increase in that
funding.
But I want to emphasize that in the last year, I discovered
a cancer cluster in my congressional district. A thousand
people were at a town hall meeting that I had. Three-quarters
of them stood up and said they had a history of cancer, family
members who died, and we are trying to make that particular
area an EPA cleanup priority. And I would specifically like to
make that request. It is called 5th Ward, Texas, around Liberty
Road, and we will be seeking one of these cleanup grants, and
would really appreciate recognizing that we are finding, you
know, existing brownfields contaminated by creosote by Union
Pacific Railroad over a 50-year period. I guess that is a
little bit too long, but over a period of time that the family
members are still alive who will get up and tell you mom died,
aunt died, son died, have cervical cancer. It was absolutely
overwhelming, and we are still trying to work with those
individuals, and certainly we are not getting much help from
those who it is attributed to.
And I support the $82.5 million for the Office of Law
Enforcement of Fish and Wildlife. I also support any funding
dealing with preservation of endangered or threatened animal
and plant species. I think we are at a loss when we don't
recognize the importance of preservation of those elements, and
as well for the Multinational Species Controversial
Conservation Fund.
So I thank you. I am particularly here with hands folded on
the Emancipation Trail and particularly on the EPA brownfields.
It is directly impacting both my community and my city. And I
thank you all for allowing me this time.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you. Thank you for your support
of so many programs that this committee works very hard to
fund. And, as you know, the President, when it comes to the
arts and humanities, zeroed out. Your point to the HBCUs is
well taken and has been something that was historically
underfunded, as well as many other priorities that you have
listed in this bill. So thank you, including you have even the
preservation for the Japanese-American confinement sites. So
thank you so much for your thoughtful notes on this. I think
you agree with me, I need a bigger allocation.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes, I will agree with you.
Ms. McCollum. And I think Mr. Joyce would agree that we
need a bigger allocation to do a lot of our good work. But
thank you so much for your support in the work that we do, and
we look forward to working with you in the weeks to come as we
bring the bill to the floor. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ms.
Jackson Lee, for your time and testimony here this morning.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. If I may be allowed a yield
moment, Madam Chair, is there anything further that I need to
do in my very conspicuous and open interest in H.R. 434, now a
law that indicates the next steps for that to go forward, which
is, you know, it is a study, yes.
Ms. McCollum. Well, as you know, we are not allowed to do--
Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes, very much so. Yes.
Ms. McCollum [continuing]. Designated community interest
programming funding, or, as people shorthand it up here,
earmarks, which is just advocating for something in your
district that is part of the law. I am not allowed to really do
that either, so we will work on increasing trail funding, and
then I am sure your constituents and others from the CBC, as
well as your allies, like myself, will be making sure that the
people in charge of that funding know we want to see that trail
up and running and moving forward. So to the best of our
ability, stay tuned, we are working on it.
Ms. Jackson Lee. That is a superbly magnanimous response of
which I am most grateful for. Thank you so very much.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. It is good to see you again.
Miss Gonzalez-Colon. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. It was wonderful when you took us around in
Puerto Rico and looked at the resilience of the Puerto Rican
people in the face of two hurricanes, and our condolences. I
had an opportunity, you have been so busy working, to reach out
to you about the earthquakes and that. And so we want to hear
how we can be more helpful to our fellow citizens in Puerto
Rico.
Miss Gonzalez-Colon. Thank you.
----------
Tuesday, March 10, 2020.
WITNESS
HON. JENNIFFER GONZALEZ COLON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE
COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO
Miss Gonzalez-Colon. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, for
your kind words and for visiting the island, and helping us as
well as Mr. Joyce, helping us during the whole process, not
just now, but during the last years. And thank you for
providing me an opportunity to testify on some of Puerto Rico's
priorities for Fiscal Year 2021 in terms of the Interior, and
Environment, and Related Agencies.
First of all, I would like to begin to respectfully request
that the subcommittee provide robust funding for the U.S.
Forest Service and Rangeland Research Account, also known as
R&D. Among the research facilities funded under R&D is the
International Institute of Tropical Forestry, which is
headquartered in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, and has been in
continuous operation since 1939. Despite being the Forest
Service's smallest research unit, the International Institute
of Tropical Forestry has been crucial in advancing our
knowledge of tropical forests, wildlife, and watersheds at the
local, national, and international levels.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, for instance,
scientists from the institute assessed damage at El Yunque
National Forest, which is the only tropical forest within the
National Forest System, to learn how tropical ecosystems
respond and recover from extreme weather events. The institute
similarly helped conduct research on the sustainability of
tropical forests on U.S. islands in the Pacific and the
Caribbean, further contributing to our understanding of forest
conditions across the Nation.
The International Institute of Tropical Forestry has also
been vital in supporting environmental conservation projects in
Puerto Rico. Through its State and Private Forestry Unit, it
has helped communities on the Island acquire community forests,
and has provided technical assistance to farmers and landowners
to improve the sustainability of their farms. Unfortunately,
despite the importance of this work, the Forest Service's
Fiscal Year 2021 budget request is proposing to close the
International Institute of Tropical Forestry in Puerto Rico,
along with the Pacific Southwest Research Station, whose area
of responsibility includes California, Hawaii, and the U.S.
Pacific Territories. While I recognize the need for budgetary
savings, I strongly believe that closing these facilities would
seriously hinder scientific production in these jurisdictions
and will deprive the Forest Service of crucial research
capabilities.
I, therefore, respectfully request that the subcommittee
reject the proposed closure of these facilities, especially the
International Institute of Tropical Forestry in Puerto Rico,
and instead provide no less than the Fiscal Year 2020 enacted
level. I also ask that, as you craft the next Fiscal Year 2021,
you provide robust funding for the operations and management of
the National Park System, which includes the San Juan National
Historic Site in Puerto Rico, and the National Forest System,
which includes El Yunque National Forest, also on the Island.
Additionally, I request strong support for the National
Wildlife Refuge System. We have five national wildlife refuges
on the Island: Cabo Rojo, Culebra, Desecheo, Laguna Cartagena,
and Vieques National Wildlife Refuges. San Juan National
Historic Site, El Yunque National Forest, and the five national
wildlife refuges not only help preserve our historical and
natural treasures, but they are also critical for Puerto Rico's
economy, tourism, and outdoor recreation.
Lastly, I respectfully request the highest possible level
of funding for the U.S. Geological Survey for Earthquake
Hazards Program, including the Advanced National Seismic System
Regional Network Support. The Earthquake Hazards Program
provides scientific information, situational awareness, and
knowledge necessary to reduce deaths, injuries, and economic
losses from earthquakes and earthquake-induced tsunamis,
landslides, and soil liquefaction.
In Puerto Rico, as one of the Nation's most seismically-
active jurisdictions, we know firsthand the importance of this
program. Following the devastating earthquakes that impacted
the southwestern region of the Island earlier this year, the
U.S. Geological Survey, in conjunction with the Puerto Rico
Seismic Network, one of the 11 regional networks within the
Advanced National Seismic System, delivered rapid earthquake
impact and situational awareness products to support emergency
response efforts. I, therefore, request your support for these
vital programs in the next fiscal year.
With that, I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Thank you very much for your
testimony, and I know we still have a long ways to go with
living up to the commitment to our fellow citizens in Puerto
Rico, even from the devastating hurricane recovery from years
ago. Your points about El Yunque and the international program
for our tropical forestry, you know, it international in
nature, but, as you pointed out, it is California, it is
Hawaii, it is Puerto Rico, it is the Virgin Islands, it is U.S.
territories. It is us, the U.S. government. So thank you so
much for your support in enlightening us on that. I don't agree
with the President's budget with zeroing out these programs,
and we are going to work very hard to make sure that we sustain
at the baseline level.
And the work that is happening at El Yunque, you weren't
able to join us for the entire trip, but when we went up and
visited with the people, the parrots. And both the U.S.
Forestry staff, Fish and Wildlife, and everybody who comes
together to work on that and to watch the two wild parrots that
had been released come back to where the parrot program was
where they were breeding in captivity was heartbreaking. And so
a lot of work had been done. We lost a lot of--I am using the
word ``real'' because I became attached to the birds, too--lost
a lot of birds. But birds are the bellwether as to what is
happening with our climate, and we have to pay attention. We
have to pay attention to what they are telling us.
So thank you so much for your testimony. And, you know, I
did not know how prone Puerto Rico was to earthquakes until I
woke up and found out what had happened there, and I think that
that just goes to show a lot of our Federal infrastructure
needs not only to be hurricane resilient, but it needs to be
earthquake resilient as well, too. So thank you for getting our
attention that we need to make sure that the U.S. Geological
Survey----
Miss Gonzalez-Colon. Can I add something to that?
Ms. McCollum. Please do.
Miss Gonzalez-Colon. We were not aware of the seismic
activity on the Island. Actually, we knew that in the north
area, there is one of the faults, but it was not active since
1918, so it was more than 100 years. So this take us for
surprise on December 28th, last year, and the continued tremors
and the small earthquakes are still happening. So the
southwestern part of the Island, now, it was initially six
towns that were included in the National Declaration of
Disaster, and then it was expanded to 21 towns. And you can see
the whole infrastructure has been damaged, the pipelines under
the roads as well.
So this is an ongoing situation. Most of the schools in
those towns are completely destroyed, so there are no classes
as we speak in many of those towns, and we are still dealing
with moving people from those areas with vouchers with Section
8 from Housing in the north part of the Island.
So it was the Seismic Network in the U.S. Geological Survey
that actually with boots on the ground is installing new
equipment, making more surveys in conjunction with the
University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez Campus, and they brought new
alarms and systems where they never were before. So that is the
importance of having the U.S. Geological Survey helping us out,
identifying those areas in the south part of the Island that
never were studied before.
Ms. McCollum. Well, that is a lot of work that needs to be
done. We continue to, to the best of our committee's ability,
monitor to the Administration getting out some of the
earthquake relief funds and trying to hold individuals
accountable. It has been ongoing, and it is too slow, and then
to have the earthquake on top of it. So please, on behalf of
me, let my fellow citizens of Puerto Rico know that many of us
are not just cheering for them, we are working for them right
alongside of you.
Miss Gonzalez-Colon. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Miss
Gonzalez-Colon, for sharing your thoughts on several programs
that are important to your constituents in Puerto Rico,
including the Earthquake Hazards Program and the International
Institute of Tropical Forestry. We certainly appreciate your
being here and testifying as to the importance of those
matters.
Miss Gonzalez-Colon. Thank you. Thank you, sir. And thank
you again, both of you and the committee, for the hard work
during the last years. Now the FEMA Administration has been
handling a lot of the issues in a good way in terms of the
earthquake recovery. But, again, this is an ongoing situation,
so we just need the tremors to stop, and that is something
nobody can handle at this time. Thank you, and I yield back.
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Ms.McCollum. So thank you very much. This concludes the
hearing, and we stand adjourned until our next hearing on the
Department of Interior budget request tomorrow, March 11th,
2020. Thank you.
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