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78–904 PDF 2002

S. HRG. 107–419

THE USE OF THE JOINT TRIBAL ADVISORY COMMISSION FUNDS BY THE STANDING ROCK

SIOUX TRIBE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON

TO DISCUSS THE FUNDING AUTHORIZED UNDER THE THREE AFFILIATED TRIBES AND THE STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE EQUITABLE

COMPENSATION ACT

APRIL 3, 2002

FORT YATES, ND

(
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Chairman

BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado, Vice Chairman

FRANK MURKOWSKI, Alaska

JOHN McCAIN, Arizona,

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota

HARRY REID, Nevada

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

PAUL WELLSTONE, Minnesota

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington

PATRICIA M. ZELL, Majority Staff Director/Chief Counsel

PAUL MOOREHEAD, Minority Staff Director/Chief Counsel

(II)
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Statements:

Archambault, Dave ........................................................................................... 22

Conrad, Hon. Kent, U.S. Senator from North Dakota .................................. 1

Defender Wilson, Mary Louise ........................................................................ 15

End of Horn, Lynes, Bear Soldier District ..................................................... 50

Good House, Cedric, vice chairman, Executive JTAC Commission, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe ..................................................................................... 31

Harrison, Janet, representative, Rock Creek District ................................... 47

Hill, Manajaunjinca .......................................................................................... 33

Iron Eyes, Chase ............................................................................................... 47

Jones, Cora, Aberdeen Regional Director, BIA .............................................. 8

Kills Pretty Enemy, Jerald, representative, Rock Creek District ................ 49

Marvin, Shirley, Tetuwan Oceti Sakowin Treaty Council ............................ 39

McLaughlin, Jeff ............................................................................................... 34

McLaughlin, Robert .......................................................................................... 18

McNeil, Ron Sun, president, Sitting Bull College .......................................... 25

Medicine, Errol ................................................................................................. 46

Medicine, Wilma ............................................................................................... 48

Mentz, Alma ...................................................................................................... 40

Murphy, Charles W., chairman, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe ........................ 4

Red Tomahawk, Pete, district chairman, Cannon Ball Comunity ............... 33

Silbernagel, Shannon, member, Executive JTAC Commission ..................... 43

Taken Alive, Faith, Bear Soldier District ....................................................... 37

White Bull, Maxine, Kenel District ................................................................. 51

White Eagle, Wanda ......................................................................................... 37

White Mountain, Anthony, progam coordinator, Lakota Resident Management Corporation, McLaughlin, SD ............................................................ 41

White, Randal, tribal councilman, Porcupine, ND ......................................... 40

Wiest, Fred, owner, Grey Eagle Management ............................................... 44

Yellow Fat, Terrence, chairman, Fort Yates District Council, Fort Yates,

ND .................................................................................................................. 30

Young, Phyllis, member, Fort Yates Local District Planning Commission . 42

APPENDIX

Prepared statements:

Archambault, Dave ........................................................................................... 74

Defender Wilson, Mary Louise (with attachments) ....................................... 56

Good House, Cedric .......................................................................................... 233

Jones, Cora ........................................................................................................ 53

McLaughlin, Robert .......................................................................................... 65

McNeil, Ron Sun ............................................................................................... 53

Murphy, Charles W. ......................................................................................... 238

Yellow Fat, Terrence (with attachments) ....................................................... 78

Additional material submitted for the record:

End of Horn, Lynes, survey ............................................................................. 242

Martin, Theresa, letter ..................................................................................... 236

Note: Other material submitted for the record are retained in committee files.

(1)

THE USE OF THE JOINT TRIBAL ADVISORY

COMMISSION FUNDS BY THE STANDING

ROCK SIOUX TRIBE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2002

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS,

Fort Yates, ND.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m. at Standing

Rock High School, Fort Yates, ND, Hon. Kent Conrad (acting chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Senator Conrad.

Mr. MURPHY. I would like to introduce Senator Kent Conrad to

the Standing Rock Indian Reservation here. Let’s give him a nice

round of applause. Okay?

[Applause.]

Mr. MURPHY. Senator, I know that we’re pushing for time and

we’ve got a lot of people here that’s going to be asking questions

and telling you what good things we’re doing for Standing Rock, so

I’ll turn the mike back to you.

STATEMENT OF HON. KENT CONRAD, U.S. SENATOR FROM

NORTH DAKOTA

Senator CONRAD. Thank you very much, Chairman Murphy, and

a special thanks to the veterans and to the singers for a very appropriate way to begin this hearing.

Let me just first indicate that this is an official hearing by the

Committee on Indian Affairs of the U.S. Senate, and, therefore, we

will follow the rules of the U.S. Senate in conducting this hearing.

Chairman Inouye, himself, has authorized this hearing, and as the

second-ranking member of the committee, this is a special privilege

for me to be here to discuss legislation that is critically important

to the tribe and critically important to me.

I am very pleased to be here to discuss the funding authorized

under the Three Affiliated Tribes and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

Equitable Compensation Act, more commonly called the JTAC legislation.

People ask me all the time, what does JTAC stand for? It stands

for Joint Tribal Advisory Committee.

You’ll recall back in the 1980’s this committee was created to determine what was owed to the tribes because of the flooding of

lands that belonged to the tribes, the Three Affiliated Tribes and

Standing Rock Tribe. There were promises that were made that
2

were never kept. There were valuable resources of the tribes that

were destroyed and that were not properly compensated for. There

were tremendous timberlands that were destroyed from the flooding of the lands. There were ranching and farming lands that were

lost. And while they were paid for at the time of the taking, the

judgment was made that they were not properly paid for. The compensation was not as much as it should have been.

I was the principal sponsor of the JTAC legislation to try to right

this wrong that was done years ago. And in the settlement that we

were able to reach with our colleagues in the United States Senate,

this Tribe received over $90 million that is held in a trust account.

The interest from that account is made available for expenditures

to improve the economic conditions of the people of this Tribe. That

is the purpose for the JTAC funding. It is to improve the economic

lives and restore the economic vitality of this community. Now, we know $90 million, while it’s a lot of money, is not

enough to do everything that needs to be done. There are many

things that should be done that are not being done. We know that

there are tremendous unmet needs. We can see it in this school

building that we’re in. This school building is not what it should

be. Money should be spent here. The Federal Government has an

obligation here to provide a good place for an education. And we

know there are many other unmet needs. We can see it in the

housing and in the health care. We can see it in the jobs or the

insufficiency of the jobs that are available in this community.

Those are all unmet needs. And the JTAC funding was intended

to provide a down payment on meeting past promises, promises

that were not kept.

So this hearing is an attempt to find out what is happening with

those funds, the money that has been committed so far, remembering that the $90 million of principal is in the Federal treasury. It

is only the interest from that money that is available for the tribe.

I think many of us understand that when the Federal Government flooded the lands of these reservations during construction of

the two mainstem dams on the upper Missouri, that great injustices were done to the people of this Tribe and to the people of the

Three Affiliated Tribes.

When the Oahe Dam was constructed, 56,000 acres of private

land were lost and 190 tribal families were forced to relocate. Ninety percent of the timbered area on the reservation was demolished

and thousands of acres of exceptional grazing and rangeland were

eliminated. Of the ranchers at Standing Rock, 60 percent saw their

land disappear.

Those are the facts. Those are things that happened to accommodate the flooding of the land to provide these mainstem reservoirs.

And JTAC is designed to go back and try to redress some of the

wrongs that were done at that time.

The Equitable Compensation Act was the result of recommendations made by two reports. The first was entitled the Final Report

of the Garrison Unit Joint Tribal Advisory Committee; therefore,

JTAC, Joint Tribal Advisory Committee, a special committee created by former Interior Secretary Donald Hodel. The 1986 report

acknowledged the Federal Government’s obligation to compensate

the tribes.
3

The second report, which was conducted by the General Accounting Office, analyzed the JTAC report and the methodology used in

developing it. The General Accounting Office concluded the Tribe

was owed between $64 million and $170 million. The levels of compensation proposed in the JTAC bill fall within that range, and we

were able to secure $90.6 million for Standing Rock.

I am proud, very proud, of the work we did in passing the JTAC

bill. It was the result of years, and I mean years, of work and much

negotiation. When we started this effort, I was told by colleagues

in the United States Senate there was no way that we could possibly succeed. We were at meetings in which we were told repeatedly that we would never get this kind of money for the Standing

Rock Reservation.

It was only when I came up with an idea of funding this legislation outside of the Federal budget window, which was a 5-year period, and in a way that avoided the Appropriations Committee entirely that we were able to succeed.

As the principal sponsor of the JTAC legislation, I am very interested in ensuring that it produces long-term benefits to the people

of this reservation. The compensation legislation was designed to

allow the Standing Rock Tribe the opportunity to rebuild and gain

financial independence. It provides resources for the general health

and welfare of the Tribe and its members, and by doing so it also

adds important resources to the North Dakota economy as a whole.

While it was not everything that we wanted, I will tell you I

didn’t start by asking for $90 million. It was only when it was clear

that that’s the most that we could get that I agreed to that figure.

It does have the potential to make a big difference in the future

of this tribe and its people.

The interest on the money in the Standing Rock Sioux Equitable

Compensation Fund became available for use on October 1, 1997.

That’s just over 4 years ago. I believe now is a good time to take

a look at how these funds are being used.

I want to first thank Chairman Murphy and his staff for helping

organize this hearing. I appreciate all that you have done to accommodate the needs of the hearing, Chairman Murphy.

I would also like to thank Cora Jones, who is the Great Plains

Area Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, for testifying here

today. The United States Department of the Interior is charged

with approving the plan for the use of these funds. That responsibility has been delegated to Ms. Jones, so I believe her testimony

is especially important today in giving a complete picture of what

has occurred.

Finally, I would like to remind everyone that this is a public

hearing. Although we only have time for a limited number of witnesses, additional testimony can be submitted for the hearing

record up to 14 days following this hearing. Those who would like

to submit testimony for the record can do so by sending it to my

office no later than April 17.

Again, I want to thank all of you for being here today. I look forward to your testimony and to the discussion that will follow.

Our first panel will be Chairman Murphy of the Standing Rock

Sioux Tribe and Cora Jones, the Great Plains Regional Director for

the Bureau of Indian Affairs from Aberdeen, SD. I thank you both
4

for being here today. And we will then follow with a second panel

of four witnesses who have been selected and recommended by

members of the broader community to be the official witnesses at

this hearing.

After we have finished with the first two panels, we will then

open it for comments by people in the audience. At that time you

will be asked to identify yourself for the record and we will take

whatever comments that you would want to make at that time.

Let me begin by welcoming Chairman Murphy to this hearing

and asking you to proceed with your testimony.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES W. MURPHY, CHAIRMAN, STANDING

ROCK SIOUX TRIBE

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Senator. First of all, I want to welcome

you here again.

I want to thank you for allowing us to say a few words on what

has happened with the JTAC since we had received it, only the interest. There is many things that we have done with our money to

make the improvements within the reservation. We have built a

school in Wakpala, helped build that school, because one of the

problems that we have been having in Wakpala with your partner—Senator Tom Daschle was also down there visiting that particular school at Wakpala. The school was in terrible shape. Now

the students are living and working in a nice facility.

The other thing—— Senator CONRAD. Is that on the South Dakota side?

Mr. MURPHY. Yes; it is.

Senator CONRAD. Can we get something on the North Dakota

side now?

Mr. MURPHY. Well, I guess, Senator, we don’t have that line

here. That’s the reason why we have to work the whole reservation.

But those are some of the things that are happening, Senator.

But the problem I have with this—with the hearing today, is

what I would like to see done is that the 20,000 acres that belongs

to us be returned to us, and that has not happened yet.

And my testimony has other things in there. We have helped the

colleges, and so forth, and we are doing a lot of good things with

it, but I have other people who are going to be talking about that

and it’s also in Mr. McLaughlin’s report, also. What I would like

to do is let my time go for other people so they can give their testimony on the positive things that are happening within the Standing Rock Reservation.

Senator CONRAD. For the purposes of the record, Chairman Murphy, let me just first enter your letter to me dated March 29 regarding the disposition of the funds. And I think it might be useful

before we go to Cora Jones’ testimony for me to go through the

highlights of that so I understand as fully as we can what the disposition of the funds has been thus far. And I think that’s important for the record.

Mr. MURPHY. Okay.

[Referenced letter appears in appendix.]

Senator CONRAD. First, I think we start with the total of the

funds that have been committed. I believe the total of funds that

have been committed is $46.3 million. Is that correct?
5

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct.

Senator CONRAD. $46.3 million. And as I analyze what I see in

your letter to me on the disposition of those funds, it indicates that

there are still some $8 million of interest that is available for expenditure at this point.

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct.

Senator CONRAD. Of the $46.3 million that has been allocated,

these are the categories that I draw from your letter, and I would

like if you could correct me if I am in error on any of these

amounts.

Mr. MURPHY. Okay.

Senator CONRAD. I see under the broad category of schools $12

million that’s been drawn down that is on deposit for school construction and repair that has not yet been obligated. It’s been allocated for the purpose of schools, but it has not yet been actually

used. Is that correct?

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct.

Senator CONRAD. And those funds, what is the intention for that

$12 million with respect to schools?

Mr. MURPHY. Some of it is with the colleges, Department of College where we had committed x number of dollars for them to do

the college out here, and other needs—like this school here also has

some needs. Those are the things that we are talking about, Senator.

Senator CONRAD. Well, one thing I would very much like to see

is, I would like to see some of that money used for this school. I

think we all know this school was badly designed.

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct.

Senator CONRAD. And we have this open architecture and we

have a heating system that doesn’t work for North Dakota winters.

I guess this school was designed by an architect from the southwestern part of the United States; isn’t that right?

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct.

Senator CONRAD. So hopefully some of those funds that are on

deposit now for schools, some of that money will be used here. Is

that the intention?

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct.

Senator CONRAD. In addition to the $12 million that’s on deposit

for construction of additional schools in Standing Rock and maintenance, there’s an additional $4 million that has been committed to

Sitting Bull.

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct.

Senator CONRAD. Then there is the $4.3 million for Wakpala

which you mentioned in your opening testimony. And then there is

$500,000 that has been allocated to help tribal members attend

graduate school. Is that correct?

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct.

Senator CONRAD. Have all of those funds been used? The $4.3

million, has that been expended for the Wakpala School fully?

Mr. MURPHY. Yes; it has.

Senator CONRAD. All that money has been used. The $500,000

that was allocated to help people attend graduate school, has all of

that money been consumed?

Mr. MURPHY. Yes; that has been used.
6

Senator CONRAD. So that is gone. What amounts has that gone

to? How many students has that helped?

Mr. MURPHY. I don’t have the number right offhand, Senator, but

I could sure get you the number.

Senator CONRAD. If you could give us the number of how many

students that’s helped. Do you have a rough idea of how many students that may have helped?

Mr. MURPHY. I do not want to give a number because I would

have to—I would look the number up first.

Senator CONRAD. If we could get the number. I think it’s important for the record how many students that’s helped.

The $4 million for the Sitting Bull College, has any of that

money been used so far?

Mr. MURPHY. The Sitting Bull College president will be up here

testifying and you can ask him that.

Senator CONRAD. We can ask him that question. So there’s $12

million on deposit to help schools, $4 million for Sitting Bull College, $4.3 million for Wakpala, $500,000 to help people go to graduate school. That’s a total of $20.8 million for schools.

Then in the broader category of economic development there’s

been $13 million provided to the districts. As I understand it, each

of the districts has received a million dollars, although the Kenel

District has received $6 million. Is that correct?

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct.

Senator CONRAD. And what is the reason for the difference between what the districts have individually received and the Kenel

District getting—is that because they have more population?

Mr. MURPHY. No; what has happened, Senator, it was given to

the Kenel District for a couple reasons. One was that they moved

from the bottom up to the top of where they are living right now,

which is approximately about 5 miles—41⁄2 miles south of old

Kenel, and they were subsidized back in 1958, but not really subsidized for what had happened. They lost more homes and agriculture land, and so forth. And what has happened then is that we

gave Kenel District x number of dollars by the recommendation of

the Tribal Council.

Senator CONRAD. And that was to compensate for what had been

taken?

Mr. MURPHY. Correct.

Senator CONRAD. Then under the broad category of—so in terms

of the districts, there’s $13 million. So that gives us a total so far

of $33.8 million.

Mr. MURPHY. Correct.

Senator CONRAD. Then there are moneys that has been allocated

for land purchases.

Mr. MURPHY. Correct.

Senator CONRAD. As I see it, there’s $12 million been allocated

for that purpose and $8.4 million of that used so far. Is that correct?

Mr. MURPHY. Just about that much, right.

Senator CONRAD. So there is still some $3.6 million available in

that category?

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct.
7

Senator CONRAD. Of the $12 million for land purchases, in one

part of the letter it indicates that 30,000 acres has been acquired.

In another part of the paragraph it indicates some 60,000 acres has

been acquired. For the record, can you clarify that?

Mr. MURPHY. Those are particular ranches that were purchased

in South Dakota and North Dakota.

Senator CONRAD. And what is the total that has been purchased

so far? In one part of the letter it indicates 30,345 acres. In another

part of the letter it says, thus far we have purchased over 65,000

acres. It was just unclear to me. Is the 65,000 the total that’s been

purchased?

Mr. MURPHY. That’s what we have on hand. We purchased part

of the 65,000, but a lot of the applications that we have on hand

are not added up to that yet.

Senator CONRAD. I see. So what’s actually been purchased so far

is 30,000 acres?

Mr. MURPHY. Correct.

Senator CONRAD. But there are applications for an additional

35,000?

Mr. MURPHY. Right.

Senator CONRAD. That would give a total of 65,000 if all of that

were done?

Mr. MURPHY. Correct.

Senator CONRAD. All right.

Mr. MURPHY. But, Senator, some of the 60—the total of the

60,000 acres that we bought partials in, also, so we don’t have that

completely purchased.

Senator CONRAD. No; I understand. Only part of that has been

acquired.

Mr. MURPHY. Correct.

Senator CONRAD. But just so we make sure we are clear here, the

total purchases thus far would be the 30,000 acres?

Mr. MURPHY. Correct.

Senator CONRAD. And that’s consumed $8.4 million?

Mr. MURPHY. Correct.

Senator CONRAD. All right. So that’s roughly $280 an acre?

Mr. MURPHY. Approximately that.

Senator CONRAD. So that gives us a total of $45.8 million, and

then there’s the category of EDF&I. Under the EDF&I fund the

Tribe has withdrawn $500,000 and established a business equity

loan committee to administer these funds; is that correct?

Mr. MURPHY. That is correct.

Senator CONRAD. So that would add up to the total of $46.3 million.

Mr. MURPHY. Correct.

Senator CONRAD. Just to repeat, of the $46.3 million, $20.8 million reserved for schools, but it would appear to me that most of

that has not yet been expended.

Mr. MURPHY. Correct.

Senator CONRAD. There would be the $13 million that’s gone to

the districts. Can you tell us the disposition of those funds? Have

the districts used those funds at this point?
8

Mr. MURPHY. Some districts are. Some are still hanging onto

their money yet, until they bring a plan in showing us what they

are going to be doing.

Senator CONRAD. So do we know how much of that $13 million

has been expended so far?

Mr. MURPHY. Not at this time. I could check. I would have to

check with the finance office.

Senator CONRAD. All right. And of the land purchases, $12 mil- lion, $8.4 million has been used of that $12 million. So a substantial amount of the money has still not been actually spent. It’s on

deposit for specific uses, but we have not yet seen the full effect

in the community. That would be fair to say.

Mr. MURPHY. Correct.

Senator CONRAD. And of the EDF&I funds, the loan funds, as I

read this, about 400,000 is still available of that $500,000.

Mr. MURPHY. That’s correct.

Senator CONRAD. $393,000 is still available. So as I total it up

here, a substantial amount of the money, $16 million under the

schools category, almost $4 million under the land purchases, that’s

$20 million, plus the $8 million that’s still available to draw-down,

plus some part of the district money has not actually been spent

yet. It’s been allocated, you have reserved it for certain purposes,

it’s not yet been spent. Would that be a fair summation?

Mr. MURPHY. That would be fair.

Senator CONRAD. All right. I think that’s important for the record

and for people to understand how these funds are being allocated

thus far. I think one thing that would be important for the record

is, what is the intention with respect to the $12 million for schools?

What are the specific projects that that money has been reserved

for?

Mr. MURPHY. Some of them are for repairs. Some of them are

asking to add onto their school for larger classrooms, and so forth.

But, Senator, the problem is that we do not have all the dollars to

really meet the needs of our schools because we have several

schools on the North Dakota portion and we have several schools

on the South Dakota portion.

Senator CONRAD. How many schools do you have that are being

supported by the Tribe? You have got this school, of course.

Mr. MURPHY. Probably about 12 to 13 schools.

Senator CONRAD. Probably 12 to 13 schools. So there’s obviously

a tremendous need in that area.

Mr. MURPHY. Correct.

Senator CONRAD. All right. With that, why don’t we turn to Cora

Jones for her testimony.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Senator.

Senator CONRAD. Again, welcome. Thank you, Chairman Murphy, for your testimony.

STATEMENT OF CORA JONES, ABERDEEN REGIONAL

DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS

Ms. JONES. Good morning, Senator.

Senator CONRAD. Good morning.

Ms. JONES. Always a pleasure to see you and welcome to Standing Rock. It’s a nice place to come and visit.
9

Good morning, everyone, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. My name is Cora Jones and I am the Regional Director for the

Great Plains Region of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And I am

pleased to be here today to discuss the Standing Rock Sioux’s economic recovery fund provisions within JTAC.

And the act, of course, which established the Economic Recovery

Act, the Bureau has been delegated that authority to ensure that

it is utilized the way the law states. And the tribe is authorized

to use the interest on the 90.6 million and those purposes are for

education, social welfare, economic development, and other programs, subject to the approval of the Secretary. And that would be

the Secretary of the Interior, of course.

In fiscal year 1998, the tribe could begin withdrawing the accrued and annual interest subject to approval of the Secretary.

This, of course, was delegated down to my office.

On June 16, 2000 I did approve the Standing Rock Sioux Tribes’

Joint Tribal Advisory Committee Fund Access Plan. And this plan,

established in consultation with tribal members and the BIA, outlines the tribe’s proposed uses for the interest generated from the

principal amount in the fund. The tribe submits requests for withdrawing funds to me through the Standing Rock Agency. These requests are reviewed for compliance with the act and consistency

with the plan. When the Bureau approves the request, we forward

it on to the Special Trustee’s Office of the Trust Funds Management down in Albuquerque, NM, where disbursement is made, and

it is the final processing and disbursement of the payment.

And thus far the tribe has requested and received six payments

totaling the $46.3 million in interest. And any funding request outside the plan, of course, will have to be approved. And that concludes my prepared statement, sir.

[Prepared statement of Ms. Jones appears in appendix.]

Senator CONRAD. So let me go over with you, if I can, Ms. Jones,

the distribution of these funds. You have heard the outline that I

provided based on Chairman Murphy’s provision of the letter to

me. Do you disagree with any of the allocations that I outlined in

the questions to Chairman Murphy?

Ms. JONES. No; and, Senator Conrad, I did bring copies of the

1034’s showing what the tribe did draw-down, and I would be

happy to submit that to you.

Senator CONRAD. I would appreciate that for the record. Can I

go over these matters where money has been allocated and ask you

for what your understanding is of the uses of those funds. The $6

million that was the first amount of money that you approved, that

was for land purchases; is that correct?

Ms. JONES. Yes.

Senator CONRAD. Then subsequently there was another $6 million that was allocated for that purpose?

Ms. JONES. Yes.

Senator CONRAD. And is it your understanding that some $8.4

million of that has been used so far for that purpose?

Ms. JONES. That’s correct.

Senator CONRAD. When you allocate money, when you allow a

draw-down, is it an open-ended circumstance with respect to land
10

purchases, or is it tied to specific land purchases that are to be

made?

Ms. JONES. Primarily it’s open. The tribe generally will have— they will have a list of land that they do want to purchase, but we

never know for sure what is going to be purchased because there

is negotiations that need to take place and it’s a lengthy process.

And as you well know, we have an inherited interest, a

fractionated interest in this region that is worse than anyplace in

the country. And so when the tribe decided to go this route, I really

applauded their efforts because it helps to solidify that land base

that is so sorely needed.

Senator CONRAD. And what is your understanding of how much

land would be purchased with that $12 million that’s been allocated for that purpose?

Ms. JONES. Right offhand, I don’t know.

Senator CONRAD. Could you get that for the purposes of the

record?

Ms. JONES. Yes.

Senator CONRAD. And of the requests for draw-down that have

been made, I would like to know, what is the amount of land that

you anticipate being purchased with that amount of money? Let me

go to the amount of money for schools. Chairman Murphy indicated

in his testimony the money for the Wakpala School, that’s $4.3 million, that was approved by you as part of an overall plan—is there

an overall plan that is in place?

Ms. JONES. Yes; there is.

Senator CONRAD. From the tribe?

Ms. JONES. Yes.

Senator CONRAD. And these amounts of money are in line with

what is part of this overall plan; is that correct?

Ms. JONES. Yes; they are.

Senator CONRAD. And so the $4.3 million for the Wakpala School,

that was part of an approved plan?

Ms. JONES. Yes.

Senator CONRAD. And the $4 million for the Sitting Bull College,

that has also been drawn down?

Ms. JONES. Yes.

Senator CONRAD. To your understanding, has that money been

used?

Ms. JONES. With the Sitting Bull College, I don’t know.

Senator CONRAD. We will get the testimony of the president because he will be testifying in the next panel. Then there has been

$12 million drawn down that is on deposit for school needs, for

school construction and maintenance purposes. We have heard the

chairman’s testimony on that. And you approved that draw-down.

Did you approve that in light of a specific plan for the use of that

money?

Ms. JONES. It was a general plan.

Senator CONRAD. And how general are we talking about?

Ms. JONES. I would have to go back and look at it specifically in

order to answer that, but when—I guess we are all so firmly aware

of the needs, the needed needs for resources that exist at these

schools, I don’t have specifics as to, what they are going to be doing

in the school, whether it’s rebuilding a theater, putting up walls
11

where the open classrooms used to be. I honestly don’t have that.

But, you know, we do have an education line officer here at Standing Rock and she should be watching over that very carefully to

make sure that the students here receive the best possible education and in the safest and best environment possible.

Senator CONRAD. Let me just say that this concerns me. It seems

to me that if there is a plan, before money is released that the specifics of how that money is going to be used should be required by

your office. You should know. I mean, if I were in your position,

I would want to know what I am releasing the money for. And I

think it should be specific, what school, what projects, because I

don’t know how you can know at the end of this process whether

or not the plan has been followed if there aren’t specifics attached

to the release of funds.

Ms. JONES. I firmly understand your concern with that. My problem is sometimes I get caught up in a Catch-22, and that is, you

know, how far do we go in overseeing the tribe’s responsibilities?

Do we micromanage them, or do we allow them to go with self-determination, do exactly what they know is right—for the best—in

the best interest of the tribal membership?

Senator CONRAD. I am going to say—I would give my answer to

that. My answer would be the tribe, this is their money, it’s their

responsibility to spend it, but you have got an oversight responsibility.

Ms. JONES. Yes; I do.

Senator CONRAD. And it’s very clear in the law, very clear. And

I believe there should be accountability. I really do believe that. I

mean, I think it is very, very important that if there is—this is

money that comes from the Federal treasury to right a wrong that’s

been done and there is very clear responsibility. You have responsibility. I have responsibility. The chairman has responsibility. And

I believe before funds are released, it should be the tribe’s plan.

They are in the best position to make a determination how that

money is needed, absolutely, but before you release the money, you

should know where it’s going.

Ms. JONES. Yes; we do receive the 1034. That’s the draw-down

document that’s needed in order to release the money. We receive

a resolution from the tribe saying what that money is going to be

used for. And we do review it to see whether it’s in accordance with

the plan.

Senator CONRAD. What I am hearing, I am hearing two different

things. I am hearing, on the one hand, there is a plan, but then

when I probe for how that money is specifically going to be used,

that plan seems to be very amorphous, it seems to be very general.

It isn’t specific about what school, what project. Am I right?

Ms. JONES. Yes.

Senator CONRAD. Well, I just say it seems to me this thing needs

to be changed so that when money is requested from you—a plan

doesn’t mean anything unless it’s got specifics attached to it. I don’t

know what it means when somebody asks for $12 million for

schools and I don’t know what school, what project, is it going to

go to dealing with the heating system in this school, is it going to

go to having individual classrooms in this school instead of this
12

open architecture where you can hear the class next-door so you

can’t hear yourself think?

And, absolutely, that plan should be the tribe’s determination.

The tribe is in the best position to determine what the priorities

are, how the money should be used. That’s self-determination. Absolutely. I do say this. I think it is very important that before

money is released after the tribe makes a request, that it’s got to

be sufficiently detailed that you know where the money is actually

going.

Ms. JONES. Within the tribe’s resolutions, it states where they

are going to be using that money.

Senator CONRAD. In what detail? Can you read to me——

Ms. JONES. Well, right here, It has therefore been resolved

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe hereby approves to assist the Wakpala

District for a new school facility in the amount of $4,300,000 with

revenues from JTAC. And previous to that, one of the ‘‘whereases’’

was to upgrade the school facilities in order to provide the children

with quality education. Another whereas, to assist the Wakpala

District for a new school facility. You know, and knowing how

much various facilities cost across this region, the 4.3 to me was

a number that seemed adequate.

Senator CONRAD. I just say to you, that to me—that to me would

not be adequate to release money. It really would not. I would expect if—and I’m all for what you did in Wakpala. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m not being critical of your request for the

money.

But I would say to Ms. Jones, I believe it is your responsibility

to have sufficient detail attached to those requests that you could

tell me exactly where that money is going. And this $12 million is

in an account, as I understand it, for schools. What is the level of

detail that has been provided to you as to how that $12 million will

be used?

Ms. JONES. I would have to defer to—I have got my tribal governments officer here.

Senator CONRAD. Why don’t we have that person come up.

Ms. JONES. And I would like to have Dean Webb come up.

Senator CONRAD. That’s fine.

Ms. JONES. He makes sure the payments get made. If they would

come up.

Senator CONRAD. Let’s have those people come up, because before

we leave here, I want to know what that $12 million that’s in an

account is going to go for.

Ms. JONES. Senator, I would like to introduce Earl Azure. He is

the tribal governments officer.

Senator CONRAD. If you could spell your name for the stenographer so we have it for the record.

Mr. AZURE. Last name is spelled A-z-u-r-e.

Senator CONRAD. Welcome Mr. Azure. Good to have you here.

Mr. AZURE. Thank you.

Senator CONRAD. And who is the other gentleman with us?

Ms. JONES. Dean Webb.

Mr. WEBB. My name is Dean Webb and I am the financial trust

services officer for the Office of Trust Funds Management in Aberdeen.
13

Senator CONRAD. Okay. The question that I have is, and I would

pose it to you with respect to both the money that’s on deposit, the

$12 million that, as I read it, has been withdrawn to assist in the

construction and repair of additional schools, what level of detail

do you know what that money will be used for? Do you know what

schools it will be used for? Do you know what specific projects?

Mr. AZURE. Other than what was in the resolutions initially requesting the dollars, we don’t have any more specifics beyond that,

Senator.

Senator CONRAD. Well, I just say this to you, I don’t think that’s

adequate. I really don’t think that’s adequate. I think you should

ask for the specifics of how that money is going to be used. You

are releasing money here, you are in a fiduciary—you have got a

fiduciary responsibility. And, absolutely, it should be the tribe’s determination as to what the money should be requested for, how

that money should be used, but you have got a responsibility before

you release it to know where it is going.

What’s wrong with what I am saying? Why aren’t you doing it

that way?

Mr. AZURE. I believe the—personally, I believe the legislation is

written in such a way that it provides as much freedom as possible

to the tribe to establish, as you indicated, what direction or what

purpose these moneys will be used for in basically four broad categories, and, of course, their plan is written in such a way reflecting the broad nature of the legislation, itself.

Senator CONRAD. Well, I wrote the legislation, and I can tell you

it was never my intention, never, that money would be released

just based on a resolution saying it’s going to be used for—the

whole reason that we put a reporting requirement in and an oversight responsibility in was so that somebody would be in a position

to be held accountable for the use of these funds so that when the

tribe made a request, that somebody else would look over it and

know what the specific purposes of the request were. I am saying

that to you today. I think it is absolutely the responsibility. Frankly, the responsibility was given to the Secretary of the Interior.

That’s who was given the responsibility. Now, he has delegated

that down the chain. I don’t quarrel with that.

But, I mean, if somebody read that legislation carefully, there

was a reason this was done this way. And it was so that when people would go back, there would be no question as to how that

money was used. And that is critically important to the credibility

of this whole undertaking.

So I say to you today, I hope that in the future, and I expect in

the future, before money is released that it will be released in reaction to a specific plan, not just some broad category. That’s not

good enough. You should know if there is $12 million that’s on deposit for schools, what schools are going to get fixed, what construction projects are going to be financed, what are the amounts, what

are the things that are going to be done.

Mr. Webb, what is your responsibility in this area?

Mr. WEBB. My responsibility is to make sure that all the documents are in place, tribal resolutions, signatures, and so forth, on

the 1034’s. I send them to our processing unit in Albuquerque for
14

payment of the money and follow through to make sure that the

funds are disbursed correctly.

Senator CONRAD. Is there any requirement once the money has

been released as to when it is expended?

Mr. WEBB. No.

Senator CONRAD. So the money that’s been drawn down that’s on

deposit to do construction on schools, that could be on deposit for

5 years?

Mr. WEBB. Yes; it probably could be, if it’s construction of facilities.

Senator CONRAD. Well, again, I tell you, I just don’t think that

in any way is in keeping with the intent of the legislation. The intent of this legislation is that the tribe make the determination as

to its needs and how best to use its money. After all, this is the

Tribe’s money now. It’s held in a Federal account, but it is the

Tribe’s money. But before that money is released, I think you have

got an absolute obligation, absolute obligation to know where it is

going, and not in just some general category. That in no way I

think meets the responsibility that you have.

All right. Let’s go to our next panel. Before we leave this, I would

ask you this: I am going to take back to my colleagues what’s happening here. I can tell you they are not going to be satisfied with

this. This was not the intent. And I want to hear from you within

30 days as to how you are going to alter how you do this so that

you know before money is released what this money is going for in

specific detail. It is not your judgment what they request. That

would be micromanagement. That would be a violation of self-determination. But you have got an obligation to protect the taxpayers. You have got an obligation to protect the tribal members

that the money is going for the purposes intended. And that’s

just—good fences make good neighbors. It has nothing to do with

the comment on what the Tribe is doing. That’s just good management. And I believe you have got an affirmative obligation.

And I am not—I want to make clear, I am not finding fault with

the tribe. They’re going with the plan that is in place apparently,

but I must say that it’s troubling to me that money is being released without very specific and clear plans as to how it’s going to

be used.

Ms. JONES. Senator, I would like to say that we did depend on

what the tribe sent in, the general plan, and then we utilized the

resolution as to specifics, and that’s what we tried to work with.

However, I will be happy to ensure that that plan is to you within

30 days. And maybe we had a misunderstanding of what our responsibility was in this because we thought that that money, once

it came to the Tribe, it was the tribe’s money, and so maybe we

had a disconnect there, and I can assure you from this point on

that it will not happen again.

Senator CONRAD. Well, I think that’s very important. There is a

disconnect because it is the tribe’s money, but there is also very,

very clear responsibility on the part of the Secretary of the Interior

to ensure that the money is used for the purposes intended. And

the only way that can happen is if you have the specifics of how

the money is going to be used. And to me it’s not there with what

I have heard here this morning. Thank you. And I will expect to
15

hear from you within 30 days on how that plan is up. I hope you

will work with the tribe as to devising that reporting method so we

don’t have unintended consequences on that side of the ledger.

Ms. JONES. Yes, sir; and, you know, we did have—we followed all

the way up to Washington, we had our solicitors look at it in Washington, DC.

Senator CONRAD. Is the solicitor a lawyer?

Ms. JONES. Yes.

Senator CONRAD. There is the problem. We need somebody just

with some commonsense.

Ms. JONES. They did approve of the procedures that we had in

place.

Senator CONRAD. Yes; I know. But I will tell you honestly, this

would never satisfy my colleagues and it doesn’t satisfy me and I

don’t think it would satisfy—just think about it. There has got to

be sufficient detail so people know where the money is going. Okay.

Thank you.

And we will call the second panel. And I thank you very much.

The second panel is Mary Louise Defender Wilson, Robert

McLaughlin, Dave Archambault, and Ron McNeil. If you could all

come to the witness table, I would appreciate it, and we will go in

order that was determined by the notice for the hearing. Mary Louise Defender Wilson will be the first witness on the second panel

followed by Mr. McLaughlin, Mr. Archambault, and Ron McNeil.

Dave, before I pronounce your name, or perhaps mispronounce it

again, am I pronouncing it correctly?

Mr. ARCHAMBAULT. Archambault.

Senator CONRAD. Archambault. I have been pronouncing it for

years, but maybe I have been pronouncing it wrong for years.

Mr. ARCHAMBAULT. You have done good.

Senator CONRAD. Welcome. Thanks to all of you for being here

to testify in what I think is a very important hearing. And we will

start with you, Mary Louise. Thank you for being here and please

proceed with your testimony.

STATEMENT OF MARY LOUISE DEFENDER WILSON

Ms. DEFENDER WILSON. Thank you very much, Senator Conrad

and Miss Gross, for coming to Standing Rock Reservation to listen

to what the people have to say.

At the beginning, I would like to say this to you, Senator Conrad,

that, you know, we come from this sparsely populated area of the

country, North Dakota, and you don’t know how good it makes me

feel when I see you on TV on CNN and talking to all these national, international issues with such ability and such wisdom that

I just want to share that with you. It also does the same when I

see your other two colleagues, Senators Dorgan and Daschle, on

TV, because that really is good to see and we are really, really

proud of you, at least I am, and I know a lot of other people are,

too.

Senator CONRAD. Thank you.

Ms. DEFENDER WILSON. Thank you very much. I will not read my

entire statement because I know some of you have things that you

want to say that are very important and are probably more to the

issue what Senator Conrad is trying to find out today.
16

But I am back to my original concern, and that is justice for the

190 homeowners and landowners who lost land at the time of the

original construction of the Oahe Dam. You know, our people were

living the American dream at that time. Owning a home, having

a small piece of land is something many people of this country

would probably kill for. I hate to use that word because we have

so much concern about terrorism today, but really they would, and

they would lie, cheat and steal to have that in their possession.

Yet many of you who are sitting here in this audience came from

that kind of a family, a family who lived in their own home, lived

on their own piece of land, and you lost that. And to me that was

a terrible tragedy that has not yet been addressed. You know, there

was never an opportunity for you, the descendants now. There are

some of the original people who lost their land. I see Vernon Iron

Cloud who lost his land and his home to that in the audience.

There was never that opportunity for you to purchase land again

and also to live in your own homes for many of you.

When I was going to make the statement, I talked to some people—not enough of them, but some people and I focused on one

community which was located south of Cannon Ball. Now, we can

look at every area along the Missouri River on Standing Rock and

we will find similar communities which existed. They weren’t part

of the organized district, but they were areas where people who

were related by blood when they came to the reservation. You

know, we have this word in our language, tiyospye wicozani, people

who are of the same group, people who are related by blood, they

live together.

And I was talking to one of our knowledgeable elders, Alma

Ramsey Mentz, who is also in the audience, and she grew up in

this Big Lake area and she told me who lived in that Big Lake

community starting at the south end and going north, and I can

look at that immediately and see that some of these people were

related by blood. They came from east of the Missouri River and

they were related to the great chief named Nasuna Tanka. That’s

been mistranslated to Big Head. Nasuna Tanka is a person with

a big brain because Nasuna Tanka evidently had wisdom. But you

find several families there who are direct descendants and they

were all living there together. They all had to move out of that

area.

And if you look at the list attached to my statement, only Harry

Fast Horse was able to buy just a few acres to replace what he lost.

I think it was six acres that he was allowed to buy.

Now, section 5, you know, of the original Oahe Act set aside

moneys to help improve the economic and social conditions of tribal

members and also that there was a land purchase program set up

which was supposed to help some of these people, but that did not

happen. And as I said, Big Lake is only one of the many others

where the people lost everything that they held near and dear. We

have Black Foot Bottom, we have all kinds of communities named

on the reservation. Yet that is what happened.

Now, when this Equitable Compensation Act was passed in 1992,

the people knew that the law was enacted because of the devastation they suffered when the Oahe Dam was constructed. And those

people were anticipating that there would be some economic recov-
17

ery for them from this interest money. And I think that the people

on this reservation were aware of that. They knew that the people

who lost were looking for something.

This Tribal Economic Recovery Fund Committee, which is called

TERF, they considered that there would be compensation to the

home and landowners, but somehow this whole thing got mixed up.

It got mixed up with per capita payment. I don’t know how that

happened and I don’t know what kind of—I did not see the original

letter that you wrote, Senator Conrad, about that matter. It was

told to me by Bob McLaughlin that there was a letter to that effect

that you couldn’t deal with these original landowners and homeowners who lost. So every time the homeowners and the landowners ask about compensation, they’re always, you know, faced

with, well, Senator Conrad said. Now, I don’t know what that letter

said. We have to trust each other, and I trust Bob McLaughlin that

there was such a letter that said that they could not consider the

people who lost their land.

The other thing we have to consider is, we have to help our

younger people on this reservation who do not know what it is like

to have been born and live in your own home, on your own land,

and they have not grown up in homes owned by their parents or

on estates held by their families since the original allotment made

in the early 1900’s.

Now, some of these are saying that the landowners should have

a business plan and not expect to just buy more land and lease it

out and collect rents. And I think we all know that the most influential white people of this country hold properties and lands and

collect the rents. And many inherited—many of those white people

inherited those estates from their own families.

Now, why can’t our Native Indian people, again, have this right

to hold property and to collect the rents because they have lost

that, and I was very happy to see the words used about, you know,

economic vitality and economic—you know, to improve the economic lives. I think that is one thing that would.

Now, there is a lot of things I could say because I lived on this

reservation until 1955. I heard all of the original discussions about

the Oahe Dam and Reservoir. But I returned in 1976, then I realized that for all the hell our people went through during that time,

they were not compensated to the fullest to help them heal. So this

is why when these hearings were held on this law—we’re talking

about Public Law 102–575, my adopted son, Dr. James Fenelon,

and myself worked presented it at the hearings, and we did that

as volunteers, used our own funds because we believed so strongly

that the devastation was not only economic, but they were something that went to the very soul and spirit of our people, so this

is why we did that.

And in closing, I would like to just say this, that the United

States should decide how it wants to perceive us as people. A long

time ago when we were in charge, when we were truly sovereign,

the land was all held in common; but in 1989 the land was divided

and allotted to individuals, and the people adjusted to that big

change, and they put aside all of their laws and customs and practices and traditions about communal landownership and we forgot

them. So now we rely on the BIA to manage our individual lands,
18

and the tribal council I think has one heck of a job trying to cope

with managing the tribal lands. And now then, all of a sudden we

are faced with another matter. I don’t think that the United States

wants to see us anymore as individual people. So we have to think

about who are we really, then we have to think about what do we

do and why has the United States changed its policy at this time?

And how are we going to protect ourselves, our personal rights and

our property rights?

And I want to thank you very much for allowing me to make this

statement.

[Prepared statement of Ms. Defender Wilson appears in appendix]

Senator CONRAD. Thank you very much.

Mr. McLaughlin.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT MCLAUGHLIN

Mr. ROBERT MCLAUGHLIN. I wish to thank the committee for allowing me to testify here this morning on this very important

issue, the Tribal Economic Recovery Fund.

I drafted the original report for the tribe, the Economic Loss Report, that was reviewed by the JTAC Committee in 1986 and then

by the GAO.

I was very impressed in your history, Senator. You have a grasp

of what went on during that process, and I think it’s a good one.

As you know, the resources loss, the wildlife resources, the natural

resources, the agricultural resources that were lost comprise the

basis for the argument that I developed for the additional economic

compensation that Congress provided in 1992. So I was going to

comment on that, but I can move right along because we are running late.

What I would like to do, the tribe has engaged me to look at several areas in the JTAC fund, primarily in the area of economic development, and I would like to address those this morning.

The first one is the Standing Rock Business Equity Loan Fund

which you mentioned earlier. The tribe contracted with me in 2001

to develop the policies and procedures, and I am going to comment

here that I think that these funds should all have policies and procedures. I think it’s very important that regulations and policies

and procedures be drawn up so that it reduces the tendency to misuse the funds for other purposes.

And we did that with the equity fund, and it was modeled after

the highly successful Indian Business Development Grant Program,

and I’m not so sure you are familiar with it, but in 1992 I did a

study that analyzed all the investments made under that BIA program in the Aberdeen Area Office and the BIA, which I consider

to be the best economic program in the history of the BIA, and they

had practically a 90 percent success rate for investments. That is

just unheard of in Indian country.

Senator CONRAD. What was the name of that?

Mr. ROBERT MCLAUGHLIN. The Indian Business Development

Grant Program. That was put in place in the late 1970’s by the

BIA. And what it did, it provided much needed equity finance to

Indian entrepreneurs coupled with debt finance that would be provided by outside financial institutions, or if the tribe had a finan-
19

cial institution, it could be provided by the tribal financial institution, and that put discipline into the due diligence process for investment. And that’s why I think it was real successful, because

the entrepreneurs knew they had to perform, they had to be real

Indian businessmen, and they approached the process with a great

deal of concern about their future and they succeeded, and that’s

why it had a 90 percent success ratio.

We modeled the tribe’s economic program after that successful

BIA program. And we just—the tribe just started this up and they

hired me to draft the policies and procedures, which I have to say

I borrowed heavily from the BIA’s policies and procedures because

they’re really excellent policies and procedures.

We did make a couple changes there, and that was to include a

micro program for equity along with the regular business program

that could finance projects up to $250,000. The gentleman’s—on my

right—son was the first applicant, David Archambault, and he

bought a convenience store and he just started business now. We

have four or five other applicants now that are in the process. I

think this one is going to require a lot more financing from the

tribe. It will generate economic development here in the future.

Senator CONRAD. Can I just interrupt you on that point?

Mr. ROBERT MCLAUGHLIN. Yes.

Senator CONRAD. I think this is a very, very important point. I

look at where the commitments have been made. Land purchases,

yes, that certainly is worthy; schools, I think we all agree that is

very, very critical to the community; the money to the districts. I

would hope that some of that money that has gone to the districts

would be used for the purpose that you have just outlined.

I have to tell you, and I think you know this, Bob, the vision behind this legislation was that this would be an engine to revitalize

the economy of this area. It was really not designed for per capita

payments. In fact, they are specifically excluded.

I want people to know here how we got this money. I was told

when I started down this path there was no way we would get this

money. You will remember that was the time of tremendous budget

deficits. There were no new programs. There were no new programs being started. So for me to go to my colleagues and ask for

$250 million for North Dakota, they thought I had taken leave of

my senses. But I knew that this money was owed here. The people

were owed this money.

And the whole idea was that this money—the agreement that we

made with our colleagues to get the money was that none of the

money would go for per capita payments, because when you do

that, the money is here, it’s gone and the economy is not strengthened; but that the money would go to things that would have a

longer-term impact, to improve the schools, to get people an education and to help people go to college, to help people go to community schools, to help people start a business. That’s really what it

was, so that more people would get jobs, so that there would be

more jobs in the community. And certainly buying land, that meets

the purpose of the act. To rebuild the land base of the tribe, certainly that is a good thing.

But I have to tell you I thought much more of the money would

go for the purpose that you are talking about now. I say that with
20

respect and with hope that in the future more money will go for

this purpose because I, too, believe it can make a tremendous

transformational difference in the future of this community. So I

wanted to lay that out.

And, Bob, I respect the work that you do, and I can tell you we

would never have been successful in getting this money without the

work that you had done on what was lost to this community. That

work was essential in the case I made to my colleagues as to why

we should get this money.

Mr. ROBERT MCLAUGHLIN. Thank you, Senator. The fund is also

doing something that I think is pretty exciting with the help—the

potential help of the United States, and that is to set up a national

bank here. The equity committee applied, with Standing Rock endorsement, to the Treasury Department to seek technical assistance to establish a national bank. What that would do, of course,

is permit a depository institution to operate here in Indian country

that has long needed that kind of institution.

Previously I have advocated for the development finance to come

before the bank, but the demand has grown so absolutely for a

commercial financial institution because of the population growth

and the growth now of cash and the need for depositing and the

need for investment that the committee decided to move forward.

And that application is underway. Hopefully, the tribe will be considered favorably for that.

The bank would not get started immediately, of course, because

it would have to be designed and then it would have to go through

Office of the Comptroller of the Currancy [OCC] approval, and that

would take several years, but it would require a substantial contribution and equity from the Tribe that would be matched by the

Treasury Department. Once it got started, it would probably have

around $21 million in assets, be a substantial institution, I think

given the market conditions out here, would grow very rapidly.

The third area, and this is important—I am glad to see there is

a representative from the Bureau’s Office of Trust Fund Management here, is that the tribe has this endowment that’s being managed by the Government, and I understand talking with the Office

Trust Fund personnel in Albuquerque, that it’s pretty much going

to stay there. It is a secretarial fund set up by the Congress, by

the Senate and the House and made into law. Therefore, I think

it’s really important that the tribe request the committee that adequate investment mechanisms be applied here, and I’m talking

about direct asset management.

I would like to talk about a trust fund that we had managed by

the Government since 1959. This fund has declined enormously in

real value. It started out as about a $1.5 million fund and today

it’s only worth 17 percent of that amount of money. And the reason

being that this decline has taken place is that the Government

mandates that the OTFM only invest in fixed-income securities,

and if you know what that does to a portfolio, it will erode it over

time.

South Dakota had one just like that and they made a constitutional provision just last year that prevented that fund from disappearing. Our education fund under those same type of restrictions will disappear. And although we had a pretty good couple
21

years because of the decline in the marketplace with regard to equities and the improvement in bond returns.

And I think the Office of Trust Fund Management is doing a

fairly reasonable job because our fund is a little different from

other funds in that they can invest in overnight treasuries and

they can invest in agency securities, so there is a little bit higher

rate of return.

But this JTAC fund is heading for the same fate as our education

fund. So we need to manage this like the State of South Dakota,

the State of North Dakota, which does a tremendously good job in

talking with Steve Cochran over at the securities office here. We

need to manage this fund so we can at least grow at about 4 or

5 percent above the rate of inflation so that we can have a distribution, and then in our fund allocation that the tribe passed, the distribution plan is also to provide for growing of funds, so in the future it will really be worth maybe $180 million instead of $90 million. That’s what’s happened with the State of North Dakota investment fund. So we should be able to at least do that well. So

I am going to recommend to the tribe that they talk to you to advance that in the future.

The last—and this answers one of your questions. The last area

that I want to address here is the Fort Yates local district, and

they have taken it upon themselves, Terry Yellow Fat, the planning commission there, to advocate for a development finance institution, which I think would work really nicely with the equity fund.

But it would be a finance company. It would have to be carefully

managed, of course. It would have to do some hedging, which we’re

all worried about these days, you know, the risk management. I

think they can pull it off, and that would greatly add to the economic development of the Tribe, plus it would be able to use and

leverage outside capital.

So that, Senator, concludes my comments this morning. I have

given you a very lengthy written testimony which I hope you put

in the record.

[Prepared statement of Robert McLaughlin appears in appendix.]

Senator CONRAD. I will put it in the record. Let me just say that

I think one of the things we might need to think about is, and this

would have to be thought through very carefully, but I think we

should consider taking the income stream that comes from the

JTAC fund and using that money to float a bond and get that

money—we could then get in one lump sum probably $50 million,

$60 million, and then invest that money in higher rate-of-return

assets. You know what I’m saying?

Mr. ROBERT MCLAUGHLIN. Yes.

Senator CONRAD. It may be the only opportunity we have to prevent the diminishment of this fund in real terms over time, because

right now we are in a circumstance in which we are locked into

Government securities. That is in effect the investment income that

flows from the $90 million. The only way that I know of that we

could escape that fate is to take the income stream from this trust

fund account and float a bond, sell bonds to the investment community backed up by that stream of income and get a pool of money,

and it would probably be in the range of $60 million, that could
22

then be invested in higher rate-of-return assets. I think we have

got to very carefully consider that.

Mr. ROBERT MCLAUGHLIN. Senator, I really urge—I think these

are the recommendations that we will be bringing to you. We must

do something or this fund will go away in 20 years.

Senator CONRAD. That’s why I think we need to think very carefully. One of the reasons I wanted to come here today is to get us

thinking about the various options we have. And that’s one that’s

got to be very closely and carefully considered.

Mr. ROBERT MCLAUGHLIN. I will take that up with—the tribe

just recently established an investment committee. I will take that

up right away, Senator, with the committee.

Senator CONRAD. I would appreciate that.

Mr. Archambault.

STATEMENT OF DAVE ARCHAMBAULT

Mr. ARCHAMBAULT. Good morning, Senator.

Senator CONRAD. Good morning, Dave.

Mr. ARCHAMBAULT. I want to thank whoever it was that allowed

me some time to speak. I would like to say that I am probably

going to say a lot of the same things that Bob did, Mr. McLaughlin

here, because I think that’s kind of the way it goes, but I’m probably going to say it in a little different way—or a whole lot different way.

And I am real happy to see that we have students every now and

then drifting in and sitting down seeing this hearing. I think it’s

a real—could be a real learning experience. But I guess this message that I have is maybe as much for them as for the people sitting here, and I think we have KLND, also, as well, that it’s on

air, and I think my message is bent toward that, as well as toward

the hearing.

As you may recall, Senator, I drafted the first overall plan for

use of JTAC funding in 1993. At the time I was president of Sitting

Bull College and later was a tribal councilman, and I did submit

a copy for your review. Recently I have been assisting in the effort

to put together an oversight office for an administrative structure

to handle the day-to-day affairs of the JTAC funding.

Senator I do have definite ideas that I envision for the use of

JTAC interest earnings and I wish to convey this message to you

and everyone listening.

I would like to start by telling a story that was told to several

of us on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the 1960’s. The story was

told by Edward Iron Cloud, who was born on the Standing Rock

Sioux Reservation, but believe it or not, he was born on the Cannonball River before there ever was a reservation. Edward was 97

years old when he died. I am told he was both Oglala and

Hunkpapa Lakota. What I read next is a Lakota story about starvation.

There is a Lakota story about a village that was starving. This

occurrence was not uncommon to the Great Sioux Nation or to any

other people of the world. In this one particular story, the people

were experiencing an unusually hard winter, the snow was deep

and recently a storm had raged for almost 1 week. The village had

consumed almost all their food. Everyone was very weak from hun-
23

ger. The situation was so bad that death songs could be heard now

and then.

The headmen and some of the elders that could make it met to

discuss what should be done. We had to get what food that is left

and feed the sick and dying, is what some were saying. We need

to see that at least the children and the elderly are fed was said

by others. It was a very difficult meeting because everyone was

personally experiencing misery within their own family lodges.

One of the older men in the group gestured for his request to

speak. When it was his turn, he started out by saying, my wife and

I were lying under our robes this morning talking. We heard the

people suffering, my daughter’s baby cried all night. Everyone here

is being pressed to help the needy right away. The hunger is causing us to think selfishly and behave ugly to one another. We are

not thinking clearly. He looked around at everyone seated there

and asked, who is the most needy? There was a long pause and

then he went on, this morning my wife said, our problem is

strength. We need strength if we are to survive. If we don’t have

food soon, we will lose all our strength and we will waste away.

Everyone shook their head in agreement, then he went on,

should we be arguing over who is most deserving of the food, or

should we be thinking about what is best for our people tomorrow

and the days after that? He paused for a long while and said, I

know it is hard and some would think that it is cruel for me to say

this, but my suggestion at this time—important time is to gather

all the food we can and give it to our best hunters, feed them good,

pray with them and then send them out with all of the provisions

that we can gather.

He waited, not sure of the reaction, then went on, we all know

it’s very hard to move in the deep snow. It takes a lot of strength.

We also know if the hunters we send out are successful, they will

need twice as much strength to bring the food back. Right now our

people see no tomorrow, only pain. We have to give the village

something to hope for.

When he was done speaking, the leaders left and immediately

started asking everybody in the village for what food they had left.

This again was told by Edward Iron Cloud. He was born in about

1876 and he passed away in approximately 1973.

Senator today the people of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe are looking at another survival issue just as the people did in this story.

Although the people are not starving, our people are in a bad way.

The difference is the timeframe has been moved forward 150 years.

Today the people and the leaders are arguing about JTAC. JTAC

is like the food that is talked about in the story. Many people want

the food and money right away to fix hunger or problems of their

own communities. The question is, who is most deserving when everyone is in need? Which lodge or community should get more?

But what of tomorrow? JTAC should be looked at as the food and

strength for a better tomorrow. Use JTAC for present-day needs

and satisfaction, and tomorrow the same problems of poverty and

turmoil will be knocking on the door again.

I believe JTAC presents the opportunity to invest in our own

strongest asset, which I believe is our own human or tribal ingenuity. Like in the story where the people put their faith and hope in
24

the hunters, I believe the way to overcome the terrible social ills

that threaten our culture is to invest in our own people. Of course,

today is somewhat different, so today we need a new kind of

hunter. I believe that if we ask our people to come forward with

ideas and plans that focus on future economic recovery, our tribal

members will come forward and they will effect positive change in

this place we call home.

As an example of how we can invest in our own human natural

resource, please consider the mission statement of the American

Indian Business Leaders.

The loss of a national treasury and heritage is at hand. The beautiful customs,

traditions and values of American Indian people could be but pages in history books

by the end of the 21st Century. The economic viability of indigenous people will determine this fate.

The American Indian Business Leaders is an organization that

recognizes this dilemma and faces the challenge by placing seeds

of self-sufficiency and culturally appropriate economic development

in youth and students, thereby sparking their own creativity and

resourcefulness to address the future well-being of their own people

and, most importantly, AIBL offers a concrete vision of something

to hope for.

By investing in educational programs such as AIBL and others,

in the long run, eventually we can develop a new modern-day

hunter, one that provides for the people in a dynamic cultural way.

Therefore, we should invest heavily in educational or entrepreneurial activities that pull, assist, and reward those learners, young

and old, who are so inclined and want to help solve the tribe’s problem of unemployment.

We should also invest in a lot of research and planning so that

good ideas and plans have the best chance of succeeding. We need

to be patient and plan and plan and then plan some more. We on

this reservation are facing no quick fix or solution. It will take a

long time, so we need to constantly be thinking of the seventh generation, not of our own immediate good. We need to understand

that there is more hard times ahead, but gradually as our new

hunters come into being, they will alleviate our present-day existence and our people will again enjoy a healthy lifestyle.

JTAC funding should be used to lure our people into concentrating and attacking the joblessness issue. Those who can create jobs

for themselves and others should be rewarded as a priority; 80 percent of the adults on this reservation are without work. Welfare is

eating away at our self-dignity. We should not be worrying about

how much I or we can get of this JTAC money, rather, what can

I or we do to create jobs.

We should consider the following possible initiatives. I have listed 22 options here, different things that are possibilities that I

think about that could be done by us. I look into this room and I

see the students and I see anybody in this room that should be able

to have a shot at some money with, and just as Bob said, and I

think it was mentioned before, some due diligence, that they put

together a business plan and be required to give it good so it has

the best chance of succeeding. I think if you did that, the money

was there, you would see our people coming forward.
25

There was a program on TV, I think Bill Moyer had it, it was

one of the network correspondents, but he’s talking about Muncie,

IN. Maybe some of you saw it. It’s called Middle Town and it was

talking about typical America, Muncie, IN. He was talking about

what that town went through, and at first it was—the people survived in there by these big plants that were there and now it’s completely changed. The people are supporting one another with a lot

of small business activities.

And I see that. I see that as a possibility for our tribe. I see everybody in this room and everybody should have a chance at least

to take these businesses and we start them up, we work at them,

make them successful, do the best we can with them, then that

money stays here.

The bank proposition, I have been pushing that for a long time.

We need to keep that money here, the $35 million the tribe has annually, and more, the college has money, this school has money,

the IHS has money, and we should be thinking about how we can

help one another.

So that’s the list. I have got down here pheasant farm. I think

we have Bob Molash over here who is thinking about that. Gee, I

just see there is things that we could do, recreational activities.

There’s all kinds of stuff that we could do with that river out there,

but we just need to lure or help our people say that here is a pot

of money. I think we’ve only got—far too little money has been allocated right now, I mean way too far. We need a lot more pull for

our people with a lot more possibility of getting this and applying

for it.

I have said the list of possibilities that I just read are but a few

ideas that can become a reality. In my opinion, we must do everything we can to encourage the spirit of resourcefulness and do everything we can to empower a host of creative problem solvers with

JTAC funding. Just as in the story, we should endeavor to

strengthen those that can give our tribe the best chance of surviving. I do believe that this direction offers our people the best hope

to constructively exist in the future.

To conclude my comments, Senator, I would strongly recommend

that the Senator stick to his stated commitment of economic recovery. I believe there is a lot of cultural wisdom, such as the story

I just shared, which supports such a position and, consequently,

backs your stance to appropriately use the JTAC interest earnings.

Thank you for allowing me to give this testimony. Thank you.

[Prepared statement of Mr. Archambault appears in appendix.]

Senator CONRAD. Thank you very much. And now to Ron McNeil.

Welcome, Ron. It’s good to have you here. Why don’t you proceed

with your testimony.

STATEMENT OF RON MCNEIL, PRESIDENT, SITTING BULL

COLLEGE

Mr. MCNEIL. Thank you, Senator Conrad. Welcome to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. We are pleased to have you here today. I

wanted to thank you, as well as the chairman, Senator Inouye, for

allowing me to testify before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs today.
26

For the record, my name is Ron McNeil. I am the president of

Sitting Bull College. I am an enrolled member of the Standing

Rock Sioux Tribe. My testimony today is going to cover primarily

two issues which I have been asked to cover today on JTAC, and

that is the planning process and compliance with the Act, as well

as implementation of the fund.

To start with, the planning process—I guess I should back up.

One point, Senator, is that I am a lawyer, but I don’t practice law

so I haven’t lost all my common sense yet, although some people

have accused me of that.

In terms of the process, Senator, I think it was a—as the chairman had mentioned in his testimony, it was a learning process for

us. We weren’t given any guidance by anybody in terms of how the

planning process should look. And in and of itself that sometimes

created a stumbling block, but I think it was a good lesson for us

to learn; that is, that it’s better for us to create our own process

as opposed to having one dictated to us. And I don’t think there

is going to be any planning process that ever works for all tribes.

Each tribe is, as we have always said, sovereign, each of them have

their own rules on how they govern themselves, their own customs

and traditions, et cetera, et cetera. So there’s not going to ever be

one planning process that’s going to be good and cover all tribes in

this situation.

Be that as it was, it was a difficult process for us because we did

have to live by two requirements of the law, and that is specifically

section 35–04, which designated the funds for four specific purposes; that is, education, social welfare, economic development, and

other programs. What the idea was is that they would assist at

least in the economic development and social welfare and education

of this tribe.

I think that the categories that were set up, the six categories

that were finalized by this Tribe, do meet the requirements of section 35–04. None of them fall outside of that.

The other requirement that we were very—that was very hard

for us to meet simply because a lot of the people on this reservation

still grieve over losing the land, and that is section 35–06 which

said no capita payments. We did have a lot of discussion on that

on this Tribe. The discussion even continues today. And it’s not always understood by the members of the tribe that this money was

meant purely as an economic recovery tool, not to equitably compensate the original landowners who lost that land. That, I believe,

is a different subject not covered by this particular legislation.

And, again, it was hard for us to get around that. Every time we

went out to the districts for comments, there were a number of different committees that did go out there to seek input from the districts, and continually were faced with the idea of somehow compensating the original landowners. I believe that’s one of the reasons why Kenel was one of the first jurisdictions to receive funding

under the access plan because their district was impacted the most

out of any of the river districts.

Be that as it may, the idea that—it was again a lengthy process.

We had to deal with the idea of the per capita payments. We did

get around that. I don’t think everyone understands that. There

were six categories that were set up. With the idea that it was
27

quite a lengthy process and there was a lot of input from both

grassroots people in the community, as well as the tribal government, as well as some of the institutions, Sitting Bull College being

included, that we were able to create, if you will, this access plan

which set up those six categories.

It comes to the implementation actually of that access plan

where I think that we start to run into some difficulties. In the implementation of it, as I read from the chairman’s statement, he

talks about three categories that have been funded of the six categories, that being the economic fund, the money had been spent

there; the community economic development fund, the money was

spent there; and the resource development land acquisition, the

money was spent there, as well.

And we had listened to the testimony in terms of the amounts

of millions of dollars that has been drawn down primarily for those

three categories. Some of it is spent, not all of it at this point in

time has.

I don’t think—in defense of the tribe, I don’t think that the tribe

in spending in those three categories went outside the spirit of the

law or the intent of the law. That is they did stay within the educational category, the idea that this was for economic development.

None of it did go into any individual’s pockets that I am aware of.

Again, they didn’t violate the spirit or the intent of the law, but

where I think the problem occurs is that, and you mentioned it,

there needs to be some accountability, accountability not only in

terms of how the money is actually spent, but I think accountability in terms of creating plans prior to the time the money has actually been disbursed.

The access plan as approved, and, again, with input from a lot

of people in this tribe, spells out a lot of the requirements that

should be looked for in terms of how you access the funds, what

it’s used for. Specifically, there are some requirements that are in

there that haven’t been met at all and I think are going—if they

were, would lend to the idea of a good planning process for this

tribe.

Each fund is supposed to establish—or the tribe, itself—excuse

me—is supposed to establish and allocate to each one of those

funds a set amount each year. The tribe has failed to do that. Because it’s failed to allocate said amounts to those different funds—

and the amount that they put in those can change depending on

how the tribe prioritizes each of those categories. That’s the tribe’s

wish, but I would hope that they would at least inform the public

of the plan that they have put in place of the amounts allocated

on a yearly basis. The plan calls for that and I think that’s a simple requirement of sitting down and budgeting the money that you

have so far allocated and what you anticipate for next year.

I think Mr. Archambault has worked on a similar-type concept

that is basically a budgeting plan for each of those categories. It

hasn’t been done, so nobody knows how much is allocated to land

purchase, nobody knows in this tribe how much money is going to

education until after the money has actually been drawn down.

Prior to that nobody is really aware of how much money is supposed to be put in any of those categories because there has been
28

no allocation. That’s one problem I see, is that allocation is begun

each year in those categories.

One of the other problems I see with it is that there are supposed

to be fund administrators for each of those funds. After the money

is allocated to those funds, the fund administrator then is supposed

to put in place an application process whereby people who fit within those categories, whether it be a district or whether it be a

school or whether it be an individual, knows what the application

process is. At this point in time there is no application process.

Part of that application process requires that the entity seeking

funding, whether it be Sitting Bull College asking for $4 million,

that we need to show the fund administrator, the tribe, how our

request fits into a long-range strategic plan for the institution. If

it’s the district, the district needs to put forward a long-range district plan on what it plans to see, not only for this year, but for

years down the road and how much money it intends to encumber

or needs to fulfill its plan over the years that allows for the budgeting process.

Those are basic tenets and they are laid out in the access plan

that has been submitted by the tribe to the BIA. However, those

things, those requirements haven’t been met. And I think that,

again, the tribe hasn’t violated the spirit of the law in terms of

where it spent the money. I think that it makes for much better

fund accounting, it makes for better strategic planning for this

whole tribe if those basic tenets that are laid out in that plan are

actually followed.

Now, I’m not going to fault the BIA at this point in time for saying that they didn’t know what to look for. That, yes, there is this

idea that the tribe is sovereign and should be able to utilize the

funds in a manner which it sees consistent with this act. However,

when the Tribe created this plan—it wasn’t the BIA that created

the plan, it was the tribe that created the plan. In doing so, the

tribe should simply follow the procedures that it sets forth in the

access plan, itself.

Now, the tribe hasn’t done that in the past. It has, I think,

learned a valuable lesson in terms of, and I mentioned that in my

testimony, and that is that when you start allocating funds, giving

funds out without strategic plans, without sending in an overall

budgeting, you’re going to get a run from every institution or individual in the community that can get its hands on the money.

I think the tribe experienced that run when it gave money to one

district and the rest wanted the same amount. You gave to one

educational institution, Sitting Bull College was the next in line,

we stood in line for $4 million, and after that—so every other

school on this reservation stood in line for money. And so you’ve

got another $12 million which has been drawn down for schools,

but hasn’t been given out.

The tribe has learned a lesson, I think, and that is that it’s asking for the schools, it’s asking for the districts to submit strategic

plans. It is going back to utilizing the process laid out in the JTAC

access plan, but I think there needs to be some monitoring by the

Bureau of Indian Affairs to see that in fact the requirements that

the tribe put out for itself is being followed by the tribe. It does

lead then to strategic planning, long-range planning for the institu-
29

tions, for the districts and for the individuals on this reservation

to know where the money is going to be spent not only today, but

tomorrow, and what are the priorities of the tribe.

Senator CONRAD. Thank you very much. Ron, let me ask you, $4

million has been allocated to the college. Has that money been expended?

Mr. MCNEIL. No; it hasn’t, Senator. To date I know the figures

have changed slightly. We have accumulated—that money is put in

an account in Bismarck for this college. Today we have accumulated approximately $150,000, a little over that, maybe $160,000

worth of interest income on it.

What we have spent to date is approximately $450,000. What that has been spent on so far is approximately $360,000 has been

spent on architectural fees. Another approximately $89,000 to

$90,000 has been used to fund the cultural center which is currently out there. So—excuse me. It was $360,000 for the architectural fees and approximately $90,000 for the cultural. We have

spent about $450,000. Adding $150,000 on top of $4 million and

then reducing that by the $4.5—$450,000 we spent, we currently have $3.7 million remaining.

Senator CONRAD. What have the architecture fees been spent on?

Mr. MCNEIL. Drafting—a number of things. One is—the architectural fees include testing of the soil to make sure that it can support buildings, the surveying of the property to make sure that we

actually got our boundaries in place, the actual drawing now of a

science laboratory, which will be one-quarter of the science classes

and administrative building. It’s actually about a $40 million

project that we have got planned right now. So the tribe’s contribution represents 10 percent of that $40 million campus.

Senator CONRAD. Thank you very much for that. You’re talking

about a $40 million long-term plan?

Mr. MCNEIL. Yes.

Senator CONRAD. Let me just say, and this is hard to say, but

it’s the truth, and it needs to be known. This legislation was passed

on the idea that it would provide an economic recovery fund to the

entire Tribe, that the entire Tribe was hurt by what occurred. This

was not intended, and specifically it was precluded by our colleagues—and let me just say that the tribal leadership at the time

was absolutely involved in these decisions. This wasn’t Kent

Conrad just making a decision. It didn’t work that way. This was

consultation with the tribal council, the tribal chairman in terms

of the negotiation with our colleagues to get this money passed.

And we were specifically precluded—the only way we could get this

money was to make the commitment that it would not go out in

per capita payments.

Now, why did our colleagues insist on that? They insisted on it

because even though there’s desperate need, if you put the money

out in for the future. We haven’t built a stronger base. We haven’t

built jobs. We haven’t built opportunity. We haven’t improved the

long-term condition of the tribe and its members. That’s why they

insisted on that condition. And we agreed to it. Let’s be absolutely

clear and honest with each other, we agreed to that condition. I

agreed to it. The tribal leadership agreed to it. That’s a fact. And

so that’s where we are today.
30

The idea was an economic recovery fund. Yes, invest in our people. Invest in education so they have a better future. Invest in jobs

so they have an opportunity to get a job and to make money. Yes,

buy land to restore the land base. All of those things were contemplated. Yes, have things that could help people with immediate

needs such as medical. If there was a medical situation or some

special need, that’s provided for.

And the idea for those who suffered the most, those who had

their lands taken, that that should be part of a consideration on

their trying to get money to go to college or that they are trying

to get started in a business, that that would be one part of the consideration of how the funds would be used to build the economic

base of the community. That was all part of the agreement.

So I wanted to say that. That is what happened. That’s how it

came about. And we have got an obligation to try to the best of our

ability to carry out the intentions of the program. And the intentions are good intentions. The intention is to use this money so

that five years from now we come back and 1 year from now and

2 years from now things are better here, the people have a better

future. And I think these witnesses have done an excellent job in

outlining that here today. I thank you for that.

I thank each of the witnesses for your participation here today.

Your full statements will be made part of the record.

Now I am going to open it to people in the audience who might

want to say something. If you would just go to the microphones— anybody who would like to make a statement go to the microphones and line up there so you have a chance to be heard. My intention would be—we have got a real time crunch here, but we are

going to take 15 minutes to get statements. We probably won’t be

able to hear from everybody who would like to make a statement.

I would say this to you. We will go back and forth. We will start

on this microphone to my left, then we will come over to this microphone. We will go back and forth. We will give everybody 1 minute,

1 minute. That’s the only way we can do it fairly. So if you have

got more than 1 minute, think quickly about how you reduce the

length so that we can give as many people a chance to make a

statement here as possible.

Let me just say that when you begin, if you would give your

name and spell it for the stenographer, that would help her. And

we will start to my left. Yes, sir.

STATEMENT OF TERRENCE YELLOW FAT, CHAIRMAN, FORT

YATES LOCAL DISTRICT

Mr. YELLOW FAT. Thank you, Senator. My name is Terrence Yellow Fat, T-e-r-r-e-n-c-e Y-e-l-l-o-w F-a-t. I’m chairman of the Fort

Yates local district.

I will submit the full text——

Senator CONRAD. Just withhold for a minute. We would ask people to refrain from conversation so that we can hear the witnesses.

Please proceed.

Mr. YELLOW FAT. Thank you. A quick overview, Senator. I would

like to quote from the Congressional Research Service, Library of

Congress in correspondence to the Honorable Senator Dorgan dated

September 8, 1998, relative to the use of the funds under Three Af-
31

filiated Tribes and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Equitable Compensation Program. I quote:

Currently, there are no Department of the Interior implementing regulations to

provide the tribes with procedures and standards in making requests for expenditures from the Funds. There is scant legislative history.

Next, the Congressional Research Service indicates that if one of

the tribes establishes a program to improve the education, social

welfare, or economic development of tribal members and sets criteria for eligibility for financial assistance or grants, nothing in the

statute would bar the Secretary of the Interior from approving a

request by a tribe to fund such a program despite the fact that the

program would eventually result in payments to individuals. In

proposing such programs, the tribes would be advised to draft eligibility standards to identify recipients and set up procedures to

screen applicants and oversee management and disbursements,

rather than submitting prescreened lists of tribal members.

And basically our local district has been blamed for proposing a

per capita payment, and actually we are trying to use this criteria

here to assist the residents of Fort Yates local district.

I will end my comments there. The full text will be submitted.

[Prepared statement of Mr. Yellow Fat appears in appendix.]

Senator CONRAD. I appreciate that. Let me just say this to you

very directly. That may be the Congressional Research Service. I

was there. I wrote this law. I got it passed. I had to negotiate with

my colleagues to get it passed. There is absolutely no question that

the commitments were made not to make per capita payments.

That does not mean you can’t help people go to school, you can’t

help people do other things, you can’t loan money to them to start

a business. You can do all of those things. But you can’t just make

per capita payments. That was a very clear commitment that was

made.

Mr. YELLOW FAT. And we are not proposing that.

Senator CONRAD. Okay. I appreciate that. Yes, sir. We’ll come to

this side, and if you would give your name for the record and spell

your name to help our stenographer.

STATEMENT OF CEDRIC GOOD HOUSE, VICE CHAIRMAN,

EXECUTIVE JTAC COMMISSION

Mr. GOOD HOUSE. My name is Cedric Good House, C-e-d-r-i-c Go-o-d H-o-u-s-e. And I am a member of the Fort Yates community.

I’m also vice chairman of the Executive JTAC Commission. The Executive JTAC Commission is members of each community elected

by their communities, and it’s a commission established by the tribal ordinance that we develop and the tribal council pass.

What is significant here, Senator, is that in our development of

the ordinance, we proposed an administrative structure to be put

in place to manage and administer the funds outside of tribal government, a non-political, unbiased administrative structure so that

what you are talking about helping people recover economically can

be done free of politics.

To date—and I just want to—and I will be submitting additional

documentation to support our claim for that it needs to be administered outside of tribal government, not outside of the government

of the tribe, but outside
32

It’s the same thing that you use when you make allocations at

the Senate level. You give money to different departments, like the

Interior Department. They in turn make money available to different park people, and communities and tribal governments apply

for that money with appropriate data. That’s not done here. Whoever you’re in favor with with council, that’s—you know, whenever—and a lot of the allocations were done not without data, and

I think that to date things have been pretty nice as to how this has

been done.

I want to use one example that you raised some questions about, and that concerns the $12 million that was told to you that’s been

deposited in the bank of Wells Fargo—Wells Fargo Bank in

Mobridge. That resolution that authorized that draw-down, that

resolution was rescinded, so there is no $12 million for going to

those schools that you might think. It’s just sitting in the bank at

the discretion of the tribal administration. And without a resolution, that money—$7.4 million plus of that money was used to— was encumbered to collateral for cosigned loans prior to the election of 2001.

And there is a great deal of concern over that. It was brought

to our attention as the Executive JTAC Commission because we

were advocating that there be an oversight office for management

and accountability of these funds and this is where we started trying to rectify that problem. We wanted to have the plan suspended,

rewrite the plan so that we can—so things can be followed. We

wanted to have policies and procedures initiated, because the policies and procedures portion of the plan that was approved by the

BIA, there have been no policies and procedures ever established.

The BIA in turn, they say they submitted resolutions for drawdown. There is a reg that states that there is—the membership of

the tribe needs to be notified of the intent of the draw-down, of the

intent. And prior to that, prior to any draw-down there has never

been any sort of public hearing. We tried to rectify that by writing

it into the ordinance.

Senator CONRAD. Let me interrupt you and ask you—— Mr. GOOD HOUSE. Sure. Please.

Senator CONRAD. [continuing]. Something about something you

have said.

Mr. GOOD HOUSE. Sure.

Senator CONRAD. What I hear you saying, correct me if I have

heard you incorrectly, is that the $12 million that was drawn down

for school repair and construction is in an account, that some portion of that has been encumbered for loans to individuals?

Mr. GOOD HOUSE. Yes; that’s right. $7.4 million of it. And it’s

also in banks, different banks across the country, from Austin,

Texas, to Minneapolis, to various other banks surrounding this

area in North and South Dakota, Montana, and, you know, outside—further outside.

And I believe there is a definition that you put into the legislation that talks of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and what that means,

and the definition of that means for residents of the Great Sioux

Nation residing on the Standing Rock Reservation.

Senator CONRAD. That’s exactly right, it is for Standing Rock.

Well, that’s a real concern. If the money has been drawn down for
33

one purpose and used for another purpose, that’s exactly why we

are having this hearing today, to find out how the funds have been

used. And if money was drawn down for school construction and

used as collateral for loans to individuals, then that presents a very

serious problem.

Mr. GOOD HOUSE. You know, Senator Conrad, the tribal government was petitioned—when the loan program was closed, the tribal government was petitioned by membership to utilize $5.5 million

for a lending program. The BIA returned that resolution back to

the tribe saying which fund did it come out of? That resolution was

never justified to the request of the BIA. Instead, they just let it

go. And yet at the same—without an authorizing mechanism or authority or resolution, they encumbered—the administration encumbered $7.4 million of that $12 million that was sitting in a bank.

There are regulations of the Office of Trust Management that allow

the tribe to return money back to the U.S. Treasury and the resolution that rescinded that, and I have the minutes and will be submitting that to your office.

Senator CONRAD. Will you submit that for the record, please?

Mr. GOOD HOUSE. Yes; and in that resolution it admits that we

did not follow the plan, the tribal government.

Senator CONRAD. All right. Thank you very much.

Mr. GOOD HOUSE. Thank you.

[Prepared statement of Mr. Good House appears in appendix.]

Senator CONRAD. Yes, sir.

STATEMENT OF MANAJAUNJINCA HILL

Mr. HILL. Thank you, Senator Conrad. My name is

Manajaunjinca, M-a-n-a-j-a-u-n-j-i-n-c-a, Hill, H-i-l-l, descendent of

John Taggert. My mom was Rose—my grandma was Rose Taggert,

so I am a direct descendent of the people who lost land out there.

I would just like to say thank you for making one comment, and

that was that landowners or people who actually lost lands can be

given a preference in these millions of dollars. I think that has

been overlooked so often so many times. I appreciate you saying

that and it being on the record that maybe the tribe will look at

us as landowners who lost and give us some type of preference.

Thank you.

Senator CONRAD. Next.

STATEMENT OF PETE RED TOMAHAWK, CHAIRMAN, CANNON

BALL COMMUNITY

Mr. RED TOMAHAWK. Thank you, Senator Conrad. My name is

Pete Red Tomahawk. I am the district chairman for the Cannon

Ball community. And also I sit as one of four national cochairs for

negotiated rulemaking committee. And it’s a privilege and an honor

to represent the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in this capacity.

But my concern, Senator Conrad, is that we are one of the communities that is adjacent to the Missouri River. Our community

was relocated—97 percent of our community has been relocated on

top of the hill. On top of the hill where our community now sits,

it faces the harsh climate of the winter, of the elements that come

and whipping at our housing, but yet at the same time we still

have a dire shortage of housing that was shared with our people
34

back then. You know, what is your need? You know, where are the

grandchildren of our grandparents that are finally seeing the reality of the JTAC dollars that become a reality? Our grandparents

and our parents have not seen that. But yet, most importantly,

now as grandchildren we see what our grandfathers—our parents

have said was that it’s not what I want. It’s for my grandchildren

that are going to be here for tomorrow. So I am looking at that.

We have a dire shortage of housing. We have a very serious problem with our youth in looking at youth suicides. We are in a crisis

even as we speak, Senator Conrad, and looking at even as late as

last night, I was informed of a young man that was going to try

to commit suicide.

What we did as a community, we established a zero tolerance

looking at alcohol, drugs and youth violence. But what it stems

from is alcohol. We have this resolution on file that was approved

by the tribal council and we have just recently had a liquor license

passed for our communities to look at the problem—the stem of all

of these problems. So this is a great concern of ours. In looking at

that——

Senator CONRAD. I am going to have to ask you to wrap up because, otherwise, we are never going to get through all the people

who would like to speak.

Mr. RED TOMAHAWK. The last point is roads. We need better

roads, Senator, and looking at our streets and the roads, our school

bus routes. That’s all.

Senator CONRAD. Thank you very much. Yes, sir.

STATEMENT OF JEFF MCLAUGHLIN

Mr. JEFF MCLAUGHLIN. Welcome to Standing Rock, Mr. Conrad.

My name is Jeff McLaughlin, M-c-L-a-u-g-h-l-i-n. I am a landowner

through inheritance. I was directly affected as a result of the flooding the Oahe taken area. Therefore, several lawsuits were filed in

tribal court. And the Hunkpapa Treaty Council, Standing Rock

Landowners Association that initiated lawsuits on the JTAC

through permission we acquired because my parents—my mother

is from Kenel, my dad is from Wakpala, and so our family has a

direct say in this. And there is a lot of things I want to say, but

these lawsuits were filed because landowners are not being sufficiently compensated to their satisfaction. Because 85 percent was

lost, the priority should be to the landowners secondary to the outlying district. The tribe does not lose as much land as the landowner. This is submitted in the court documents, that factual evidence, and we will be submitting some more.

The case that—the angle that we came from is the landowners’

priority and we should deem it necessary to take back the money

or to reappropriate it to the landowners because as a solution, land

replacement may be—just compensation may be a trust fund, a

hundred thousand dollars for each family because there is a lot

more than 180 families in the whole district. There is 300-plus individuals who are asking for more information, but the way the

system is set up that we cannot access this because of the lawsuit,

so we have to go—that’s the only alternative. We try to reason with

the tribe, the district.
35

Currently I’m self-employed, unemployed maybe because of my

activities. But this is what I believe in. I volunteered my services.

The information is factual, but for whatever reason, the landowner

should be dealt with appropriately, sufficiently and compensated,

and that’s why the lawsuit was filed. That’s the only alternative.

So I ask that—make a challenge if you reappropriate the money,

because the way the system is set up now it’s not working. And as

a landowner we are asking for your help because we have been

waiting 40-plus years for this. So another thing is interpretation of

the law because each family’s needs are different. Some may have

lost houses, some may have lost all of it. But that’s what we are

asking, make it a priority for the landowners. With that, thank

you.

Senator CONRAD. All right. Let me just say—I would ask Cora

Jones to come back to the witness table. I understand she is still

here. Let me just say, Lynn, if you would come up, too, because I

am going to have to have you take over after I hear from Cora

Jones on what we were just told here. We have to go to Dickinson

today and we have people waiting for us there. So Lynn Clancy is

my State chief of staff. He will take the rest of the testimony, it

will all be recorded in the record and we will review that.

I want to ask, Cora, we heard something here today that is a

concern to me and that is that the $12 million that was drawn

down for schools, apparently the assertion is that $7.4 million of

that was used—has been used as collateral for loans which is not

the purpose for which it was drawn down. Were you aware of that?

Ms. JONES. No, sir.

Senator CONRAD. Well, that kind of goes back to the whole point

I was making about knowing where the money is going and have

very specific indication of where it’s going before it is released. And

this is exactly what I was worried about. Money was released for

one purpose, and the testimony is here today it’s been used for another purpose. Does that concern you?

Ms. JONES. Very much, yes.

Senator CONRAD. Well, I think we have to get to the bottom of

this. And I am asking as part of the process that you engage in to

come back to us in 30 days with a process that we can be assured

that money is released for a specific purpose and goes for that purpose, that you get to the bottom of this.

Ms. JONES. I understand.

Senator CONRAD. I want to know if this is accurate. I want to

know how this occurred, how money has been released for one purpose and used for another purpose because that is not acceptable

and we have got to have an answer.

Ms. JONES. Yes; I agree with you wholeheartedly. I wrote that

down to ensure that that gets investigated.

Senator CONRAD. All right. I want to—I intend now to hold the

record of this hearing open until I get the answers to those questions. And if you will provide it as soon as you have it.

Ms. JONES. I will. Senator, can I add one more thing?

Senator CONRAD. Yes; was a resolution that was not rescinded,

talking about the $12.5 million. In actuality, there was only $7 million that was drawn down on that, on this particular draw-down,
36

and as far as—I have Dean Webb down here. Dean, can you come

up and explain this, please? I’m sorry, my voice is going.

Senator CONRAD. No; that’s fine. If he’s got the most direct information, that’s what we want in this hearing. Identify yourself for

the record again, Mr. Webb.

Mr. WEBB. Dean Webb with the Office of Trust Fund Management. Just to make clear here, there was a draw-down that was

requested for $12.5 million dollars, and in that $5.5 million was to

be used for this credit program, that was mentioned in one of the

testimoneys. That did not fit the plan and we did not release that

$5.5 million.

Senator CONRAD. Well, what we heard here today is $12 million

was released and $7.4 million was used for a purpose other than

the stated purpose. That’s what I heard here today.

Mr. WEBB. But the comment was also made about this tribal

credit program.

Senator CONRAD. Right.

Mr. WEBB. And we did not release $5.5 million.

Senator CONRAD. You did not release the money for that purpose.

Mr. WEBB. We adjusted the 1034.

Senator CONRAD. It seems somehow the money got used for that.

You may not have released it for that purpose, it got released for

another purpose and used apparently in that other way.

Let me just say this. I want to apologize to those that are standing in line and waiting to testify. I have to go because I can’t make

it in time for the next meeting if I don’t. But Lynn Clancy, who

is my chief of staff here in the State, has worked closely with people on the Standing Rock Reservation for many years and he will

listen to the rest of the testimony, it will all be recorded in the

record, so we will have a complete record of everybody’s testimony.

I want to thank everybody who has participated here today. I

want to thank Chairman Murphy for his courtesy in helping organize the hearing. I want to thank Cora Jones for being here. I want

to thank all of you who participated in this hearing. I appreciate

it very much.

Lynn Clancy will now take the additional testimony. And we will

hold the record open for the hearing until we have these additional

items made available.

Mr. GOOD HOUSE. Sir, may I make a point of clarification here for Cora, as well as Dean Webb? There was $12 million drawndown for three schools, one was the McLaughlin School, one was

the Solen-Cannon Ball School and one was the Fort Yates District

School. That $12 million that was drawn-down was rescinded after

they got the money here. That money was deposited in the bank

in Mobridge. It has since sat there and the tribe then, the administration because there was no resolution by the tribe reauthorizing

use of that money, so the administration of this Government took

that and used $7.4 million of that money to collateralize—to cosign

for loans across the country. Now, we have the documents from

Larry New Bird, the finance officer, that speaks very clearly to

that, as well. Thank you.

Senator CONRAD. Let me just say, I would like you to share that

documentation not only with the committee, but with Cora Jones,

because that should not happen, very clearly, and we have got to
37

get to the bottom of what’s occurred here and we have got to make

sure that does not happen again. Thank you very much.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you, Senator. We will continue now with the

testimony and I believe we are on this side.

STATEMENT OF FAITH TAKEN ALIVE, BEAR SOLDIER

DISTRICT

Ms. TAKEN ALIVE. For the record, my name is Faith Taken Alive.

I’m from the Bear Soldier District.

And I would like the Senator to hear my comment, and please

take notice that there are two JTAC status reports, both dated September 20, 2001. One JTAC status report shows a $50 million

minus that was issued in October at the Prairie Knights Casino.

The second JTAC status report also dated September 20, 2001, that

was passed out at the January Cannon Ball JTAC reservationwide

meeting reflects a minus $57 million figure. There’s a discrepancy of $7 million between the two documents.

Also, on the September 20—yes, September 2002 JTAC status report, there is a list of where the banks—of money—where the

JTAC money has been collateralized, there’s a list of the banks

where and the amounts where the JTAC funds have been sent as

collateral.

Also, if you go to the May 4—back to the May 4, 2002, motion

number 47, I included it in the packet of documents I gave to you,

a transcript of the May 4 meeting whereby there is no motion to

approve the JTAC access plan or the EDFI or there was no motion,

period. That was—Mr. Murphy clarified that himself three times in

a row, and then proceeded to call for a second based on another

councilman’s recommendation, then took a vote on a motion that

did not exist, then turned and used that tape verbatim to state

that a motion by resolution was made to approve of the draw-down

of the first $6 million of money to approve the JTAC access plan

when in fact no motion even existed. I ask the Senator to take special—look at that for fraudulent obtaining of Federal funds.

Also, the loans and land purchases suddenly stopped after Mr.

Murphy was re-elected. I also request that the Senator’s office investigate this stopping of the loans and the land sale based on election fraud laws—Federal laws of the United States.

Also, I would like to emphasize to the Senator that we heard

some nice, shiny, fluffy reports here today, but not one single job

has been created with the JTAC funds. We have continued to live

in a high rate of poverty. We continue the dependence of community members on the tribal council and the tribal government because of the lack of jobs. There is no financial dignity on Standing

Rock for individual enrolled members. And I request that the Senator do a full-blown investigation on the JTAC funds of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and I thank you for your time.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you, Faith. Now we will go to the next mike

here.

STATEMENT OF WANDA WHITE EAGLE

Ms. WHITE EAGLE. My name is Wanda White Eagle. Shall I spell

it? It’s just the way it——

Mr. CLANCY. Spell your last name.
38

Ms. WHITE EAGLE. White Eagle, two words, W-h-i-t-e E-a-g-l-e.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you.

Ms. WHITE EAGLE. I have heard a lot of comments, and there

was just one person that I really found—you know, this

Archambault guy that told the story about our people, how the people are suffering on the reservations, the children, especially the

children.

We have a lot of educated people. We have a lot of people sitting

on several committees, our and it seems to me like a lot of people

kind of get carried away when it comes to money, when you talk

money. And we should really sit down and put our minds together

and start, you know, trying to create a different—you know, a different community, a different life for—there are seven districts— I think there are eight now on the Standing Rock Reservation total,

okay, to create economic development. Just like I said, there’s a lot

of educated people within our reservation, but I see a lot of greedy

people, too.

I am one of the people that was applying for a business loan. I

was told that there was a set amount of 350,000. I have a business

plan that is like a multimillion-dollar project, not only from—well,

I am from the Rock Creek community, probably one of the smallest

communities on the reservation.

I have this business plan, I am working on it right now, but just

like everyone else, you know, personal problems, family crisis, medical emergencies, everything that can get in the way of you sitting

down and putting your business plan together. And I am working

on my own. I am not getting paid from any sources, no committees.

I do not sit on any committees.

I am a mother, full-time mother, concerned member of our community, and I see a lot of the children struggling and suffering, and

I as a person want to make a commitment to make those changes,

and with this business plan I have, you know, I am going to see

these changes, I’m going to carry out these changes, and I have a

multimillion-dollar project, and I’m talking about dinosaurs, I’m

talking about fossils. You all know what that is. We have those in

our community of Rock Creek, within the boundaries, the natural

resources.

And I’m going to tell you a story about how our people lived a

long time ago, but we lived off the land. I’ll cut my story short so

other people can give their input and whatever. But I just want to

let the people know that it’s time now to stop and to take a real

good look at what we—the opportunities that we have to create a

better future for our children. I am talking about a cultural center

with arts and crafts. All our people on the reservation have been

gifted with the talents of art, being able to create costumes, beadwork, star quilts, and I hope you know what I am talking about.

Just to give you an idea what I am talking about——

Mr. CLANCY. I think so, Wanda. But we do need to have your

plan—business plan, and so on, fairly addressed by a process that

would be put in place that administers the business development

fund or the equity fund. I don’t think we will be able to do that

in this hearing.

Ms. WHITE EAGLE. Yes; well, I was just here to inform the people

I am one of the people that is trying to create economic develop-
39

ment for our community. By this I was talking about the dinosaurs,

we can create jobs that way for our people, on-the-job training to

bring back, you know, and then a museum to preserve our natural

resources. By that I am talking about the dinosaurs and the fossils.

Our home is where Sitting Bull was born and where he was raised

and where he died. And there is a lot of history in our community

that the people kind of fell away from, so we want to preserve that.

You know, with this museum we want to be able to preserve those

things, but we would also like to create economic development and

a better education for our community and for our younger generation, but not only the Rock Creek community, the whole Standing

Rock Reservation as a whole. I’m talking about the whole reservation. I’m not just thinking about Rock Creek.

Mr. CLANCY. Well, thank you very much.

Ms. WHITE EAGLE. Thank you.

Mr. CLANCY. Now to this mike.

STATEMENT OF SHIRLEY MARVIN, TETUWAN OCETI SAKOWIN

TREATY COUNCIL

Ms. MARVIN. Thank you. My name is Shirley Marvin. I’m with

the Tetuwan Oceti Sakowin Treaty Council.

And, Mr. Clancy, we were up visiting you in your office last

month, and if you remember, we gave you a packet of material, a

tape——

Mr. CLANCY. Yes.

Ms. MARVIN. [continuing]. A transcript. I would encourage you to

really read those and go through everything that we did give you.

Listen to that tape. It’s a shocker.

But what you’ve heard here and what you are hearing is just the

tip of the iceberg. You know, there’s been a horrible misuse of

power in regard to JTAC funds. People have said earlier that there

have been no jobs created, and that’s the truth, no jobs. You have

documentation within that packet that shows you illegal use of resolutions, instruments of government, have been misused. They

have been doctored. And that’s all in that packet that we gave you.

Mr. CLANCY. And that material has been put into the record and

we do have it.

Ms. MARVIN. Thank you. What I would like to recommend is that

we have a complete investigation from the IGA’s or RG’s office because there is just too much. People have lost money. I am a landowner, too. I never did get paid for the land that we had here. My

home that I grew up in, that was flooded. I never did get paid for

it, so I know what these landowners are talking about because I

am one of them. And I don’t have a job. I also know what the unemployed are talking about. We need jobs. I don’t have a home. I

know what the homeless are talking about. So I fit in all these categories.

And I am requesting a complete investigation, not just an audit,

an investigation because the deeper you dig on this material, the

more you are going to find the illegal things that are happening

and have happened. And I think the people of Standing Rock deserve that.

Mr. CLANCY. And Senator Conrad shares your concern.

Ms. MARVIN. Thank you.
40

STATEMENT OF RANDAL WHITE, TRIBAL COUNCILMAN,

PORCUPINE, ND

Mr. WHITE. Randal White, R-a-n-d-a-l W-h-i-t-e. I represent the

Porcupine, North Dakota, I’m a tribal councilman there.

I guess my wishes—I have been sitting—our community has

been sitting around the roundtable for the last 6 years of planning,

planning, planning, and we are one of the communities that would

like to see some of that money so that we can build maybe a small

clinic in our community, more houses, we can do more things within our community, probably put in a convenience store, because

there is a need, that we have been sitting down for the last 6 years.

And I hope each of the eight communities also need the same in

each of the communities. Each need is different. So I just wanted

to share that with you, because we have been sitting around the

roundtable for the last 6 years planning and planning and now it’s

time that we see some of that money to build jobs in our communities, give education money to our kids to go to school.

I know my wife goes 80 miles roundtrip just to work. A lot of our

community members drive a long ways to work. We want to put

jobs there so we don’t have to travel as long. Also, the community

of Selfridge needs water. And our roads in Porcupine and Selfridge

need some repairs, so we sure could use some of that money out

to the eight districts. Thank you very much.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you. This mike.

STATEMENT OF ALMA MENTZ

Ms. MENTZ. My name is Alma Mentz, A-l-m-a M-e-n-t-z.

I’m here on behalf of the landowners that have lost land. My

mother happens to be one of them. And this is the thing Mary Louise Defender Wilson spoke about, so many of the families that grew

up along this Missouri River that have been forced to the top, to

the back. To no-man’s land, they put us, the government—the U.S.

Government. And we need to be healed. We need to be healed.

We’re hurt. We are still hurting today because of what the U.S.

Government has done to you and I. For what? No money.

My mother lost all her allotments. She lost four allotments. I believe she received $1,200. You cannot put or I cannot put value on

the trees, the land. You cannot put a value on their being. But this

is nation, the red nation, the Sioux Nation, the Great Sioux Nation

I have been saying.

But now what I want to see is that some of the landowners—

some districts have been given millions and millions of dollars.

When are the ones that had lost land and from thus generated the

JTAC money, when are we ancestors going to get any of the money,

the funding that’s going out? The landowners lost all this land.

We’re sitting here and over there somebody else is fighting over the

money that has been generated from the landowners’ land. I’m

hurt. I will speak against that to my people today again. I speak

like this to my council when I go before them, because they are sitting on these serious problems. We need to be healed. We have no

funds set aside for the healing process.

Look at our people. We are all going under with alcohol, which

the Government sent up the river to destroy the red nation with.

He first tried to kill off our buffalo. A little history to you, sir. He
41

said let us starve the people when he got defeated by the Great

Sioux Nation. He said let us starve them. He chased my people all

over. He massacred here and there. Then when he couldn’t, we

were still survivors, he said let us give them blankets with the disease of smallpox, and which he did. This is why Lewis and Clark—

the people are strong on Lewis and Clark heavily today. I don’t

need to hold them up there just because he’s going to give me a

few dollars for my pocket to be remembered. Why aren’t our ancestors instead of Lewis and Clark? What kind of Indians are we

today?

Mr. CLANCY. I appreciate your comments.

Ms. MENTZ. I really get upset, all these issues going on here

today. We need to be compensated.

Mr. CLANCY. The purpose of this program is to try to address

some of those injustices.

Ms. MENTZ. Thank you so much.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY WHITE MOUNTAIN, PROGRAM COORDINATOR, LAKOTA RESIDENT MANAGE CORPORATION,

MCLAUGHLIN, SD

Mr. WHITE MOUNTAIN. Hello. My name is Anthony White Mountain, A-n-t-h-o-n-y W-h-i-t-e M-o-u-n-t-a-i-n, Senior. And I work

with the Lakota Resident Management Corporation as the program

coordinator in McLaughlin, SD.

And our resident management program and the boys and girls

club have put in requests JTAC money, which we are denied over

and over. I was wondering if that money can be used for social programs to help the people and the residents such as finding them

jobs, and so forth? Can that money be used for that purpose, for

the purpose of a boys and girls club?

Mr. CLANCY. Are you talking about a club?

Mr. WHITE MOUNTAIN. JTAC money use.

Mr. CLANCY. It would seem like it’s within the purview of the

legislation. You know, I’m sure again there is a process for evaluating these proposals, a determination can be made. I don’t think I

should be trying to make that determination here today. But certainly that’s a worthwhile process to develop youth. We need those

kinds of programs.

Mr. WHITE MOUNTAIN. One other question I have is the fact that

the illegal use of the JTAC money for election purposes, what

would happen if that was found to be true?

Mr. CLANCY. Well, that’s a whole—another issue that really gets

separate from JTAC and it needs to be looked at perhaps by law

illegal process of conducting elections, and I have heard some very

serious allegations made here and they need to be investigated in

a different way than this hearing would provide.

Mr. WHITE MOUNTAIN. Will that jeopardize the JTAC funds as

it exists now, if that is found to be true? If that’s the case, it can

be found to be true, will that affect the JTAC money as it is now?

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t see it affecting JTAC money for the future.

It’s certainly something that would need to be stopped and other

legal proceedings brought to bear, investigations to make sure that
42

justice is brought for the past, but we would through this process

be making sure it doesn’t happen in the future.

Mr. WHITE MOUNTAIN. Thank you very much.

Ms. DEFENDER. Last but not least, Mr. Clancy, I have a letter

that was written by a renowned actor—I don’t know if you have

heard of him—Gary Busey. Dear Mr. Conrad: The following message was telephoned to me last evening. The messenger is a young

renowned actor who had the opportunity to know the late Joseph

A. Walker, who was vice president of our Lakota/Dakota Advocates

for Human and Civil Rights and one of the founders of this organization.

Mr. Busey states to Senator Conrad, quote:

Whatever Standing Rock needs for the good of the people relative to JTAC, you

must listen to the elders and the advocates for human and civil rights.

And I would like to give this to you because he’s got a little note

at the bottom.

Mr. CLANCY. Very good. I appreciate that. Okay. At the left here.

STATEMENT OF PHYLLIS YOUNG

Ms. YOUNG. My name is Phyllis Young, P-h-y-l-l-i-s Y-o-u-n-g. I

am a resident of the Fort Yates District and an elected member of

the Fort Yates Local District Planning Commission. And I would

like to welcome the Senator and thank him for having a hearing

in our community and here on Standing Rock.

From the onset the Fort Yates local district has acknowledged

the importance of effective plans, clear accountability and grassroots tribal development in developing and implementing the recovery program.

Our district has actively participated in the development of the

required tribal plan for implementation of the funds, including the

seven drafts of the plan that was approved by the BIA in 2000. The

Fort Yates community focused on the development of the ordinance, as well, that ordinance having been drafted several times

and in fact still in the development stages.

The key factor in the development of our plan is finance. The

Fort Yates community leaders are determined that equity development finance will be a reality for our community and our tribe. The

district has strongly recommended that the EDFI, Economic Development Finance Institute, not be included in the ordinance so that

a financial structure can be developed in its proper context.

There are many community members who are still trying to

grasp this new technology finance. There are many members and

leaders who are trying to grasp the entire development of the legislation. It has not been easy. It has not been timely. But our time

is here now. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council has approved

$1.2 million for a Fort Yates housing plan that will be

reservationwide to begin healing and recovery through home building. Hopefully this will be a yearly program to rebuild the 197

homes destroyed in the flooding in 1960.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council has approved of an additional million dollars which the Fort Yates local district will use for

a quilting project, $250,000, purchase lots and facilities for business development, 189,500, an Economic Development Finance Institute phase 1, which is $160,500.
43

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council has approved $6 million

for the Fort Yates District Oyate Wicha Ukini Project, Re-awakening of the People, which fits in the social component of the plan

and the ordinance as adopted. The plan will be used to bring the

people up to standard living conditions as much as possible, $3.5

million. And the Community Equity Development Finance Institute, which may be a consolidated effort with the tribe, but currently the plan is to craft a project that would fit the needs of the

Fort Yates District, $1.8 million, phase 2.

The Fort Yates local district appreciates the uniqueness of Public

Law 102–575 as it applies to Fort Berthold and Standing Rock. As

stated earlier, the Fort Yates community involved itself in the development of plans and guidelines. It has been a tremendous exercise of responsibility and self-help as the Congress gave broad discretion to the development under this act.

Senator Conrad and committee members, we thank you for your

interest and your continued support of the issues at Standing Rock.

For now we thank you and urge your support of our projects, particularly Oyate Wicha Ukini, Re-awakening the People, so that our

people may live.

In closing, I would like to recommend that there be an amendment so that the financing and the floating bonds can be a reality,

that there will be an amendment for accountability for ourselves

here at home and in the law that we all had dreams of that became

a reality. Thank you.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you, Phyllis.

STATEMENT OF SHANNON SILBERNAGEL, MEMBER,

EXECUTIVE JTAC COMMISSION

Ms. SILBERNAGEL. Good afternoon. My name is Shannon

Silbernagel, S-h-a-n-n-o-n S-i-l-b-e-r-n-a-g-e-l. I am a member of the

Porcupine community. I’m also an Executive JTAC Commission

member. I sit on the Commission with Cedric Good House.

I want to stress today that there is a need for the oversight office

to be put in place by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. My concern

is that there has been millions of dollars allocated out and given

to various groups of people. My concern is that that money needs

to be accounted for, that there needs to be audits done. We as a

commission have stressed this. We’ve talked about it repeatedly.

And I am thankful that you people were able to come to the

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe today to hold these public hearings, and

hopefully we can get in place our oversight office, and that’s to ensure the accountability of how these dollars have been spent. To

date we don’t know if there was a plan that was submitted and if

that plan has been followed in detail, we don’t know how those dollars have been expended. As a commission member, I am concerned

about that, as well as the rest of the commission is. That’s where

the accountability comes in.

I also want to stress that there are some positive things that

have come out of JTAC dollars. There was moneys given to each

district. I am from the Porcupine District. We are striving forward.

We have initiated a plan for that million dollars. I am ensuring

and working along with my district people to ensure the accountability of those dollars.
44

We are moving forward, although I would like to see that there

be more equal access out there to the general public, to the private

person, a person coming in and wanting to set up their own business, to create jobs on the reservation. I would like to see more

equal access. That to date has not been done by our council, nor

has any dollars been set aside so that people can come in and start

their own business, present a legitimate plan to the tribe to start

a business and employ people. I have not seen that to date.

These are my concerns I share with you, the panel, today and I

would like to see that that oversight office is put in place by the

tribe to ensure that accountability. Thank you.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you, Shannon. Yes.

STATEMENT OF FRED WEIST, OWNER, GREY EAGLE

MANAGEMENT

Mr. WIEST. My name is Fred Wiest, last name W-i-e-s-t. I am the

owner of Grey Eagle Management. I do financial management, collections and things of that nature.

You know, I recently am one of those individuals that secured a

loan through the tribe to be able to expand my business and go

about pursuing defaulted loans that were—the tribe had cosigned

for or that they had approved to individuals.

I guess I am really disheartened. The past couple of weeks here

I have been down to Sioux Falls, SD, down to Rapid City and into

Pierre visiting with attorneys, seeking out lawyers that are a member of the Federal bar for a specific reason, that I believe that myself and my company were violated in what I understood to be a

good-faith contract and agreement that I had with the tribal council to collect delinquent loans.

I would like to enter for the record, Mr. Conrad’s information,

you know, that I am looking at a letter that’s dated March 15,

2002, to Larry Luger regarding the tribal loan programs that are

delinquent and defaulted loans. And it’s written to Mr. Luger, a

copy was provided to Chairman Murphy, and it’s by William Perry

of the Sonosky Chambers Law Firm in Washington, DC.

In essence this correspondence, which has been circulated all

over the reservation—I got a copy of this, was provided a copy of

this letter from an individual that lives in that district, not even

where I’m from. And I immediately the next morning after receiving this—reviewing this letter went to seek an attorney, as I mentioned.

In essence this letter states that there will probably be a point

in time where the tribe will be wiping off all these loans. I’m not

saying—there were statements here made that possibly JTAC revenues were used for some of these loans. I’m not saying that is to

be the case or not, but in the event that it is, the strategy is laid

out in this letter, in this communication, you know, that gives, you

know, the individual who decides not to pay a loan—payback the

loan to the tribe, gives them the strategy on how to defeat it in a

courtroom environment. And so it tells me, you know, that it’s just

a wasted effort on my part.

You know, and if this were the case, then I think that Mr.

Conrad’s office should see the seriousness of what’s going on there

and immediately issue an injunction and freeze any further draw-
45

down of that money, and that any investigation that comes out of

the mismanagement of these moneys should be done in concert

with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

And, furthermore, I think that the information that comes out of

this investigation should be made public and available to the people of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, not just to a select few,

maybe a governing body. We have been in the dark for too long.

I think that if there were—if there was in fact gross mismanagement of the tribal treasury, I think that we have Mr. Conrad’s sincerity that he should be sitting down maybe when he’s in Washington with the tribe’s law firm and finding out, getting down to the

bottom of what’s going on here.

Mr. CLANCY. Let’s see if I understand what you have said. You

had a contract?

Mr. WIEST. I have an agreement with the tribe, as do my company, as a collection agency to pursue delinquent loans.

Mr. CLANCY. To make sure if loans were delinquent, that you

would——

Mr. WIEST. I would attempt to collect the money back for the

tribe, yes.

Mr. CLANCY. And that has—that contract has never been utilized

because there were 100 percent guarantees provided and, therefore,

the loans have never gone into default?

Mr. WIEST. There was a variety of different types of loans. What

I’m saying, sir, is that if some of these loans were in fact—if the

bank notes were retired with JTAC money, I don’t know about

that, you know, for a fact or not, but it would be my job, you know,

to go and attempt to collect back as much as I can from these individuals that are in default or delinquent status for the tribe.

Now, I think that there was a lot of politics played in the whole

process, anyway. I was always of the opinion that they never sincerely wanted anybody to collect this money back. This communication that I’m talking about, sir, practically outlines to the individual who chooses to go into a delinquent status, practically outlines

the very strategy to use in tribal court and get away without ever

having to pay the money back. There was a lot of implications in

here.

I was prepared—in fact, we had some council members here that

were sitting here earlier today, last month I was prepared to go full

steam ahead and start to pursue this. And I asked to be put on the

agenda on his respective committee so I can make a report on how

I am going to do this and what I consider turn-around times and

stuff like that, then this communication was given to me. Like I

said, it’s dated March 15. And I have taken this and I have shown

it to attorneys, and it’s a very alarming correspondence, very, very

carefully written, choice of words, and in essence it points out quite

a few things, no policies in place for the loans to even be granted,

no application process, no nothing, and then it goes on to state that

he encourages them to develop something immediately, you know,

for any future things. He cautions them about doing anything ex

post facto, and then he goes into the strategy that can be utilized

to defeat anyone—not just me, but anyone attempting to collect

these loans.

Mr. CLANCY. So you are presenting this document for the record?
46

Mr. WIEST. I will. I have got the clipping for the hearing, sir. I

will send a copy of this correspondence to Mr. Conrad’s office. My

intention was today to follow Mr. Conrad back to Bismarck. You

know, I also want to meet with Jennifer Ring of the Civil Liberties

Office up there. But it’s a serious concern for me personally to see

that this would come out in what I thought was a good-faith agreement with the collect some of this money.

Now, if it turns out so that some of this money was—some of

these bank notes were in fact retired with JTAC money and these

individuals getting away free and clear, it would confirm something

that I was told by the former Legal Aid attorney that was in this

area, who is now, I believe, working with the state’s attorney’s office in South Dakota out of Rapid City, and comments were made

about money—loans that were going out during the election. What

that attorney advised—well, not advised me, he encouraged me. I’m

also an advocate in tribal court for him. But he asked me to look

at whether or not these acts being committed by our elected officials, if I felt that they constituted bribery, bribery of the people

in order to gain politically for themselves, put them in office. I did

never want to believe that, but it’s appearing more and more to me

that that’s in fact what happened.

I’m alarmed, you know, that I did something in good faith, that

I approached our government and asked to try to collect this money

back for our people. I’m alarmed that I may very well be the only

one that will be paying back my loan to the tribe.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you for your testimony today.

Mr. WIEST. As I said, sir, I will quite possibly be up to Mr.

Conrad’s office or your office probably tomorrow and I will bring

this document with me.

Mr. CLANCY. Is there any more testimony?

STATEMENT OF ERROL MEDICINE, WAKPALA DISTRICT

Mr. ERROL MEDICINE. My name is Errol Medicine, E-r-r-o-l, Medicine, M-e-d-i-c-i-n-e. I’m one of the people from the Wakpala District.

One of my main concerns is that we were the original people that

got flooded out along the Oahe. Originally where the headquarters

of the tribe is supposed to be is old agency along there. And I feel

that we as the people in Wakpala, we have always been given what

they say is the ‘‘crummy end of the stick.’’

We have gotten what, that $4 million for the school to be redone,

and we badly need economic development for our people down

there to get involved along the Missouri River down there. They

know that South Dakota hardly gets anything. Like you said, they

want to hear nothing about the South Dakota side. They moved the

headquarters from Wakpala up to here temporarily, and a lot of

our people feel that we should move it back to where it originally

belonged because of the economic sanctions, that we have got a lot

of people in Wakpala.

That $1 million that we got so far is little or nothing to what has

happened to our people. I feel that the Wakpala District should be

compensated fully for what they have made that town into, a ghost

town—at one time it was a thriving community—due to the flooding of the river.
47

Mr. CLANCY. How is that planning process going on there in that

district?

Mr. ERROL MEDICINE. Our planning process is going on pretty

good. One of the things that we have a problem with is that they

have given us an additional—we got $50,000 to do the planning with, and when we got done with that, the $50,000—because of the

nature of getting the consultant, that $39,000, that we expended

our $50,000, you know, just in one shot retaining our people. So

our planning, we need more money for planning to get an adequate

job on planning. I feel like $150,000 should be adequate, enough for

all the districts to do planning, because $50,000—you can’t do nothing with $50,000 to plan. To get your whole district involved and

to get your people behind you, you need like $150,000 to make wise

decisions, good decisions, thought out, well-planned decisions.

I feel like Mr. Chairman—Charlie Murphy is rushing everybody’s

decisions to jump through these hoops to spend these moneys and

to go wild. I don’t think that any of these things that are going on

that he’s telling you is true because I believe it’s just a smoke

screen to show you these things. But we are also going to be sending you some of the things that we feel is wrong in the Wakpala

District. And we will be sending those up to you, but we just wanted to let you know right now that Wakpala, we feel as a district

that we are one of the main people that got a lot of stuff taken

from us, including the town. Like I said, Kenel got that $6 million

because they got moved up on top of the hill. Wakpala got—totally

lost everything. We should have got $6 million, too, right off the

top. We just got a measly $1 million. I feel that we should be compensated just, too, with the $6 million.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you very much. Any further testimony?

STATEMENT OF CHASE IRON EYES

Mr. IRON EYES. What’s your name?

Mr. CLANCY. My name is Lynn Clancy.

Mr. IRON EYES. Lynn, how are you doing? My name is Chase

Iron Eyes. And, quite frankly, I don’t see how whoever you represent, you know, tries to, what do you call that, structure or pretty much trying to say how we can spend money that’s owed to us,

whether it be $90.6 million or $90.6 trillion, for wrongs that were

committed by your government like less than 60 years ago. So, I

mean, just the interest we’re drawing off of this is just—you know,

that’s measly. But I guess—then on top of that you’re trying to tell

us how we can spend that money, when people are just working on

home improvements, you know, things like that. So maybe you

want to take that back to Senator Conrad. It would be very much

appreciated, sir.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you for your remarks, and this will

conclude——

Mr. IRON EYES. Oh, yes. And that fighting Sioux mascot issue,

that and the Redskins issue, I want to bring that up a little more.

STATEMENT OF JANET HARRISON

Ms. HARRISON. Good afternoon. My name is Janet Harrison, Ha-r-r-i-s-o-n. And I’m from the Rock Creek District.

Mr. CLANCY. It’s Janet?
48

Ms. HARRISON. Yes; I guess what I would like to see are, I would

like to recommend to Senator Conrad is that that I know that you

have heard everything about how this money has been distributed

or hasn’t been distributed. I know that the districts have different

populations and according to that there should be some set formula

that needs to be developed on how the money is distributed. As you

heard, a couple of the districts got $6 million and others got $1 million.

I am a descendant of some of the—my grandparents lost a lot of

land on that river. I would like to see some type of formula that

would be more equal for all of the districts. One is not more important than the other. We’re all having the same kind of social and

economic hardships as everybody else. And we in Rock Creek, we

live the furthest out. To get to Fort Yates on a daily basis, a 54-

mile trip. So you double that, that’s 108 miles.

We are working on ourselves, our community. We’re trying to become self-sufficient on our own. We have begun that by having our

own cattle business. The JTAC funds come in. We’re hoping to expand, and we would rather do for ourselves than have people give

us handouts. We’ve worked hard for what we got and we hope that

Mr. Conrad looks at all the districts, what they’re doing, their

plans, their detailed plans, their budgets, et cetera, that some of

those are using those guidelines that are set forth in the JTAC Act,

itself, to right the wrongs, to not—I guess not to hurt the entire

Tribe because of a few items that are—seem to be focused at this

meeting. That’s all I have to say.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF WILMA MEDICINE

Ms. WILMA MEDICINE. Hi. My name is Wilma Medicine, M-e-di-c-i-n-e. I am just one of the people from the South Dakota side.

I am a single mother. I am trying to locate jobs and, if I do, I have

to go over to the Mobridge side.

Myself, I wanted to be here on behalf of my children and my

great-grandchildren about the school situation. Okay. I went and

applied as an assistant cook for the Wakpala School, and there’s

only a handful, about three or four people, that are Native American now that work in that school. I feel like I got discriminated

over there because there’s a wasicu guy who had a CDL license.

And, myself, I was only applying for a cook’s position, not no bus

drivers, and I feel like I have got really—really got hurt out of this

because now I am unemployed. And I am only just a little person,

I cannot feed my children, but I see a lot of people up here getting

money, and I haven’t got anything. I’m always looking for jobs for

myself to support my children.

And I feel that—myself, that Mr. Conrad should look into more

of the school and having Native American people work on the

South Dakota side for the people because it would show our children that our children can look up to the elderlies, myself, the

older people and say, yes, we can be teachers, yes, we can be cooks,

yes, we can do this; but, no, we are always the ones that always

get left out. And me, myself, I just come to let him know that I am

just one of the many in poverty.

Thank you very much and you have a great day.
49

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF JERALD KILLS PRETTY ENEMY

Mr. KILLS PRETTY ENEMY. Thank you for allowing me to speak.

My name is Jerald Kills Pretty Enemy, J-e-r-a-l-d, K-i-l-l-s P-r-et-t-y E-n-e-m-y. I guess I am a representative from the Rock Creek

District. I am a JTAC representative, as well as a member of the

tribe.

I guess my concern was the expenditures and the drawdowns, as

well as what was happening with the JTAC money. We as a JTAC

committee had from time to time been addressing and sending letters to the chairman addressing a lot of different issues in regards

to JTAC because of our concern on how—what the process and the

procedure needs to be.

I, myself, hand-delivered an ordinance and the access plan, as

well as documents that we addressed this to the tribe to Cora

Jones. I, personally, took it to her office and had her sign a form

for me for proof that I had been to her office addressing these

things. So she is well aware of a lot of these things that are going

on here. And for her to sit here and make things look so good, that

she’s not aware of it, to me sends a real negative message to the

people here. You know, something needs to be done with her position because of the fact that I don’t believe, you know, we should

have somebody representing us in the Bureau and allowing this to

happen, allowing this allocation that we got and these draw-downs

and this interest money to happen.

These people are all well aware. They made it look really good

here from start. And I’m hoping that, you know, you hear us. We

sent a lot of information to Kent Conrad’s office. He’s well aware

of a lot of things that have been going on here. We have been addressing it over and over time and time again.

And I believe there needs to be an injunction here, a full investigation to stop all this. Last January we were suspended as a

JTAC advisory committee, but in reality back in September 2001

we were appointed to the JTAC Executive Commission. Back then

when the ordinance was approved of, that was not the original ordinance that was approved of. So what we have here is the ordinance and the access plan do not coincide with one another.

And I think a lot of dissension has been created among all of the

people here on our reservation, you know, over this money. And I’m

glad to hear what Mr. Archambault had to share with shows just

what is happening here, what we need to do, our leadership. Where

is our leadership?

But my concern again goes back—reflects back to what has happened with this money, the loans that have gone out and gets written off, if it’s to be.

Like I say, we were suspended and then we were put back into

office again, but, you know, there was a real negative impact that

was put upon us in the JTAC Commission as a body, you know,

making us look like we were the bad people. But we didn’t do nothing wrong. We didn’t do nothing bad. We tried to make it so that

there was an opportune chance for our people to equally access this

money. And that has not been done.
50

The guidelines and everything that was sent down was not there

for the people. The process was not there. No policies and procedures. They have taken all that responsibility away from us. We

have developed an administration. We have put a lot together here

to see to it that, you know, this was going to be an equal opportunity for our people. That did not happen. And I think you know

something needs to happen here and I believe myself that the Senate needs to intervene. People are well aware. We know what’s

happening here. With that I thank you.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you very much. Yes.

STATEMENT OF LYNES END OF HORN, BEAR SOLDIER

DISTRICT

Mr. END OF HORN. Good day, sir. My name is Lynes End of

Horn. I am presently from the Bear Soldier District. I wasn’t aware

of this forum taking place, and I was up in Bismarck, but I hurried

back and here I am.

What I did—you have heard the people of Standing Rock voice

their opinion. Prior to this, sir, the first part of March of this year

I took a survey, I passed a survey out, and this survey went into

five national newspapers, and the response of the survey was 1876

enrolled members of Standing Rock living on and off the reservation.

One of the biggest concerns on the responses, sir, is that these

people that do not live on the reservation, where is their money

going to? Their heads are counted here, but their money is not

going to them.

But, again, on the other hand, an example in Grand Forks, ND,

we have 18 college students, 8 of them get money, but the others

don’t. We also have men in the military. Where is their money

going to? We also have children that are in foster homes. They left

here years ago as a foster—adopted or orphaned child, but they’re

not getting money and their heads are counted here. That is the

theme question.

And I am not pointing fingers. I am going to leave a copy of this

survey and the response with you. I have mailed one to Senator

Dorgan’s office, Senator Conrad’s. Everybody that I can think of

that’s a congressional person I have mailed this to them, so it

should be in their office, but I want to leave this with you for you

to look at.

Whatever is happening here, we are all to blame, sir. We have

elected these people. We have put these people in a position to be

responsible to us, the Indian people, but it is not turning out that

way. So with that, I’m going to leave this with you, and I want—

I would like you to read it over and discuss this with your congressional people, and if you would respond to me. My address is on

here. My phone number is on here. I am concerned. I am a retired

teacher, I’m an ex-serviceman, and I’m 100 percent service-connected disabled.

All these years I have been here there was only one time, sir, I

have held a job at Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. I made a statement,

that following month—that following Friday, I was terminated. So

within the past 23 years I was never employed on my own reservation. As of now I don’t have a home on Standing Rock. I have been
51

number one on the list with housing for the last 15 years. The comment I got and the letters I get, you get a house this spring. Fifteen springs went by. I haven’t gotten my house yet. I have applied—last year I’ve made 18 applications to the tribe. I was rejected on every job. I am well-qualified, I’m well-papered, I’m experienced, but I have not been satisfied with anything that is happening on my reservation up to now.

So is the reason that this survey went out. And I think when you

read this survey, you will understand what all of these people that

are talking about, you will understand. This survey comes from

people both on and off the reservation, college students, military

men and children that are foster or orphan children, elderly, young

and old, sir.

With that, thank you. Thank you, sir.

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you very much. I would appreciate it if you

just leave it there, I can pick it up. I think we have come to the

conclusion here. Yes.

AUDIENCE MEMBER. What is the address to submit the written

documentation?

Mr. CLANCY. To Senator Kent Conrad’s office, and that can be in

his Bismarck office, which is Room 228, Federal Building, 220 East

Rosser, Bismarck, ND 58501. Yes.

STATEMENT OF MAXINE WHITE BULL, KENEL DISTRICT

Ms. WHITE BULL. My name is Maxine White Bull, W-h-i-t-e Bu-l-l. I’m from the Kenel District. And we are the ones that had to

move—the whole town had to move out. And I was there. And very

few of us are left that live there. But we lost a lot. We had our livelihood there. And I could remember things as I grew up.

The things that are going on now like drugs, alcohol affect all our

people. We didn’t hardly have those in those days when we were

living there. There was nothing. Of course, we didn’t have no

money or anything, but it seemed like the people got along better,

you know. We all helped each other. Something was always going

on.

And one of the things I was concerned about, I sat in a lot of

meetings at the tribal council just listening, people arguing about

money since this JTAC money came out. I’m sitting there thinking

that the things they mentioned was—you know, because we were

the first ones, I guess, we asked—we put in a budget. The first

JTAC committee was formed, they said all you needed was a budget, what our needs were and come up with something, so we did,

and we were turned down the first time, so we—one of our councilmen, this was 1998, I think, he pulled it through for us through

the council. That was for $6 million. We still have that plan in

place. And we never spent any—the million, and the $5 million we

invested or we put in CDs. It’s in a bank, but we have not spent

any of it. But we have our plans in place.

And one of the things we always heard, you know, Why did

Kenel get $6 million? I got here late so I don’t know what went on

in the first part, so I didn’t hear what was said, but that really

hurts me when I hear that. And they left us out on that million

that they gave out, plus $50,000 was allowed each district for the

JTAC planning. We were left out, but we got that again later on.
52

But why are they saying this when we lost the most? And I tell

people, if it wasn’t for us, you know, you wouldn’t be fighting over

this money. We were the ones that were supposed to be compensated and we didn’t get compensated enough. And there’s a few

of us left that have moved out to other districts or completely

moved out because there’s no jobs now. They live in the cities,

they’re enrolled here, and they’re being left out. I think this was

brought out by some of the people that talked here.

Mr. CLANCY. So is the Kenel plan being followed?

Ms. WHITE BULL. Yes.

Mr. CLANCY. Are you making some progress with it?

Ms. WHITE BULL. Right now we have purchased some cattle and

we are going into that business, so the last 2, 3 years we have that

business. And there’s other plans that are coming up that we’re

going to pursue.

So that’s all I wanted to say. But I think that’s really wrong, because someone said, you know, it will take more than $20 million

to get what we had before, stores, schools, sawmill, what all we lost

there, ball fields. People got around, you know, recreation. So those

things we lost, but they bring that up and that makes me mad.

Now the other districts are asking for more, and I think they’re

getting it. So I said maybe we should ask for more, too, to replace

what we had. That’s all I want to say. And education is the most

important thing because right now the students are suffering.

Some can’t get funded, they have to quit. And what’s there to come

back to on this reservation? There’s nothing. Thank you.

Mr. CLANCY. Very good. Well, again, thank you all for being here

and being a part of this hearing today. Senator Conrad is very appreciative of your participation. As we work together to develop the

common good for this reservation, we hope that this program, this

economic recovery program can make a big difference and help to

build up the people in this area.

Thank you for being here.

[Whereupon, at 2:02 p.m., the committee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
(53)

APPENDIX

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CORA JONES, DIRECTOR, GREAT PLAINS REGIONAL OFFICE,

BIA, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. My name is Cora

Jones and I am the Director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) Great Plains

Regional Office. I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Standing Rock Sioux

Tribe’s Economic Recovery Fund provisions of Title XXXV of Public Law 102–575,

the ‘‘Three Affiliated Tribes and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Equitable Compensation

Act,’’ an Act to ensure that the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold and the

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe were adequately compensated for the taking of Indian

lands for the site of the Garrison Dam and reservoir, and the Oahe Dam and Reservoir, and for other purposes.

The Act established the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Economic Recovery Fund in

the United States Treasury. In fiscal year 1993, the U.S. Treasury began making

annual deposits into the Economic Recovery Fund, as required under the Act, until

it was fully capitalized at $90.6 million. While this principal is retained in the U.S.

Treasury, the Tribe is authorized to use the interest earned for educational, social

welfare, economic development, and other programs, subject to the approval of the

Secretary. In fiscal year 1998, the Tribe could begin withdrawing the accrued and

annual interest subject to approval of the Secretary. This approval authority is delegated to the BIA’s Regional Director for the Great Plains Regional Office.

On June 16, 2000, I approved the ‘‘Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Joint Tribal Advisory Committee Fund Access Plan’’(Plan). This Plan, established in consultation

with tribal members and the BIA, outlines the Tribe’s proposed uses for the interest

generated from the principal amount in the Fund. The Tribe submits requests for

withdrawing funds to the Regional Director through the Standing Rock Agency.

These requests are reviewed for compliance with the Act and consistency with the

Plan. When the BIA approves a request, it is forwarded to the Special Trustee’s Office of Trust Funds Management in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for final processing

and payment. Thus far, the Tribe has requested and received six payments totaling

$46.3 million in interest.

Any funding request outside the Plan will require approval by the Regional Director.

This concludes my prepared statement. I will be happy to answer any questions

the Committee may have.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RONALD SUN MCNEIL, PRESIDENT, SITTING BULL COLLEGE

I am Ronald Sun McNeil, President of Sitting Bull College. I am grateful and

thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on Public Law 102–575 and its

implementation on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation.
54

I will focus on the planning process and compliance with Public Law 102–575, and

then on the implementation of the plan approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs

[BIA] in 1998.

The planning process, though not funded by BIA, was lengthy, stalled at one

point, but eventually through a collaboration with Tribal Administration and Sitting

Bull College [SBC] a plan was submitted and approved by the BIA in July 1998.

The process began in 1996 under Chairman Jesse Taken Alive’s administration

with a tribal appropriation of $100,000. The Tribal Council created an advisory committee of eight members elected by each district, the Tribal Economic Recovery

Fund Committee (TERF). The TERF Committee met over the course of approximately 1-year and developed five (5) categories of funding. The TERF Committee

had local input through its elected members, guidance from a consultant, and occasional assistance from the tribal attorney in framing the categories to stay within

the requirements of the act.

The TERF Committee eventually exhausted its tribal appropriation and Chairman Taken Alive requested assistance from the BIA, but none was provided. With

no additional funding and pending tribal elections (primary elections-July 1997), the

TERF Committee recommendations and the process was stalled.

In October 1997, SBC approached the newly elected Tribal Chairman, Charles

Murphy with a proposal to match funding that SBC had acquired from the Ford

Foundation, to recreate the TERF Committee, and hire a consultant to continue the

planning process. The Tribal Council approved a $15,000 match, and approximately

nine (9) months later, after numerous committee meetings and public forums, the

Tribal Council approved the Access Plan.

The plan expanded the original five (5) recommended categories of funding to six

(6), and established a framework of procedures with which the allocated interest

funds would be distributed. This Plan was submitted to the BIA for approval.

The Access Plan established a process but the implementation, once approved by

the BIA, has been flawed and the BIA has failed to monitor compliance with the

procedures outlined in the framework of the Plan.

The Tribal Council under heavy pressure by its constituents to fund the approved

categories began by approving to appropriate interest income for the purchase of

lands. The Tribe has purchased over 80,000 acres of land within the reservation

boundaries; of which 50,000 acres increased the economic viability of the Tribe. In

and of itself the land purchase was a good tribal investment, which increases the

tribal land-base, lending to its future economic stability.

However, since the fund was accessed without a strategic plan in place on the d?

of the individual fund and there needs to be addressed and since no JTAC oversight

office nor JTAC business advisory board was created as requested by the Plan, it

set in place a procedure driven by Tribal Council action without relation to an overall strategic plan or budget.

The Tribal Council was then met with an urgent request to assist with the building of a sorely needed public school in the Wakpala District of the reservation. Also,

SBC was engaged in raising funds for the development of a new college campus, The

Tribe gave to both of these efforts $2 million and $4 million respectively. Again, although both are needed for the education and future stability of the Tribe and both

can show matching funding and strategic plans as required by the Access Plan, neither was required to do so to receive funding, nor had the Tribe established the

oversight office or the advisory board.

Once the precedent of giving to educational institutions was established, the Tribal Council received over $20 million worth of requests from other educational institutions across the reservation. The Tribal Council approved the requests 1 month

and then rescinded their actions the following month when it became apparent that

the total requests would exceed the total accumulated interest.

A similar precedent was established when the Tribal Council approved a $6 million request to Kenel District from the District’s Economic Development Fund. The

request from the District, which was hardest hit from the flooding of any community, was also funded without regard for a strategic plan from the District or from

the tribal committee designated to do so. The Tribe has since received similar requests from other. tribal districts and has now planned to allocate $6 million for

each district from future accumulated interest revenue.

Since the Tribe has seen the demand by the other education institutions and districts, it has now begun requiring the Districts to provide strategic plans for future

development, proposals, and an accounting of the use of those funds actually distributed.

The Tribe has now put together a JTAC Committee to establish a strategic implementation plan for funding allocation to each category as well as establishing the

oversight office and hopefully the Business Advisory Board.
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It should be noted that during the planning process, and even today, those committee members and the Tribal Council has faced extreme criticism for not providing for per capita payments, nor for additional compensation to individuals who lost

land during the flooding. Congress would be wise to address the issue of equitable

treatment of those individuals in the future.
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Æ