[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2012
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho, Chairman
JERRY LEWIS, California
KEN CALVERT, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
TOM COLE, Oklahoma
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mr. Dicks, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
David LesStrang, Darren Benjamin, Jason Gray,
Erica Rhoad, and Colin Vickery,
Staff Assistants
________
PART 8
Page
Public Witnesses................................................. 1
Public Witnesses--Tribes and American Indian Advocacy Groups..... 273
Written Testimony from Members of Congress....................... 638
Written Testimony from Individuals and Organizations............. 644
________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
PART 8--INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR
2012
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2012
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho, Chairman
JERRY LEWIS, California JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
KEN CALVERT, California BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
TOM COLE, Oklahoma JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mr. Dicks, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
David LesStrang, Darren Benjamin, Jason Gray,
Erica Rhoad, and Colin Vickery,
Staff Assistants
________
PART 8
Page
Public Witnesses................................................. 1
Public Witnesses--Tribes and American Indian Advocacy Groups..... 273
Written Testimony from Members of Congress....................... 638
Written Testimony from Individuals and Organizations............. 644
S
________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
66-982 WASHINGTON : 2011
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chairman
C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida \1\ NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington
JERRY LEWIS, California \1\ MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
JACK KINGSTON, Georgia NITA M. LOWEY, New York
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New JerseyJOSE E. SERRANO, New York
TOM LATHAM, Iowa ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts
KAY GRANGER, Texas ED PASTOR, Arizona
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
DENNY REHBERG, Montana SAM FARR, California
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois
RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
KEN CALVERT, California STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey
JO BONNER, Alabama SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio BARBARA LEE, California
TOM COLE, Oklahoma ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
STEVE AUSTRIA, Ohio
CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
TOM GRAVES, Georgia
KEVIN YODER, Kansas
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
ALAN NUNNELEE, Mississippi
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1}}Chairman Emeritus
William B. Inglee, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2012
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TESTIMONY OF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AND OTHER INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS AND
ORGANIZATIONS
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Thursday, April 14, 2011.
Mr. Simpson. Good morning, and welcome to the committee
members.
The Ranking Member is stuck in traffic, which is not
unusual in this area, and will be a little late in coming in.
Other members during the day will be in and out, that kind of
stuff, but welcome to the first of two days of public witness
hearings. Over the next two mornings, the subcommittee will
hear from a cross-section of individuals representing a wide
variety of issues addressed by this subcommittee.
Each witness will be provided with five minutes to present
their testimony. We have actually got the clock working today
because we have to get through all of these and so you will
have an idea of how much time you have. What it is, is the
green light the first four minutes, yellow light for the next
minute and then red light is at the end, and we have to keep
testimony to that length of time so that we can get through
them because at about 12:00 we have to be on the floor for the
C.R. that will be coming up, and the rules of the House are
that we cannot be in committee when a bill from our committee
is on the floor. So we will have to adjourn by then. They say
that the first votes are going to be sometime shortly after
12:00. I was going to yield to Mr. Moran for any opening
remarks but he will enter those in the record.
Let me also say that your full testimony will be entered
into the record so I would ask you to respect the time and so
forth, and as I said, members will be coming in and stepping
out as they have other committee assignments and those types of
things also. So welcome to all of you.
Our first witness is the Hon. Glenn Thompson,
Representative from Pennsylvania's 5th Congressional District.
Mr. Thompson, go ahead.
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
U.S. FOREST SERVICE, WATER MANAGEMENT
WITNESS
HON. GLENN THOMPSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Thompson. Well, Chairman, it is great to be with you
this morning. Thanks for the opportunity just to weigh in
briefly on some issues that I think are very important for
consideration.
I represent, as you said, Pennsylvania 5th District, a very
rural district, 22 percent of the land mass of Pennsylvania, a
lot of natural resources, a lot of energy. We are real proud
that 151 years ago Col. Drake sunk a well 37 feet, drilled oil
commercially for the first time anywhere in the world, changed
the world.
Mr. Simpson. Thirty-seven feet?
Mr. Thompson. Thirty-seven feet with a wooden bit.
And we have a lot of those natural resources--coal, oil,
natural gas, timber, timber harvesting--and a long history in
the 5th District and certainly continue to be an economic
engine for the region.
Today, Pennsylvania has returned to our energy roots with
newly realized Marcellus Shale natural gas play, and this
region has already produced enormous economic benefits in my
region, which has struggled tremendously to create jobs and to
maintain population over the past decades. This development is
not a short-term economic boom. To the contrary, the prosperity
Marcellus has created will continue for generations. We have
the Utica Shale under the Marcellus, another play. Upwards of
80,000 jobs have already been created in Pennsylvania as a
direct result of the Marcellus Shale, and Pennsylvania
estimates an additional $600 million in tax revenues alone this
year. This increase in revenue will also of course increase in
time, and although the production of the Marcellus is still in
its infancy, it is already providing 10 percent of the entire
Northeast natural gas supplies.
The supplies generated from the domestic production has led
to decreased commodity pricing while foreign petroleum prices
continue to rise due to political turmoil in foreign lands.
Now, natural gas, bear in mind, is not a world market,
which means that we in the United States can control its price
through simply supply and demand. It has been estimated the
Marcellus output will greatly increase in coming decades,
making this cleaner fuel source more affordable to our Nation's
families and industries.
While somebody suggested the industry requires new
regulatory oversight from Congress or the EPA in particular,
the fact remains that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has done
a remarkable job regulating Marcellus activities through the
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. We have
some of the toughest environmental laws in the country, and I
fully support regulation of this industry by the Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection.
This subcommittee plays an important role in my district
and many areas like it around the country. Therefore, I want to
make the subcommittee aware of my priorities and the great
needs of my district during these difficult financial times.
Specifically, with the U.S. Forest Service, Allegheny
National Forest, just down the road from Col. Drake's well is
the Allegheny National Forest, or ANF for short. This forest
nurtures the finest, most valuable hardwoods in the world, and
the ANF in particular is known for its cherry. The ANF indeed
is a special forest with a unique history intertwined with
production of oil and natural gas and timber. It actually was
an oil field before it became a national forest 87 years ago.
Pump jacks are a part of its scenery.
When the forest was created in 1923, mineral estates were
severed from the Forest Service ownership of the surface, and
this was done with the clear intention to allow timber and oil
production to continue and allow for the Forest Service to
oversee managed sustainable timber harvesting. Now,
consequently, 93 percent of the subsurface mineral rights are
still owned by the private sector, which drives the local labor
market and economy. I found it frustrating to watch as the ANF
struggled to perform critical functions as their budget was
continually reduced as a result of Western wildfires. The FLAME
Fund has been crucial in providing insulation to the budgets of
our national forest, and I applaud the subcommittee for their
input in the creation of the fund and support through
appropriations. I can say that the fund appears to be a success
because forests such as the Allegheny Forest have not been
experiencing the historical difficulties wildfires have caused
in the past financially.
Perhaps the greatest challenge to the Forest Service
continues to be unnecessary litigation that continues to
hamstring the Forest Service from carrying out its basic
duties. Without a doubt, we all have a duty to ensure the
Forest Service is adequately performing and the legal avenue
for the public to address any malfeasance must be intact.
However, I strongly believe there are some outside the service
as well as within who are intentionally abusing the system
based on a radical environmental ideology. These legal battles
often create inefficiencies and are a drain on the service's
budget, staff and resources.
Now, how can the Forest Service or any government agency,
for that matter, do its basic job when they are incessantly
involved with frivolous lawsuits? As the chairman of the House
Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Energy, and Forestry,
I believe that there is an imperative to address these issues
and respectfully request your partnership to make necessary
improvements.
Forest Service research stations--in addition to providing
a substantial source of timber, another pillar of the Forest
Service mission is to maintain forest health. Part of
maintaining healthy forests is research and subsequent
application. Pennsylvania and many other states have suffered
devastating effects as a result of invasive species such as the
gypsy moth and the emerald ash bore. I brought some along. I
wish I would have brought you along one of the nice baseball
bats we make with that ash too. This is the season to use
those.
Given the devastation that has occurred in the large
regions of the country, it is critical that we continue
research to establish best practices and means of combating
these species in order to prevent further destruction of our
forests.
Fish and Wildlife Service--the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service has been performing excellent research in order to
assist with the restoration of fish populations around the
country. They made great strides in the Northeast, particularly
with the Atlantic salmon, which has been devastated in recent
decades, and certainly there is a research facility in
Pennsylvania that is doing incredible work with salmon species
as well as advanced research in fish genetics and migration
patterns. And I certainly respectfully request level funding in
fish and wildlife, particularly for fish-related research.
And the final area has to do with Payments In Lieu of Taxes
and Secure Rural Schools. Four of the 17 counties in the
Pennsylvania 5th District are within the boundaries of the
Allegheny National Forest. The Payments In Lieu of Tax program
is essential in this region because there is little or no tax
base, which means little or no tax revenue for these forested
counties. PILT is a major source of funding for services such
as the police force, firefighters, road construction.
Similarly, Secure Rural Schools programs ensure that children
who reside in these forest counties receive adequate education
and therefore I respectfully request full funding for both PILT
and Secure Rural Schools.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify before
the committee and I am hopeful that as we move forward that the
subcommittee will recognize the balance between fiscal
responsibility and continuing our federal commitments to our
national forests and citizens residing in forested counties,
and I would certainly be happy to answer any questions you
have. I appreciate it, Chairman. Thanks.
[The statement of Glenn Thompson follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Thanks for your testimony. We
appreciate you being here today. Some of us in the West always
think that all the rural areas are in the West, but it is a
learning experience for us that Pennsylvania and New York
actually and other places have some very rural areas and issues
that are of concern and similar to those of us in the West, so
I appreciate you being here.
Mr. Thompson. Well, I am a proud member of the Western
Caucus.
Mr. Simpson. And I appreciate it. Thank you.
Mr. Thompson. Thanks, Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. You bet.
Next is Gregory Conrad, Executive Director of the
Interstate Mining Compact Commission. Welcome.
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Thursday, April 14, 2011.
U.S. FOREST SERVICE, WATER MANAGEMENT
WITNESS
GREGORY CONRAD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INTERSTATE MINING COMPACT
COMMISSION
Mr. Conrad. Good morning. My name is Greg Conrad and I
serve as Executive Director of the Interstate Mining
Commission, which is a multi-state governmental organization
representing the natural resource and environmental protection
interests of our 24 member states who regulate the mining
industry and reclaim abandoned mine lands. I am also appearing
today on behalf of the National Association of Abandoned Mine
Land Programs, which consists of 30 states and tribes that do
the AML work.
Mr. Chairman, these are tough states for state and federal
budgets, and we realize the deficit reduction and spending cuts
are the order of the day. As a result, some hard choices need
to be made about how we spend limited dollars in an efficient
and effective way. The environmental protection associated with
mining operations is no exception. While we might want to run
Cadillac programs that accomplish all of our goals and
objectives, prioritization is the watchword of the day and we
have to be mindful of every dollar that is expended on behalf
of our citizenry.
One of the tough choices that has to be made with respect
to programs under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation
Act is who will take the lead in implementing the act's
requirements. Once we agree upon that, it is then incumbent
upon both state and federal governments to prioritize funding
decisions to support the lead agencies.
Congress created a state primacy approach under SMCRA
whereby state governments were vested with exclusive regulatory
authority to operate programs for both active mining operations
and AML restoration following approval of those programs by the
Federal Government. The act also provides for grants to states
that meet 50 percent of their program operations under Title V
and 100 percent under Title IV for AML.
Once again in fiscal year 2012, we are faced with a
decision about the extent to which the Federal Government will
support these funding commitments under SMCRA and the state
lead concept for program implementation. OSM's budget proposes
to move us away from those commitments and concepts. The
Administration would have us believe that the Federal
Government is in a better position to decide how these state
programs should be run and that the states should do so with
less money and more oversight. At the very same time,
additional mandates and program requirements are being placed
on the states through new rules, directives, guidelines and
agreements among federal agencies. In this regard, I would like
to submit for the record a resolution concerning state primacy
adopted by IMCC at its annual meeting last week.
Mr. Simpson. You bet.
Mr. Conrad. Something has to give, Mr. Chairman. Either we
agree to support the states as envisioned by SMCRA or we change
the rules of the game. Undercutting the states through
unrealistic funding restrictions that jeopardize the efficacy
of state programs is no way to run a ship. States are
struggling to match federal dollars and signals from the
Federal Government that it is wavering in its support
concerning both dollars and confidence in the states' ability
to run effective regulatory and AML programs will do little to
build trust. This is not the time to reverse the course that
Congress has set for its support of state programs over the
past few years. And in that regard, we are particularly
encouraged and appreciative of the recent decisions to support
state programs in the fiscal year 2011 C.R.
For 2012, we urge the subcommittee to reject OSM's proposed
cut of $11 million for state Title V grants and restore the
grant level funding to $71 million as supported by our funding
request. We also request that the subcommittee instruct OSM to
pursue any cost recovery proposal with the states before
utilizing it as a mechanism to offset cuts to state grant
funding in its budget. OSM's proposal is completely out of
touch with the realities associated with establishing or
enhancing user fees. Based on a recent polling of my member
states, we found that it would be difficult, if not impossible,
for most states to accomplish this feat at all, much less in
one fiscal year.
With respect to the AML program, we face a more extreme
situation. OSM is proposing to terminate the AML emergency
program, eliminate funding to certified states and tribes, and
completely overhaul the mechanism for distributing AML grants
to the rest of the states. In doing so, OSM will totally upend
the work that Congress accomplished just five years when it
redesigned and reauthorized Title IV of SMCRA. That
Congressional action was the result of over 10 years of effort
toward developing a compromise that met the original intent of
SMCRA and the needs of the affected parties. I would like to
submit for the record a list of questions regarding this
legislative proposal by OSM in their budget, which we believe
must be answered before moving forward.
The AML program has been one of the key successes of SMCRA,
and based on Congressional action in 2006, it is well
positioned to remain so into the future. We therefore urge the
subcommittee to once again reject the Administration's
proposals to undermine this vital program and to fully fund
state and tribal programs and the emergency program. And in
this regard, I would like to submit for the record two
resolutions adopted by IMCC and the National Association of
Abandoned Mine Land Programs along with a written statement
from the association.
Thanks for the opportunity to present our testimony.
[The statement of Gregory Conrad follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you, and those submissions that you
requested will be taken. We appreciate it. You bring up a real
challenge that we face not just in this budget but across the
government in those areas where a lot of the states do programs
at the direction of the Federal Government and when you start
reducing funding, it affects the state programs and so we kind
of pass those problems on to the states, but it is a real
issue, like I say, not only through Interior but throughout the
budget, and it is one of those challenges we are going to have
as we write the 2012 budget.
Mr. Conrad. We appreciate your support.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. We appreciate it.
Next we have Tom Troxel, the Executive Director of the
Intermountain Forest Association.
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Thursday, April 14, 2011.
U.S. FOREST SERVICE, WATER MANAGEMENT
WITNESS
TOM TROXEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INTERMOUNTAIN FOREST ASSOCIATION
Mr. Troxel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Tom Troxel.
I am from Rapid City, South Dakota, and I am testifying today
on behalf of the Federal Forest Resource Coalition.
We have a crisis in our national forests. Between 60 and 80
million acres of national forest are classified at risk for a
catastrophic wildfire. In addition, bark beetles have killed or
damaged 40 million acres of western forest over the last 13
years and the Forest Service expects those epidemics to
continue for another five to 10 years. The underlying reason is
that we are harvesting only 10 percent of the annual growth on
national forest timberlands, leaving the forest more and more
overstocked and more susceptible to fires and insect epidemics.
Research has clearly demonstrated that mechanical thinning
and active forest management can reduce the size and severity
of wildfires and bark beetle epidemics. Forest products
companies provide the lowest cost and most effective tool for
the Forest Service to improve and maintain the health of our
national forests. There is a tremendous opportunity to increase
proactive forest management, improve the health and resiliency
of our forest, reduce the potential for catastrophic and
expensive fires and insect epidemics, produce American wood
products and put Americans back to work. Many rural communities
close to the national forest have unemployment rates nearing 20
percent. Investing in the Forest Service's timber program is a
very effective job creator, generating 16\1/2\ jobs per million
board feet harvested.
With the national emphasis on jobs and putting people back
to work, increased management and timber outputs would provide
a much-needed boost to rural America as well as improve the
health and resiliency of the national forest.
We have several recommendations. Our first recommendation
is that you reject the proposed Integrated Resource Restoration
line item. The IRR would inevitably reduce accountability for
timber outputs, cost and efficiency. Further, not all forests
need restoration. But even where restoration makes sense, there
is no compelling reason to overhaul the Forest Service's budget
structure. We recommend targets for each budget line item and
an annual report from the Forest Service to the Congress on
their accomplishments. We recommend increasing the fiscal 2012
program to 3 billion board feet. This would help satisfy
increased demand for national forest timber, increase much-
needed management of the national forest plus provide thousands
of additional jobs. We recommend restoring the proposed $79
million cut to the roads budget line item and that you reject
the proposal for no new road construction.
We urge the committee to authorize the HFRA administrative
review process for all national forest NEPA decisions as a
means of increasing their efficiency. We support the Forest
Service's recent proposal for a pre-decisional objection
process for forest plan decisions and believe that Congress
should follow suit for project NEPA decisions.
We recommend restoring the proposed $9 million reduction
for hazardous fuels and that 50 percent of the hazardous fuels
funds be directed to non-WUI areas.
We urge you to provide adequate funding for the
catastrophic beetle epidemics for thinning out in front of the
beetles and for tree removal and fuels reduction where trees
are already dead. The Forest Service's response to the
epidemics has been underfunded and mostly after the fact. And I
brought you some mountain pine beetles and I brought you some
bumper stickers, what we think about mountain pine beetles in
the Black Hills of South Dakota.
We recommend full funding for the collaborative Forest
Landscape Restoration Act program provided that the program is
funded with new money and with a separate budget line item.
Finally, considering the backlog of work on the national
forest, we recommend that the proposed funding for land
purchases be redirected to forest management and improving the
health of the national forest.
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate the opportunity to
proactively improve the health and resiliency of the national
forest, maintain critical forest industry infrastructure,
produce American wood products, create jobs and put people back
to work.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to testify. I
would be happy to answer your questions.
[The statement of Tom Troxel follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you for being here today. So the pine
bark beetle epidemic has gotten worse as we have done less and
less thinning of the forest and less tree removal?
Mr. Troxel. Yes, sir. It is continuing to span. The
epicenter was in Colorado and it is expanding from Colorado to
Wyoming to South Dakota to Montana and Idaho, and it just
continues to expand.
Mr. Simpson. It is a real problem, and when you get out in
the forest and you stand on top of a mountain and look around
and look at how vast some of these forests are, trying to
address it is a huge issue.
Mr. Troxel. Yes, sir.
Mr. Simpson. And I look out there at we call, you know, the
red tree forest, and lightning comes through there and it is a
tinderbox.
Mr. Troxel. Right. We do not have nearly the options that
we would have had if we had done some management when the
forests were green but there are things we can and should be
doing. All of those dead trees and all the fuels pose a real
risk of catastrophic fires, and we ought to be doing everything
we can now.
Mr. Simpson. I had a question for years with the Forest
Service, and I do not know, I am not a forester, but we put out
98 percent of all fires that start. Fires are a natural part of
the ecosystem, and it makes you wonder if that builds up the
fuel so much that when you do have a fire that you do not put
out, all of a sudden it is a catastrophic fire. I think we need
more active management of the forest.
Mr. Troxel. I agree with you, and active management, in a
lot of places we can do it with mechanical thinning. Some
places in the back country it makes sense to do with fire.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. Jeff, do you have anything?
Mr. Flake. I have the same observations that you have,
particularly with respect to the ponderosa pine forest Arizona
has. We have had some good management. Wally Covington at the
Northern Arizona University and others have been active here,
so I could not agree more. We had the Rodeo-Chediski fire a few
years ago and it was far more devastating than it would have
otherwise been. It was less devastating on areas, particularly
on the Indian reservations, that had been better managed
because some of the rules and regulations for the Forest
Service were not in place on the Indian reservation.
So I am one who believes in active management and allowing
commercial interests where you can. That is the only way
sometimes to recoup some of the money to go further into the
forest like we need to. So, I am all in favor of moving ahead
there.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. Thank you for being here
today.
Mr. Troxel. Thank you very much, Congressman.
Mr. Simpson. Next we have John Shannon, National
Association of State Foresters.
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
U.S. FOREST SERVICE, WATER MANAGEMENT
WITNESS
JOHN SHANNON, ARKANSAS STATE FORESTER AND VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF STATE FORESTERS
Mr. Shannon. Good morning, sir. I am the state forester of
Arkansas. This is my first time before your subcommittee, and I
did not know I was supposed to bring a bottle of dead bugs. I
will be mindful of that.
Mr. Simpson. They are very impressive.
Mr. Shannon. If you ever invite me back----
Mr. Simpson. They will not allow me into Idaho with those.
They have enough already.
Mr. Shannon. We have plenty. We have southern pine beetles
too.
I am representing the National Association of State
Foresters, and my testimony today is going to focus on our
recommendations for the 2012 budget for state and private
forestry.
We are the champions for forestry in the country. We take
care of two-thirds of America's forests, not the U.S. Forest
Service. We also live in the world of reality. I have had to
balance the state forestry commission budget for 17 consecutive
years. You have to make some hard calls, you know. You folks
are making those hard calls. We get that. So our budget
proposals this time do not reflect the need for forest
conservation. We are just trying to keep our noses above water.
So generally we are recommending that the 2012 budget hold the
line at the 2010 actual budget level.
Congress has mandated that the state foresters assess our
forests and identify priority issues, and we have all completed
that work and we have all developed state forest action plans.
It is a big country. Forests differ greatly. But as put
together these plans state by state, there were five themes
that were really common across the country, and I would like to
walk through those because they do tie to the state and private
forestry budget.
First is, if we are going to conserve and manage these
forests, we need to know what we are talking about, and that
means we need an accurate and current forest inventory, so we
are asking to hold the line at $72 million for forest inventory
and analysis.
The second issue is, boy, there are tremendous challenges
in forest health, and that is the theme that has already
developed here today, sir, so I will not review that, but we
are looking again to hold the line at $60 million for
cooperative forest health.
The third common theme is wildfires, and although I think
the public watching TV thinks these fires burn in remote, dark
woods, you know, far away somewhere, we know there are scores
of thousands of American communities that are at risk from
these wildfires. It is not just saving the woods; it is where
people live, too. So we are asking to hold the line at $110
million for state fire assistance, and I can tell you in rural
states like Arkansas, that is really, really important. And we
could never pay all the volunteer firefighters we have. That is
an investment that really is matched tremendously at the local
level.
And the Forest Service has through the FLAME Act a reserve
fund for paying for firefighting. It is $413 million. I hope
you can maintain that fund, because if that fund is not there
and the Forest Service needs more money to fight fires, you
know where they are getting that money from? State and private
forestry, and that has happened before and it halts work and it
hurts partnerships, you know, so please keep that reserve fund
at $413 million.
We have got to keep forest land forested. That is not a
given. States that are really growing in population have lost
hundreds of thousands of acres of forestland, and forest
landowners, private landowners keep their land forested only if
it makes economic sense to do so. If it does not, they change
their land use. And so the first step to really understand the
economic development of their forestland is to have a forest
stewardship plan. We provide those for the private forest
landowners. So we are asking to maintain that Forest
Stewardship budget at $29 million.
The fifth and final common theme that arose across the
country is, we need to establish and maintain forests where
Americans live, which is not really in remote rural areas
anymore. Most Americans live in town. And I am not just saying
shade trees are pretty so we need to invest in those. There is
measurable value in having a green infrastructure in America's
cities and an easy one to measure is stormwater runoff, the
cost control for stormwater runoff. Sir, this is the one line
item where we are asking for a small increase, up to $32
million.
If I can just wrap up by saying that the state foresters
would really like to begin a discussion with your committee on
getting us more flexibility to integrate these programs under
state and private and integrate the use of the funding not to
just do whatever we would like to do but to focus on the
federal priorities, which are outlined in the Farm Bill, and to
focus on the priorities we have identified in our state forest
action plans, and if you give us more flexibility, and there is
a long process to get there but if we get there, hold our feet
to the fire. You ought to heighten the accountability too. You
ought to require accomplishments and that we measure those
accomplishments and that we report those accomplishments to
you. I look forward to working with you.
[The statement of John Shannon follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I look forward to working with you
on that. I have always been an advocate of more flexibility for
the agency, and what this committee needs to do is know what
your goals are with this budget, and next year I will ask you,
did you achieve those goals, if so, how, if not, why not, and
those types of things. Sometimes I think we get into too much
individual line item budgeting. But I appreciate your
testimony, and I have seen firsthand the FMAT grants and how
those help communities that would otherwise be broke.
Mr. Shannon. Yes. Hold us accountable.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Next, we have Hank Kashdan, Legislative Director for the
National Association of Forest Service Retirees.
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--------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
U.S. FOREST SERVICE, WATER MANAGEMENT
WITNESS
HANK KASHDAN, LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FOREST
SERVICE RETIREES
Mr. Kashdan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and on behalf of the
National Association of Forest Service Retirees, I really
appreciate the opportunity to be here today for this public-
witness hearing, and we want to especially thank you and the
subcommittee for keeping the key multiple-use programs of the
agency intact during your very challenging 2011 negotiations
you just had, and it was very noticed and very appreciated and
we thank you for that.
These multiple-use programs are key to restoring the health
and resiliency of America's forests and watersheds, and they
are the crux of the written testimony I provided today. As Mr.
Troxel, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Shannon pointed out earlier,
restoring America's forests and watersheds is getting tougher
and it needs even higher-priority focus, and in our review of
the Administration's budget for 2012, it does not appear that
that priority is coming through in the proposal. The Western
Governors Association, the Government Accountability Office
have all pointed out the need to increase investments in
restoration activities. The Departments of Agriculture and
Interior just recently issued the Cohesive Wildland Fire
Strategy. In there, they cite the need to increase investments
in hazardous fuels yet the Forest Service's hazardous fuels
budget is reduced about $9 million. The Department of the
Interior's is reduced even more than that.
And you look at the roads and trails infrastructure, the
two line items that are really key to funding the restoration,
this key restoration activity, they are down $93.7 million from
the 2010 level, and it is often unappreciated that these two
line items, predominantly the roads line item, are really key
to restoring watersheds, maintaining roads to standard,
decommissioning roads that for environmental reasons cannot
remain on the landscape or that are not needed for their
original purpose anymore, ensuring access for the public, and
here in the intermountain list where the beetles are causing
literally thousands of trees to fall across roads and trees
every day, you need a good roads budget to keep those roads
open for access, for protection of the public, and it is a
really critical function.
So we look at the proposed Forest Service budget and see an
$85 million increase in land and water conservation to support
the America's Great Outdoors initiative, our conclusion is that
is being proposed at the expense of these key restoration
programs and so we want to encourage as some of the previous
witnesses have said to keep that focus on restoration.
Focusing on restoration, I want to mention the
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act. The President's
budget does propose full funding for that, and we are very
supportive of that. Throughout the country, we have seen very
strong collaborative efforts starting to emerge. Some are fully
functioning, some are emerging. I was reading about a couple in
the Salmon River just the other day. You know, it was not too
long ago where the widely divergent publics were only talking
to each other as part of the appeals process or the litigation
process. This offers an opportunity to bring those publics
together, and it is showing some success. We are seeing
increases in local employment, a good flow of forest products,
bigger investments in recreation and some optimism in local
rural communities for a good, sustainable economic future.
Now, key to that landscape restoration, what we also want
to note is the stewardship contracting tool. Stewardship
contracting is up for expiration in 2013. If it were not for
the support of the Appropriations Committees, we would not have
stewardship contracting today. It has been slow in coming along
but I think it is reaching critical mass and we would hope that
we could continue to see your support as it goes through the
authorizing process and the appropriations process.
I would like to just close with something that is not in
the written testimony that has got the retirees' network quite
abuzz recently, and that is the issue of travel management. In
February, there was an amendment that Mr. Herger offered that
would prohibit the implementation and enforcement of travel
management plans. We think that may have some unintended
consequences that are not desirable. Sixty-eight percent of the
units in the system have completed travel management plans.
These could not have been done without collaboration with the
motorized recreation users. To be certain, there are hot spots,
there is some discontent, but for the most part, we feel that
motorized recreation users are supportive of this and in fact
travel management is a friend of that activity.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, I see I am just about out of
time so I just wanted to thank you very much for the
opportunity to be here today, and we are here and ready to
serve and help in any way we can.
[The statement of Hank Kashdan follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. We thank you, and thank you for your
testimony. We look forward to working with you as we have these
more challenging times with reduced budgets. We want to make
sure that what we do is maintain the essential programs of the
Forest Service and all of the federal agencies, so we look
forward to working with you to address those kinds of things.
Thank you.
Mr. Kashdan. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Next, we have Jim Lighthizer, President of the
Civil War Trust. How are you doing? Good to see you again.
Mr. Lighthizer. Good to see you again, my friend.
Mr. Simpson. You bet.
----------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION, ARTS AND HUMANITIES
WITNESS
JIM LIGHTHIZER, PRESIDENT, CIVIL WAR TRUST
Mr. Lighthizer. Mr. Chairman, I came to first thank the
committee for its support of the American Battlefield
Protection Program in the past years. I recognize that 2012 is
going to be a difficult year for the country, not to mention
the Congress, and you all have some difficult decisions and
choices you have to make.
As you are very much aware, Mr. Chairman, one of the
differences between the land we save and the other good land
that other folks save is that we save heritage land, and it is
impossible to move where the great armies fought. You cannot
pretend it was someplace else. In other words, history is where
it happened.
The other thing I would say, Mr. Chairman, it is the
sesquicentennial now. It started, I guess, officially yesterday
or the day before, depending on how you want to count it, and
we are running out of time. As you know, what we try to save,
the battlefield land we try to save, has been defined, and we
estimate in the next five to 10 years it is either going to be
saved or paved, so we have got to get while the getting is
good, if you will. This program has been a good program. It has
got metrics. You can measure its success or lack thereof. It
has worked well. It is a public-private partnership. We have
skin in the game, so to speak. We have to raise a dollar to get
a dollar. I think it has worked very, very well for the
American public because we are saving heritage. We are saving
outdoor classrooms, in effect. We are preserving the land so
that we can teach future generations about what made this
country what it is today, which I happen to think is a pretty
good country.
So we thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank the committee for
its past support.
[The statement of Jim Lighthizer follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I appreciate the work you do. I
look forward to working with you to preserve these areas. You
are right. You do great work and, as you said, once you lose
it, it is gone.
Mr. Lighthizer. Yes, it is gone forever. You cannot get it
back.
Mr. Simpson. And we will get out to Antietam one of these
days.
Mr. Lighthizer. Please do. You know it is a standing offer.
Mr. Simpson. I know.
Mr. Lighthizer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Next we have Trace Adkins, Grammy-nominated
country and western singer. How are you doing?
Mr. Adkins. Fine, sir. How are you?
Mr. Simpson. Welcome.
Mr. Adkins. I am proud to be here. This is a sobering
occasion for me. I am not used to this.
Mr. Simpson. You are just talking to friends.
----------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION, ARTS AND HUMANITIES
WITNESS
TRACE ADKINS, GRAMMY-NOMINATED COUNTRY MUSICIAN
Mr. Adkins. Okay. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you for the
opportunity to speak to you. My name is Trace Adkins. I do sing
country music. I am also a student of history, a descendant of
a Confederate soldier who fought in the Civil War.
I have visited many of these hallowed battlefields that Mr.
Lighthizer spoke of, and through the preservation of these
sites I was able to stand upon ground where soldiers stood and
reflect on the sacrifices that were made there.
I come before you today just to share my personal interest
in the Civil War and why I believe it is important to preserve
the last tangible links to this history, the battlefield lands
where hundreds of thousands of brave soldiers, including my
great-great-grandfather, fought and died. With this being the
first year of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, now I
think is the opportune time to redouble efforts to further
protect these hallowed grounds.
I grew up in Louisiana. I now live in Nashville. So I have
spent a lot of my life in close proximity to Civil War
battlefields, and my interest grew out of a conversation that I
had with my grandfather when I was 11, and he told me about his
grandfather. He was 73 at the time, my grandfather was, and he
showed me copies of letters that his grandfather had written
home while he was serving, and so that piqued my interest and
spurred me to become a student of history at that time. When he
died 10 years later, I was 21 and I took that occasion out of
an homage to him to go to Vicksburg, and I was able to stand in
the trench where his grandfather, my great-great-grandfather,
had been. I knew I was within 100 feet of where he had stood,
and it was a spiritual moment for me. I cannot really express
it any other way.
I was fortunate enough to be able to go, as I said, to
Vicksburg, and Vicksburg is now part of the National Park
Service system and it has been well preserved, and it is a
success story. There are many others, but I am fortunate to
have that.
The seriousness of the threat to these unique resources was
brought home to me one winter day a couple of years ago. It
happened to be on December 15th and I was having to go into
Nashville, and I was stuck in traffic on I-65 south of town and
I happened to notice that I was directly across the interstate
from Overton High School. Overton High School is a school that
sits on top of Overton Hill. December 15th happened to be the
anniversary of the Battle of Nashville, and on December 15,
1864, it was said later about that battle that you could walk
from the bottom of that hill to the top of that hill stepping
on dead soldiers. It was that kind of carnage. And as I was
sitting there stuck in traffic, I wondered if I were to get out
of my truck right now and start knocking on people's windows
and asked them if they know what happened on that hill right
there 140-some-odd years ago how many of them would know, and I
think it is a sad commentary that probably very few, if any of
them, would have had a clue.
So these historic landscapes are treasures. They are
American treasures, and preserved battlefields are cultural and
historic landscapes that serve as a constant reminder of the
sacrifices our ancestors made to make this country what it is
today. And the protection of these battlefields will leave a
legacy of commitment to preservation and conservation. These
lands will be open spaces for the public to enjoy preserved in
their natural and pristine state.
The tourism that comes from these sites, it is very
important to many of these communities, and so I think that
this kicks off the sesquicentennial of the Civil War and I do
not think there is a better time for us, like I said, to
recommit to the preservation of these sacred lands, and I
appreciate you listening and for having me here today, and I
really appreciate Jim Lighthizer for all the work that he does
and it has been an honor for me to be associated with the Civil
War Trust and all the work that they do. Thank you, sir.
[The statement of Trace Adkins follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Trace. They do good work, and I
appreciate your commitment to this also. I tell people whenever
they come here to Washington, people from Idaho, they always
ask us where they should go and what they should visit, and I
say if you have a day, go to Gettysburg but take your shoes
off.
Mr. Adkins. Yes.
Mr. Simpson. It is one of those things that is just
amazing, and there are so many of those around the West. I am
just surprised that coming from Tennessee and Louisiana that
you refer to this as the Civil War. Being from Idaho, you know,
I have a place over in Arlington, VA, and I learned right away
that there was no Civil War, there was a War of Northern
Aggression.
Mr. Adkins. And a war for southern independence.
Mr. Simpson. That is right.
Mr. Adkins. In mixed company, I try to use politically
correct terms. But in conclusion, I would like to say that as a
concerned citizen, I think that these Civil War battlefields
serve as a monument to what happens when political wisdom fails
us and our disagreements are allowed to escalate beyond reason,
and I think they are horrific reminders of what could happen. I
just think it is very important for us as a Nation to preserve
these places. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony and
for being here today. I appreciate it very much.
Next we have Margaret Graves, President of the Partners in
Preservation.
---------- --
--------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION, ARTS AND HUMANITIES
WITNESS
MARGARET GRAVES, PRESIDENT, PARTNERS IN PRESERVATION
Ms. Graves. Thank you, Chairman Simpson, for the
opportunity to testify. I am Margaret Graves and I am the
President in Partners in Preservation.
Our prior speaker spoke about the importance of our
national historic sites, and given the current budget crisis,
we are at risk of losing this incredible heritage if we do not
use innovative solutions like historic leases to help the
National Park Service address the myriad challenges it faces as
the primary steward of our historic built environment.
According to the National Trust for Historic Preservation,
2,811 historic structures of national significance are in poor
condition within the National Park Service system. Fiscal
common sense requires the National Park Service to embrace
preservation-minded partners like Partners in Preservation. The
National Park Service Organic Act directs the National Park
Service to conserve historic objects and to provide for their
enjoyment and to conserve them for the benefit of future
generations. This represents a significant challenge for the
National Park Service.
The National Park Service is responsible for conserving
27,000 historic structures and 84 million acres of land. Their
deferred-maintenance budget is currently estimated to be $10.8
billion, $3 billion of which is for structures listed on the
National Register of Historic Places. This is more than leaky
rooftops. This represents the potential loss of our heritage
for our children and our grandchildren. Government funds alone
are insufficient to meet the challenges. Private funds are
needed.
Historic leases offer the opportunity to attract private
capital to the Park Service's challenges. They shift the
maintenance obligations to the lessee. In some cases, the
lessee is required to pay rent. In some cases, the condition of
the building is so poor that the lessee invests in
rehabilitation in lieu of paying rent.
According to an MPCA report, for fiscal year 2009, 26 parks
reported leasing revenue of $4.3 million. In fiscal year 2007,
48 parks leased a total of 147 historic structures. This is
just a small fraction of the structures eligible for leasing.
In my written testimony, I have provided a list of the parks
that have granted leases to date.
As members of the Appropriations subcommittee with
jurisdiction over the National Park Service budget, you have
the opportunity to encourage the National Park Service to
pursue more historic leases or risk the loss of future historic
resources. The legal framework in place and many benefits have
been recognized of historic leases, primarily that
underutilized park structures are preserved and rehabilitated
with private funds, costing taxpayers nothing and alleviating
the burden on the National Park Service. They have been
underutilized. Why? In part, because park-level superintendents
have limited knowledge of historic leases and the benefits they
offer.
Cumberland Island National Seashore offers a textbook
example of how a historic lease could preserve historic
resources. On Cumberland Island, the National Park Service is
responsible for the preservation of 82 individual historic
structures. These range from African American chimneys left
from burned slave cabins to a 22,000-square-foot mansion. They
also are responsible for 47 known archaeological sites, and
because Cumberland Island National Seashore is an island not
connected to the mainland by a bridge, every item has to come
by boat.
In fiscal year 2009, the National Park Service spent $1.69
million on maintenance expenses. Approximately half of that
money came from their operating budget and the other half came
from one-time funds. These funds, while generous in that
particular year, are likely to be reduced going forward, given
the budget crisis. They have inadequate staff to accomplish all
of the maintenance tasks at hand. Partners in Preservation is
willing to invest approximately $1 million in the preservation
of two National Register historic structures which are
otherwise at risk for demolition by neglect due to lack of
funding. Other structures on Cumberland Island have been
demolished by neglect because of lack of money. If a historic
lease is granted of these structures, it is a win-win-win, a
win for the public, a win for the Park Service and a win for
future generations.
Our Nation's heritage is at risk of being lost if the
National Park Service does not pursue historic leases more. If
the National Park Service embraces historic leases and grants
them more frequently, they will have had the ability to
preserve far more of our history. The alternative is to leave
future generations a crumbling legacy of diminished historic
resources and a loss of national heritage. Thank you.
[The statement of Margaret Graves follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Thanks for your testimony and the
work you do. We appreciate the private sector being involved in
much of this.
Ms. Graves. They can be a great partner.
Mr. Simpson. That is right. Thank you.
Next we have Trent Clark, Public Relations Affairs Director
and representing the Federation of State Humanities Councils.
Welcome. He is from Idaho. Imagine that. Trent and I have been
friends for many, many years, and I appreciate you being here
today, Trent.
----------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION, ARTS AND HUMANITIES
WITNESS
TRENT CLARK, PUBLIC AND GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS DIRECTOR, FEDERATION OF
STATE HUMANITIES COUNCILS
Mr. Clark. Thank you very much Congressman, and let me
extend to you the greetings and well wishes of the other
members of the Idaho Humanities Council Board, many of whom are
friends and folks you know very well.
I was going to say for the benefit of the other members I
might introduce myself, but as you know, I also in my day job
represent Monsanto, who employs directly and indirectly roughly
3,000 Idahoans in southeast Idaho. But it is my privilege to be
a volunteer on the Idaho Humanities Council.
I am here today representing the state humanities council,
and as that organization supporting the humanities budget
request of $167.5 million for the National Endowment for the
Humanities. I am here specifically to justify and explain the
value that is achieved to the taxpayers out of the $47 million
of that budget that is allocated to the endowment's federal-
state partnership. That is the money that goes out to the 50
states and six territorial councils. In doing that, one thing I
hope you do understand is, there is tremendous bang for the
buck achieved when that money is distributed out across the
Nation. For every federal dollar that is invested in that
public federal-state partnership, there are 5\1/2\ dollars that
are added then to it, so you get tremendous bang for the buck.
The remaining question then is with that highly leveraged
impact, what are you achieving? Well, here is my answer, and
there are five specific achievements. First of all, the council
programs lift our sights above the day-to-day grind to focus us
on important questions like where have we been and where are we
going. In Idaho, for example, we just had a council meeting
where we distributed $85,000 in grants to projects all across
the State of Idaho, and those range from everything like the
museum up in Bonners Ferry. Have you been there, Congressman,
where a local artist has painted portraits of all of the great
figures of Bonners Ferry? And one can go to that museum and
basically learn the history of the community just by reading
the captions under all of these portraits. In Malad, we funded
the Welch Festival which, as you know, is about Malad's only
cultural event. I mean, it is the peak of society in Malad,
Idaho. And I am really looking forward to something we just
voted to fund, and that is a recollection piece on the Fort
Bridger Treaty, which as, you know, Congressman, that Fort
Bridger Treaty and the history of it, the three times that it
was abrogated by the Federal Government and then the other
three times that we as a Nation walked in and renegotiated the
treaty actually explain why the culture of Fort Hall is the way
that it is today, and a good recollection of that history is
critical for us to understand how to deal with the Sho-Ban
Nation in this day and age. So those are the kinds of things
that are funded.
The second achievement that we get through the council
programs is a reach into communities that are remote and
otherwise really difficult to penetrate with humanities
content. I mentioned Malad, for instance, the fact that if it
were not for our council funding we would not have a Welch
Festival in Malad. In 2010, council programs reached an
estimated 5,700 communities, and many of them are in these
rural areas where if it were not for the council-supported
projects, those projects are the communities' annual humanities
education experience.
Let me give you an example. The Kansas Humanities Council
funded a project called Kansans Tell Their Stories, and through
64 grants in 55 different communities, the program then engaged
over 314,000 Kansans in this dialog about where their history
comes from, and they participated either in person or online in
oral histories, research projects, museum exhibits. They even
had television series, podcasts and special speaker
engagements.
In Kentucky, the Kentucky Chautauqua serves a very similar
purpose because through that program they bring characters
portraying famous historical figures into classrooms and into
gatherings where they can sort of examine the history through
the eyes and the minds of those particular characters. One such
character, for instance, is Lt. Anna Mac Clarke--no relation of
mine--but was the first African American officer to command
white troops, and kids now in Kentucky are able to hear this
point of view. In fact, through those presentations, 35,346
Kentucky schoolchildren have had a chance to learn a little bit
about their history.
Achievement three: Councils preserve and strengthen local
institutions. That 5\1/2\ dollars for every dollar invested I
talked about, that actually comes with tremendous grassroots
outreach. It is one of the ways that Congress supports what I
consider to be one of the greatest assets of the modern world,
and that is that we have communities with museums and
libraries, and those museums and libraries are really the
source of the information for the information age. These local
organizations receive a lot of their funding through the state
councils, and I can give you an example of Utah where there are
255 museums where the museum curators have been able to learn
interpretation and the ability to put together informative
exhibits because of the Utah Council of Humanities funding.
Well, I may be out of time, Congressman, but I just would
like to conclude by saying that I want to confirm what the
National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Leach had to say
about the mission and role of the humanities funding, and that
is to inspire and sustain the essential element of a free
society and self-government, which is civil discourse. As our
Nation steps up to answer the challenges we face today, we will
need more of that discourse, not less, and for that reason, we
ask you to support us in carrying out that mission by helping
us fund the very activities that uplift Americans in every
corner of the Nation, in all walks of life, to focus on the
humanities in their community, their state and their Nation.
Thank you, Congressman.
[The statement of Trent Clark follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you, and thanks for your testimony. One
of the concerns--I have been a fan of Jim Leach's for a long
time. I have served with him here in Congress and we spent
hours together talking about a variety of things, both in my
office and in his, and in this C.R. that we are passing,
obviously the arts and humanities got cut somewhat. We were
able to prevent some of the dramatic cuts that we were fearful
would happen. Is there concern that as resources go down from
the state humanities councils that those grants that go to
states will be reduced rather than the Washington, D.C.,
bureaucracy, if you want to call it that, that it will be fed
back to the states, the cuts? Is there concern about that?
Mr. Clark. Well, there is concern primarily because there
is so much value to be achieved through the partnership
process. I mean, just from the examples I have given you,
Congressman, the on-the-ground effect of the National Endowment
for the Humanities is so leveraged in these local grants. It
would be a shame to lose that leveraging by not having those
funds flow down into these small rural programs.
Mr. Simpson. Thanks. Thanks for being here today, Trent. I
appreciate it very much.
Mr. Clark. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Next we have Dr. Michael Brintall, the
President of the National Humanities Alliance.
----------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION, ARTS AND HUMANITIES
WITNESS
MICHAEL BRINTALL, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL HUMANITIES ALLIANCE
Mr. Brintall. Mr. Chairman, thank you for having me. I am
here on behalf of the National Humanities Alliance. Our members
are 104 scholarly associations, professional associations,
institutions that represent tens of thousands of scholars,
professors, curators, other professionals working in the
humanities. I am the elected president. I am a political
scientists and I am also the Executive Director of the American
Political Science Association.
We as the federation urge the subcommittee to fund the NEH
at the fiscal year 2010 level of $167.5 million. Our written
testimony includes some discussion of that. And in response to
the points you are raising, the NEH is a small agency that does
a very big job and in fact does three big jobs. We have been
hearing about those here. It protects and preserves cultural
resources, it facilitates broad public engagement with the
Nation's heritage, and it supports basic scholarly research and
education in the humanities, and that is the point I want to
emphasize here, but it does all of this on a remarkably small
budget, and we cannot risk cutbacks that would enfeeble any one
of those activities nor I think compel a situation that would
compel sacrificing one for the others. So even modest cuts can
have crippling effects when they are spread across those roles.
I started my career wanting to be a city planner. I thought
the cities needed help. I thought the solution would be easy
and that planning and civil engineering would fix things up. I
went to MIT in 1968 to study city planning. As I began to study
the urban issues, I discovered that urban affairs was really a
humanities problem. Urban issues are grounded in neighborhoods.
Sometimes they followed folk traditions. Progress required
mechanisms for people to work together with civility.
Everything was planned with local history. We could learn a lot
from other places and times about how local government can
respond creatively.
So in the end, my studies shifted to humanities and social
sciences with the same interest in helping cities but no longer
thinking it would be easy. The humanities alert us to hard
problems and then they help us to address them. As I started
those studies, I happened to spend a summer on a ranch in the
West, and this had a big effect on me too, and it was not
Idaho, it was Montana----
Mr. Simpson. Close enough.
Mr. Brintall. Close enough. Where I debated urban issues
with ranchers and was schooled in values of individual
responsibility and property rights, and I saw how we all have a
common stake as a Nation in each other's so-called local
concerns. I came away from this academic and this real-world
introduction to the humanities with a deep respect for shared
ideas and the gathering of evidence about them and for public
engagement across the country and across diverse issues, and I
realized that this individual experience that I had is what the
NEH really affords the whole Nation.
Public support made a big difference in those studies as
they do for many scholars. I had veterans benefits, for which I
am deeply grateful. I had other Federal Government support for
my graduate work. I am deeply appreciative that the public had
invested in the promise of my career and in turn my career as a
scholar, as a teacher and as a public official has been shaped
by a conviction that I was charged with a public
responsibility. If the NEH is afforded the resources it needs
to support new generations of scholars and teachers, I can
attest that they too will repay the investment for a lifetime.
The humanities are essential in their own right but they
are also essential partners for economic and scientific
progress and for our national security. Let me give one quick
illustration. General David Petraeus holds a PhD in political
science. He recently received one of the highest honors in the
American Political Science Association for his career. In his
remarks, he emphasized that national security is a humanities
problem. He emphasizes the study of humanities for young
officers around him, urging they know and study history,
language, and local cultures in order to meet our contemporary
national security challenges.
With its broad mission, the NEH is the focal point for
national attention on the role the humanities can play for the
Nation, aligning scholarship and teaching with preservation and
public engagement. In framing this mission, NEH Chairman Jim
Leach has described the leadership role of the NEH in two
important ways: that it builds infrastructure for ideas, just
as we do at the National Science Foundation and with other
research agencies, and it leads in the democratization of
ideas, expanding scholarly knowledge of our history and culture
in ways that are shared with active public engagement.
We are grateful for the strong bipartisan support that this
subcommittee has shown the NEH in the past, and we hope you
will consider the strongest possible support for it in 2012.
[The statement of Michael Brintall follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you for your testimony. We will
certainly look at that. As I have said many times, I am a fan
of the NEH and the NEA and sometimes they need defending. I am
interested, though, that you were a political science major and
David Petraeus was. I was a political science major in college
when I first went and I did not know what to do with political
science, how I was going to make a living, so ultimately I went
into dentistry and look at where I ended up.
Mr. Brintall. I am glad it stuck.
Mr. Simpson. It is kind of strange. You wanted to be an
urban planner. My first job in politics, I was on the city
council, a local city council, and you are right, that is where
the rubber hits the road, and someone once advised me, if you
are ever going to do anything else in politics, you have to get
off the city council because if you are there long enough, you
are going to make everybody mad.
Thank you for being here today. We appreciate your
testimony.
Next we have Ken Burns, who probably needs no introduction,
a famous award-winning documentary filmmaker. Just this last
weekend on PBS they had your Civil War series on again that
they were reshowing. It is one of the first series I ever
bought when it first came out because it was such a great--if
you were not a student of the Civil War before that series, you
certainly made a lot of students across the country of the
Civil War. And also, thank you for your series on the national
parks. It is very important, and I have talked with the
National Park Service and others, that we teach future
generations about our national parks, where they came from and
why they are there because they really are the crown jewels. So
thank you for being here today.
---------- --
--------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
ARTS AND HUMANITIES
WITNESS
KEN BURNS, AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER
Mr. Burns. It is my pleasure, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you
for the tremendous honor of having the opportunity to spend a
few minutes with you today.
Mr. Simpson. You bet.
Mr. Burns. Let me say from the outset, as a film producer
but also a father of four daughters increasingly concerned
about the too-often-dangerous landscape of our popular culture
that I am a passionate, lifelong supporter of the NEH and its
unique role in helping to stitch our exquisite and often
fragile culture together and in helping to foster creativity
and scholarship and transmission of the best of that culture to
future generations.
Few institutions provide such a direct grassroots way for
our citizens to participate in the shared glories of their
common past, in the power of the priceless ideals that have
animated our remarkable republic and our national life for more
than 200 years and in the inspirational life of the mind and
the heart that an engagement with the arts and humanities
always provides. It is my wholehearted belief that anything
that threatens this institution weakens our country. It is as
simple as that.
For more than 30 years, I have been producing historical
documentary films celebrating the special messages American
history continually directs our way. The subjects of these
films range from the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge and
the Statue of Liberty to the life of the turbulent Southern
demagogue Huey Long, from the graceful architecture of the
Shakers to the history of our national parks, from the sublime
pleasures and unexpected lessons of our national pastime and
jazz to the searing, transcendent experiences of the Civil War
and the second World War, from biographies on Thomas Jefferson
and Lewis and Clark to Frank Lloyd Wright, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Mark Twain. I even made a film on the history of
this magnificent Capitol building and the much-
maligned institution that is charged with conducting the
people's business.
Mr. Simpson. That would be the Senate.
Mr. Burns. Throughout my professional life, I have been
fortunate to work closely with the National Endowment for
nearly every film that I have done. I first received an NEH
grant in 1979 as I embarked on my first project for public
television, that same film about the Brooklyn Bridge. At this
very early stage of my professional life, the experience of
competing successfully for an NEH grant helped me set high
standards of excellence in filmmaking but also writing and
scholarship and even budgeting. Over the years, I would apply
many times to the NEH for support under a variety of projects;
working with NEH staff and humanities scholars assigned to the
projects ensured that my projects stayed true to rigorous
intellectual standards and reached a broad, receptive audience
of tens of millions of Americans. This interaction has been a
powerful influence on my work. Without a doubt, my films would
not have been made without the endowments. My series on the
Civil War, for instance, would not have been possible without
early and substantial support from the NEH, support, Mr.
Chairman, which I have long ago repaid. The NEH provided one of
the project's largest grants, more than a third of its budget,
thereby attracting other funders. This rigorously earned
imprimatur helped me to convince private foundations,
corporations and other public funders that my films were worthy
of their support.
But above and beyond these facts, there is a larger
argument to be made, one that is rooted in our Nation's
history. Since the beginning of this country, our government
has been involved in supporting the arts and the diffusion of
knowledge, which was deemed as critical to our future as roads
and dams and bridges. Early on, Thomas Jefferson and other
Founding Fathers knew that the pursuit of happiness did not
mean a hedonistic search for pleasure in the marketplace of
things but an active involvement of the mind in the higher
aspects of human endeavor, namely education, music, the arts
and history, a marketplace of ideas.
Congress supported the journey of Lewis and Clark as much
to explore the natural, biological, ethnographic and cultural
landscape of our expanding Nation as to open up a new trading
route to the Pacific. Congress supported numerous geographical,
artistic, photographic and biological expeditions to nearly
every corner of the developing West. Congress funded through
the Farms Security Administration the work of Walker Evans and
Dorothea Lange and other great photographers who captured for
posterity the terrible human cost of our Depression and Dust
Bowl, the latter project I am working on that just received a
grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
With Congress's great insight, NEH was born and grew to its
startlingly effective maturity, echoing the same time-honored
sense that our government has an interest in helping to sponsor
communication, art and education just as it sponsors commerce.
We are not talking about a free ride but a priming of the pump,
a way to get the juices flowing, a collaboration between the
government and the private sector, which if you will permit me,
reminds me of a story. In the late 1980s, I was invited to a
reception at the White House and had the great honor of meeting
President Ronald Reagan. I told him I was a PBS producer
working on a history of the Civil War. His eyes twinkled with a
palpable delight as he recalled watching as a young boy the
parades of ever-aging Union veterans marching down the main
street of Dixon, Illinois, on successive Fourth of Julys. Then
in almost an admonishment, he spoke to me about the need, no,
the responsibility, he said, for a private sector-governmental
partnership when it came to public broadcasting and the
humanities. His Administration, by the way, as you know, was
very supportive of these longstanding institutions. I told him
that nearly a third of my budget for the Civil War series came
from a large American corporation, a third from private
foundations and a third from the National Endowment for the
Humanities, an agency then expertly led by Lynne Cheney, the
wife of our former Vice President. He smiled and held me by the
shoulders the way an affectionate uncle might do and his eyes
twinkled again. ``Good work,'' he said, ``I look forward to
seeing your film.'' And after it was first broadcast in 1990,
he sent me the loveliest of notes about how much he and Nancy
had enjoyed it.
Mr. Chairman, the new proposals to defund or severely cut
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National
Endowments for the Humanities and Arts will literally put us,
me, out of business, period, and somewhere, I imagine, it will
erase that twinkle in Ronald Reagan's eyes. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for the chance to express my thoughts this morning.
[The statement of Ken Burns follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Ken. I appreciate your being here
today. Thanks for your testimony. Again, thanks for the great
work you have done. You, through the humanities, as you
mentioned, have brought a lot of enlightenment and education to
the American people.
Mr. Burns. Thank you. There has been an argument in film
schools about whether films actually got people to do anything,
but the increased attendance at Civil War battlefields, the
spike in attendance at the national parks after our series was
aired after some flatlining or declining attendances is very
heartening.
There was a round of cuts in the early 1990s that were made
in the endowments. We still received significant grants but
they represented 5 or 6 percent of our budgets as opposed to a
third, and so any further cuts are going to just further
jeopardize our ability to communicate these, I think, important
shared stories.
Mr. Simpson. That is true. There were some significant cuts
in the early 1990s, and if you look at it, we are barely
getting back up to where we were at that time, let alone the
loss that you have had over the years because it has not
advanced since that time. And it is something that I know that
Mr. Moran when he was chairman of the committee, Mr. Dicks when
he was chairman of this committee and now I have all been
concerned about and trying to make sure that both the Endowment
for the Humanities and the Arts do not suffer those cutbacks
that occurred because then it will be years to rebuild it
again. So we are trying to do everything we can.
As I said, when people come to me and ask where to go in
Washington and I tell them go up to Gettysburg, I always tell
them you need to either get a book or get the video of the
battle to learn just a little bit about it before you go there,
and when I say to them, you need to take your shoes off, they
look at me kind of strange, and I say just go, you will
understand, and they come back and they say I get it.
Mr. Burns. And that is why the importance of saving these
places and telling these stories is essential to the
continuation of our republic. It is strange that the past
should ensure our future but that is exactly what takes place
when we celebrate these places and these moments.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. Jim.
Mr. Moran. I certainly associate my thoughts with those of
the chairman, and I want to again publicly thank Chairman
Simpson for his advocacy of NEA and NEH in a very difficult
period of time. Thank you for all the work you have done, Mr.
Burns. Mr. Simpson and I think very similarly, and I have been
in a little easier position. I have to tell you this is a good
time when the C.R. comes on the Floor today, the reason why we
have a much more reasonable level of funding for NEH and NEA is
due to this gentleman right here. So he deserves a great deal
of credit. And of course, his reward is the kind of product
that you produce.
So it is terribly important for all Americans to understand
their history, understand their culture, and now that we have a
sesquicentennial celebration--recognition of the Civil War is
hardly a celebration, but your work is again the hallmark, the
foundation that others look to for how to depict that. Almost
every show I see on the Civil War, whether it is the background
music or some of the photos, part of the video, they continue
to refer. It is an historical reference today and will serve to
be, I suspect, for the 200th recognition. Thank you, and I
cannot imagine a better representative of what NEH accomplishes
than your work, Mr. Burns.
Mr. Burns. I thank you very much, Congressman, for those
kind words, and just would repeat again what I said in my
testimony which is that it was the initial grant from the
National Endowment for the Humanities, fully a third of our
budget, that permitted us and that rigorously earned grant to
attract the corporate support, to attract the foundation
support, and when we disrupt any of that fragile tripod, then
we run the risk of losing the whole business. So the continued
support now at 6, 7, 8 percent of our budgets is in some ways
even more critical.
Mr. Moran. You are doing one on the Great Depression, the
Dust Bowl?
Mr. Burns. We just finished one on Prohibition that enjoyed
endowment support, and just have received a grant to complete a
film on the Dust Bowl and are working on several other projects
that I think will be of interest.
Mr. Moran. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Burns. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Simpson. Next we have Ed Ayers, President of the
University of Richmond, American historian, History Guys radio
show personality, Digital Humanities pioneer. Anything else I
should add?
----------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
ARTS AND HUMANITIES
WITNESS
ED AYERS, PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, AMERICAN HISTORIAN
Mr. Ayers. No, that sounds good. All those are a little
generous. As a matter of fact, I think of myself as
representing sort of the everyman academic that carries on a
large part of what the NEH is trying to do. My eloquent
predecessors have said important things. I want to give you an
image of 1985, my first NEH grant, $11,500, paid half my
salary. I bought a $400 car and drove 12,000 miles from one
Motel 6 to another across the American South to write a history
of the people in the three generations after emancipation, and
it was a finalist for the National Book Award and Pulitzer
Prize a little while later. And then five years later, the NEH
when nobody else thought there might actually be some use for
this crazy World Wide Web thing, then only two or three years
old, for education, and they funded something called the
``Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil
War,'' about the same time that Ken Burns's series was coming
out, and it is still alive 15 years later and it has reached
people in Latin America, China. Millions of people every year
have gone to this to actually explore history for themselves by
seeing all the primary documents on that.
And we are now working on a project at the University of
Richmond where we are trying to make it possible to visualize
what the emancipation of 4 million people actually looked like.
You cannot wrap your mind around something the size of
continental Europe, when did that happen, how did people become
free, and so we are mapping all the progress of the Union
armies and where the slave population was, documenting every
instance we have of someone becoming free and putting it all in
this big database.
And you were kind enough to mention our radio show,
``BackStory with American History Guys,'' which just downloaded
its millionth podcast, and we have only been on two and a half
years, and once again the NEH stepped up when nobody else knew
that there might be a market for three guys talking about
American history, the issues it raises today. We just did a
three-part series on the American Civil War and people called
in from all the other United States and actually from abroad,
because people want to talk, not just listen or watch. They
want to read and discuss those things.
And that is the final thing that I am doing, working with
the American Library Association and the NEH to put together
reading groups that will be in libraries all across the United
States from my native Appalachia to the reservations of the
West to inner cities all across the country, and there
presenting people with the raw materials of what the Civil War
was, having them figure it out for themselves.
You have heard a lot about leveraging, and that is a point
that I would really like to emphasize, NEH stepping up and
working with the ALA to make these things possible that would
not have happened otherwise.
Now, I have another perspective. I was on the National
Council of the Humanities starting in 2000, and over the five
years I worked on the council, I read hundreds of proposals.
Everything that the NEH funds and the range of what they do is
really remarkable, from museum installations and television
shows to editions of the Founding Fathers and teachers
institutes, the amount of imagination and good will just seeing
those is both heartening and heartbreaking because not many of
those can be funded. This is a very rigorous process. I mean,
this is like the NSF or the NIH and the amount of budgeting and
documentation are acts of scholarship in themselves, and here
people come together with no compensation to judge these. Then
the council looked at them all, the chairman, and what I want
to emphasize is that the government's money, the people's money
is so carefully stewarded. People watch and think what is the
return on this, and I had a chance to see what that looks like
in the process of actually making.
The NEH works in a remarkable way, for it leverages what
you have heard about, local initiatives, local curiosity and
local investment. The multiplier effect is really impressive. I
have seen what it does for schools. I have seen what it does
for historical societies. I have seen what it does for
libraries and museums. It is a catalyst for the imagination and
investment for people throughout the United States. It touches
every kind of community. I have gone to tiny, little
schoolhouses and talked to people where that would be the only
chance they would have to have a book discussion or to talk
about Ken Burn's series. The staff of the NEH stretches its
dollars as far as they can possibly stretch.
Something people do not realize: The United States invented
the modern concept of the humanities about 100 years ago. The
idea of pulling together all the studies of the human record
into one place is an American invention, and from the beginning
the idea was that the humanities should be useful rather than
ornamental, a very American kind of cast to this, why would you
want to understand these things, and very often the answer is,
to foster democracy, to connect with a broad range of American
people, and the NEH builds on this great tradition.
I know we face great challenges including those of budgets,
and we all understand the need to examine how those budgets are
used. Those who invest in humanities are not asking for a large
amount of money in the grand scheme of things but we do help
you to sustain what is in fact one of the best investments this
country has ever made.
I am very grateful for the chance to speak with you today.
[The statement of Ed Ayers follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you for being here. We appreciate your
testimony. I agree with you, it is a great investment that we
make. Thank you.
Mr. Moran. Excellent testimony. Thank you, Mr. Ayers.
Next we have--and I am going to mispronounce this, I am
sorry--Azar Nafisi. Is that right?
Ms. Nafisi. Yes.
Mr. Simpson. You are next. Thank you.
Mr. Moran. I have actually read her book.
Mr. Simpson. She is the author of ``Reading Lolita in
Tehran.''
Ms. Nafisi. Yes, and I had the honor and pleasure of being
with Congressman Moran when he defended culture in Iranian
youth in Aspen Institution.
Mr. Simpson. All right.
----------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
ARTS AND HUMANITIES
WITNESS
AZAR NAFISI, IRANIAN EMIGRE AND AUTHOR OF ``READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN''
Ms. Nafisi. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and
Congressman Moran for giving me this rare privilege and
opportunity to tell you why from the moment I left my country
of birth, Iran, and came to this country I discovered the
National Endowment for Humanities is a natural home for, and
because I have this unique experience of living in a country
where its government from its very inception 30 years ago, the
Islamic Republic, waged an all-out war against individual
rights and human rights in terms of an all-around assault on
women, minorities and culture and alongside of it, it declared
war on humanities, on culture, on imagination as sort of a part
of Western conspiracy and cultural invasion by the West,
especially at that time you had the honor of being the great
Satan, especially invasion by America, the great Satan. And you
know, in 2009, before Egypt, before Tunisia, before Libya when
hundreds of thousands of Iranian people came into the streets
to protest the rigged presidential elections, the assault again
turned to humanities. They said that this was a Western
conspiracy to lead our people astray and so they shot down all
the humanities. They threatened to shut down all the humanities
departments at the universities, and for all practical
purposes, they have almost done that.
So I often wonder when we think of Iran, we immediately
think of Mr. Ahmadinejad with this sort of cynical grin, you
know, as if he has just broken the neighbor's window and gotten
away with it, but, you know, if you look at it through the
alternative eyes of imagination, through the alternative eyes
of culture, through the alternatives eyes of history, we
discover not our differences but how the Iranian and the
American people have in fact in common, a country with 3,000
years' history, a country that had the first constitutional
revolution in Asia, a country with its women like Sojourner
Truth, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, like Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
for over 100 years ago fought for their rights. At the time of
the revolution in 1979, Iranian women were active in all walks
of life. We had two women ministers, one minister for women's
affairs. My own mother was one of the first women who went into
the congress in 1963, 11 years before Switzerland had given
women the right to vote.
So what I am trying to say, and you might say, okay, you
know, what does all this have to do with humanities. I want to
tell you that humanities was the first victim alongside of all
this. They lowered the age of marriage from 18 to 9. They
brought punishment of stoning to death for what they called the
crimes of adultery and prostitution. They also excised Olive
Oyl from most of the scenes in Popeye because you did not know
that she was a loose woman and she was having an illicit
relationship. In the same manner, they took Ophelia out of most
scenes of the Russian version of Hamlet for the same reason. So
you see, for me, before I came into this great country, I had
already made my home through the first book that I read from
America was the Wizard of Oz and Huck Finn which is still my
companion and Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln and
Emerson, who translated the two classics of Iranian literature,
and Walt Whitman and Saul Bellow. When my children, who had
watched the forbidden videos of Marx Brothers and Laurel and
Hardy, when they came to this country they had already felt
that home and you can see why National Endowment for Humanities
was really my home. It was a place where I felt that I can
continue to be part of this great country and at the same time
be a citizen of the world. Like millions of people, sir, I came
to this country not to fill my pockets, not to make money. I
came to this country because it was founded on a dream, because
it was founded on this courage to believe that what is imagined
can also be actualized.
You know, I think of the monuments in this great city. I
think of the three monuments to the three Presidents who talked
about to be enlightened means to join the great republic of
humans, of Jefferson, whose Library of Congress reflects the
ideals of the Declaration of Independence, of Lincoln, whose
language is filled with the poetry of the Bible and Shakespeare
and of Martin Luther King who on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial reignited the dream, the passion for that dream and
gave his life in order to make it possible. I think of the
women's movement. I think of the civil rights movement. And
when I think of all of this, I think how could they be possible
without our love of humanities.
They tell me that at a time of economic crisis we should
not talk about this. At times of economic crisis, this is what
really we should be talking about, the unity, the identity, the
cohesiveness, the pride of American people regardless of what
ideology or political party they belong to is in this legacy
and in this heritage, and that is why I want my children and my
children's children to be brought up in a place where they can
be both a citizen of this great country and a citizen of this
world.
And so for me--and I am going to finish very fast, sir, if
you allow me. I brought two watches in order to finish fast and
I still did not make it. So let me just go very fast. I wrote
my dissertation on the proletarian writers of the 1930s, so I
know that at a time of crisis, in fact through writers'
projects, through federal arts projects, we might not have been
able to give too much money to humanities but we certainly
respected them and put them at the forefront of the struggle
against the economic and political crisis, and that is what we
need to do, and that is why I will read from this and end. The
work of National Endowment for Humanities is vital because it
keeps open the channels of debate, questioning and curiosity,
because it keeps alive what we might call the democratic
imagination, and now more than ever it is important for
Americans to focus on our Nation's poetry and its poetic soul,
on the dream that brought this Nation together to be reminded
of this country's great cultural heritage. What more suitable
representation of the people who came to this land from all
parts of the world, bringing with them the customs and cultures
of their countries of birth, hoping to create a home that can
embody them all.
So, sir, it is in this spirit that I ask you to ratify the
budget for the National Endowment for Humanities. Thank you for
your patience.
[The statement of Azar Nafisi follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony and
for your eloquence.
Ms. Nafisi. It is a pleasure. This will be my home, and
this is why I am here. If it were not for Mark Twain, I do not
know where I would be.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Jim?
Mr. Moran. Yes, extraordinarily compelling statement. Thank
you so much, and I think anybody listening to you understands
why they really ought to read ``Reading Lolita in Teheran.'' It
is so insightful.
Ms. Nafisi. Thank you, sir, and I tell you, your best
weapon against tyranny is not military but it is the culture of
democracy, and people in Iran are going to jail and being
tortured because they read Saul Bellow and Walt Whitman, so I
think our children here should take a lesson from that.
Mr. Moran. I wish they would. Thank you so much.
Mr. Simpson. You cannot leave the room, though, until, I
had a staff member that wants you to sign her book.
Next we have Mark Hofflund, who is a friend of mine. I
would hate to follow her.
Mr. Hofflund. I tell you, Mr. Chairman, I am the son of a
woman with dual citizenship. I lost her. She passed away about
a year ago. And I think I heard her voice today for the first
time in your testimony, so I am incredibly moved.
Ms. Nafisi. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Well, thank you for being here, Mark. As you
heard me say before when we were talking about the Civil War,
that when people from Idaho come out to Washington they ask me
where to go and I always say Gettysburg, they need to go up
there and see it. Well, if any of you come to Idaho from
Washington, you need to go to the Idaho Shakespeare Festival.
Mark is the Managing Director of it, and we have been friends
for many years and he does a fantastic job and really, summer
in Boise would not be the same without the Shakespeare Festival
and the work you do. He has also been on the National Endowment
for the Arts Council, and we appreciate that, and thanks for
being here today, Mark.
----------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
ARTS AND HUMANITIES
WITNESS
MARK HOFFLUND, MANAGING DIRECTOR, IDAHO SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL
Mr. Hofflund. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Moran, members of the
subcommittee, good morning. As Managing Director of Idaho
Shakespeare Festival, Chair of the Idaho Commission on the
Arts, and a board member of the National Assembly of State Arts
Agencies, I wish to testify on behalf of the National Endowment
for the Arts requesting $167.5 million in level funding, and to
share a story you made possible.
While this is an Idaho story, similar stories are found in
every state. My opportunity emerged when the chairman of the
NEA paid a visit to Idaho strengthening the Nation's first
ongoing infrastructure for the arts, not the arts historically
had been missing from our Nation. Things of beauty, culture,
science, art and imagination were so ingrained in the Founders,
some would say the pursuit of happiness articulated this common
appreciation right after life and liberty. As for legislative
infrastructure dating to the Founders, imagine for a moment
what it may have been like to sign a Declaration of
Independence, declare war, wage war, elect a decade of
forgotten presidents under Articles of Confederation before
ratifying a Constitution and electing a reluctant George
Washington, not an easy first decade and one with great
challenges ahead.
So under the circumstances, it could seem remarkable for
the founders to leave a few thoughts on the arts. Perhaps a
vision for the future was provided by George Washington in
words now reaching down centuries: ``The arts and sciences are
essential to the prosperity of the state and to the ornament
and happiness of human life. They have a primary claim to the
encouragement of every lover of his country and mankind.'' In
retrospect, the history of the United States is replete with
public investments in art and architecture.
In our day, another great general having led us through
World War II signed legislation creating the National Cultural
Center Act commemorated in the naming of the Kennedy Center's
Eisenhower Theater. In the 1960s with the Nation enduring civil
unrest not seen in a century, President Johnson created and
President Nixon funded the National Endowment for the Arts.
With cities smoldering, leaders being assassinated, college
students rioting, some getting killed by the public servants
meant to protect them, a Cold War heating up, despite all this,
Roger Stevens founded and the second chairman Nancy Hanks grew
the NEA in both reputation and funding, ever mindful that in
dollar comparisons to our national needs for defense, for
poverty programs, for health, for welfare or for education, the
requirements for the arts are miniscule, as Ms. Hanks wrote.
During civil famine, the seeds of a federal-state arts
infrastructure sprouted like spring wheat when 55 state and
territorial arts agencies began receiving grants from the NEA,
and when governors and legislatures took this as incentive to
multiply the funding and steer not only new cultural
opportunities but greater decision-making to the regional and
local levels. President Carter, Chairman Biddle and Congress
strengthened the federal-state partnership, developing federal
recognition of American artists through the National Heritage
Awards. President Reagan, Chairman Hodsoll and Congress
established the NEA Jazz Masters, the National Medal of Arts,
the Mayor's Institute on City Design and a groundbreaking study
on arts education called Toward Civilization. As Reagan said,
we honor the arts not because we want monuments to our own
civilization but because we are a free people.
With this history, three succeeding Presidents, their NEA
leaders and Congress navigated the most perilous times at the
NEA and emerged in all three cases with an arts budget on the
rise and an increasing federalism. Not only would Jane
Alexander visit all 50 states under President Clinton but Dana
Gioia would spend as much time traveling domestically and
abroad as he spent in Washington, D.C., strategically improving
the NEA under George W. Bush with reciprocal support from
Congress. As Bush and Gioia left office, not only was Congress
funding the NEA at greater levels and with stronger
Congressional support but its opponents had changed their minds
about the agency as Gioia worked throughout federal and state
government to catalyze the development of artistic excellence
and accessibility for millions of younger Americans, thousands
of educators, scores of journalists, members of the military
and their families, towns and cities across America which
libraries, newspapers, schools, civic organizations, businesses
and a broad section of citizen volunteers collaborated in
programs ranging from the Big Read to Poetry Out Loud to
Operational Homecoming to Shakespeare in American Communities,
ultimately reversing a three-decade decline in American
literary participation. With equality and excellence, Gioia
formed partnerships in every Congressional district.
The NEA is about public engagement, public education,
public excellence. It neither enforces public values nor
entitles public goods. It is a rare public infrastructure for
which cost may be an object but not a specific requirement. The
more we provide, the better we all become. In the hands of good
public servants from all walks of life, it functions like the
biblical talents that when not buried can be used to return
manifold wealth, prosperity and national growth. Transcending
factionalism, it is not about Democrats, Republicans,
Libertarians or any other vein past or yet to come of the
American spectrum, it is about how all of us of all faiths,
backgrounds and politics best practice a culturally diverse and
politically united federalism.
Finally, it returns us to the roots of our Founders as an
essential emblem of creating a system of self-government. We
are amid such defining times today. The marks of our success
will be seen in how we separate federal chaff from federal
wheat and thereby fill the storehouse for future generations
not with federal deficit but with federal bounty. I would
humbly submit that the NEA is an agency of federal bounty and
that with continued funding, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member for your actions of the past week, people not only from
Idaho, indeed, from all over America will help you fill the
storehouse. Thank you, sir.
[The statement of Mark Hofflund follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mark, for being here today. We
appreciate it very much. Thanks for your testimony in support
of the NEA and your history of where we have come from and what
we have been through with the NEA, so I appreciate it very
much. As you know, I am a fan.
Mr. Hofflund. We would not be here without you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. And Mr. Moran is the same way. Jim.
Mr. Moran. I cannot add to what Mike has said. Not only
does he provide words of encouragement, he also walks the walk
in terms of getting the money. I know that is why you are here,
but these are very extraordinarily articulate and meaningful
statements. We thank you.
Mr. Hofflund. Thank you, sir. I will tell you that I come
here at my own expense, and I am staying with a former
Congressman from my district, a great admirer of you, and he
asked me to please give you his highest regards, Representative
Orville Hanson. He is letting me stay with him while I am in
Washington, D.C.
Mr. Simpson. Well, thanks for being here, and we will see
you at the Shakespeare Festival.
Next we have Elena Daly, Vice President of DC Affairs,
Public Lands Foundation.
----------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
BLM, PUBLIC LANDS, WILD HORSES
WITNESS
ELENA DALY, VICE PRESIDENT FOR DC AFFAIRS, PUBLIC LANDS FOUNDATION
Ms. Daly. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We at PLF
would like to thank you for the opportunity to present your
committee with our views regarding the Bureau of Land
Management's budget request for fiscal year 2012.
As a national nonprofit organization comprised principally
of retired but still dedicated BLM employees, the PLF has a
unique body of experience and expertise in the realm of natural
resource management, and as retirees, we believe we offer an
objective and non-bureaucratic solution to some issues,
although I am feeling very bureaucratic after listening to the
last very articulate panel.
We support BLM and its programs but we are independent in
our views and our requests, and we strive to improve the
effectiveness of BLM by encouraging professionalism in its
employees and increasing both public understanding and proper
scientific management of public lands.
Some of the most significant management challenges for the
BLM stem from, as you know, particularly with Boise, rapid
growth and population development in the West, the urbanization
issue, and we find that with this urbanization comes increased
demands on the public lands, not only for recreation but for
traditional uses and products as well, and this really
complicates an agency with a mission as diverse as the Bureau
of Land Management. The public lands provide the Nation with
opportunities for expanding the development of renewable energy
as well as traditional needs for oil, natural gas, coal, non-
energy minerals, grazing land and timber. Recreation, wildlife,
wild horses, cultural resources and special places are also
significant attributes of those lands. Management activities
for BLM contribute to the vitality of state and local
economies, generating an expected $4.5 billion in revenues for
2012, mostly from energy development.
We also recognize that the Nation is facing some real
challenges as you all look at budgets and need, and in that
light, we are pleased at several of the aspects of the overall
budget request. In particular, we are pleased to see increases
for the National Landscape Conservation System and the
processes associated with the restoration of abandoned mine
lands. The NLCS is a compilation of unique and incredible
landscapes designated for outstanding cultural, ecological and
scientific values and range from red rock deserts, rocky
coasts, deep river canyons and high mountains and arctic
tundra. Management of this particular group of lands has long
been underfunded.
We believe the AML fee combined with the proposed budget
increase will provide a process to begin reclaiming both the
safety and environmental hazards that remain after 150 years of
hardrock mining on millions of acres in the West.
We are also pleased to see increases for land acquisition,
renewable energy, the Secretary's Cooperative Landscape
Conservation Initiative and Youth in the Great Outdoors, and we
support the budget proposals to recoup the costs of inspection
and enforcement activities for mineral leases from new fees.
We are also pleased to see the Secretary's proposal to
eliminate the sunset date for the Federal Land Transition
Facilitation Act and to allow lands identified in newer BLM
land-use plans as suitable for disposal.
However, we do have a couple of concerns. One is in land-
use planning. Land-use planning for BLM is foundational to
decision-making. A reduction in monies to provide up-to-date
plans hampers on-the-ground management because you do not have
the latest information at the very time when the West is
developing so rapidly. The reduction of $8.2 million in this
program will have lasting impact on those lands administered by
the bureau. Land-use planning is the primary tool we have for
effecting long-term decision-making and giving up that
opportunity gives us some concern.
Alaska Conveyance--the reduction of $17 million from this
program will be devastating to the BLM and Alaska and to the
U.S. government's commitment to that state, to the native
corporations and to individual allottees who have been waiting
now over 40 years to have these land issues resolved. This
would result in a 20 percent reduction in land transfer
capability and a reduction in force and the loss of many of the
638 survey contracts that go to native peoples in Alaska.
And everybody's favorite, wild horses and burros. We are
pleased that the Administration has requested sufficient funds
to support the efforts for this program but are concerned about
the unsolvable issues that continue to haunt the efforts at
management. We would like to see Congress step in at some point
to address this through legislation so that the problems can be
surmounted. We would like to see the differing opinions,
whether it is the wild horse advocates, the government,
ranchers, whomever those people may be, come together and
really talk about what is manageable in this program and what
makes sense. The funding for long-term maintenance is just not
sustainable.
So we hope these comments and concerns assist you. We
appreciate the time and your attention. Thank you very much.
[The statement of Elena Daly follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Elena. We appreciate that. And you
are right, there are several problems we have got to address,
and we appreciate you being here and pointing those out. Thank
you. Jim.
Mr. Moran. Yes, just to thank Ms. Daly as well. She did not
mention it, but she headed the National Landscape Conservation
System. But we want to thank you for your leadership in that
area.
Mr. Simpson. Next, we have Brady Robinson, the Executive
Director of Access Fund, Outdoor Alliance.
----------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
OUTDOOR ALLIANCE
WITNESS
BRADY ROBINSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE ACCESS FUND, OUTDOOR ALLIANCE
Mr. Robinson. Hi.
Mr. Simpson. How are you doing today?
Mr. Robinson. I am good. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, honorable
members of the committee, and Mr. Moran, thank you for this
opportunity to talk to you today.
Mr. Simpson. You bet.
Mr. Robinson. My name is Brady Robinson, and I am the
executive director of the Access Fund. We are the national
nonprofit organization dedicated to climbing and mountaineering
access and conservations on the climber. We are also a founding
member of the Outdoor Alliance, which is a coalition of six
national member-based organizations devoted to the conservation
and stewardship of our Nation's public lands and waters through
responsible human-powered outdoor recreation.
The Outdoor Alliance represents the interests of millions
of Americans who hike, paddle, climb, mountain bike, ski, and
snowshoe on our Nation's public lands and waters. Our
collective direct membership is over 100,000 and we have a
network of 1,400 clubs covering every state in the country.
I have personally dedicated my career to getting people in
the outdoors. Before coming in the Access Fund, I spent over a
decade working for Outward Bound. And through my interactions
with thousands of Outward Bound students, I have personally
witnessed the transformation and rejuvenation that occurs when
people--particularly young people--have the opportunity to
unplug and connect with the outdoors.
The Outdoor Alliance has extensive experience working with
federal land managers across the country concerning recreation
and conservation policies. Our experience shows that adequate
funding for the Park Service, the Forest Service, and the BLM
is required to support public access to these public lands and
rivers. And while federal land managers are currently
integrating recreation, conservation, and restoration programs
to more effectively manage our public lands for the benefit of
all Americans, it is clear that budget cuts to these agencies
would mean less access to and less conservation out of our
public land. Underfunded and understaffed land managers, when
forced to make resource protection and visitor use decisions
are more likely to close or highly restrict public access. And
this problem concerns not only Outdoor Alliance members but
also hunters and anglers and other user groups.
My organization, the Access Group, is seen as dynamic at
numerous locations across the country such as Williamson Rock
and Angeles National Forest, Christmas Tree Pass at the Lake
Mead National Recreation area and Castle Rocks in Idaho at the
BLM Burley Field office. The Outdoor Alliance believes that
with the guidance and momentum of the America's Great Outdoors
Initiative, the agencies are poised, if adequately funded, to
enhance the public enjoyment of high quality public lands and
waters like never before.
Nationwide active outdoor recreation contributes $730
billion annually to the U.S. economy and supports nearly 6.5
million jobs. Mr. Chairman, according to the Outdoor Industry
Association, active outdoor recreation supports 37,000 jobs in
Idaho, generates $154 million in annual state tax revenue, and
produces $2.2 billion annually in retail sales and services
across Idaho. That is more than five percent of the gross state
product.
We endorse a budget that will support this segment of our
economy and adequately fund the Department of Interior and
Department of Agriculture, activities that provide adequate
outdoor recreation access to public lands and waters. And we
offer specific budget recommendations for fiscal year 2012,
which can be found in my written testimony.
As an example of what can happen to public access when
agencies have inadequate funding, look to the Red River Gorge
in the Daniel Boone National Forest. Located in southwestern
Kentucky, the Red River Gorge contains one of the largest
concentrations of high-quality climbable rock in the United
States and attracts visitors from around the world. However,
the Forest Service does not have the resources to balance all
its obligations and still provide for the proper management of
these world-class climbing opportunities. Inadequate funding
for environmental assessments has prevented the Forest Service
from stewarding existing recreational sites and opening new
sites. The Forest Service is unable to assess areas that are
temporarily closed due to cultural and natural use conflicts,
which results in de facto long-term closures.
Climbers, mountain bikers, and other user groups bring
much-needed economic activity to this rural area. Without
sufficient funding, the U.S. Forest Service cannot afford to
conduct the studies or administer the processes which allow for
public access. As a result, would-be users, the local economy,
and the natural resources themselves suffer. And unfortunately,
this is all too common. The American people need open public
lands for recreation in both rural and urban areas for our
economy, for our physical, mental, and spiritual health, and to
instill an appreciation of our beautiful lands and waters in
our children.
We at the Access Fund have developed positive working
relationships with the agencies but we are not their
apologists. We are not interested in big government
bureaucracies, excessive regulation, or unneeded services.
However, these agencies need basic levels of funding to fulfill
their important missions.
I can only imagine the incredible pressures that all of you
are under to get government spending under control and I
appreciate the need for austerity and for discipline. Our
recommendations represent the minimum funding level we believe
is necessary to keep our Nation's great outdoors open and
stewarded for the benefit of the American people
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members, for the
opportunity to appear before you today. And I stand ready to
answer any questions you might have.
[The statement of Brady Robinson follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. We appreciate your testimony and
the work you do.
Mr. Robinson. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Jim----
Mr. Moran. Another graduate of Outward Bound, which hails--
Senator Mark Udall, a former colleague, is one of your alumni I
guess and the most prominent. It is a great program.
Mr. Robinson. Yes. He has been very supportive.
Mr. Moran. Yeah.
Mr. Robinson. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Next, we have Bill Chandler, Vice
President of Government Affairs for the Marine Conservation
Biology Institute.
----------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
MARINE CONSERVATION BIOLOGY INSTITUTE
WITNESS
BILL CHANDLER, VICE PRESIDENT FOR GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, MARINE
CONSERVATION BIOLOGY INSTITUTE
Mr. Chandler. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Good morning. How are you doing?
Mr. Chandler. It is a pleasure to be here, Moran, Members
of the subcommittee.
I represent Marine Conservation Biology Institute. It is a
nonprofit conservation organization based in the Seattle,
Washington area. We have been involved in the conservation of
our Pacific islands and Pacific island territory since 2005. I
would like to emphasize to the subcommittee that when President
Bush created the four national rain monuments out there that he
did during his term, he significantly increased the
responsibilities of the Fish and Wildlife Service. The service
now has lead responsibility or sole responsibility for about
225,000 additional square miles. Altogether, these monuments
have increased the size of the refuge system by about one-
third, which is sort of a startling number except, you know,
they do not have billions of hunters and fishermen trying to
get into the refuges out there, but it is a very large area.
These monuments are home to millions and millions of
seabirds, rare and abundant corals, some endangered species,
and in essence they represent a beacon of what pristine
ecosystems are supposed to look like for other nations of the
world that are trying to restore their own highly damaged coral
island systems throughout the Pacific. In other words, this is
a great benchmark--and there are not many left--to show the
world what these natural systems really look like and how they
are supposed to function.
To adequately meet its responsibilities, we estimate that
the Service needs an additional $18 million but I am not going
to ask for all of that today. This would allow them to do
several things that are not happening right now--for example,
to hire adequate management personnel, to develop plans for the
monuments which are, I should point out, two years behind. They
have already missed their deadline date for having the
management plans prepared along with NOAA. It would enable them
to procure transportation to get out to these islands. They
need to keep developing plans and implementing them to restore
a lot of the damage that occurred on the islands in the past
from military occupations during World War II. And they need to
keep the Midway Airfield open and maintained because Congress
directed that they do that a number of years ago. And finally,
they have to provide enforcement to these areas, consulting
with the Coast Guard and NOAA in order to make sure that
illegal fishing does not occur in our waters. And there is a
problem in that regard. I should also say that the 18 million
estimated need does not cover any damages associated with the
tsunami that swept over some of these places like Midway.
We are recommending in 2012 a funding level of about 9.03--
or just let us round it off to $9 million--for just the
monument activities of the Service out there. And this level of
funding would provide an additional $.5 million for Midway
operations, which they need, and the rest would cover the
following: managers for two of the monuments that do not have
them now, a public planner so that they can get these
management plans teed up and done, continued invasive species
removal work at a 2 or 300,000 level, and most important--and
what I want to emphasize this morning above all else--is travel
cost to get a contractor bidding party out to two islands in
the remote islands monument to prepare bids to give estimates
on what it would take to get two shipwrecks off those reefs.
And the problem with the shipwrecks is that they are not
just sitting there. They are leaching iron. The iron is causing
the explosive growth of a couple of nuisance species which are
killing corals. And at Palmyra Island alone the Fish and
Wildlife Service several years ago documented 250 acres of
pristine corals have been killed and they are going to keep
dying until they get these shipwrecks out and remove the source
of the leaching iron.
I have some pictures that I think most graphically show the
subcommittee what has been going on there and I will give--you
can just flip through these really quickly. The first one is
the wreck that showed up on Kingman in 2007. It is now
disintegrated and its iron parts, as I mentioned, are leaching
iron into the Kingman Reef area. The second picture you see
shows the Palmyra wreck, and all of that dark blue area in the
field is where the corallimorph has taken over and killed the
corals. And it is spreading. The next photo shows what the
corallimorph looks like. It is an anemone-like species that has
basically eliminated the natural corals that are there. And
then finally, another shot of the devastation that is
occurring.
I will also point out to the subcommittee that the Fish and
Wildlife Service has been aware of this problem for a number of
years but has failed to act. Inaction means more corals are
going to die and these monuments are going to be further
degraded. We frankly find this unacceptable and we hope that
the committee will give serious consideration to spurring
meaningful action on this matter this year.
And my conclusion after studying this for quite a bit is
that the first thing that we need to do is we need to spend
$60,000 or so to have the Fish and Wildlife Service fly out a
team of salvage contractors so that they can go to the wrecks,
figure out what it is going to take, and give the Fish and
Wildlife Service an honest estimate about what it would take to
move these wrecks.
In conclusion, I would say that overall the Fish and
Wildlife Service needs more resources to deal with their added
responsibilities out here. These places are important even
though people do not live on most of them. And we would hope
that this would receive favorable consideration by the
subcommittee. That concludes my testimony and I would be happy
to answer any questions regarding this particular issue or any
issue out there.
[The statement of Bill Chandler follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you for your testimony. I am sorry I had
to step out for just a second, but it is an interesting subject
that quite honestly I had not spent a lot of time thinking
about. So I appreciate you bringing it to our attention.
Mr. Chandler. You are quite welcome. I realize that deep
blue water is not a big thing that the Fish and Wildlife
Service has dealt with before, but now they have to because
they have been mandated to do so by four presidential
proclamations.
Mr. Simpson. There is not a lot of deep blue water near
Idaho. I appreciate it.
Mr. Chandler. Well, you will have to get them to take you
out to Midway----
Mr. Simpson. Yeah.
Mr. Chandler [continuing]. Mr. Simpson. That is a fabulous
trip and it will really give you real appreciation of what is
going on out there and what the needs are.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. Jim, do you have anything?
Mr. Moran. Just that $900 million is a lot of money. But
thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Chandler. Well, the 900 is for the whole refuge
system----
Mr. Moran. I understand.
Mr. Chandler [continuing]. Not for the monuments, sir.
Mr. Moran. Right. Yeah. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Next, we have Barbara King, private citizen,
BLM Land Transfers.
---------- --
--------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
BLM LAND TRANSFERS
WITNESS
BARBARA KING, PRIVATE CITIZEN, BLM LAND TRANSFERS
Ms. King. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee,
thank you very much for the opportunity to testify this
morning. My name is Barb King and I am here to testify against
funding the BLM Land Exchange program until land exchange
regulations regarding public notification in 43 C.F.R. Part
2200 are revised and written in plain English according to
President Obama's Executive Order 13583 and the Plain Writing
Act of 2010, sponsored by Congressman Moran.
Based on personal experience, I speak unofficially for two
groups of landowners whose property values are at risk because
regulations do not specifically require mailing them BLM formal
notices of an exchange. The Notice of Exchange Proposal informs
the public that an exchange has progressed beyond the
feasibility stage and the Notice of Decision announces the
approval of an exchange in the public comment period.
Interior Secretary Salazar should explain to this
subcommittee why adjacent landowners to BLM properties proposed
for disposal and all prospective end owners of the BLM land
known to an exchange facilitator are not considered
``appropriate'' to notify in the regulations Subpart 2201 and
also why BLM land managers ignore the BLM land exchange
handbook, especially chapters four, five, seven, and nine
relating to this notification issue.
Adding these two groups of people to BLM's notification
list by regulation would end the Department of Interior's
systemic lack of transparency about this issue and would be in
keeping with Secretary Salazar's 82-page Open Government Plan.
Because of this troubling 2009 Government Accountability Office
report on the program, #09-611, Congressional House Resolution
111-80 directed the Secretary to ensure that BLM's national
land exchange team documents in the exchange case file the full
disclosure of facilitators' contracts and related agreements.
Showing his indifference to the directive, the Secretary
simply reissued to BLM field officers the existing
unenforceable full disclosure policy in the handbook. Failure
to notify all of these parties will perpetuate BLM's
longstanding problem with appraisals when a patentee resells
the former BLM land at a profit at the expense of the Federal
Government and other landowners. Given the news stories, the
GAO reports, departmental reorganizations, and congressional
inquiries for over a decade, Secretary Salazar should take
every step possible to improve this program. Clearly enforcing
the full disclosure policy is one of them.
Since the Secretary will not do that, it should be required
by regulation and the team made accountable for enforcing it.
Specifically, the team should document that all prospective end
owners were added to the BLM's mailing list, they were listed
on appraisal request forms, the appraiser offered them equal
opportunity to attend site inspections, and they received the
Notice of Decision. All of this is necessary to ensure accurate
appraisals, fair return to taxpayers, and a protection of
private property values.
I respectfully encourage members of this subcommittee and
all Congressmen and Senators who advocate for land exchanges to
read the GAO and House Appropriations Committee reports and
then read Secretary Salazar's response to them. Having done
that, I believe you will support legislation requiring these
revisions. As long as this program is run with contempt for
public inquiry and congressional scrutiny, it should not be
funded. And that is the opinion of a taxpayer when we are
looking at asking taxpayers in 50 states to fund projects in 8
states.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you so
much for this opportunity.
[The statement of Barbara King follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982A.065
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982A.066
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. You posed some interesting
questions that I do not have the answer to, obviously. Mr.
Moran.
Mr. Moran. No, I agree.
Mr. Simpson. We will pose those questions to the right
people.
Ms. King. Okay. Thank you very much.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. Thank you for your testimony.
Next, we have Madeleine Pickens, founder of Saving America's
Mustangs. Welcome, Madeleine.
---------- --
--------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
SAVING AMERICA'S MUSTANGS
WITNESS
MADELEINE PICKENS, FOUNDER, SAVING AMERICA'S MUSTANGS
Ms. Pickens. Thank you. I am honored, Chairman, to be here,
and Congressman Moran. It is really interesting here today
listening to everybody and their monuments and Fish and
Wildlife. They all have so much. And I am here representing the
American mustang. And it is extraordinary that we have to get a
life of our own, but I think we are here.
And I stand here as an immigrant to the United States. I
was born in Iraq. I was fortunate because I dreamed of coming
here. I fell in love with America. I used to go to movies with
my father and watch westerns and I could not wait to get here.
So many of you in this room were born here. You were born rich.
You have a great history. I think too many of you have
forgotten what it is all about.
And so I present to you--I have Chief Arvol Looking Horse,
19th generation keeper of the sacred white buffalo calf pipe of
the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota Nation of the Sioux, and his wife
Paula, as well as Travis Jackson, Junior. And he represents the
Seminole Nation from Oklahoma. We are pleased to be also
accompanied by wounded Army veterans Brian Field and Clay
Rankin, along with their service dogs Justice and Harley. These
are some of our great American heroes. And we have Stacy Dagel
here. She represents all of the American citizens who were not
able to attend this hearing. And all of these special people
have traveled from all over the Nation to be here in support of
our wild horses. I am here to realize another dream--on behalf
of our American mustang--a permanent home for them called
Mustang Monument in Nevada.
Wild horses and burros are unfortunately a frustration and
management dilemma for the Bureau of Land Management. These
wild animals were designated by Congress as living American
historical symbols by the Wild Horse and Burro Act, PL 92-195.
How have these national living symbols of American history been
devalued as less deserving than a national historic stone
monument? Why are these wild animals a frustration and dilemma
to the Bureau of Land Management? It is because the multiple-
use culture of the Agency encourages commercial and political
interest to prevail over the interest of wild horses and burros
on public lands. I am sure that if our national historic
monuments or parks were managed by Bureau of Land Management,
these public properties, too, would be subject to short-term
commercial and political interest.
Through the creation of Mustang Monument, a historic living
museum, thousands of wild horses and burros could be managed by
the Department of Interior with an emphasis on protection for
and public interaction with these magnificent living symbols of
American history. Surely this approach is in keeping with the
spirit and intent of Congress. A living versus stone historic
monument is a difficult concept for management. But both are
equally important to sanctify and preserve our American history
and culture for future generations of American people.
A living monument is the missing key to the proper
management of horses and burros removed from HMA areas, Horse
Management Areas, which honors the intent and spirit of
Congress, as ordered in PL 92-195. Over the course of the past
three years, I have had numerous conversations and meetings
with Bureau of Land Management Personnel in Washington and
Nevada. They all agree the demand for adopting wild horses and
burros is inadequate to keep up with animals gathered annually.
Fertility control has its place, but it is not slowing the need
to gather thousands of animals annually. The cost of confining
gathered horses in feedlots is out of control. The living
conditions inhumane and the Agency needs millions of dollars
more each year to feed the growing herds of wild animals in
captivity. And the Agency needs new authority to implement a
new solution.
So the existing Wild Horse and Burro Program is not
sustainable. Every year the program costs the taxpayers
millions of dollars more. Every year the Agency gathers
thousands of horses which are not adoptable. And every GAO
report on the Wild Horse and Burro Program states the same
conclusion. The program needs to be fixed.
We have broken out the current cost of the BLM program with
a significant cost savings with my sanctuary proposal. And I
believe you all have that there. With my proposal, the
government stands to save $607 million. It is amazing. You
know, when you gather these horses off the range and many of
them are mares, they are in foal. Those babies are born in
captivity. When they are born in captivity, you feed them every
day hay and water. They live another 10 to 20 years. You know,
people forget that. When they live on the range, they have a
shorter life. But that is nature. That is how it is supposed to
be. So not only have you gathered them, but you have now
guaranteed yourself another 10 to 15 years of looking after
them. You have got to do something about it. I have a chart
here that you all have that you can take and see.
Quite candidly, the leadership within the Department of
Interior and Bureau of Land Management feel their hands are
tied, tied by the language within the Taylor Grazing Act and
Wild Horse and Burro Act. And these fine men and women are
waiting for you to provide new direction and authority so they
can create these public-private partnerships. Employees within
the Bureau of Land Management cannot lobby Congress for this
new authority but they sure would like your approval to relax
the Taylor Grazing Act and the Wild Horse and Burro Act and
create a new opportunity to combine large tracts of public
lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management with
private lands as new homes for the wild horses and burros.
I have discussed this plan with the BLM and they agree with
the concept. Both Secretary Salazar and Director Bob Abbey have
been involved working out the details to ensure the plan is
ecologically sound, economically feasible, and socially
attainable. And without fail, every western movie I saw as a
child always had the same ending. The cowboy would rush in and
save the day. It is now in your hands to be the right cowboy
and turn this program around.
By unanimous decision in 1971 Congress made it clear that
the wild horse is an American icon and we call it the American
mustang. We have with us and I have right here 72,000 emails
and letters from the public stating how horrified they are with
what the BLM is doing and asking for a moratorium on the
roundups immediately. This volume of letters is exponentially
high and needs to be justly delivered to the BLM by way of your
ruling. The American public is counting on this Appropriations
Committee to take action today and give our mustangs back their
right to live on the range.
Please remember my website everybody here,
SavingAmericasMustangs.org. Join us. We have a huge army of
support now and I am delighted to be here today. I know I am
talking to the right cowboy.
[The statement of Madeleine Pickens follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982A.067
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982A.068
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982A.069
Mr. Simpson. Thank you for being here, Madeleine. You know,
we sat in the office and talked about this. There are, as you
mentioned, challenges in doing it. The Taylor Grazing Act would
need to be changed, a few things like that which this committee
cannot do but the Natural Resources Committee is the one that
does that work. You point out a true problem that has got to be
solved.
Ms. Pickens. You know we can solve it. You know we all care
about the horse. Unfortunately, it got degraded to nothing. And
I think together we can do this. So you know, we were broke two
years ago and you came up with billions upon billions of
dollars to the banks and handed it out overnight, so I am sure
this is a whole lot cheaper to fix. And I have already bought
land. I bought land in Nevada. We have got, you know, over half
a million acres now. We just need to change it from cattle
grazing to horse grazing. So you know, when we all come forward
as Americans here, join us. Help us. You are the people with
the voice. You can be our John Wayne.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Moran. Well, thank you, Cowboy Simpson.
Ms. Pickens. It is okay.
Mr. Moran. As you know, I would love to see your plan work,
Ms. Pickens, and I appreciate your tenacity and your dedication
to the American mustang. And we will see what we can do.
Mr. Jackson. Mr. Moran.
Mr. Moran. Yes, sir?
Mr. Jackson. Would you honor me to say a few words, please?
Mr. Moran. Mr. Simpson is the chair.
Mr. Simpson. Briefly, yeah.
Mr. Jackson. Okay. My name is Travis Jackson, Junior. One
hundred and fifty one years ago our people were moved from the
East Coast to now what is Oklahoma. It is a shame that God's
creatures, your Bible, does not say anything about, you know, a
difference between men. It is just God's creatures. We all have
the right to live. We all have the right to survive. One
hundred and fifty one years ago, someone else wanted our land
and they moved it away from us. We now live in Oklahoma. But
our heart is still. We believe in you. We believe in your God.
Show us that we are right. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.
Mr. Simpson. Cynthia, did you have----
Mrs. Lummis. You know, I do. And Mrs. Pickens, I know that
this is your raison d'etre. But I can tell you that a number of
the well-meaning concepts that have been implemented by your
group is damaging the grass resource that is the very lifeblood
of the mustangs that you so desperately want to help. I come
from a state that has a large number of these wild horses,
Wyoming, and we are very reverent when it comes to the Pryor
Mountain herd and other wild horse lands. But there are so many
horses that they are destroying the grass resource and when the
grass resource is gone, it is gone not only for the horses but
for other species--mankind, elk, deer, buffalo, and other
species that are integral to a vibrant ecosystem.
These ecosystems are fragile. The topsoil is very thin and
these horses that are not native to this land but were brought
in and are feral to this land, when they are too numerous, tamp
the soil down in a way that requires a change in the way the
land is managed. And that is because the horse hoof is a solid
hoof. The buffalo, elk, deer hoof is a split hoof. So when you
have the native grazers of those lands, which are the elk,
deer, buffalo, they knead the soil when they graze and walk.
And horses tamp it down. So when the horses are too numerous,
when it rains, they are tamping the soil and then the rain runs
off. And you can look at studies of grazing ungulates that will
show the damage that can be done when wild horses are too
numerous. There are places in Wyoming where they are too
numerous.
So I appreciate your coming forward with solutions as
opposed to saying the horse is more sacred than other species;
therefore, we want to elevate them above all other species in
terms of the management of species. But I would also argue that
it is important to address these issues realistically. And the
Bureau of Land Management is a land management agency. And they
are looking out for the best interests of the land because the
land has to be protected in order to be a vibrant resource for
all species, native and feral horses as well.
So I would be happy to work with you because I think some
of the solutions that you have pushed thus far have been
detrimental. But I also think that some of the ideas that you
have going forward could be helpful. So although you and I
disagree somewhat fundamentally on what should be the role of
the wild horse in relation to other species, I think we can
agree that the current status quo is unacceptable and that
there needs to be some changes. And I hope that you would be
willing to work with me.
Ms. Pickens. I look forward to, actually, if you do not
mind I will give you a call and I will come by because I am not
quite sure what you are referring to what we do not agree with.
So I am delighted to have met you today. And I will call upon
you if I may, I would love to chat with you and go over the
whole thing because I am very confident that there is always a
solution to everything in life.
I actually have a statement perpetuating the myth that wild
horses are desecrating the public lands. One hundred years ago
we had two million horses roaming the plains. Perhaps they
could have desecrated the lands there. Today, we are left with
probably 20 to 30,000 horses. There is no way, as I fly across
this country every week and look below me, there is not enough
of them out there to desecrate the land. Some states only have
a few hundred. How could they be destroying the lands? In
states like Nevada, where nearly half of the wild horses
reside, allocate more than 10 to 1 acres for cows versus
horses. So yet your horses bear the brunt of the myth about
overgrazing and to continue to tell people that they are dying
and starving when it is obvious that all gathers that nearly
all the horses are in good condition is another one of those
overblown statements that does not pass the straight-face test.
You know, all this stuff about desecrating the land, I do
not know where it came from. I have done so much research. It
is just the saddest thing. And that is why I would be willing
to fly out there with you and let us spend some time together
and get over all of these myths.
Mr. Simpson. Well, I appreciate that. And you two get
together and work this out if you would because we have used
much, much more than the five minutes that was accommodated.
Ms. Pickens. We deserved it.
Mr. Simpson. Did you have a brief statement you wanted--a
brief something you wanted to say? Go ahead.
Mr. Looking Horse. I am the keeper of the sacred pipe and
we are from the sacred Black Hills, the heart of mother earth.
We use horses in our ceremony and we have like proof that the
horses were here during the dinosaur time but that we just know
that people like ourselves--but we are the first nations here.
We have ceremonies. We maintain the environment through our
ceremonies, through our sacred sites, and we follow the animal
nation. And right now the white animals are showing their
sacred color, which is white, and that is why we are coming
forth, stepping forward to protect the wild horses, all the
horses, because in our ceremonies they are very sacred to our
ceremonies and that is why I come here because we need the
horses on this sacred land here.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate your
testimony today. Next, we have Congressman Dan Burton from
Indiana's 5th Congressional District.
----------
Thursday, April 14, 2011.
BLM, WILD HORSES
WITNESS
HON. DAN BURTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA
Mr. Burton. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I apologize for my
tardiness. I was a little late getting here so I did not hear
all of Ms. Pickens' testimony. It is because I had three
committee hearings at the same time. And as you know, what we
try to do as Members of Congress--and I know you would
appreciate this as well--is we try to make sure that Members of
Congress can testify as early as possible so that they can make
their other obligations in the Congress.
Mr. Simpson. Yes, I know.
Mr. Burton. And so I am a little disappointed that we were
not able to solve that because we have got two governors
sitting up in one room I am supposed to question. We have----
Mr. Simpson. Well, I apologize to the gentleman. The
schedule was put out earlier. If there had been a conflict that
we had known about, we would have made those arrangements. It
is hard to interrupt in the middle of the scheduled hearing.
But I understand your comments.
Mr. Burton. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate them. I will take them into
advice.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to the
day that you can come before my subcommittee.
Let me just say, Mr. Chairman, that there are 37,000 wild
horses on BLM lands and more than 30,000 additional horses that
are being held in short- and long-term holding facilities. It
is costing tons of money. I think it has gone from $20 million
a year to a $75 million request by the President this year. And
it is going up. And as you know, we have budgetary problems and
we are trying to figure out ways to economize. Now the Bureau
of Land Management, after you were kind enough to allow us to
have an amendment to the H.R. 1 for $2 million, it sent a
message to the Bureau of Land Management. And on March the
25th, BLM issued a request for proposals to establish wild
horse ecosanctuaries to be established on private lands.
Now, it is interesting that Ms. Pickens has been working on
this for many years and she proposed this very same program
three years ago and the Bureau of Land Management turned a deaf
ear and would not even talk to her about that or at least give
her a fair hearing on it. And now because we have shone a
little light on the subject, they are asking for almost exactly
what she was proposing three years ago. She is really concerned
about the wild horses and she is more than willing to put her
money where her mouth is. She has bought two ranches out there
and she has got permits for another 4 or 500,000 acres. And I
think she stated very clearly--to answer your questions--that
instead of millions of horses like we used to have on the
plains, we have just maybe 30, 40,000 out there now. And for
them to do damage to the ecosystem stretches credulity.
And I know that many of the ranchers and others are very
concerned about their cattle and their grazing lands and
everything, and I think that is something that should be looked
into and should be worked on. But at the same time to put these
horses in pens, to move them hundreds and hundreds of miles
away from their habitat to these pens and pay up to $2,500 a
year per horse to take care of them when Ms. Pickens could do
it for much, much less if an agreement could be reached. And in
addition, she has indicated she would take steps to make sure
that the herds do not expand so it would not hurt the
ecosystem. And she can do that through various methods to make
sure that they do not reproduce.
So I will submit this for the record, Mr. Chairman, but I
really believe that we are talking about something that should
be dealt with. The Bureau of Land Management should deal with
it. It would be economically advantageous for the United States
of America because it would cost a lot less money. It would
save the horses. I do not think it would damage the ecosystem.
And there are people out there who are willing, in addition to
Ms. Pickens, who are willing to get together with her and form
associations that will pay almost all of the freight for this.
So it is more of a political thing than it is a cost thing as
far as to the government, other than what they are already
spending, which is about $70-some million a year. And with
that, I will submit the rest of my statement for the record,
and if you have any questions, I would be glad to answer them
for you.
[The statement of Hon. Dan Burton follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982A.070
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982A.071
Mr. Simpson. Well, I appreciate that. And I appreciate your
concern about what we are spending on this wild horses program.
Everybody is concerned about the increased cost that we have
been spending on wild horses and burros and how we can address
it. And I have looked at the proposal by Ms. Pickens with some
interest. There are some challenges in that it would take a
change in the Taylor Grazing Act, in probably the Wild Horse
and Burro Act, and those types of things, which we cannot do
here. But I hope that the BLM will sit down and if they have
got problems with it or questions about it, at least raise
those so we will know what those issues are and maybe they can
be addressed.
Mr. Burton. And let me just say one more thing, Mr.
Chairman. You are in a position of authority, along with Mr.
Moran, and I would appreciate it if you could talk to the
leadership at the Bureau of Land Management and ask them to
really get serious with Ms. Pickens and take a hard look at her
plan because they have just said publicly that they wanted to
come up with something very similar to that.
Mr. Simpson. Yeah.
Mr. Burton. And try to make sure that they are willing to
work with her to help solve this problem.
Mr. Simpson. I have no problem doing that. I would like to
know so that if--they may come up with an answer to me and I
go, gee, I had not thought about that and you make absolute
sense. I do not know. I would like to know what their concerns
are and stuff and, you know, so I have the right answers.
Mr. Burton. Okay.
Mr. Simpson. Because we all want to deal with this issue
that is getting more and more expensive I think and taking up a
larger share of our budget. So I appreciate it and thank you
for your interest in it.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Simpson. You bet. Hearing will be adjourned for today.
Friday, April 15, 2011.
TESTIMONY OF INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS
Mr. Simpson. The committee will come to order. I am in
order, since I am the committee today. We are going to have a
hectic schedule today because we are going to be interrupted by
votes about every hour or so on the various budget proposals
that are over there, and we just had our first vote, which is
why we are five minutes late, and I talked to Mr. Moran, who is
on his way to vote and he said he will be back in just a few
minutes and to go ahead and start.
So good morning, and welcome to a second day of public
witness hearings. This morning the subcommittee will hear from
a cross-section of individuals representing a wide variety of
issues addressed by this subcommittee. Each witness will be
provided with five minutes to present their testimony. Members
will be provided an opportunity to ask questions of our
witnesses, but in the interest of time, the chair would request
that we keep things moving along. It is likely that we will
have House floor votes but we will do the best we can to get
through this morning.
I am happy now to yield to my friend, Mr. Moran, who is not
here. Thank you, Mr. Moran, for your opening statement. He will
be back shortly.
Our first witness today is Shelley Roberts, CEO of the
Idaho Rural Water Association. How are you doing, Shelley?
Ms. Roberts. Good. How are you?
Mr. Simpson. Good.
----------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WITNESS
SHELLEY ROBERTS, CEO, IDAHO RURAL WATER ASSOCIATION
Ms. Roberts. I would like to thank you and the members of
the subcommittee for the opportunity to appear before you to
discuss the Environmental Protection Agency's technical
assistance of training and source water protection initiatives
that directly benefit rural America. My name is Shelley Roberts
and I am the CEO of Idaho Rural Water Association representing
over 350 small and rural communities that have to comply with
all EPA regulations. There are similar associations throughout
all the states.
Before I begin, I would like to thank you and your staff
for all the support and guidance you have offered. We are very
grateful.
My purpose in appearing before you is to simply emphasize
the importance of providing small drinking water systems
training and technical assistance in complying with the ever-
expanding requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Of the
billions of dollars provided to EPA by the subcommittee each
year, small rural communities will tell you they see and feel
the most benefit from the dollars provided to rural water
programs. It is simple: Small communities want to ensure
quality drinking water. Local water supplies are operated by
people who are locally elected and whose families drink the
water every day. However, they need assistance in a form they
can understand. Funding provided to rural water programs across
the country and in Idaho allow for spending to be more results-
oriented, non-regulatory, less bureaucratic, more effective and
less expensive.
Currently, 92 percent of the 50,000 community water systems
in our Nation serve populations of less than 10,000. We urge
you to continue funding the training and technical assistance
and source water protection initiatives at the authorized level
of $15 million.
In Idaho, we have nearly 2,000 EPA-regulated drinking water
systems of which only 20 serve populations over 10,000 people.
That means that 1,947 water systems in Idaho serve small
communities. There are similar comparisons on other states. I
have witnessed a direct correlation between this assistance and
increased compliance and sustainable activities for the
utilities in Idaho. EPA has also made similar findings across
the country. In the long run, water systems that are maintained
and properly managed actually save the community and the
Federal Government money.
The Federal Government mandates operators to be certified
and receive continuing education each year. The only place
small communities can receive that training is through state
rural water associations. Last year, Idaho Rural Water offered
38 training sessions throughout Idaho and had nearly 1,100
attendees. In your district alone, we provided training to 318
water officials representing 115 different communities. As our
communities learned about the potential EPA funding cut, we had
an immediate outcry from our members, community leaders and
even other state and federal agencies. This stack of letters
here represents just a small portion of the communities that
will be adversely impacted both financially and technically as
a result of loss of EPA funding this year. Our phones are
ringing off the hook with people trying to enroll for classes
that are being closed due to space limitations.
One example of the onsite assistance Idaho Rural Water has
provided occurred in Hazelton in southern Idaho. The Hazelton
low-income housing facility has only 40 water connections and
is typical of the over 10,000 communities assisted each year by
state rural water associations. The Hazelton Housing Authority
was struggling to find a licensed operator and approached Rural
Water for help. Rural Water provided one-on-one personal
training to help someone at the housing authority pass the test
so that the small housing facility could continue to serve
these families. There are many, many examples just like this
where small communities turn to Rural Water to help when all
other resources have been exhausted and communities are trying
their best to remain in compliance with state and federal
regulations.
We urge you to continue to fund this small part of EPA's
budget. Just one-half of 1 percent of their budget benefits
thousands of communities and millions of people that depend on
it for safe drinking water. Thank you for your time.
[The statement of Shelley Roberts follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982A.072
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982A.073
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I appreciate your testimony. You
will find, I think, that this committee and I in particular
have been very supportive of the work you do and the Rural
Water Association is very important to us, and the difficulty
we have, as you know, has been this earmark ban. It has always
been looked at as an earmark in the past, and now trying to
figure out how to fund it without having it labeled an earmark
is the challenge that we are having in that, but we are working
on it and I will try to make sure that we continue the funding
for this program so that you can do the important work you do
out in the rural communities. So I appreciate it very much.
Ms. Roberts. Yes, and we thank you for all your support.
Mr. Simpson. You bet. Thank you.
Next we have Dr. Anthony Szema, the Assistant Professor of
Medicine and Surgery, Stony Brook School of Medicine. Welcome.
----------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WITNESS
DR. ANTHONY M. SZEMA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY, SUNY
STONY BROOK SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Mr. Szema. Thank you, Congressman Simpson, for the
invitation to testify. I am Dr. Anthony Szema, the Assistant
Professor of Medicine and Surgery at the State University of
New York at Stony Brook School of Medicine. My board
certifications are in pulmonary diseases, critical care
medicine, internal medicine and clinical adult and pediatric
allergy and immunology, and my undergraduate degree is in
industrial and management engineering from Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
Between 2004 and 2009, I was an NIH K08 Mentored Clinical
Scientist Award recipient, and although I am chief of the
allergy section at the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical
Center in Northport, New York, I am testifying today on behalf
of the American Thoracic Society, which is an independently
incorporated international education and research scientific
society focusing on respiratory, critical care and sleep
medicine. The American Thoracic Society has 14,000 members who
help prevent and fight respiratory disease around the globe
through research, education, patient care and advocacy
initiatives. It was founded in 2005, and we want to decrease
morbidity and mortality--death--from respiratory diseases,
life-threatening acute illnesses and sleep-related breathing
disorders. So as such, we have a keen interest in the impact
that the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory
enforcement actions have on public health.
I have four points. First is the EPA's standard-setting
power plant air toxic rule. The EPA is in the process of
setting a number of important public health standards under the
auspices of the Clean Air Act. Most recently, the EPA released
a proposed rule that will for the first time address toxic air
pollution released from coal- and oil-fired power plants. The
proposed rule will remove tons of toxic pollutants including
mercury, lead, nickel, dioxins and acid gases from the air we
breathe. All are known to have immediate and long-term health
effects including health effects of children. Today, more than
60 percent of power plant operators have acted responsibly and
installed pollution control equipment to reduce these toxic
emissions. The proposed rule will require all power plants to
install readily available, modern pollution control technology
by 2016. The American Thoracic Society strongly supports this
proposed rule and urges Congress to allow the EPA to move
forward with implementation of the Power Plant Air Toxic Rule.
Number two: EPA standard-setting on ozone and particulate
matter. The American Thoracic Society expects the Obama
Administration to release two additional important public
health standards that will address ozone and particulate matter
air pollution. Both these pollutants are regulated by the Clean
Air Act and have a significant impact on our Nation's health.
Hundreds of studies have demonstrated that exposure to ozone
and particulate matter air pollution is bad for your health.
These pollutants cause premature death, asthma attacks, chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations, ischemic heart
disease exacerbations, emergency room visits, missed school and
work days, and as a dentist, you know periodontal disease
associated with cigarette smoking. There is conclusive research
that demonstrates that the current EPA standard for ozone and
particulate matter need to be tightened. We at the American
Thoracic Society urge the subcommittee to recognize this
important body of work and provide the EPA with the resources
it needs to issue and enforce revised standards for ozone and
particulate matter air pollution.
Number three: EPA National Ambient Air Quality Standards
monitoring. In addition to establishing standards for air
pollution limits, the EPA is also charged with developing and
maintaining a network of monitors which measure the level of
pollution in our Nation's air. Unfortunately, we know the
current monitoring is inadequate. There are not enough monitors
to accurately gauge air pollution associated with highways and
other areas that are congested with automobiles and this means
we are underestimating the air pollution to which we are
exposed and hence underappreciating the risk that air pollution
poses to America's health. Fortunately, there are new
technologies available including satellite monitoring, which
can greatly enhance the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the
EPA's monitoring efforts. The American Thoracic Society
strongly urges Congress to provide the EPA with the funding
necessary to evaluate and revamp its current clean air
pollution monitoring network.
Number four: EPA and climate change. The American Thoracic
Society is disappointed in the direction that Congress is
headed when it comes to issues related to climate change. Our
children and grandchildren will pay the price for Congress's
inability to address climate change. Climate change will bring
severe adverse human health effects. Research has demonstrated
the spread of malaria to higher elevations due to rising
temperatures. Studies have demonstrated that high
concentrations of carbon dioxide, or CO2 gas, from higher
temperatures and a length in spring season will mean a more
severe prolonged allergy season, including those with allergic
asthma. High temperatures will also increase heat-related
deaths in both major cities and rural areas. The EPA has
composed reasonable policies that would begin to address
climate change. If Congress attempts to remove, delay or
circumscribe the EPA's authority to address this significant
public health issue, the American Thoracic Society would like
to send a univocal, unambiguous message that obstructionism
will only increase the problem and add to the toll on human
health and raise the economic cost associated with addressing
climate change. We at the American Thoracic Society also
believe that the success of the EPA Clean Air Act holds
valuable lessons for Congress and the EPA as well as both
bodies should consider how to deal with climate change. The
technology used to reduce traditional pollutants like ozone and
particulate air matter can also be used to address greenhouse
gas emissions.
The American Thoracic Society continues to play an active
role in addressing global climate change, and in May 2010 the
organization hosted a workshop on the respiratory health
effects of global climate change chaired by Dr. William Ron of
New York University. We expect the workshop report to be
finished shortly, and will provide, number one, guidance to the
known and likely respiratory health effects of climate change,
and number two, pose valuable research questions to further our
understanding of how climate change is impacting human health.
Congressman Simpson, respectfully, on behalf of the
American Thoracic Society, I appreciate the opportunity to
comment on the fiscal year 2012 budget of the Environmental
Protection Agency before you and Congressman Moran on the
Committee of Appropriations, Subcommittee on Interior,
Environment, and Related Agencies.
[The statement of Anthony M. Szema follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you for your testimony. My guess is,
just offhand, I do not know this, but my guess is just offhand,
you guys did not like the dump truck of H.R. 1. Thank you for
your testimony. We appreciate it.
Do you have anything, Mr. Moran?
Mr. Moran. No.
Mr. Szema. Clean air is good, dirty air is bad.
Mr. Simpson. Our next witness is Ryan Schmitt, Chairman of
the Board of the National Utility Contractors Association.
----------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WITNESS
RYAN SCHMITT, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, NATIONAL UTILITY CONTRACTORS
ASSOCIATION (NUCA)
Mr. Schmitt. Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Moran and
honorable members of the subcommittee who are here in spirit,
my name is Ryan Schmitt. I am the President of Petticoat-
Schmitt Civil Contractors in Jacksonville, Florida. Our company
does water and sewer projects throughout northeast Florida and
southeast Georgia. I appreciate the opportunity to participate
in this hearing on behalf of NUCA. NUCA is the oldest and
largest national trade association, representing the utility
construction and excavation industries. NUCA also serves as the
chair of the Clean Water Coalition, a coalition of 37
organizations representing contractors, designers, suppliers
and manufacturers, labor and other organizations who support
sound environmental infrastructure.
I am here today to convey NUCA's support for the inclusion
of $3.5 billion for the EPA's State Revolving Fund programs in
the fiscal year 2012 Interior/Environment appropriations
measures. Specifically, we ask the subcommittee to include $2.1
billion for the Clean Water SRF and $1.4 billion for the
Drinking Water SRF. These investment levels would restore the
fiscal year 2010 levels and would provide critical funding for
these economically sound programs in a time when our country is
in dire need of increased infrastructure investment.
The construction industry continues to face the highest
unemployment rates than any other industry sector. The Bureau
of Labor Statistics report for March indicated unemployment in
construction is now over 20 percent and over 2 million
construction workers out of work. My home State of Florida has
lost 350,000 construction jobs in the last five years, which
represents over 52 percent of the available construction
workforce. This staggering statistic has drastically affected
the overall economy of our region, and this alleged turnaround
that some people speak of is nowhere to be seen and we do not
see it coming. It is very discouraging to continually report to
my employees that we have got no upcoming work on the books.
Although SRF projects are recognized for their success in
enhancing public health and environmental protection, it is
their economic benefits that are largely overlooked. Clean
water projects help the economy by creating jobs, generating
economic activity and expanding the local tax base. It is
important to note that the jobs offered in this industry are
good, high-paying jobs that are provided right here in America.
These cannot be shipped overseas.
In 2009, the Clean Water Council released a study on job
creation and enhanced economic activity that comes with
investment in water and wastewater. The study, titled ``Sudden
Impact,'' which I have right here, shows that a $1 billion
investment in water and sewer projects results in one, the
creation of 27,000 new jobs with average annual earnings of
over $50,000; two, total national output for demand of products
and services in all industries with $3.46 billion; three,
personal household income between $1.01 and $1.06 billion; and
lastly, approximately $82.4 million in local and state tax
revenue.
The need to invest in America's underground environmental
infrastructure is well known, clearly documented and has broad
support. According to the EPA, $298 billion is needed in the
next 20 years to support America's need for wastewater
infrastructure and $334 billion over the same time period is
needed for the drinking water infrastructure.
You know, what is out of sight and out of mind to most
people is clearly visible to NUCA members like myself, and the
view from the trenches is not pleasant. Right now, my company
is working on a water and sewer project just outside of
downtown Jacksonville, and we happen to be working in front of
a very nice restaurant, a restaurant you might visit you were
dining with our mayor, as he likes to frequent this
organization.
Mr. Simpson. Not anymore.
Mr. Schmitt. As you can see from those pictures, in this
section of pipe, a water pipe, mind you, that was taken out of
service that provided water to that restaurant, there was over
one inch of tuberculated material built up in that existing
water line.
Now, fortunately, the patrons have been safe because this
fine restaurant put in a filtration system for their water.
However, why is it in a developed country that we have got to
filter our water systems and why do countless American families
who cannot afford a filtration system have to work from
tuberculated water mains? Well, the answer is, they do not have
to. A robust SRF program can provide the drinking water and
wastewater systems that Americans deserve. A healthy SRF plays
a key role in enhancing public health, safety, protecting the
environment and maintaining a strong economic base. Currently,
the SRF programs face just under a $1 billion cut in the 2011
Continuing Resolution and many in Congress are calling for
reinstating the 2008 spending levels next year. That would mean
almost $2 billion would be cut from the SRF program over two
years. That is a 67 percent reduction in the Clean Water SRF
and a 40 percent cut to the Drinking Water SRF since 2010. To
that end, NUCA strongly encourages the subcommittee to include
$2.1 billion and $1.4 billion to the Clean Water SRF and
Drinking Water, SRF, respectively.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony for the
record.
[The statement of Ryan Schmitt follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you for your testimony. We appreciate it
very much. Surprisingly, I agree with what you said. The
problem is, we have the dual problems of infrastructure needs
throughout this country and not just water and sewer, but I
have given the speech many times--it would take too long to
give it now--but locks and dams and harbors and inland waterway
maintenance, the grid system, roads and bridges, our whole
infrastructure is crumbling and we have to do something about
it, and we have got to find a better way to fund it. That is
what I have been working on with some other members, how are we
going to fund this in the future.
Actually, when you look at the needs, a $1 billion cut is
barely a dent in the overall needs. We have got to find a
better way to address it in the future so that we have the
resources to address this kind of stuff, and the reason the
public does not cry out about this is that nobody thinks about
it when they turn on their water tap and water comes out. They
never think about how it gets there. Nobody ever thinks about
what happens when they flush their toilet. So it is a big
problem. I think it is the biggest challenging facing the
country in the future, to tell you the truth. So I appreciate
your testimony.
Mr. Schmitt. Yes, I concur. The EPA is talking about $35
million a year and here we are talking about, you know, $3.5
billion a year.
Mr. Simpson. That is right.
Mr. Schmitt. It is a huge spread.
Mr. Simpson. Yes, that is right. I appreciate it.
Mr. Schmitt. Thank you for your support.
Mr. Simpson. Jim.
Mr. Moran. I agree with the chairman very much. It does
occur to me that so many people do not mind paying $2 for a
plastic bottle of bottled water when a very modest assessment
on the water that they pay for from the municipal sources would
enable us to rebuild our infrastructure, which is in drastic
need. I do not know why we do not do that. What we have, of
course, is a revolving fund. The municipalities borrow that
money from the state fund and then pay it back. I said on the
Floor yesterday, it is beyond me why these governors, some of
them, were so critical of federal spending and support of our
cuts and the revolving funds and yet it is money out of their
pockets that is desperately needed to rebuild our water
infrastructure. Just as we need our plumbing in our own home to
be working functionally, the public's plumbing under the ground
needs to be working functionally as well. This is a devastating
picture, but I suspect it is not all that unique.
But I agree with the chairman. We have got to figure out a
better way of financing. Thank you very much for your
testimony.
Mr. Schmitt. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Our next witness is Richard Opper, President and Director
of the Environmental Council of the States, Montana Department
of Environmental Quality. Is that right?
Mr. Opper. That is correct.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Opper. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. How is the weather in Montana?
Mr. Opper. It is not as much of a springtime as I am
experiencing here.
Mr. Simpson. Imagine that.
Mr. Opper. I am finally starting to thaw out, Mr. Chairman.
---------- --
--------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WITNESS
RICHARD OPPER, PRESIDENT/DIRECTOR, ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL OF THE STATES,
MONTANA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Mr. Opper. Good morning to you, and good morning,
Representative Moran, and thank you for having me here, and as
you said, I am here to testify on behalf of the states and
territorial environmental agencies that are members of ECOS,
the Environmental Council of States, and I am lucky to be the
Director of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. I
often say Montana is the most beautiful state in the country,
but you being from Idaho, you might take some exception to
that.
Mr. Simpson. A little bit.
Mr. Opper. And I do not want to get off on the wrong foot.
Mr. Moran. The only other guy I have heard say that is Rep.
Rechberg.
Mr. Simpson. Montana is a gorgeous, gorgeous state, and I
have never understood why on the eastern part of our State of
Idaho they did not just take that line and go straight north.
Mr. Moran. There you go.
Mr. Opper. There actually is a story about that.
Mr. Simpson. I know. I know there is.
Mr. Opper. The story being that we bought off the surveyors
with a lot of alcohol.
Mr. Moran. Is that a true story?
Mr. Opper. Well, I do not know if it true or not but I am
sure spreading it, and I have heard it many times.
Mr. Moran. It is a gorgeous state, but Idaho is too.
Mr. Simpson. They thought they were on the continental
divide and they missed it.
Mr. Opper. They missed it, and they missed it because they
were drunk, so you know what the currency is in my state. I
think I digress.
I just have two points to make. They are fairly simple. One
is that I think you should understand that what seems to you
perhaps like cuts to EPA very often translate to cuts to the
states instead. In fact, in the past we have seen as much as
105 percent of the cuts that Congress imposed on EPA came out
of the portion of EPA's budget that goes to the States. Now,
this current EPA has shown a willingness to share some of that
pain in the budget cuts. They are absorbing some themselves, to
their credit, but still, the bulk of the cuts that you impose
on EPA tend to go to the states.
The second point I want to make is, if you want to get the
best environmental protection for the fewest number of dollars,
you need to make sure that EPA can continue to fund the states
to do their work, and I will explain very briefly here. So the
money that you allocate to EPA really goes into a couple of
pots. Some of it goes directly to EPA to fund that agency's
work. Another portion of it, it varies from year to year, but
it is less than half, does go to the states to enable them to
do their work. As we have heard, the State and Tribal Grants
program, STAG money that goes to the states really is divided
into two different areas. Some of it goes into the SRF program
so that we can invest in infrastructure, the kind we discussed
earlier for drinking water and wastewater facilities, usually
in the form of low-interest loans. The other portion of EPA's
STAG budget that goes to the states is for the categorical
grants that pays the states to oversee the programs that are
delegated to us from the Federal Government from EPA.
So, again, it is important that this categorical grant
portion of EPA's budget be maintained so the states can do
their work. The states do almost all of the permitting, they do
almost all of the enforcement, inspections, data collection for
EPA. We do almost all of it, and we do it for a reason. We do
it because we are better, we are cheaper and faster than the
Federal Government, and I think everybody acknowledges that
including EPA. That is why they delegate so many of their
programs to us. A typical federal employee makes about 50
percent more than a state employee who has similar
qualifications, does the same kind of work, which begs the
question, why am I working for the state. I do not know. Also,
the state through their fee programs, through their general
fund tend to pay about 80 percent of the programs and 20
percent comes from the Federal Government. That is a typical
state. So what this means is, there are some states that are
thinking of giving programs back to the Federal Government.
Idaho is one of them actually. Montana has given a program back
to EPA and we saw some disastrous results, which I could tell
you about if we had more time. But the Federal Government
really cannot afford to take these programs back because the
states contribute so much. If we give it back to the Federal
Government, it is going to cost the Federal Government five to
six times as much to run these programs as it costs the states.
It is not efficient. We are a bargain.
So I am going to cut this a little bit short. You know, I
am happy to answer any questions for you. The states for some
reasons I cannot explain at this point for the next couple of
years are probably able to absorb cuts to the SRF program or
the STAG grant. The states are more able to do that than they
are able to absorb cuts to the categorical grants. Any more
cuts to the categorical grants are going to come at an expense
to the environment. That is an important point you need to
understand.
Anyway, I am here to urge you to adopt EPA's 2012 budget
for the sake of efficiency, for the sake of prudent management
and for environmental protection. It is a good budget when it
comes to the categorical grants. So that is all I have, and I
am certainly available to answer any questions.
[The statement of Richard Opper follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. I appreciate your testimony. I have talked
with Toni Hardesty out in Idaho about this same thing.
Mr. Opper. I am crazy about Toni, by the way. She is
marvelous.
Mr. Simpson. She does a great job. And I rely on her for a
lot of information about how things are working, but you are
right, there are Members of Congress who are upset with EPA,
that is a mild way to put it, and consequently they would like
to just eliminate their budget. Unfortunately, as we discovered
as we tried to put together both H.R. 1 and this latest one
that we thought, you cannot do that because oftentimes you are
not getting at what you want to get at. What happens is, just
as you said, those cuts are passed down to the states and then
those programs that actually go out and repair this kind of
stuff and do the air quality monitoring, et cetera, et cetera,
that is where the cuts occur, and that is what we do not want
to do. So it has got to be more strategic than what some
members want to do, but as you saw in the last, I guess when
H.R. 1 was proposed, there were, I think it was 22 amendments
or something like that that were aimed directly at the EPA that
passed. I think that was a lot of venting by members that were
upset with things that had happened in their region or their
area or whatever, and hopefully we will be more thoughtful when
we bring the Interior budget down this year, and we will
certainly take into consideration your testimony and what you
said, because we do not want to hurt the programs that are
being done I think effectively and efficiently by the states.
Mr. Opper. Well, thank you for recognizing that, Mr.
Chairman. I appreciate that very much.
Mr. Simpson. You bet. Jim.
Mr. Moran. The testimony was very good. The conversational
tone is particularly effective too, incidentally. Thank you.
Mr. Opper. I know no other way.
Mr. Simpson. That is the way all Montanans are. Thank you.
Next is Craig----
Mr. Schiffries. Craig Schiffries.
Mr. Simpson. Okay, Mr. Schiffries, Director of Geoscience
Policy at Geological Society of America.
---------- --
--------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
WITNESS
CRAIG SCHIFFRIES, PH.D., DIRECTOR FOR GEOSCIENCE POLICY, GEOLOGICAL
SOCIETY OF AMERICA (GSA)
Mr. Schiffries. Chairman Simpson, Mr. Moran, members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today
about the U.S. Geological Survey. My name is Craig Schiffries
and I serve as Director for Geoscience Policy at the Geological
Society of America.
The Geological Society of America urges Congress to
appropriate at least $1.2 billion for the U.S. Geological
Survey in fiscal year 2012. The USGS is one of the Nation's
premier science agencies. It addresses many of society's
greatest challenges including mineral and energy resources,
natural hazards, climate change and water availability and
quality. Quite simply, the USGS benefits every American every
day. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that devastated
Japan on March 11th emphatically demonstrates the value of
robust natural hazards monitoring and warning systems and the
need for increased funding for the USGS.
Science and technology are engines of economic prosperity,
environmental quality and national security. Federal
investments in research pay substantial dividends. According to
the National Academies report, Rising above the Gathering
Storm, as much as 85 percent of the measured growth in U.S.
income per capita was due to technological change. In 2010, the
National Academies issued an updated report, Above the
Gathering Storm Revisited, which says it would be impossible
not to recognize the great difficulty of carrying out the
Gathering Storm recommendations such as doubling the research
budget in today's fiscal environment. However, it must be
emphasized that actions such as doubling the research budget
are investments that will need to be made if the Nation is to
maintain economic strength to provide citizens health care,
Social Security, national security and more. One seemingly
relevant analogy is that a non-solution to making an overweight
aircraft flightworthy is to remove an engine. Likewise, the
National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform headed
by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson said cut and invest to
promote economic growth and keep America competitive. We should
cut the red tape and unproductive government spending that
hinders job creation and jobs. At the same time, we must invest
in education, infrastructure and high-value research and
development to help our economy grow, keep us globally
competitive and make it easier for businesses to create jobs.
Earth science is a critical component of the overall
science and technology enterprise. Strong support for earth
science in general and the U.S. Geological Survey in particular
are required to stimulate innovations that fuel the economy,
provide security and enhance the quality of life.
Science and scientific integrity advanced through the
combination of two recent developments at the U.S. Department
of the Interior. Secretary Salazar issued a new five-year
strategic plan that for the first time elevates science to one
of five mission areas for the entire department. The Interior
Department also issued a comprehensive scientific integrity
program. These developments are cause for optimism but the
Geological Society of America expects that the elevation of
science to a mission area will guide investments that are
reflected in improved budget requests for the U.S. Geological
Survey.
The U.S. Geological Survey addresses many of society's
greatest challenges, and I would like to mention just two
today. A failure to prevent natural hazards from becoming
natural disasters will increase future expenditures for
disaster recovery and response. Recent natural disasters
provide unmistakable evidence that the United States remains
vulnerable to staggering losses. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake
and tsunami that devastated Japan on March 11th, the magnitude
7.0 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people in Haiti
last year, and the small volcanic eruptions in Iceland that
disrupted global air traffic last year provide compelling
evidence that the United States needs to take further actions
to reduce risks from natural hazards. An improved scientific
understanding of geological hazards will produce future losses
through better forecasts of their occurrence and magnitude. We
urge Congress to increase funding for the USGS to modernize and
upgrade its natural hazards monitoring and warning systems.
Widespread deployment of new energy technologies can reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, mitigate climate change and reduce
dependence on foreign oil, and minerals and energy resources
are inextricably intertwined because many new energy
technologies such as wind turbines and solar cells depend on
rare earth elements and other critical minerals that currently
lack diversified sources of supply. China accounts for more
than 95 percent of the world production of rare earth elements
although it has only 36 percent of the identified world
reserves, according to the USGS. A renewed federal commitment
to innovative research, information and education on mineral
and energy resources is needed to address these issues.
President Obama's fiscal year 2012 budget request for the
USGS is $1.118 billion, a decrease of $15 million, or 1.3
percent, below the USGS budget request for fiscal year 2011.
Now, that is a slight increase in the total USGS budget request
for fiscal year 2012 compared to the fiscal year 2010 enacted
level. The 2012 budget request contains $89.1 million in budget
cuts in core science programs that would be offset by increases
in other areas. The proposed budget cuts would have significant
negative impacts on the scientific capabilities of the USGS.
Proposed reductions in the fiscal year 2012 budget request
include $9.6 million for mineral resources, $8.9 million for
national water quality assessment, $4.7 million for earthquake
hazards.
It appears that responsibilities for Landsat satellites
have been transferred from NASA to USGS without a corresponding
transfer of budget authority. A $48 million increase for
national land imaging would be offset by decreases for core
USGS programs. This trend cannot continue without compromising
the mission of the U.S. Geological Survey. The Geological
Society of America urges Congress to appropriate at least $1.2
billion for the USGS in fiscal year 2012. The USGS budget has
been nearly stagnant in real dollars since 1996. The USGS
budget for 2010 was below the USGS budget for 2001 in real
dollars, and during this time natural hazards, mineral and
energy resources, and water availability and quality have
become increasingly important to the Nation.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony about
the U.S. Geological Survey. The Geological Society of America
is grateful to the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee
for its leadership in strengthening the USGS over many years.
We urge you to strengthen the USGS further again this year. I
would be happy to answer any questions.
[The statement of Craig Schiffries follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you for your testimony. I am kind of a
fan of the USGS and what they do. They are a great
organization. I think they are being run well, and I was not
very happy with the request in the President's budget for 2012
either, but we will be looking at it. I am concerned about the
Landsat satellite and transfer, as you said, the responsibility
with no money that goes along with it. We will be looking at
that, and also we may have some additional responsibilities we
wish for the USGS to take on, but we will not do that without
corresponding resources for them to do it.
Mr. Moran. I am in complete agreement with the chairman.
The Landsat responsibility being shifted to USGS without an
appropriate corresponding shift of financial resources was
wrong, and we cannot afford these kinds of cuts to scientific
research that USGS performs so ably. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Schiffries. Thank you very much.
Mr. Simpson. Patrick Natale, Executive Director of the
American Society of Civil Engineers, as opposed to the uncivil
engineers.
Mr. Natale. Some engineers are not.
---------- --
--------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
WITNESS
PATRICK NATALE, P.E., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL
ENGINEERS
Mr. Natale. Mr. Chairman, good morning, Representative
Moran. It is a pleasure to be in front of Representative Moran,
my Congressman.
Mr. Simpson. He is mine too, actually. Although I vote in
Idaho, I do live over in his district.
Mr. Natale. I appreciate both of your comments, your
comments that you made earlier about the importance of
infrastructure. That is what ASCE has been talking about for
many years. My name is Patrick Natale. I am the Executive
Director of the American Society of Civil Engineers and I am a
registered professional engineer in New Jersey. I actually live
in New Jersey and Alexandria. I am really pleased to be talking
about these issues that are before you today about EPA funding
and the USGS funding. I think these are critical to our future
and to the health and well-being of our citizens of this
country.
The concerns that we have with some of the budget cuts that
are in the proposed budget could be devastating for water
infrastructure, as we talked about. You heard some great
examples earlier by the prior speakers. But looking at the cuts
of what the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act are
being reduced to $700 million and $842 million, respectively,
or a cut of 66 percent in one and 39 percent in the other. That
is huge cuts to critical issues that impact our health, safety
and welfare, which is pretty important to all of us. Each year
as we do not do something, we are making the condition worse.
Infrastructure, as we wait to repair it, the conditions later
on are even worse.
When we did a report card in 2005, we found the needs for
infrastructure to be $1.6 trillion to improve infrastructure in
all areas. When we did the report card again in 2009, the price
tag went up to $2.2 trillion. That was the cost of non-action
or not enough action. We need to be paying attention to these
critical areas, and we feel that there is a lot of data out
there besides our report card. The report that was put together
by the Bush Administration in 2002 looking at the need for our
systems that was presented to EPA indicated that there was a
need for system improvement in investment going forward.
We feel that this is a time when the Federal Government
needs to be stepping up participation, not reducing it. We are
going backwards at a time that is critical to our success. And
it is one of these things, you wait, pay now, or pay a lot more
later on. We need to be paying attention to those things. We
have seen reports that indicated the need for the Nation to
invest $298 billion as of January 2008 in clean water needs,
and we are not funding that. We have needs for replacing
wastewater treatment plants. The pipes need repairing. We saw a
great example of that a few moments ago. We need to buy new
pipes, install new pipes, and we have to look at issues of
combined stormwater, what the impacts of that are, and invest
in stormwater management. What are we doing to make this a
better country and keep the concerns of our citizens intact?
We need to be looking at investing more money. Over the
next 20 years, the numbers can be staggering, but a comment was
made earlier about the bottled water versus tap water. You are
paying 4,000 times the cost of bottled water to drinking water.
A slight increase in funding would be very valuable to improve
the quality of the supply and we could avoid some of the
conditions that we have here.
Our system is aging. We need to invest in that. We believe
that the importance of doing this will help the citizens going
forward and we can grow the Nation. We heard a lot of good
examples before about the employment that is provided by doing
infrastructure projects. And the thing I really like about it,
they are domestic jobs when we do employment. So I think it is
a really good opportunity. With the Nation facing $400 to $500
billion investment gap in wastewater and drinking water in the
next 20 years, now is not the time to cut, now is the time to
invest in our future, and I do not like to use the spending
word, I like to use ``invest,'' because this is about
investing. The infrastructure that we have built in the past,
we are living off it today and we are benefiting from that.
I understand the concerns that Congress has dealing with
the budget gap and dealing with the deficit but it is not the
time to cut back. ASCE recommends an appropriation of $2
billion for the Clean Water SRF and appropriation of $1.5
billion for the Drinking Water SRF in 2012.
Now, briefly, a couple of comments on the USGS, and I think
we heard some really good comments about that by the last
speaker, but we really feel it is important that USGS collects
a lot of important scientific data that helps us make some good
decisions, us as a country, on vital water resources,
prediction of earthquakes and volcanoes, and looking at other
biological conditions in that country. That data is critical to
help us go forward. And we heard earlier about the reductions
of where they are. We believe that we ought to be maintaining
the integrity of our scientific data collection so that we can
improve again the quality of service. ASCE recommends that the
appropriations of $1.2 billion should be in the fiscal year
2012 budget for the USGS.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I will be glad to
answer any questions.
[The statement of Patrick Natale follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Patrick. I appreciate your
testimony. As we said earlier, we do not disagree with you. It
is a matter of the budget deficit is real and we have to deal
with that, and we have to find a better way to fund this, a
long-term funding source.
Mr. Natale. Absolutely. ASCE next week are putting together
a group of a lot of different parties together. We are bringing
labor, we are bringing environmental groups in, we are bringing
the U.S. Chamber, and we are going to be doing a visioning
session of what is infrastructure looking like in the future,
and we think this will be really good data for the country to
take a look at and where do we go from here, how do we get
there, and your concerns about funding, that is one of the
issues we need to talk about. There are funding opportunities
but we need to be thinking out of the box and we need to break
the barriers. We cannot constantly say no new income. You are
not going to do it. Let's do it wisely. So we are hoping that
within the next couple of weeks we will have more data to
provide to the Congress so you can make some good decisions
going forward.
Mr. Simpson. We know that there are problems. It is trying
to find an acceptable funding source. We have been working on
some things which include some revenue enhancements, but I will
tell you, they are not very popular, but some of the things we
are going to do are not going to be very popular but it has got
to be done. I appreciate it. Thank you. Jim.
Mr. Moran. Put me on that bill when you are ready. And
frankly, this is better testimony than we get from the agency
for these programs. It brings home the need and the relative
pittance that we are providing, albeit important. It does not
seem as though it is an area we should be cutting, but again, I
appreciate your speaking up. I wish some of the governors would
speak up as much because it is money out of their pocket when
we cut these programs. It is a state revolving fund. But
anyway, this is very good testimony. Thank you.
Mr. Natale. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
The next witness is Conrad Anker, who manages athlete
programs for North Face. How are you doing?
Mr. Anker. Things are well. Greetings.
Mr. Simpson. You bet. Good to see you.
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Friday, April 15, 2011.
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, PUBLIC LANDS, LWCF
WITNESS
CONRAD ANKER, MANAGES ATHLETE PROGRAMS FOR NORTH FACE, LWCF COALITION
Mr. Anker. Mr. Chairman and members, thank you for the
opportunity to speak on behalf of funding for the Land and
Water Conservation Fund. I join with the LWCF Coalition,
business and civil leaders, sportsmen and recreationists,
conservationists and many others across the Nation in urging
you to provide vital funding for LWCF in fiscal year 2012.
America can simply not afford to lose the national
recreational and other public opportunities LWCF provides or
the activity it injects in the American economy. This program
touches every state and every American. It protects our most
treasured places from our Civil War heritage at Fredericksburg
and Spotsylvania to the Sawtooth National Recreation Area to
the California desert, working ranches, state, local parks and
trails.
I am a professional mountain climber by trade. From
multiple ascents to Denali, the highest point in America, to
Everest, the highest point on our planet, I have experienced
nature in its raw and unbridled form. I find no greater joy
than being in a far and remote place preparing for a
challenging ascent. I have had the good fortune to combine my
personal passion for the outdoors with my career. For the past
27 years, I have worked with the North Face, an outdoor apparel
equipment company based in California with annual sales of $1.4
billion and over 425 employees. We have a retail store in
Boise, Idaho. Today I manage the athlete program, which
encourages and supports outdoor participation. The North Face
is very aware that the attributes of nature are part of our
brand DNA. It is important to our industry that we have places
for our customers to enjoy our products.
In the past 11 years, the North Face has led Vanity Fair
Corporation, the parent company, in growth. In these tough
economic times when families need to cut back, people are
willing to invest in outdoor recreation. Families understand
that being outdoors is a wise investment that reaps benefits to
their health and well-being. In turn, this spending supports
jobs and drives economic vibrancy in our communities.
The outdoor industry is one of America's fastest growing
economic sectors. Without a metric like housing starts for the
construction industry, its contributions to the health of the
American economy are not widely recognized. Our industry is
highly recession resistant, contributing over $730 billion to
the American economy each year and generating $88 billion in
annual state and federal tax revenues. Over 6.5 million
American jobs are supported by the active outdoor recreation
economy. The outdoor sector is a major part of the U.S. economy
and America still dominates this globally and provides
sustained economic growth in communities, rural and urban,
across America.
Whether one is climbing Mount Everest, visiting a national
park, fishing a favorite stream, the personal motivation is the
same. We go outdoors to challenge ourselves and to come back
refreshed. Everywhere I go, I meet people who seek the
connection to the outdoors to sustain and inspire them in their
daily lives. Outdoor experiences inspire and nourish the human
spirit. In children, these experiences foster creativity and
confidence that nurture the entrepreneurial spirit and a
lifetime of fitness instilled by early access to outdoor has
incalculable quality of life and public health benefits to
individuals and our society as a whole.
Each year, the Land and Water Conservation Fund protects
the integrity of our public lands. It funds the highest
priority now-or-never purchases over our national parks,
forests, refuges, national trails corridors and other public
lands. It provides critical access to public lands and water
for recreation, hunting and fishing. It leverages state and
matching dollars to provide close-to-home recreation through
statewide LWCF grants for parks, ball fields, trails, Forest
Legacy grants, working forest and timber jobs while ensuring
public access to recreation.
LWCF is the only conservation offset from oil and gas
drilling in federal waters. With over $6 billion annually in
offshore royalties, I urge you to honor the longstanding
Congressional intent to dedicate a small portion of these
revenues to their intended purpose. Significant cuts to LWCF
experienced in the fiscal year 2011 budget will affect outdoor
recreation projects and jobs and communities across the
country. Please cut in fiscal year 2012 to reverse these cuts.
America's public lands heritage, be it a corner park or
Yosemite, is critical to supporting the American spirit of
innovation, dedication and motivation. In the words of Theodore
Roosevelt, of all the questions which come before this Nation
short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great
war, there is none which compares in importance to the great
central task of leaving this land even a better land for our
descendants than it is for us. In these challenging economic
times, ensuring access to the outdoors is ever more essential
to maintain our quality of life and supporting our communities.
LWCF is not only a wise economic investment but one that we
must make for ourselves and our children. Thank you.
[The statement of Conrad Anker follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Thanks for your testimony. I
appreciate it very much. Obviously if I did not think that
outdoor recreation and the Land and Water Conservation Fund
were very important, I would not live in Idaho. It does have
some challenges. Some people are concerned that it is buying
more land in states that are already heavily owned by the
Federal Government, and that is something we have to get
around. But I appreciate your testimony.
Mr. Moran. I do as well, and am dropping a bill today that
would charge a fee for plastic bags because they have such an
adverse impact upon the environment, and the revenue would go
to Land and Water Conservation Fund. I know there are other
ways of finding revenue for it, but just as we do with water
infrastructure, I do think we are going to have to find other
sources of revenue that are directly related because Land and
Water Conservation Fund is terribly important. We have $900
million in the fiscal year 2012 budget but in order to get that
the administration had to squeeze money from other programs
that are very important as well. But thanks for your testimony.
Mr. Simpson. And I can tell you that having talked to
Secretary Salazar, this is one of his top priorities, so we
will work with him.
Mr. Anker. Great. Addressing inholdings is a great way of
making it more efficient. A copy of my book.
Mr. Simpson. Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Mr. Moran. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Next we have Jim Blomquist, Chairman of the
Board of the Wilderness Land Trust.
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Friday, April 15, 2011.
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, PUBLIC LANDS
WITNESS
JIM BLOMQUIST, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, WILDERNESS LAND TRUST
Mr. Blomquist. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Mr. Moran,
my name is Jim Blomquist. I am a volunteer chair of the
Wilderness Land Trust. Our president, it is his wife's 60th
birthday and they had a longstanding commitment to go to Costa
Rica, so it is hard to stand in the way of such a celebration,
so I agreed to come here to Washington.
We are just a small nonprofit. We have two staff and two
consultants. Our board is bigger than our organization. And
what we do is focus on buying from willing sellers inholdings
in designated federal wilderness areas or ones that are
congressionally proposed that are close to fruition. You know,
we do not want to get ourselves into buying land in places that
are years and years away from designation. And I am really here
to thank you for in the last few years putting in a line item a
fund to support inholdings acquisition. That item, having money
in the budget available to agencies for them to decide which
projects to go forward, but that is vital to our work. What we
have learned in years of working with local landowners who
would like to sell their properties that are located within
wilderness areas, what we have learned is that acquisition
opportunities really come sort of in a generational basis, you
know, this was grandfather's land, you know, there is a lot of
emotional attachment, this is the land that was, you know, in
Idaho, these are lands that are originally homesteaded, and
parting with those lands is not an easy decision often and it
is not something that you can sit back and say oh, this will
come along in a couple years when we have the money or we have,
you know, people paying attention to it. And so a group like
ours, you know, we try to remain close to all the people who
own such lands and make it clear to them that we are available
to help if they are interested in selling it and moving it into
ownership by the United States, and it has really been a great
benefit.
A few years ago, there was no such fund. There was no such
money available. It was all done through specific
appropriations, and it was much more difficult to do, and we
really appreciate that. What we have been asking for is a fund
about $3 million to $5 million for each of the federal land
management agencies, one that would include all sorts of
inholdings acquisitions. We just do wilderness. But there are
probably other reasons and other properties. That is what we
really focus on.
But we appreciate your support. We hope that you will
continue in this effort in the future. It has really made a big
difference in wilderness. You know, we see this effort as
really keeping the promise that wilderness is. Inholdings
sometimes cost agencies additional money because they have to
deal with the fact that there are other landowners in the area.
Landowners often become really frustrated because they have
some view of what they would like to do that is really
inconsistent with what the agency wants to do and it, you know,
has the potential to degrade the wilderness experience, and the
reason we have set aside these wilderness areas is because they
provide solace and opportunity to get out by yourself.
I know you are a wilderness user, you know, that you do not
really get in Washington, D.C. And so when we can free a
wilderness area from a potential threat of a development or
land that could be developed, it really delivers that promise
that wilderness has. You know, we have protected areas that are
very remote that require a drive on a road miles and miles
through the wilderness. There was one in California where it is
a several-mile ride up to a hunting cabin. We just acquired
that. We hope to be able to turn that over to the United States
soon. And then we have had some that are, you know, at the
beginning of the wilderness area, right at the edge of it,
which would provide public access to the area and provide the
best access. And so it is a range of areas, range of reasons
why people sell. You know, we try not to get into the middle of
the wilderness fight. That is for other people. But we try to
make sure that the wilderness areas that we have are managed
the best they can.
So thank you very much. I really, really appreciate it.
[The statement of Jim Blomquist follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I appreciate the work you do. There
are some inholdings in a variety of areas that need to be taken
care of, and the Owyhees that you mentioned is----
Mr. Blomquist. We own several parcels right now.
Mr. Simpson. And that was an important part of the deal
when they made the Owyhee Canyon lands the wilderness area that
it is, but there are other areas also that are not wilderness
areas. If you go down the South Fork of the Snake River in
Idaho, you can imagine what it would like look had we not been
able to do some land purchases along there and some
conservation easements and other types of things. There would
be cabins all down that. And I understand why because I would
like to have one there. But you would not want to destroy what
you see when you go down that, so I appreciate you. Thank you.
Mr. Moran. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Next is Alan Rowsome, Director of Conservation
Fund for The Wilderness Society.
----------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
LAND AND WATER CONSERVATION FUND
WITNESS
ALAN ROWSOME, DIRECTOR OF CONSERVATION FUNDING, THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY
Mr. Rowsome. My name is Alan Rowsome. I am Director of
Conservation Funding for The Wilderness Society, and on behalf
of our 535,000 members and supporters, I would like to thank
the chairman, Ranking Member Moran and the rest of the
subcommittee for their efforts on the Interior/Environment
budget for fiscal year 2012. I would also like to thank all
your hardworking and dedicated staff for their efforts over the
past several months, and we know this has been a trying time.
Our fiscal situation makes yours a difficult job with very
difficult choices, and we thank you for all that you do.
Because these are tough times, it is critically important
to make the right investments in conservation programs that
support our national recreation economy and local communities
all across the country while at the same time protecting our
land, water and wildlife for future generations.
One of the programs that best exemplifies these investments
is the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It is The Wilderness
Society's highest priority within the Interior budget. LWCF is
paid for from offshore oil revenues but has been consistently
underfunded over its 46-year history, this despite the fact
that LWCF has been hugely successful in every state and every
Congressional district while garnering significant bipartisan
support nationwide. LWCF is a critical tool the agencies can
use to maximize efficiencies and to save critical management
dollars. Here are two quick examples.
The acquisition of the Rocky Fork tract in Tennessee's
Cherokee National Forest has reduced firefighting costs,
noxious weed treatments, watershed restoration, boundary
management, reduced risk of trespass and encroachment, and
lowered costs from road and trailhead closure construction and
maintenance. All told, these cost savings would likely amount
to over 500,000 management dollars.
The block of wetlands ACEC in Colorado is an example of
cross-agency collaboration between BLM, the Park Service and
the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect critical habitat for a
number of threatened species. Acquiring this tract would help
ensure that these species are kept off the endangered list,
saving significant agency management dollars as well as keeping
this area open to recreation and other local economic uses.
These projects are examples of LWCF success that need
continued investment to alleviate threats, cut costs and
protect important lands and waters. We support the President's
request to fully fund LWCF in 2012 and look forward to working
with the committee to keep LWCF strong.
And if I can make my first of probably several gratuitous
pitches here, my first opportunity to witness LWCF at work was
in fact on a float down the Upper Snake South Fork with members
of your staff, members from Senator Crapo's and Senator Risch's
staff, and what a great example of how this program can work
and be successful, and there are examples of that all across
the country.
The Wilderness Society also urges full funding for the
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Plan to support
projects like the Selway Middle Fork in Idaho, which was one of
the 10 projects selected last year. It is a 1.4-million-acre
project that was collaboratively developed with the involvement
of diverse interest groups. Restoration activities include
commercial logging and community fire protection, road upgrades
and decommissioning, and culvert replacement and noxious weed
treatments. This project will bring 400 much-needed jobs to
Idaho and provide timber to local mills.
We also support the Administration's fiscal year 2012
increase of $50 million for the National Landscape Conservation
System to provide for greater visitor safety and to allow for
resource management work to be completed in a more timely
manner at places like Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey
National Conservation Area in Idaho and Canyons of the Ancients
National Monument in Colorado, which hosts the highest
concentration of archaeological sites in the country.
We were disappointed that the fiscal year 2011 spending
bill cut funding in behalf for the Forest Service's Legacy Road
and Trails Remediation program. Cuts like this in the future
will imperil projects like in Idaho, where tribes, advisory
committees and land managers are working together to restore
habitat for economically important cutthroat and steelhead
trout populations. Work was performed by private contractors,
creating family wage jobs and decommissioning high-risk roads
helped limit both environmental damage and long-term
maintenance.
Also disappointing in the fiscal year 2011 budget was the
inclusion of a funding limitation on the BLM's new wildland
policy. We are very appreciative of the chairman's support of
wilderness in Idaho and we hope to work with you to ensure this
provision is not included in the fiscal year 2012 budget.
Finally, TWS is a strong proponent of transitioning our
country to a sustainable energy economy by developing our
energy resources quickly and responsibly. We believe renewable
energy is an appropriate use of the public lands when sited in
areas screened for habitat, resource or cultural conflicts.
This past year, the Department approved nine solar energy
projects which combined will provide over 7,300 jobs. Cuts to
the Department's renewable energy program would put projects
and jobs at risk.
We know the committee has tough decisions ahead and we
appreciate all of your work on behalf of the lands, waters and
wildlife that all Americans enjoy and are part of our shared
heritage, so thank you for the opportunity to testify and I
would be happy to take any questions you have.
[The statement of Alan Rowsome follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you for your testimony. I appreciate it
very much. Let me just say since you mentioned the Wild Lands
policy, let me give you about a two-second why the funding
prohibition was included in H.R. 1. In talking with the
Secretary, I understand what he is trying to do but I think it
will make it more difficult to actually resolve some of the
wilderness debates that are going on across the country, and I
sat with the Secretary and talked to him about that. I think he
was pretty well aware that this was coming. There are other
members, particularly western members, who have some concerns
about it. My concerns are that we need to get on with resolving
some of these debates about the wilderness study area and what
is going to be wilderness and what is not and all that kind of
stuff which, as you know, I have been working on in Idaho, and
I think putting that policy in place makes it harder to resolve
those debates. So I am willing to and want to work with you to
see if we can figure out a way to do this that makes sense.
Mr. Rowsome. Yes, I think we would like to do that. I think
there are a number of ways that we could come together and work
on it along with the BLM, so I look forward to working with
you.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Mr. Moran. As you know, we deferred to your judgment
yesterday on the C.R., but I am sure we will continue to
revisit the policy with regard to Wild Lands. It is good
testimony. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. We were going to make everything south of the
Potomac here Wild Lands but they would not go for that.
Mr. Rowsome. We would support that. That would be great.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Next we have Tom Kiernan, President of the National Parks
Conservation Association. How are you doing? Good to see you.
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Friday, April 15, 2011.
NATIONAL PARKS AND THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
WITNESS
TOM KIERNAN, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION
Mr. Kiernan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Great to be here.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Moran. It is
wonderful to be here. Since 1919, NPCA has been the leading
voice of the American public in protecting our national parks,
so on behalf of our over 600,000 members and supporters, it is
great to be here to testify.
I want to first make a comment about the overarching
budgetary challenges that obviously you are facing, and I want
to foremost thank you. Within the budgetary constraints that
you are dealing with, you have prioritized national parks and
the National Park Service operating budget as best you can, and
we want to applaud that. We understand that you get it about
the importance of the Park Service operating budget, so thank
you, and frankly, thank you for your work going forward. We
know you will do the very best you can in protecting the Park
Service operating budget.
I also want to acknowledge within the recent budgetary
challenges the shutdown, how virtually it seemed to us every
article out there talking about the shutdown referred to the
impact on national parks and that the parks, the Washington
Monument, Grand Canyon, et cetera, would be closed. The parks
are so very special, and where did President Obama go Saturday
morning to say the government was at work? He was at a national
park at the Lincoln Memorial, so they are very special. As Ken
Burns said in his seven-part documentary, they are uniquely
American, uniquely democratic. They are the soul of America.
So within that context, we want to talk about the operating
budget a bit more and then put in a plug for LWCF and the RTCA.
The operating budget is NPCA's highest priority. You will
recall well it was four, five or six years ago where the parks
faced over an $800 million annual funding shortfall. We had a
period at which National Park Service rangers were endangered
species in our national parks. We had dirty and broken
restrooms. We had visitors centers that were closed. We had
dangerous roads. We had deteriorating historic artifacts. And
with that backdrop, President Bush proposed the idea of a
centennial initiative from 2008 through 2016. He proposed $100
million increase each year to enhance and better protect our
national parks. So in fiscal year 2008, that was approved by
Congress. In fiscal year 2009, another $100 million increase.
In 2010, President Obama continued that proposal, and that as
well was approved.
As a result of those increases, we were able to see in a
number of parks a return of park rangers, if you will. Just as
one example in Shenandoah, their permanent staff was
historically around 50. It had dropped to 26. It had been cut
in half. But with those increases, it started coming back. What
we want to most have happen is avoid going back to that era
when we had rangers as endangered rangers and shut visitors
centers. That is what we want to avoid.
So going forward, we are looking for $100 million increase.
We understand that that is very, very unlikely, so most
importantly, we want to avoid any further cuts that would get
back to a period at which you see cartoons in newspapers about
the only time people seeing a park ranger is at the entrance
gate taking the fee. That is what we want to avoid.
In addition to the benefit for the visitors and for the
parks with the operating budget, it also does lead to
significant economic activity in rural America. Every dollar
that is invested in the parks yields at least a $4 increase in
economic activity surrounding the park. There was a recent
study done that the Idaho Statesman reported on March 14th that
showed at Yellowstone, over 5,000 private sector sectors
outside of the park, at Craters of the Moon, over 100 jobs
outside of the park, Grand Teton, over 6,000 jobs in the
private sector as a result of Park Service funding and
activity. So America's parks create American jobs.
A third reason on the operating budget, the importance of
it, is just look at the polling of the American public. A
couple years ago, Harris did a poll asking the American public
the most admired federal agencies. The National Park Service,
the number one most admired agency by the American people ahead
of the armed forces, ahead of Social Security. The American
people in other polls went on to say even in the tough fiscal
times that we have right now, a strong bipartisan majority, 73
percent, believe it is important that the parks are fully
restored in time for their centennial in 2016.
So that is our strong support for the operating budget. I
do want to echo some previous testimonies on the Land and Water
Conservation Fund. We do support full funding there and would
just emphasize that funding of the Land and Water Conservation
Fund does enable purchases from private inholders inside the
parks, willing sellers. By doing that, you reduce the
management burden on the national parks. It improves their
ability to control invasives, to deal with wildfires, to make
recreational access, and a good example that you know is the
Grand Teton land exchange that is before you. By making that
exchange possible, it will reduce the long-term management
burden on the parks, making it more efficient and more
effective.
I do want to put, as I said, that plug in for some of the
small programs, the Rails to Trails Conservation Assistance
program, RTCA, small dollar amount, huge impact, so I would you
would go for an increase there.
In closing, I would just mention parks have been referred
to as the 394 branch campuses of the world's greatest
university. What we want to do is have a situation where that
world's greatest university has the faculty that it needs. We
do not want to go back to a scenario where the world's greatest
university does not have faculty.
So thank you very much for your great work and how much we
look forward to continue working with you to protect the parks.
[The statement of Tom Kiernan follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Thank you for the work you do. You
know I am a supporter of the parks as I think everybody on this
committee, and we will do what we can. These are challenging
budget times but we will do what we can to make sure that we do
not go back to, as you said, a time when the rangers are
endangered species.
Mr. Kiernan. Exactly. Thank you very much.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Other questions? Thank you.
Mr. Kiernan. Thank you very much.
Mr. Simpson. Tom Cassidy, Director of Federal Land Programs
for the Nature Conservancy. How are you doing, Tom?
---------- --
--------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
LAND AND WATER CONSERVATION FUND
WITNESS
TOM CASSIDY, DIRECTOR OF FEDERAL LAND PROGRAMS, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY
Mr. Cassidy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. I appreciate this opportunity to present The
Nature Conservancy's recommendations for fiscal year 2012
appropriations.
The Nature Conservancy is an international nonprofit
conservation organization working around the world to protect
ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people.
I will highlight today only a few aspects of my written
testimony.
Plainly, this an unusual budget year and a very challenging
fiscal environment. The conservancy recognizes the need for
fiscal austerity. However, we do not believe that conservation
programs should suffer from disproportionate and extreme
reductions. Our budget recommendations this year, and this is
different, do not exceed the budget request except for a few
instances in which we recommend fiscal year 2010 funding
levels. We look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman and
members of the committee, as you address the ongoing needs for
conservation investments that are necessary to sustain our
Nation's heritage of natural resources and the economic
vitality of communities across the Nation.
We are an enthusiastic supporter of the President's request
to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the mix
of programs it supports. We are especially interested in the
competitive stateside program and would like to acknowledge the
version of this program that was proposed last year by Ranking
Member Moran. We are hopeful that increased funding for LWCF
can also be the catalyst for the kind of cooperative and
community-based conservation programs that are called for in
the President's America Great Outdoors initiative.
Our priorities this year include continuing phased
acquisition of projects at Hell's Canyon National Recreation
Area, the Montana Legacy project and Arizona's Shield Ranch. We
are also pleased to support the Administration's proposal for
significant increases, for significant investments in
conservation easements on the working ranches of the Flint
Hills Conservation Area in Kansas and also the Rocky Mountain
Front Conservation Area. Both projects exemplify landscape-
scale conservation through the cost-effective means of
conservation easements.
This year's Forest Legacy priorities include Idaho's
Boundary Connections project and continuing the phased
acquisition of Kentucky's Big Rivers Corridor and New York's
Follensby Pond.
We also support the President's request for the Cooperative
Endangered Species Conservation Fund. The conservancy and its
partners have used this program to secure key habitat for
numerous threatened endangered and at-risk species and thus
help avoid conflicts over ESA issues. This program has been
used to provide permanent habitat protection through
conservation easements on high-priority private lands such as
in northern Idaho's Kootenai Valley.
Fish, wildlife and their habitats are and will continue to
be profoundly impacted by climate change regardless of our
success in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If we are to get
ahead of such change to avoid disastrous losses in critical
habitat and the species that depend on that habitat, we must
develop the place-based science to make informed cost-effective
management investments. We welcome the President's and this
committee's commitment to both the USGS Climate Science Centers
and the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives.
Now, there is one program for which we seek funding that is
not in the President's budget, and that is the National
Wildlife Refuge Fund, and we agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that
the Administration's proposal to eliminate the discretionary
funding of that program should be reversed, and we would
recommend funding at the fiscal year 2010 enacted level.
Now, EPA's programs make important contributions to the
Nation's conservation agenda. National estuary, wetland and
watershed programs protect vital resources essential to
community health and economic prosperity. The agency's targeted
geographic programs support scientific research, planning and
cost-effective actions to improve water quality and restore
aquatic ecosystems. We support the request for the water
ecosystem and geographic programs including the Great Lakes,
Chesapeake Bay and also Puget Sound.
So thank you for the opportunity to present our
recommendations, and I would be delighted to answer any
questions you may have.
[The statement of Tom Cassidy follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thanks, Tom. I appreciate you being here
today. We look forward to working with you as we put together
the 2012 budget once we know what our numbers are going to be.
I suspect they are not going to be pretty, but we look forward
to working with you to make sure we address the high priorities
within these agencies.
Mr. Cassidy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Moran. Thank you, and thanks for all you do, Tom, on
behalf of the Nature Conservancy. It is a great organization
with great people.
Mr. Cassidy. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. Simpson. Next we have John Turner, past President and
CEO and former Director of the Conservation Fund. How are you
doing today?
Mr. Turner. Good morning.
Mr. Simpson. Good morning.
----------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
THE CONSERVATION FUND
WITNESS
JOHN TURNER, PAST PRESIDENT AND CEO, FORMER DIRECTOR, THE CONSERVATION
FUND, FWS
Mr. Turner. Mr. Chairman and Congressman Moran, a long-time
friend, Congresswoman Lummis, I certainly appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you this morning with other
colleagues from the land conservation community.
I am honored to represent The Conservation Fund, a national
advocacy nonprofit that has rather a unique mission statement,
conservation and economic development, but with federal, state
and local landowner partners we have protected some 7 million
acres across this great country of ours in the last 35 years.
As a native Westerner, my testimony attempts to draw
attention to what are some very special projects in eastern
Idaho, Montana, Wyoming with some in Texas and the Southwest,
and I might interject, Mr. Chairman, you asked about the
concern in the West about the expansion of federal lands. I
think one excellent tool, it is my hope that this Congress
could reauthorize the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation
Act, which allows the federal agencies to take fragmented
pieces of land and sell those, use those receipts to buy
priority conservation lands.
I would mention some other projects but as addicted fly
fisherman and old river guide, I would like to draw attention
this morning to three ongoing projects that are helping to
protect three of the finest riparian river corridors and wild
trout fishery found anywhere on the globe, and you mentioned
one, Mr. Chairman, the Henry and South Fork of the Snake where
a decade of work has protected some 14 miles of that great
stretch. Second would be the North Platte River near Casper,
Wyoming, which has more big wild trout per mile than anyplace
in the country. And the third would be the Upper Snake River
and associated lands in Grand Teton National Park. These are
ongoing efforts where years of work have been done and we have
willing landowners and great opportunity.
I do want to take this opportunity to personally invite
you, Mr. Chairman, or any members of the committee to come out
and visit that landscape, perhaps get in a drift boat and float
these wonderful river stretches.
Mr. Simpson. I want to go see that one that has more trout
per mile than any other stream. Are they smart trout?
Mr. Turner. They are smart trout.
Mr. Simpson. Uh-oh.
Mr. Turner. It is certainly one of the great fisheries is
the South Fork of the Snake that I am pleased to enjoy.
Mr. Moran. Until Chairman Simpson gets there, and then they
don't have the most trout.
Mr. Simpson. It is a humbling experience to go out and try
to outsmart a fish and lose.
Mr. Turner. Well, thank you for sharing that resource with
those of us in Wyoming as we are happy to share the Tetons with
you and your constituents.
Mr. Chairman, I do want to take this morning's opportunity
to comment on what I think you appropriately drew attention to,
the severe fiscal crisis facing this country and the daunting
challenge this committee has in funding our federal need. It is
my hope that we can as a Nation sustain the country's great
land conservation legacy. But personally, I do not see how we
can afford to sustain this great tradition without seriously
addressing what Chairman Ryan calls the main drivers of our
deficit challenge and these drivers, I agree, are the major
entitlement programs of the country. As one of the few who
might appear before you here on the panel that has finally
aspired to the chronological category of senior citizen and one
that believes himself to be a fiscal conservative and
conservationist, I strongly support the long-term efforts to
make major revisions to Social Security and Medicare and
Medicaid. I simply think we must do this if we believe we can
continue to invest adequately on behalf of today's and
tomorrow's children in conserving watersheds, wildlife habitat,
parklands, forests, outdoor recreation and working landscapes,
farms and ranches and open space.
As we are all aware and has been mentioned, many of these
programs represent dedicated funding sources and embrace the
economically sound strategy of taking revenues from our non-
renewable, depletable equity base and reinvesting these
receipts into renewable equities such as parklands, watersheds,
wildlife resources, forests, recreation areas and working
landscapes. These renewable equities then provide economic and
job benefits for decades and hopefully centuries to come.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, I would hope we could all agree
that conserving natural landscapes and wild resources for their
own intrinsic value and making these available to all our
citizenry was uniquely an American idea. This wonderful legacy
defines us truly as Americans. It has been one of our great
gifts to the global community. With your help, it is my hope
that we can continue this unsurpassed legacy for future
generations. Thank you.
[The statement of John Turner follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you, and I will see you out on one of
those streams.
Mr. Turner. I look forward to joining you out on the river.
Mr. Simpson. We will do it. Thank you.
We next have Jeff Trandahl, the Executive Director of the
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Welcome back.
----------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE
WITNESS
JEFF TRANDAHL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE
FOUNDATION
Mr. Trandahl. Thank you. It is always good to see you, and
it is wonderful actually following a gentleman from Wyoming,
being a boy from South Dakota, and welcome to the subcommittee.
I just want to start off and say I know it has been a very
bumpy ride the last couple of months for everybody here on the
subcommittee and the staff, and we appreciate and we want to
thank you guys because despite all the challenges out there,
the best that could be done has definitely been done and, you
know, there is a tough road ahead and we are all here in
partnership to work with everybody to try to make it all come
together.
As most of you are very familiar, we are a foundation that
was actually created by you, Congress, back in 1984 at a very
similar financial time where the government was losing
resources and the concept was to set up a foundation that could
go out and privately leverage up alongside those federal
resources in order to accomplish a lot of goals all of us wish
to see done.
I am mainly here to basically reaffirm three items in the
President's budget that has come before you. One is $8.5
million in the Fish and Wildlife Service budget, $3 million in
the Bureau of Land Management budget and $3 million in the
Forest Service budget which would come to the foundation. By
law, we are required to leverage that money at least one to
one. As most of you know, we managed last year about $40
million in federal money. We leveraged it up to about $180
million. So we are actually achieving at more than a three to
one. A lot of you are also familiar in terms of what we did
down in the Gulf, all with 100 percent private dollars, nearly
$25 million that we were able to put in during the response
itself in order to prevent wildlife losses down there, which
was great.
The other thing I would say to the subcommittee is, I am
always the optimist, and the foundation, as you know, has been
growing the last five years. We have been growing roughly about
20 percent a year. And as the economy is coming back, even
though the economy went down there, we continue to grow and we
continue to see incredible, incredible private philanthropic
dollars that are out there, and that seed money that you
provide us, we feel very confident not only can we continue to
build and move this thing forward but just even a few months
ago I actually achieved the largest individual private
contribution we have ever gotten into the foundation, and that
was a $20 million gift from a private individual, and that is
going to focus on a conservation need that a lot of us do not
know much about which is seabirds, but they are one of the most
imperiled species on earth and we have seen about a 90 percent
decline in the Pacific over the last decade, and if we do not
address the issue now, which the Fish and Wildlife Service and
NOAA clearly do not have the resources to do, it will become an
enormous issue economically so that one gift we will be able to
leverage into $25 million to $30 million from the foundation
and hopefully we will do what we have been able to do in the
past, which is to take a large environmental issue like that,
check the box, get the recovery under way and everybody move
forward without anything having to be disrupted.
With that, I will turn it over to you to drill me with
questions.
[The statement of Jeff Trandahl follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you, and I know that the foundation does
a great job in leveraging money and getting private sources,
and of course, we need a lot more of that, frankly, in a lot of
different areas if we are going to fund a lot of these programs
because, as you mentioned, the budget situation in this country
is not pretty and is not anticipated to be pretty for a while.
I appreciate it, Jeff. Thank you very much.
Mr. Trandahl. And I should mention one last little thing,
which is our reauthorization is up in the other committee. I am
working very hard to get the committee to get it done, and we
were trying to get it done in the last Congress and obviously
we were not able to get it accomplished, so I am with the staff
again next week and hopefully we get it on the calendar and we
do not see an issue in terms of the reauthorization.
Mr. Simpson. Good. Thank you.
Mr. Trandahl. Thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Simpson. Next we have Gary Werner, the Executive
Director of the Partnership for the National Trails System. How
are you doing this morning, Gary?
Mr. Werner. Fine.
Mr. Simpson. Good.
Mr. Werner. Good to see you again.
Mr. Simpson. Good to see you.
----------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
PUBLIC LANDS, BLM, NATIONAL PARKS
WITNESS
GARY WERNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PARTNERSHIP FOR THE NATIONAL TRAILS
SYSTEM
Mr. Werner. And I thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman
Moran, Congresswoman Lummis for the opportunity to testify.
Just as a reminder, I have for you--as you know, I represent 35
organizations that are your partners in the grand experiment of
the National Trails System, and I am here to thank you, first
off, for the strong support you have provided financially to
the Park Service, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land
Management for helping to manage and administer those trails
over the last dozen years or more but also the equally
important guidance that you have provided at a number of
junctures to the agencies about how they could be better
partners.
As you know, the National Trails System is a rather unique
public-private venture that Congress has authorized. Over the
last 40 years, you have authorized 30 National Scenic and
Historic Trails that span more than 50,000 miles through 49
states, and we represent your private partners in that venture.
I am happy to say that in 2010, our organizations organized,
motivated and guided citizen volunteers to contribute 1.1
million hours of volunteer labor valued at over $24 million.
Our organizations contributed another greater than $12 million,
a total of almost $37 million of our effort for these trails.
Congress was able to appropriate about $29 million to the three
agencies for their part. So we are truly here as your partners
with a hand out saying we are here to help.
The other thing that you know is that unfortunately this
wonderful system is mostly incomplete and so we need critical
assistance, financial assistance in several areas. One is the
operations funding for the Park Service, the Forest Service,
the Bureau of Land Management. In our testimony, we are asking
for a modest increase for each of those agencies.
One of the ways that we do much of our work, and we were
very happy to see that the Administration decided once again
that the value of the Challenge Cost Share programs for the
National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the
Fish and Wildlife Service is really tremendous. We over the
years have worked mostly Park Service Challenge Cost Share and
the leverage is supposed to be one to one. I think our average
has been about three to one. We have oftentimes had projects 10
to one. It is money that, as others have said, provides seed
money, gets a lot of projects done in local communities but it
also provides an opportunity for the communities to come out
and get involved and make their contributions. So what we are
suggesting is a modest increase in the amount of money beyond
what the President is asking for, of up to $4.5 million for
Challenge Cost Share with $1.5 million of that coming for the
National Trails System. In the past you have guided money that
way toward the trails.
Secondly, of equal importance, as a number of people have
mentioned already, is the Land and Water Conservation Fund to
complete critical gaps in the trails. We fully support the
effort to try to fully fund it this year as the Administration
is proposing. What we are specifically asking for is a total of
about $50 million spread across the Forest Service, the Park
Service and the Bureau of Land Management that would among
other things help protect places like City of Rocks Reserve in
Idaho and a key section of the Nez Perce Trail in Hell's
Canyon, a section along the Platte River near Casper for the
Oregon-California Pony Express Mormon Pioneer Trail plus others
in other states. We do not have any in Virginia because the AT
is complete through much of Virginia. But it is critical that
you continue to support those investments and help us complete
the trails.
The other two things I would like to ask you about are
things that do not necessarily require expending more money but
they do require providing guidance to the agencies. The Bureau
of Land Management budget, as you know, is divided up into sub-
activity accounts. They have no sub-activity account for
trails, and so to fund their efforts for the National Scenic
Trails--and they have more miles of historic trails on the
public land than any of the other agencies--they have to take
from 18 to 20 different sub-activity accounts and it is an
accounting nightmare for them, it is an accounting nightmare
for us to try to match money and, you know, make things work,
make plans to leverage. So we would ask you to, as I think you
did last year, direct the Administration to come up with a sub-
activity account for the National Trails System and for the
Wild and Scenic River System.
The last item I want to mention is one that came up very
strongly in the last few weeks with the budget issues in fiscal
year 2011, and that is the travel ceilings for the agencies.
These long-distance trails spanning thousands of miles based
upon relationships with many units of government and nonprofit
partners require the ability to come and sit down as we are
doing now face to face and talk to establish the kind of trust
and ongoing partnerships. If the federal folks involved with
the trails cannot travel, they quite simply cannot do the work
that they need to do, and I am hoping that you might provide
some guidance to the agencies that maybe the trails are
different than parks that are all in one place and maybe it
makes sense not to restrict travel from a park, but if you have
got to trail along thousands of miles of trails, maybe you
should not be held to the same standard, if you will.
In closing, I want to thank you all again and I do have
some additional--this is a report on some of the Challenge Cost
Share programs. This is a report we have done the last several
years on youth activities that we are doing in the trails
systems. And finally, this is our latest national newsletter,
which gives you a kind of short capsule of things that are
happening along the trails across the United States.
We are very proud that we are your private sector partners
in a public-private venture for public benefit, and we thank
you again for the longstanding support the committee has given.
[The statement of Mr. Werner follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Thanks for your testimony.
Next we have John Calvelli, Executive Vice President of
Public Affairs at the Wildlife Conservation Society.
---------- --
--------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
WILDLIFE AND WILDERNESS
WITNESS
JOHN CALVELLI, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, WILDLIFE
CONSERVATION SOCIETY
Mr. Calvelli. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member,
Members of Congress. Thank you so much for giving me the
opportunity to testify today. My name is John Calvelli. I am
the Executive Vice President of Public Affairs at the Wildlife
Conservation Society. WCS is one of those venerable
institutions founded in 1895 with the help of Teddy Roosevelt
as a science-based conservation organization with the mission
of saving wildlife and wild places around the globe. Today WCS
manages the largest network of urban wildlife parks in the
United States led by our flagship, the Bronx Zoo. Our fieldwork
now helps save 25 percent of the earth's biodiversity in over
60 countries around the world.
I do want to make a brief note that if you are looking for
dumb trout, we run the largest private protected area in Tierra
del Fuego in Chile, and I, who am a terrible fisher, did catch
something relatively large, so Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Simpson. It is a long ways to go.
Mr. Calvelli. It is a long ways to go but they are really
dumb, sir.
We believe this work is necessary to protect the planet's
natural capital that is the foundation of future prosperity.
Today I would like to describe the critical role that domestic
and international conservation play in increasing our Nation's
economic and national security while reaffirming our global
position as a conservation leader.
WCS has been an active partner in supporting America's
conservation tradition with our grant program funded by the
Doris Duke Foundation, which is helping to leverage funds from
the Fish and Wildlife Service's state wildlife grant. We have
helped through the Doris Duke Foundation to give about $14
million to more than 46 states including Idaho--another blatant
comment--on behalf of Idaho for wildlife corridor protection.
WCS recommends maintaining fiscal year 2010 funding of $95
million in fiscal year 2012 for state wildlife grants. The
Interior Department estimates that nature-based activities
supported by federal programs like state wildlife grants could
generate $14.1 billion in fiscal year 2012 for American
communities.
We believe that public land management should be science
based with an emphasis on landscape-level conservation. WCS
supports the Administration's request of $31 million for the
USGS Climate Science Centers, which will bring scientists and
stakeholders together to develop landscape-level management
strategies. These strategies are important in balancing energy
development and wildlife conservation in places like Alaska's
National Petroleum Reserve. I do want to state up front that we
were founded by members of the business community. We
understand the importance of business. We also understand that
the National Petroleum Reserve was created those many years ago
to find petroleum but through fate and through nature, that
area is also very important for migratory birds, and what we
are looking for is some type of focus on specific areas so that
we can create protected areas so that we can support subsidence
hunting in the local areas, preserve important bird and mammal
habitats while promoting energy development and respecting
first nation practices.
Conservation can bring nations together for a common cause,
building diplomatic relationships and preventing conflict. The
2010 International Tiger Summit in Russia was the first ever
heads of state summit dedicated to a single species that
signaled a strong commitment from the international community.
Just a note, there are actually more tigers in Texas than there
are in the wild at this point. The Fish and Wildlife Service's
Multinational Species Conservation Fund exemplifies this
commitment with its Rhino-Tiger Fund, which has helped WCS
develop a regionally targeted strategy to give tiger
populations a chance to recover. We recommend restoring fiscal
year 2010 funding levels for the Multinational Species
Conservation Fund with an additional $1 million for tigers
totaling $12.5 million. This program enjoys broad American
constituent support with more than 50 million members of the
coalition and over $25 million generated in private investments
in fiscal year 2009 alone. So as you can see, these programs
have great support, but more than that, they also leverage
significant federal funds.
Broader ecosystem protection is critical to the
preservation of species. WCS recommends funding the Wildlife
Without Borders program at $7.4 million of which $1 million is
for the Critically Endangered Species Fund would ensure the
conservation of scores of endangered birds and animals.
The Forest Service International Program provides technical
support in forest management in the world's most unstable
regions. It also represents the U.S. forest products industry
in international trade agreements and combats illegal logging,
which costs American businesses $1 billion annually. WCS
requests a restoration of this line item in fiscal year 2012
with funding maintained at the fiscal year 2010 level of $9.8
million.
I conclude with a conservation success story thanks to
America's investment in global, economic and environmental
sustainability. Having endured decades of Khmer rule and
significant human loss, Cambodia is moving towards stability.
In 2009, WCS helped Cambodia transform a former logging
concession into protection forest safeguarding threatened
animals and benefiting local hunters and farmers who have
retained access to the forest to balance conservation with
sustainable development. We focus on law enforcement, community
engagement and long-term monitoring and research while the
Cambodian government targets major crimes. The Fish and
Wildlife Service's initial investment has leveraged significant
funding from other sources, making this project possible.
Biodiversity conservation in places like Cambodia and also in
places like South Sudan are integral to finding long-term
solutions to reduce dependence on foreign aid and empowering
its citizens to benefit from ecosystem services.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and
unfortunately, although I came here from New York, the capital
of marketing, I have no materials. I saw all of our friends
providing materials to you. But we are at your disposal to
answer any questions, and please feel free to come for a tour
of the Bronx Zoo when you are in New York next.
[The statement of John Calvelli follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Questions, comments?
Mr. Moran. No. Very good testimony. Excellent. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. We appreciate it. Thank you.
Mr. Moran. And a great program.
Mr. Simpson. Next, we have Desiree Sorenson-Groves, Vice
President for Government Affairs, National Wildlife Refuge
Association. Hi, how are you doing?
Ms. Sorenson-Groves. I am good. How are you?
Mr. Simpson. Excellent.
---------- --
--------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
WILDLIFE AND WILDERNESS
WITNESS
DESIREE SORENSON-GROVES, VICE PRESIDENT, GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, NATIONAL
WILDLIFE REFUGE ASSOCIATION
Ms. Sorenson-Groves. So I am Desiree. I am with the
National Wildlife Refuge Association and I am speaking on
behalf of myself and also over 190 refuge friends organizations
including Friends of Southeast Idaho Refuges, Friends of
Potomac Refuges and numerous ones all over the country. We are
working on Wyoming. And we also serve as the chair of the
Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement. It is called CARE,
a very diverse group of conservation and hunting organizations
from Audubon to Ducks Unlimited to the NRA to Defenders of
Wildlife, and as you can imagine, we do not agree on much.
But the one thing we do agree on is refuge funding, and in
fact, Chairman Simpson, you might remember a couple years ago
we came in to visit you, and as we were walking past the wolf
in the back of your office, you asked the folks from Defenders
and the Safari Club how does that work, and you might remember
the gentleman from the Safari Club looked at you and said, you
know, sir, we do not agree on much but the one thing we do
agree on is refuge funding, we see eye to eye. And that pretty
much sums up the refuge system. It is unlikely you will find a
more diverse constituency for probably any federal program. I
mean, that is just the way it is.
We thank you for the past increases leading up to fiscal
year 2010, which is $503 million, which enabled the refuge
system to emerge from dark days of refuge closing. And I have
got to tell you, you know, Tom's comment about Park Service
endangered species, Park Service employees, well, at the refuge
system, they were extinct. So it was pretty bad, pretty dark
days. And now fiscal year 2010 is the highest point in refuge
funding but that is still 45 percent less than what the refuge
system truly needs. The true need for the refuge system is
actually $900 million annually. So they are still operating
under, you know, incredible challenges.
So we do not know what the fiscal year 2011 number is yet.
They are still working that out. But any cut however small has
a serious impact on refuges, especially when you are talking
about an agency that has no fat to cut. The truth is, actually
refuges need a small increase every year just to maintain what
they are doing. That used to be $15 million annually. Now with
the budget freeze, that has gone to $8 million, and that is our
request, is an $8 million increase for fiscal year 2012.
Now, we understand that that is pretty tough given these
kind of times but that is not even the true need. If you look
at the management capability needs from fiscal year 2010, it
would be $15 million for fiscal year 2011 and then another $8
million for fiscal year 2012. So for the first time in our
history as the CARE coalition, we are, in our minds, asking for
a cut, and we have never done that before. That was some
serious arguments around the table, let me tell you.
So we know that fiscal year 2012 is going to be tough but
we wanted to give you kind of a sense of what would happen on
the ground, especially if you went back to fiscal year 2008
numbers. I know that is something that you guys are thinking
about. Well, that is about a 20 percent in funding for the
refuge system. Hundreds of staff would be eliminated. Fifty-
four visitors centers would close, 11 would not open. Hunting
on 48 refuges, fishing on 45 would be eliminated, and the
system's inventory and monitoring program we just started would
be curtailed. And that is particularly troublesome, considering
when the oil spill was coming a year ago, none of the refuges--
well, none of the refuges nationwide have a comprehensive
inventory. They do not know what they have. I mean, this is
kind of mind-boggling because it is because of funding costs,
they just do not have the ability to figure out what they have.
So it is hard for them to know what they should manage more. To
this date, the only refuges in the entire system, 553 refuges,
that actually have a comprehensive inventory are the ones that
were in the path of the oil. That is it. And if we had not had
that, then when we talk about, you know, getting compensation
from BP, there is no way that they could prove it.
But the truth is, when it comes to that, the people who are
most impacted are the users of the refuge system. Friends and
volunteers provide 20 percent of all the work done on national
wildlife refuges. That is the equivalent of 648 full-time
staff, and that is from, you know, Fish and Wildlife Service is
only--refuge system is only about 3,500 staff, so it is an
enormous impact on the grounds. And those are some of the
programs that will get curtailed. They are the first things to
go.
The other people on the ground, I wanted to bring a couple
pictures. This is from Mayor Dennis Fife. He is from Brigham
City, Utah, and I think this photo kind of sums it up. This is
the archway and it says welcome to Brigham, gateway to the
world's greatest wild bird refuge. They love their refuge. And
in his words, you know, business owners in his city depend on
the refuge because people use their stores, their restaurants
and everything there. Doug Wood, he is a professor at--this is
not Doug Wood, by the way. He is a professor at Southeastern
Oklahoma State University. He uses the Tishomingo National
Wildlife Refuge to teach his students how to do research, his
biology students, and so right here they are birding
prothonotary warblers, which at this refuge are on the very
edge of their range. If he was not doing this, the refuge staff
would not be getting information about these species, and you
know, the folks would not be learning. And then last I have Tim
Reynolds. He is from Rigby, Idaho, a hunter and a bird watcher,
interestingly enough, and he is really concerned about budget
cuts because at the Camas Refuge, which is where he goes, it
costs between $60,000 and $90,000 annually to manage the
wetlands for waterfowl, and with budget cuts, the refuge system
is already thinking about managing only for upland habitat, not
for wetlands, so the hunting is going to go. The birds will go.
So it's just one of those impacts.
Refuges are economic engines in these local communities.
They provide $4 in economic return for every $1 that you guys
appropriate, which is pretty significant, and they are a cheap
date. They only cost $3.36 per acre to manage, which is the
least amount of any public land management agency.
So I thank you for considering our request, and I hope all
of you go to a national wildlife refuge over your recess.
[The statement of Desiree Sorenson-Groves follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. We appreciate your testimony.
Thanks for being here today.
Mr. Moran. You got it all in. Nice job.
Mr. Simpson. We have got a series of three votes.
Mr. Lewis. Mr. Chairman, if you will, I am going to be
running all over the place as you are, but later in testimony
Mr. Moran and you will be hearing Doug Headrick from my
district in southern California. He specifically will be
talking about the Santa Ana sucker that you heard me chat with
the Secretary about the other day.
Mr. Simpson. Yes, you mentioned that sucker.
Mr. Lewis. The one thing that we want to make certain is we
do not go down the pathway of the pattern we experienced with
the Delta smelt, and all that we can do to respond to Doug's
request, I would appreciate. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Moran. I would love to hear from The Wildlife Society
and the Defenders of Wildlife, but I do not know, how much time
do we have?
Mr. Simpson. We have got three votes. We have five minutes
left in this one.
Mr. Moran. Of course, that was about two minutes ago.
Mr. Simpson. Yes, and then two 5-minute votes, and as soon
as that 5-minute vote is over, we are probably talking about
quarter til, being back here.
Mr. Moran. I am not going to be able to be back.
Mr. Simpson. I will be.
Mr. Moran. Then okay.
Mr. Simpson. We have five more people to testify, so if you
will be patient with us for the next 25 minutes, 20 minutes
while we go over and cast our votes for truth, justice and the
American way of life.
[Recess.]
Mr. Simpson. Next we have Laura Bies, the Director of
Government Affairs for The Wildlife Society. How are you doing
today?
Ms. Bies. Doing well. How are you guys?
Mr. Simpson. Good.
---------- --
--------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
WILDLIFE AND WILDERNESS
WITNESS
LAURA BIES, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, THE WILDLIFE SOCIETY
Ms. Bies. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name
is Laura Bies. I am the Director of Government Affairs with The
Wildlife Society. We represent over 10,000 professional
wildlife biologists and managers who are all dedicated to
excellence in wildlife stewardship through science and
education, and I talk about some of our priorities today and
then obviously you can refer to my written testimony for more
detail.
While we fully understand the limits of the current fiscal
situation, we feel Congress also has a responsibility to ensure
that the investments of previous generations in wildlife
management and conservation are not squandered. Our land and
natural resource management agencies have built a strong
foundation of responsible science-based wildlife management and
conservation over the past century and they need the resources
to continue this important work, especially in the face of
threats such as invasive species, urban sprawl and increasing
development, and climate change.
Within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, one of these
programs is the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants program. It is
the only federal program that supports states in preventing
wildlife from becoming endangered and it is also the primary
program supporting the implementation of comprehensive wildlife
conservation strategies or state wildlife action plans. These
detailed conservation actions are needed on the ground in every
state to keep common species common. We recommend that Congress
appropriate $95 million for State and Tribal Wildlife grants.
The National Wildlife Refuge System provides an invaluable
network of lands for wildlife conservation in addition to
unmatched opportunities for outdoor recreation. Many years of
stagnant budgets have increased the operations and maintenance
backlog of the system. Refuge visitors often show up to find
visitors centers closed, hiking trails in disrepair and habitat
restoration programs eliminated. As a member of CARE, the
Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement, which Desiree
spoke about, we recommend that Congress provide $511 million
for operation maintenance of the National Wildlife Refuge
System.
Our Bureau of Land Management lands support over 3,000
species of wildlife, more than 300 federally proposed or listed
species, and more than 1,300 sensitive plant species. However,
the BLM currently only has about one biologist per 591,000
acres of land and the costs they face for endangered and
threatened species recovery continue to rise.
In addition, the wildlife and the threatened and endangered
species management programs have been forced to pay for the
compliance activities of BLM's energy, grazing and other non-
wildlife-related program which erodes their ability to conduct
proactive conservation activities on those lands. Given the
underfunding of the BLM's wildlife programs combined with the
tremendous expansion of energy development across the BLM
landscape that we have seen in recent decades, we recommend
funding of $40 million for BLM's wildlife management program.
The Wildlife Society appreciates BLM's commitment to
addressing the problems identified with wild horse and burro
management on their lands. The President has requested an
increase of $12 million for this program to implement a new
strategy for management and also act on recommendations
provided by the Inspector General. We are concerned, however,
about the BLM's emphasis on fertility control and their
proposal to reduce the number of horses removed from the range.
Horses are already above the appropriate management levels as
set by BLM in most of these areas so we feel the proposal to
reduce the number of horses removed from the range is ill-
conceived. The request of $75.7 million should be provided to
BLM if they continue to remove these excess horses from the
range and also focus additional resources on habitat
restoration.
Within the U.S. Geological Survey, the cooperative fish and
wildlife research units play a key role in conducting research
on renewable natural resource questions, expanding into
education of graduate students, providing technical assistance
on natural resource issues, and providing continued education
for natural resource professionals like our members. In 2001,
Congress fully funded these units which allowed productivity to
rise to record levels. Since then, however, budgetary
shortfalls have caused an erosion of available funds. This has
resulted in a current staffing vacancy of nearly one-quarter of
the professional workforce within those units. To fill these
current vacancies, restore the seriously eroded operational
funds and to enhance national program coordination, $22 million
should be appropriated for the cooperative fish and wildlife
research units.
We appreciate the fiscal year 2010 funding of $15.1 million
for the National Climate change and Wildlife Science Center.
The center is going to play a really pivotal role in addressing
the impacts of climate change on fish and wildlife by providing
essential scientific support, and we recommend funding for this
center at $25 million.
Finally, we ask Congress to provide additional funding to
fight white nose syndrome in bats. The current loss of bat
populations from white nose syndrome is one of the most
precipitous wildlife declines really in the past century in
North America and would likely have significant ecological and
economic impacts. We request a total funding of $11.1 million
for white nose syndrome research, monitoring and response
spread among the various federal agencies that are involved in
this effort.
Thank you for considering the views and the recommendations
of the wildlife professionals and we are available to continue
working with you and your staff throughout the process.
[The statement of Laura Bies follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. We look forward to working with you
on this and finding out what a white nose bat is. I appreciate
it. Thank you.
Ms. Bies. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Next, we have Mary Beth Beetham, Legislative
Director of the Defenders of Wildlife.
----------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
WILDLIFE AND WILDERNESS
WITNESS
MARY BETH BEETHAM, DIRECTOR OF LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS, DEFENDERS OF
WILDLIFE
Ms. Beetham. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
testify. I really appreciate it. Defenders of Wildlife has more
than 1 million members and supporters around the country, and
we are dedicated to the conservation of wild animals and plants
in their natural communities.
Even in these challenging budget times, Defenders continues
to believe that investments in the protection of wildlife are a
wise choice for our Nation. To protect wildlife, its habitat
must be protected, which in turn protects healthy natural
systems that provide clean air, clean water, food, medicines
and other products we all need to live healthy lives. Federal
programs that protect imperiled species, migratory birds,
refuges, forests and other lands essential to wildlife
conservation, as I am sure you well know, are therefore all
going to ultimately support the health and well-being of the
American people.
The devastating Deepwater Horizon oil spill offered a
valuable but unfortunate lesson in the importance of a healthy
Gulf Coast ecosystem for the families and the communities
dependent upon it. Moreover, the American public cares deeply
about wildlife conservation as they demonstrate by opening
their pocketbooks and spending about $120 billion every year on
wildlife-associated recreation.
The programs that Defenders highlights in our written
testimony are the ones under the subcommittee's jurisdiction
that we think are the most important for wildlife conservation,
and we know these are challenging budget times so we are asking
that you do as much as you can to protect them. I would like to
take just a few minutes to highlight what we think are some of
the compelling needs just as examples.
The National Wildlife Refuge System, as Desiree already
mentioned, anchors our Nation's wildlife conservation efforts
yet flat or declining budgets will force its return to a
massive restructuring program that will harm basic functions
such as restoring habitats, controlling illegal activities and
invasive species, and working with visitors. The special agents
of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement
are on the front lines between protected plants and animals and
the poachers and the smugglers who traffic in them. The annual
illegal wildlife trade is valued at $10 billion annually and
that is second only after the illegal trade in drugs and arms
yet the special agents force currently falls 23 percent below
its authorized level and even 16 percent below its previous
high water mark.
As our Nation pursues the needed expansion of renewable
energy development, it is also important that that move forward
in such a way that wildlife protections are protected and there
is no net loss of any wildlife populations. Yet even for a
species as iconic as the golden eagle, there is not currently
enough information to ensure that wind turbines can be sited in
such a way that will prevent harm.
BLM and Forest Service lands, as has already just been
previously said, are becoming increasingly important to the
conservation of wildlife in our country, each supporting more
than 3,000 species. BLM must survey at least 400 caves, which
they have not even begun to do yet, for the presence or absence
of bats in order to begin to address white nose syndrome, which
is a devastating disease that has killed more than a million
bats across the country and is continuing to spread, and why we
should care about white nose syndrome? Well, bats are
beneficial in many ways including as voracious eaters of
insects that are pests.
The Forest Service Wildlife and Fish program falls nearly
$16 million below its 2001 inflation-adjusted level, so that
program is having a hard time. And they also have 19 percent
fewer biologists and botanists than they had in 1995. And while
we support the Administration's Integrated Resource Restoration
initiative, we support the stated goals of the Integrated
Resource Restoration initiative. We do have concerns about the
adequacy of the science-based management objectives that the
agency has put forward so far and also the conservation
standards that have also been put forward at this point,
especially given that they plan to merge the wildlife and
fisheries program into Integrated Resource Restoration.
And finally, we support the Administration's continued
emphasis on landscape-level conservation that is intended to
build resilience to broad-scale economic stressors like climate
change, drought, wildfire, invasive species and other impacts.
However, as I know I have heard you say many times and we have
spoken to you about this previously, we believe that these
efforts really need to be effectively and efficiently
coordinated and we need to make sure there is not duplication
going on in order for them to be really effective, and they
also really need to be lifting the boats of the basic operating
programs of the agency such as providing them with the
inventory and monitoring resources that they need. And the
impacts, and while these landscape-level projects and
conservation efforts are moving forward, the impacts of large
undertakings such as the expanded development of renewable
energy should be getting considered as they are planning all
their landscape-level efforts, not separately.
So thank you very much. We appreciate the opportunity and
we look forward now that we are on to fiscal year 2012, we
hope, we look forward to working with you because we know it is
going to be a challenging year.
[The statement of Mary Beth Beetham follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Well, thank you for your testimony, and we do
look forward to working with you as we try to make a budget
that makes sense with what limited resources we are going to
have in this coming year.
Ms. Beetham. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Nina Fascione. Is that even close?
Ms. Fascione. It was very close, actually, just about right
on. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, the Executive Director of the Bat
Conservation International.
----------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
WILDLIFE AND WILDERNESS
WITNESS
NINA FASCIONE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BAT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL
Ms. Fascione. Yes, and this, sir, is, I am afraid, a dead
bat with white nose syndrome, so I am here----
Mr. Simpson. It is not a white nose bat, it is white nose
syndrome?
Ms. Fascione. It is a fungus that is devastating bat
populations in the United States. It is a newly described newly
emerging disease that was first discovered outside of a cave in
Albany, New York, in 2006, so it is brand new. It has killed
more than a million bats by far, as you have heard, although my
personal opinion is that it has destroyed at least an order of
magnitude larger than that. As you can imagine, bats are hard
to count and so the numbers are not accurate.
Mr. Simpson. How does it kill them?
Ms. Fascione. It is a cold-loving fungus that impacts
hibernating bats, as they are hibernating in caves and mines in
the winter, and as anybody who has ever had athlete's foot
knows, when you get a fungus, it is very itchy and irritating.
It wakes the bats up from hibernation. Their immune systems
kick in and they start burning up their fat reserves. So these
bats are waking up twice as much as they would normally without
the fungus, and frankly, the cause of death is likely
starvation or dehydration. It is causing strange bat behavior
like bats flying around in the middle of winter when they
should be hibernating or during the day, and it is killing
them.
It is impacting these hibernating bats. It has so far
impacted nine species in 18 states. We heard this two days ago,
Kentucky added to the unfortunate list of states that have
white nose syndrome. In the United States, we have 46 species
of bats. Twenty-five of those are hibernating species. So more
than half of our bats in the United States could be impacted by
this disease. And you heard my predecessor saying that
scientists really are calling this the most precipitous decline
in wildlife in North America.
A little bit more about the economic benefits of bats. They
really do provide enormous benefits to humans. They eat bugs
and they happen to have a preference for bugs that eat crops,
the cotton bollworm and insect pests that destroy potato,
cotton and corn crops. They are enormously beneficial to
farmers, and in fact, a study that came out just two weeks ago
in the journal Science, a prestigious journal by really some of
the Nation's top bat biologists, estimated that bats save
farmers in the United States between $3.7 billion and $5.3
billion a year. With the loss of bats at this rate, farmers can
start seeing impacts within the next four to five years. It is
going to mean their costs go up in pesticides and obviously
more pesticides means more chemicals in our environment, so it
is really an unfortunate situation all around.
In fact, I said the number one million is probably
conservative, but if you just take that one million figure, one
million bats would eat 700 tons of insects a year.
Mr. Simpson. I like bats.
Ms. Fascione. So two of the species that are impacted of
the nine are endangered federally listed, the gray bat and
Indiana bat. The gray bat in fact was doing well under the
Endangered Species Act. We were working to delist it until this
disease came along. Ninety percent of the gray bat population
is in less than ten caves, so if those caves get hit with the
fungus, they are likely goners. And these impacts of these
species and other potential species that might be potentially
listed could have impacts on mining, forestry, construction,
transportation and even tourism, so there could be very wide-
ranging impacts of possible future listings for bats or frankly
cave invertebrates that are impacted with the loss of bats in
the cave ecosystems.
Many agencies, frankly all the agencies, have been looking
at this disease because it is so far-reaching, and in fact, I
brought a map to share with you as well. So the Fish and
Wildlife Service has been the lead agency on this and they have
been working on understanding the disease, how it spreads,
surveillance, monitoring and stopping the spread, which will
require public education and outreach. We are requesting $11.1
million to continue working on this disease, and we believe
that this is a case of where an ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure because of these economic benefits from bats and
the loss which could be so devastating.
The impacts are going to be at both state and federal
levels. We understand this is a very tight economic time but
this request is really--the agencies have been pouring funding
into this already by necessity. This increase is actually just
$4.8 million above what they have been doing, and again, is
well worth it in the long run.
So thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about
this disease, and I will share these maps. One is of our
current white nose syndrome range and then we just this week
created a map with--the gray area is Car System in the western
United States, so these are areas where bats will be
hibernating. The brown area is where two of the most common
species reside, which basically shows that this could spread
through the entire Nation including those areas in the West,
and because you said you like bats, this is the newest issue of
our magazine where we highlight different species. Hopefully
you think some of them are pretty cool.
[The statement of Nina Fascione follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. They are weird looking.
Ms. Fascione. They are weird looking, some of them. Some of
them are quite cute and they are very important.
Mr. Simpson. How do you fight that?
Ms. Fascione. Again, as anybody who has had athlete's foot
knows, it is actually very hard to fight a fungus, particularly
bats are colonial. You know, they live in these huge
populations in caves. It is going to be very hard to treat
this. You cannot treat with a fungicide or you risk killing
other cave biota. So far, agencies and private landowners have
been doing decontamination protocols, keeping people out of
caves when necessary or when people need to go in caves, doing
a full decontamination protocol. The disease is spread bat to
bat. So it is going to be a tough task to stop this. You cannot
obviously vaccinate bats, and that is what we need to find out.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Ms. Fascione. Thank you, sir.
Doug Headrick, General Manager of the Santa Ana Sucker Task
Force, as Mr. Lewis said that this is a subject he has brought
up many times with the individuals testifying, so welcome.
----------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
WILDLIFE AND WILDERNESS
WITNESS
DOUG HEADRICK, GENERAL MANAGER, SAN BERNARDINO VALLEY MUNICIPAL WATER
DISTRICT/SANTA ANA SUCKER TASK FORCE
Mr. Headrick. Thank you very much, Chairman Simpson.
As Congressman Lewis mentioned, I am here today
representing the 12 inland California agencies that have banded
together in the face of what we believe is regulatory overreach
by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Unfortunately, our region has the distinction of having the
highest unemployment rate in the entire United States, but in
the midst of this economic turmoil, the service under some
heavy political and legal pressure by the Center for Biological
Diversity threw out their carefully determined Critical Habitat
designation from five years ago and greatly expanded that
territory late last year.
The Santa Ana sucker is a small fish, maybe about six
inches long. It was listed as threatened in 2001, and since
that time, members of our task force have worked cooperatively
with the service and others to conduct studies, monitor the
species and also identify restoration projects, and so far we
spent well over $1 million to do that.
However, after all this cooperative work was in place, in
December 2009 the service announced that they were planning to
overturn their previous rule based on a closed-door settlement
agreement that was signed between the service and the Center
for Biological Diversity. Those of us that were going to be
most impacted by this decision were not involved in that.
So back in 2005, after a lengthy public comment and review
process, the service established the critical habitat for this
fish. At that time the service intentionally excluded areas of
the river that are dry for obvious reasons, finding that these
areas were not essential to the conservation of the species,
which is the finding required, and that the enormous cost to
our economy far outweighed any possible benefits to the fish.
But we believe the new designation, the new expanded
designation, disregards the scientific and economic realities
which should have been central to their decision. In short, the
service did not follow its own rules or federal law.
Let me underscore if I could that none of the newly
designated areas currently nor in the past ever supported a
sustainable population of this fish, mainly because they are
dry nine to 11 months a year. Even before water diversion
started over 100 years ago, based on the climate, these reaches
of the river would go dry during dry times. Amazingly, the
service included these ephemeral streams in the new critical
habitat for the fish. The new untested claim is that the gravel
that is on the bed of these dry streams, it might be needed in
the future for the fish that live downstream. As you know,
water supply reliability in California is a big issue,
especially when it is tied to the Sacramento Delta, as we are
through the state water project. The new designation critical
habitat, directly opposes our efforts to reduce our reliance on
that water source. We have been working to undertake stormwater
capture programs to expand our water supplies without impacting
species. These are projects that capture water that would have
flowed to the Pacific Ocean during flood events, not helping
humans or fish. This new designation puts these projects in
jeopardy and makes us look back to the delta for our water
needs.
For example, several years ago Congress authorized funding
for the Seven Oaks Dam. It is mainly a flood control project.
However, Congress also authorized spending to alter the dam's
design to allow us to capture more water. After that, the
California State Water Resource Control Board spent several
years evaluating the project, the water capture project behind
Seven Oaks Dam, to try to determine the impacts it might have
on the species and determined that with mitigation that we have
implemented, the water diversion would not harm the fish.
Should this habitat expansion be allowed, our access to this
valuable water supply could be nullified, violating Congress's
clear intention.
How much water is at risk? This is essentially the amount
of water that would serve about a million Californians every
year. To replace this water with the value of water in
California today would cost over $2 billion over the next 25
years. That is assuming we could actually find it.
Our region, with its 13 percent unemployment rate, can
really ill afford the uncertainty caused by this ruling. When
combined with the Delta smelt, which we are all familiar with,
this recent ruling essentially could stop all economic growth
in our region. Despite this chilling result and the fact that
the issue was repeatedly raised with the Fish and Wildlife
Service, they chose not to even evaluate the economic issue.
Earlier this week, the task force that I represent took the
first step to try to reverse this decision by the service. We
formally filed what is called a 60-day notice outlining all the
deficiencies of the ruling. Now we hope that the service will
take the 60 days provided by law to reverse their decision and
reestablish the critical habitat to what it was originally
determined to be. I ask that the committee please undertake an
active role in oversight of the service and its use of the
Endangered Species Act as a regulatory tool. Thank you.
[The statement of Doug Headrick follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you, and thank you for your testimony. I
feel fairly certain that there are a couple members on this
committee that will keep us well informed of what is going on,
Mr. Lewis and Mr. Calvert. So thanks for your testimony and
thanks for being here today.
Mr. Headrick. Thank you very much.
Mr. Simpson. You bet.
Andy Oliver, Coordinator of the Multinational Species
Coalition.
Ms. Oliver. I am batting cleanup here. Hopefully I will hit
a home run.
Mr. Simpson. There you go.
----------
Friday, April 15, 2011.
WILDLIFE AND WILDERNESS
WITNESS
ANDY OLIVER, COORDINATION, MULTINATIONAL SPECIES COALITION
Ms. Oliver. Mr. Simpson, Chairman Simpson, thank you so
much for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the
Multinational Species Coalition on the Multinational Species
Conservation Fund of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and I just
wanted to thank you and your staff for all of the hard work
that has gone into providing this opportunity to testify for
all of us. The work that has gone into this as a new
participant really, you know, made it very easy and feasible
and seamless for all of us so that you could hear the many
voices that you have heard over the last four days.
My name is Andy Oliver and I serve as the brand-new
Coordinator of the Multinational Species Coalition, a broad-
based coalition comprised of 32 organizations representing
sportsmen, conservationists, zoos, circuses, veterinarians,
animal welfare groups and their more than 15 million members,
which is a huge number. I was shocked when I heard that. I want
to thank you for your past and consistent support for these
small but vital programs, and in fiscal year 2012 we
respectfully request your support for funding the Multinational
Species Conservation Fund at $12.5 million and the Wildlife
Without Borders program at $7.4 million.
Wildlife conservation programs are a modest but essential
piece of the United States engagement with the developing
world. Through the Multinational Species Conservation Fund, the
United States supplements the efforts of developing countries
that are struggling to balance needs of their human populations
and wildlife. The Multinational Species Conservation Fund helps
to sustain wildlife populations, address threats by controlling
poaching, reducing human-wildlife conflict, and protecting
essential habitat. By working with local communities, they also
improve people's livelihoods, contribute to local and regional
stability, and support U.S. security interests in impoverished
regions.
Over the past two decades, these popular and highly
effective programs have provided seed money for public-private
partnerships that conserve wild tigers, elephants, rhinos,
great apes and marine turtles in their native habitat. The
Multinational Species Conservation Fund and the Wildlife
Without Borders programs have long enjoyed broad bipartisan
support and we urge you to continue that support going forward.
Multinational Species Conservation Fund serves the dual purpose
of protecting wildlife populations and essential habitat for
local communities. They are an excellent investment for the
Federal Government, consistently leveraging three or four times
as much in matching funds from corporations, conservation
groups and national governments.
Recognizing our challenging budget situation, the
Multinational Species Coalition hopes you will consider
including funding for the five funds that make up this small
but vital program at $2 million each for the African elephant,
Asian elephant and marine turtle funds, $2.5 million for great
apes, and $4 million for the combined rhino-tiger fund. These
funding levels are consistent with fiscal year 2010
appropriations for all of the funds except rhino-tiger, for
which we request a $1 million increase to bring it in line with
the African and Asian elephant and marine turtle fund, so $2
million for rhinos, $2 million for tigers, and capitalize on
the global awareness and commitments made at last year's
International Tiger Summit that Mr. Calvelli mentioned earlier.
The need for your support of these funds has never been
greater. My written testimony includes many examples of many of
the success stories made possible by the Multinational Species
Conservation Fund. I think that you heard from Mr. Calvelli
about the situation with tigers and so I will not elaborate on
that further, but that is just one example of the great work
that is done through these funds for all of these wildlife
species.
Just a few words about the Wildlife Without Borders
program. The Wildlife Without program addresses some of the
world's most pressing challenges to wildlife. Faced with
emerging disease threats that pass between animals and people--
you heard about the bats--extracted industry practices and
pressures from local communities for nature to provide for
their livelihoods, this program allows for greater investment
in addressing cross-cutting threats to ecosystems and wildlife.
The program is making a lasting impact through capacity-
building and technical support and training and local community
education. It is just doing terrific work, and the small
investment really makes it worth it.
We hope you will consider the proven success and very
positive impacts of these programs in relation to their modest
cost and the broad-based and enthusiastic support of
constituents. We urge the committee to fund the programs at the
levels outlined earlier.
Thank you again for the opportunity. We really appreciate
it. We look forward to working with you, and I am happy to
answer any questions that after four days of this you may have.
[The statement of Andy Oliver follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you for being here today and for your
testimony, and we appreciate it very much.
Most of you here may wonder when you leave if what you say
to us makes any difference in what we do. I suspect most people
who testify before Congress wonder if that is the case. But it
does make a difference in what happens because we do take your
testimony into consideration and the concerns when we are
trying to put together a budget, whether it is in times when we
increased funding or flat funding or with decrease in funding.
So it is important that we have the views of your organizations
and people in the country of what their priorities are and what
we need to be doing.
So I do appreciate all of you being here today and for your
testimony and we look forward to working with all the different
organizations that have an interest in various parts of this
Interior and Environment budget. So thank you all.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
TESTIMONY OF INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS
PUBLIC WITNESSES--NATIVE AMERICANS
Mr. Cole. We are going to go ahead and start. We will have
members coming in and out through the morning, but we certainly
want to try and stay as much on time as we can. I am presiding.
Chairman Simpson will be here at some points and some points he
will not, but if we could have our first panel come forward,
please.
If we could have Mr. Tortalita.
Mr. Tortalita. Good morning.
Mr. Cole. Thank you.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
PUEBLO OF ACOMA
WITNESS
LLOYD TORTALITA
Mr. Tortalita. Good morning. My name is Lloyd Tortalita,
and I am from Pueblo of Acoma in New Mexico. Not Mexico, but
New Mexico. A lot of people do not know that New Mexico does
exist, and I am from Pueblo of Acoma. I am a Vietnam veteran. I
am also a uranium worker, 20 years of working in the uranium
mines. Also the best title I have right now is being grandpa.
And as a tribal elder, the young people that I am speaking
for, I am from Pueblo of Acoma. It is my concern my young
people are growing up because of the type of world that we live
in and what is happening in the world. So mostly my testimony
is geared towards those individuals that are being affected by
things like uranium mining, industry ruin, and I suffer, and
you know, a lot of things that we are doing now, the national
budget, is requiring a lot of money.
As a Vietnam veteran I did not know that I was going to get
diabetes from Agent Orange, did not know that I was going to be
suffering what I am suffering now. I look good and healthy but
inside I am not anymore. Same way with uranium. You know the
recall compensation that has been going through,
reauthorization back in 2000, when I was governor of Pueblo of
Acoma, I testified before Congress in trying to pass that, got
it passed, and now we have a lot of individuals that are
suffering from that or families are suffering because we did
not know when we went to work for them. The United States said,
we need your help; we need you to go to Vietnam, and I got
drafted, got sent to Vietnam, and now we are paying for it. My
skin is not what it used to be.
I did not know I was getting diabetes, did not know some of
my friends were burying an individual, one of our veterans from
the American Legion Post 116. I am also a chaplain at that. We
are burying one of our individuals because of colon cancer, and
he got it from being in Vietnam from Agent Orange and
everything else. They are burying him right now. I should be
out there as a tribal elder, and you know, we are losing a lot
of our elders.
Now these baby boomers who were the ones that were in
Vietnam are the ones that are suffering, are the ones that are
supposed to be the grandpas and grandmas teaching our young
people our tradition and culture of Acoma and throughout our
country.
And, you know, we come here, I come here sometimes, this
year, again, I am privileged to come back because I am the
former governor, and I have testified a couple of times before
Congressman Yates, Congressman Dicks, and now in front of
Congressman Cole. And but it is an honor to be here, and again,
some of the things that I will be talking about I am not going
to see it probably within 10 years. You know, I came here
asking for money to build a community center for my people. It
took 10 years to get it built. It is built now, and it is done,
and we are addressing diabetes and everything else, and some of
the things that are happening to our young people.
Education is another one. We are still fighting for
education, Native American education, education for our young
people, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian
Education. It is not happening, and a lot of things are not
happening as we all know.
You hear a lot of people come before you, and one of the
biggest subjects is Johnson-O'Malley. I know you are very aware
of it. I know because I have talked to you before. Johnson-
O'Malley is a program that is there for our young people, our
young Native students that most are, as you know, were in rural
settings, way out there in the middle of nowhere, where there
is really no transportation, no roads. In my testimony you will
probably read later on, talking about roads. Our roads are
falling apart, and our hospitals are, this and that.
And so we are in a bad situation with bridges and roads,
hospitals, I mean, Indian Health Service, VA hospitals, those,
same way with the Johnson-O'Malley. You know, we are fighting
for $24 million, get it back to what it was, and I have
pictures that you can look at in the back of my testimony here
that shows that my program is successful, that we are doing
what we need to do and also at one time or another we also had
an office within the central office here in Washington of JOM,
but Save America's Treasures was another one. Acoma dating back
to 1,200.
And then like I said, budget. I mean, we are down. IHS
hospitals, Acoma-Canoncito, 50 percent or 50 positions are
open. How are we going to provide medical services? VA
hospitals, takes all day for individuals to get there, but we
are suffering from all that stuff.
So we are just here to ask for help, and it is all written
out. It is all there, so please read what I am telling you,
but, you know, we have all this, and water is another example,
coming off of Mount Taylor, you do not have any good water
coming off of there. All of it, right now they are saying they
are putting chemicals into the ground which directly affects
our irrigation.
Irrigation system is another one that we worry about. So
please if you could, pay attention to some of this. Johnson-
O'Malley is the biggest thing. I mean, it is all there, 24
million, a position in Washington, student, and freeze it and
educate our young people like they need to be educated.
And I know I am running out of time, but the red light is
on, but, you know, thank you very much for listening to me, and
it is all written out, and I just urge and ask Congress to read
and help us. Thank you very much.
[The statement of Lloyd Tortalita follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Well, first of all, thank you for your service
and not only to our country but to your tribe as well and the
many things you have done. Your testimony will be entered.
This committee has a really strong bipartisan tradition of
trying to work on these things, and in a tough budget time it
actually has. We actually exceeded the President's request for
2011. We have met it in previous years, and again, that has
been bipartisan. We recognize the problems you are talking
about are very real, and certainly Chairman Simpson has made a
real effort in a period of budget cuts to make sure that on
Native American programs we have been able to avoid those and
actually add a little bit to what was done in 2010.
So I cannot predict what is going to happen going forward.
We live in an era of trillion and a half dollar deficits, and
that is not sustainable, but I can assure you this committee is
going to do everything it can on a bipartisan basis to protect
and build on these really critical programs.
So, again, thank you for being here.
Mr. Tortalita. Thank you very much, and you can see
pictures of my state cross country champions.
Mr. Cole. I was going to say I am pretty impressed with the
state champs.
Mr. Tortalita. The after-school van. If they did not have
the transportation service to the schools, we would have never
gotten the state championship. It is really a good program
that, again, this is the Johnson-O'Malley Program.
Mr. Cole. It is awfully impressive.
Mr. Tortalita. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cole. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.
And if we could, we will move on to Mr. Dasheno.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
SANTA CLARA PUEBLO
WITNESS
WALTER DASHENO
Mr. Dasheno. Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Moran, and
Congressman Cole, and members of the subcommittee, my name is
Walter Dasheno. I am the governor of the Pueblo Santa Clara,
and thank you for this opportunity to present to you on the
fiscal year 2012 budget.
Santa Clara Pueblo is a federally recognized Indian tribe
located 25 miles north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. We are only one
of two tribes in New Mexico that have ventured into self-
governance compacts with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Santa
Clara Pueblo's experience as a self-governance tribe mirrors
that of many other self-governance tribes.
Overall, the program has been a great success. Self-
governance works because it promotes self-sufficiency and
accountability, strengthens tribal planning and management
capacities, invests in our local resources to strengthen
reservation economies, allows for flexibility and a firm
sovereignty.
Santa Clara is happy to see that the President's budget
proposes continued investment in the self-governance program
with a modest increase in the IHS budget of 263,000 for
administrative costs and a larger increase in the self-
governance line in the BIA budget of 7.32 million for a total
of 155.84 million from the fiscal year 2010-2011 continuing
resolution level. And this is an increase of approximately 5
percent.
Overall, the Federal Government obligates over 425 million
to some 225 federally-recognized tribes through the self-
governance compacts. Notwithstanding this increases in the
self-governance program, in reality overall funding for self-
governance tribes does not keep pace with non-self-governance
tribes. It has been the experience of self-governance tribes
that when others have received funded increases, self-
governance tribes do not or did not receive their relatively
fair share. I would urge this committee to examine closely this
issue. Santa Clara budget matters illustrate some of the
national concerns that we have.
Santa Clara publicly submitted grant applications to
various feasibility studies for a range of energy projects.
Both the Department of Energy, Office of Tribal Affairs, and
the BIA Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development have
been very helpful, and their programs should receive more
funding.
Santa Clara desperately needs a new and expanded health
clinic. Santa Clara does not believe that the in-house service
has the funding to pay the cost for constructing a new
facility, and so it plans to finance its own facility if
necessary. Still, Congress should support funding for more
hospital construction and also continue to support and provide
favorable grants and loans and loan guarantees for tribes that
seek to construct their own facilities.
Invested in irrigation infrastructure, Rio Grande Pueblos
Irrigation Infrastructure Improvement Act funding. This act
authorizes the funding of projects to correct deficiencies
identified by a Secretarial study. The implementation of this
act will favorably affect public traditional lifestyle and
culture which for hundreds of years has been based on the
culture, agriculture, and irrigated lands. So far almost no
money has been spent implementing this act.
In late 2009, Santa Clara Pueblo completed construction of
a 10,800 square foot regional adult daycare center that will be
able to serve a growing population of tribal seniors. Although
the center has been completed, the adult daycare program has
not yet been implemented due to severe funding restraints.
Congress needs to expand funding for programs that serve Indian
elders.
The Santa Clara Pueblo wastewater systems are also in an
advanced state of decay and threaten community health and the
water quality of the Rio Grande. The system was largely
constructed in the 1960s and '70s and has out-served its actual
use life. The need to upgrade wastewater and water facilities
is common throughout Indian Country.
Santa Clara urges funding through the Army Corps of
Engineers from the Espanola Valley Watershed Study to address
ecosystem restoration and critical health and human safety
concerns, specifically flooding along the Espanola River
Valley.
Finally, Santa Clara urges increased funding for the BIA
Real Estate Services, which support cadastral surveys, lease
compliances, and energy and mineral development issues. Current
funding only meets about one-quarter of the need, holding up
critical tribal projects. I must add, by the way, that the
Southwest Region is blessed with the outstanding BIA Real
Estate officer in Johnna Black.
Finally, although not immediately affected, Santa Clara
does support passage of the statuary fix which the subcommittee
worked so hard on last year.
In conclusion, as you work on the budget, please feel free
to reach out to our DC Council, Greg Smith, who is well versed
in all of these matters. Thank you for this opportunity to
present the budget perspective of Santa Clara Pueblo. And I am
on time.
[The statement of Walter Dasheno follows:]
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Mr. Cole. It was like to the second. Did you practice?
Mr. Dasheno. No, I did not, but certainly, Mr. Chairman,
and Mr. Cole, I support what Governor, former Governor
Tortalita has said. We need to put our hand out to the
veterans. That is an organization that is widely needed and
also to the elderly. We met with some people yesterday, but
there is very little involvement of support from the national
programs that support Indian issues for the Native elderly, and
we have some recommendations that we will come back with.
So with that, congratulations. Thank you very much, and the
United States has to be something to be proud of in the passing
of what has happened over the weekend. So thank you.
Mr. Cole. I think all of us, regardless of our points of
view, take a great deal of pride in what our military did, and
again, thank you for your service. Thank you for mentioning
veterans.
I see Mr. Calvert is here. I do not know if you have any
questions of either of our guests.
Mr. Calvert. Mr. Chairman, I apologize for being a little
late but----
Mr. Cole. I am just happy to have the company.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Mr. Cole. Thank you very much.
If we could, we will move onto Faye BlueEyes. Welcome.
Ms. BlueEyes. Thank you.
Mr. Cole. We will go ahead and hear your testimony and then
have questions.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
DZILTH-NA-O-DITH-HLE COMMUNITY SCHOOL
WITNESS
FAYE BLUEEYES
Ms. BlueEyes. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, my
name is Faye BlueEyes, and I am the program director for
Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle School, which is a school on the Navajo
Reservation in Bloomfield, New Mexico.
Our school has been in continuous service since 1968, and
operates a K-8 educational program and a dorm program for
students 1 through 12. Two hundred students are enrolled in our
school, and 51 students are in the dorm. Our mission is to make
a difference in the educational progress of our students, and
we believe that all of our students are capable of achieving
academic success.
But we struggle with chronic under-funding of virtually
each and every one of our educational and related programs.
Though we operate with authorization from the Navajo Nation, we
are a separate tribal organization, carrying out the federal
trust responsibilities to educate Native American children
under the Indian Self-Determination Act.
Our buildings are more than 40 years old with serious
deficiencies in our aging electrical, heating, and plumbing
systems. We have to continually cope with major problems such
as leaking sewer lines and in November, '09, we discovered a
major leak in an underground gas line which threatened to cause
an explosion at our school.
Recently, the electrical panel in our gym caught fire and
had to be disconnected. The gym does not have a sprinkler
system, so we were fortunate to catch the fire early and avoid
serious injury to our students.
The Bureau has a process for evaluation school construction
projects and placing them on a priority list for funding, but
no new projects have been added to the list since 2004.
Our school and many of the Native American schools are in
dire need of school replacement, so we urge Congress to direct
the Bureau to reopen the process by which schools can submit
applications for replacement school construction projects and
to restore 61 million to the school construction account.
The deferred maintenance backlog for school buildings is
well over 250 million, yet the Bureau requested only 50.7
million in the fiscal year 2012 budget, a mere fraction of what
is required to make a significant dent in the maintenance
backlog.
Funding of 76 million for facilities' maintenance and 110
million in facilities' operation funding is but a modest first
step in addressing these long-neglected needs. The very real
health and safety risks that can be reduced by adequate O&M
funding seems short sided.
Funding for tribal grand support costs of 72 million in
contrast to the 46 million in the fiscal year 2012 budget
request, this is the amount calculated by NCAI as needed to
fully fund the indirect cost requirements of current tribally-
controlled schools and provide 2 million in start-up funds for
newly-converting schools. Tribal grant support costs are funds
provided to tribally-operated schools to cover the
administrative costs associated with the operation of a school.
One-hundred twenty-four of the 183 Bureau-funded schools
are operated by tribal school boards. In fiscal year 2010, the
funding met only 61 percent of the need, the lowest rate to
date. The Bureau estimates the 3 million increase requested for
fiscal year 2012 will fund 65 percent of need, but we believe
the 65 percent projection is highly optimistic.
The consequence of insufficient funding means that we
absorb more administrative expenses and scale back on prudent
management activities. It is hard to comprehend that non-school
BIA and IHS contractors have received huge increases in the FY
'10, budget when tribally-controlled schools have received no
increase in funding since 2004.
Then the fiscal year 2012 budget requests an increase of
25.5 million for BIA non-school contractors and 50 million
increase for IHS contractors while the increase requested for
schools is only 3 million. This disparity in the funding is
unexplained.
Good education costs money, and it is our hope and
expectation the Congress will recognize the tremendous needs
that exist in our Bureau-funded schools and the potentially-
disastrous impact of budget reductions. Please join us in
supporting a quality educational program for all Native
students.
We are grateful for any assistance you can provide. Thank
you.
[The statement of Faye BlueEyes follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you very much for your testimony. Just a
quick question or two.
In addition to the federal funds you receive, do you have
any other sources of funding?
Ms. BlueEyes. We are totally dependent on federal funds.
Mr. Cole. Has there been any effort to look for other
funding?
Ms. BlueEyes. Well----
Mr. Cole. And I do not want to suggest that is my preferred
solution. I understand the challenges you are dealing with.
Ms. BlueEyes. Well, we are going to have to start trying to
find some funding elsewhere, but we are not one of the rich
casino tribes, so we have nowhere to turn but the Federal
Government.
Mr. Cole. And just for the record, would you give the
committee an idea of what the per capita income in your area
is?
Ms. BlueEyes. It is like $14,750.
Mr. Cole. So quite challenging to raise much local revenue.
Ms. BlueEyes. Yes, and no tax base either.
Mr. Cole. Absolutely. Well, thank you very much for your
comments. Do not leave. There may be other people with
questions.
Ms. BlueEyes. Okay.
Mr. Cole. We will certainly begin with Mr. Moran, my good
friend who has a passionate interest in this and who has done a
lot of great work in these areas for Native Americans.
Mr. Moran. Thank you, Chairman Cole. I will not ask any
further questions. I think that is the issue, your dependency
upon the Federal Government and our ability to come through
with your most basic necessities.
Ms. BlueEyes. Yes.
Mr. Moran. I do thank you for traveling so far as have all
the other witnesses and just speaking for myself, I certainly
intend to work with Mr. Cole and his leadership, Mr. Calvert
and Chairman Simpson in trying to do as much as we can for the
American Indian tribes, particularly those that do not have the
kinds of resources that other tribes may have.
Ms. BlueEyes. Thank you.
Mr. Moran. So thank you.
Ms. BlueEyes. Thank you.
Mr. Cole. Mr. Calvert.
Mr. Calvert. No further questions other than to thank the
gentlelady for coming today, and certainly we will work with
Chairman Cole and Mr. Moran and others to help out Indian
Country.
Ms. BlueEyes. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cole. Thank you very much for your testimony.
If we could next, President Shelly, Navajo Nation.
Mr. President, how are you?
Mr. Shelly. I am okay. Fine. Thank you.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
NAVAJO NATION
WITNESS
BEN SHELLY
Mr. Shelly. I would like to say first off that, you know,
this is a wonderful country, the United States of America, and
we have a policy which is the constitution, United States
Constitution. Within that constitution we have under a
commercial clause the treaty clause and also property clause,
and I believe that with the constitution is our founding father
made policies, and I think we need to obey that.
Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, good morning. I
am Ben Shelly, President of Navajo Nation. To fight for overall
prosperity of our community we ask your committee to work with
us and support the following priorities in your Interior
budget; infrastructure development, energy, health, public
safety, and education. The Navajo Nation.
At the Navajo Nation we have a unique relationship with the
Federal Government. We hope to further our relationship as
recognized by the Navajo Treaty of 1868. Your committee can
help fulfill that treaty obligation and other promise made over
our history.
Navajo support job creation, infrastructure energy
development. Infrastructure development is a key to job
creation. For this reason the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project,
NIIP, needs full funding. NIIP stimulates the economy and the
regions. In the proposed 2012 federal budget NIIP funding was
reduced to $4 million. That is embarrassing. Without consulting
with the Navajo Nation, Congress had passed a law and promised
to fund NIIP in its entirety, which is estimated at a cost of
$500 million to complete.
Congress should restore the funding to the NIIP to $26
million per year for the next 10 years. The Navajo Nation
supports other infrastructure projects, the Navajo-Gallup water
pipeline. This is an infrastructure project that will supply
water to residents in the region and stimulate farming and
agriculture. Additionally, the Nation is working to develop a
vast energy resource for job creation.
Support hospital facility construction priority. Health
facility construction funding is critical in our remote but
populated area. The Nation had five projects on the existing
IHS health construction priority listing whose costs estimated
in a total of $1 billion. Funding shortfall would delay the
building of these necessary projects. We support funding this
line item in 2010 level.
Public safety and justice service. Two hundred-ninety
Navajo Nation law enforcement officers patrol over a vast
reservation that is equal to the size of West Virginia. There
is one police officer for every 1,000 residents, and each
patrolling the region of 5,000 square miles. Public safety
requires full funding at approximately $55 million. Further,
the proposed 2012 federal budget includes costs to facility
construction, which funds jail replacement and employee's
housing. These cuts will impact the safety of our community. We
support funding at 2010 level.
Education. Facility and school construction programs were
eliminated in the proposed 2012 federal budget. The Nation has
many substandard school facilities that need replacement to
provide a safe learning environment. School construction
dollars need to be restored to 2010 funding level. Annually the
Navajo Nation receives about 13,000 applicants and only half
are awarded funding to assist with the higher education costs.
We request an additional $25 million for these education costs.
Full restoration of the Pell Grant, and Carl Perkins Fund and
others ensure the Navajo student contributes to the American
workforce.
Conclusion, the annual federal budget provides essential
needs to Indian Country, however, since drastic cuts are made
to the proposed 2012 federal funding, we insist that this
subcommittee and other members of Congress hold the Navajo
Nation and other nations harmless from additional cuts for the
2012 budget. We request that this subcommittee honor your
treaty obligation and support our budget recommendation for
fiscal year 2012.
Thank you very much. I still have time.
[The statement of Ben Shelly follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982B.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982B.014
Mr. Cole. I am fairly impressed. Mr. Chairman, I will tell
you.
Mr. Shelly. I am a BIA-educated person. How far I went.
Could you imagine these college kids nowadays?
Mr. Cole. Rather than use my time as the acting chairman, I
want to immediately defer to the real chairman of this
committee, Mr. Simpson, by whose courtesy I sit in this chair
today, so I recognize that and appreciate that. Mr. Chairman,
do you have any opening questions?
Mr. Simpson. No. I really do not, but I want to thank you
for being here and your testimony, and I apologize for our
earlier schedule of having the Indian tribes come and testify a
couple of weeks ago, I guess it was, or three weeks ago when we
were scheduled, but we were in the middle of a little bit of a
debate about the budget, and we were not sure we were going to
be open the next week, and all that kind of stuff, and so we
decided it was best to cancel them rather than have everybody
here and then us be closed. So we know that is an imposition to
all of you that came to testify, and thank you for coming back
as we rescheduled this.
Mr. Shelly. Yes. Can I say something on that? We were ready
for the shutdown, but when we done that, we would also look at
our finance we depend on mostly, we found out three-fourths,
well, let's say about 80 percent of our budget is dependent on
Federal Government, and we are going to turn that around. We
are going to try to change it to where it is about equal. We
are trying to work with energy policies and others to make that
happen.
All it is this Code of Federal Regulations prevent us to do
things. We need to change, be more flexible with that and
working with the Interior and Congress that maybe energy
policies so that we can use our natural resources to create
jobs, economics, and so on.
So we are working on that so we realize that depending on
the Federal Government should not go on forever. We need to
stop that somewhere.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Shelly. Thank you. All right.
Mr. Cole. No, no. We are not done yet.
Mr. Shelly. We are not done? Oh, I am sorry.
Mr. Cole. I am sure there will be other questions. I want
to call on Mr. Moran for any questions.
Mr. Moran. That is fine, Mr. Cole. Thanks.
Mr. Cole. Mr. Calvert, do you have any?
Mr. Calvert. No questions at this time. Thank you.
Mr. Cole. I have one question actually. What would have
been the consequences for you and for the Navajo Nation had
there been a Federal Government shutdown?
Mr. Shelly. Probably what we would have done is that the
one that our probably police, fire department, some direct
services are going to keep running. The one that is under 638,
some of those would probably keep running, and I would say
shutting it down we probably would be in operation to keep the
Nation running about 30 percent. Everybody else would be off.
Mr. Cole. From an already pretty low level.
Mr. Shelly. Yeah. Very low. So we had some general fund
that picks up that 30 percent, too, so we do not have much, but
we could have used that to run it.
Mr. Moran. Will you yield, Mr. Cole?
Mr. Cole. Certainly will.
Mr. Moran. So two-thirds of the activities on the
reservation would be unfunded, would have shut down?
Mr. Shelly. Well, most of them will be. It depends on what
kind of grant it is, what kind of funding it is to base on
that.
Mr. Moran. I wanted to make sure I understood that. Thank
you.
Mr. Cole. Yes. It is very uneven across Indian Country. It
is obvious tribes that have other sources of incomes can
continue to operate, but the more dependent you are to the
Federal Government, the more challenging these kind of
shutdowns are.
Mr. Shelly. It is. It is. We realized that, and we are
working on it heavily, and we want to turn that around somehow
and creating jobs is very important to us and revenue. We have
so much to offer with our natural resources. We have the sun,
the wind, and just let us go. Take care of some of that Code of
Federal Regulations that keeps us down, lift that for us, we
can run with it.
Mr. Cole. If I can ask you one more question, maybe one or
two more actually, Mr. President. You mentioned in your
testimony and just alluded to the fact you have some energy
projects that you think are important and would help you
increase your self-sufficiency. Can you quickly tell us what
those are and what the obstacles are for developing those kind
of resources?
Mr. Shelly. Let me put it this way. I did it in my
testimony with Subcommittee on Energy with Indian Affairs.
These are bipartisan groups that when we went before I
mentioned something like Indian tribes are so heavily over-
regulated. We are not playing the same level game as any other
energy company. Like state, if we want to drill oil, it takes
forever to get a permit because of the federal regulations. Yet
a private business driller that is going to drill oil it does
not take them long to get the permits, but there is a lot of
difference.
Mr. Cole. Well, we would certainly like to work with you
and see what we can do to streamline that process so you have
more control over the resources in your own Nation and are able
to use them as you see fit as opposed to how others may see
fit.
Mr. Shelly. It has to happen. You know, education, we have
been, you know, taking our kids, give them an education, what
we can muster in money to get them through. They are back. I
have got one here. He is my energy policy advisor. Sam Wood.
Look how young he is. Sam, get up. He is my energy policy. He
is going to be doing all the policy for us. He has been working
with Young, Chairman Young on the Subcommittee on Energy. He
will be working with them, so he provides some draft from us.
They wanted to do it. I told him, I said, himself, I said,
do not do it yourself. Let me get involved and let the Nation
get involved because we know what we want done. So we are
working with them. Maybe we can put it together and make it
happen.
Mr. Cole. I would very much like to see any recommendations
or proposals that you have that would assist you.
Mr. Shelly. We want to work with you. I will make sure that
Sam works with you on that to give you something we are working
on at energy. We will do that. And, again, I would like to say
really recognize Native America. We offer so much. We fulfill
our agenda with the United States Government. We have always
done that. What is I hear this past Sunday, Geronimo E-KIA?
There was youth and----
Mr. Cole. Geronimo is actually buried in my district, and I
will tell you the Fort Sill Apaches were not happy at the use
of that particular nickname.
Mr. Shelly. I know. I got a lot of emails and Facebook that
says they are questioning that, and the code talker. We have
one left out of 29 code talkers, and a lot of us like to, I
will tell you right now to tell you the truth, a lot of us if
the language, the Navajo language was never used, a lot of us
will not be here.
Mr. Cole. Again, as one of my Fort Sill Apaches pointed
out, they would have never gotten Geronimo. He came in
voluntarily. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Appreciate it.
I am sorry. I did not see you come in Mr. Flake. I
apologize. Questions or comments?
Mr. Flake. No.
Mr. Shelly. See, he is part of the subcommittee.
Mr. Cole. Well, it is good to have him on your side of the
table. He may be in a much higher body not too long from now.
Mr. Shelly. He is a good man.
Mr. Cole. Mr. President, thank you very much for your
testimony. We appreciate it very much.
And if we could, we will move onto Ms. Garcia.
Oh. I am sorry. We just have you in a different panel, but
that is fine. We would be more than happy to take your
testimony right now. Thank you very much. I am sorry.
Mr. Maxx. I have to sit here with my president.
Mr. Cole. Well, it is good to do what they tell you to do.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
NAVAJO HOPI LAND COMMISSION OFFICE OF THE NAVAJO NATION
WITNESS
RAYMOND MAXX
Mr. Maxx. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank
you for the opportunity. My name is Raymond Maxx. I am an
executive director of Navajo Hopi Land Commission Office. It is
an entity of the Navajo Nation. Thank you for the opportunity
to provide testimony on what is one of the most vexing matters
in modern federal Indian policy and a true tragedy for the
Navajo Nation.
When I was very young, my family lived in District 6, an
area that was declared exclusively Hopi. Although we had lived
there for generations, we were forced to leave. At the time the
Federal Government provided no benefits for moving. We just had
to move.
We relocated to the Big Mound Area in what was known as a
joint use area, owned together by Navajo and Hopi according to
court decree. In the late 1970s when we had just about
reestablished ourselves and our livelihood after land a federal
mediator divided the joint use area, and we found ourselves
again on Hopi land. We moved to the nearest portion of the
Navajo Reservation, the Bennett Freeze area.
I do not think my parents fully understood at the time as a
matter of federal law you would almost never get permission to
fix your home in the Bennett Freeze, that you would not make
additions, that no federal travel or state programs would
assist your community through building of infrastructure
essential to the health and well-being of any community.
As a result, the Bennett Freeze area was locked into the
poverty of 1966, when the freeze was imposed. The final
agreement to resolve the travel land dispute and end the freeze
provided that most of the disputed area belonged to the Navajo
Nation. For the thousands of Navajo families who lived there
this means that the freeze served no real purpose other than to
bring them misery and hardship.
In his proposed fiscal year 2012 budget President Obama has
set aside 1.2 million to begin redeveloping the former Bennett
Freeze area. In the budget justification the Administration
notes that more than 12,000 Navajo people lived in an area
where subject to the 41-year freeze on development. During the
freeze era the Navajo people were prohibited from building new
homes, schools, health facilities, constructing electricity,
water, roads, et cetera, and community economic development
projects.
While the President's budget request is welcomed, it is
intended to be spent largely on land use and agricultural
purposes. While these purposes are important, the number one
need in this area based on extensive independent study
completed last year is improving housing. I would propose that
an additional 5 million in BIA funds be set aside for immediate
critical housing repairs and construction and that this
committee direct the BIA and HUD to come by with a larger
housing construction plan for this area.
This committee should establish a trust fund for
reconstruction of the former Bennett Freeze area with an
initial investment of 10 million. For the former Bennett Freeze
area to recover, there must be a sustained reconstruction
program implemented over a decade or more.
Congress should authorize the Office of Navajo Hopi
Relocation near to oversee their reconstruction activities with
the Navajo Nation having the option of assuming control of
these activities that affect Navajo people and lands as well as
the option of assuming control of the trust fund proposed
above.
Office of Navajo Indian Relocation, we would ask that the
budget, which in recent years has ranged from 8 to 9 million,
be increased to 50 percent, increased by 50 percent to
accelerate the provision of benefits for those many families
who relocated but have not received their benefits.
And in conclusion, although the Navajo Hopi land dispute
and the Bennett Freeze are painful issues, I thank the
committee for this opportunity to provide testimony on the path
forward to assure that the many Navajo families who have
suffered under these federal actions can have hope for a better
life.
Thank you, and if you have questions, I am ready to
respond.
[The statement of Raymond Maxx follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982B.017
Mr. Cole. Mr. Maxx, thank you very much for your testimony.
I think we have heard about this issue before. It has been a
matter of considerable concern.
I just have one question before I defer to my colleagues.
You mentioned the Administration's proposed $1.2 million to
begin to address the problem. Have there in previous years been
much in the way of funding to help deal with this freeze issue?
Mr. Maxx. There has been no federal funding until now with
this Administration. They are creating a line item to address
the Bennett Freeze issues, and the Bennett Freeze is like third
world within the Navajo Nation. We are like 30, 40 years behind
the mainstream Navajo, and you know, we need help to get back
on our feet with, you know, support and funding to rehabilitate
homes and infrastructure.
Mr. Cole. I just wanted to get into the record that to the
Administration's credit they have actually proposed doing
something, and nothing else had been done up to this point, but
obviously, we have a terrific problem then.
Mr. Maxx. Uh-huh.
Mr. Cole. If I could, I will go to Mr. Moran for any
comments or questions he might have.
Mr. Moran. On the face of it, it seems probably unjust to
the Navajo who were displaced. I do not know enough about it to
offer thoughtful comments, let alone questions. I do intend to
discuss this with you, though, Mr. Cole, if you do not mind,
get your perspective but I remember we did do something last
year, and I do think it is the kind of thing we need to focus
on and see if we cannot rectify. Thank you.
Mr. Cole. Absolutely. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. I would just say that I am in the same boat
that Mr. Moran is. I have tried to understand this and what the
heck the policies were that created this situation and how we
get out of it and how we remedy it. It is a subject that, I do
not know, I need a book or something, a little history book,
that will give me the basis of how the genesis of all this and
from that I would then be able to hopefully have a better
opinion about what is going on, and now we might be able to
help you solve the problem.
So if you guys have any information, I read all night long,
so I would love to sit down and educate myself a little bit
more about the policies that created this situation.
Mr. Moran. Well, if Mike is going to read all night long, I
will just wait until he reads it up, save myself some time.
Mr. Cole. Mr. Maxx, would you care to comment on either of
these two remarks just in terms of helping educate the
committee a little bit?
Mr. Maxx. The freeze was implemented in 1966, and----
Mr. Simpson. But why?
Mr. Cole. There was a dispute between the Hopi and the
Navajo Nation.
Mr. Maxx. The land dispute between the Navajo and the
Hopis.
Mr. Cole. And it took 41 years to make a decision.
Mr. Maxx. And through court actions and back and forth the
two tribes sat down, and, you know, settled the dispute, and
that was in 2006. Since then, you know, we have been, you know,
reaching out, you know, for development funds, and you know,
the people in the area, they have been, you know, in probably
worse state than depression for 40 years and----
Mr. Simpson. Because your economic development was frozen?
Mr. Maxx. Yes. Everything was frozen.
Mr. Simpson. Until a decision was made?
Mr. Maxx. Yeah.
Mr. Calvert. Would the gentleman yield on that for a
second? When you say frozen, does it mean that the funding
levels were frozen at a certain amount for a period of time and
the amounts for your neighbor, the Navajo, the rest of the
Navajo Nation, had gone up? So, basically you were held at a
lower amount for a longer period of time and that put you in
that dire financial situation you were talking about?
Mr. Maxx. It is not the funding that was frozen. It was
the----
Mr. Cole. They were not allowed to construct homes and
such.
Mr. Maxx [continuing]. Development.
Mr. Calvert. It was development?
Mr. Maxx. Yeah. Even if we were to receive funding, you
know, we could not develop anything because we had to get
permission from the Hopi Tribe and federal agencies.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
Mr. Maxx. Yeah, and I have this information maybe I can
forward.
Mr. Calvert. Please do.
Mr. Maxx. And, you know, distribute it among the committee.
That would be more information. We also have a bill that we
would like to get introduced and then some pictures and more
information that would, you know, address all the phases of the
land dispute. There is a District 6 and the relocation and then
the Bennett Freeze, and you know, this bill would, you know,
encompass the whole, you know, the phases of the land dispute.
And this land dispute has been going on for over 100 years.
Mr. Simpson. Is the land dispute resolved now since 2006,
or whatever it was?
Mr. Maxx. The Bennett Freeze is resolved, and there is
still some litigation outstanding in the relocation era, so it
is almost resolved. Hopefully we can get past that and start
rebuilding.
Mr. Cole. Right.
Mr. Maxx. With the support of the leadership here, you
know, we can do that.
Mr. Cole. Mr. Calvert, do you have any additional
questions?
Mr. Calvert. No additional questions.
Mr. Cole. Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. No.
Mr. Cole. Thank you very much for your testimony, and thank
you particularly for the submission of the additional
information. Very helpful.
Mr. Maxx. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cole. Thank you. If we could, we are going to bring our
next two witnesses up together. Martha Garcia and Nancy
Martine-Alonzo. Thank you. It is good to have you here. I will
be happy to let you choose who should speak first.
Ms. Garcia. Okay. I will go first.
Mr. Cole. Please identify yourself for the record, please.
Ms. Garcia. Okay.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
RAMAH BAND OF NAVAJO/RAMAH NAVAJO CHAPTER
WITNESS
MARTHA GARCIA
Ms. Garcia. My name is Martha Garcia. I am the Ramah Navajo
Chapter Development Officer. Our President, Rodger Martinez, is
not able to be here with us today because he has a conflicting
schedule with the reschedule hearing date, but thank you for
the opportunity. Mr. Chair, Mr. Simpson, and members of this
committee, I am just really happy for me to come before almost
a full committee. Over the years I have been coming here and
presenting testimony, and this is the first time that I am
really honored to be presenting before five members of this
committee.
Today I am focusing on the need for additional fundings to
address the unmet needs of our Ramah Navajo community, and our
needs as we have presented earlier $2,670,610 is our need, but
then between the rescheduled dates, the Bureau of Indian
Affairs came in and started working with us, so that has come
down to $2,400,000 plus, so it pays to make that extra effort
to come before the committee and work with you.
So I just have to request the first one is the Bureau of
Indian Affairs Office of Justice Service funding for the
operations and maintenance of the detention facilities. Ramah
Navajo Chapter has been submitting proposals over the years
requesting for construction funds to build a detention
facility. Our law enforcement detention center has been about
the size of this room for many years since the '70s, and
finally when the ARRA Fund came through we were very much
surprised and very happy to have received an award of $3.8
million to construct a detention facility. And it will be
completed in the year 2012, which is only a year away.
But in the meantime now we need to staff the new detention
facilities, and that is our request. It is a startup cost to
pay for the equipment, furniture, and whatever that is needed
to put the detention facilities up to standard and also to
staff that. We would need to staff that, so there is a one-time
funding request and then a recurring fund, and I know that
within the budget request there is an increase being proposed
of $10.4 million to address the need to staff many detention
facilities across the Indian Country.
And we would like to ensure that our request, and we
support that effort to have this done so that we can be part of
that, and our request is at $1.8 million, and in regard to that
part of it, we hope that it would become a recurring fund so we
would continue to maintain and operate the detention
facilities.
Our second request that we have been coming here for and
slowly we are making progress is to fund the Natural Resources
Training Facilities in the amount of $600,000. It was more in
the previous year. We were very fortunate that we were able to
get $150,000 from the State of New Mexico over a year ago. This
past year we were not very fortunate because they also had
budget problems.
But with that we are able to at least construct the
framework of the training facilities, and we just need to have
it completed, and then we are also asking, again, for increase
in the staff for the operation, which is a trust responsibility
of the Federal Government, and we have been working very
closely with our local BIA agency to implement the program as
it is needed.
And the last request that I was going to make, that has
been fulfilled and it is in process, and that is also to put in
a building, replace the building that real estate and natural
resources have been using for over 30 years, and it previously
was used by the Bureau of Indian Affairs when they were running
the programs. But now we are having a building being brought in
and be set up, and we will have that implemented and run a full
service as we would like to see it done. We have had some
issues and problems because of the current building. It cannot
accommodate wireless services and all that, but now we are able
to do that and be able to put in the service so that we can
have closer ties with the central and our title plant in
Albuquerque.
So that has worked out, and I would like to thank Congress
for helping us over the years. There has been many positive
exchange that has happened, and starting back in the '70s, and
I remember coming before the committee at the time and been
doing that for a number of years, and I have seen many positive
results that has truly benefited our people out there.
So with that I thank you.
[The statement of Martha Garcia follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you for your testimony.
Ms. Martine-Alonzo. I love those squash blossoms. They are
gorgeous.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
RAMAH NAVAJO SCHOOL BOARD
WITNESS
NANCY MARTINE-ALONZO
Ms. Martine-Alonzo. Thank you very much. Mr. Chair, Mr.
Simpson, and members of the subcommittee, my name is Nancy
Martine-Alonzo. I am President of the Ramah Navajo School
Board, and we have been in operation for 41 years, and we
started out almost with direct Congressional funding, so I
thank you on behalf of our community for all the years that we
have been able to benefit from that. We have graduated over 800
students, and many of our students have gone on to become very
successful doctors, lawyers, CPAs, and all walks of life, and
it is truly a blessing to see that.
We are here to speak on several priorities that we have,
but the number one need that we have is our ARRA Funding was
appropriated to repair and maintain one of the elementary
buildings, and in the process of that project we uncovered
structural damage from water, damage from black mold, and also
termites in the building. And so the building needs to be
replaced now.
However, you have heard other testimonies that talked about
the lack of construction dollars, and so we are here to request
that you consider approving and putting construction dollars
back in the funding, and we need about $5.6 million for that
elementary school. Right now our children are displaced. They
are using some of the middle school and high school for
classroom spaces, and so we are in very tight quarters, and we
operated that way for a year, and we really would like to be
able to put our children back in appropriate classroom
settings.
The second funding need that we have is for water and
sewer. Our facilities are over 35 years old and over the years
we have expanded our facilities, and so there is more consumers
on the water and the sewer system and just due to the aging
material, you know, we need to replace and update all of the
infrastructure that is there, and so our request is for $2.5
million to take care of that.
And then in addition to that we also are requesting $3.5
million for our elderly community center. We know that we have
a large population of elderly who need more care now in their
later years, and many of them do not wish to be sent to nursing
homes outside the communities. And so one of the solutions is
to have a community center where we can provide more or less
part-time daycare for some of our elders where they can receive
kind of a one-stop service for their health and for other
needs. And so that is something that is a priority as well.
In addition to that, we are just asking for continued
support and funding for the ISEP dollars, the money that is
dedicated for the core education programs and the 638 contract
schools, and we also are in need of the indirect costs because
we do need funds to be able to operate our schools and operate
our clinics and all of the 638 projects that we have we have
not received, you know, the full 100 percent funding for that.
We have received about 50 or 60 percent every year, and we
would like to see that move up to a higher number. Of course,
eventually 100 percent because that was the law, but we have
not realized that for a long, long time.
We are also asking for funding for the tribal schools. We
have a lot of young people that do not belong to colleges, but
they do go to our tribal colleges for vocational or for two-
year programs, and that is a real critical need. So any funding
that you can provide in the area to continue the support of our
young people so that they can, in turn, become productive
citizens of our tribal reservations as well as the global
society, we would really appreciate that.
And so we thank you for all of these, and we provided
written testimony. We have also provided additional documents
explaining all of the areas in detail. So thank you very much.
[The statement of Nancy Martine-Alonzo follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you for your testimony. I actually have no
questions.
Mr. Moran.
Mr. Moran. No. I am fine. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Just out of curiosity, the committee
appropriates money in general categories for, say, school
construction. Any idea where the elementary school you are
talking about that you need $5.4 million I think you said for,
where that would fall?
I assume the BIA has a priority list for school
construction.
Ms. Martine-Alonzo. Yes.
Mr. Simpson. Any idea where that falls within that priority
list and what it would take to get to that level?
Ms. Martine-Alonzo. Our elementary school is pretty high on
the repair and maintenance. That is why we were able to get the
ARRA dollars, but at the time it was not determined for a
replacement. And so it was not on the list anywhere up at least
the top, and you have been funding, I think you have ten more
that you have slated to fund, and that is still in progress. I
think four of them are still in the pipeline.
But you had committee work that has been going on now for
about maybe 18 months where there is a committee that is
working on criteria for reassessing the schools and putting
them in another priority listing, and more than likely our
school would not rise to that because we probably do not fit in
any of that category because these conditions were discovered
through the error, through the repair and maintenance process.
And so it is not anywhere neatly on a list anywhere.
So the only way that it could get done is if you were able
to ask the BIA and asking them to focus on that school, what
the status is, and what did they need, because when we talked
to BIA on it, we have been working with them because that is
what ARRA funds require us to do is to work closely with them.
We have a year's time to finish all the projects. We are slated
to finish by May 31, and we are pretty much on schedule to do
that.
And so in doing that the BIA has said we do not have any
new construction dollars immediately in this budget or in the
next budget, and we do not have any other ARRA funds that are
coming back as surplus anywhere. So we just really do not have
any answers for you, and the jury is still out on whether or
not we will get our building repaired right away, I mean,
replaced right away.
And that is why our only option is to come to this
committee to see if you could help us with that. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate that. It is true not only with
school construction but with detention facilities and other
justice facilities that we put things in a category when we
appropriate money, and sometimes there are needs out there that
if you are not on that priority list or in a certain place,
even if we increased money for that fund, it might not get down
to you.
Ms. Martine-Alonzo. Yes.
Mr. Simpson. So I appreciate your testimony. Thank you.
Ms. Martine-Alonzo. Thank you.
Mr. Cole. There must be other cases like this where ARRA
funding----
Mr. Simpson. I suspect they are all over.
Mr. Cole [continuing]. Found places that we thought we
could repair and then learned later that we could not. That
would be something worth checking into from an administration
standpoint, if they are running into this problem elsewhere
because I would suspect your situation is not totally unique.
Ms. Martine-Alonzo. I am sure.
Mr. Simpson. Well, and the other thing we found, Mr.
Chairman, is that as you well know, some of the ARRA funding
did construction for some things, it does not do any good to do
construction if you do not have the resources to actually put
the personnel in the justice center or in the health clinic or
whatever you have built out there, and that is some of the
challenges we are facing.
Mr. Calvert. Just one comment, Mr. Chairman. Excuse me. Go
ahead, Mr. Moran.
Mr. Cole. Well, Mr. Moran has already had his time, but Ms.
McCollum just arrived and has not had an opportunity, so I
wanted to go to her next.
Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you, and I just got back from the
State Department where we were talking about maternal child
health internationally and I said there are some things we can
do for women right here in this country, and I fully engaged
members of the panel to talk about what we can do for maternal
child health.
But you are here on school construction right now, and I do
have a question. I know that there has been a survey that has
taken place on some of the Navajo reservation land with the
uranium dust, and is the school in that belt or that zone where
there has been some observation and reexamination of radiation
contaminant from the mining?
Ms. Martine-Alonzo. The Ramah Navajo reservation land is 60
miles from grants from the area where the uranium mining has
taken place.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. So Mr. Chair, I was just wondering if
that was also on impact, that this school was looking at. I was
being creative in other ways that we might approach other
people for help.
Thank you.
Mr. Cole. Thank you. Mr. Calvert.
Mr. Calvert. Just a comment. You know, property manager,
sometimes when you do not spend the money on repair and
maintenance over the years and you build up this maintenance
criteria to the point where you cannot fix it anymore, I
suspect that this is going on throughout the BIA management
community.
Ms. Martine-Alonzo. In many cases, yes. Uh-huh.
Mr. Calvert. And there are probably a lot of facilities
could have been enjoyed for a further period of time if, in
fact, they had gone ahead and upheld their obligation to do the
repairs and the maintenance in a timely fashion. So we end up
spending a lot more money because we do not do the maintenance
and the operations in the first place.
And since the gentlelady brought up uranium, I was just
curious, do the Navajo Nation enjoy a particular royalty from
that mining? Are there any benefits from that at all that you
get? Is that on Navajo property?
Ms. Martine-Alonzo. I would defer that question to
President Shelly if he is still in the house.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Chair, for the most part I would say a
big no. They have had water pollution, they have had housing
issues with dust moving forward, and might be something that
the Chairman and Mr. Cole, at some point we can get an update.
We worked with the Bush Administration in government reform
to get everybody in the room talking to each other, because
everybody was pointing the agency finger about who was
responsible for the cleanup, and that is why I was wondering if
the school was impacted, but I would say for the most part it
is a big not positive for the Navajo reservation, but they
should speak for themselves.
Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cole. Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. No questions.
Mr. Cole. Thank you, ladies, for your testimony. Appreciate
it very much.
Ms. Martine-Alonzo. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cole. Mr. Honyaoma, Todd, Vice President of the Native
American Grant School Association. Good to see you.
Mr. Honyaoma. How are you?
Mr. Cole. Very good.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
NATIVE AMERICAN GRANT SCHOOL ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
TODD HONYAOMA
Mr. Honyaoma. Good morning, Honorable Chairman Simpson and
Chairman Cole, and honorable members of the committee.
My name is Todd Honyaoma. I am a Hopi Tribal member, member
of the Spider Clan as you can see. I am President of Hotevilla-
Bacavi Community School located on the Hopi Indian Reservation
east of Flagstaff, and I am the former Vice Chairman of the
Hopi Tribe also. And I have here with me my big man, my body
guard, Jeff Mike from Navajo Nation, Pinon Community School.
I serve as the Executive Board of Vice President for Native
American Grant School Association. We consist of 17 school
members throughout the southwest, including Navajo Nation in
Arizona, New Mexico, Hopi Nation, White Mountain Apache, and
also the Gila River Pima tribes would consist of those schools,
grant schools.
I am here today to present NAGSA's statement to draw
Congressional attention to the impacts of declining under-
funding of BIA-funded schools, especially our grossly-under-
funded travel grant support costs.
In the fiscal year 2012 proposed budget on travel-operated
schools the United States Government has a binding treaty,
trust responsibility, and a legal obligation to educate all
Native American children forever. The right to attend good
schools should be the birthright of every child in America. The
government recognizes that it would provide the highest quality
education and basic necessities to Indian tribes forever.
We are expressing our concern about the current budgeting
crisis affecting all federal agencies and particularly to
address the impact of potential budgeting shortfalls on BIA-
funded schools such as our member schools.
Travel grant support costs. We were promised 100 percent
funding, formerly known as the Administrative Cost Grant, to
cover the operation or indirect costs for the operation of our
schools. This funding is applied to the cost of schools for
administrators, business management, human resources
department, payroll, accounting, insurance, background checks,
other legal reporting, recordkeeping requirements, including
annual audits.
We receive only 61 percent of our administrative costs.
Some other tribal contractors such as Indian Health Service,
IHS, receive a higher percentage. Now, why are we different?
We want full funding. If you were to fund us tomorrow, we
would ask for 72 million. Transportation, dirt roads, as you
may know, Hopi, Navajo, we operate our busses on nothing but
dirt roads. The majority of our roads are dirt roads, and when
it gets muddy, it gets muddy, a foot deep. We bus our students
long distances, 20, 30 miles on dirt roads. Let us set up
after-school activity bus runs, and with high fuel costs today
in Hopi we have our average $4.15 a gallon at this point.
Diesel is a whole lot different story for buses. If we were to
be funded tomorrow, we would ask for 61 million in that area.
New school replacements. Our school is over 60 plus years
old. When you sit in there, there is cracks in the walls. You
can sit in there, and you can see right outside the wall on the
other side. I usually jokingly say if there is a social dance,
you can kick back in the school and watch them dance on the
other side. That is how big the cracks are.
Asbestos is another issue. We had a lot of patchwork done
to our school. We could go down the hallway, there is asbestos
in there, but sheetrock is covering it right at this point, and
that is very dangerous for our students.
New school construction was zeroed out. We would like this
to be restored. NCAI, National Congress of American Indians, in
its budget fiscal year 2012 budget request estimated that it
would take 2.4 million just to keep pace with the growing need
for facility construction and repairs, but we are only asking
that you restore 61 million at this time.
In closing, you promised us that you would be solely
responsible for funding Native American schools at their
highest quality. You are not coming close to keeping that
promise. This promise has been broken. We are not asking for
Welfare entitlement or any such thing. We are asking the
Federal Government to honor their past due, and this is past
due treaties, agreement, declarations, Presidential
declarations that we have done.
And with that I want to bless you all. May the Creator
bless everybody, all of us here today.
[The statement of Todd Honyaoma follows:]
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Mr. Honyaoma. I am going to put the floor over, give him
the floor. Do you have anything to say?
Mr. Mike. Well, I just wanted to say good morning to
Chairman Cole, Chairman Simpson, and the members of the
subcommittee here, and I just wanted to go ahead and follow up
on Mr. Honyaoma here based on his testimony here that we do
rely on the Federal Government quite a bit for our educational
needs, but that is only because it states that in the NCLB, No
Child Left Behind.
And it also is a trust responsibility that the Federal
Government has up this point, and we are trying to have the
Federal Government live up to their responsibility of educating
our young ones, our Native American children so that we may be
able to have the same quality education as everybody else in
the United States of America.
So I just wanted to follow with Mr. Honyaoma that way.
Thank you.
Mr. Cole. Well, thank you both for your testimony. I do
have a question. It just might be helpful for the committee. I
would be very interested on what your funding per student is
versus the average in Arizona. What would be the differential
for a child going to a BIE school and one that you operated
versus, you know----
Mr. Honyaoma. Currently right now we are sort of like
fluctuating back and forth because of the rolling average.
Mr. Cole. Uh-huh.
Mr. Honyaoma. They are considering per capita versus ADM,
average daily membership count that we used to have. BIA is
still trying to figure out what they want to do, and they are
the one that does the figures to the tribes. And we are doing
ours, but we still think that BIA should be the one to come up
with a policy of some sort. Okay. This is what we are going to
go under, but they are throwing things at us, and we are saying
that, no, it is no use. It is good that we have the
opportunity, but when it comes to the Bureau, I do not know
where it goes. I am pretty sure it never gets here, which I
hate to say.
But I sat on a transportation committee for the Hopi Tribe,
and we understand some green book does all the evaluations and
all the reports. That never makes it to Congress. So my
thoughts are after seeing that everything that we do on tribal
nations through the Bureau never gets to the highest. Maybe
that is the reason why we are getting real low funding.
Mr. Cole. Again, if you can help us on this with the staff,
I would love just to see the difference on a roughly per-pupil
basis what the funding that the children that are going to the
schools you are talking about are getting and what, you know,
in the broader community a statewide average would be. Just
make it very striking what the difference is.
Mr. Honyaoma. And we submitted a package. It should be in
there. If not, we will follow right back up as soon as possible
with those figures for your information.
Mr. Cole. Yes. Please do.
Mr. Honyaoma. Yes. With the other states comparison.
Mr. Cole. Thank you. Ms. McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. That is a great question. It really is, and
different states have different pockets of money the way that
they calculate it. I know in Minnesota we took transportation
out of the per-pupil unit to account for it differently, and as
states have cut their budgets, they have often cut their
transportation budgets, but you cannot cut your transportation
budget.
Mr. Honyaoma. No, we cannot.
Ms. McCollum. You cannot start telling kids even though
roads are dangerous to walk because it is too far. Could you
maybe comment for a second on Head Start and your interactions
with Head Start Programs, which is funded in a different pot of
money than this committee has but maybe the impact of Head
Start, lack of Head Start, waiting list to Head Start to give
the children that you serve a boost when they start in the
traditional grade schools?
Mr. Honyaoma. Well, in the past I will put myself back in
my former vice chairman role in the Hopi Tribe.
Ms. McCollum. That is why I figured I could ask you.
Mr. Honyaoma. But what we did was Head Start is completely
different from first grade on up to eighth grade. So they had
their own pot of funding, and the director of the Head Start
monitored all of those programs, but what money that we had
available from the Hopi Tribe as a whole and that was not used
for other things, like for example, transportation, teacher, we
are very bad with buildings. Our Hopi Reservation consists of
nothing but trailers for Head Start, and that was very back.
They were falling apart. So we ended up having to foot their
bills, and we tried asking the Bureau to supplement or
replenish us back what we have tried to put out, but so far
until the day I got out of office we have never got anything
back.
And that hurts me because that is our roots. Head Start is
our roots of the foundation of our lives. They are the ones
that are going to lead us into the future, and I think we need
to focus a lot of our attention on that and our veterans. We
had talked about that today, because if it was not for them, we
would not be here in this free country.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Honyaoma. But there is a lot to do with that.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I bring this up because
I and I am sure you have had some of the same conversations,
monies that the tribes might have put into schools where we
were short, where the Federal Government was short on the
funding, they struggled between do we put it into Head Start,
or do we put it into traditional K-12, and when you know how
important Head Start is, early childhood with all the
information coming out, it is starting to become even a deeper,
deeper struggle for many of the Native American communities.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Honyaoma. And it is affecting all the tribes.
Mr. Cole. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. No.
Mr. Cole. Mr. Calvert.
Mr. Calvert. Not at this time, but thank you.
Mr. Cole. Mr. Flake.
Mr. Flake. Yes, sir. With regard to limited funding again,
in Arizona there is a mix of funding that goes to a lot of
these schools you are referring to. Is there any state funding
that is pulled down?
Mr. Honyaoma. No. As far as I am concerned there is no
state funding. It is nothing but Bureau operated, but I can
tell you this. Back when I was in office we had a situation
with our state. They were accusing us of double-dipping because
states had competitive funding, grant funding, and we applied
for that as schools. We got the money, and the state
legislature started saying, well, you are double-dipping,
Indian tribes, because you get money from the Federal
Government, plus you are asking for money from the state.
But to me they funnel through the same process. Just like
Federal Highways Administration. Well, it is the state and the
Bureau, and that is all we were trying to do is take advantage
of the opportunity for grants to further enhance our education,
our students, but that was when we were criticized. So, no, we
do not get anything from the state.
Mr. Flake. I recall that. That is why I brought it up. So
you did receive funding for a time under that or not?
Mr. Honyaoma. Just a short time.
Mr. Flake. Okay.
Mr. Honyaoma. And that was it, and after that everything
closed up.
Mr. Flake. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Cole. There are real problems here just in the sense
that tribal governments do not have the power to tax. Obviously
we have very low per capital income anyway, so, I would love to
see statistics on, the amount of dollars per kid on a
reservation and the amount of dollars per kid immediately off
the reservation, because there is a federal trust
responsibility. I do not know how you could argue we would be
spending less money on the kids that we are responsible for
than the state surrounding is putting for its children.
And yet I am sure you would find out again and again that
this is not just a minor differential. It would be a factor of
two or three times in many cases, and there is just no way,
schools can operate at that kind of disadvantage and be able to
provide those children with the education that they deserve.
Mr. Mike. And just to add to what you are saying as far as
the disparity between the funding, you would have to understand
the impact of environment that our schools are located and our
homes are located. Just for our school, Pinon Community School,
is only a kindergarten school, but we have a residential as
well, but the kindergarten, we go door to door to their homes
and bring them in and take them back every day.
Then on top of that it gets really hard during winter
season, during seasons where some of these roads become
impassible. That is where this transportation costs come in,
and a lot of times it is not enough to cover all of that as far
as some of our buses, even the four-wheel drive, they are stuck
halfway in mud ruts, and so we have children on there and kind
of safety issues, things like that.
Mr. Cole. I know Chairman Simpson has plans for August and
later to actually make some trips into Indian Country so the
committee has a better opportunity to see these things
firsthand. So hopefully we will have an opportunity sometime in
the not too distant future to do that, and I know in several
areas we will.
Mr. Mike. Well, I welcome you to come over to our area.
Mr. Cole. I would very much like it. I have had the
privilege of certainly going through Navajo Country but not in
official capacity. Just enjoying the beauty of the land but
honestly seeing the challenges you face geographically, too.
They are enormous.
Mr. Mike. Yeah.
Mr. Honyaoma. And I just wanted to leave you with this,
that our school, Hotevilla-Bacavi, has been meeting adequate
yearly progress since its inception in 2000. We just made AYP
again last year, so with that I would like to invite all of you
to come out and look at our school and look at our reservation,
how they look, so you have a better idea.
But, again, we take this opportunity to thank you for that,
and we look forward to working with you, and we will get you
that information as soon as possible.
Mr. Cole. Thank you very much, and I appreciate your
testimony. Thank you.
Mr. Honyaoma. Thank you.
Mr. Cole. I am going to take chairman's prerogative or
temporary chairman's prerogative and invite the three
Oklahomans up here that we have altogether. So Harold Dusty
Bull and Joy Culbreath and Melanie Knight, if all three of you
could come.
If I may, Mr. Chairman, these are three people I know quite
well because they have certainly been in my office, and they
represent tribes in my state, and they have been here before,
before this committee, so I want to thank all three of you for
being here. I do not know any three people who work harder in
Indian Country not only for their respective tribes but to
defend the interests of all tribes and advance them here, and
they have different things to talk about, so Madame Secretary,
perhaps we just start with you and work across the line, and if
you would, just for the benefit of the committee, introduce
yourself and certainly let them know what your title is with
the Cherokee Nation and what you do.
Ms. Knight. Certainly.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
CHEROKEE NATION
WITNESS
MELANIE KNIGHT
Ms. Knight. Thank you, Chairman Cole, Chairman Simpson,
members of the committee. I am Melanie Knight. I am Secretary
of State with the Cherokee Nation, and I am here to present on
behalf of Cherokee Nation today.
Cherokee Nation just for benefit of those of you that do
not know us well, we were one of the first tribes to enter a
treaty with the United States in 1785. Two hundred years later
we entered into agreements under the Indian Self-Determination
and Education Assistance Act, which was for us a new era of
partnership with the United States.
No single enactment had a more progressive affect on tribes
and specifically the Cherokee Nation than the Indian Self-
Determination and Education Assistance Act. In three decades we
have assumed control of many door-opening affairs in Indian
health service programs, including healthcare, education, law
enforcement, land and natural resource management, and
protection. It serves a mechanism to shift back control to the
Nation in the sovereign light of ours to control and administer
these essential services, manage our own natural resources,
control our economic future, and increase self-sufficiency and
economy as a Nation.
Presently the Cherokee Nation is thriving in our 14-county
jurisdiction in Northeast Oklahoma. We have approximately
305,000 citizens worldwide, and we are the largest employer now
in Northeast Oklahoma, and we employ 8,500 people there. About
5,000 of those employees are employed in our various
businesses, and those businesses range from hospitality,
information technology, environmental services, and the
aerospace sector. So we have grown quite a bit since the advent
of self-determination.
Strong, cohesive Cherokee communities are also existing and
help us preserve, adapt, and prosper in today's economic
climate and help preserve our culture and language in those
communities.
So funding for both the Indian Health Service and Bureau of
Indian Affairs is important to our progress and important to
help maintain that progress as we move forward. So I will
discuss just a few of those things today.
Under our self-governance compact with the United States we
construct and maintain water lines. We also operate a
sophisticated network of eight outpatient clinics and also WW
Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. We provide primary
medical care, dental, optometry, radiology, mammography,
behavioral health, and health promotion and disease prevention
services.
Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah is a 60-bed inpatient
facility. We have 300,000 outpatient visits in that facility
each year. We fill over 335,000 prescriptions in that facility
annually, so it is quite a large workload for one facility.
The IHS Joint Venture Program has become a very important
program for us. It demonstrates a shared commitment between the
Indian Health Service and tribes to help expand facilities in
Indian Country where otherwise we may not be able to, and it
has become especially effective in the Oklahoma area. The
Cherokee Nation and other tribes in Oklahoma have joined
together to support that this be funded on an annual basis more
consistently, that we provide adequate funding for the Indian
Health Service side, which is the program side of the house,
the tribes commit to build the facility, and that we fully fund
the contract support costs that go along with that program. It
helps advance facility building out in Indian Country.
In addition to the well-documented disparate funding
between the IHS and other federally-funded health systems,
funds among the IHS areas are funded equivocally as well. The
Indian Healthcare Improvement Fund assists us in achieving
parity among the Indian Health Service areas for funding. We
join other tribes in recommending that the Indian Healthcare
Improvement Fund be addressed, be addressed on a time-limited
basis so that we can raise parity for the Oklahoma area and
others like it that are among the lowest funded in the Nation.
Given the deficit in funding for Indian health in general
we recommend, of course, that all funds appropriated to Indian
Health Service be specifically exempted from the rescissions
that may come about during the appropriations process.
In regard to Bureau of Indian Affairs Services, the Nation,
of course, operates a full range of those services now from
Sequoia Schools, child wellness programs, child abuse services,
adult and higher education, housing, law enforcement, and so
forth, and these programs since the advent of self-
determination have become important building blocks in us
achieving self-sufficiency and being able to develop the
economy of our jurisdiction. So they are important to continue
to fund those programs.
One of the most important budgetary issues that is facing
Indian Country is a severe under-funding of contract support
costs in both the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health
Service. It negatively affects almost every tribe in the United
States. Nearly every tribe has some form of a contract that is
negatively affected. The issue is specifically significant
because each dollar that we do not recover in contract support
costs which is a legally-required and a cost to be covered
affects direct programs one for one.
So if the Nation sustains a shortfall, presently our
shortfall is about $4.2 million a year, that results in $4.2
million in direct healthcare that must be diverted to cover
these costs, because of course, they are fixed costs, must be
paid. The Nation has no option but to pay them, and so direct
care is affected by that. The IHS projects a total shortfall of
153 million. So when you look across the country, $153 million
in direct care is affected by the failure to fund contract
support costs.
In addition, the BIA is under-funded by another $62
million, so that means funds going to law enforcement, courts,
and other programs are affected as well.
Now, I would like to give you just short example of how it
affects us.
Mr. Cole. We are running out of time.
Ms. Knight. Okay. In 2010, we made a little bit of
progress. We were able to recover an additional $8 million
based on the increase in contract support cost that was
approved. With that $8 million it meant 124 jobs, health jobs
that we were able to hire for our health system, pharmacists,
healthcare providers, dental staff, and so forth, and that
generated another $8 million in third-party revenue for our
health system. So you can see how this has a direct
relationship on patient care.
So with that I will wrap up my comments, but thank you for
your time, and I would be happy to answer any questions you
have for me today.
[The statement of Melanie Knight follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
Ms. Culbreath, good to see you again. I will tell you early
just to warn you I will be talking with Chief Pyle later today
about water issues in Oklahoma, and I am going to tell him how
you do.
Ms. Culbreath. Tell him I hacked it up.
Mr. Cole. He will not be surprised.
Ms. Culbreath. He would appreciate that.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
CHOCTAW NATION OF OKLAHOMA
WITNESS
JOY CULBREATH
Ms. Culbreath. Thank you so much that I could be here
today. On behalf of Chief Gregory Pyle of the Great Choctaw
Nation of Oklahoma I bring greetings to the distinguished
members of this committee. I am Joy Culbreath. I am the
Executive Director of Education for the Choctaw Nation of
Oklahoma, and I appreciate this opportunity to appear before
this committee.
There are two priorities today. One of them is health.
Mickey Peercy is our Executive Director of Health. He could not
be here today, and so I hope you will read the testimony that
is here for him. Contract health services and contract support
costs are priorities for the Choctaw Nation, and we have the
written testimony.
The support for Jones Academy is what I would like to visit
with you about today and keep that afresh and on your minds. I
am here to express our appreciation to you as the committee and
the members past and present who supported our efforts to
reestablish the federal trust relationship for Jones Academy
education through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, BIE, and, BIA.
We worked together on this correction for decades. This
happened back in the 1950s. Since the Federal Government
unilaterally closed the academic programs at Jones Academy and
Wheelock, both of those were in the Choctaw Nation, we really
do not know why, created the Jones Academy Boarding Facility
which required students to go to the local public school.
The statutory language to rectify this wrong is included in
the President's fiscal year 2012 budget request. It was also in
the fiscal year 2011, House committee-passed Interior
appropriations bill written by this subcommittee. If enacted,
it finally brings Jones Academy into compliance with the self-
determination policy of the last 30 years. Strongly supported
by this subcommittee. Most importantly of all it enhances
future educational opportunities for our students.
There are so many people here to thank. The list would be
endless. Mr. Simpson, Mr. Moran, and of course, our own
Representative, Tom Cole from Okalahoma. I also would like to
mention Representative Dan Boren, who has, no, not a member of
this committee, but he has provided extensive guidance and
support, and then, of course, representatives of the
Administration, particularly Assistant Secretary Indian Affairs
Larry EchoHawk. He considered our situation with an open mind
and an open heart, and he looked at the results of the
subcommittee-directed report on the history of Jones Academy
and recommended the budget neutral language under consideration
in this bill.
This is a prime example of the ancient Choctaw philosophy
that issues should be resolved openly and fairly by people of
goodwill working together. With a new Jones Academy we built a
brand new facility and opened it just a few years ago totally
with tribal funds and the dedication of our Choctaw staff. We
will work tirelessly to affirm your faith in us and especially
in our students. With your support we look forward to
continuing the unprecedented achievement record of our
extraordinary students at Jones Academy.
We were found to be two years in a row academically the top
four elementary schools in the State of Oklahoma at Jones
Academy.
So on behalf of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and our
chief we are honored to provide our tribe's views on these
priorities and respectfully urge your consideration and support
of these program funding requests in the 2012 budgets for the
BIA and the IHS.
[The statement of Joy Culbreath follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you for your testimony.
Ms. Culbreath. Yes.
Mr. Cole. Harold.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
NATIONAL JOHNSON-O'MALLEY ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
HAROLD DUSTY BULL
Mr. Dusty Bull. Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Moran,
Congressman Cole, Congressman Calvert, I am the Director of the
Blackfeet Johnson-O'Malley Program in Browning, Montana on the
Blackfeet Indian Reservation. I am here representing the
National Johnson-O'Malley Association, which is based out of
Oklahoma. I am the Vice President, and I also have with me the
President, Virginia Thomas, who is sitting back here.
We educators in Indian Country are always happy to be in
your company. If it were not for Congress supporting the
Johnson-O'Malley Program and the appropriation process, we
would not be here today. I want to acknowledge Congressman Cole
from the State of Oklahoma for the many, many years he has
supported this program. Congressman Cole knows the purpose and
scope of JOM and how vital and how great the need is in the
country and throughout this Nation.
I am here to tell you a little bit about the JOM Program
and give you an update on our 2012 request and recommendations.
It has been a very interesting year for JOM at the current
funding year program. Like many who testified and will be
testifying before you, it is very hard to plan for the future
when you do not know what you currently have.
Johnson-O'Malley was enacted in 1934, to allow the
Department of Interior to provide assistance to Indians in the
areas of education and other needs but including relief and
distress and transition from Indian settings to the general
population. Seventy-six years later this program is still
providing this vital, critical service to Indian children who
most of them live in impoverished communities where their
unemployment rate runs as high as 70 percent, especially during
the school year when children need the assistance the most.
JOM grads provide Indian tribes, school districts, tribal
organizations, parent committees with supplemental funds to
provide special educational needs for their children who attend
public schools, non-sectarian schools from ages three years to
grade 12. Without JOM dollars Indian children of all academic
standings would not be able to afford such things as college
counseling, athletic equipment, after-school tutoring,
transition programs, musical instruments, scholastic testing
fees, school supplies, and other basic needs such as cap and
gowns for graduation.
Other federal programs such as the Department of Education,
I want to reiterate this, other federal programs such as the
Department of Education does not allow for these types of
activities within their funding. Our program on the Blackfeet
Reservation funds the basic needs to keep our children in
school and to keep our parents involved in the education of
their children.
If you go back in history, you will understand that the
education of our children was taken away from our parents. Kids
were housed in boarding schools and so forth and so on. And so
that responsibility was taken away. So we are still
reintroducing that responsibility to our parents.
Seven percent of the Indian children go to boarding
schools. Ninety-three percent go to public schools, so it is a
big job.
Nationally we are requesting a new student count and to
lift the freeze on the student count that was enacted in 1995.
Along with our partners, the National Indian Education
Association, we are requesting the JOM Program be restored to
24 million, the amount that was appropriated when the BIA and
the BIE froze the account in 1995. They froze the account in
1995, but they did not freeze the money. I wish they would have
froze the money and not the account. We would be in better
shape today.
But last but not least, we want the JOM position to be
restored here in Washington, DC, so that Indian tribes and
Congress will have a process to provide the proper information
we both need to move this program forward and to continue the
success this program has had for 76 years.
I am very grateful to be here to testify before you. We
have submitted written testimony. We are asking for your help
in regard to our requests and recommendations, and if you have
any questions, I will be more than happy to answer them at this
time.
[The statement of Harold Dusty Bull follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982B.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982B.038
Mr. Cole. Thank you very much for your testimony. I want to
make a couple of comments, and then we will move because we are
running behind schedule, and that is more my fault than anybody
else's, I can assure you.
Madam Secretary, I just want to thank you for bringing up
the concept of joint ventures. Again, Mr. Simpson is going to
be visiting Oklahoma I think some time later this year and a
number of other members, and that is one of the things we are
going to make sure he has an opportunity to see. As you know
Choctaws have a joint venture hospital as well. All our tribes
have really done a good job when they have got money to match,
and you will be impressed, Mr. Chairman, when you see how far
they can stretch the healthcare dollars and bring additional
things in here.
So I think this is a real way forward to break some of
these deadlocks, and honestly, potentially a godsend for the
tribes that are not fortunate enough and have to rely more
heavily on Indian healthcare funding. It is very impressive
what some of these tribes are doing. Certainly what the
Cherokees are doing is very impressive.
Ms. Culbreath, I am glad you made the point which I always
like to make, the Jones Academy deal did not cost the Federal
Government a dime. This was simply a matter of going back and
Congressman Boren worked very hard on this, going back and
recognizing the relationship as it should have been and should
have never been changed, and it was correcting a historical
wrong at no expense to the Federal Government. And the Choctaws
are really to be commended for that.
And finally, I want to just agree from the chair with what
you had to say, Harold, about the need to get a new student
count. The idea that we stopped having students in 1995 and the
number never changed is a rather convenient budget fiction out
here, and I also particularly appreciate you making the point
of how many Native children are not in BIE schools. The reality
is the vast majority, nine out of ten, are in the public school
system, and Johnson-O'Malley is one of the few programs that
actually gives you some flexibility to help those kids where
they are going to school as opposed to simply BIE schools who
would certainly have their own needs and need additional
funding as well.
But this is one of those programs that is absolutely
invaluable, and you get a lot of bang for the buck because you
are building on top of a state appropriation, local
appropriations that are already there. So I appreciate your
advocacy and everything you and Virginia have done in this
regard. It is has just been exceptional.
Ms. Culbreath. And most of those programs, there is not
enough money for JOM. I know with the Choctaws with Johnson-
O'Malley that the Nation is putting in like 50 percent of what
goes to the Johnson-O'Malley students, because we had to either
cut the program out or cut it in half, and so we use our
federal funds, and then the Choctaw Nation puts in the other
half.
Just like you were talking about our early childhood
programs, we are second to none. Matter of fact, we have the
best programs in the State of Oklahoma. We just received the
award that we met 100 percent of all of the mandates of the
Federal Government in our Head Start Programs which are 1,700.
Well, that cannot be met with federal funds. That is totally
impossible. The tribe puts more money in Head Start than the
Federal Government does in the Choctaw Nation.
So those are things that need to be mentioned. I asked the
lady that came and did our report this past year, audited us,
do not compare us with other tribes. That is unfair because the
tribes that cannot put the money into their programs should not
be compared to a tribe that can have more money from their
tribe than they do from the Federal Government. We met those
1,700 requirements 100 percent. Only two tribes in the United
States. The other tribe had 20-something students. We have 310.
So that is why I am telling you that the tribes that can, we
are stepping up to the plate. We are not asking the feds for
everything, but we are also having to do that, to meet the
mandates of the Federal Government, which is totally unfair to
the other tribes.
Mr. Cole. Now, this goes to a point that Mr. Shelly,
President Shelly of the Navajo Nation made earlier, how
important it is for tribes to have sources of revenue beyond
the Federal Government, and that is hard to do, you know. That
is very hard to do, but when tribes are able to do that, they
always take the money and reinvest it back in their people.
So the things this committee can do beyond just money are
to try and assist them to be entrepreneurial because I can tell
you they make money like a private business, and they invest it
like a government right back in their people.
So I am sorry, Ms. McCollum, I was kind of on my high horse
there and so I can turn it over to you for your questions.
Ms. McCollum. I just echo what you said and the comments
that you made about reinvesting in people and not comparing
tribes to tribes, and I know that two leadership tribes in
Minnesota are successful in gaming but they are also
diversifying, the Mille Lacs Band and the Shakopee Mdewakanton
Sioux not only help their own people but they help, as they
say, their brothers and sisters and cousins in surrounding
areas, and I know especially in the Dakotas and throughout
Minnesota, so the reach-out is great.
I would just like to ask a question about Impact Aid. The
other appropriations subcommittee I serve on is veterans and
military construction, which deals with some of the Impact Aid.
Questions about that also go to the heart of Johnson-O'Malley.
Would you, for this committee, because I am trying to cobble
some information together as you can tell through Head Start
and that, that impact as well, for this committee?
Mr. Dusty Bull. Well, the Impact Aid Committee was actually
designed for the military bases at one time because there were
large military bases, and they were educating students on the
military bases, and they had no tax base. So that is how that
came about. Then all of a sudden they realized Indian tribes
fell under the same category because they had no tax base. They
had no way to generate revenue to educate the Indian children.
Okay, and that is how Impact Aid came about, so it is not
just for Indians on Indian reservations. It is for anybody in
trust, where the government has land and trust and people live
there, and they have children to educate. So that is how Impact
Aid came about.
The Johnson-O'Malley Program is a simple mental education
program that is designed to meet the specialized and unique
educational needs of Indian children, and these funds go
directly to Indian tribes, and it is kind of a way of us
practicing our sovereignty in a way, of promoting the education
of our children, where Impact Aid funds go directly to the
school districts and to the state process.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, and Impact Aid both for our
military families and for Native American children has not kept
up with inflation, so that is a cost factor to school districts
that sometimes have extra transportation costs, and at times if
Head Start has not been provided, intervention costs.
Thank you.
Mr. Dusty Bull. I just wanted to make one more point.
Impact Aid is in lieu of taxes for those areas.
Ms. McCollum. Yes.
Mr. Cole. Absolutely true. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. I
look forward to seeing you in August. We questioned whether
August was the right time to go to Oklahoma. Nevertheless, we
will be there in August, so I look forward to that.
Harold, let me ask you a question. I do not mean to throw a
bomb out to you or anything like that, but I have wondered this
and some people have asked me this. Should the BIE be under the
Department of Education instead of the Department of the
Interior?
Mr. Dusty Bull. Well, because of the trust responsibility
and the treaties that we have with the United States
Government, in my opinion I think it should stay where it is.
Mr. Simpson. Where it is?
Mr. Dusty Bull. Uh-huh.
Mr. Simpson. Because those trust responsibilities would not
diminish. It is how we deliver it. Some people have asked me,
you know, why is the Department of the Interior trying to run
Indian schools instead of the Department of Education, which is
supposed to be the education experts. I do not know. I do not
have an answer for them, do not know how it originated this way
or what, and I am not suggesting that that ought to happen. I
just would like to answer the questions sometimes.
Mr. Cole. Mr. Chairman, if I may, just a point of
reference, part of the problem, I do not know if it is a
problem or not, but just there was no Department of Education
when Indian schools were set up.
Mr. Simpson. That is true.
Mr. Cole. So they were located where Indian affairs were
administered.
Ms. Culbreath. If you ask three people, you will get four
different answers.
Mr. Simpson. And they do not even have to be attorneys, do
they?
Ms. Culbreath. No.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Chair, to that point the Department of
Education does not build and maintain facilities, so that would
be a whole new addition onto them. I think what we need are
better operation and memorandums of understanding that are
clear as to who has responsibility for what so that people
cannot walk away from their responsibilities.
Mr. Cole. Well, the one advantage you would have is to move
towards some sort of formula funding. I mean, I think the big
problem always is the disparity between reservation schools and
the surrounding schools. I have never seen a situation where a
reservation school was remotely funded as well, and again, that
is a federal responsibility. So I think there ought to be some
sort of linkage that requires the Federal Government to match
in the area what states and localities.
Then you actually would be providing on a dollar-for-dollar
basis the kind of education in a given state that the average
kid is getting, and honestly, the kid on the reservation school
or BIA school quite often is not getting, through no fault of
their own.
Mr. Simpson. You are right, and if the argument is we want
to do it under the Department of the Interior because they get
better service, that has not proven to be the case if you are
looking at it in terms of the quality of schools and stuff.
Ms. Culbreath. We wrote a letter to Congress. I serve on
the No Child Left Behind. We wrote a letter to Congress saying
that you need a better working between BIE and BIA. You might
want to look at that. We found that one of our biggest problems
was they did not know whose job it was to do certain things.
Mr. Simpson. Well, we are never going to help Indian tribes
across this country address the unemployment, poverty, the
things that they uniquely face on the reservations if we do not
do something about the quality of education that they have.
Mr. Cole. Madam Secretary.
Ms. Knight. I just wanted to mention that in the
reauthorization of the education bill, there has been some
discussion of considering tribal education agencies on the same
basis as local education agencies for the purposes of formula
funding from the Department of Education, and I think that
would be a very positive step, to consider tribes that operate
education programs in very much the same way as other local
agencies.
Mr. Cole. Thank you. Mr. Calvert.
Mr. Calvert. We should just match the District of Columbia.
I thank the gentlelady.
You mentioned the large boarding school. I have one of them
in my congressional district; the Sherman Indian Institute has
been there for well over 100 years now. I guess it is only one
of, what, four or five left in the country of significant size.
I want to get your feeling about--I, you know, as Mr.
Simpson, I do not want to throw a bomb but they have changed
somewhat over the years, and it has certainly been an integral
part of our community. One of the frustrations for me has been
that they do not allow flexibility in funding. I have talked to
Chairman Cole about that where we could bring in outside
possibilities of income to help offset their operation,
maintenance accounts, and it seems that they are not falling
down like a lot of the problems within Indian education
throughout the country.
But what is your philosophy about these institutes or these
boarding schools?
Mr. Dusty Bull. Well, first of all, boarding schools are
still necessary across Indian Country because of the ruralness
and the remoteness of Indian tribes, and you have heard, no
roads and no access to the educational facilities, so they are
still necessary, and that is probably why only 7 percent
attend. Okay? But yet those 7 percent are probably most likely
students that perhaps would have a hard time getting to a
regular public school if they were not in place.
But another thing, too, is that a lot of times we have a
lot of children who do not have a family base, you know, to
support them through education. This is why this program is
important.
The only problem I have with this program is that it needs
to go further than just education. It also needs to meet the
social situations that these children face when they get to
that school and to keep them there and complete the process of
their education. That is what I would like to see them do.
But as far as saying they are totally not needed no more,
that would not be the case, not at this time and probably not
in the near future. They are still necessary.
Mr. Calvert. And that is what I wanted to hear, Mr.
Chairman, because it seems that the difficulties of these young
men and women that are going through these large boarding
schools are still necessary, the few that we have left, and I
wish we did a better job of operating them, and I think that
the flexibility that we talked about before we ought to look
into.
With that, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate it.
Mr. Cole. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Mr. Coochise, I believe you are next up. It is good to see
you again.
Mr. Coochise. Thank you.
Mr. Cole. Welcome back.
Mr. Coochise. Good to see you again.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
INDEPENDENT REVIEW TEAM ON TRIBAL COURTS
WITNESS
ELBRIDGE COOCHISE
Mr. Coochise. With me is one of my team members, Mr. Ralph
Gonzales, of the Independent Court Review Team. We have eight
members of retired judges, attorneys, and court reporters and
administrators who are in this project to do assessments of
tribal court.
First of all, I want to thank you. My name is Elbridge
Coochise but easier to say Coochise.
Mr. Cole. I apologize.
Mr. Coochise. No, but one thing I do want to say, thank you
very much to the committee for FY '10, increase of $10 million
added to the courts in Indian Country.
Just as a kind of summary, there are 300 courts in Indian
Country right now; 184 are funded by the Bureau of Indian
Affairs under Interior and BIA. The funding up to now with that
last increase is 24.7 million. Prior to that it was only about
11.4 and then the committee added 2.4 in '08, and 2.4 in '09,
then '10, and fiscal year 2010.
So but in our five years we have been on the road assessing
courts that only still means 26 percent federal dollars to
tribal courts through the system, where we found as low as
10,800 in one court and then as high as 2.3 million who was
successful gaming in funding their court system.
The other issue now is the new law that Congress passed in
'10 the Tribal Law and Order Act, and that did two things. It
requires for enhancements in the judges, the prosecutors, and
attorneys have to, public defenders have to be attorneys who
are also barred, and most tribes cannot afford that with the
funding that they get. And it also increased the maximum
penalties from one year and $5,000 to three years and a little
higher on the money.
So we are here to request an additional 10 million be added
to the fiscal year 2010 base that you had appropriated for, you
know, $10 million which was a real welcome sight. We were in
Nevada last week, and we still have courts that do not have
recording systems that cannot afford judges but maybe every
three months or a prosecutor who is an attorney or public
defenders, and so the cost is still there and the other was our
request for tribal code development in fiscal policy manuals.
Those are the two areas that we found in the five years
that we are having to go back and assist, put together court
procedures manuals to comply with their codes and fiscal policy
manuals. Those are the two top items that we have had to go in
and help them draft up in written form.
So our request is still, again, a second 58.4 million that
Congress passed in December of 1993. It has never been funded,
and the only funds is the piece meals that has happened, and
like I said, now we are 184, and we have another year on the
contract to assess the 184. The assessments are only those
courts that get money from BIA through the Department of the
Interior.
Then there are other issues that OMB added in there. That
is the speedy trial issue, and we are finding that that is not
really a problem because most of them are complying with that.
And for the tribal courts to maintain their staff they need
to get increases in salary. So that is our request here. We do
not work for any particular tribe or court. We are just here to
help the tribal courts in trying to get resources to operate
their institutions on the reservations.
[The statement of Elbridge Coochise follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982B.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T6982B.042
Mr. Coochise. Mr. Gonzales is here with me as a team
member, but he also was a former bureaucrat and did a couple of
surveys while he was in the BIA to try to get resources to
tribal courts.
Ralph, do you want----
Mr. Gonzales. As Judge Coochise points out, there is a
major shortage of funding on Indian reservations, and it is
three-tiered. One is 26 percent of the total funding needed
comes from the Federal Government. The other 74 percent comes
from tribal governments. But that is not the total need that
tribal courts have. That is not 100 percent. They still need
more in order to operate, so whatever you are giving is very
helpful, but it falls short of what is totally necessary.
Mr. Cole. Judge, if I could, I just have one question
before I defer to my colleague. I agree with you. The need for
funding is very great here. Now that we have had a little bit
of operation of the Tribal Law and Order Bill and starting to
see it, do you have any suggestions? None of these things are
ever perfect. They are also part of a compromise.
Are there things legislatively in addition to extra funding
that we ought to be looking at in the tribal law and order area
from your standpoint?
Mr. Coochise. Well, I think other than money any act that
is passed, how to implement it, and that it be done with
assistance of tribes. The Law and Order Act put some new
requirements that realistically today cannot be done. There is
only 70 jails in Indian Country with 300 court systems, so even
if they wanted to enhance sentencing, you just heard about the
attention and other issues that there are, I think, four new
detentions out there that are built, but there is no staffing,
and they say they do not have the funds to operate those.
And so it is more or less following up on what has already
been done and then getting the money to the tribal governments
to run their justice systems.
Mr. Cole. Thank you. Ms. McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. We had a discussion about a month
ago about mutual aid between law enforcement and that can
really affect a chain of evidence and all the other information
that come in front of the court.
To Mr. Cole's question, is this something that we should be
looking at to help create more opportunities, more trusts, more
work in the mutual aid between law enforcement agencies, both
tribal and non-tribal?
Mr. Coochise. Yeah, I think especially in fiscal year 2010
when there was appropriation, the new money, the $10 million
which was really welcome. There was an additional 50 million
went to law enforcement. They are constantly going--there is a
disparity. If you increase law enforcement and do not increase
court, you have a bottleneck situation. So that is what is
happening with Indian Country.
And the other issue with Department of Justice funding,
they are giving grants for cops program and for drug courts.
And I believe it was GAO just did a report which we looked at
and said those federal agencies need to talk because we found
in South Dakota when we did an assessment, one tribe received
three grants from DoJ, and none of them knew that they had the
other. You know, each department did not know they gave money.
So there is no coordination, and that needs to happen between
the BIA and DoJ so that those funds, whatever they are, can
work better to the benefit of the tribal justice system.
Ms. McCollum. Do you have a record of your backlog? I
actually have my Blackberry out to make a note to get a copy of
the CRS report if there is one. I haven't read it yet. And any
GAO reports, and you alluded to one.
Mr. Coochise. Yeah, the GAO, I submitted it.
Ms. McCollum. Is that----
Mr. Coochise. I do not know if you got it. Our last year's
report and the two places I will have you check is page 2, page
5 and 21. Two is the 18 courts we reviewed, the assessment and
their scores, how they are doing. Page 5 is the corrective
action where we go back in. Those that scored below a certain
level and help them, and it is on the right-hand column. It
tells what we have done for them. And then the last two pages,
21 to 22, is a list of the 79 courts that we have done thus
far, and we have done 10 of the 18 that we contracted for this
year already. And so that is what the team has done to date is
not on the back. And I submitted a copy to Grace so all of you
guys could get it. Here is just on the last two pages, it looks
like this.
Ms. McCollum. Yeah, I am looking at them. So these are only
the courts that you have had an opportunity to survey?
Mr. Coochise. Yes, to do assessments.
Ms. McCollum. This probably is not fair because everybody
is in a different spot where they are with the tribal courts
and the tribal justice and the cooperation between state and
federal, everyone is different. But would you say on average,
for percentage of population, that there is a 15 percent
backlog, 25 percent backlog?
Mr. Coochise. I think the larger courts have a backlog
problem of around 20 percent. The smaller ones, even though
they can only hold court like--last week in Nevada, they only
hold court like maybe every second or third month because they
do not have the funds to pay a judge to come in. Then they have
to do all of it in one day, and they have a higher backlog, and
then there are others who do not have because they just put it
through and whoever the prosecutor or public defender seems to
work it out so that not as many cases get hung up on it.
Ms. McCollum. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Cole. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Mr. Coochise. Well, thank you again. Again, to Mr. Simpson,
we really thank you for the additional $10 million you
appropriated last year to tribal courts. It is helpful and we
know that our court systems out there need the financial
assistance. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cole. Thank you. Next I am going to call on
Representative Berg, if I can. I understand you are going to
introduce the next panel for us, so please, all of you from the
Dakotas that are testifying, come on up, and Rick is kind of
the Master of Ceremonies here I guess.
Welcome, and if I can, I am going to recognize you, Rick,
first so you can make the appropriate introductions.
Mr. Berg. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Really, it is a
great honor here today to introduce some fellow North Dakotans,
and I would like to start with Dr. David Gipp. Since 1977, he
served as the President of the United Tribes Technical College,
and he has really become a leader. Maybe everyone does not want
to hear me. He has become a leader really in North Dakota in
the Native American community. One message that he has gotten
to people in North Dakota that I want to share, and these are
his quotes, ``We must do for ourselves what no one else can do
and take control of our own destinies by making our own
decisions and taking action to improve our lives.'' So Dr.
Gipp, I admire your passion and all your efforts for building
up what you have done with UTTC in North Dakota. Dr. Gipp is a
former student, so I will introduce Russ and then also I want
to recognize Dave Archambault from Standing Rock. Also thanks.
You are admitted by many, and I appreciate your being out here,
so thank you.
Chairman Yelbert, I guess we have not had a chance to get
to know each other in South Dakota, but there is a bond between
North Dakota and South Dakota. So I will give Kristy Nome a
hard time for not being here to introduce you guys. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cole. Rick, thank you, and I just want to tell all of
you here, thank you for the great member you sent us from North
Dakota. He is very knowledgeable on Indian Country and Indian
affairs. That is not always the case with new members. He has
been a terrific help and a great ally on a lot of these issues.
So just again, thank you for sending us a member of such great
quality and honestly, great interest in these issues.
I suppose the easiest thing is to start at one end and work
through on the testimony. So Chief, if we could begin with you
and if you would pull the microphone down there toward you so
we can all hear your testimony, we will go through and then we
will open it up for questions.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
INTER-TRIBAL BISON COOPERATIVE
WITNESS
ERVIN CARLSON
Mr. Carlson. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and members of the
Committee. Thank you for this opportunity you have given me to
provide testimony today on behalf of the Inter Tribal Buffalo
Council. I have also submitted the written testimony.
My name is Ervin Carlson. I am a member of the Blackfeet
Tribe in Montana. I am the President of the Inter Tribal
Buffalo Council. Just a little history on ITBC, ITBC consists
of 57 tribes across 19 states, and recently we reorganized as a
federally charted Indian organization under Section 17 of the
Indian Reorganization Act.
In 1991, ITBC was established by seven tribes with less
than 1,600 animals, collectively, for the purpose of restoring
buffalo to the Indian lands. With federal assistance, tribes
now have grown to 52 herds with over 17,000 buffalo on our
lands. As you know, buffalo historically sustained Indians on
this continent, and ITBC believed that reestablishing this
cultural and spiritual connection would benefit both buffalo
and Indian tribes.
I am here today to request $3 million to allow ITBC to
continue with buffalo restoration and herd maintenance, pursue
economic development through marketing initiatives and
implement health initiatives that will restore buffalo to the
diets of Indian people.
ITBC is one of the few federally funded programs that
actually passes the money directly out to tribes. Our unmet
needs are $10 million-plus, and these needs that we have is for
our infrastructure, fencing, water development, staff for our
tribes.
Presently ITBC is in the 2012 budget for $1.4 million. A $3
million increase will restore ITBC back to the 2006 levels that
we were once at, and that was not where we need to be but it
sure helped the tribes a lot more at that level, and we have
recently gone down.
Restoration and herd maintenance, today ITBC members have
52 herds that are of various sizes and various stages of
sustainability. Federal funding is very critical to continue
buffalo restoration to Indian lands and to successfully
maintain herds.
Indian lands are native to buffalo and tribes, and tribes
have been successful at restoration. However, ITBC provides
critically needed technical assistance such as range
management, management plans, buffalo health assessments and as
I mentioned before, all the infrastructure needs.
Buffalo have developed a new Indian Country industry. ITBC
grants to tribes for buffalo management, creates jobs on
reservations with extreme unemployment. Additionally, tribes
are utilizing buffalo for economic opportunities.
With additional funding ITBC could assist tribes in
establishing markets, develop marketing techniques and
strategies. ITBC had to end its previous efforts through health
initiatives due to funding cuts. Additional funding will allow
ITBC to undertake efforts to restore buffalo into the diets of
the Indian populations. ITBC would provide education to
reservation populations on the health benefits of buffalo and
also promote local slaughter and processing opportunities.
Presently, few opportunities for local slaughter exist in
Indian Country. With funding ITBC hopes it might obtain a
mobile slaughter facility to allow field slaughter and the use
of buffalo products by local communities.
The buffalo were real important I guess to our diet. We
were doing a health initiative with the additional funding that
we had I guess in 2006 and reeducating our people back to the
health benefits of eating buffalo. At one time, that is all we
had for our diets, and we were free from diabetes. As you know,
diabetes is rampant in Indian Country nowadays, heart disease,
and we have gone away from eating those healthy foods. We were
I guess brought away from that, and now we are teaching our
people to come back to that, along with the restoration of
buffalo to the Indian Country.
Economic opportunities, you know, buffalo is becoming very,
very popular nowadays. So there are some economic opportunities
also for tribes. And I will say that, you know, our tribes are
at different stages right now. Some are looking toward the
herds big enough for economic development, some are just
sustaining with the land base they have. But they can help our
Indian people in a whole new way as they did in the past. In
the past, they were everything for Indian people. They were our
clothing, our lodging, our tools, and today they help us in a
different way.
So ITBC is here to help tribes in whatever way they can
prosper from the buffalo herds that are within the Indian
nations.
So with that, I thank you for your careful and diligent
consideration of, you know, additional funding for ITBC and
restore back to where we were once before, and it would be I
guess a kind of waste for the prior funding if we couldn't
continue and enhance the programs that we have built with the
tribes, you know, until now.
[The statement of Ervin Carlson follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you, Mr. President. I am sorry about the
misidentification a moment ago. If you guys can, there is a
clock there to sort of keep an eye on. It is tough when you are
as far away as you are. So we will try and make that a little
bit more visible for everybody.
Mr. Carlson. Well, we just kind of operate on Indian time
anyway.
Mr. Cole. You were pretty close on. You were not very far
off.
Mr. Carlson. Last time I was here testifying I walked up
and I put my hat over the----
Mr. Cole. Simpson usually makes cracks about Indian time,
and I do not allow any of those when I am in the chair.
Mr. Carlson. Well, I noticed anyway because we were way
behind. It is kind of back to this time where it should have
been when we were first going to have the hearing, so now they
said 10:30 so I guess we are all----
Mr. Cole. We are going to blame it on Representative Berg.
He was late showing up.
Mr. Carlson. So if you have any questions, you know, I am
happy to answer those.
Mr. Cole. We will. We are going to go through the testimony
first so we make sure everybody has an opportunity to say what
they want to, and then we will go to questions, okay?
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
OGLALA SIOUX TRIBE
WITNESS
JOHN YELLOW BIRD STEELE
Mr. Steele. My name is John Yellow Bird Steele. I am the
President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. I came,
Congressman, to tell you a little bit about the relationship
between the United States Government and our Indian nations. I
know, Mr. Cole, you are a member of the Chickasaw Nation. Ms.
McCollum, you are very well-versed on our Indian issues. Mr.
Simpson, I know you are pretty close to us there, but I would
like to address some of the stuff that I heard a little before.
The veterans. I was in Vietnam for 2 years, Vietnam veteran.
And we do have a veteran clinic on Pine Ridge and a veteran
homeless shelter that is full. We need more veteran homeless
shelter space.
But I would say that the veterans coming from Iraq and
Afghanistan are quite similar to the Vietnam veterans. The
drugs that are there, not knowing who the enemy is, situations
happen there. And it is very heavy on the mental part of it and
coping afterwards. So those Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans are
really going to need some help.
I am here today to let you know that the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation, we are quite unique. We are rural. IHS says they
are the last resort, but they are our only resort. Very
difficult. We have, through the past decades, been the poorest
per capita income, the second poorest. In 2010, we made it up
to the third poorest per capita income.
And I look at our treaties with the United States
Government, this unique relationship, this political
relationship, not a special interest, not a minority like Mr.
Stossel says that we are freeloaders, no way. I know that you
people sitting here know the difference. But I really am
disturbed at being responsible for a people who just cannot
make it to the healthcare facilities, and once they get there,
it is very poor healthcare. And these were promised in our
treaties, especially the 1868 treaty. It made all the promises,
1868 treaty that said until the grass stops growing and the
river stops flowing that the Black Hills, which are sacred to
us, would be ours, and then the United States Government took
them.
In 1980, the United States Supreme Court says the most--
case in the history of the United States is the illegal taking
of the Black Hills. And I have seen where trillions of dollars
worth of uranium, gold and timber have been taken out of those
stolen lands. I would like to debate up to today what has
happened with the Black Hills. I would like some sort of equity
there. The people I represent have problems putting food on the
table and doing business on reservation which is quite rural.
The roads, the responsibilities the Federal Government have in
education, in healthcare, in economic development, all of these
are in our treaty which comes from the Constitution of the
United States. They were put into law by the ratification of
the Senate, two-thirds ratification. And I do not think that
the United States has to date been honoring their word to those
treaties because of the conditions that people in these United
States have to live under. You should see my daughter's living
conditions. They are deplorable. One little room that they have
made to live in in a 2-inch wall trailer house have to hold
water in to cook and drink, use an outhouse, raise four kids
that way.
The United States, I say, I termed a phrase, inherent
federal neglect. When they built up the infrastructure across
the United States, they forgot about this large land base
called Pine Ridge. They said that was Indian Health Service and
BIA responsibility. I do not have the infrastructure there for
any development to happen. It is very, very difficult. Our IRA
government has been trying to work on this infrastructure for
the past several, several, several decades. I am optimistic
that we are going to try to catch up a little bit with the rest
of America when we get this infrastructure in place, and I am
optimistic that our children will have a better life than we
have because we are working on all of the basics that the
United States Government forgot to do or did not want to do, I
do not know which. But we do need some help. And I just wanted
to come say, and I know I do not have to say it to yourselves,
that we have this unique relationship through the treaty that
word must be honored. We go do our duty for the United States,
for our country. We fight for freedom. But when we look at our
people, we say the United States Government says it is
deplorable how the Indians were treated in the past. They say
it is not the past, it is today that they are being treated
that way. Why?
Thank you for holding this hearing. I would like to have
one more point is that National Congress of American Indians,
National Indian Health Board, who you call to represent us and
speak for us, do not know our issues back home with the large
land base, with the larger populations, with the isolation,
with all of our circumstances. They do not know our issues to
speak to them. So we would like a place at the table, one of us
from North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, to speak to
our issues. They do not have treaties, they do not have our
issues knowledgeable to speak to them.
We did form an organization called COLT. It is very, very
new. It is the Coalition of Large Tribes we call ourselves. We
did not say land-based, but we are going to try to get similar
tribes together that have the same issues to address here to
let yourselves know what they are.
[The statement of John Yellow Bird Steele follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you for your testimony. I am sure we will
be back to visit.
Mr. Steele. Thank you for your time.
Mr. Cole. Thank you.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE
WITNESS
DAVE ARCHAMBAULT II
Mr. Archambault. Thank you, President Steele. I just want
to thank the Committee for giving me the opportunity to testify
in this federal process. It is needed, and I hope that this
continues so that you can hear the words such as President
Steele's.
What I see today is kind of a movement in Indian Country
towards this decolonization, but the only way that we can
achieve this is if we can continue to get the adequate funding.
Currently we are inadequately funded in several areas.
I will just start by introducing myself. I kind of got
ahead of myself. My names is Dave Archambault. I am a member of
the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and I am honored to provide
testimony for the Standing Rock people.
Our tribe is approximately 2.3 million acres. That is about
the size of Connecticut. We straddle both North and South
Dakota, one of the unique tribes that has two states that we
deal with. Our lands are along the Missouri River, and some of
our best lands were taken from us in the past, just recently,
in the 1944 Flood Control Act, relocated us from our precious,
our best grounds along the river to hilltops. And it is hard to
describe the impact that it had on us. There is a lot of social
issues as a result. There is high unemployment rates, there is
high poverty, just several problems relating to this man-made
event.
There is a lot of benefits from this though also, and the
people who benefit from this are the U.S. citizens in the area,
how they benefited from it, from the low cost power supply that
they get from Western Area Power Association. But you have to
remember, in order to gain that benefit, there was a cost paid,
a sacrifice made, and it is still paid today.
We do have a lot of representation in our military
throughout the country. There is a high population in there, so
I just want to remind you of these occurrences. We are a treaty
tribe. We do have treaties, and we did uphold our end of the
treaties for almost 200 years now since we entered into these
contracts. Our end has been upheld with great sacrifices, and
the reason why I am here is to ask that you take that into
consideration and remember that as you go through this 2012
budgeting process.
I just want to say that we at Standing Rock support the
education needs that need to be met, public safety needs. And
you have been hearing testimony about that, throughout Indian
Country, the healthcare needs and the infrastructure needs that
are there. And if you can provide the adequate funding that is
needed, then you will see this development that is desired
throughout Indian Country. And it is a movement toward the
decolonization that we have been experiencing for a time now.
We support the United Tribes Technical College. It is an
exceptional institution that provides education for our young
adults once they finish high school. We support Johnson-
O'Malley. We have public funded schools, and we have tribal
grant schools. We have both within our boundaries, and we need
that continued funding for those students who attend the public
schools through Johnson-O'Malley.
For public safety and law enforcement, we have experienced
an increase with the help--of police officers, but we are
feared that we do not want to take resources from other tribes.
And we are feared that we are going to lose that public safety,
the police officers, with budget cuts. There is a need
throughout Indian Country of 1,800 police officers, and we need
to assure that that is attained.
We support everything for IHS, our healthcare services.
Throughout Indian Country we experience high diabetes, heart
disease, as the gentleman has said earlier. But it is very
personal for each and every one of us. It is in our households,
our relatives, our families all see it. And we do provide
healthcare, but at Standing Rock we only provide the minimal
services, and we depend a lot on contract services. So I ask
that you make sure that the contract dollars and the request
that the Administration made of $408 million be preserved.
Infrastructure, roads, we do not have the infrastructure in
order for the economies to flourish. So we ask that you keep
the infrastructure in place.
And I just want to thank you for your time in allowing me
to testify.
[The statement of Dave Archambault II follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you very much.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
UNITED TRIBES TECHNICAL COLLEGE
WITNESSES
DAVID M. GIPP
RUSSELL M. SWAGGER
Mr. Gipp. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. We appreciate the opportunity to be here. My name
is Dave Gipp, President at the United Tribes Technical College
in Bismarck, North Dakota, as Congressman Berg pointed out. I
have been coming here for a number of years, and we appreciate
the past and hopefully the continued support of the
Subcommittee, the Committee and the Congress.
I am a Hunkpapha Lakota from the area where my colleague
and councilman from Standing Rock just presented. I am also
President of United Tribes, and with me is Dr. Russell Swagger
who is a graduate from United Tribes, went on and got his not
only 2-year there but a 4-year master's and has completed his
doctorate degree last year, and he is the Vice-President of our
Institution for Campus and Student Services where we serve
about 1,000 students and about 400 to 500 children on our
campus as well, which I will get into later on. I would like
him to perhaps also add about a minute within my time just to
give you an idea of some of those things that we do.
I would just point out that many of the things that
Councilman Archambault pointed out, the pillars of a good,
sound community, that of education and training, economy,
business, public safety, health and infrastructure needs are
all the kinds of things that we are trying to do at United
Tribes and have been trying to do and have been contributing
back to Indian Country for the past 42 years.
We occupy an old military fort, at one time Fort Abraham
Lincoln. And so we took that over. It is close to over 110
years old. And it is always very historic, of course, and we
since, of course, have added other facilities to it. But we
serve the American Indian family, children and adults there,
about 1,000 adults, and we have three early childhood centers
and we have a K-8 elementary school that we do within our whole
effort.
Our effort then is to provide training and education to the
whole family as well as the individual Indian adult who comes
there, and we serve up to 87 different tribes from across the
Nation. Those are the kinds of things that we do.
We just completed 10 years of accreditation by the Higher
Learning Commission, and we just had a very successful visit
with them, informally, I cannot announce it publically as they
say, but we look forward to some of the very sound
recommendations that they are going to give us for the next 10
years.
We anticipate that we will move also and keep the existing
25 or so 2-year and 1-year certificate and degree programs but
also will add several 4-year programs. And I mention things
like sound economy. Business administration is one of those
degrees we are doing right now. The severe need for teachers in
our communities throughout Indian Country. Elementary education
is one of those 4-year degrees. We already do a 2-year early
childhood degree program, and we are in the area of public
safety, criminal justice. Our request then speaks to three
different things, about $6.4 million for United Tribes and
Navajo Technical College which is located on the Navajo Nation.
Those two schools share and appropriation that comes through
the Department of Interior.
Second, one-time forward funding for those two
institutions, which would be about $5 million if we were able
to do that to get us in a more advantageous position of being
able to have continuity in our operations.
Third, I mentioned the issue of public safety, and that is
an issue that we have garnered from our various tribes, the 16
tribes in a three or actually a four- or five-state area
supporting us for doing an American Indian Northern Plains
academy in the area of law enforcement because of the severe
shortages that Councilman Archambault pointed out, nearly 1,800
slots that are unfilled in law enforcement throughout the
Bureau of Indian Affairs and throughout Indian Country. We
think we can provide more training and education that is so
crucial for good, sound public safety in our tribal
communities. You cannot have a good, sound community unless you
have good assurances of that safety in community. You are not
going to attract good business if you do not have public
safety. The same with education and on down the line.
Those are the three fundamental things that I would speak
to, Mr. Chairman. We have a very important role in our
community, and we work very closely with our tribes. Our board
is comprised of tribal chairs and others who sit on our board
and directly control and direct what we do as far as our
curriculum goes.
I am going to ask Dr. Swagger to at least summarize some of
the things that I think are so crucial to what we do.
[The statement of David Gipp follows:]
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Mr. Swagger. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I think just briefly,
if it were not for a place called United Tribes, I would not be
in the situation that I am in right now. And I can speak for
many students who come to United Tribes, too. These tribal
leaders have sacrificed a lot over the years to make sure that
students like myself had a place, and we continue to offer that
same quality service to students. These students come from
conditions where there are many hardships, and they do not even
think about college as an opportunity for their future, and a
place like United Tribes offers that opportunity to them. So
thank you.
Mr. Cole. Thank you very much. Mr. Gipp, I just have a
quick question for you, and I am sure others will have many
questions. But out of curiosity, your students, as they
graduate, how many remain working in Indian Country, how many
go do other things? Nothing inappropriate about going someplace
else, but I am just curious. We have such a challenge in terms
of human capital all across Indian Country, so how many folks
actually are able to stay and sort of bring their skills back?
Mr. Gipp. I would say about 70 percent have a desire to go
back, and a good number of them do go back into their tribal
communities. Our placement rate is about 87 to 90 percent
placement, by the way. One of the realities, though, is that
they need a place to go back to where there are jobs and where
there is going to be a place where they can, you know, support
themselves and their families. And that is why it is so
important I think with some of the earlier remarks by our
previous testifiers.
Mr. Cole. You sort of anticipated my follow-up which is in
addition to those who go back, how many would like to but run
into exactly the problem you just laid out? There just simply
are not sufficient opportunities for them to return to?
Mr. Gipp. I think tribal government needs better support
just in the arena of things like economic and business
development, and our role is to provide those kinds of people
with the training in business or small business management
which we do on our campus. Sitting Bull College where Mr.
Archambault is from is doing much of that kind of thing.
Entrepreneurship and playing up those kinds of things are so
crucial if we are going to have successful kinds of developing
economies.
I look at our tribes in many respects, domestic Third World
countries that need a lot of foreign aid, if you want to call
it that.
Mr. Cole. I do not think it is foreign aid. Ms. McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, and thank you all, gentlemen, for
sincere, heartfelt testimony which really speaks to the
responsibility that we have to work together on to make sure
that all of our peoples live up to their commitments and more
so on the Federal Government's side. Your commitment is, I have
to say, never give up, and so I really appreciate that.
I wanted to just make one observation and then ask a
question. I have been to Rosebud but I have not been to Pine
Ridge. I have been looking to revisit. It has been a while, so
you have kind of given me a loop around to leave the Twin
Cities and visit many of the places where my mother was from in
both the Dakotas. I will be visiting. But I do not know if I
will get all the way over to Montana, so I have got a question
for you. Although I have been to Glendive, Sidney and Fairview
a lot and a lot of fishing in Fort Peck. But a couple of
questions, so I understand better what you are working on with
the Bison Cooperative. I grew up in a meat packing town, okay,
so people used to bring cattle into South St. Paul to
slaughter. And I am going to do a lot of questions together. So
you have mobile facilities. Has there been any discussion
within the cooperative to transport? Maybe you do not have
access to rail. Bison are a lot bigger than cattle. I would not
want to be trying to get too many of them on a truck. So maybe
that is why it is a mobile facility, and I just want to
understand that better. And then tying in what they do at the
Technical College, I know there are issues in the deer and the
moose population in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and I do not know
if it is spread over where you are, maybe it is an issue having
chronic wasting disease and the moose are dying from some brain
infection. We have no idea. So it leads me to the question of
veterinary science, veterinary technicians, training for them,
job opportunities.
Then the last thing I will toss at you as with these mobile
slaughter vehicles, what is your relationship with FDA
inspectors and all that? And so I will be seeing you gentlemen
later at the schools and at your tribal areas, and I will come
visit the veterans.
Mr. Carlson. Yeah, one of the things as you know as you say
was real hard to, you know, bring the animals to a slaughter
facility, so we do not have presently a mobile slaughter
facility. In the past there was one, it could not pass the
federal requirements. So we had to make it stationary.
So it is a lot easier if we can get a mobile facility that
will go out to every tribe and have them do their field kills.
I guess one of the other areas and I would refer to--to
help me answer some questions on, we have had problems with the
USDA inspection fee. I guess that is one of the issues that we
are continuing--you know, tribes are you know, strapped for
dollars anyway, and the inspection fee is one of the areas that
we kind of have a problem with. We are trying to not only have
the mobile slaughter facility but a regional permanent facility
is kind of one of our long-term goals as to all of our tribes.
And I have Majel Russell with me who is our legal person and
helps in every aspect of ITBC, and I would like to have her
talk to you about the inspection.
Ms. Russell. Just real quickly----
Mr. Cole. And your name also for the record.
Ms. McCollum. And can you tie in how you use the funding to
accomplish some of these challenges that you are describing
right now?
Ms. Russell. I am Majel Russell, and I am legal counsel for
the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council. The reason the mobile
slaughter facility is important is that it will allow tribes to
do field kills of the animals and maintain the cultural
significance of killing the animals out in the field. And we
are hoping that if we can get a mobile slaughter facility that
USDA will approve, then it will allow us to harvest animals in
the field in the cultural manner that the tribes desire and yet
still have the meat approved so that we can provide it to
schools and provide it to other facilities with the USDA
approval.
Presently we have to transport animals to USDA facilities,
and generally they want to finish those animals in the feed
lot. When you finish a buffalo in a feed lot, then that is the
kind of buffalo you are going to eat downtown at one of these
restaurants where it is all fatted up. And you have basically
diminished the health benefit of the buffalo because it has
been grain fed, corn fed, and it no longer maintains the value
of a healthy food.
So a mobile slaughter facility is very important to
maintain the integrity of the animal that we are providing,
which is a healthy grass-fed animal and also maintains the
cultural slaughter for the tribes.
Let's see, you had a question about----
Ms. McCollum. That vet training because that will also tie
in.
Ms. Russell. Yes.
Ms. McCollum. So how would having the funding help with
these issues?
Ms. Russell. Having the funding would critically help us
grow the buffalo industry for Indian Country. I mean, right now
we are very limited, and it seems like we cannot get over a
threshold where we can create more jobs. We have some jobs. We
actually have been as successful with U.S. Department of Labor
to have a new position of a buffalo manager. So we now have
created that position. We actually have created an official
position, but we need to work with the tribal colleges on
training. We just have so limited funding that we provide only
about $70,000 to tribes that are part of our program just for
herd development, infrastructure, water, so forth. We cannot
get over that threshold. So we think with additional funding we
can strategize and meet with tribal colleges to try to promote
jobs and training programs and basically grow the industry.
Mr. Steele. We wanted to get buffalo from Yellowstone Park
who wants to get rid of them. They are not a brucellosis-free
herd. And so they have to be quarantined for 30 days. And we
are brucellosis free so that is an expense that it is very
difficult for us to access those.
Mr. Cole. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Just a couple things. President Steele, thank
you for your testimony. Very important that we hear that. And
Councilman, you mentioned the issues that you face on the
reservation, transportation being one of them. Just out of
curiosity, do you share in the state gasoline tax for
transportation needs on your reservation? And the reason I ask
that, when I was in the state legislature, I was always trying
to get the Department of Transportation to share those gasoline
tax revenue with the tribes and let them do in terms of
employment and stuff the maintenance on the roads and so forth.
Mr. Archambault. Yes, we do, but it is still inadequate. We
do have a compact with the state so that we can share in those,
but rather than having a compact, we would like to learn how
and that is why we depend a lot on our educational
institutions. But we would like to learn how to take the taxing
duties of the state and do it ourselves so that we do not have
to share and we do not have to have a compact and there would
be more realization of benefits to the tribes rather than
having a compact. Or if that cannot be achieved, then we would
like to not have a tax on a fuel within our boundaries, but
that is difficult to do also.
So there are a lot of things that are brewing that we would
like to pursue to probably help us with a lot of these
transportation requirements and needs, maintenance of roads. We
struggle all the time, and we have to depend on the Bureau
through formula funding, and as a large land-based tribe, it is
just not enough. And the revenue generated from the sharing of
taxes by the state is not enough, and we have a shortfall every
year. When a tribe does have to somehow come up with money to
subsidize the maintenance of our roads, that is not always--we
have to sacrifice other areas in order to just open up roads.
And we live in North Dakota where we just had a snowstorm
Saturday.
Mr. Simpson. We had one in Idaho Friday. Fortunately it was
gone in about two days. You get it just after we do.
Were you going to say something?
Mr. Steele. Yeah, we went to court with the State of South
Dakota. We collect all the--tax on Pine Ridge, but it needs to
go into people's driveways they call them. They can be anywhere
from 100 feet to 3 miles. They have never seen a blade on them
themselves. An Indian car is minus a muffler because the road
has never had a blade on it. They knock out transmissions. It
is very difficult. So that all goes in to trying to do these
driveways to people's homes.
Mr. Simpson. Well, thank you all. We plan on getting out to
North and South Dakota for a visit later this year.
Mr. Steele. I do not like when Congress paints the whole
United States with this Indian brush. We are unique in
different ways. In South Dakota, we went through the state
courts up to the State Supreme Court. The State Police cannot
come onto the reservations in South Dakota, contrary to Hicks
v. Nevada out of the Supreme Court. They tried to bring it to
the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court did not hear it, would
not take it, and so in South Dakota, the state law enforcement
tells us before they come onto our territories, and if they do
not and they come try to do business, we will arrest them. That
is illegal for them to do that.
But it is difficult having the full responsibility for all
law enforcement, all courts, all prosecutions within our area
and then not have the funding to do it.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Gipp. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and we certainly would
appreciate any of you coming to visit us out there.
Mr. Cole. Actually, we look very much forward to doing
that. I want to thank again and I want to associate myself very
much with Chairman Simpson's remarks. I appreciate some of the
pointed comments. They need to be made and they need to be
heard, and they are certainly very, very appropriate. So thank
you. My dad was a pretty old tough master sergeant. He used to
have a wonderful saying that your friends are the people that
tell you what you need to know, not what you want to hear. So
you all said some things that needed to be said and certainly
the Congress needs to hear, and we appreciate that very much.
We reconvene at 1:00, and I am going to actually try to
move it along on time, but we will see. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Cole. In the interest of time so we can get back on
schedule, and we apologize, the votes came very inopportunely.
We are going to call folks up kind of at a panel at a time. So
if we could have McCoy Oatman, Chairman of Nez Perce, Tracy
``Ching'' King, the President of Fort Belknap Indian Community
and Roxann Smith, the Vice Chair of the----
Mr. Oatman. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cole. How are you?
Mr. Oatman. Good to see you.
Mr. Cole. Good to see you. If we can, we will just move
from our left to the right, so if you would identify yourself
and then go ahead and we will take all the testimony, and then
we will open it up for questions.
Mr. Oatman. Is the microphone on?
Mr. Cole. If you will press the button down there. If it
has got that red light, it is on.
Mr. Oatman. Okay.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
NEZ PERCE TRIBAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
WITNESS
McCOY OATMAN
Mr. Oatman. Good afternoon. My name is McCoy Oatman. I am
the Chairman of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee. I
would like to first off start by thanking the Committee for
hearing our testimony here today.
Today on behalf of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive
Committee, I am here to address the Committee as it evaluates
and prioritizes the spending needs of the United States
regarding IHS, BIA, EPA, the Forest Service, the Fish and
Wildlife Service, and I know Mike Simpson is not here but I
would like to give a special thanks to him. He is from our
State of Idaho for holding these important hearings. Simpson
has seen in person the variety and the quality of work that the
tribe does.
Mr. Moran. We will pass that on to Mike.
Mr. Cole. We will indeed.
Mr. Oatman. I appreciate it. So you guys have our written
testimony from the tribe, and so due to time I will summarize
some of the major points that we have and issues that we have.
First off, the tribe recommends increased funding for
Indian Health Service including monies for contract health
services and contract support costs. The tribe supports the
request for at least 4.6 billion which would be an increase of
14 percent over the fiscal year 2010 funding for IHS and
contract health services, and contract support costs should be
funded at $615 million. The tribe's shortfall last year for the
contract support costs was 152,546, and the shortfall for all
Idaho tribes is $1.27 million.
At this time, our tribal clinic is facing a potential $1
million to $1.5 million shortfall for this year's budget. That
is with the 5 percent budget cut that the tribe has done itself
on its facility. The clinic has been in priority one status for
the last three months which, as you know, means life and limb
are the only claims approved for treatment. With the low level
of current funding provided by IHS, the tribe would have to
double the amount normally received to its third-party billing
to fill that gap, and only 35 percent of the 4,500 patients
that we service have insurance.
One thing that I would like to share, too, is that I spoke
with our executive director for our clinics, and one of the
statements that she made to me is that our people are
chronically ill. So that is something that I would like to pass
along to you guys.
The tribe also requests approval for 650,000 in funding
requested in fiscal year 2011 budget, BIA budget for survey
work that was supposed to be done under the Snake River Basin
Adjudication which the tribe, as you know, settled. This money
would go to the BIA and BLM to do the survey work which is part
of the agreement under the transfer of land from the Bureau of
Land Management.
The tribe also recommends funding contract support costs
for BIA at $228 million for programs that the tribe administers
such as law enforcement, to supplement its law enforcement
program by 600,000 for the last fiscal years to compensate for
the budget shortfall from BIA. The tribe recommends proper
funding for BIA Endangered Species Fund, Rights Protection Fund
and Tribal Management and Development Program Fund.
Particularly, the Rights Protection Fund is very critical for
the tribe because it helps our harvest management and also
funds our conservation enforcement. It also helps the tribe
work on protection--resources for on and off reservation
hunting and fishing and fish production. The tribe is a natural
resource tribe and has made a commitment to work to preserve,
enhance those resources where funding is needed.
We also support the funding for the BIA, wildlife parks,
travel priority allocations which will be covered later on in
more detail by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
which the tribe is part of. We would also like to emphasize the
tremendous amount of positive work that is done through that
program. Also we request support for the Fish and Wildlife
Service, travel wildlife grants which has been proposed to be
eliminated under some funding scenarios. The grants are the
only source of funding for many tribal wildlife programs and is
only one of funding sources for the research that the tribe
does on the big horn sheep.
We also request support for the work of the Forest Service,
the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Parks Service on
the buffalo hunt and the Gallatin National Forest near
Yellowstone National Park.
Finally, we request continued support and funding for work
with the tribe with EPA through its Federal Air Rules for
Reservations, more commonly known as FARR. As you may, I am not
sure if you are aware, but the tribe has received a couple of
awards for this program. It has been a model program through
EPA, through the partnership. And the tribe continues to work
on its efforts to improve water quality on the reservation, and
so we would like continued funding for that through the state
and travel partnership.
Lastly, as you know, the NCAI has produced a comprehensive
budget request outline for Indian Country which my tribe
supports, and with that I would like to thank the Committee for
hearing my testimony today, and I look forward to continue the
good working relationship that we have. Thank you.
[The statement of McCoy Oatman follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Before we move on, just so you know, Mr.
Chairman, Mr. Oatman said wonderful things about you before you
arrived, but Mr. Moran and I moved that that be stricken from
the record. But he did stick up for you.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I appreciate that. Good seeing you
again.
Mr. Cole. If we could go on, Ms. Smith.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
ASSINIBOINE AND SIOUX TRIBES OF THE FORT PECK RESERVATION
WITNESS
ROXANN SMITH
Ms. Smith. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon. My
name is Roxann Smith, and I am the Vice Chairman of Assiniboine
and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in
Montana. Our reservation is located in the northeastern part of
the State, and we have had so much snow this winter, you would
not believe. We had over 80 inches of snow in my little area,
and we have gone through so much money in the area of snow
removal. And so it has tapped into our reserves at the tribe.
So everybody is telling me, if you can put a plug in there for
any emergency funding for snow removal, please do so.
With that being said, our reservation is approximately 43
percent of our people live at below poverty which is not
unusual for Indian reservations. And with that comes some of
our requests.
We are asking that Congress would increase appropriations
for the IHS for healthcare for Native Americans, especially in
the area of mental health funding, hospitals and clinics
funding and contract healthcare.
During the 2009-2010 school year, five of our school
children committed suicide, and that is a plague that we have
had at Fort Peck. I was out here earlier this year with Senator
Dorgan, and he had a summit on suicide. And I myself have lost
a son to suicide, and so I know the trauma and the devastating
effects it has on families. And so with that, I implore you
that, you know, if you could continue to put funding behind IHS
because that will in turn help in the area of mental health.
Another scourge that plagues our community is diabetes, and
in the previous funding request, Fort Peck had asked for an
appropriations in the area of dialysis, and that got scratched.
It was I think considered an earmark, and we would like to see
if Congress would please help us to build upon the existing
dialysis unit that we have. Currently we are at capacity with
the idea we are guessing that we have an additional 73 to 100
pre-renal diabetics that are going to be needing dialysis. And
we not only serve our native population but we serve all of
northeastern Montana. So it serves everybody, and it is not
just a Native American service.
I am trying to rush through this, too. Health status of the
community is directly related to the quality of water which is
why Fort Peck tribes took the lead in building the Fort Peck
Reservation Rural Water System where we are--I just had a tour
of it recently with Mr. Echo Hawk came out to visit our tribe,
and we took him out on a tour and things are going along very
well. However, one of the areas that we are wishing to ask for
assistance on is the O&M charges for bringing the water to
Poplar. One of the wells actually was contaminated now with the
brine water, and we have shut down those wells, and we are
actually piping in water from some external wells. So we are
really in dire need there for funding that water will bring--we
are concentrating on Poplar initially and then eventually it is
going to reach all of the northeastern part of the state. We
are needing about an additional $800,000 to operate the
project.
Another critical area is the public safety on our
reservations. I want to support the $11.4 million request to
fund operations of the newly constructed detention facilities.
The Fort Peck tribes received $1 million from the Department of
Justice to rebuild our detention facilities, and this is
critical in our ability to operate this facility. We actually
broke ground last fall, and they are in the process of working
on that, all of the construction, now.
Finally I would like to end by talking about economic
development and the need to improve and streamline oil and gas
development on the reservations. Specifically I urge the
Committee to find efforts to plug abandoned wells on trust
lands. Currently there are five wells on the Fort Peck
Reservation that need to be plugged at an average of $80,000 a
well. The BIA failed to fulfill its trust responsibility to
ensure that the operators plugged these wells. Now we are left
with this environmental threat.
Finally, I urge the Subcommittee to support efforts to
streamline oil and gas development efforts on the federal trust
land. Due to the ridiculous bureaucratic maze that oil
development companies face, they elect to avoid important oil
development opportunities on reservations for less certain
opportunities off reservations. And with that, that concludes
my report.
[The statement of Roxann Smith follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you very much. Mr. King.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
FORT BELKNAP INDIAN COMMUNITY
WITNESS
TRACY ``CHING'' KING
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
Committee. My name is Tracy ``Ching'' King. I serve as the
President of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre in Northcentral
Montana where, like Vice President Smith said, we had a hard
winter. I think the past 3 years we started the end of October,
first part of November and upwards of 50 to 60 below zero with
wind chill factor of 66 to 70 below. And so our resources have
been drained that helps our people keep warm, like the low
energy assistance. And our tribes have thrown in helping people
to heat their homes, and it is very important to keep their
homes. Many of them are veterans of the war, like myself. I
come from a war veterans--tribal leaders, and I had a daughter
that was capturing insurgents back in 2004, and a nephew who
was wounded over in Iraq in '03, and then my daughter was--I
did not know if she was dead or alive when Mosul was hit back
before Christmas.
So my family proudly served this country and my brother was
left for dead in Vietnam and an uncle killed in World War II.
So there is a lot of history of veterans that probably served
our country. And so we still have a code talker from the
Assiniboine Tribe that is still alive today and many prisoners
of the wars. And so we are very proud that their people have
served, and it is a big honor for me to be part of that.
With that, we have many issues like the Vice President
said, you know, suicide is rampant, and it has to do with a lot
of the historical trauma and with the--many of us know what
the--are being sued, and so my brother is part of that suit,
you know. It is not fun to be part of that because he has to
expose what his suicidal thoughts were. He now is an alcohol
counselor for our CDC program and helps people go through that.
But education is very important to us as well, but in the
State of Montana, through the impact aid, in my lifetime I will
say I have never seen a child fail. But it is us who fail
children, and so we really need to look at overhauling the
educational system that impacts Indian Country. And I had some
of those who had failed and worked on a program with some young
ladies and young men that were ready to be locked up. And we
had this program through the Department of Justice that was
alternatives to incarceration. And the success of that is they
went off to war, to Iraq and Afghanistan and became war
veterans. And so there are proven ways to work with many of our
youth to become successful in any job opportunities out there.
So I am hoping that we could have some mental health like
Lusamsa and others that would help us to get our youth and
their families help. Many of our veterans suffer from post-
traumatic stress, and so we really need to look at beefing up
that more to look at ways to have them have a better life, you
know, because many of them are veterans that have been in the
field of World War II, Korea, and just about every conflict
that there is, we have veterans there.
We also are looking at gas and oil development that we need
to create jobs and look at our natural resources and ways to
make some dollars through that. Our budgets through the 638
program through BIA, it appears that once the 638 contract,
that the money kind of goes away or it stalemates, and we never
get the increase. The distance factor, the weather factor are
not really factored into the budget formulation process, as
well as the cost of living and inflation are not, either. So we
are actually always behind with the budgets we receive. We also
are looking at a water compact settlement just like the Black
Feet and the Crow Nations have settled with the Congress, we
have been working on ours for a number of years and are looking
at introduction of a bill. And some of those lands that were
taken away from us back in 1896 were, according to the
documents of the Cornell Agreement, that a lot of our people
had a choice to starve or cede the land back to the government.
As a result, a lot of people became rich off of that, and now
there is pollution that comes on our reservation. State-of-the-
art water treatment plants on the waters that go through the
towns off the reservation, but there is no water system in
place on Fort Belknap. So our waters are being polluted, there
is a high rate of cancer and other diseases that are impacting
the people of Fort Belknap. So that is a huge concern with us.
Like I said, we have our testimony here, but I want to
thank the Committee for allowing us to be here and to listen to
us. Thank you.
[The statement of Tracy ``Ching'' King follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you. I have got two sets of quick questions
if I may, one relates to the oil and gas that both of you
mentioned, and two questions under that category I have that I
would like you to address. Number one, we hear this quite often
that it is much more difficult to develop oil and gas reserves
or energy reserves of any kind of tribal lands than it is
either even other kinds of federal lands but certainly
privately held lands in the vicinity.
What are the specific things that make it more difficult
bureaucratically, number one, so we could sort of begin to get
at that so you could use your resources in the way you choose
to. And number two, you mentioned five or six wells that had
not been appropriately capped by the people that were operating
them. Are those companies that are still in existence that we
could go back on? Honestly, they have a responsibility once
they are finished with the production to do that themselves,
and certainly that is something the BIA or somebody ought to be
able to force them to do.
Ms. Smith. As far as the capped wells, the Bureau takes a
bond, you know, the part of the--are given to the Bureau, and
then after so much time has elapsed, then you give it back. And
what happened, there was not anybody monitoring those wells on
the BIA side, so they just gave the money back to the company.
So now there are these abandoned wells hanging out up in Fort
Peck.
And then the first question that you had regarding the
streamlining is what I am asking for is that we have EPA
regulations. There is like the BLM, MMS, they all require a
certain permit process, and what we are asking for is if they
can somehow streamline it like they did in North Dakota. They
had a one-stop-shop, and we are hoping that, you know, they can
do the same sort of thing at Fort Peck because they are
knocking on our doors. I mean, if you look at our map of the
oil companies, they are all around the reservation. All they
have to pay is $25 to go on a non-Indian piece of land, and
they have to pay $7,500 to go onto tribal lands.
Mr. Cole. That is certainly something we ought to look at.
It is not appropriate.
The other question I have, do you all have a school on your
reservation, your BIE school? Okay. I'm just curious. So it is
an impact aid issue with you strictly. Okay. Thank you very
much. Mr. Moran.
Mr. Moran. It is interesting, but I think you covered. I am
fine.
Mr. Cole. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. No, I am fine. Thanks for being here,
Chairman. I appreciate it. Sorry I missed the first of your
testimony, but we get a chance to talk frequently.
Mr. Cole. Ms. McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Could you just elaborate a little
more on the need for dialysis? I also have something for Mille
Lacs Band for dialysis, especially in a rural area, and how you
serve. Do you serve all the way down into Sidney, Fairview?
Ms. Smith. We have some people that come from Circle, that
area.
Ms. McCollum. Oh, my gosh.
Ms. Smith. And they drive up--need to drive up every week,
you know, for their dialysis. They come up--to poplar.
Ms. McCollum. Is the North Dakota Department of Health, are
they--I mean, some of this is it is tribal but it is also a
public health issue. Is the State of North Dakota trying to do
anything to----
Ms. Smith. Dialysis unit in Williston, and it is a 70-mile
drive for our people to Williston to have their dialysis.
Ms. McCollum. That is where my grandmother went was
Williston. And then when the weather is bad on top of it. And
how often do some of the elders have to go in for dialysis,
twice a week? And they are there for four to six hours?
Ms. Smith. And then what we are looking at if we continue
to see an influx of people, we are going to have to open up for
a second shift of dialysis because, you know, we will have to
hire more people.
Ms. McCollum. And was part of the dialysis center--I know
the nations have been talking together about how to address
this epidemic. Was part of what the dialysis center was going
to be part about was prevention, monitoring and doing other
things besides just the dialysis? It was going to have a,
holistic is the wrong word, but a very broad approach to it?
Ms. Smith. Well, just feel we need to expand our dialysis
as far as I know--expand the----
Ms. McCollum. Okay. And then one other question, Mr. Chair.
Some dialysis places now have almost two shifts, but the
machines have to be maintained, there is cleaning in between,
things like that. Is it more than one shift at your dialysis
unit?
Ms. Smith. She goes Monday through Saturday and the
holiday. I think she opens at 6:00 in the morning until 6:00 at
night, all day long.
Ms. McCollum. So she is at capacity. Thank you.
Mr. King. Mr. Chairman, as far as Fort Belknap, our
enrolled members have anywhere from 150-mile to 500-mile round
trip, and my nephew gets up about 3:00 in the morning and
probably gets done about 6:00 in the evening, and that is one
of the things we were looking at is the change of diets as well
as using buffalo meat to feed our people. But unfortunately, we
have to pay a $40-per-hour USDA fee, and that kind of holds us
back a lot.
Mr. Cole. Well, thank you very much for your testimony, and
I appreciate that. It is very helpful. If we can, we are going
to move by just calling groups of people up. If we could have
Mr. Whitebird, Mr. Zorn, President Maulson, Chief Rodgers and
Chairman Billie.
Okay, welcome. If we can we will start at the far end and
again, if you could identify yourself before you deliver your
testimony, that will make it a lot easier on the clerk. Yeah,
if the red light is on, it is on.
Mr. Whitebird. Can you hear me?
Mr. Cole. Yeah, keep it close, though.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
LEECH LAKE BAND OF OJIBWE
WITNESS
EUGENE ``RIBS'' WHITEBIRD
Mr. Whitebird. Thank you Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member
Moran, representative McCollum and Congressman Cole for
allowing me to testify today. My name is Ribs Whitebird. I am a
member of the tribal council of Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Our
reservation is located in northern Minnesota. My reservation
has numerous needs, but today I will focus solely on the band's
need to replace its high school facility at the Bug-O-Nay-Ge-
Shig School. The School is administered and funded by the BIA.
We estimate that the cost to replace our high school is about
$25 million. We do not understand why the U.S. can spend
billions and billions of dollars on wars and foreign aid like
Pakistan and Iraq but cannot build a school for Indian kids.
Under our treaty of 1855, the Leech Lake Reservation was
established. The band gave up millions of acres of land. In
return, the U.S. is supposed to provide for band welfare which
includes providing our kids with decent and safe schools.
Further, the U.S. Congress passed the Nelson Act of 1889, the
Dawes Act for Minnesota, and other federal laws specific to
Minnesota to take more of our land.
Logging companies wanted our--and homesteaders wanted our
land for farming. In return, proceeds from land and timber
share were supposed to be used for our schools. The U.S. has
never met these obligations.
The school serves nearly 300 Indian children in grades K-
12. The students commute to the school from working communities
within a 70-mile radius. The school had won many awards for its
academic achievement which is native language programs. I have
also provided you with pictures of students at the school.
The elementary and middle-school facilities are in
satisfactory condition, but the high school needs to be
replaced. The current facility is a metal-clad pole barn. One-
third of the facility was destroyed in a gas explosion in 1992.
The facility has serious structural and mechanical deficiencies
and lacks proper insulation. This facility does not meet
safety, fire and security standards. Also, the facility has
electrical problems and lacks alarm systems. Further, the
building lacks a communication intercom system, telecom
technologies and safe zones which puts everyone at the greatest
risk during emergencies. Also, the facility jeopardizes the
health of the students--indoor air quality from mold, fungus
and faulty HVAC system. The facility suffers from rodents in
it. Roof leaks, sagging--uneven floor, poor lighting, sewer
problem, lack of handicap access and lack of classroom and
other space--facility's numerous deficiencies.
Due to unsafe and undesirable condition of the high school,
many students leave after middle school to attend other
schools. Students are embarrassed about the condition of the
high school resulting in a negative image of the school in the
community and the lower enrollment rate. The high school is on
the BIA list of schools in need of replacement. The BIA has
acknowledged that the school has exceeded its life expectancy
by decades. By BIA categories, the high school facility has
been in poor condition.
The high school is among more than 70 schools funded by the
BIE that are in poor condition. BIE construction backlog is at
least $1.3 billion. There needs to be sustained funding to
adjust the backlog.
We appreciate that times are tough financially. We know
that $1.3 billion is a lot of money, but our kids should not be
the ones forced to shoulder the burden. $1.3 billion is a drop
in the bucket compared to what the U.S. spends every day
overseas. The Administration's fiscal year 2012 budget request
does not even come close to making a dent in the backlog. The
administration proposes only $52.1 million toward BIE school
construction which is a cut of $61 million from last year's
enacted level. You cannot build much with that.
These funding levels are unacceptable. In fiscal year 2005,
funding of BIE school construction is $263 million. We urge the
BIA to increase funding for BIE school construction, not
decrease it. The lives of our children are at stake.
In conclusion, we pledge and urge the committee to help us
replace our high school. The fact is simple, that the high
school is not safe and should not be a place where kids go to
school. With all due respect, I doubt that anyone sitting at
this table will allow their children in school in this type
of--facilities that our children go to school in. Chairman
Simpson, if it is okay with you, I would like to provide you
with a booklet of information about the school. Thank you.
[The statement of Eugene ``Ribs'' Whitebird follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you very much.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
LAC DU FLAMBEAU BAND OF LAKE SUPERIOR CHIPPEWA
WITNESSES
TOM MAULSON
LARRY WAWRONOWICZ
Mr. Maulson. I said I was Lac Du Flambeau, Wisconsin,
northern part of the State where things are cold, just as cold
as Minnesota.
Mr. Chairman, madam, gentlemen, I come here as a treaty
tribe, and I come here to identify that as really important
that it is your obligation to me and my people back home and
all the other tribal leaders that are sitting here in this here
room that there is something far greater than just appropriate
and making sure that our dollars are going to be affordable to
us. I come here looking like we were begging you people for
those particular dollars that is owed to us as Indian people. I
brought with me my Natural Resource Director, Larry
Wawronowicz, in reference to some of the things that he has
done on our reservation in the last 25 years. You have heard
the horror stories of Indian Country--and education. There is
not enough dollars out there to continue that type of movement
to bring our children to the forefront, to make them just as
qualified or better than some people are there. We have the
Bureau of Indian Affair dollars that are needed. We got
conservation programs. We have programs in our housing where we
have got people standing in line almost 100 waiting for homes
on our reservation. We have these same major problems in
reference to making sure that our people back home in the
wintertime have ample heat. We have many shortfalls. We have
come to Congress many times, spent hundreds of thousands of
dollars as we come in the past years to come and sit at these
here tables and come to visit you all in your offices and
identify our needs back home.
So I definitely as a tribal chairman of my people, I ask
you to support these here endeavors that a lot of these leaders
are requesting of this organization, this Congress, to make
sure that, you know, that things are in place for us as Indian
people out there, your fiduciary responsibility, you know,
according to treaty rights.
[The statement of Tom Maulson follows:]
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Mr. Maulson. I want to give my time to my Executive
Director of our Natural Resources so he can identify some of
the needs back home. We need jobs. We are putting people to
work under these type of programs. Larry.
Mr. Wawronowicz. I am Larry Wawronowicz, Natural Resource
Director for the Lac du Flambeau Band. One of the things that
the tribes in the Midwest area are blessed with very good
natural resources. We have a lot of water, and we have a lot of
land. And we have both on- and off-reservation treaty rights
which we need to protect. Jim Zorn is here with the Great Lakes
Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission and will talk a little bit
more about the off-reservation stuff. But on-reservation
management is very, very important. A lot of the Midwest tribes
require to have clean air, water and land to be able to support
their hunting, fishing and gathering rights. It is absolutely
imperative that we do have clean air, water and land in order
for us to be able to exercise treaty rights, culture, our way
of life, the way we view things as native peoples. It is just
so important.
Our testimony gets in specifics. Indian education is very,
very important, but conservation, law enforcement funding as
well as funding for EPA programs seems to be--I mean, it gives
us the opportunity to have environmental presence on the
reservation. In order for us to be able to develop
economically, we are going to have clean air, water and land.
So it is very, very important that we tie the natural resources
and the ability to have clean air, water and land for us as a
nation, a tribal nation, as well as a federal Nation to be able
to provide economic opportunities for our citizens. I mean, it
is imperative, absolutely imperative that we have those three
resources, clean air, water and land.
So with that, I hope that, you know, you take the time to
read our testimony. We have some specific needs and specific
requests. But the bottom line is this. If we do not have clean
air, water and land, we are nothing as a nation. Thank you very
much for your time.
Mr. Cole. Thank you for your testimony.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
MICCOSUKEE TRIBE OF INDIANS OF FLORIDA
WITNESS
COLLEY BILLIE
Mr. Billie. I am Chairman Colley Billie from the Miccosukee
Tribe of Indians of Florida. Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member
Moran, and Subcommittee members, on behalf of the Miccosukee
tribe of Indians of Florida, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before this Subcommittee. I also wish to thank
Congressman Cole and the other Members of Congress with whom I
have met recently for their efforts to enact a legislative fix
to address the harmful effects of the Supreme Court's decision
in Carcieri v. Salazar. I strongly urge the Congress to take
immediate action to enact a clean remedy. The longer the delay,
the more Indian Country will suffer.
I have two general matters to briefly discuss this
afternoon that are included in my prepared remarks, dispelling
the myth that federal tribal assistance programs are no longer
needed because of gaming and raise awareness about an
environmental catastrophe in the making in our home, the
Florida Everglades.
There is a misperception that federal tribal programs are
welfare. This is not the case. Rather, they are designed to
enable the Federal Government to honor its trust
responsibilities arising from numerous treaties, laws,
policies, agreements and practices. Without the special
relationship, it would be difficult, and in the case of some
types, impossible to provide assistance for the young, elder
and infirmed as well as manage tribal judicial systems. Some
tribes, like the Miccosukees, have gaming. Through these
businesses, many tribes have been able to defeat the vicious
cycle of poverty that plagues Indian Country. They help achieve
significant improvements in the area of health, housing and
education. Yet, even those tribes that have successful gaming
businesses have been severely impacted by the global economic
crisis.
I urge you to take a close look at these Federal Government
commitments and make sure that they are not defunded or
underfunded. If you are looking to save federal tax dollars,
the Miccosukee people have the ideal project for you, a very
expensive and scientifically unsound bridging project that will
cause great harm to the Everglades and the Miccosukee. We must
honor the Earth from where we are made is a central tenant of
the Miccosukee people. Our efforts to protect the Everglades
are well-documented, and our future commitment unwavering. When
it comes to Everglades restoration, however, our tribe has
struggled for decades to have an equal place at the table.
In 2008, the Interior Department and Army Corps of
Engineers decided to build a one-mile bridge alongside U.S.
highway 41. The initial price tag was $233 million, and more
bridges are supposedly planned for the Tamiami Trail. We
immediately realized that this project was fiscally and
scientifically unsound. Because of the lack of fulsome
consultation, we were forced to go to federal court. The Judge
called it, and I quote, ``an environmental bridge to nowhere''
and issued a temporary injunction to stop construction until
all federal laws were complied with. Our victory, however, was
short-lived. Unfortunately, Congress was misinformed about this
decision and was mistakenly led to believe and to intervene the
following year by inserting language in the 2009 Omnibus
Appropriation Act that said, ``Notwithstanding any other
provision of law'' the one-mile bridge was to be built. This
section of the law violates several statutes and our
Constitutional rights. We were not consulted on this matter
back then, but you can do something about it today. Do not
approve additional bridges. You should also order a halt to any
further work on the Tamiami Trail one-mile bridge until all the
federally required studies are completed and our concerns
afforded meaningful consideration. By stopping construction of
these Department of Interior and Army Corps skyway bridges, you
would be saving the taxpayers approximately $400 million.
There is a less expensive, safer and scientifically viable
alternative supported by the tribe and experts such as the
Formal Regional Commandant of the Army Corps of Engineers. This
approach focuses on clearing existing culverts located
underneath the road to increase water flow. Clearing the
culvert is simple, cost-effective and should be tried before
costly bridges damage the Everglades we are trying to restore,
as well as destroy Miccosukee ancestral and sacred lands. This
method is consistent with the Comprehensive Everglades
Restoration plan.
Finally, the Miccosukee Tribe thanks for allowing me this
opportunity to share our thoughts with you. We look forward to
working with this Congress--in my language, that means thank
you.
[The statement of Colley Billie follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chief Rodgers.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
CATAWBA INDIAN NATION
WITNESS
DONALD RODGERS
Mr. Rodgers. Good afternoon. I am Chief Rodgers of the
Catawba Indian Nation in South Carolina, so I thank you all for
allowing me to be here.
I first want to begin my testimony by expressing my
appreciation for the support that this Subcommittee itself has
provided the Catawba Tribe on budget and audit issues that I
had to address almost 3\1/2\ years ago when I took my tenure as
Chief.
With the support of Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Moran,
and Congressman Cole and the Subcommittee as a whole, the
Bureau of Indian Affairs took action that allowed the Catawba
to receive several millions of dollars of funds that had been
allocated to the tribe we could not access, and only a month
ago we were notified that a debt to the BIA that we simply
could not repay was forgiven, and I want to thank you
personally for that. Thank you so much.
We now have clean audits, and we are free from crippling
financial liabilities. Your support then and now means a great
deal to the Catawba people as a whole, and on their behalf I
would like to say a heartfelt thank you for all that.
I also want to thank this Subcommittee for last year's
support in seeking passage of the Carcieri fix. Early on there
were suggestions that the Catawba was one of the tribes that
would no longer be able to take land in the trust because of
the Supreme Court's bizarre decision in Carcieri v. Salazar.
However, Interior has recently made clear in writing that it
believes the Supreme Court's decision does not directly affect
the Catawba. Nonetheless, the Court decision is unfair, is
already generating a growing mountain of litigation and will
create jurisdictional uncertainties throughout Indian Country,
and I applaud the Subcommittee's action last year to move the
Carcieri fix legislation and ask that you continue to strongly
advocate for this and seek for its final putting to rest this
year.
As we had discussed before, the Catawba Nation is one of a
handful of federally recognized tribes that do not enjoy the
range of sovereign powers possessed by most federally
recognized Indian nations. Under the terms of our Settlement
Act, we possess what I would term second-class tribal
sovereignty. For example, in the area of gaming, we are not
authorized to establish gaming operations pursuant to the
Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Instead, we are limited to two
bingo halls which only enjoy a modest advantage over bingo
halls already established in the State.
For this reason I am here today to urge the Subcommittee to
invest federal dollars in programs that support economic
development for smaller tribes that have limited resources but
like the Catawba are committed to becoming economically and
self-sufficient to help us move forward in the future.
In the 2000 census the Catawba Indian Nation had a per
capita income of just a little over $11,000. The estimated
current unemployment rate among the Catawba is more than double
that of the State of South Carolina which itself is very high
unemployment.
The tribe currently has no operating economic development
ventures. I have highlighted in my written testimony four
projects we are working to begin the process for developing a
tribal economy. The first one is the Catawba market, a gas
station that will create jobs and improve services on the
reservation to provide much-needed assets and necessity for
tribal members there located. A major road extension to provide
decent and safe access to our reservation so we can open up
other economic development opportunities. We had a young child
go blue on our reservation about six months ago. It took an
ambulance 45 minutes to get to our reservation. It is horrible
thing, so this road extension is much needed.
A ride-share program to get members of our nation to jobs
located throughout the surrounding area to help and assist to
do that. And a summer youth program to engage in education and
prevention activities for our young.
I want to also give a plug for Indian Health Service. Much-
needed services are needed there, contract support and these
issues. But I want to take this opportunity to thank you for
allowing me to talk on behalf of Catawba Indian Nation and your
support for our people and indeed for all native people is
greatly appreciated and truly in the best traditions of the
government relationship. And again, I say--thank you very much.
[The statement of Donald Rodgers follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you very much, Chief. Mr. Zorn.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
GREAT LAKES INDIAN FISH AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION
WITNESS
JAMES ZORN
Mr. Zorn. My name is James Zorn. I am the Executive
Administrator of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife
Commission, and on behalf of our 11 tribal nations located in
Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan, including Mille Lacs and Fon
du Lac in Minnesota and Chairman Maulson, Lac du Flambeau, we
extend our appreciation for being here. And on behalf of their
38,000 tribal members who continue to enjoy the rights to hunt,
fish and gather on lands that the courts have ruled were sold
to the United States in various treaties but on which the
tribes might continue their life ways to meet their
subsistence, their economic, their cultural, their spiritual
and medicinal needs, that is the nature of the Great Lakes
Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission program that this body has
funded for over 25 years with the support of all
administrations, all Congresses of the Rights Protection
Implementation program. So we are here to talk about that as
well as the EPA Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
The Commission is grateful for the fiscal year 2011
appropriations for these types of programs. They were held
pretty harmless from some drastic potential cuts and the
contract support increases. We greatly appreciate that, and we
will do what we can to help you in fiscal year 2012 to try to
achieve the same result.
And so we are here today to help remind the Committee as to
why these programs are important to the tribal communities, the
real-world benefits they achieve and why these are really good
examples of good government programs that get the money into
the hands of the tribes, where that money should go, that
produce not only healthier people because they are eating
traditional foods, they are engaging in traditional exercises;
we are trying to get the kids off their butts and out into the
woods and on the lakes to do some real activities; reviving
language; support tribal economic enterprise, not only of
commercial fishermen but of folks who sell wild rice, maple
syrup and so on. The cost of food is high now. These foods are
very expensive, and so to be able to fish, hunt and gather is
very important. And the relationship to diabetes as we heard a
former chair talk about for example and other diseases in
tribal communities, getting back to the natives' food is very
important.
So we strongly support the $30.5 million for the Rights
Protection Implementation program. I know you will hear from
the Columbia River folks and Billy Frank tomorrow. They will
say the same. Do not let Billy steal too much, please. GLIFWC
gets about $5.6 million of that, and you know, that is really
important money because it provides the base on which we can
leverage other money, including the Great Lakes Restoration
Initiative. You know, that $5.6 million grows into $8 million
for us. We supply about 70 full-time jobs, about 140 seasonal
jobs in areas that are chronically under- or unemployed. This
is really important for our member tribes. We operate a
comprehensive natural resource management program of
biologists, of conservation officers, that provide benefits not
just to the tribal communities but to the surrounding
communities. For example, and we are grateful to the
Administration for highlighting this in their department
highlights, I think on page 64, where two of our conservation
officers stumbled upon during their routine patrol duties, 150
pot plants in a state forest in northern Wisconsin. Well, you
call up the local drug task force, and their line was, wait a
minute. You guys know the woods. You go back out there and sit
on that until the people come. Okay. So we have fully trained
certified officers. We are the ones who busted the guy that
came back to harvest the pot.
And so just the notion that these tribal programs benefit
only Indians is fallacious. It benefits the surrounding
communities. Our officers are there for everybody. They respond
to auto accidents, medical emergencies. Our biologists provide
fish for everybody, protect habitat for everybody.
So that is the nature of our Rights Protection
Implementation program. In terms of the Great Lakes Restoration
Initiative, the $300 to $350 million is fantastic. Thank you.
We would like to push for some money there for tribes, perhaps
$25 million that is funneled through the Indian Self-
Determination Act. That got to the ground quicker before the
field season before any other money got out from any other
agency. Let's see if we can beat that up and do better.
The youth, final sum-up. Our tribes are very committed to
trying to figure out how to get Indian kids into careers,
natural resource management conservation officers just out
there to reconnect with their grandma and grandpa doing the
things that Indian families should do. We have initiated a
conservation internship program this year. We are trying to get
kids out to camps early on in their lives so that they
appreciate the outdoors again. We are trying to get kids back
in the language programs.
So any help that you can provide in this type of area, you
know, there are all sorts of initiatives we are being asked to
get involved in. But the capacity for tribes to do so is
greatly stretched. We have a hard enough time doing our basic
job, let alone dealing with a whole bunch of new initiatives.
Thank you very much. We really appreciate the opportunity
to be here.
[The statement of James Zorn follows:]
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Mr. Cole. I thank all of you for your testimony. Let me
make a couple of points, and then we will get into questions.
Number one, a number of you mentioned the Carcieri issue and I
could not agree more. But I would be remiss not to point out
that we would not have gotten it through the House last year if
it had not been for then-Chairman Moran and now Chairman
Simpson who worked together for us to do something on this
Committee. That is very unusual. That stretches our rules. I am
sure we never would have violated them by legislating on an
appropriations bill. But that was a very bi-partisan issue
here. It was a 14 to 0 vote. I know everybody on this Committee
is still committed to doing that. Mr. Kildee has a bill out
there, I have got a bill that is out there, I think Mr. Young
is here later today and I suspect the subject will come up, and
I think he is committed. Our biggest problem quite honestly
tends to be in the United States Senate on this as opposed to
the House because it did get through the House, and the
Administration has been very good on this. They very much want
to deal with this as well. So hopefully we can have a real
bipartisan effort and get that done.
I also want to point out a number of you mentioned that you
had been shielded a little bit from the 2011 budget cuts. The
gentleman to my right is solely responsible for that and has
scars to show it. And again, Chairman Simpson and this
Committee's commitment in this area on the bi-partisan basis is
genuine. A number of you made really compelling cases about the
education of Indian children. I do want to ask one question on
that, and I could not agree more. That is a federal
responsibility and it is a trust responsibility. There is no
way that we have come anywhere close to fulfilling our
obligations in those areas, and I do not know if you would have
these figures, but I am increasingly interested any time I can
to find out if you can tell us what is the expenditure per
child roughly or per student in the schools that you represent.
They are usually BIE schools but whatever your local school is,
and then I would love to see the contrast of that with schools
in the States because if there is a federal responsibility, I
would think we ought to be roughly doing for the children in
Indian Country what the surrounding states are doing for their
children. Otherwise, I do not see how the educational
opportunity can be remotely comparable.
So if you have that data, I would be very interested in you
sharing it with the Committee.
Mr. Whitebird. I do not know exactly what it is, but we are
going to find out what it is and stuff like that because it is
different from state to state and children. I think a lot of it
has to do with enrollment and stuff like that in areas that we
are in.
Mr. Cole. Yeah, I think it will and I think Ms. McCollum
made the point earlier, taking out the transportation
component, or separating it, because a lot of what you
encounter on some of our reservations, obviously, the
transportation expenses are enormous, and they really should
not be counted directly toward the educational cost. But I am
going to ask the staff on this Committee to do what they can to
help us get that information because I think it is going to be
quite striking when we see again how far behind the Federal
Government is in its responsibilities to Indian children versus
the state and local governments in the neighboring areas.
Thanks for bringing that up. Ms. McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, Chairman
Billie, it is interesting that you spoke about a bridge. I have
a mayor from Minnesota, and we are going to be talking about a
bridge and some legislation to override some of the federal
protections for the St. Croix River. So thank you for your
comments, and local government officials from the areas that
are impacted should be consulted, and it is a shame that you
were not listened to.
Mr. Billie. Yes, that is all we have been asking for, to
give us an opportunity to be heard and to be given serious
consideration to some of our concerns.
Ms. McCollum. I have one question for council member
Whitebird. Ribs, when you were talking about people not wanting
to attend school there and the importance of a school
reflecting how we value our youth, I have had an opportunity to
be at the school. Can you elaborate a little more as a council
member what you hear from parents, what you hear from students
and how that affects your enrollment because then when you go
to count the number of students, you do not have as many
students as normally would be attending a school that was in
good repair.
Mr. Whitebird. I go to both schools. I go to Catholic, be
in a public school and talk a lot and then I go to the Bug
School to associate with the students out there, like those
graduations coming up now. You are hearing students talk about
ashamed of the high school that is out there, you know, due
to--like I said in here, we get academic awards and stuff, you
know, and then they are scared to go on to any other schools,
like any other kid would. You know, I would want a top-notch
school instead of a pole barn building. You know, that is
terrible out there.
And then I share it out into my local Indian council
meetings, and I got the District II rep who is here today that
he can tell them the same thing, you know, we definitely need a
new high school. When other people come in there and play
sports--and they got to go to that school? You know, our kids
get talked about, I mean, run down at other schools. And it
gets back into the community, and when it gets back into the
community, it gets back to me, and how do you think I feel?
There is something that has got to be done, and that is why you
know, I am here testimony on hopefully that we can get
something done, a new school in the near future.
And you know, we have been working on this now for about 2
years, and you know, it seems like--I want to make one point in
here that I did make. You know, I think it is very important
for the Appropriation Committee to look at and that is, you
know, we spend billions and billions of dollars on war. If you
take a good look at it, you know, I hear other Indian leaders
around Indian Country say this, if we had $1 billion of this,
you know, that would help solve a lot of the Indian program,
not every program, but across Indian Country.
You know, I think it is very important for the
Appropriations Committee to look at, and that is, you know, we
spend billions and billions of dollars on war. You know, if you
take a good look at it, you know, other Indian leaders around
Indian culture say this. If we had $1 billion of this, you
know, that would help us all, a lot of the Indian program, not
every program but across Indian Country. Take a good look at
how much goes to the war, people we are helping out in tsunami,
Japan, whatever, you know, but we are left out.
You know, we are definitely put on the back burner when we
were the first ones here and I do believe, you know, that we
should be treated like first-class citizens like we are
supposed to be. Our treaties are broken, you know, I hear this
all the time at the big meetings, NCAI and NIGA, you know, it
is just a tough battle. We are one battle after another, all
the Indian leaders across the Indian nation; we are all
together on one. You know, we want to be back up here where we
belong. Thanks for listening. Thanks for your comments,
Congressman Cole, Congressman McCollum, and Simpson. You know,
I heard a lot of good things here today and I hope you help us
all.
Mr. Cole. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Just a couple quick things. One, Ribs, how do
you pronounce the name of that school?
Mr. Whitebird. Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig.
Mr. Simpson. And what does it mean?
Mr. Whitebird. All in a day.
Mr. Simpson. Okay.
Ms. McCollum. Which is named after--I will tell you later
more about the school.
Mr. Simpson. Okay.
Mr. Whitebird. All in a day.
Mr. Simpson. I am trying to figure it out.
Mr. Zorn. Betty could tell you.
Mr. Simpson. Jim, you mentioned the Great Lakes Restoration
Project, the geographical program.
Mr. Zorn. Right.
Mr. Simpson. We have got several of those: Puget Sound,
Chesapeake Bay, Great Lakes, San Francisco Bay now. Do you get
money from that program for projects for the tribes to do on
the reservations and other types of things?
Mr. Zorn. Yes, reservation and treaty-seated territory.
Mr. Simpson. One of the complaints--I do not know if this
is true--actually from people around the region up there,
around the Great Lakes--is that there is--what was the
appropriation for that last year? Do you remember, Darren?
Darren Benjamin. Four hundred seventy-five, was it not?
Mr. Simpson. Four hundred seventy-five was the year before.
$350 million this year under the last year.
Darren Benjamin. Three hundred eleven, was it not? I think
it was $311 million.
Mr. Simpson. Okay.
Darren Benjamin. Yeah. Yeah.
Mr. Simpson. All of the geographic programs took somewhat
of a hit.
Darren Benjamin. Right. Exactly.
Mr. Simpson. Which means we did not have to go after BIA or
any health services or some of those other ones. Some of those
other programs took a hit. But some of the complaints I hear--
and I do not know if they are necessarily complaints or some of
the concerns, I guess, is a better word--is that this $311
million or whatever it is goes out to all these little things
and there is not an overall big plan about how we are going to
clean up the Great Lakes and that they need a plan and to be
able to do this on a grander scale than what they are currently
doing. Do you find that true or----
Mr. Zorn. Well, the balance there is if you over-
regionalize the Great Lakes, you tend to miss certain things.
Like Lake Superior tends to be the cleanest of the lakes, and
if you focus on restorations, say, like down in Lake Eerie,
what do you have to do to Lake Superior before you are eligible
for dollars? And so there is this effort to find a way to
quarterback it through, say, Camp Davis or someone else in the
administration while also having the diversity of each of the
Great Lakes and some of these successful existing structures.
So I do not find that necessarily to be true because I think if
you over-centralize it, you are going to create this hourglass;
you are going to lose your chance to accomplish good things and
preserve things that need to be preserved. I do agree that
there has been probably too much talking and not a lot of
action and I think people are trying to correct that. And I
think the whole issue of trying to get that initial 475 out
into the field, how long it took----
Mr. Simpson. Um-hum.
Mr. Zorn [continuing]. Compared to what it took to get the
tribal dollars out through the Indian Self-Determination Act.
That is something we would like to have looked at because we
think we can get the dollars out there quicker to do more on-
the-ground good. That is the continuing concern. I think we
have to be concerned about over-governance, though, because
then it is all talk, all around the table instead of going out
and doing things.
Mr. Simpson. Well, the other side of the argument, and it
is probably just as valid is that pollution does not come out
of one great big pipe.
Mr. Zorn. Exactly.
Mr. Simpson. It comes in small things, and you clean it up
in those areas that happen to cause the problems. I do not
think anybody on the committee is opposed to these geographical
programs and what we are doing because we all want to maintain
the greatest body of fresh water----
Mr. Zorn. Right.
Mr. Simpson [continuing]. In North America and these other,
Puget Sound and Chesapeake Bay. We want to do whatever is
necessary to clean those up. We just want to make sure that the
dollars that we are spending are actually achieving a goal.
Mr. Zorn. And we are on board with you. Please keep looking
over our shoulder because the accountability is important. If
we cannot show results, this is not going to keep coming.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. What were you going to say?
Mr. Wawronowicz [continuing]. Management plan that is
basically council-driven, people-driven where the research----
Mr. Simpson. Turn on your mike.
Mr. Wawronowicz [continuing]. What are the resources of
values to the tribal members and the non-Indian community that
is living within the boundaries of a reservation. And we
utilize the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative this year for
fiscal year 2011 we are going to have $300,000 that is going to
be working within the Basin in order to provide, like I
indicated in testimony earlier, clean air, water, and land.
Lake Sturgeon Restoration is one project, Wetland Enhancement
projects that we have going on the res, Wild Rice Enhancement,
a lot of those ecosystem approaches that if you, you know, take
care of your ecosystem at home, you know, that will, you know,
just regionally be a benefit to the Great Lakes region.
Mr. Simpson. Let me just ask you, on your reservation, do
you have your own clean air standards, clean water standards,
or do you have----
Mr. Wawronowicz. We have federally-approved clean water
standards.
Mr. Simpson. These are your standards----
Mr. Wawronowicz. Our standards, yes.
Mr. Simpson [continuing]. That have been federally
approved?
Mr. Wawronowicz. Correct.
Mr. Simpson. And do you enforce those or does the EPA
enforce those?
Mr. Wawronowicz. EPA will enforce those.
Mr. Simpson. Okay.
Mr. Wawronowicz. We have federally-approved water quality
standards. We are working on air standards as we speak. The
other thing that we are also utilizing is Department of Energy
money to come up with an energy plan in order for the
reservation to reduce its use of fossil fuels by 25 percent by
the year 2025. So, you know, that is all with an integrated
resource management plan that we have that is council-driven,
that gives us the opportunity to go after federal dollars, you
know, tribal dollars in order to maintain that clean air,
water, and land. You know, and to be quite honest with you,
like I indicated I mean without that, economic development will
not be possible with an Indian Country or within the United
States of America because that is the basic supply follow it. I
mean, we just cannot cut corners in that area as a Nation. We
just cannot.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Chair, on this point I am glad you
mentioned, you know, is it pollution that we are measuring? Is
it invasive species that we are measuring? Is it restoration of
wetlands so that a Great Lake does not become further polluted?
So it is a lot of things and so a regional board needs to
oversee that we are reaching our goal, but the objectives need
to be embraced for each one of the lakes, and in Lake Superior,
with such a large shoreline, even within that. But the question
I wanted to ask, because you mentioned the Circle of Flight----
Mr. Wawronowicz. Um-hum.
Ms. McCollum [continuing]. And I know that that is
something that I have heard from our tribes back home, which
also not only affects--you talk about the greater good--it is
not only for tribal areas but it also supports conservation. I
mean, Ducks Unlimited supports, and you have wide, wide support
on that. Could you talk a little bit about your interaction
with Fish and Wildlife and how cuts to those dollars, how it
impacts you?
Mr. Wawronowicz. Well, Circle of Flight, you know, it is an
initiative that has been in Indian Country for a long time and
the Great Lakes region, was 20 years or so now. And we are able
to utilize those dollars for leverage. In other words, the
money that, you know, that Congress appropriates, you know, the
President puts in his budget, Congress appropriates it, we are
able to use that money to, you know, to work with Ducks
Unlimited. For our example, on our reservation we have the Pall
Marsh in which we were able to provide monies to the State of
Wisconsin in order to do some work on their side of the marsh
in order to enhance waterfall production, be able to, you know,
move some water around to where it is not having a negative
impact on another ecosystem. So, you know, there is that
cooperation there with those dollars that are, you know,
benefitting the non-Indian community on and off the
reservation. We are a checkerboard reservation, which means
that we have fee land, allotted land, and tribal land that, you
know, helps protect those resources for both the tribal and
non-tribal in utilizing those resources. And that is just
important. Just to mention, the Circle of Flight program did
receive an award from the Department of the Interior. I always
cannot remember the--it is the Conservation----
Mr. Simpson. Partners in Conservation Award. Yeah.
Mr. Wawronowicz. So in order to do that, you know, I mean
we have done some good things in Indian Country over the years
both in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. So it is a good
program and we definitely appreciate continued support from
this committee, as well as, you know, the administration that
puts it in there, so thank you very much.
Mr. Cole. Before we let you all go, I would be remiss not
to recognize Chairman Billie because I want to tell you, he is
the only person that has ever appeared before this committee
that said do not build a road and take the money back. I think
that alone means we ought to really look at this very
carefully. He made a very good point and a very good case. And
if we could, we will let you all go and we will bring our next
panel up. Ms. Jackie--Ms. Johnson I guess I should say
formally, Mr. Barnett, Mr. Secatero, Dr. Neary, Dr. Deters, and
Mr. Miller. It is fine and just what we will do is just start
at the far end if you would introduce yourself and we will work
through, give everybody an opportunity to make their testimony
and then we will open it up for questions and response from the
committee. So whenever you would like. Please.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
AMERICAN DENTAL ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
MATT NEARY
Mr. Neary. Begin my testimony?
Mr. Cole. Yes.
Mr. Neary. Chairman Simpson, Committee Member Cole, I am
Matt Neary, Chairman of the Council on Government Affairs of
the American Dental Association and a practicing dentist in New
York City.
The ADA thanks the committee for its support for the Indian
Health Service Dental Program. Your support has expanded the
dental division's recruitment efforts, maintained an adequate
level of dentists with advanced training, and initiated an
electronic dental records system.
The level of early childhood caries, tooth decay, among the
American Indian and Alaska Native children has reached epidemic
proportions. Tooth decay is 400 percent higher in this
population than for all U.S. races. The disease is so extensive
that between 25 and 50 percent of preschool children require
full mouth restoration under general anesthesia. Aside from the
medical risk to the child, this is the most expensive way to
treat dental disease. It costs thousands of dollars to treat a
child in a hospital, primarily due to anesthesia-related tests
and recovery management compared to a couple of hundred dollars
if the tooth decay is caught at an early stage or a few cents
per day to prevent it.
We are very pleased that the IHS is pursuing its Early
Childhood Caries Initiative as a cost-effective way of
addressing and preventing tooth decay. The American Dental
Association shares IHS's concerns about the tooth decay
epidemic and supports research that will afford us a better
understanding of the disease. Last year, we hosted our second
symposium on the subject. Participants included caries
researchers, tribal health officials, pediatric dentists, and
dental public health staff.
During the past year, the American Dental Association and
four state dental associations established a Native American
Oral Healthcare project to address the imbalance and access to
quality healthcare among Native Americans. We have held
numerous visits with tribal leaders to discuss collaborative
ways of improving oral healthcare in Indian Country and
anticipate the development of long-term partnerships to achieve
those goals.
For several years, the ADA has come before the committee
and shared our concerns regarding the number of dental
vacancies in the IHS. Three years ago, there were over 140
dental positions open. Today, there are 45. Several factors
have contributed to reducing this number, including the IHS
Summer Student Extern program. The IHS has been able to place
nearly 500 dental students during the past two summers. These
students become IHS ambassadors when they return to school and
contribute to more dentists applying for IHS residencies upon
graduation. This has proven to be a highly effective program,
which we look forward to continuing into the future.
Two other areas of high priority are reinstating the
funding to replace modular dental units at $1 million per year
and continuing to install the electronic dental health records
system for $12 million. As a periodontist, I can tell you that
untreated adult oral disease significantly complicates the
management and inflates the treatment cost associated with
diabetes and heart disease, two conditions with extremely high
incidence among tribal peoples. The eight dental support
centers funded by the IHS focus on preventing and treating oral
disease for all age groups. We have learned from tribal leaders
that these centers are highly valued and we recommend funding
the increase by $2 million so that they can service each
geographic area.
Oral disease among Native Americans can be significantly
reduced with a strong prevention program and a sufficient
workforce. We cannot drill and fill our way out of this dental
disease epidemic. That approach will not result in any disease
reduction or cost savings. But by focusing on prevention and
timely treatment for all ages, we can accomplish our goals. I
want to thank you for allowing ADA to testify. We are committed
to working with you, the IHS, and the tribes to aggressively
reduce the disparity in oral disease and care that currently
exists in Indian Country. Thank you.
[The statement of Matt Neary follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Okay.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
NATIONAL INDIAN HEALTH BOARD
WITNESS
LESTER SECATERO
Mr. Secatero. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, my
name is Lester Secatero. I serve as the Albuquerque area
representative to the National Indian Health Board and the
chairman of the Albuquerque Area Indian Health Board. Thank you
for inviting me and the NIHB here today to provide testimony
regarding the fiscal year 2012 budget for the Indian Health
Service.
The NIHB was pleased to learn that for the fiscal year 2012
HIS budget, the administration recommends a $571 million
increase over the fiscal year 2010 enacted IHS appropriations.
We acknowledge that this 14.1 percent increase is quite
significant in this budget climate, yet this increase is needed
to address the critical health needs of our tribal communities.
This increase also represents a continued commitment to honor
the Federal Government's legal obligation and sacred
responsibility to provide healthcare to American Indians and
Alaska Natives.
The trust obligation to provide healthcare is paramount,
and it is upon this foundation that the IHS National Tribal
Budget Formulation Workgroup built its recommendation for the
fiscal year 2012 IHS budget. This Workgroup recommends
preserving basic healthcare programs currently being funded.
Current services increases are the lowest budget increments
needed to enable the Indian Health System to continue operating
at its current level of service. This category contains such
items as pay cost increases, inflation, contract support costs,
funding for the population growth, and facilities construction
and staffing. Without these increases to base funding, the
Indian health system would experience a decrease in its ability
to care for the current service population.
Second, significant program increases are required to
address the overwhelming health needs in Indian Country. The
recommended increases are made in key IHS budget accounts to
enable programs to improve and expand the services they provide
to Indian patients. As you know, the IHS has been plagued by
woefully inadequate funding, which has made it impossible to
supply Indian people with the level of care they need and
deserve and to which they are entitled by treaty obligation.
In addition to the Workgroup recommendation, I would like
to provide additional recommendations regarding the IHS budget.
First, the President's proposed budget for IHS includes
proposed cuts of the small grant programs, but the impact of
eliminating these programs in Indian Country is enormous. All
of these small grants serve and target very vulnerable native
populations such as children, elders, and women, and their
purpose is to strengthen and build capacity for the long-term
health of the tribes in such areas as public health, wellness,
fighting childhood obesity, and working to end domestic
violence against native women. In addition, the proposal also
includes cutting the small grant to the tribes' primary
healthcare resource for information and coordination of the
national tribal voice, the National Indian Health Board. We ask
that you do not implement any cuts to this organization, which
is vital to improving the health status of all tribal people.
Second, as a discretionary budget line, the IHS budget
falls target to across-the-board cuts to discretionary funding.
Such across-the-board cuts are detrimental not only to a
federal agency's budget but to the lives and well-being of
Indian people. Today, the IHS budget is funded approximately at
half the level of need. Any budget cuts in any form will have
harmful effects on healthcare delivery to Alaska Natives and
American Indians. The NIHB asks the committee to exempt the
Indian Health Service from any cuts, freezes, or rescissions.
Lastly, we ask that a plan be put into place to fully fund
IHS. Developing and implementing a plan to achieve funding
parity is critical to the future of Indian health and to
fulfilling the United States' trust responsibility to AI and AN
people. The funding disparities between the IHS and other
federal healthcare expenditure programs still exist in 2010.
IHS spending for medical care was $2,741 per user in comparison
to the average of federal healthcare expenditures of $6,909 per
person. On behalf of all the tribes, please move forward
towards full funding of the IHS budget. On behalf of the
National Indian Health Board, thank you for the opportunity to
address this subcommittee on these important matters.
[The statement of Lester Secatero follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
NATIONAL CONGRESS OF AMERICAN INDIANS
WITNESS
JACQUELINE JOHNSON PATA
Ms. Johnson Pata. Good afternoon. My name is Jacqueline
Pata. I am the executive director of the National Congress of
American Indians. I am also a councilmember for the Tlingit-
Haida Tribes of Alaska. My testimony today is on behalf of the
National Congress of American Indians. And first I would like
to thank you, Chairman Simpson, for holding it and the staff
for holding this hearing. It is such an honor to be able to
come and sit with the witnesses back here and listen to tribal
leader after tribal leader have this one-on-one dialogue with
Members of Congress, and I appreciate the history of allowing
this to continue. I also want to thank you and the members of
this committee for the extraordinary work that you did at this
budget debate cycle and for the respect of being able to
protect the treaties and other legal instruments that are
really our relationship with the Federal Government and
honoring that.
We know, as this Nation deals with very difficult issues
around the deficit and tightening the belt and being able to
address the ongoing challenges of the budget deficit, that the
dialogue will continue to be difficult and we want to let you
know that we stand with you to be able to help shore you up in
any of those areas. We also recognize that there will be many
proposals to deal with those budget reductions and certainly to
make the government work more efficiently and effectively and
we stand with you for looking for those ways as tribal leaders
and tribal communities to also deal with what we can do to
contribute, but want to recognize and remember that we should
not balance those budget deficits on the backs and the expense
of the treaty and trust obligations and those solemn
agreements.
I want to also say that we are very appreciative as we go
forward in looking into the next budget cycles of, obviously,
the ``Carcieri'' fix, the language that has been included, and
certainly was included from the present fiscal year 2012
budget. We believe and we hope that this is the year that we
will get it through.
But in addition to that, I want to just bring your
attention to the overall BIA budget and certainly, you know,
even with the protected funding for fiscal year 2011, there has
been an effort to address the prior 2012 is we are concerned
about the ongoing trend of appropriation levels to the
Department of the Interior and the various agencies. Even in
the last nine fiscal years, the budgets for Fish and Wildlife
Service have grown by 30 percent, the National Park Service by
28 percent, and the U.S. Geological Survey by 19 percent.
Meanwhile, BIA has only seen a increase of 8 percent, which
barely covers any cost-of-living or inflation factors. And we
have seen this historical trend. So even though we feel like we
are raising the bar and protecting tribes, in relationship to
the other departments within the Department of the Interior, we
are sorely lagging behind. And so we ask you to take a look at
that and to be able to help us address this disproportionate
funding trend that seems to be arising throughout Indian
Country.
Another area that, of course, we have strong united support
from tribes across the country is funding for the contract
support costs. I looked at some of my other panel members here;
I am sure they will speak to it. But with IHS and BIA and
tribally-operated schools, which are funded by tribal grant
support costs, we recommend that the contract support costs be
increased to $615 million and the BIA contract support to $228
million, the tribal grant support to $70.3 million. And this
really would provide full funding. Now, full funding means 100
percent funding, which means that the government would actually
pay the contracts as they pay any other contract that they
engage in across the Nation with other contractors at 100
percent.
As far as natural resources programs such as Rights
Protection Implementation, fish hatcheries, forestry, water
services, the last panel spoke to a lot of those issues. They
have been identified as critical to Indian tribes in the budget
and we have offered specific recommendations that you will see
in our written testimony. But natural resources, of course, are
an important part to our tribal economies, as well as our
cultural values.
And talking about tribal economies, the last thing I want
to touch on in my brief moment here is that the Tribal
Guarantee Loan Guarantee Programs of 5.1 million, these
guarantees may have been unused but it was not the fault of the
tribal leaders that it went unused. It was the fault of the
Agency for not getting them out. This does not mean that we do
not need them. And this leveraged dollars 10 to 1 means
important financing to tribes and actually will help spur our
future economic opportunities. So we hope that you restore
those loan guarantee funds and look at helping to provide that
oversight to the federal agencies to ensure that they are being
properly used.
So once again, I thank you for the ability to be able to
testify here today and provide our brief opinions. Thank you.
[The statement of Jacqueline Johnson Pata follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. You notice how I just moved right
down----
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
FRIENDS OF INDIAN HEALTH
WITNESS
PAMELA DETERS
Ms. Deters. Good afternoon, Chairman Simpson and other
committee members. I am Dr. Pam Deters. I am an American Indian
of Cherokee and Choctaw heritage. I am a clinical psychologist
practicing in Louisiana and Mississippi. I am also currently
the president of the Society of Indian Psychologists whose
mission is to advocate for the mental well being of Native
American people. And I am a proud member of the American
Psychological Association.
My expertise is in trauma among Native American children,
families, and communities with an emphasis on cultural
revitalization and resilience. My people have experienced an
extensive history of intergenerational trauma and oppression,
including numerous atrocities such as forced assimilation,
genocide, compulsory enrollment in boarding schools,
involuntary relocations of entire tribal populations, and the
resulting loss of culture and traditional practices.
As a professor at the University of Alaska, my research
entailed visiting remote Alaska Native villages and witnessing
the devastation of families and communities due to youth
suicide, alcohol and substance abuse, poverty, and the loss of
traditional ways and culture. But I have also witnessed the
emergence of wellness programs where communities work to
restore and revitalize native culture, language, dance, and
traditional healing practices. I have served as a statewide
director of Alaska Natives into Psychology, which is a training
program supporting American Indian and Alaska Native students
pursuing careers in psychology. I am committed to and I am
passionate about the importance of training native students to
return to their own reservations and their villages to heal the
physical and mental ills of our people.
Today, I am representing the Friends of Indian Health,
which is a coalition of health organizations dedicated to
improving the health of American Indians and Alaska Natives.
The Friends thanks the committee for the additional funding in
the 2010 bill and for maintaining these levels in the
continuing resolutions. The increased support will help provide
care without interruptions or reductions. The Friends supports
the administration's proposed 2012 funding level for the Indian
Health Service of over $4 billion. This level recognizes the
need to close the health disparity gaps experienced by native
people.
However, there are priority areas that, if not addressed,
will continue to overwhelm IHS. The most urgent of these is
contract health services. In 2010, over 168,000 contract health
services were denied. The root cause of this issue lies in the
IHS and Tribal delivery system. The IHS and Tribes operate at
over 600 locations, the majority of which provide primary
medical care but depend on the private sector for secondary and
tertiary care. This situation is not going to change.
Therefore, the request for contract health services funds needs
to be realistic. The administration's request for over $948
million is significant but a more realistic amount would be
over $1 billion.
The Friends strongly supports prevention and early
treatment programs to reduce the need for contract health
services, but that depends on a sufficient workforce. Filling
vacancies through loan repayment has proven to be the best
recruiting and retention tool for IHS. The average retention
period for IHS loan repayment recipients is over seven years.
Therefore, the Friends have concerns about the administration's
loan repayment request, which is $178,000 less than current
funding and will result in 33 fewer contracts. Before loan
repayment can be offered, dedicated and qualified healthcare
professionals have to be recruited. A year ago, the IHS
director commissioned a report on recruitment and retention.
The Friends strongly believe that if the recruitment process
were improved, it would have a positive effect on filling
vacancies. We urge the committee to encourage the service to
put into action recommendations from the director's report.
IHS also needs a strong network of both clinical and
support staff. These positions are usually filled by tribal
members providing a very important cultural link to patients.
However, the salaries for some of these needed positions are so
low that facilities cannot attract sufficient staff. The
Friends urges the committee to seek a report on the effect of
the outdated 600 series pay scale on employee recruitment and
retention and what actions need to be taken to finalize a new
pay scale.
The Friends are encouraged by the administration's request
because it will help eliminate health disparities faced by
Native Americans, but we also encourage the committee to go
beyond the administration's proposal to ensure that IHS is
fully staffed so that it can raise the physical, mental,
social, and spiritual health of American Indians and Alaska
Natives to the highest levels possible.
The Friends thanks the committee for the opportunity to
testify today and we look forward to working with you on these
issues. Thank you again.
[The statement of Pamela Deters follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Go ahead.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
NATIONAL TRIBAL CONTRACT SUPPORT COST COALITION
WITNESS
LLOYD B. MILLER
Mr. Miller. My name is Lloyd Miller. I am with the Sonosky,
Chambers Law Firm, but I am here today as counsel to the
National Tribal Contract Support Cost Coalition. You have heard
a lot of testimony today about contract support costs. That
issue is relevant because over one-half of the Indian Health
Service and over one-half of the Bureau of Indian Affairs has
been turned over to tribal operation under Indian Self-
Determination Act contracts.
Now, I have been practicing law for 33 years. I have been
practicing government contract law for over 30 years. I can
tell you without fear of contradiction that there is no other
area in government contract law where the government can
underpay a fully-performed contract. It does not exist. But
somehow, when it comes to Indian affairs, a contract with an
Indian tribe is underpaid regularly by the Indian Health
Service or by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and there is no
recourse. This was not supposed to be the way the act would be
implemented.
In 1988, there had been hearings in Congress about how the
act was being run and these contracts were, at that time, being
viewed as grants, which would fairly describe the situation I
just described. And Congress was frustrated with the process
and amended the act to require that these instruments would
thereafter be contracts, that they would be binding under the
Contract Disputes Act. Over 400 times in this statute the word
``contract'' was used. They were made enforceable. The
secretaries were told they have to add the full amount of the
contract support cost to the contract. And in 2006, the Supreme
Court and the Cherokee Nation and Shoshone-Paiute Tribes case
ruled in favor of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, and the Cherokee
Nation held the Indian Health Service liable for underpaying
the contracts saying no other government contractor would be
treated this way, neither should the tribes.
Now, there are two reasons why we are here. One is that
there is a line-item cap in the Appropriations Act which you
never see anywhere else when it comes to government contracts.
You do not see a line-item cap capping the amount of a contract
to supply food to our troops in Afghanistan to the ABC
Corporation that is providing food on a particular base. You do
not see that. But when it comes to Indian tribes, there is a
cap in the Appropriations Act. And in fact the first solution
would be to remove that line item.
Secondly, of course, as Jackie alluded to and testified in
support of the amount has to be budgeted correctly. And the
full amount that the Indian Health Service tells us is required
is $615 million. What is really quite shocking in the Indian
Health Service budget justification is the statement that at
the funding level requested, there will be $153 million
shortfall in paying the contracts. This, too, is unheard of.
You will not find any place in the government contracting
regime, which is largely Defense Department oriented, where an
agency comes to the appropriators and says, by the way, we are
asking you for a dollar amount that will lead to $100 million
less than what we owe Boeing or General Electric. It is just
the opposite. They budget fully and if they end up short, they
ask for a supplemental appropriation. Never in the history of
the Indian Self-Determination Act has the BIA or the IHS ever
come to Congress and asked for a supplemental appropriation.
The Indian Self-Determination Act has had the most profound
effect on the growth of tribal governments, improvement in
Indian healthcare, improvement in local employment, providing a
base for future economic development, and it is true all over
the country, whether where I hail from now in Alaska or where I
came from this week and on the Chickasaw Reservation, all
across Indian Country. The single greatest impediment to the
success of that act has been the failure to pay contract
support costs. That is actually a quotation from Senator Inouye
in 1987 and it is still a true statement today.
The National Contract Support Cost Coalition respectfully
urges that the committee finally end this abuse of contract
rights by fully funding these contracts. If that is done, I can
tell you three things that will happen. First of all, the
programs that are transferred to hospitals and the clinics that
are transferred to tribal operation will not be cut on account
of a contract being awarded to a tribe. Remember, if you have a
million-dollar clinic being run by the Indian Health Service
and a million-dollar clinic run by the tribe next door, the
tribe has $800,000 to run the clinic. The Indian Health Service
has $1 million. That is not right. And the only reason that is
so is because the contract support costs are not being paid in
full, and therefore, the tribe has to take it out of their
programs. These costs are fixed costs.
Removal of the line-item limitation and full budgeting at
$615 million are the solutions to the contract support cost
dilemma for the Indian Health Service. As for the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, Mr. Chairman, you are a hero. What you were
able to do in the fiscal year 2011 process is remarkable and it
may be that contract support costs over there are $220 million
from BIA contracts ends up being short, but if it is, it will
be short by $8 or $10 million. We have never been that close to
full funding since the act was passed in 1975, so thank you
very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The statement of Lloyd B. Miller follows:]
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Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF URBAN INDIAN HEALTH
WITNESS
D'SHANE BARNETT
Mr. Barnett. Good afternoon. My name is D'Shane Barnett. I
am a member of the Sapushgo Hutay Clan of the Mandan Tribe of
the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation of Fort Berthold, North
Dakota and I am currently serving as the executive director of
the National Council of Urban Indian Health, also known as
NCUIH. On behalf of NCUIH's 36-member organizations and the
150,000 urban Indians that our programs serve each year, I
would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to
provide testimony addressing the urban Indian priorities for
the fiscal year 2012 budget.
This year, NCUIH has five budget recommendations. First,
NCUIH supports the National Indian Health Board's budget
recommendation that the Indian Health Services funding be
increased by $735 million. We are encouraged by President
Obama's proposed increase of $571 million. However, if the
Native American health delivery system is to truly fulfill the
Federal Government's trust responsibility to native people, the
Indian Health Service must be fully funded.
Second, NCUIH strongly advocates for a $9 million increase
to the Urban Indian Health program line item to address several
years of near-flat funding due to the previous administration's
attempts to zero out the program. In order to meet rising need,
cost inflation, and to remain competitive in leveraging federal
dollars with other private grants and funding opportunities,
Urban Indian Health programs must receive an increase to our
base funds.
Third, NCUIH opposes the proposed elimination of the IHS
Small Grants programs. These competitively awarded grants
provide our communities with essential health services that
cannot be duplicated through other means. I will discuss the
significance of these grants in just a moment.
Fourth, NCUIH opposes recent attempts to cut funding for
community health centers. Community health centers provide
comprehensive, culturally competent, quality primary healthcare
services to medically underserved communities and vulnerable
populations. Many of our member programs receive a significant
portion of their funding through these 330 grants. Recent moves
to slash funding for community health centers by nearly 60
percent would have a devastating impact on the most vulnerable
members of our American Indian communities in urban communities
at a time when they can least afford it. Already woefully
underfunded, further cuts to our health centers would leave
countless individuals with no other health options.
Finally, NCUIH opposes the recent moves to eliminate
funding for the National Indian Health Board's cooperative
agreement. NIHB is a vital partner in providing healthcare
guidance and education to American Indian and Alaska Native
people.
Regarding the Small Grants programs that I mentioned, the
Indian Health Services fiscal year 2012 budget justification
calls for the elimination of nine Small Grant programs. These
programs provide our communities with preventative health
services which reduce the cost of healthcare in the long run by
addressing threats to health before they result in the need for
more expensive acute care. The elimination of these competitive
grants has been justified on the basis of unsatisfactory
results, but the evaluation report provided by IHS indicates
that many of these programs have been successful and can serve
as national models for future recipients of these grants.
Furthermore, many of the urban Indian grant recipients will
have their funding eliminated halfway through the grant period,
long before any evaluation of their effectiveness has actually
been conducted. The elimination of these grants amounts to a $1
million decrease in funding for Urban Indian Health programs,
completely eliminating the President's net proposed increase in
funding for Urban Indian Health programs over the fiscal year
2011 proposed levels.
These cuts undermine our ability to promote health and
wellness, to prevent disease, sexual assault, and domestic
violence, and to care for the elderly, women, and children in
our community. With Urban Indian Health programs unable to
provide these critical services, the burden will fall on the
medical system where the costs to treat are far more expensive
than for providing education and information. We need to
maintain these grants so that we can help provide services to
the most vulnerable members of the American Indian and Alaska
Native population.
Regarding NIHB's cooperative agreement, the National Indian
Health Board advocates on behalf of all tribal governments and
American Indians and Alaska Natives in their efforts to provide
quality healthcare. The IHS budget justification proposes
eliminating the NIHB cooperative agreement, which would result
in marginal savings while making it even more difficult to
achieve IHS's stated goal of eliminating health disparities. In
order to share resources and reduce costs, NCUIH and NIHB have
concluded a memorandum of understanding which provides for the
sharing of time and resources between the two organizations.
Eliminating support for NIHB will therefore have negative
consequences for NCUIH, hindering our efforts to work with a
crucial partner in providing guidance and education regarding
the provision of healthcare to American Indians.
In conclusion, I would like to thank all of the committee
members for this opportunity to testify on the budget
priorities for urban Indians. Congress has long supported the
Urban Indian Health program since its inception in 1976 with
the original Indian Healthcare Improvement Act. While we are
encouraged by the bipartisan support we have received during
the past appropriations cycles, ongoing economic hardship, as
well as demographic factors have placed an increased demand on
our health programs. It is the position of NCUIH that the Urban
Indian health line item should receive an increase, the
competitive small grants should continue to be made available,
that funding to HRSA should be protected and maintained, and
that our partner, NIHB, should continue to receive the critical
funding provided by their cooperative agreement. The time has
come to seriously invest in the health of all Native Americans.
And we thank you for this opportunity.
[The statement of D'Shane Barnett follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Lloyd, you mentioned in your
testimony eliminating the line item of contracts for--would you
eliminate the line item entirely or you would eliminate the cap
on the line item?
Mr. Miller. Eliminate the cap on the line item. By taking
out the capping language, then the contracts would be paid out
of the lump sum appropriation like all other government
contracts are paid. In fact, all of the Indian Health Service's
other contracts because they have many other contracts are paid
out of their lump sum appropriation. And that is the situation
that prevailed until about the year 2000, 1999 when the cap
started coming into play. So they came into play because courts
had held the Indian Health Service liable for failing to pay
the contracts.
Mr. Simpson. Are they--the contract support, is it not met
because of duration of payment or amount of payment? Do you
understand what I am getting at?
Mr. Miller. I am not sure. It is not met because of the
amount of payment. The contract support costs themselves are
actually set by the government. It is set by a different
agency; usually the National Business Center sets the indirect
cost rates. Then, the tribes have to incur at that rate. If
they do not, they owe the money back to the government. And
these are fixed costs. These are property insurance, liability
insurance, audit costs, and so forth. So they have to be
incurred. They are fixed costs. The sum does not change from
year to year. They are fixed. Pretty much 25 percent of the
program amount is the amount owed in contract support costs.
Mr. Simpson. There is a saying that, I think I read an
article by Tom Coburn that said if you are going to get sick in
Indian Country, get sick before June----
Mr. Miller. Yeah.
Mr. Simpson [continuing]. Something like that? Interesting.
I am glad we were able to do something about that this year and
we will continue to work on it because it is very important. We
do have obligations that I think we have to meet. Jacqueline,
you mentioned the overall appropriation for Interior----
Ms. Johnson Pata. Um-hum.
Mr. Simpson [continuing]. And you are right. I agree with
you fully. I think the allocation for the Interior Department
has been insufficient over a number of years, and then when you
look within the different bureaus within the Department of
Interior, that is an amazing little graph where Fish and
Wildlife Service has gone up 30 percent in the last eight
years, the National Park Service, 28 percent or so, and BIA is
down there at 8 percent. In the last couple of years, we have
done a pretty good job of trying to catch up, but that means it
must have been really ugly prior to that.
Ms. Johnson Pata. We do have some other graphs that we
would be glad to share with you where we have charted out like
just cost-of-living increases and what it has looked like for,
you know, the last decade or so for BIA and Indian funding I
think would be very helpful for you to see.
Mr. Simpson. Good. Well, I appreciate it. Dr. Neary, now,
something I know something about having been a dentist in the
real world. Four hundred percent higher decay rate in Native
American tribes than in the general population?
Mr. Neary. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Simpson. What does the research show on that? Why is
that? I mean the molecular makeup of the enamel has got to be
fairly similar, is it not?
Mr. Neary. It is not.
Mr. Simpson. Really?
Mr. Neary. The early childhood caries studies--there were
two symposia because the first one was so confusing that
everybody had to take a hard look at it. But there is a
congenital defect in the enamel of many Native American
children. It is probably acquired in the third trimester of
pregnancy or immediately after birth. So they have increased
enamel hypoplasia.
Mr. Simpson. Really?
Mr. Neary. It is a common occurrence in malnourished
populations, fetal trauma, maybe even birth trauma, so it
affects the development of incisors and first molars typically,
you know, which primary teeth would be developing at that time.
You take those predisposing factors, the hypoplastic enamel
becomes a culture medium for strep mutans, so they start
growing increased numbers of known cariogenic pathogens. Once
the established colonies are formed, they start to dominate, so
you get a much higher incidence of strep mutans in these
children who are affected than you do in the general
population. What you superimpose on that, then, is dietary
factors and things.
Mr. Simpson. Right.
Mr. Neary. Aside from native populations, the military is
finding that non-Indian caries-resistant U.S. troops who go to
the desert in Iraq consuming a great deal of Dr. Pepper and
Mountain Dew in particular, so they are 20-year-olds who were
caries-resistant for their whole lives and one-year deployment
in Iraq they start getting tooth decay.
Mr. Simpson. Really?
Mr. Neary. So you have the dietary thing, increased
consumption of sugar beverages because you are in desert
environment superimposed on this high susceptibility which is
perinatally acquired--probably--susceptibility. So there is
more to it than just negligence or, you know, careless
maintenance.
Mr. Simpson. That may be more than any of you want to know
about dental care, but I find it kind of interesting because I
happen to know a little bit about it. But thank you for the
work that the ADA does in trying to make sure that Indians have
access to dentists. And that is, as we have talked about in the
past, a problem on many reservations and particularly in
Alaska, as Don and I have talked about, trying to get dentists
out to some of these tribes that are in very, very, very remote
places is sometimes very difficult. And I know the ADA has
worked hard to make sure that we have qualified and quality
dentists out in those areas, and we will continue to work with
the ADA. But I appreciate the work that the Association has
done in trying to address that problem.
Mr. Neary. Thank you very much.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you all for your testimony. I appreciate
it very much. Now, we have the Honorable Don Young here and
Jerry Isaac, Ted Mala, and Andy Teuber. Is it like tuber?
Mr. Teuber. Yes.
Mr. Simpson. Well, that is like an Idaho spud. We call them
tubers. This is what we will call the Alaska panel.
Mr. Young. Mr. Chairman, thank you. And it is my honor to
introduce the three witnesses who will be here today. First, we
have Jerry Isaac, President of the Tanana Chiefs. The Tanana
Chiefs Conference is a traditional tribal consortium of 42
villages. President Isaac has been active in the Tanana's
tribal and community affairs, served as the president Tanana
Tribal Council from 1980 until he was elected as TCC president
in 2006. Jerry Isaac was born and raised traditionally by a
family teaching him essentials in culture and language in
Tanacross, Alaska, which also produced some of the finest-
looking ladies in the country, too.
Dr. Ted Mala, Director of Tribal Relations, Traditional
Healing Clinic, Southcentral Alaska; Southcentral Foundation.
Southcentral is an Alaska Native Health Consortium that serves
the Anchorage area as well as 55 villages. Dr. Mala received
his Doctor of Medicine and Surgery (MD) from the Autonomous
University of Guadalajara in 1976, has a Master's Degree in
Public Health from Harvard University in 1980. He actively
pursued his career in public health and health administration
both in Alaska, as well as internationally in the circumpolar
countries. Dr. Mala is an Alaska Native Inupiat Eskimo enrolled
in the Village of Buckland, as well as the Northwest Arctic
Native Association.
We now have Andy Teuber, Chairman and President of Alaska
Native Tribal Consortium. The consortium serves 138,000 Alaska
Natives and American Indians residing in Alaska through the
partnership in Alaska Native Medical Center, Alaska's Level II
Trauma Center. The Consortium employs nearly 2,000 people and
operates over $400 million in annual resources to deliver care
as well are rural infrastructure development and engineering.
And he serves as the president and CEO of Kodiak Area Native
Association.
Mr. Chairman, may I say this is one of the finer groups of
people representing health in Alaska. We have made great
progress. We have a lot further to go. And Mr. Chairman, may I
say, thank you, too, for your work on the 2011 budget and our
work for American Indians and Alaska Natives I think is
crucially important. You have a great challenge ahead of you
but I will back you up anywhere you can when it comes to trying
to make sure health is provided to the American Indian and the
Alaska Native because I think it is crucial. They do a good
job. We can do a little better job with a little more
understanding of what their intent is. So Mr. Chairman, with
that, you have the panel.
Mr. Simpson. Well, thank you, Don. There is no more serious
of an advocate for Native Americans, Indians, both in the lower
48 and Alaska than Don Young. And it has been my pleasure to
work with you over the years to try to address some of those
issues, and he is the one that keeps telling me we have
responsibilities. We have treaty responsibilities and
everything else. And a great Nation does not ignore those, so
that is why I think we have done some of the things that we
have been able to do in this last health bill. So thank you,
Don. I appreciate it.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
TANANA CHIEFS CONFERENCE
WITNESS
JERRY ISAAC
Mr. Isaac. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. Thank you for the honor of presenting testimony
today. I also would like to thank Congressman Young for the
introduction. I appreciate that.
As Congressman Young has introduced me, my name is Jerry
Isaac and I am the president of the Tanana Chiefs Conference.
The Tanana Chiefs Conference in an intertribal consortium of 42
Alaska Native Tribes located in the interior of Alaska. Our
tribes occupy a largely road-less area of 235,000 square miles
stretching from Fairbanks clear up to the Brooks Range and over
the Canadian border. Our area is almost the size of Texas. Our
tribes have authorized TCC to contract with the Bureau of
Indian Affairs and with the Indian Health Services to operate
their large number of federal programs and services for our
tribal members. TCC does this under the authority of the Indian
Self-Determination Act, contracting to operate federal programs
which IHS and the BIA would otherwise operate for our tribes.
We honor our bargain with the government by operating these
federal programs and facilities year in and year out, but the
government does not keep its bargain.
Specifically, the Indian Health Services does not honor its
duty under our contracts to reimburse the fixed contract
support costs that we incur in carrying out these contracts for
the government. We work for so many tribes in such a high-cost
environment, but every year the government shorts us by several
million dollars in fully audited fixed costs.
The result is that we must cut into our programs to make up
for the IHS's contract support costs shortfalls. In fact, even
after our shortfall was reduced in fiscal year 2010 thanks to
the President's and the committee's commitment to addressing
this problem, IHS still left TCC short by $3.2 million. That is
$3.2 million that we had to take out of the federal healthcare
programs that we operated. That is $3.2 million worth of
desperately needed and already underfunded healthcare services
that our tribal members had to go without. That is $3.2 million
that came out of our programs but not out of the IHS's
bureaucracy or agency-operated programs, and this year, IHS
will fail to pay us another $3.2 million. For us, $3.2 million
could translate into 70 positions because we strive to leverage
each dollar with another dollar from Medicare, Medicaid, or
private insurance. This is an enormous amount of healthcare
employment and services that we must cut from our IHS contract
just to make up for the IHS's failure to pay us what it owes
us.
IHS should not be able to short a contract that it has
awarded and that we have performed. And the Agency should not
be able to hide behind appropriations-backed language as an
excuse for not honoring its contracts. It pays other contracts.
It should pay our contracts, too.
TCC asks that the committee finally complete the work it
began in fiscal year 2010 and clear the way toward full payment
of contracts we operate for IHS. The limitations in the
appropriations acts should be removed and $615 million should
be budgeted for this activity. In this way, these IHS contracts
will at long last be paid in full, just as the committee's work
this year will permit the BIA in 2011 to pay its contracts in
full for the first time in 15 years.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to present
testimony today on the contract support cost crisis facing
tribes and tribal organizations that contract to operate
federal facilities and programs for the IHS and the BIA.
[The statement of Jerry Isaac follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Go ahead.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
SOUTHCENTRAL FOUNDATION
WITNESS
TED MALA
Dr. Mala. Hello. My name is Ted Mala. Thank you. I am an
Alaska Native and citizen, past president of the Association of
American Indian Physicians, and served as commissioner of
health for Governor Hickel on his cabinet. Today, I come before
you as director of tribal relations for Southcentral
Foundation, as well as director of the Traditional Healing
Clinic. And I want to thank you both for your service. You guys
are just legends and we really appreciate you.
Southcentral Foundation is the lead tribal organization in
southcentral Alaska. We provide a full range of medical,
dental, optometric, behavioral health and substance abuse to
45,000 people, both Alaska Native and American Indians living
in Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, and a number of
villages nearby. We also serve 13,000 Alaska Native people in
55 villages, and it is all over an area of 100,000 square
miles. So I know you are looking at the map so you can relate.
We employ 1,400 people to do this. The core of our service
delivery system is our self-governance contract with Indian
Health Service. In fact, we are one of the largest tribal
health contractors in the country, along with Oklahoma and
Navajo.
We are here today because the government has repeatedly
broken its contract to Southcentral. It has failed to pay us
the contract support costs, which our contract and the law
dictates are supposed to be paid in full. You know this very
well. We just add our voice to the others saying that we have
the same problem. We discussed this issue with Congress and
were told the problem was the administration. We go to the
administration and they tell us Congress did not appropriate
enough. And when you go to the Agency, they say that yes, it is
very important but they have other competing needs. So I am
sure it sounds familiar.
So at Southcentral, we do not understand a lot of the
finger-pointing because to us a contract is a contract and a
contract is not a matter of balancing priorities but doing what
the contract says to do. Besides the competing priorities as a
false issue, when IHS underpays our IHS contract, we are forced
to cut programs and the administration wants to protect them.
We have to cut mental health and substance abuse, as well as
dental, optometry. It is a zero-sum game.
The fact is that the budget is balanced by cutting only
funds that go to tribally-administered parts of the IHS system.
When that happens, Congress and the administration discriminate
against and punish the very part of the system that has proven
most effective in delivering healthcare. So at SCF we do not
ask to be treated any differently or any better than part of
IHS, but we do not want to be treated worse either. So for the
first time in many years, we are hopeful. It is clear that
Congress and the administration now understand that an
underpaid dollar in contract support costs means a $1 reduction
in tribal healthcare. Congress and the administration
understand that these are contracts that really have to be
paid. Congress especially seems to appreciate that 100 percent
of every contract support cost dollar goes right into tribal
health and not one penny of it goes into the federal
bureaucracy.
We are hopeful today for the first time in over a decade.
Last year's SCF's shortfall was substantially reduced. As a
result, SCF opened 97 new positions to fill multiple healthcare
provider teams and support staff. These positions provide
covered services. We are billing anywhere we can, Medicaid,
Medicare, private insurers, and we hope that our revenues will
allow us to bring on 100 more additional positions.
In short, we are proving every day that reducing contract
support cost shortfall--that contract health is a sound
investment, both in tribal employment and tribal health
services.
Finally, in Congress in 2012, once the government's
contract support costs, if Congress funds and closes that, we
will be able to fill at least 100 positions. I am sure it is
true across America. So as Congress was able to eliminate the
stark BIA shortfalls as part of 2011 budget compromise, we ask
today that Congress in fiscal year 2012 finally end all of the
IHS support cost shortfalls that have plagued us for over 15
years. Thank you for the privilege of testifying on behalf of
Southcentral Foundation and the 58,000 Native Americans we
serve. Mr. Chairman and Congressman Young, you are legends.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ted Mala follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Andy.
----------
Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
ALASKA NATIVE TRIBAL HEALTH CONSORTIUM
WITNESS
ANDY TEUBER
Mr. Teuber. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Simpson. My
name is Andy Teuber. Thank you, Congressman Young, for the very
flattering introduction. I am the president and chairman of the
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, which serves 138,000
Alaska Natives and American Indians across the great State of
Alaska, a state which comprises 650,000 square miles and has a
population of only 700,000 people, 20 percent of which are the
Alaska Natives and American Indians that we serve in the Alaska
Native Tribal Health Consortium.
I also have the distinct pleasure to serve as the president
and CEO of the Kodiak Area Native Association, which delivers
primary and social services to the population of Kodiak Island
in the Gulf of Alaska. And in that capacity I deliver services
to seven of the communities around Kodiak. If you look at the
State of Alaska, you can see, it kind of looks like this here.
Kodiak is going to be right down here in the Gulf. It is nice
to have a Congressman to serve as your assistant. Yes, thank
you, Congressman. It is, in fact, the largest island in the
United States by coastline and second to the large island of
Hawaii, State of Hawaii, for distance or area.
What I was going to talk about today, and I do not want to
articulate anything that has already been said better than I
can say it in what Mr. Lloyd Miller has said for contract
support costs and what Dr. Matt Neary has said on behalf of the
ADA, but I did want to talk about a couple of issues that have
not been addressed yet. And the first one is IHS Village Built
Lease program. It is the first issue that I want to bring to
the chairman's attention today.
And the foundation of the Alaska Native Tribal Health
system is kind of built on the VBC program or the Village Built
Clinic Lease program. The VBC program provides funding for
rent, utilities, insurance, janitorial, maintenance costs,
healthcare facilities throughout rural Alaska. Despite an
increase in the number and size of clinics throughout Alaska
and the rapidly increasing costs of operating these clinics,
the funding for the VBC lease program has barely increased
since 1996. Current funding for leases covers less than 60
percent of the costs of operating these clinics.
Without additional funding, the VBC lease program, Alaska
villages will be forced to further reduce clinic operations for
primary, tertiary care for dental services and behavior health
services in and around all of our rural communities. And they
will be forced to defer long-term maintenance and improvement
projects. This situation not only reduces healthcare
availability in villages. It also threatens nearly $200 million
worth of rural infrastructure in the state that the Federal
Government has already funded.
So the solutions that I propose today are, number one, to
have the VBC lease program listed as a separate line item in
the IHS budget. And number two, provide an increase of $7
million in funding for the VBC lease program to be added in the
current program base for the 2012 budget.
This funding is needed to sustain the VBC lease program and
cover the expected operating cost in fiscal year 2012 and to
establish funding for the long-term maintenance and
improvement, and without this funding, many Alaska villages
will not be able to continue supporting local clinics, which
will lead to serious negative consequences for the health and
safety of Alaska Native people.
As I stated earlier, Mr. Miller's testimony was informative
for me. I am certain that it was for the committee as well. And
the information that Dr. Neary had provided on the dental
health for American Indian and Alaska Native people, I did want
to touch on the oral health as it relates to the Dental Health
Aid Therapy program in Alaska. And with just a minute, Indian
Country--in Alaska in particular--faces considerable oral
health disparities, and American Indians and Alaska Natives,
especially children, continue to be plagued by oral health
disparities. Alaska Native children suffer a dental caries rate
two-and-a-half times the national average and for American
Indian and Alaska Native children ages two to four, the rate of
tooth decay is five times higher than the U.S. average. An
astonishing 79 percent of Alaska Native and American Indian
children ages two to five have tooth decay, 60 percent of which
are severe cavities.
With that, on behalf of the Alaska Native Tribal Health
Consortium and the Kodiak Area Native Association, I want to
thank the chairman for the time and the opportunity to testify
here today. Thanks to Congressman Young, and I will look
forward to providing any additional information requested by
the committee.
[The statement of Andy Teuber follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I appreciate all of your testimony.
Alaska is a big country, is it not?
Mr. Teuber. It is.
Mr. Simpson. That is one of the places I have never been
and always wanted to go, and Don said I cannot go until he says
it is okay. So he has invited me up there a few times and we
were talking earlier with my staff and some other people about,
you know, you have got some beautiful national parks, you have
got some issues with Alaska Natives and healthcare and other
things, and we need to get up there and see some of that.
Mr. Young. And Mr. Chairman, you are definitely invited and
we could work on that with you and really see the area without
working too hard but see the people in Alaska. I can say only
one other thing as a guideline. You brought up the point about
the level of funding under the Department of Interior, and if
you want to spend money on people, take it out of the parks and
spend it on the people. And I am dead serious. Do you see the
staffing and you see the--and the Forest Service, I do not know
if you handle the Forest Service or not----
Mr. Simpson. We do.
Mr. Young [continuing]. Well, they have got the same thing.
I was in Ketchikan the other day. There are 27 brand new trucks
sitting there. There are three boats with six motors sitting
there. There are 28 kayaks and we are not cutting any trees in
southeast Alaska. And the agencies that are being funded are
not for people. And I am not saying the agencies are not people
themselves----
Mr. Simpson. Yeah.
Mr. Young [continuing]. But the money should be spent,
especially in healthcare, for what I think is a commitment.
This was done many years ago under treaty and I do think they
own it and they deserve it, and this contracting concept that
Mr. Miller and other people have talked about is, to me, a
disgrace. It is a contract with the government, and if there is
a shortage of money, I know where we can find it. We will not
take the parks away, but we do not need Taj Mahals. We do not
need boats on the river that they have. We do not need all of
the fancy quarters that they live in. We need to take care of
the people. That is what I am asking.
Mr. Simpson. There is one area you can take it away.
Mr. Young. And Mr. Chairman, I am dead serious about it and
I hope you will listen to me very carefully and read the
documents----
Mr. Simpson. I am listening to you.
Mr. Young. All right. I appreciate it.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. I was surprised, actually,
when we learned that half of the tribes in America are located
in Alaska, I was kind of shocked when I heard that, 260 some
odd or something?
Mr. Young. Two hundred twenty-nine.
Mr. Simpson. Two hundred twenty-nine out of the 500 or so
that we have. So it is stunning. But I do need to get up there
and see it. And you have unique problems because of the size of
Alaska and the remoteness of it. And it is issues, as I said
earlier, that we have tried to work out with the ADA and others
to try to make sure that you have access to dentists and those
types of things. And it is an issue that I know that the ADA
takes very seriously in trying to make sure that, you know, it
is remote. So anyway, I look forward to coming up there and
seeing what you do and as we have heard today in this testimony
that, you know, Don has told me for the 12 years I have been
here that we have responsibilities, tribal responsibilities,
and you are right, we need to maintain those things.
And that is why in the CR we cut some areas that were
pretty tough to cut but we went in and did it so that we did
not have to cut Indian Health Services or some of the other
things. And if you talk to Dr. Rubidoux at Indian Health
Services, she was showing me the difference in what we spend
per person in Indian Country for healthcare versus what the
average American gets and it is substantially different. If you
want to see poverty in this country, go out to an Indian
reservation or go to some of the villages up in Alaska. We have
got to address that, and I will tell you this committee is
committed to addressing it.
So I appreciate you all being here today and thank you for
your testimony and coming down to beautiful Washington, D.C.,
from that ugly Alaska up there. Thank you.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
TESTIMONY OF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AND OTHER INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS AND
ORGANIZATIONS
PUBLIC WITNESSES--NATIVE AMERICANS
Mr. Cole. Okay. We will go ahead and open proceedings, and
we will invite our witnesses up in a group of panels, so if we
could have Chairman Bear, Chairman Melendez, Chairman Small,
Chairman Joseph, and then Representative Richardson will be
joining us when she arrives at the table, as she has got things
to tell us as well.
Probably the easiest thing once you get settled is, we will
just start here and work our way across. Each person has got of
course about 5 minutes and then we will have time after that to
ask questions or comments from the members. If you would, as
you begin your testimony, if you would just simply introduce
yourself so that we have got that clearly for the record. That
would be extremely helpful. And we can begin whenever you want
to start to testify. Press the button. If it is red, it is on.
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
SHOSHONE-PAIUTE TRIBES OF THE DUCK VALLEY INDIAN RESERVATION
WITNESS
ROBERT BEAR, CHAIRMAN
Mr. Bear. Thank you for that. Good morning, Mr. Chairman
and everyone here today. I just want to thank you for giving me
this opportunity.
First of all, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my
name is Robert Bear. I am the Chairman of the Shoshone-Paiute
Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation. I asked to
testify today so that I could talk about the crisis in unfunded
contract payments that the Indian Health Service and the Bureau
of Indian Affairs owe my tribe under our self-governance
contracts. From the very beginning, these agencies have broken
their contract obligations to my tribe. Let me just talk about
IHS.
In 1995, my tribe negotiated a contract with IHS to operate
the government's hospital in Owyhee. The contract required IHS
to pay us $1.7 each year in fixed contract support costs. These
were our fixed costs that we had to incur by law to run this
federal contract. Think of the costs as mandates to do things
like carry insurance, complete federally required audits, to do
our daily accounting and similar fixed costs. We did not set
those costs. Some were set by IHS and the rest were set by the
Interior Department, all based on our annual audit report, but
IHS never paid us a dime, not in 1996 and not in 1997.
What happened? Since those costs that IHS failed to pay
were our fixed costs, we had no choice but to reduce hospital
operations and hospital employment in order to pay those costs
and make up for the shortfall. The next thing we knew, the
Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospital Organizations
came in and told us that it was considering revoking our
certification to operate. Why? Because we had so many vacancies
in critical positions. So eventually we went to court, and 10
years later in 2005, we were vindicated by a Supreme Court
decision in the case known as Cherokee Nation and the Shoshone-
Paiute Tribes v. Leavitt. The court said it was illegal for IHS
to underpay us and the court awarded my tribe damages against
IHS.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, this should have
never happened. These are government contracts and the
government should have kept its word. In fact, the very reason
why we won the Supreme Court case is because the court ruled
unanimously that the government has no more right to break a
contract with an Indian tribe than it has to break a contract
with anyone else. Yet here we are years later and IHS is again
failing to pay us our contract amounts. I do not understand how
this is possible. Every other federal contractor gets paid in
full yet we do not.
Is it because we are an Indian tribe? The Supreme Court
already said that shocking excuse was no excuse at all. Is it
because our appropriation act now limits how much the agency
will pay tribal contractors? There never used to be a limit and
contract payments just came out of the agency's general
appropriation. If there is such a limit, why not eliminate it?
Why not go back to the system where the agency pays us out of
its general appropriations just like all other government
contractors.
The line item for contract support costs was never put into
law to protect the tribes and our contracts. It was put into
law to protect the agency. I say take it out. Why? Because
after losing in the Supreme Court, IHS still comes here and
asks for protection to underpay its federal contracts with
Indian tribes, next year by about $153 million including
protection to underpay my tribe about $615,000. That is just
not right. The law should not protect an agency when it
underpays a fully performed contract.
We are doing our part by providing health care in the
government's Owyhee hospital. Now the government must do its
part to pay us in full for the work that we are doing. The
government should not come her and ask permission to force us
to reduce these contracted health programs and contracted
positions so that the government can get away with not paying
us.
As for the BIA, I cannot offer enough thanks to this
committee and to you, Mr. Chairman, for last month's action in
raising the BIA level of contract payments. At long last, the
BIA will now be able to fully pay its contract obligations to
my tribe, to the other tribes in Idaho and to the other tribes
across the country. This funding level must not roll back in
2012. But when it comes to IHS, much more needs to be done.
I do applaud the President for recommending a very
significant increase in the IHS contract support cost line, but
until these IHS contracts are fully paid just like all other
government contracts, justice will not have been done.
Thank you for the opportunity for me to testify today.
[The statement of Robert Bear follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you for your testimony.
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
FORT HALL BUSINESS COUNCIL, SHOSHONE-BANNOCK TRIBES
WITNESS
NATHAN SMALL, CHAIRMAN
Mr. Small. Good morning, Chairman Simpson and Congressman
Cole. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify
this morning. My name is Nathan Small. I serve as Chairman of
the Fort Hall Business Council, the governing body of the
Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in southeastern Idaho. Our community
faces tremendous needs in a variety of areas but I am here to
speak on behalf of the children of Fort Hall Reservation.
Native American youth are among the most vulnerable groups
in America. They suffer the highest dropout rates in the
Nation, and tragically, also suffer the highest rates of
suicide. There are two reasons for the suffering: one, a broken
juvenile justice system, and two, an underfunded Indian
education system. Juvenile justice in Indian Country like the
broader tribal justice system has been crippled by federal laws
and court decisions handed by Washington, D.C., for more than a
century. Our tribe endures many of the same public concerns
that plague other tribes. However, we face the added pressure
of dealing with Public Law 280.
In 1963, the State of Idaho without the consent of the
Shoshone-Bannock Tribes assumed jurisdiction over juvenile
crimes on the Fort Hall Reservation, and for almost 50 years,
the state has ignored its responsibility under Public Law 280
and our youth in our community have suffered as a result. With
no help at the state level and little help at the federal
level, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes took matters into its own
hands. Last year, we completed construction of a new criminal
justice center which houses our police department, courts and
an adult-juvenile corrections center. Basically this is what it
looks like right now, and if you would like, we can get a copy
of this for you to look at later on.
We built that juvenile center with a vision of having it
serve as a regional juvenile center. Detention is often the
final opportunity at turning around the life of a young person.
As a result, they deserve our best efforts. This means
providing strong education, mental health and substance
treatment and services to our youth in custody. However, the
BIA budget proposes elimination of the juvenile educational
funding and the BIA has refused our request to use correction
program funding to provide these services to our juveniles.
To address these critical needs, I am making two requests.
Neither request will cost the taxpayer additional money but
will permit commonsense use of existing funds and allow tribes
to stretch existing dollars where they are needed. First, I ask
you to direct the Administration to designate our juvenile
center as a region correction center, and second, I ask that
you direct the BIA to authorize the use of correction program
funding for education and mental health services to tribal
youth in custody. As I just noted, in spite of the shortfalls
in the education of Indian juveniles, the President's budget
would eliminate the educational services to Indian youth in
custody. I urge you to reject the President's proposed
elimination of this program and instead increase funding for
juvenile education.
I have one final request in the area of tribal justice, and
that is to urge you to work with Chairman Frank Wolf's
Commerce, Justice and Science subcommittee to fully fund
programs reauthorized in the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010
at the requested levels in the fiscal year 2012 Interior and
Justice Department budgets.
I will now briefly discuss some concerns about educating
our young people. The United States in hundreds of treaties
including the Four Bridges Treaty of 1868 promised to provide
for the education of Indian youth as well as other services and
in return taking hundreds of millions of acres of our tribal
homeland. Sadly, these promises have not been kept and again
our children in our community suffer as a result. Unhappy with
the level of education provided in the United States, the
Shoshone-Bannock Tribes contracted to operate the Shoshone-
Bannock Junior and Senior High School locally. However, in
order to make this effort work, we rely on tribal grant support
costs. These programs provide administrative costs that would
be incurred by the BIA and the Federal Government continue to
provide direct education services. The fiscal year 2012 budget
requests flat funding for school support costs, which would
meet less than two-thirds of the tribal needs. I ask that the
tribal support costs be funded at $72.3 million to meet 100
percent of the need. Also, with regard to Indian education this
school year, we added a 6th-grade program to our tribal school.
This 6th-grade program fills a gap in educational services on
the reservation and will provide students with a consistent
learning environment.
Despite this need, the BIA has refused our request to use
school support cost funding for our new 6th grade. To overcome
this bureaucratic barrier, I would ask you to include report
language to direct the BIA to permit tribal grant support cost
funding to be used for our expansion to the 6th grade and
include 6th-grade students in our annual funding formula.
Finally, my written testimony provides additional details
for a request to provide funding for a dormitory to provide our
homeless children stable housing, meals on campus and an
opportunity to learn and a chance at a brighter future.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your recognition of
the Federal Government's treaty obligations to the Indian
tribes and your efforts to hold tribal programs harmless as
Congress works to bring the federal deficit under control. As
you know, the need to meet these solemn obligations is
especially critical for our Native youth, and again, thank you
for this opportunity to testify.
[The statement of Nathan Small follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you.
I see we have been joined by Representative Richardson.
Would you like to join us at the table? And I do not know what
your schedule is--just grab that chair right there, that would
be great--and you may need to testify, you may have a committee
meeting or something, and so we would be happy to take your
testimony whenever you would like to deliver it. We are moving
in order, but again, I recognize you may have a committee to
get to, so we are delighted to have you here.
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
NATIVE AMERICAN ISSUES
WITNESS
HON. LAURA RICHARDSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
CALIFORNIA
Ms. Richardson. First of all, good morning. Good morning to
all of you. Thank you for having me, allowing me to be here to
share my priorities and thoughts within the Native Americans
and Alaska Natives in this country.
I am a member of the Native American Caucus and I represent
the 37th Congressional district in California. California is
home to over 100 federally recognized tribes, so being a member
of this community and providing the support is something we all
believe in, but in California in particular, that is my
commitment.
Particularly, I want to cover four areas: health,
education, transportation and economic development. In the
111th Congress, we permanently reauthorized the Indian Health
Care Improvement Act, and while this was a step in the right
direction, we still have a responsibility to ensure that there
is adequate funding for the Indian Health Service's section.
I want to highlight a few statistics that stick out in my
mind. American Indians, Alaska Natives have the lowest life
expectancy across all races in the United States. Diabetes in
particular has a high rate for Native Americans and Alaska
Natives, 177 percent higher than the general U.S. population.
Now, you on these committees know these statistics far better
than I do, and I respect that, but I think you need to know
that I lend my full support as you approach these issues and
need members to step up to add to that voice.
Years of underfunding of Indian health care have led to
overcrowded facilities, outdated facilities and equipment and
delayed maintenance of facilities that are on average over 30
years. The Indian Health Service reports that many Indian
health facilities use equipment that is over twice its useful
lifespan. So when we consider this, I support President Obama's
fiscal year 2012 budget request which increases funding for the
Indian Health Service by 14.1 percent.
Education--education in our Native American communities is
another crucial area that needs a substantial investment. There
was a report done in February 2010, a study by the Civil Rights
Project of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Informal
Studies. Now, I am a graduate of both UCLA and USC so I watch
these studies carefully. And in that study, they found that
less than 50 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native
students graduated from high school. That is lagging from our
national average of 69 percent. So when we consider this, the
Indian school equalization formula is the primary source of
funding that we have for the elementary and secondary schools,
and I urge when we look at how it is being very severely
underfunded in fiscal year 2009 and 2010, it is something that
warrants our attention. I also support the Johnson-O'Malley
Act, the act that was implemented in 1934 to provide the
supplemental funding.
Transportation--I serve on the Transportation Committee and
the Homeland Security Committee, and when you look at the
Bureau of Indian schools, they often incur significant costs in
transporting students. Many have to travel from reservations.
Buses travel very long routes on unpaved roads, and it is
critical that there is adequate funding. So therefore with the
increasing fuel costs, the President's fiscal year 2012 budget
slightly reduces funding for this program over the 2010 levels,
and I think certainly that should be preserved or increased.
And then finally, my last section, which is economic
development and job training. In California, although we have
had very successful gaming places in my area surrounding and it
has served as an excellent opportunity for many people to work,
not just working in the general casino area but working as
accountants, working in many aspects of the business, but
unfortunately, not all areas have the ability to have those
types of businesses or have not grown to that point as of yet.
So it is important that we invest and we assist in making sure
that there is adequate job training available for everyone. So
when we look at the division of capital investment within the
Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development that overseas
the Indian loan guarantee program, this program enables
eligible borrowers for Indian businesses to be able to get
money that they otherwise would not receive. Unfortunately, the
President's fiscal year 2012 budget cuts this program by $5.1
million, and I would not be supportive of that.
As I close, there is a national ironworkers training
program. I have a very strong relationship with the ironworkers
in my district. This is a program that has not been funded for
2011 or 2012. It was only seeking $750,000. This program was
actually an 11-week program where after that program the
candidates would be able to participate in the apprenticeship
program and go on and have a very decent job, so I would urge
you to consider that.
And lastly, when you look at the Carcier----
Mr. Cole. Carcieri.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you. Versus Salazar----
Mr. Cole. We are looking at it.
Ms. Richardson. I am sure you are.
Mr. Cole. We are very familiar here.
Ms. Richardson. Well, I look forward to standing with you
and helping in that area as well.
So thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you for
sitting here with my brothers and I am sure sisters as well in
the audience and just look forward to counting on my help. Even
though I have not had an opportunity to serve on your
committee, count me as a full committed one to help on your
issues.
[The statement of Laura Richardson follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you very much. Thank you for your
testimony. You are free to go, or you are free to stay. We will
have questions. We have two more sets of testimony, so it is up
to you. Again, your schedule is----
Ms. Richardson. Unfortunately, I have two committees at the
exact same time.
Mr. Cole. I assumed that was going to be the case, but
thank you very much for coming. I appreciate it.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you, sir, and thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Cole. Again, thanks for your indulgence for allowing
the Congresswoman to make her points, so if we can, we will
just resume regular order.
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
RENO-SPARKS INDIAN COLONY TRIBAL COUNCIL
WITNESS
ARLAN MELENDEZ, CHAIRMAN
Mr. Melendez. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and committee
members. My name is Arlan Melendez. I am Tribal Chairman of the
Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Washoe, Paiute and Shoshone people,
located in Reno, Nevada. I am also the Vice President of both
the Indian Health Board in Nevada and also the Intertribal
Council in Nevada, which are the 27 tribes in the State of
Nevada.
First, I want to thank Chairman Simpson and Mr. Cole for
listening to us this morning, and I am very appreciative of Mr.
Simpson's comments that were circulated a few months ago
indicating the importance of protecting the funding for the
programs from the budget cuts.
Today I wish to address--first of all, I also want to
introduce our consultant here in D.C., Mr. George Waters, who
is in the audience, and George also said not to mention the
Nevada-Boise State game.
Mr. Simpson. Yeah, there might be some funding problems
there.
Mr. Cole. You are clearly very well represented.
Mr. Simpson. Yes, I was going to say, he is from Oklahoma,
you know, and we did have a problem with Oklahoma.
Mr. Cole. You know, there is an old saying in Oklahoma: it
is hard to be humble when you are a Sooner. Unfortunately, not
when I talk to my chairman, who delivers regular doses of
humility on what is now, I must say, a five-year-old game.
Mr. Melendez. Well, today, I wish to address three main
topics here. First of all, Contract Health Service and also an
increasing problem with pain management, and I will talk about
that, and also, the third topic is the need for detention
facilities in the State of Nevada.
Because my tribe consists of approximately 1,100 tribal
members and we are one of the few urban reservations in the
country, we not only provide health care to our tribal members
but we have to comply with the Indian Health Service open-door
policy requiring us to provide service to any federally
recognized Indian person. The urban Indian population in
proximity to our health center is approximately 8,000 and
growing.
Four years ago, my tribe constructed a new health center at
our own expense due to the fact that we could not wait any
longer for the Indian Health Service to replace our old,
dilapidated facility. Since then, our caseload has really
grown. There are 27 tribes and bands, 16 federally recognized
tribes in the State of Nevada, and we are part of the Phoenix
area. The other area tribes are from Arizona and Utah. There
are also two main service units in the State of Nevada, the
western Nevada service unit and the eastern Nevada, and there
is also field station in southern Nevada. We are part of the
Schurz service unit along with six other tribes. Schurz,
Nevada, is approximately 90 miles southeast of Reno, Nevada,
and it is where our old Indian hospital was located until the
Indian Health Service closed its doors in 1986. Since that
time, the tribes who use that hospital have greatly seen more
dependence on Contract Health Service, and there is a
correlation between not having an Indian Health Service
hospital and the need for Contract Health Service. Without a
hospital, Nevada tribes are totally CHS dependent. The Contract
Health Service formula needs to be changed to give more weight
to tribes that do not have access to Indian hospitals. Due to
the lack of CHS funding, Indian Health Service is only allowing
priority level one life-or-limb referrals, and so far only 30
percent of the referrals for patients to use CHS have been
approved. Basically, our patients are being denied health care.
Furthermore, the Indian Health Service is not paying
patients' Contract Health Service medical bills in a timely
manner. Thus, patients are receiving letters from collection
agencies and they are not paying also the providers, the
outside providers who provide those services. Therefore, the
relationship is not good and some providers are denying to work
with the Indian Health Service. Any budget savings due to the
adherence to priority level one, which has happened with the
new Indian Health Service director, has resulted in some
savings. That savings should go back into opening up priority
level two and not be disbursed elsewhere within the Indian
Health Service.
One recommendation would be to create centers of excellence
like our brand-new facility that we built ourselves. A center
of excellence would provide services that they do not have
right now, X-rays, and therefore that would help not sending
people out for X-rays, and there is a lot of specialty service
that we could have within our health facility. Rather than
building a new hospital, maybe we could create centers of
excellence that would offset sending people out, which
decreases the use of Contract Health Service.
I would like to briefly talk about the increasing concern
having to do with pain management or the lack of, which has
resulted in patients being addicted to certain medications,
painkillers. This issue is also a CHS issue whereby referring a
patient outside our health clinic to a pain specialist is also
not in the approved category of priority one, so referrals for
this are also being denied. We believe IHS should address this
ever-growing problem. This situation has resulted in security
guards being placed at our health centers due to the irrational
outbursts by patients who demand medication. A demonstration
project would be something that would help.
And finally, our detention facility need in Nevada is
really something that is critical there. Right now, we are
desperately in need of regional detention facilities to hold
those Indian people who have broken the law. You may be
surprised to hear that there is not a single detention facility
anywhere within the jurisdiction of Bureau of Indian Affairs
western Nevada agency. This lack of detention facilities for
adults and juveniles along with great distances that need to be
traveled to access detention facilities that we contract for
has been identified as the single most significant issue that
our tribal justice systems face. Tribes in our region are
presently contracting with five different counties. For longer-
term sentences, prisoners are being sent out to facilities in
Colorado and Wyoming. We are working jointly----
Mr. Cole. We are going to need to wind up pretty quickly.
Mr. Melendez. Okay. We would ask this committee to work
with the BIA and perhaps with the Commerce, Justice and Science
Subcommittee to ensure that there is a coordinated approach and
that staffing and overall operation and maintenance for a
western Nevada tribal detention center is funded.
So I want to thank you very much for listening to me.
[The statement of Arlan Melendez follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you.
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
NORTHWEST PORTLAND AREA INDIAN HEALTH BOARD
WITNESS
ANDREW JOSEPH, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
Mr. Joseph. Good morning, Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member
Moran and Honorable Mr. Cole. My name is Badger. I am Andy
Joseph, Jr. I chair the Health and Human Services Committee for
the Confederated Tribes of Colville and also the chair for the
Portland Area Indian Health Board, 43 tribes of Washington,
Idaho and Oregon, and as an executive member of the National
Indian Health Board. I have submitted my testimony for the
record and will summarize our recommendations.
Let me begin by underscoring the federal trust
responsibility to provide health care to Indians and the
significant health disparities that affect our people. There is
no question that Indian people suffer the highest rates of
disease for most health indicators. My written testimony
documents these glaring health disparities. This fact along
with the trust responsibility makes it a requirement that
Congress provide an adequate level of funding for IHS budget.
In fiscal year 2011, we estimate that it would take at least
$400 million to maintain current services. I hope the
subcommittee recognizes that the $25 million increase was less
than adequate funding in fiscal year 2011. We urge the
subcommittee to support the level of funding requested in the
President's fiscal year 2012 budget request. The President's
2012 request will help to preserve services by restoring lost
funding to inflation, population growth, pay costs, contract
support costs that were not funded in the fiscal year 2011
budget. We recognize that this might seem like a sizable
increase given the current fiscal estimate. However, I hope you
will balance the request with the principles of the federal
trust relationship and the fact that Indian people have the
highest health disparities of any group in the United States.
Our specific budget recommendations include, one, we
recommend the subcommittee restore funding eliminated in the
President's request for tribal pay costs. We estimate this
funding to be at least $13.4 million based on fiscal year 2011
IHS Congressional justification. These costs were eliminated in
the President's fiscal year 2012 request due to the
administrative policy to freeze federal pay increases. If the
tribal health system does not maintain pay cost requirements,
it will be difficult to remain competitive, to recruit and
retain health care professionals.
Two, we recommend an additional $50 million be provided for
the contract services program. The contract health program
comprises 34 percent of Idaho, Oregon and Washington tribes'
budget. Since we do not have hospitals, we must rely on CHS
programs for all specific inpatient care.
Three, we do not support the $6 million increase for
business operation support. If the IHS cannot effectively
utilize the resources it has now, then provide it with the
additional funding to address material weaknesses in processing
the billing CHS claims dealing with business office practices
and address weaknesses in the united financial management
system will only result in the same dysfunction. Tribes have
effectively managed these same growth challenges as IHS. If it
is truly to address CHS needs, then the $6 million should be
reprogrammed to the CHS budget line item.
Four, we further recommend the subcommittee provide an
additional $53 million to fund past years contract support cost
shortfalls that are owed to tribes under Public Law 93638. The
achievements of Indian self-determination have consistently
improved services delivery, increased services levels and
strengthened tribal government services for Indian people.
Every Administration since 1975 has embraced the policy and
Congress has repeatedly affirmed it through extensive
amendments to strengthen the Self-Determination Act.
Five, we urge the subcommittee to include bill report
language that directs the IHS Director to fund innovative
approaches for facilities construction in Indian Country. Over
15 years, the Portland area developed----
Mr. Cole. I do not mean to interrupt, but we are going to
need to wrap up the statement pretty quickly, please.
Mr. Joseph. The small ambulatory construction program--this
program has been very beneficial for addressing facilities
construction needs throughout Indian Country. Once again, the
Portland area tribes have developed a new regional referral
specialty care center concept that holds great promise to
innovative approach to addressing health facility needs. Our
proposal has been shared with the IHS Director, who equally
believes it holds great promise.
We appreciate this opportunity to meet with the committee
staff to understand our proposal and how we might be able to
move this concept. Thank you, and I am happy to take any
questions.
One of the things I would like to say is, today one of my
comrades is being buried, and his service is in White Swan. His
family is related to me from the Yakima Nation, and he was a
young soldier that gave his life, and he swore an oath to
uphold the Constitution of the United States, and I expect the
Congress here to remember that oath and to remember our
soldiers that swore to protect that for us as I did myself.
Thank you.
[The statement of Andrew Joseph follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you, and thank you for your service. I note
with a great deal of satisfaction the emblem you have for the
United States Army, so we very much appreciate your service as
well.
I am going to go directly to you, Chairman, particularly
since we have somebody from your home state, and I will ask my
questions after Mr. Moran asks his.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
Let me first ask, Robert, you and the Cherokee Nation sued
the Federal Government over contract support, right?
Mr. Bear. Yes, we did.
Mr. Simpson. And the Supreme Court said essentially that
the government was in default by not paying the contracts, that
we have to pay the contracts, right?
Mr. Bear. That is correct, Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. And then we started paying but not the full
cost of the contract support. Has a lawsuit followed up
anywhere that I am not aware of that is suing the government
over not paying the full cost of the contract support?
Mr. Bear. Not that I am aware of currently, but that is our
situation with IHS right now. We do have a self-governance
compact but there is still a shortfall, though.
Mr. Simpson. Well, as you know, that is one of the things
that we focused on during this last budget was trying to get
the funding up for contract support because last year during
the testimony from tribes, what we heard from almost everybody
that testified was the issue of contract support and not
covering those costs, and so we made a substantial effort to
address that last year when we wrote the C.R., and I will tell
you, since Mr. Moran is here, he was a great chairman when he
was in charge in terms of Indian Country and making sure that
we put the resources in there to do what is necessary to meet
our obligations. The same was true with Mr. Dicks when he was
chairman of it, so I think the committee has shown some
bipartisan support in trying to make sure that we meet these
obligations that we have. It is going to be more difficult
under reduced budgets that we had in our Continuing Resolution
and in next year's budget but we will do everything we can to
make sure that we need those contract support obligations that
we have, not just because it is right thing to do; we have an
obligation to do it. So I appreciate that.
Nathan, welcome and thanks for being here today. Where are
we with the regional detention facility? Because we had put
language in directing the department to look at that
possibility, and if you look at the number of tribes across the
country, 560 something or whatever it is, you are not going to
be able to build a detention facility like Fort Hall built in
every one of these locations, and it makes sense to start
looking at some regional sorts of facilities, and have we come
anywhere with that?
Mr. Small. Last word I got was I think there was tribes in
Wyoming and in Nevada and possibly Utah that are looking at
possibly using our place as a regional jail, but there has not
been a lot of talk and there has not been a lot of anything to
really get that nailed down, and we feel that there is even
other places that could utilize our area as a regional jail,
especially in northern Nevada and the eastern part of Nevada.
Mr. Simpson. Has the department done anything to look
across Indian Country and say, you know, where could regional
detention facilities be built that make sense, that would be
usable and accessible? You mentioned western Nevada. You know,
we do not want to transport people all across the country, but
to do it within a region where they would have access to their
families, their families would have access to them and those
types of things makes some sense.
Mr. Small. Yes. I think they were--last I heard, they were
looking at anywhere from a five- to an eight-hour drive from
the regional facility to the outlying areas, and that is just
what I have been hearing. However, I am not absolutely sure on
a lot of that stuff.
Mr. Simpson. Well, your tribe did a great job, and you went
out and built this with your own funds, and the only thing you
are asking of the BIA is to help the operational costs of it,
and we have done the same thing. I know Tom has mentioned in
Oklahoma where tribes have used their own funds to build a
hospital, and you mentioned the same thing too, that tribes are
stepping up to the plate and building these facilities that are
necessary. The BIA needs to step in and make sure that they
have the people to operate these facilities that the tribes are
putting their resources into, so we look forward to seeing you
in August, and we will be out there, and Tom, you will get a
firsthand view of this.
Mr. Cole. I am looking forward to it, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Small. Okay. Great. I welcome you guys there.
Mr. Simpson. I do not know if you know this yet. We are
trying to put together a plan. We want to visit several areas
across the country on probably two or three different trips.
Mr. Cole. The chairman said he could probably get me there
in time to watch Boise's August training.
Mr. Simpson. And I want to say, it was a great football
game with Boise State and Nevada, and I love good football
games regardless of who wins.
Mr. Cole. Do not believe that. He cares very much about who
wins.
Mr. Moran.
Mr. Moran. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. These issues are a classic
case in point where I think the tribes' best interests are
served if I follow the leadership and judgment of you and
Chairman Simpson, and so at this point I am just going to
listen and learn and, as I say, follow your lead. But thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cole. Well, thank you very much, and again, I am going
to make the point, I have made it before, it needs to be made
frequently, we made a lot of progress in the last few years,
and Chairman Simpson and Chairman Moran are two of the big
reasons for that. This is actually one of the committees that
really does work exceptionally well on a bipartisan basis and
takes these responsibilities seriously, and quite honestly, the
Administration has done a good job here in the last couple
years stepping up in a lot of different ways as well, and so we
appreciate that.
I have one comment I wanted to make and then I have a
couple quick questions. A comment, I am interested for any of
you that are involved in gaming. This really was sparked by
something Representative Richardson said. It made me begin to
think. I know that she mentioned gaming and how important that
was, and just for the record, the difference in taxation rates
between gaming facilities is dramatic, and some states look on
tribes as an asset and keep that relatively low. They make
money. Oklahoma, I think our compacts are around 6 percent, but
we try to keep the tax rate roughly where it is for industry.
Other states, it is higher, it is way higher than any other
industry would pay. It might be 25 percent of the gross in some
places like that. That is something maybe sometime we ought to
take a look at, because when they do that, what they are
effectively doing is taking money out of a tribe's hand that
would otherwise be spending it on, guess what, health care,
education, services and that sort of thing. There ought to be
some sort of federal limitation that you cannot take more from
a tribe than you would from a business in your own state. I do
not know if we have that ability or that power because
compacting is pretty much a negotiation, but there is a big
difference in some states where the state has really a hammer
over the head of the tribes and uses it as a cash cow.
I am particularly interested, a couple of you made the
remarks about education, so I think you mentioned that, Mr.
Small, and I think you did as well, Mr. Bear, although most of
yours was on health care. Do you actually have a BIE school?
Mr. Small. Yes, we have a school that was built here
probably about 10, 15 years ago after about 30 years of
lobbying for it and we finally got the school built for us and
it houses our junior and senior high schools. One of the
reasons why we have that is because the surrounding school
district that has been educating our youth has somewhat been a
failure to a lot of our people. There are a few success stories
out there but the majority of them were not getting the
educational thing, so the tribes felt at that time it would
need to be building our own school and let us capture those
people before it is too late. Well, I also mentioned that we
added a 6th grade. Well, a lot of our students that are at our
junior and senior high school right now, they come from the
outside districts where they are a failure so they come to the
tribal school to try and catch up, and it takes a lot of effort
on our schoolteachers and staff to bring them back up to speed
and sometimes it just does not quite get there, so we thought
we would go a little lower and capture the 6th grade and see if
we can follow up with the 6th grade all the way to the time
that they graduate, they would have a better educational
opportunity to have that happen.
Mr. Cole. On the funding, is the funding that the Federal
Government provides for the school comparable on a per-pupil
basis with what is provided in the surrounding school
districts?
Mr. Small. I believe right now they are only funding at
about $3,000 per student.
Mr. Cole. So quite a bit less, I would think.
Mr. Small. It is a lot less. It is almost half of what is
on----
Mr. Cole. I am going to keep making this point, but I
think, again, as a committee, we ought to begin to look at
that. We have a federal trust responsibility. I do not see how
in the world you fulfill it if we are not funding students at
the same level that they are being funded in the state around
it. There does not have to be the same level nationally but we
ought to be providing kids comparable economic support with
what they are getting locally.
Mr. Small. Yes.
Mr. Cole. One other quick question, if I can direct it at
you, Mr. Melendez. I was very interested in what you had to say
about the challenges you have with an urban reservation and
health care, and we see a lot of this in Oklahoma as well. Do
you get any particular extra money because you are taking care
of a much larger population than your tribal population?
Mr. Melendez. Not really. It is pretty much the same budget
that we have every year. It increases slightly because of the
overall--you know, I think the President increased Indian
Health Service across the board but it was not really----
Mr. Cole. But there is no special provision for--I know in
Oklahoma we have urban Indian health care facilities that again
deal with large populations. Oklahoma City is not even in
Indian Country. Most of the state is. And so we have one there.
It is a special one to take care of the Native population. In
Tulsa, we have overlapping jurisdiction. There is tribal
jurisdiction but there is also a separate Indian health care
facility that is really non-tribal affiliated to help with
exactly this sort of thing so that the tribes are not picking
up beyond, really their own membership. But is there no BIA
program? I mean, you are clearly in a very special situation.
We are mandating you take care of a very large population and
we do not provide you any extra resources to do that?
Mr. Melendez. Not really. Right now, of every four people
that comes to the door of our health center located in an urban
setting, only one is a tribal member, so it is a four-to-one
ratio, and the urban population, because the State of Nevada is
also a Contract Health Service delivery area, the whole state,
that does not really help the situation because more people are
gravitating to the city for jobs and so we get that increased
number of people that we cannot turn away, because the
crossover. Other tribes 30 miles away come to our brand-new
facility. We cannot turn them away either so they think we have
better services, they come to our facility, saving their own
money and basically using our doctors, and we can only see so
many at one time. So it is a problem for urban tribes.
Mr. Cole. That is something we really need to look at
figuring out what we can do. That is a very unfair burden on
your tribe.
Ms. McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. Representative Cole, you have me thinking of
doing more research on how school-aid formulas are put
together, and I am looking in Minnesota in particular.
But sir, do you know if it is just a state match or if
there is property taxes that are levied that are part of the
blend for the per-pupil dollars that go towards children in
public school?
Mr. Small. The state does not provide anything to our
tribal school.
Ms. McCollum. To your tribal school, but to the public
school district? Because Representative Cole has been making, I
think, an interesting and a very valid point that at least
children in the same state should have an expectation of a
level playing field. For example, in Minnesota, it is in the
constitution so the state has the responsibility, be there
additional property taxes that can be levied so there are
disparities even within the state as to how much children are
receiving, and I think you are looking to go towards an
aggregate. But I am wondering if you know in your state besides
what the state puts in towards the state public school, do
communities levy property taxes and levy money for bonding? You
might not know living where you do, so I do not mean to put you
on the spot.
Mr. Small. Well, no, they do have local levies that they
have for specific, many for construction, but as far as putting
extra money into the actual curriculums and those kinds of
things, I do not think that is occurring there as far as extra
taxes and those kinds of things that go on on the outside. And
Public Law 874 I think provides some of that funding to the
outside school district for the students that do attend there.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Cole. Well, thank you very much, gentlemen, for your
testimony. Once again, we are running behind. It is always my
fault. But thank you very much for what you had to say. I
appreciate it.
If we could, we will call our next panel, and I hope I do
not mispronounce anybody's name: Mr. Suppah, Ms. Pigsley, Ms.
Brigham, Mr. Blythe. Do we have two Ms. Brighams? No, you are
just down twice. I guess you get extra time. And Chairwoman
Kennedy.
Okay. If we could, we will proceed as we did with the last
panel. We will just start on our left, your right, and if you
would identify yourself and then you have got five minutes, and
obviously we try to be generous. I think there is somebody here
who is representing two constituents so we will give you a
little bit of extra time if you need it. If we can, we will go
ahead and get started.
----------
Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF THE WARM SPRINGS RESERVATION OF OREGON
WITNESS
RON SUPPAH, VICE-CHAIRMAN
Mr. Suppah. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I am Ron Suppah,
Vice-Chairman for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs
Reservation of Oregon. I thank you for this chance to testify
today. We did submit our written testimony, and I will just
summarize briefly what the testimony states.
I also want to express the Warm Springs Tribes'
appreciation for your efforts to maintain the BIA and IHS
budgets serving the Indian people. In these times, we thank you
for your courage and your dedication.
We wish the economic picture could be brighter, Mr.
Chairman, because there are still many areas in the BIA and IHS
budgets that need attention. Below, I want to set out the Warm
Springs tribes' priorities for fiscal year 2012 increases.
First, Warm Springs is a timber tribe with approximately
250,000 commercial forest acres, and we ask that the BIA's
forestry and forestry project budgets be increased
substantially. Since fiscal year 2004, the forestry budget has
fallen behind inflation by more than 40 percent. This loss of
forest management capacity could be testing the bureau's
ability to fulfill its trust responsibilities. Regarding the
forest projects budget, we ask that it receive a $5 million
increase for reducing the backlog of commercial forest acres in
need of forest development treatment throughout Indian forests
across the country.
The Warm Springs Reservation also must manage for northern
spotted owl, spring Chinook salmon and steelhead, all ESA
listed species, with inadequate resources. For the owl, we
receive less than half of what we received more than 12 years
ago. To help the BIA endangered species budget meet its
mandates, Warm Springs requests that it be funded at $5 million
with $2.3 million of that dedicated to northern spotted owl and
marbled murrelet.
Warm Springs supports the increases provided for law
enforcement in recent years. That has put more law enforcement
personnel in tribal communities but they remain unfortunately
low paid and personnel turnover is a big problem. Therefore, we
are encouraged that portions of the fiscal year 2012
investigations and police services increase and a portion of
the detention and corrections fiscal year 2012 request are to
help boost tribal base budgets which can help address this low-
pay problem.
We also support the conservation law enforcement officer
initiative. Such personnel are needed on our reservation where
they are patrolling our forests and waterways and protecting
our natural resources and allow our Warm Springs police to
focus on community safety.
In education, for fiscal year 2012, we urge that you double
Johnson-O'Malley funding to $27 million. Johnson-O'Malley is
the only elementary and secondary education support provided by
the BIE for the more than 85 percent of Indian children who are
in public schools. Its funding has declined to just $13.4
million for fiscal year 2012 and it really should be at least
doubled to preserve a semblance of BIE commitment to those
Indian public school students.
In the Indian Health Service, Warm Springs requests you
round up the $89.6 million increase for Contract Health
Services to a full $100 million to simply underscore your
commitment to addressing the $1 million backlog in deferred
services. In the Northwest, where there is no IHS hospital,
Contract Health Service remains a critical issue. Also in IHS,
we request that $50 million be added to contract support costs,
specifically for new contracts, and that those funds be used
for that purpose. Today, IHS directs all contract support funds
to existing contracts, basically shutting out any new
contracts. Simply equity demands that we change.
Finally, we ask that the subcommittee check to make sure
the IHS northwest regional office's distribution of
discretionary funds fairly and fully includes the direct
service tribes. It seems altogether too often that those funds
go to self-governance tribes, and direct service tribes just
want to make sure we are treated fairly.
That concludes my testimony, and I would like to thank the
subcommittee for its time and attention.
[The statement of Ron Suppah follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you very much. If we could, we will move
along.
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF THE UMATILLA INDIAN RESERVATION
WITNESS
N. KATHRYN BRIGHAM, SECRETARY, BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Ms. Brigham. Good morning. My name is Kathryn Brigham. I go
by Kat Brigham. I am a member of the Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reservation. I am also the elected official for
the tribe and serve as the board of trustees' secretary, and I
am here today on behalf of the tribe supporting the Indian
Health Service to approve the administrative IHS budget in the
amount of $4.6 billion, which includes much-needed increases in
the Contract Health Service of $89.6 million, catastrophic
health emergency funds, $10 million, and contract support of
$63.3 million. The other thing we support is the BIA public
safety adding $30 million to the tribal courts for public
defenders and related extension costs and BIA rights
protection, restoring the 2,101,000 elimination of litigation
support attorney fees.
We appreciate you guys stepping up for the fiscal year 2011
and 2012 and we are hoping, we know this is tough times and we
are hoping that in these tough times you are able to step up
again to help us in this funding crisis. I was really pleased
to hear, you know, you have accepted the trust responsibility
to the tribes and the obligations that you have. We signed
treaties. The Federal Government has a trust responsibility to
the tribes and we are continuing to ask that the Federal
Government live up to that trust responsibility in seeking the
funding that we have been asking for for some time. I think we
have made substantial improvements through the gaming but we
also need assistance as well. Our Contract Health Service is
establishing priorities and saying yes or no, you can have
contract health, and this is early in the year, I mean, so this
is something that we all have to face.
And I just also want to add, you know, you brought up
education. Our tribe has a charter school that was developed.
This is our seventh year. That charter school has been
supported by the Pendleton School District, and with that
charter school, we are able to--we have increased our
graduation rates. It used to be down to 40 percent. Now we are
up to almost 97 percent.
Mr. Cole. Wow.
Ms. Brigham. So it is a substantial increase, and while
these students are not only learning, they are learning their
grades, keeping their grades up, but they are also learning
their language, culture and history, so we are really pleased
with our charter school but we want to increase that as well.
We are looking for a building too because right now it is in
one of our old buildings that, you know, we vacated and so they
are in there.
I think also we have real concerns with the enforcement. We
are really glad with the law enforcement act that was passed
but we also need to have the trained judges and the training
that is needed to implement the law enforcement act.
I guess, again, you know, I thank you for this opportunity
and I support everything that was basically said this morning.
I think it is something that is needed.
Do you want me to go on to CRITFC?
[The statement of N. Kathryn Brigham follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Sure.
----------
Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
COLUMBIA RIVER INTER-TRIBAL FISH COMMISSION
WITNESS
N. KATHRYN BRIGHAM, SECRETARY
Ms. Brigham. Again, this time I am the Secretary of the
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, a commission that
has been formed since 1977, and this is an organization to
provide technical assistance to the four member tribes: the
Yakima Nation of Washington, Warm Springs and Umatilla of
Oregon and Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho, and so we coordinate our
actions through this body in providing technical assistance to
the four tribes, and we are known as CRITFC.
You know, our base budget is through the BIA rights
protection implementation account. Our programs are carried out
pursuant to the Indian Self-Determination and Assistance Act.
We conduct comprehensive treaty rights implementation programs
and attempt to remain compliant with court orders such as U.S.
v. Oregon, regional intergovernmental agreements such as the
accord that was signed with the federal agencies, and the
Pacific salmon treaty, an international treaty. Together, the
tribes' managers and co-managers, we are about the size of
Georgia in the area in which they cover. We also have taken a
lead in ecosystem management. We are looking at watershed to
watershed. We are looking at water quality, and we are also
working with five states plus the federal agencies and some
private individuals in trying to develop a coordinated,
collaborative approach in addressing the salmon restoration.
Our principals in the region are first to halt the decline
of the salmon, and I wanted to show you this graph, and this
graph is important to us simply because it shows this is what
has been happening under the federal and state leadership. When
the tribes start taking leadership, we started seeing a trend
of increases. We went down here and went back up here. Twenty
ten is up here, 2011 is even going to be higher for our fall
Chinook, and this also shows the trends that we have done with
natural stocks, with ESA stocks, and so we are working on those
and we have also been working--and I want to give this to you
and I also want to let you know that, you know, I know
Congressman Norm Dicks and I have got into it over tribal
science, but I wanted to assure him----
Mr. Dicks. We will always work together.
Ms. Brigham. Yes, we will. I wanted to assure you, and I am
sorry Mr. Simpson is gone but we have been working with the
University of Idaho in trying to develop a really rigorous
science approach on how to address genetics and rebuilding of
our naturally spawning fish so we are working hard, and I think
we have a good approach because one of our goals is to protect
our first foods, which is in the Pacific Northwest, and each of
us have our first foods.
I think with tribal leadership it shows that we are making
positive steps to rebuilding stocks, and I can remember when we
did not have any salmon to harvest and now our fishermen are
glad that they are fishing.
Specifically, at a minimum, I would like to recommend that
we restore the entire rights protection implementation account
to its 2010 level of $30,471,000. This is to meet our current
needs, and we also request $7,712,000 for the Columbia River
Fisheries Management, $3 million over the President's budget
request. We also request a restored level of $4,800,000 to the
U.S. Pacific salmon treaty, which is $694,000 above the
President's request, and this is to implement the U.S.-Canada
treaty that we have signed. We have what we call a triple crown
in the Pacific Northwest, which is the U.S.-Canada treaty,
which is a 10-year agreement that we signed in 2008. We have
the accords that three of the CRITFC tribes have signed which
is a 10-year agreement that was signed in 2008, and then we
also have the U.S. v. Oregon management plan, which is a court-
ordered plan that is a 10-year agreement that we also signed in
2008, and we will be celebrating the accords on May 26th, I
think it is, so this month, and looking at the progress that we
have made in signing the accords to help us, you know, rebuild
some of the natural stocks because one of the things that we
have seen is that, you know, ESA is out there but at the same
time, there are other stocks out there as well, and for this
reason, I would also--and I know, again, Congressman Norm and I
do not necessarily agree but I think the mass marking issue
needs to be revisited because those stocks that are on the
chart that show higher, some of those stocks, and I can give
examples where the Imnaha tributary, we are killing 600 stock
fish that are coming back to the tributary, and the only way
they can tell them apart is because they are mass marked. So we
think we should be looking at that to determine, you know, how
we can help rebuild our naturally spawning fish.
That is all. Thank you.
[The statement of N. Kathryn Brigham follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you very much.
Larry, we will go to you next.
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
INTERTRIBAL TIMBER COUNCIL
WITNESS
C. LARRY BLYTHE, BOARD MEMBER
Mr. Blythe. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee. I am Larry Blythe. I am the Vice Chief for the
Eastern Band of Cherokees in North Carolina. I am here today as
a board member for the Intertribal Timber Council, or ITC, to
testify on its behalf. Intertribal Timber Council is a
consortium of about 70 timber-owning tribes across America, and
we of course advocate for forest management practices. We
advocate for funding for tribes wherever they are located. We
control about 10 million acres of property.
Mr. Chairman, the ITC wants to thank you for protecting
Indian programs. These are difficult times including for those
of us in the forestry business, and your support is really
appreciated.
As timber tribes, keeping our forest healthy and productive
is essential. We rely on our forests for physical and spiritual
sustenance and for governmental revenues and community jobs. To
help sustain our forests and our local economies, the ITC is
developing a concept we call anchor forests. An anchor forest
is a large tract of forestland that is dedicated to being
maintained as healthy and productive. This must include related
infrastructure such as sawmills, and the community and its
workforce, which provide the capacity and resources necessary
to actively manage and preserve the forest. As sawmills go
away, the forest markets and communities wither, and the forest
itself can subside into a poorly managed or unmanaged state
vulnerable to fire and infestation and disease. As timber
tribes wedding to our forest homelands, we cannot allow this to
occur. Our reservation forest operations and communities should
be viewed as anchor forests. They need to be sustained.
To that end, we ask the subcommittee to direct the BIA and
Forest Service to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of anchor
forests in Indian Country, to examine their role, what is
needed to preserve tribal forests and their related economies
and how those needs might be addressed. We would also ask that
agencies be directed to work with the Intertribal Timber
Council and timber tribes on such an evaluation.
Mr. Chairman, in conjunction with a study of anchor
forests, the Intertribal Timber Council urges the subcommittee
to consider a range of forestry-related program increases. We
recognize this is a difficult environment but Indian forestry
has historically been underfunded. Much of what we request is
simply urging the tribal forestry-related programs be funded at
something close to or at least closer to similar budgets in
other federal agencies. For the BIA forestry program, we
support the $1 million increase for tribal priority allocation
and urge that the increase be a total of $5 million. For years,
independent reports have documented Indian per-acre forestry
funding at about half of that for the Forest Service, and more
recently, BIA TPA forestry funding has lagged further and
further behind other federal forest management agencies.
It is even worse for BIA forestry projects, which has been
an outright decline for seven years. To correct this disparity,
the ITC requests an increase of $8 million, $5 million of which
is to reduce the 800,000-acre backlog in commercial forests in
need of replanting and thinning.
For BIA endangered species, ITC requests a total of $5
million based on the same per-acre funding as the Bureau of
Land Management.
The same goes for cooperative landscape management where
BIA's total funding for 52 million acres of Indian trust land
is a mere $200,000. To be treated as an equal among the
Interior Department's other agencies, the BIA should receive at
least $17.5 million.
Mr. Chairman, we support BIA's new and needed conservation
law enforcement officer program. It will help protect tribal
trust natural resources and ease the burden on regular tribal
law enforcement personnel.
Finally, for the Department of Interior wild land fire
management, the ITC asks that Interior and Forest Service wild
land fire funding and accounting be standardized. We also ask
that $44.6 million be restored to Interior hazards fuel
reduction. Limiting fuels funding to the wild land-urban
interface endangers the lives of our people who live all
throughout the lands and abandons the trust responsibility to
protect our forest assets.
Lastly, we ask that $6.8 million be restored to Interior
burned area rehabilitation. Again, the United States must abide
by its fiduciary obligation to care for our forest resources
including stabilizing and restoring burned-over acres.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. Thank you.
[The statement of C. Larry Blythe follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you very much.
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
SILETZ TRIBE
WITNESS
DELORES PIGSLEY, CHAIRMAN, TRIBAL COUNCIL
Ms. Pigsley. Good morning. My name is Delores Pigsley, and
I welcome the opportunity to be here today and to provide
testimony. I am the Chairman of the Confederated Tribes, the
Siletz Indians, and I have served over 32 years on the tribal
council and 26 of those years as the tribal chairman. We are a
small tribe on the Oregon coast. I have testified previously
before this committee and many committees in the past and know
that you listen and act accordingly.
The tribe understands the whole Nation is going through a
tough economic time, and so are we. However, even in good
times, we are sorely underfunded in critical areas. We are a
self-governance tribe and have the ability to move funds around
when it is necessary to cover priority services. We use grants
from government, tribal resources and private organizations to
help us cover necessary programs. It is the only way we can
maintain our services. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has never
been adequately funded to cover the costs of programs nor allow
enough money under contract support costs.
For tribal court, our tribal court budget is $235,000. Of
this amount, only $21,000 comes from BIA funds. Other funds
must be used to fully fund the court including Department of
Interior, Department of Justice and tribal resources. The
fiscal year 2012 request is for a $1.2 million reduction from
the $24.7 million that was appropriated last year.
Education is a very high priority. Every year we see large
growth in the number of students applying for funds for adult
education, adult vocational training and higher education. We
recognize the problem is a good one for us. We have more
students in college and adult programs than ever before in our
history. However, our funding for higher education is at the
same level it was at in 1995. For the years 2004 to 2010, that
six years, the tribe received $665,000 for AVT, and the actual
cost was $1.1 million. That is a $454,000 shortfall. And for
higher education for the same period, the tribe received BIA
funds of $827,000. Our actual cost was $5.1 million, and that
is a shortfall of $4.3 million. Education is our highest
priority. For 2012, the BIA is requesting $32 million, a $1.8
million reduction, and this is unacceptable to us and it is
insulting to see such a reduction where within this area we
have the greatest need.
Charter schools were mentioned. We have a charter school in
Siletz, and it was necessary because the state was closing the
school. We had a 75 percent dropout rate, and it was necessary
for the tribe to get involved and keep the school in Siletz,
and today we fund that school along with state funds. Our
commitment is about a quarter of a million dollars a year.
Funding for boarding schools such as Chimowa Indian School
is totally inadequate. Boarding schools are criticized for the
level of education that students receive, and if additional
funds were provided for these students, they could reach the
same potential that we recognize in our students who attend
public and private schools, and I urge that someone take the
time to review this situation, perhaps visit Chimowa Indian
boarding school in Salem, Oregon.
Contract support costs have been mentioned many times.
Without adequate contract support fund costs, the promise of
the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act
to allow tribes to contract and compact to administer programs
formerly administered by federal agencies such as Bureau of
Indian Affairs goes unfulfilled. Tribes have increased the
quality and level of service to our tribal members under self-
governance yet tribes are left to fill the shortfall by having
to reduce services. A good example is our Indian child welfare
program where positions cannot be filled because of inadequate
funds. Workers currently carry workloads two and three times
higher than that in state programs. Failure to adequately fund
contract support costs defeats the program's very purpose to
improve services and the lives of our members. Tribes go to
extraordinary lengths to pool together resources to meet
priority needs for our members, often at the expense of
foregoing or reducing other services.
I hope that you are convinced by our written testimony that
increases to these and other programs are essential for tribes
to create safe, healthy and functioning communities, and I
thank you for allowing me to share these recommendations.
[The statement of Delores Pigsley follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Chairwoman Kennedy.
---------- --
--------
Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF GRAND RONDE
WITNESS
CHERYLE A. KENNEDY, CHAIRWOMAN
Ms. Kennedy. Good morning to you, Chairman Simpson,
Congressman Cole, Congressman Moran, Congresswoman McCollum and
Congressman Dicks. My name is Cheryle Kennedy. I am the
Chairwoman of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in Oregon.
Mr. Simpson, it has been a pleasure to have worked with a
number of your tribes from the great State of Idaho. I served
as executive director of the Northwest Portland Area Indian
Health Board, representing 43 tribes in Oregon, Washington and
Idaho. I am also honored to serve on the Secretary Sebelius's
Secretary Tribal Advisory Committee, called the STAC. This is
the first tribal advisory committee established to advise the
Secretary in the history of the Department of the Health and
Human Services.
I want to thank the subcommittee for meeting with Native
American tribes who have the unique relationship with the
United States. I want to thank you for your leadership that you
have taken in addressing concerns and problems of Native
Americans across the United States. My testimony is also shaped
as far as the 30-year health career that I had as a health
administrator for a number of tribes. I also come from a tribe
that was terminated for nearly 30 years, seeing those effects
and suffering those injustices. Many of them still remain today
and we lag far behind other tribes of the United States.
I want to specifically talk about some of the things that
have already been addressed so I will take a departure from the
written comments, but those things are on Contract Health
Service. As you have heard many tribes mention here today,
being in an area where we have no hospitals, it is a great
extra burden on us. We are dependent Contract Health Service
dollars for all of our hospital care that we receive. The
Indian Health Service does have a formula whereby CHS funds are
distributed. We believe it is an unfair formula. There is not
enough weight given to the areas that do not have hospitals and
we would like to see that there be another look in another
committee that is formed to address these important issues.
Contract support costs are also very important for tribes.
They are what supports strong governments, and if you do not
have dollars to support your strong governments, you have one
of two decisions that you make. One is that you take those
funds to support your government out of the program costs, so
when we talk about Indian Health Service and Bureau of Indian
Affairs, which are so greatly underfunded anyhow for programs,
our choice and the only choice we have is to take from those
costs and to support the governmental needs that we do have,
not a very good choice at all but a choice that is forced upon
us because of the insufficient funds that are there.
I want to also mention that Dr. Roubideaux, who is the
Indian Health Service Director, conducted listening sessions
with tribes and she talked about many of the disparities that
are existing in health care. One of the programs that she set
up was the Contract Health Service's formula, and we discussed
last year in this listening session the problems that are
associated, particularly for dependent area tribes, and we want
to come straightforward with some recommendations that were
developed under that work group. One is that the alternate
resources, Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance and changes
under health reform when making CHS distribution. Two is for
the contract support services dependency. Three, the use of
actual medical inflation when allocating CHS funds. Four is the
unique circumstances of CHS dependent areas that must be
addressed by IHS and Congress. Otherwise these systems will
continue to be plagued with chronic underfunding and may not be
able to capitalize on health care coverage expansions that will
come with health reform. And five, to address the lack of
access to the Catastrophic Health Emergency Fund, or CHEF.
Congress should consider establishing an intermediate risk pool
for CHS dependent areas.
In sum, the work group formula does not meet the test of
fairness in the way it was developed or the results it
produced. Grand Ronde along with the Northwest Portland Area
Indian Health Board is ready to work on developing this new
area. In addition, again, to the CHS formulas, I strongly
support the IHS budget formulation work group request for a
$118 million increase to be provided for Contract Health
Services. Considering the estimated CHS program needs exceed $1
billion----
Mr. Cole. If we could, we are about out of time, so if we
could----
Ms. Kennedy. I will. Thank you so much.
The other thing, I will move on to a couple of other areas.
I want to especially say that there is great underfunding in
the infrastructure for all tribes, that we want the Congress to
work with us so that funds are directly distributed to tribes
rather than going through the middleman, which is the states,
often that is a very cumbersome policy, and that public safety
services need to be provided to a much greater degree for
tribes.
Again, thank you for this time to present this testimony
and for your willingness to listen.
[The statement of Cheryle A. Kennedy follows:]
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Mr. Cole. Thank you very much.
I am going to forego my time. With Mr. Simpson's and Mr.
Moran's permission, Mr. Dicks obviously is our former chairman
and the ranking member of the entire committee, I know his time
is always limited so it is great to have you here, Mr.
Chairman, and I wanted to recognize you first.
Mr. Dicks. Well, I just wanted to respond to the questions
about the Columbia River and why we have moved towards mass
marking in selective fisheries, and that is because we want to
protect wild salmon, and one of the things I want to compliment
the tribes on is their supplementation programs where you take
wild fish and use them as brood stock so that the hatchery fish
are as close to wild as possible.
In California, they did not mark their fish and now they do
not have a fishery because they are shut down under the
Endangered Species Act. I just completely disagree with your
conclusion that somehow not marking these fish is a better way
to go. It simply is not, and the scientists say all of the
habitat work that we do is enhanced if you lower the stray
rates and you have to be able to identify the hatchery fish and
the wild fish in order to do that.
So I hope you can get some science. When you do, please
bring it to my office and we will talk about it. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Ms. Brigham. Can I respond?
Mr. Cole. Absolutely.
Ms. Brigham. You know, Congressman Norm Dicks and I have
disagreed on this for quite some time. We have partnered up
with the University of Idaho and we are looking at the genetics
of how we can identify, you know, natural stocks, and we are
really glad, you know, because this is another graph that shows
some of the work that the tribes have done since we started
getting into re building naturally spawning fish, and our
numbers have gone up, but also, you know, if----
Mr. Dicks. How do you know?
Ms. Brigham. Look at the graph. I mean, our graph shows we
have got positive numbers.
Mr. Dicks. If the fish were marked, then you would
definitely know they were wild fish. You cannot tell unless you
do extensive DNA analysis whether they are wild or hatchery
fish.
Ms. Brigham. I have asked scientists, a number of them, can
you tell me if it is a hatchery fish or a natural fish if it
was not mass marked, and the answer is no. I mean, they cannot
tell the difference.
Mr. Dicks. They can with DNA analysis. They can tell that.
Ms. Brigham. With DNA, you can tell that those supplement
fish are coming back.
Mr. Dicks. But we do not ask you to mark the supplemented
fish because we want you to encourage supplementation of wild
stocks.
Ms. Brigham. We are just asking that this be reviewed, I
mean, simply because we are taking--I mean, one of the Imnaha,
we had 1,000 fish coming back to Imnaha. We had to take 600 of
those fish out and destroy them, and they came from the
supplementation that you are telling us was a success, and we
had to destroy them because they were mass marked.
Mr. Dicks. That is not true. The Nisqually Indians got
11,000 fish back to the hatchery. They gave them to the local
food banks for hungry people and hungry tribal members. You do
not have to do away with the fish. The fish are perfectly good.
You can use them for a socially important purpose, and I will
be glad to help you on that if you need help.
Ms. Brigham. Okay. I used the wrong word. By destroying, I
mean you are not putting it back into the system, and that is
exactly what happened is, they got put into different areas,
you know, so people could use them, so they were not buried or
anything like that, but they were put to human consumption use
but they could have been put back into the tributaries to help
rebuild those naturally spawning fish.
Mr. Dicks. Well, if you have a hatchery, you take a certain
amount of the fish that you have caught and you take the eggs
and the sperm and put it in the hatchery and then you use that
for the next year's run of fish. I mean, this is not rocket
science.
Ms. Brigham. We are having a future salmon conference on
June 1st and 2nd in Portland. We would like to invite all of
you to come or send some staff people to come to this meeting
in Portland, Oregon, and we are going to talk about some of
these things that Congressman Dicks and I are talking about.
Mr. Cole. I would just say, speaking as a member of a
Plains tribe, you might want to think about buffalo. It is a
lot easier to keep track of them.
With that, let me move to Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Simpson. The only problem with buffalo is, you do not
know if they were raised in a pasture that is fenced or in the
wild.
Mr. Dicks. That is right.
Mr. Cole. It does not take long to figure out which they
are.
Mr. Simpson. Well, you know, I always love these
discussions. If I have a look at the DNA of a fish to know
whether it is something, I question what the difference is, to
some degree, but we do mark hatchery fish.
Mr. Dicks. We do, and it is the right thing to do.
Mr. Simpson. Yeah, they got blunt noses from hitting up
against the cement.
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Chairman, it is the right thing to do.
Mr. Simpson. Never mind. Since I was not here for the
testimony, I do not really have any questions except to say
that obviously your testimony is important about what we are
going to do as we put together the 2012 appropriations bill,
and we look forward to working with you as we do that, and
since the subject came up earlier, and it has absolutely
nothing to do with this, but since the subject came up in an
earlier panel, I just wanted to bring this down for Mr. Cole.
Mr. Cole. I will put this--just so you know, Mr. Simpson in
the spirit of being such a good sport, as you know, we lost to
them five years ago. He once brought me a pen with the school
colors, and I thought that was very nice. He said just press
it, and I did, and it immediately played the last 90 seconds of
the game so I would not forget it ever. So this will be right
with my pen, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Has he shown you his Statue of Liberty play?
Mr. Cole. I believe I have seen enough Statues of Liberty
out of Boise State.
Mr. Moran, I am sorry I have lost control of this meeting
but you are next.
Mr. Moran. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just
thinking, you know, I live in an urban metropolitan area right
here in Washington, DC. Boise State-Nevada, we know those are
two darn good teams so we watch them for our entertainment. We
do not care that much who wins as long as it is well-fought,
but they have established themselves, particularly Boise State,
over the years, and so we turn on, we put our attention to
things when we know what they stand for. They stand for good
football, sportsmanship, whatever. And likewise, we have no
salmon in northern Virginia but we eat a whole lot of it. We
consume an enormous amount of salmon because it is frankly the
healthiest fish there is. But we buy from people and
restaurants where we know what they stand for, and my concern
is that if salmon are adulterated, if we cannot trust whether
they are farm-raised or wild salmon--and obviously there is a
premium. If you go into any one of these stores, Whole Foods,
you know, Trader Joe's, wherever you go, you will find a
discriminating buyer looking for the wild salmon because they
know there is more protein there, it is healthier, et cetera,
et cetera, and they pay an enormous premium. It is like two,
three times what they paid for the farm raised. And my concern
is if it is adulterated--if we cannot really tell the
difference between one or the other then certainly the value of
the wild goes down and there are bound to be articles
questioning whether they are really wild salmon. You can be
sure that the paper is going to jump all over it if we cannot
prove it. And in fact the attraction of buying salmon generally
goes down. That has an adverse affect on everyone.
So I have been thinking about this. I--at first when Mr.
Dicks--we are going to tag, mark all the salmon. You are going
to what? That is the most bizarre thing. But actually the more
I look into it, it does not strike me as very bizarre because
you have got to maintain the integrity of wild salmon because
it has an enormous value. And it needs to be what you say it
is. And so just a random comment from somebody and I may be the
only one who does not have any salmon in my district, but you
are not going to be raising as many salmon and you are
certainly not going to be getting the revenue unless my
constituents continue consuming it and being willing to pay
very high prices for the best wild salmon. So with that, that
is all I have to say, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for having the
hearing.
Ms. Brigham. Can I share?
Mr. Moran. Certainly.
Ms. Brigham. We have this exact--exact what you're talking
about exactly happened to the Umatilla Tribe. In the Umatilla
River, we lost our salmon for 75 years. In the Walla Walla
Basin we lost our salmon for 100 years. This is a graph of the
work that we have done and we are actually co-managing with the
State of Washington or Oregon on how to rebuild naturally
spawning fish in the Umatilla River. And we have been
successful. We are actually retaining annually over 3,000 fish
into the Umatilla River that we are harvesting at a 50/50
allocation. Last year was the first time in 100 years that the
Umatilla Tribe opened the season in the Walla Walla Basin and
we are hoping, I mean, we are hoping this year numbers are
going to show up so that we can have another season. And if we
are taking the same approach we are taking we are seeing
hatcheries or nurseries and helping us rebuild our naturally
spawning fish so that they can be spawning naturally into the
system and rebuild and continue to come back.
Mr. Moran. That is all good.
Ms. Brigham. Yes.
Mr. Moran. That is all well and good, but when you showed
us the last chart and it was wonderful that it was going up in
a very positive incline, but it does not distinguish between
farm raised and hatchery raised or wild salmon.
Ms. Richardson. Okay.
Mr. Moran. And thus distinguish between the value of each,
nor did the first chart. I mean, the--even though it is a
smaller share, I suspect that the wild salmon bring in almost
as much revenue as the much greater share of farm raised. But
for example, this is a small--the natural versus farm. The
natural is as pretty much at a plateau, but farm I understand
is going way up. But these natural salmon may be brining in
almost as much revenue as the farm. It is another supply and
demand. Now, I do not want to get into an argumentative
situation. I am just giving you the perspective somebody that
you know provides the revenue for a lot of this, but you know
has a very different perspective than those of you who have
salmon in your wonderful river systems. So I will not be
argumentative as they say and I have said it again I--you know
these things I am just learning and a lot of you, you all know
much more than I. I just thought I would share that perspective
that is all.
Ms. Brigham. Okay. Just for clarification on the Columbia
River we do not have farm fish. It is hatchery fish. There is a
real difference. There is.
Mr. Cole. I think I know why they call you Cat. This is
kind of a cat fight here. Anyway, Ms. McCollum.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank St. Catherine's
football team. My college alumni is undefeated. That is because
we do not have one. So I will put my team up against--you know.
The issues of economic livelihood--we heard about and I would
like to kind of shift this just a little bit. We heard from
some tribes in the Dakotas about buffalo and slaughter and
access and small business support and doing things with the
buffalo with the way that they are slaughtered and a way that
speaks to tribal customs, usage, the spirituality, the
connection of giving thanks for the buffalo. In Minnesota we
have buffalo, we have wild rice, we have the issue between
paddy rice and wild rice which is not even designated. I mean,
we do not even have in the agriculture area our tribes' wild
rice--anything can be called wild rice. So it is protecting the
tribe making economic recovery and jobs off of that and then we
have walleye. We have the issue of walleye and tribal rights
protecting stock for that to come back in force. So if you
could talk about that for just a few minutes the importance of
schools, vocational training, and then having the ladder up
with working with the business, the economic growth in your
tribes.
Ms. Pigsley. Our tribe is a timber tribe and as we know in
the Northwest, timber tribes are suffering greatly. If it--to
be honest with you if it were not for us having a tribal casino
and using those revenues, we would be in serious trouble with
all of our programs, our education program and everything that
we have. We cut 2.5 million board feet of timber a year and
that does supply the tribe with some income, but it is not
anywhere near what the revenue we get back from our casino
operation. And that is how we fund--that is what we use to
supplement the education program. And I mentioned in our
testimony it is a good problem to have knowing that in 1995 I
think we had 35 or 40 students in college and today we have 195
students in college. But we are paying the price for that by as
a self-governance tribe we can move funds around, but there is
not--we do not even--what we paid just in higher education from
our own resources is more than the money that we get from the
Bureau of Indian Affairs for all the programs. And so because
education and because we were a determinate tribe and education
is such a high priority we--I mentioned we began a charter
school. It was a great school and it was because the school
district was closing the school and they were going to bus kids
from Siletz to you know 10 miles away. And when they did that
with our high school students we saw a 75 percent dropout rate.
When they got to high school they just did not go to school
because of the bussing and because you could not play in sports
and you could not do all the other extra-curricular activities.
And so we decided we were going to keep the school in Siletz
and fund it and we funded it out of timber--or out of gaming
revenues to keep those kids in Siletz. And we have seen an
extra-ordinary good result in students achieving, graduating,
and in meeting the state requirements for whatever level of
education and attend--school attendance. So termination was
devastating for the tribe. Restoration was extremely--an
extremely happy time for the tribe, but we have never been
able--and I think Cheryle mentioned it. We have never been able
to catch up with those needs that we see.
Mr. Blythe. Mr. Chairman, just back to some of my
testimony. When we talk about gaming tribes and some of us are
very fortunate with locations that we are in and metropolitan
areas, major corridors, some tribes are not. And so we have to
look at the resource that they have to be able to work with.
And we have to keep Congress and those people that provide
funding and the managers that do the work are cognizant that
this is truly a trust responsibility. And whether you have a
casino on your property or not, that is what makes you the
unique people you are, that land base and protecting that land
base, enhancing that land base. And at any opportunity for
employment I am sure that we can all say that you know if we
can put a mill back in business with good sustainable forestry
practices then if it is 50 jobs that is real, that is real to a
lot of communities and economies. So you know our--the
testimony from the Inter-Tribal Timber Council is please look
at what we need in those areas whether it is Navaho or Warm
Springs or Yakama, or Menominee to enhance and to grow those
businesses that are going to enhance and grow the spin off.
That is when you know a lot of people at home we have a great
casino. A lot of our people at home do not like that type of
work. They want to be outdoors doing with their hands as they
have always done and getting that sense of satisfaction. So you
know if we put people in the woods thinning and planting and
growing the future then they have a legacy, their children have
a legacy and it builds on and continues to build. So you know
now it is a lot of philosophy I guess, but it is real. It is
real to our people that live and work and maintain our lives
every day. And you know whether it is fire suppression dollars
or whether it is forest development dollars or whether it is
mil enhancement dollars that is what we need. The casinos
hopefully will be here forever. We do supplement a lot of our
programs as some of the committee here is aware, but we still
have those folks and we still have that need. We are a high
tourist destination with needs of insect disease control, fire
suppression as many of the other tribes across America are.
So----
Ms. Kennedy. I would like to provide a comment also. With
the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Tour stating we were
terminating it, everything was taken away from us. We had no
land base. Everything that we got we have to buy back. And so
we do have some timber--not very much, but we do depend upon
that. We have a casino that has been, you know I say it is
divine justice, but it too had its great downturn during this
economic time and we had to cut our budgets by over $2 million
for our government services. We provide all of our health care,
education as many of the tribes of the northwest have, but we
did hire an economic developer. We are probably one of the
biggest employers. We employ about 1,500 people for our casino
and our motto was to keep them at all costs, not to lay off and
we did not lay off any during this economic down times. We--
with our economic development we are looking at all kinds of
businesses, but we do have some real estate property that
provides some jobs. Also an economic boost we have looked at
the medical industry to start working in that area. The Siletz
Tribe and us have a partnership for developing a property there
in Salem by the Chemawa School so we are looking at any kind of
stimulus that can be added to us. We are good partners as well
as very wise and astute in building businesses. So we see that
the future is bright and we certainly look forward to any help
that we can get along the way and education is of course as you
hear from all tribes. You know I get amazed sometimes we want
to build institutions to incarcerate our youth and I--and I,
too shake my head at that thinking that these are children,
they need to be taught. They need education. There are some
that need perhaps that stronger hand, but I really--I am a
believer in education.
Mr. Cole. I want to bring us to close because we are
running way behind schedule and I am going to turn the meeting
back over to my chairman. I have a meeting upstairs, but I want
to note I am leaving with my Boise State helmet, my tail
between my legs and--but I will be planning a rematch for the
national title game this year because we are going to be very,
very good, Mr. Chairman. But anyway.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cole. Thank you. Turn it over and call the next panel.
Mr. Simpson [presiding]. Thanks, Tom. The next panel,
Joseph Pavel, Lawrence LaPointe, Billy Frank, Jr., and Ray
Peters. Jim, thanks for having such an interest in wild salmon
versus hatchery salmon.
Mr. Moran. I try to learn.
Mr. Dicks. You know, no I--well it is interesting that what
you saw here was a little bit about the debate that has been
going on for about 40 years that things would go on top of
that. I mean, it is not to say how much of it is land use,
water usury, storm water, having all of the--and then you add
all of the--yeah and all for your hands--in blocking the--at
Manchester, Washington we took the last of the sock-eye salmon
from Red Fish Lake in Idaho and did a captive breeding program
and restored that run and it is amazing. You know things--the
farm fish are in pens and they feed them just----
Mr. Simpson. It is like the difference between the free
range chicken and----
Mr. Moran. There is a difference between wild fish and
hatchery fish. But you can keep them very close if you take the
wild fish and use them as brood stock in the hatcheries. So the
farm fish----
Mr. Simpson. Is that right, Billy?
Mr. Frank. That is right. Thank you. We got them coming
back 22,000. That is right and 11,000.
Mr. Simpson. Who is first? Who wants to go first?
Mr. Frank. I will.
Mr. Simpson. Go ahead.
----------
Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
SKOKOMISH TRIBAL NATION
WITNESS
JOSEPH PAVEL, VICE CHAIRMAN
Mr. Pavel. All right, thank you, Mr. Chairman,
Representatives of the committee. It is my pleasure to be here.
I am Joseph Pavel, Vice Chairman of the Skokomish Tribe in the
Pacific Northwest. I was here last year and appreciate all the
support and funding we got. I would just like to make one note
to the written testimony you received. On the second page it
says we received a 40,000 increase in our law enforcement base
funding. I would just like to remind the committee that we
never had any law enforcement funding in our base. This was law
enforcement funding put into our base. As a 638 Tribe, the
Skokomish Tribe never did have an enforcement program well as a
PL874, that is seated our jurisdiction to the State so as
through self-governance we have been able to out of that base
direct money toward law enforcement. So we have built up
program on Cauble together over the years so this 40,000
increase to our funding for law enforcement is a first and
really
appreciate that entirely--a lot. I am sorry. I would just like
to emphasize that and we also got a onetime funding for a
probation officer and that was a great boon to our program. Our
court system, we utilize an Inter-Tribal, a traveling court
system: Northwest Indian Court system that provides our court
and prosecutorial services. And as such without a probation
officer or somebody to do administrative work within our local
area every time an offender or violator--they had to go to the
bench and so we had a huge backlog there. So with this
probation officer we are able to clear that off. We developed
a--was able to implement a community service program. We have
always had community service as part of the penalty, but nobody
to operate it. So that has been a great resource. I know that I
also function as a Natural Resources Director for the Skokomish
Tribe. We have been able to use some of those folks. I think it
looks good for the community to see these people out there
doing things. That helps the operations that we have this
available resourcing to be able to put these guys to work and I
think it makes them feel a lot better to be able to do that. So
we also have used some of that funding to get a youth specialty
in our substance abuse treatment programs. That was one of the
lacks or gaps that we identified last year is that we need to
target youth, of course. I think you will see and hear that
unfortunately law enforcement remains our number one priority.
Certainly respect and support the Administration's attention
and the increases that he has offered up for law enforcement.
It is a resource that we need not only just to enforce, you
know against violations and criminals and so forth, but in the
interest of public safety we have endeavored and strived to
work with our law enforcement, our public safety department to
think of them--this has got to be a community service. This is
another community service. We are a service organization. These
are our clients, our members, and so not--we are trying to
emphasize that point so that it is important to have these
people, these resources, these men, these bodies on the ground
to have some continuity so they get to know their community.
That is just one of the problems we have had is being able to
maintain some continuity of staff, some longevity within staff.
We need the resources to keep these people interest and keep
them on payroll. Unfortunately I mentioned the probation
officer. Hired a great guy, but he is gone. He moved on. I
think our neighbors--I think Chehalis Tribe hired him away. And
this has been the tribe--as a small tribe I am struggling and
certainly not having the great amount of resources to put in
our program. We hire people. We train them. They move on. And
so it is a constant struggle to maintain some longevity and I
think that is a component that we need to emphasize so that we
can have some community relationship between our staff, our
public safety enforcement staff and the community. That being
said I think you will note that we do not say much about
education and social service programs in here, but not that it
is not a priority, but those are areas that we are able to
coddle together other resources. There are funding
opportunities out there and we have been very aggressive and
worked very hard to get that and meet those particular needs.
You have heard from some of the other tribes here with BIA
Schools and so forth. We do not have a BIA School on our
reservation. We do have a state--a school district with a
school right in the middle, in the heart of our reservation on
tribal lands. And 35 percent of the students to that are tribal
members, so our emphasis is to try to work with those people as
efficiently as possible and try to develop that relationship.
It has not been good in the past, but that is the goal of the
tribal council is to develop that relationship and work with
those folks.
Our social services programs as I mentioned we have
identified the gap with the youth, and the environmental
natural resource programs we have heard a lot about that here.
I certainly would anticipate that I could support whatever the
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission is going to say there. I
would just like to remind you that we are on Hood Canal which
is the Jewel of Puget Sound.
[The statement of Joseph Pavel follows:]
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Mr. Dicks. And it is certainly not a canal. It is a fjord.
Right in front of the Olympic Mountains, salt water.
Mr. Simpson. Fjord, well that is a foreign word to me.
Thank you. Frank, you want to go next, Billy?
Mr. Dicks. I will call it that.
Mr. Simpson. Well, do not worry. I watched a program last
night where Mount Rainier theoretically blows up and when it
does, Seattle and the whole region--that would be bad.
Mr. Frank. Mr. Chairman.
----------
Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
NORTHWESTERN INDIAN FISHERIES COMMISSION
WITNESSES
BILLY FRANK, JR., CHAIRMAN
MIKE GRAYEM
ED JOHNSTONE
Mr. Frank. Mr. Chairman, thank you and honorable members of
the subcommittee. I am Billy Frank, Chairman Northwest Indian
Fish Commission. It is indeed a pleasure to be here. Northwest
Indian Fish Commission is one of our natural resource managers
for the tribes, the twenty tribes that we represent and we come
back here with one voice. You see all of our tribes in here
today. And we try to talk with one voice to the United States
Congress. And we have been doing that for the last--now I just
had an eightieth birthday, so I have been here for a long time
and so with me today I have my executive director Mike Grayem
and my treasurer down here Ed Johnstone from Quinault. And so I
would like Mike to go through this part of the----
Mr. Grayem. Thank you one and all. I am--Billy has asked me
to give you a quick thumbnail sketch of the requests that we
are making. Our biggest interest in the Bureau of Indian
Affairs Budget is the rights protection implementation account.
These are the monies that the government provides the tribes to
manage and protect and restore the resources that are vital to
the rights that they reserved under treaty with the United
States. So our biggest first priority is we want this account
to be maintained at at least the fiscal year 2010 enacted
levels. In particular the western Washington Fisheries
Management Account which is the dollars that come to the tribes
in the Northwest that are members of our commission. We have
been asking for a number of years for an increase there of 12
million. In fiscal year 2010, you heard that plea and increased
the Rights Protection Account as a whole by 12 million of which
3.386 was allocated by the Bureau to Western Washington. Those
dollars are greatly appreciated. They have allowed us to
maintain some very important programs, but our needs continue
to be greater. And so we are asking for an increase of 8.643
which would get that total up to the 12 million that we have
been asking for in total to meet the natural resource
management needs of our member tribes.
This is particularly important right now because the State
of Washington's budget is being slashed particularly in the
realm of natural resource management. We just met with the
governor's staff on Friday and learned in particular where
those cuts are coming from and in order for the tribes to
protect these resources that are the basis of their treaty
right, they are going to have to do more because the State
simply cannot do what they have been doing. So that is our
first request.
We also request that the Washington State Timber Fish and
Wildlife line in this Rights Protection Account be maintained
at the fiscal year 2010 enacted levels. We are also asking for
an increase in the salmon marking line. I do not want to
reenergize the debate that occurred here a few moments ago
with--but we, the Northwest Tribes have a--well the whole
Northwest Fish Hatcher system is the largest in the world
between state, tribal, and federal. And under the congressional
mandate to mark hatchery production that is funded by federal
dollars we are doing that but we--marking is only part of what
is required. We have got two problems. We are not--we do not
have the resources to continue marking the increased production
that is occurring and we need additional money to address the
issues that result from marking the fish. And so we are marking
the fish for a purpose. One of those purposes is to be able to
identify hatchery and wild fish and so you can deal with them
separately. Another purpose they are being put to is marked
selected fisheries and those require additional funds to do the
analysis, do the monitoring, to basically utilize those mass
marks. And so that is where our request of additional 1.4
million comes in.
And then the last issue under Rights Protection is the U.S.
Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty. We support the request that is
being made by the Pacific, the United States section of the
Pacific Salmon Commission for an increase of 694,000 to this
account which supports the Northwest Columbia River and
Matlakatla Tribe and Alaska's participation in that treaty and
the responsibilities.
The last issue on the BIA is the Fish, Wildlife, and Parks
Account and particularly the fish hatchery maintenance. We were
very pleased with the Administration's increase to this account
and we fully support what the Administration has put into the
budget. This is a really important account to the tribes to
maintain their aging hatchery facilities and will be put to
great use.
And then lastly EPA--we are generally pleased with what we
saw in the budget by the Administration. We want to mention our
support for the Tribal General Assistance Program (GAP). That
money is used by all the tribes nationwide to support capacity
building and partnership with EPA. In addition to that, the
President's budget has a new initiative called a Multimedia
Tribal Implementation Grant Program. We are very excited about
this. It is in the budget for 20 million and we fully support
that. We have been working with EPA to try to identify how we
move beyond the capacity building and actually implementing
this environmental program partnership of EPA and we see this
as the funding avenue to allow us to do that.
And then lastly but not least is restoring the geographic
program and clean of Puget Sound to the 50 million level that
was enacted in 2010. This is an extremely important program to
everybody in the Northwest to restore Puget Sound, recover
salmon, and I do not think I need to say more because
Congressman Dicks----
Mr. Dicks. Well, the Chairman has been very helpful on
this, too. We are doing our best. It is very difficult.
Mr. Johnstone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I come here as a
piece of this delegation. One, as a treasurer of the Northwest
Indian Fish Commission and two, as an actual Fisheries Manager
for the Quinault Indian Nation of which I am a member. And I
just wanted to stress the importance of the Western Washington
Bold Account and those funds are really the core of the base
funding for all of our Fisheries Programs. It is a very
important funding source and it is actually tied to the U.S. v.
Washington Case. The judge wrote certain requirements in the
decision and to comply with those decisions the Western
Washington Account was created by Congress to fulfill those
court orders.
So as other decisions have come down since then like the
Rafeedie Decision, those decisions did not include the funding
to execute the rights that were affirmed in those court cases.
So our duties and responsibilities went up tremendously and our
funding level stayed at 1970's levels. And so this request that
you see here is an attempt at us to reflect those duties and
responsibilities in the current inflationary costs and so forth
that would get us to the basis for being able to just carry on
the requirements under those court decisions.
Mr. Frank. Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you for
coming and letting us speak today. And we know that it is a
difficult time for all of you to be looking at this budget. You
know our--we are the Treaty Tribes throughout the Northwest and
throughout all of our country, you know and we fought
determination as you heard here a little while ago and we
finally got everybody back on line. And you know we are just
support each other. Thank you.
[The statement of Billy Frank, Jr. follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Next.
----------
Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
PUYALLUP TRIBE
WITNESS
LAWRENCE W. LAPOINTE, VICE CHAIRMAN
Mr. LaPointe. I am next. Mr. Chairman, thank you for
allowing me to speak on behalf of the Tribe of Puyallup. My
name is Lawrence LaPoint, Vice Chairman. Puyallup Tribe, we do
have an education facility. We represent 4,260 Puyallup Tribal
members plus about 25,000 relocated members of other tribes--
355, almost half of the tribes of the United States.
The President's budget increase of 2.4 billion for Indian
Programs, operations of Indian Programs is 23.7 million above
2010 levels. Same with 4.6 billion for IHS which is rated 571.4
billion--million and the Puyallup Tribe would like to see that
increase looked at as a base funding and start next year. And
then if that is possible, I do not know. I mean, there are a
lot of things to be looking at. We are one of 20 tribes that
received arrow funding to create a correctional facility on our
reservation but that is like enabled unfunded mandate as far as
we are concerned because we can build a building but where are
the funds to operate it? So we are asking Congress to support
our request for annual budget of 1.3 million to operate the
facility.
The natural resources--I do not think I have to reiterate
what Billy and the rest of them said from Northwest Indian Fish
Commission. It needs to be maintained. Our education--the
budget request for 795 million for education is a decrease of
3.8 million from current levels and we have a population 910
students in our school system. And it is slowly growing. You
can say location, location, location as far as the casino. We
are successful, but I think we are one of the few casinos in
the country because we did not take an economic hit like
Wolf's--did. And we are able to supplement a lot of programs.
But I do not believe there is any tribe in this country
that is self-sufficient to the point where we can assume
whatever we receive from the federal government to provide
services to our membership plus the other natives that are
within our service area. So and then we have a school that
was--is not complete yet. The Bureau did not provide funding to
complete the auditorium which probably now--it was 800,000 at
the time and I believe it is about 1.4 million now.
And we, you know there was a mention of education for
secondary students and we have put approximately 250 tribal
members through college and they are working throughout the
country. Transportation--we are recommending that the
transportation not be changed from the current formula because
as Congressman Dicks knows we are a very urban tribe. We do
have access to natural resource areas and we need to be able to
maintain those access roads with cooperation with the county as
well as I think Hancock knows where the fish ladder is.
Mr. Dicks. Ron Puyallup.
Mr. LaPointe. Ron Puyallup, yeah. I read about boarding. So
we are recommending that. And the same with contracts for it.
We would like to see that covered 100 percent so that when we
get new grants and contracts that we are able to handle them.
And then last but not least I guess non-BIA Internal
Revenue Service. And we are getting attacked in all different
ways from IRS and in regards to--even native made materials
that we have to send 1099's to our tribal members and most
native created like hand carvings is not taxable. I do not
know.
Mr. Simpson. That is different. We will look into that.
Mr. LaPointe. Thank you.
[The statement of Lawrence W. LaPointe follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Our agency. Thank you.
----------
Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
SQUAXIN ISLAND TRIBE
WITNESS
RAY PETERS, INTER-GOVERNMENTAL LIAISON TO THE TRIBAL COUNCIL
Mr. Peters. On behalf of the Squaxin Island Tribe
leadership and the citizens of the tribe, I am honored to be
here to submit our budget request for 2012. Much of the written
testimony that I am submitting here is detailed, but really
want to talk about a tribal specific program that the Squaxin
Island Tribe runs. We are in the lower Puget Sound. We are next
to our brothers and sisters of the Skokomish Tribe, but we are
on the Sound, not the--what is that word you used? The refora--
--
Mr. Simpson. Fjord.
Mr. Peters. Refera. Yes. The Squaxin Island Tribe is the
largest employer in Mason County Sixth Congressional District
and we run the Northwest Indian Treatment Center that is a
regional facility that is very effective and efficiently run.
And that base budget was established in a Congressional set
aside in 1993, and we are at a point where we in the past have
been able to piece together that budget by using State funds,
county funds. We are state accredited. We are nationally
accredited through CARF, but with the climate in the States
some of those funds are going away and our base budget has not
been increased since that initial set aside.
We are requesting an increase in our base budget of $1
million. It is a program that the tribe has put many resources
in as well we have been very effective in our capabilities of
third party billing, going after grants, and other outside
funding to be able to piece together that budget. But we are in
a critical need here to be able to continue the services that
we provide and the efficiency is outstanding. Not only do we
service the Oregon, Idaho, Washington, but we have tribes
seeking out and sending tribal members to us across the nation
as far away as Florida.
And so that is an area that is at the utmost importance. We
have been able to increase the treatment in regards to
behavioral health and also psychiatric services as well.
Without that increase in funding we will need to start to cut
back our services and that would be a shame. That would be an
impact on all the tribes of the Northwest, but also as well to
the State as well.
As I said, all the specifics that the other tribes have
talked about that are very important, the budget detail is in
the written testimony so I will not take up your time in
regards to reviewing most of those things that have already
been discussed today. I will say that we fully support
affiliated tribes in Northwest Indian's recommendations,
Northwest Indian Fish Commission recommendations as well as the
National Congress of American Indians, Northwest Indian Health
Board, and as well the National Indian Health Board. Thank you
for your time and I just want to close by saying Norm, we do
take all of our fish as well as Squaxin Island Tribe. It is
very important. Our fisheries department and the habitat issues
are very important to us as well. Thank you.
[The statement of Ray Peters follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I will turn it over to Norm since
this is kind of a Washington delegation. And let me say for all
of you that you know that the reason that the budget for BIA
and Indian Health Services and the Education Department at the
BIA was the increases that have occurred over the last several
years have been primarily due to Norm. When he was chairman of
this committee he did a fantastic job. While I had differences
with my Democratic colleagues on some things, it is one of the
areas where I really appreciated the work that he did in
working with him and we fortunately have been able to continue
that under both Mr. Moran and under myself to--it is very
important to all of us, but it started with Norm.
Mr. Dicks. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman for that very kind
remark and Tom Cole, who was chairing here, has been a
tremendous supporter. And we are faced with some very difficult
times coming ahead here in terms of having to make some cuts in
the budget. And you know we tried to minimize the damage this
year on 2011, but 2012 you know initially is going to be very
difficult. Hopefully at the end of the process we can work out
compromises and protect some of these most sensitive programs.
Who do you apply to? Do you go to the Indian Health Service or
the Portland Office for this million? Because you know we
cannot do earmarks now. So you know I do not know if I did this
earmark. Was it my earmark or was it Senator Murry's or----
Mr. Peters. Set aside, yes.
Mr. Dicks. Yeah, so see you are going to have to find a
program in the department where you can go and apply for
funding and we will try to help you. So that is really going to
be the one or if there is an account that we can plus up
without specificity because they have to make the decisions
then those are the ways we could help you.
Mr. Peters. Yeah, and we are hoping--our hope is that the
increase that the IHS budget is hopefully going to see that
some of those dollars can be directed to the treatment center.
And again, we appreciate your help and the influence that you
have made----
Mr. Dicks. You are applying though?
Mr. Peters. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. Do you know when they have their application
time frame and all that?
Mr. Peters. We are meeting with the director. In fact we
had a conflict. The director is actually at Self-Governance
Conference right now. And so some of our leadership is there as
well.
Mr. Dicks. Well, Pete Modaff can help you on this and again
we are going to try to do the best we can. I mean, Billy, this
is as tough a year as I have seen.
Mr. Frank. Oh yeah.
Mr. Simpson. So we will just try to work with the Chairman
and do the best we can and at the end of the day it I--it will
not be as quite as bad. The House is going to make some very
serious cuts and we--and but there will be a process. The
Senate will go in and then we have conferences and you know we
will do our best to protect these sensitive programs.
Mr. Frank. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. Appreciate it. Thank you all for being here
today.
Mr. Frank. Thank you.
Mr. Simpson. You bet. Sheri Lee Williams, Fawn Sharp, Brian
Patterson, and Ryland Bowechop, and T.J. Greene. Ready? Who
wants to start? Would you like to start? Go ahead.
---------- --
--------
Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
QUINAULT INDIAN NATION
WITNESS
FAWN SHARP, PRESIDENT
Ms. Sharp. Sure. I will start. Good morning. Chairman,
members of the committee. On behalf of the Quinault Indian
Nation, my name is Fawn Sharp. I am honored and pleased to be
here today. I would like to begin my remarks by lending our
support in our written testimony. Many of the issues that have
been raised already today by other tribes we would like to draw
your attention to both the IHS and BIA are recommendations that
we do support before I get into the tribal specific requests.
Our first tribal specific request relates to the Blueback
Restoration Project. This is a project that the Quinault Nation
undertook a number of years ago in terms of planning the Upper
Quinault Watershed that had been destroyed at the turn of the
century and we have undertaken an effort to start phase one to
restore the ecosystem and this is a project that we are
extremely proud to take the lead in. We have been working with
the residence of the Upper Quinault, State agencies, the
counties, and federal agencies, so this is truly an example of
governmental entities coming together with nonprofits and
private citizenry to restore habitat that will most certainly
provide an opportunity for us to bring back the Blueback
Sockeye Salmon. It is a prized run that is unique to the
Quinault Watershed. So we are very happy to continue with that
effort.
We are moving into phase II of that project and we are
seeking seven million that we will apply toward phase II. And
we are pursuing a number of funding sources to reach that goal.
But we have invested roughly $150,000 at this point into the
basic planning for that project and we will pursue private
funding as well as state and federal funding. So we wanted to
report our success there and I urge this committee to support
our continued efforts as we get into phase II of that project.
The second issue that I would like to draw your attention
to is the Quinault Nation's Comprehensive Strategic Drug
Strategy. I have been here the last three years talking about
our drug strategy at the Quinault Nation. This year we have
added a unique component to that strategy that relates to
national security and this is an issue that I really want to
stress to the committee.
Over the course of the last year the Tribal Council task me
with putting together a comprehensive approach to address an
operating budget and strategy to step up enforcement. As I
began to work into this issue I realized that the level of need
is much greater than I ever imagined. I had reports that a
tribal elder was driving from Akai home to Taholah through one
of the logging roads and noticed a low flying helicopter out in
the middle of a logging road after midnight with--surrounded by
cars. And a big spotlight and we know they were not having a
picnic out in the middle of the woods on an abandoned logging
road. I also receive reports from our crabbing fleet that they
notice while crabbing this last year what appeared to be a
mother vessel and a small high speed vessel traveling four or
five trips at 45 knots an hour. I am not a nautical person, but
I am told that 45 knots an hour is quite fast.
About two weeks ago our general manager of Quinault Land
and Timber Enterprise who has been working in the woods for 30
years was in the northern part of our reservation near lands
held by a non-Indian logging company Anderson and Middleton.
They own about 11,000 acres to the northern part of our
reservation. They noticed a newer model Mercedes Benz, black
Mercedes again out in the middle of a logging road where they
have no business conducting any activity. And at my last tribal
council meeting, I stayed after hours and I was there until
about three o'clock in the morning burning the midnight oil and
returning from Taholah to Lake Quinault which requires me to
travel up to the Moclips Highway, and I noticed a two trailer
semi going into the interior part of our reservation off the
Moclips Highway at 3:30 in the morning. So again, this is an
issue that is absolutely critical to the Nation. The law
enforcement that needs and Border Patrol protection needs that
we see to effectively combat this problem clearly transcend BIA
funding. And we are working with the Director of National
Intelligence, Homeland Security, and the military to see what
we might be able to do to step up that effort at the Quinault
Nation.
So with my last 20 seconds, we do have an emergency
preparedness request that we have set forth in detail as well
as funding related to our forest management plan. But the most
critical need that we have realized this last year does relate
to drug and security protection issues. We have 27 miles of
international border that is not being patrolled today by the
Border Patrol Agency. So thank you.
[The statement of Fawn Sharp follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Sheri.
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--------
Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
LUMMI INDIAN BUSINESS COUNCIL
WITNESS
SHERI LEE WILLIAMS, COUNCILWOMAN
Ms. Williams. Yes, good afternoon and I am very honored to
be here today. I am a Lummi Nation Tribal Councilwoman. Also, I
am the treasurer of the Lummi Commercial Company, and I also
attend the Department of Interior Tribal Budgeting on a
quarterly basis, and I am with the Department Area Indian
Health Board. And so Mr. chairman, I am really honored to be
here and present to the distinguished group of committee
members today the appropriation priorities for the Lummi Nation
for the upcoming 2012 budgets for the Bureau of Indian Affairs
and the Indian Health Services.
And bullet points, our specific request of the Bureau of
Indian Affairs are--we are requesting for $2 million for Phase
I. This is a new water supply system for our fish hatcheries,
construction operation, and maintenance. Funding will be
directed to increase the hatchery production, and make up for
the shortfall we are experiencing in our wild salmon there in
the Pacific Northwest. I would like to direct the BIA to work
with the Lummi Nation and we can work together and increase our
hatchery construction operations and maintenance funding, and
direct the Department of Interior to fully fund the Indian
Energy and Economic Development Workforce Development Division
to continue its job training, development, work that has
resulted in jobs.
Turning to the Indian Health Service we are requesting
funds for a community based aids and HIV rapid testing system.
And additionally, I know this is a large amount, but we are
getting desperate because we are looking--we think it will take
$4 million and that is what we are requesting to combat the
drug epidemic not only in the Lummi community but those
communities around us.
Regional requests, the Lummi Nation is requesting that this
committee support the affiliated tribes of the Northwest,
Department Area Indian Health Board, the National Indian Health
Board and the Northwest Indian Fish Commission. Nationally in
the budgeting area the TPA--we are requesting an $82.9 million
increase, a general increase. And this is just 10 percent over
the 2010 funding level. I would like to reiterate what those
before me that sat at this table have said about the contract
support costs.
We would like to have provided an additional $50 million
increase to BIA and $112 million to the Indian Health Service
to fully fund the contract support costs including the direct
contract support costs and provide $5 million for the Indian
Self-Determination Fund. Law enforcement, tribal courts, tribal
detention facilities provide $30 million over the 2010 levels
that were funded. And education provides $24.3 million to fully
restore the Johnson O'Malley Fund. And increase the funding for
the Office of Self-Governance to fully fund the staff and
support the requests of NTAI and the National Indian Health
Board.
You know our Lummi Nation is located in the Northwest with
5,200 tribal employees and we have drawn our physical and
spiritual sustenance from the marine tidelands. And our
fisheries are trying to survive. Because the salmon are gone
our fishers are trying to survive on shellfish and that is not
good because in 1999 we had 700 licenses fishers who supported
nearly 3,000 tribal members and to date we have about 523. So
that means that we have lost over 200 small businesses, more
families because it takes more than one person to fish on a
boat. We have really lost a significant amount of revenue which
caused a lot of depression in our community.
And so specific requests to the Bureau again I reiterate
the $2 million. This is for the water supply system and that is
for our hatcheries. $300,000 for the Natural Resources law
enforcement, and we have 1,846 square miles of marine area that
our enforcement officers have to serve and 9,100 square miles
of seeded lands that they serve. And that goes all the way from
the U.S. Canadian border all the way to Mount St. Helens and
throughout that whole area. We have to protect everything. That
is our national resources and there again, I think I have kind
of summarized it all, and so thank you very much.
[The statement of Sheri Lee Williams follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Ryland.
---------- --
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
MAKAH TRIBAL COUNCIL
WITNESS
RYLAND BOWECHOP
Mr. Bowechop. First of all, Mr. Chairman, we would like to
associate and support the comments submitted by the Portland
Area Indian Heath Board Inter-Tribal Timber Council, Northwest
Fish Commission, and we would like to touch on three points.
The first need for assistance for improvements of our jail. Mr.
Modaff has been there. He knows that it is in pretty rough
shape.
Mr. Dicks. To visit.
Mr. Bowechop. I am going to let that one float. Desire to
deepen the harbor at Neah Bay for economic development, also to
utilize that harbor for oil spill prevention on the coast. Any
assistance from the federal government for helping us close the
warm-house dump. It is an open landfill that we have been
working to close for a number of years now and we are going to
do it with your assistance.
As I stated, the jail is in pretty bad shape. We understand
the moratorium that is in place on earmarks and we are working
closely with staff to start filling out grant applications to
justice departments, coordinated tribal assistance. And that is
going fairly well. We always appreciate the letters of support.
We are committed to improving the harbor in Neah Bay to help
our economic development efforts. We are interested for example
in shipping aggregate materials from our sand and gravel pit
for use in regional construction projects. We were unsuccessful
in our effort to secure Tiger Grants for waterfront planning
and for replacing our dock, but we will continue to press our
efforts.
We were disturbed to learn that the Administration has
proposed to cut in half harbor maintenance in low use harbors
as part of its 2012 budget request. In our case we want to
deepen our harbor to greatly increase use of our harbor for the
good of our community and the economy of our region. The
shallow draft in Neah Bay harbor also poses a threat to marine
safety. We have rescue tugs stationed in our harbor and other
response vessels also called there. When the tide is low these
vessels often are difficult in entering and exiting the marina.
Makah Tribe has taken aggressive steps to address the
serious environmental and health risks posed by the warm-house
beach dump, a decades old landfill located on the reservation
that was used by the U.S. Department of Defense and other
federal agencies to dispose of hazardous waste. The dump is
leeching harmful chemicals into a nearby stream which flows
into the pristine waters of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, a
traditional shell fishing location for the Makah people.
Frequent fires at the dump contribute to air pollution in
the town of Neah Bay and the reservation community. Closing the
dump is the Makah Council's top environmental priority. If any
of those chemicals get into the ocean it will not matter if the
fish are clipped, unclipped, tagged, or untagged. They will be
in bad shape. The tribe has documented that the Air Force which
supported radar operations at Behokah's Peak from World War II
through 1988 disposed of many hazardous substances at the dump
since its opening in the 1970s including asbestos, batteries,
pesticides, paints, and waste oil. Other federal agencies also
disposed of their waste at the dump.
As a result of this legacy of waste disposal on tribal
land, the federal government bears substantial responsibility
for cleaning up the dump and preventing further exposure of the
reservation community to the environment. Makah tribe has taken
action to secure federal assistance for closing the dump
through negotiations with Defense Department or possibly
through the Federal Superfund Program. We have waited many
years and tried many avenues to close this dump. We believe
that our latest actions are a necessary last resort to protect
the health of our citizens. We would appreciate this
subcommittee's support of our efforts.
My written testimony also discusses other issues including
the need to provide adequate contract support costs and the
importance of tribal consultation regarding expansion of the
Olympic National Park. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of
the subcommittee.
[The statement of Ryland Bowechop follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Brian.
---------- --
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Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
UNITED SOUTH AND EASTERN TRIBES, INC.
WITNESS
BRIAN PATTERSON, PRESIDENT
Mr. Patterson. I say those words more for my benefit as I
sit here with you. It is a greeting for peace, power, and
righteousness of a good heart and a good mind as we greet the
day. And so I say it for my benefit because we have been here
before. I just came from a meeting where I first attended in
1994 and the issues have not changed and the approach has not
changed and it is more of the same from Indian Country. At that
1994 meeting Chairman from the Northwest Ron Alan, who I called
the Tireless Warrior, was giving a presentation and he was
begging and pleading to not cut my TPA monies and it is the
same issue today.
And so I think it requires a fresh approach from Indian
Country to establish our agenda and begin to have those
critical conversations to identify the need to advance those
leadership to those critical issues. Certainly every issue I
have heard in the past today--and I thought Indian folks were
tough because we could sit in our council meetings all day and
we could sit in ceremonies all day, but you guys I think might
have us beat. I think you guys are tough. And so it is----
Mr. Dicks. You should look at H.R. 1.
Mr. Patterson. I will tell you. I will tell you. And but it
is good to be in front of you. My English name is Brian
Patterson. I have served my people for 20 years, Bear Clan
Representative Oneidas Nation in New York. Congressman Dicks, I
am in your territory now living in the State of Washington, the
Northwest. It kind of feels like home, you know, to see this
home away from home. We are longhouse people there--longhouse
people. So I represent my people as Bear Clan Representative on
council for 20 years. I am also President of the United South
and Eastern Tribes, 26 federally recognized tribes, Texas to
Florida, up to Maine. Certainly we have our issues. Chairman
Simpson, I would like to recognize your leadership, the veteran
leadership of this committee. Where would Indian Country be if
we did not have that leadership in place?
But my concern and my thought is Indian Country really
needs to demonstrate our capabilities to manage these issues
and move them forward. I think as every issue I have heard
today is paramount and the key to our survival. Education,
health care, natural resource stewardship, the care take and
culture heritage, our sovereignty, are our fundamental
foundations that Indian Country has identified and advanced the
need for countless generations.
So they are all priority issues. There is no one greater
than the other. For United South and Eastern Tribes our top
priority remains a clean legislative of--and I wish to
recognize the work you did and the leadership this committee
brought forward to push in last year a bipartisan approach to
that as well as Congressman Cole's continued push and
introduction this year. So we give our--express gratitude to
the work the committee is doing to bring a clean resolve to--
that is our top priority.
As well as joining the rest of Indian Country in myriad of
issues that are priority issues for us. I would like to just
take a moment. Last time I sat with you guys--let me wrap on--
has led to historical effort in my opinion--in the work that
you did with the rest of Indian Country has put together a
letter and I am going to have this resent to your staff so you
can take a look at it. Really a historical letter where we have
25 Inter-Tribal organizations putting their signature on this
to say this is a priority issue. In my life I have not seen an
example of that.
But I think so I want to resend that to you and I kind of
lost my place. I would much rather have my time in conversation
with Indian Country and advancing our priorities, but I would
make this point to you is that when we look at issues such as
emergency response, those type of issues in my comment to the
committee the last time I sat before you was that Indian
Country needs to stand for Indian Country. We will find ways to
assist and advance Indian Country priorities from within and we
have begun that process. As an example, ATNI, Affiliated Tribes
Northwest Indians, and USET signed a covenant. In part of that
covenant is to address the common areas of priorities. A week
and a half ago we had a historic tax summit hosted by the
Miccosuki Band. National tribal leader meeting ATNI joined us.
We invited them to join us and so we are taking charge of our
agenda, becoming proactive. I think we owe it to the Joe
Dellacrus, Divine Delorious, the Wendell Chinos, the Billy
Franks who said--Billy Frank has a great quote where he says do
not get tired. There is too much work to be done. We can sleep
when we leave this earth. Too much work to be done. So I have
been to every State in the Union.
I am now living in Washington State for two years. I
followed my wife out in--we live in Spokane and I must say that
it is the most beautiful State. And if Mount Rainier is a
little too much for you, go to Yellowstone. But it is the most
beautiful State. Quinault, Averred, Nisqually, Makah, it is
just very awesome territory. And Congressman Dicks, there is a
great book out by a Pulitzer prize winner that talked about
your first governor and the atrocities and his approach in New
York--in Washington State. Bittercreek it is called--an
interesting read.
Mr. Dicks. I will get it.
Mr. Patterson. Yeah, it is an interesting read. But thank
you. I think Indian country needs to be proactive in our own
agenda rather than reactive from a D.C. landscape. And USET is
leading that charge within Indian Country. Thank you for your
time. Thank you for your veteran leadership.
[The statement of Brian Patterson follows:]
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Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I am shocked to hear that you have
been to every State in the Union. You got that close to Idaho
and chose Spokane. I mean, that--you know you could have been
like 20 miles over and you could have been in God's country.
Mr. Patterson. Idaho is right out my picture window.
Mr. Simpson. I spent last week in Coeur d'Alene, in Spokane
and did some things in Spokane.
Mr. Dicks. You can see it where you walk.
Mr. Patterson. And that is all I want.
Mr. Dicks. From your front window. From your front door.
Mr. Patterson. That is all I want.
Mr. Dicks. No, I did a trail with Speaker Foley that goes
from Spokane right to the border. So maybe you can just keep it
going, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Simpson. Well, that is what needs to happen. I said I
spent last week in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene and a little bit
in Seattle, but beautiful country.
Mr. Patterson. Beautiful country.
Mr. Simpson. It really is.
Mr. Dicks. We did the world's fair in 1974 ``Man living and
playing in his environment.''
Mr. Simpson. I went to it.
Mr. Dicks. I did the staff work for Senator Magnusson on
that and the railroads gave us some great land. And Spokane has
got one of the great features is a water fall right in the
city. Where do you get that? I mean that is pretty neat.
Mr. Simpson. Do you have questions?
Mr. Dicks. I just wanted to say this is going to be a very
difficult year. As you heard what I said before the budget
resolution calls for more cuts in discretionary spending and we
are discretionary spending. I am hoping that we can come to
some agreement before we get to this debt ceiling vote where we
can lay out a program that includes all aspects of the budget.
But the other thing I got to tell you is we cannot do earmarks.
So a lot of these things that we used to be able to do at least
for the time being we are not able to do. So you are going to
have to get the Obama Administration to put the critical things
in they have to be in the President's budget. And that does not
mean it is going to be enacted, but at least you have a
fighting chance if it is in the President's budget. And so I
just give you that advice. You know I have been here a long
time and I have been on this subcommittee a long time and these
are important programs. And the Indian Health Service, the BIA,
law enforcement, education, higher education, you know these
things are very, very important and the programs for your
natural resources also are important.
You know we will do our best, but you know I think we have
got to pick ourselves up and go find ways to do these things.
And there are a lot of programs. I mean there is a lot of money
still there that you can apply for. It is going to take people
you know instead of just coming to Congress for earmarks. You
are going to have to go to these agencies and work hard to try
to get your projects funded that way. That is my advice.
Mr. Simpson. Well, and I will just echo what Norm said. It
is going to be a tough year and one of the things we find out
through all these hearings while there are--you know it is kind
of like the States. We always say no two States are the same.
No two tribes really are the same. It is interesting to hear
from the testimony that there are general issues that affect
all the tribes, whether it is contract support and fully
funding that or whether it is some of the other issues, but
each tribe has unique issues to their tribe and that is what is
kind of interesting to me. And as we have tried to address them
in the past as Norm said through some of the earmarking
process, we do not have that availability. Norm and I have been
on the other side of that issue and unfortunately we have lost
so far. But we are coming back. But we are more than willing to
help you as we can when you have requests from the agencies if
there are things we can do to help you out be sure and let us
know because some of those unique issues on--that different
tribes have are very important obviously.
Mr. Dicks. I just want to say one thing. The last time the
Republican Party won the election back in '94, they did away
with this hearing. I want to complement the Chairman, now that
they are in the Majority, for having this hearing so that we,
the members have a chance, and the tribes have a chance to come
in and really tell us what the situation is. And I complement
you for doing that.
Mr. Simpson. Thanks.
Mr. Dicks. It takes time, but I think it is time well
spent.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I appreciate that. And it is--as I
said at the end of last week or whenever it was when we had the
public witness testimony, other individuals that came in and
testified on other things within the Interior budget, sometimes
I suspect people come in and they wonder if this really makes a
difference. You spend a few minutes talking to us about--and I
mean it is hard to wrap up everything in five minutes. It does
make a difference because when we start to write a budget what
you have said influences what we are able to do or what we know
the need is. So while you may sometimes wonder how important
this is, it really is important to us. So we do appreciate you
taking the time to come in and talk to us and we will be doing
this again next year and talking about hopefully not the same
issues, but we will have addressed some of them.
Mr. Patterson. Did I mention--costs nothing.
Mr. Simpson. Yeah, it is and I appreciate you bringing that
up. Mr. Cole was obviously very interested in resolving that as
are many of us. We had it in the bill last year that just did
not survive at the end. The CR at the end and----
Mr. Dicks. Yeah, this has to be fixed.
Mr. Simpson [continuing]. It has got to be fixed and we are
going to be working on it, so----
Mr. Patterson. Indian Country may need an area of
additional support from you to us. We are looking--we have a
long term priority to reexamine the trust relationship, the
trust platform from an Indian country point of view which in my
hope will lead to Indian Country defining self-determination
from our expectation and our vantage--our value. And so one
step in that direction would be to develop an orientation for
all new members coming in to sit down. You said as interested
in pursuing this. We have a number of resources at Harvard
through their executive program. I am an alumni. My nation
representative is an alumni. We have other chiefs, so we have
resources. My nation sponsored a $3 million chair for the
Harvard Indian Law Program. So we have resources and
relationships there. We would like to work to develop that.
And why I say that is because this Country should be
outraged by the usage of the word Geronimo with Bin Laden. You
know they could have called it anything else, but they equate
it to one our national heroes and there is tolerance for that.
Mayor Bloomberg in New York City, get your cowboy hat. He told
the New York State Governor, get your cowboy hat, get your
cowboy boots, and get your shotgun, and get on through and get
those tags from those Indians. The President golfed with him
two weeks later. Not a word was said. If it was any other
ethnic group, special interest, minority, there would be an
outrage. But Indian country in our trust relationship we need
to develop that relationship where we can have advocates who
are outraged by this. My Seminole Tribe was equated to Al Qaeda
tactics. It was silent. There was no response.
Mr. Dicks. I know. I am very glad you brought that up. I am
on the Defense Subcommittee----
Mr. Patterson. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. And I will raise this with the
appropriate officials in the department.
Mr. Patterson. We would welcome that critical dialogue.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you all for being here today and thanks
for attending the hearings.
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I N D E X
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Public Witnesses
Day One--April 14, 2011
INDEX--ORGANIZATIONS
Page
Civil War Trust.................................................. 34
Federal Forest Resource Coalition................................ 15
Federation of State Humanities Councils.......................... 52
Idaho Shakespeare Festival....................................... 86
Interstate Mining Compact Commission............................. 8
Marine Conservation Biology Institute............................ 106
National Association of Forest Service Retirees (NAFSR).......... 28
National Association of State Foresters.......................... 22
National Humanities Alliance..................................... 59
Outdoor Alliance................................................. 99
Partners in Preservation......................................... 45
Public Lands Foundation.......................................... 93
Saving America's Mustangs........................................ 117
Seminole Nation, Oklahoma........................................ 125
INDEX--MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Burton, Representative Dan....................................... 125
Thompson, Representative Glenn................................... 2
INDEX--WITNESSES
Adkins, Trace.................................................... 39
Ayers, Ed........................................................ 74
Brintall, Dr. Michael............................................ 59
Burns, Ken....................................................... 66
Chandler, Bill................................................... 106
Clark, Trent..................................................... 52
Conrad, Gregory.................................................. 8
Daly, Elena...................................................... 93
Graves, Margaret................................................. 45
Hofflund, Mark................................................... 86
Jackson, Travis.................................................. 123
Kashdan, Hank.................................................... 28
King, Barbara.................................................... 113
Lighthizer, Jim.................................................. 34
Looking Horse, Chief Avrol....................................... 125
Nafisi, Azar..................................................... 79
Pickens, Madeleine............................................... 117
Robinson, Brady.................................................. 99
Shannon, John.................................................... 22
Troxel, Tom...................................................... 15
__________
Public Witnesses
Day Two--April 15, 2011
INDEX--ORGANIZATIONS
American Society of Civil Engineers.............................. 166
American Thoracic Society........................................ 136
Bat Conservation International................................... 252
Defenders of Wildlife............................................ 246
Environmental Council of the States/MT Dept. of Environmental
Quality........................................................ 153
Geological Society of America (GSA).............................. 159
Idaho Rural Water Association.................................... 131
LWCF Coalition................................................... 173
Multinational Species Coalition.................................. 265
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation............................ 212
National Parks Conservation Association.......................... 193
National Utility Contractors Association (NUCA).................. 143
National Wildlife Refuge Association............................. 231
Partnership for the National Trails System....................... 217
San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District/Santa Ana Sucker
Task Force..................................................... 258
The Conservation Fund, FWS....................................... 206
The Nature Conservancy........................................... 200
The Wilderness Society........................................... 186
.................................................................
The Wildlife Society............................................. 239
Wilderness Land Trust............................................ 180
Wildlife Conservation Society.................................... 224
INDEX--WITNESSES
Anker, Conrad.................................................... 173
Beetham, Mary Beth............................................... 246
Bies, Laura...................................................... 239
Blomquist, Jim................................................... 180
Calvelli, John................................................... 224
Cassidy, Tom..................................................... 200
Fascione, Nina................................................... 252
Headrick, Doug................................................... 258
Kiernan, Tom..................................................... 193
Natale, Patrick.................................................. 166
Oliver, Andy..................................................... 265
Opper, Richard................................................... 153
Roberts, Shelley................................................. 131
Rowsome, Alan.................................................... 186
Schiffries, Dr. Craig............................................ 159
Schmitt, Ryan.................................................... 143
Sorenson-Groves, Desiree......................................... 231
Szema, Dr. Anthony............................................... 136
Trandahl, Jeff................................................... 212
Turner, John..................................................... 206
Werner, Gary..................................................... 217
__________
Public Witnesses--Tribes and American Indian Advocacy Groups
Day One--May 3, 2011
INDEX--ORGANIZATIONS
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC)................... 497
American Dental Association...................................... 446
Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation........ 396
Catawba Indian Nation............................................ 429
Cherokee Nation.................................................. 330
Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma....................................... 337
Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community School............................ 287
Fort Belknap Indian Community.................................... 402
Friends of Indian Health......................................... 465
Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.................. 435
Independent Review Team on Tribal Courts......................... 350
Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative................................... 358
Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa................... 417
Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe........................................ 411
Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida........................... 422
National Congress of American Indians............................ 459
National Council of Urban Indian Health.......................... 477
National Indian Health Board (NIHB).............................. 453
National Johnson-O'Malley Association............................ 342
National Tribal Contract Support Cost Coalition.................. 471
Native American Grant School Association (NAGSA)................. 321
Navajo Hopi Land Commission Office of the Navajo Nation.......... 300
Navajo Nation.................................................... 293
Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee............................. 389
Oglala Sioux Tribe............................................... 366
Pueblo of Acoma.................................................. 273
Ramah Band of Navajo/Ramah Navajo Chapter........................ 307
Ramah Navajo School Board........................................ 313
Santa Clara Pueblo............................................... 280
Southcentral Foundation.......................................... 491
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe........................................ 373
Tanana Chiefs Conference......................................... 486
United Tribes Technical College.................................. 379
INDEX--MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Berg, Representative Rick........................................ 358
Young, Representative Don........................................ 485
INDEX--WITNESSES
Archambault II, Dave............................................. 373
Barnett, D'Shane................................................. 477
Billie, Colley................................................... 422
BlueEyes, Faye................................................... 287
Carlson, Ervin................................................... 358
Coochise, Elbridge............................................... 350
Culbreath, Joy................................................... 337
Dasheno, Walter.................................................. 280
Deters, Dr. Pamela............................................... 465
Dusty Bull, Harold............................................... 342
Garcia, Martha................................................... 307
Gipp, Dr. David M................................................ 379
Honyaoma, Todd................................................... 321
Isaac, Jerry..................................................... 486
Johnson Pata, Jacqueline......................................... 459
King, Tracy ``Ching''............................................ 402
Knight, Melanie.................................................. 330
Mala, Ted........................................................ 491
Martine-Alonzo, Nancy............................................ 313
Maulson, Tom..................................................... 417
Maxx, Raymond.................................................... 300
Mike, Jeff....................................................... 321
Miller, Lloyd.................................................... 471
Neary, Dr. Matt.................................................. 446
Oatman, McCoy.................................................... 389
Rodgers, Donald.................................................. 429
Russell, Majel................................................... 358
Secatero, Lester................................................. 453
Shelly, Ben...................................................... 293
Smith, Roxann.................................................... 396
Steele, John Yellow Bird......................................... 366
Swagger, Dr. Russell M........................................... 379
Teuber, Andy..................................................... 497
Tortalita, Lloyd................................................. 273
Wawronowicz, Larry............................................... 417
Whitebird, Eugene ``Ribs''....................................... 411
Zorn, Jim........................................................ 435
__________
Public Witnesses--Tribes and American Indian Advocacy Groups
Day Two--May 4, 2011
INDEX--ORGANIZATIONS
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission...................... 554
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde............................... 572
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation........... 548
Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon.... 541
Ft. Hall Business Council, Shoshone-Bannock Tribes............... 511
Intertribal Timber Council....................................... 560
Lummi Indian Business Council.................................... 616
Makah Tribal Council............................................. 622
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission............................ 590
Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board...................... 531
Puyallup Tribe................................................... 597
Quinault Indian Nation........................................... 610
Reno-Sparks Indian Colony Tribal Council......................... 524
Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation..... 505
Siletz Tribe..................................................... 566
Skokomish Tribal Nation.......................................... 583
Squaxin Island Tribe............................................. 603
United South and Eastern Tribes, Inc............................. 628
INDEX--MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Richardson, Representative Laura................................. 517
INDEX--WITNESSES
Bear, Robert..................................................... 505
Blythe, C. Larry................................................. 560
Bowechop, Ryland................................................. 622
Brigham, N. Kathryn.............................................. 548
Frank, Jr., Billy................................................ 590
Grayem, Mike..................................................... 590
Johnstone, Ed.................................................... 590
Joseph, Andrew................................................... 531
Kennedy, Cheryle A............................................... 572
Melendez, Arlan.................................................. 524
Patterson, Brian................................................. 628
Pavel, Joseph.................................................... 583
Peters, Ray...................................................... 603
Pigsley, Delores................................................. 566
Sharp, Fawn...................................................... 610
Small, Nathan.................................................... 511
Suppah, Ron...................................................... 541
LaPointe, Lawrence W............................................. 597
Williams, Sheri Lee.............................................. 616
__________
Written Testimony from Members of Congress
INDEX
Representative David Price, U.S. Congress, NC-04................. 638
Representative Pedro Pierluisi, Resident Commissioner, Puerto
Rico........................................................... 641
__________
Written Testimony from Individuals and Organizations
INDEX
11 organizations in the fields of conservation, forestry, and
horticulture................................................... 644
1854 Treaty Authority............................................ 647
Alaska Federation of Natives..................................... 649
Alliance to Save Energy.......................................... 652
American Association of Petroleum Geologists..................... 654
American Bird Conservancy........................................ 657
American Forest & Paper Association.............................. 661
American Forest Foundation....................................... 665
American Forests................................................. 668
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention....................... 672
American Geological Institute.................................... 674
American Geophysical Union....................................... 678
American Herds................................................... 682
American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC).............. 686
American Institute of Biological Sciences........................ 690
American Lung Association........................................ 694
American Public Power Association................................ 697
American Society for Microbiology................................ 699
American Society of Agronomy..................................... 703
Animal Welfare Institute......................................... 706
Appalachian Trail Conservancy.................................... 710
APS Four Corners Power Plant..................................... 714
Arctic Slope Native Association.................................. 716
Association of American Universities............................. 718
Association of Community Tribal Schools Inc...................... 722
Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies........................ 727
Association of Public and Land-grant Universities................ 728
Association of State Drinking Water Administrators............... 732
Aurora Water..................................................... 736
BHP Navajo Coal Company.......................................... 737
Bird Conservation Funding Coalition.............................. 739
Center for Plant Conservation.................................... 742
Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. 746
Central Utah Water Conservancy District.......................... 750
Cherokee Nation.................................................. 752
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Council.............................. 753
Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy's Association............... 757
Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority............................... 761
Chugach Regional Resources Commission............................ 767
Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum...................... 770
Colorado River District.......................................... 774
Colorado Water Congress.......................................... 776
Columbus Metro Park.............................................. 778
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.......................... 779
Cook Inlet Tribal Council........................................ 783
Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement...................... 787
Copper River Native Association.................................. 790
Council of Western State Foresters............................... 793
D.J. Schubert, Wildlife Biologist, Private Citizen............... 795
Denver Water..................................................... 799
Ding Darling Wildlife Society--Friends of the Refuge, Sanibel.... 801
Dolores Water Conservancy District............................... 803
Ducks Unlimited, Inc............................................. 805
Emission Control Technology Association.......................... 809
Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa....................... 813
Forest County Potawatomi Community............................... 817
Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges...................... 821
Friends of Back Bay.............................................. 822
Friends of Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge......... 825
Friends of Camas National Wildlife Refuge........................ 828
Friends of Cape May National Wildlife Refuge..................... 829
Friends of Laguna Atascosa NWR................................... 832
Friends of Rachel Carson NWR..................................... 833
Friends of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge........ 835
Friends of the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge Complex,
Inc............................................................ 838
Friends of the Desert Mountains.................................. 841
Friends of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex........... 844
Friends of the Potomac River Refuges............................. 845
Friends of the Red River National Wildlife Refuge, Inc........... 848
Friends of the Savannah Coastal Wildlife Refuges, Inc............ 852
Friends of the Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuges, Inc.......... 854
Friends of Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge..................... 857
Friends of Virgin Islands National Park.......................... 859
Friends of Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuges.............. 862
Gathering Waters Conservancy..................................... 865
Governor of Wyoming.............................................. 868
Grand Valley Water Users' Association............................ 870
Green Mountain Club.............................................. 871
Green Ravens of Rio Grande High School........................... 875
Humane Society Legislative Fund & Doris Day Animal League........ 877
Industrial Minerals Association.................................. 881
Interstate Council on Water Policy............................... 883
Izaak Walton League of America................................... 886
Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe........................................ 890
Jicarilla Apache Nation.......................................... 894
Keep Valley Forge Safe........................................... 896
Kevin Vertesch, Private Citizen, Sanibel, FL..................... 898
League of American Orchestras.................................... 900
Little River Band of Ottawa Indians.............................. 904
Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust............................... 907
Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara Nation................................. 911
Mike Dobesh, Private Citizen..................................... 914
Montana Wildlife Federation...................................... 918
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies......................... 921
National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs (NAAMLP).... 925
National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA)............... 929
National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO)........... 933
National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers...... 935
National Cooperators' Coalition.................................. 939
National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) Local 1957....... 941
National Ground Water Association................................ 945
National Indian Education Association............................ 948
National Institutes of Water Resources........................... 952
National Mining Association...................................... 956
National Recreation and Park Association......................... 958
National Tribal Environmental Council............................ 962
National WH&B Advocate Team...................................... 966
National Wild Horse and Burro Political Action Committee......... 970
National Wildlife Federation..................................... 972
Naturalstep Horse Training....................................... 976
New Hampshire Fish and Game Department........................... 980
New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission.......................... 984
Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District..................... 987
Northern Forest Center........................................... 989
Northern Sierra Partnership...................................... 992
Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority........................ 995
Orchard Mesa Irrigation District................................. 996
Oregon Water Resources Congress.................................. 998
Oregon Water Resources Congress 2 of 2........................... 1000
Pacific Salmon Commission........................................ 1004
Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission.............................. 1008
Performing Arts Alliance......................................... 1009
Peter Maier, PhD, PE............................................. 1013
PNC, Inc......................................................... 1016
PNM Resources.................................................... 1020
Preservation Action.............................................. 1022
Pueblo of Zuni................................................... 1026
Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians................................ 1030
Riverside-San Bernardino County Indian Health, Inc............... 1034
Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma................................... 1036
San Juan Water Commission........................................ 1040
Sawtooth Society................................................. 1042
SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium...................... 1045
Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy....................... 1047
Southern Ute Indian Tribe........................................ 1049
Southwestern Water Conservation District......................... 1051
St. Marks Refuge Association..................................... 1053
State and Tribal Wildlife Grants program......................... 1055
Steer Clear of Wildlife.......................................... 1058
Supporters of St. Vincent NWR.................................... 1059
Sustainable Urban Forests Coalition.............................. 1062
Taos County Board of Commissioners............................... 1064
The Glacier National Park Fund................................... 1067
The National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs......... 1070
The Trust for Public Land........................................ 1074
Theatre Communications Group..................................... 1078
Three Rivers Park District....................................... 1081
Timucuan Trail Parks Foundation.................................. 1082
Town of Ophir.................................................... 1086
Tri-County Water Conservancy District............................ 1089
United Sioux Tribes of South Dakota Development Corporation...... 1091
University Consortium for Geographic Information Science......... 1095
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)........... 1097
Upper Colorado River Commissioner for New Mexico................. 1099
Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District.................. 1101
Upper Peninsula Public Access Coalition.......................... 1103
USGS Coalition................................................... 1106
Utah Water Users Association..................................... 1110
Washington Wildlife Recreation Coalition......................... 1112
Wilderness Society and the National Association of State
Foresters...................................................... 1115
Wyoming Water Association........................................ 1118
Yakama Nation.................................................... 1120
Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation............................... 1123