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30–040 PDF 2006

S. HRG. 109–688

TRIBAL SELF-GOVERNANCE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON TRIBAL SELF-GOVERNANCE: OBSTACLES AND

IMPEDIMENTS TO EXPANSION OF SELF-GOVERNANCE

SEPTEMBER 20, 2006

WASHINGTON, DC

(
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Chairman

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota, Vice Chairman

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming

GORDON SMITH, Oregon

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska

MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington

JOHN TAHSUDA, III, Majority Staff Director

SARA G. GARLAND, Minority Staff Director

(II)
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Statements:

Allen, W. Ron, chairman, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe ................................. 15

Benjamin, Melanie, chairwoman, Mille Lac Band Assembly ........................ 14

Carlyle, Delia M., chairwoman, AK Chin Indian Community Council ........ 9

Jourdain, Louis, chairman, Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians of Minnesota ............................................................................................................. 11

McCain, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from Arizona, chairman, Committee

on Indian Affairs ........................................................................................... 1

Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, U.S. Senator from Alaska ......................................... 2

Reinfeld, Ken, acting director, Office of Self-Governance, Department of

the Interior .................................................................................................... 3

Skibine, George, acting deputy assistant secretary, Policy and Economic

Development for Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior .................... 3

APPENDIX

Prepared statements:

Allen, W. Ron (with attachment) .................................................................... 26

Association of Alaska Housing Authorities .................................................... 23

Benjamin, Melanie (with attachment) ............................................................ 73

Carlyle, Delia M. (with attachment) ............................................................... 81

Jourdain, Louis (with attachment) ................................................................. 88

Skibine, George ................................................................................................. 123

(1)

TRIBAL SELF-GOVERNANCE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2006

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:38 a.m. in room 485,

Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. John McCain (chairman of the

committee) presiding.

Present: Senators McCain, Dorgan, and Murkowski.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN MCCAIN, U.S. SENATOR FROM

ARIZONA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. This morning the committee will

receive testimony on the Department of the Interior’s management

of the Tribal Self-Governance Program. For many, it is hard to

imagine that just a little over 30 years ago, the Federal Government was the sole provider of all or nearly all essential governmental services to Indian tribes and their members, including police, fire, education, and health care services in Indian country.

In 1975, Congress enacted the Indian Self-Determination and

Education Assistance Act, Public Law 93–638. Since then, Congress

has increasingly authorized Indian tribes to manage Federal programs and assume control over their own affairs. Tribal self-governance aims to foster strong tribal governments and healthy reservation economies as mechanisms to further tribal government.

Encouraged by the opportunities available under the act to operate and shape BIA programs to be more responsive to their community needs, Indian tribes across the country actively sought to contract and compact with the BIA. As more tribes assumed control

over their own affairs, there has been a corresponding reduction in

the Federal bureaucracy and an improvement in the quality of

services delivered to tribal members.

Recently, however, many tribes have been reluctant to enter into

new contracts or to expand their current contracts and compacts.

Some tribes have even begun to retrocede contracts as authorized

under the act. This hearing will provide an opportunity for the department and invited tribal witnesses to offer their views and comments on these trends, and possible suggestions for resolving these

challenges.

The CHAIRMAN. Vice Chairman Dorgan is at a leadership meeting. He will be a few minutes late. In the meantime, Senator Murkowski?
2

STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, U.S. SENATOR FROM

ALASKA

Senator MURKOWSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning.

There is little dispute within Indian country that the policy of

self-determination first enunciated by President Nixon is probably

one of the best, if not the single best thing that this Federal Government has ever done to help our Native people. Alaska tribes are

100 percent self-governance for Indian Health Services program

and they compact BIA program. Although none of the witnesses

today are from Alaska, so many of the concerns they are going to

discuss are shared by Alaska self-governance tribes.

The premise of self-determination is that Native people are

stronger when they deliver Federal programs and services to their

people, rather than rely on the Federal Government for service delivery. The quality of service delivery is higher when the people

who deliver those services are directly accountable to tribal members. The opportunities for Native employment are greater.

Before self-governance came to Alaska, there were very few opportunities for our Native institutions to employ returning graduates from college and post-graduate programs. The self-governance institutions in Alaska have emerged as employers of choice for

our Native young people.

This committee wonders with good reason why self-governance is

not more popular around the country, and we need look no further

than the tribes which have enthusiastically taken on Federal responsibilities under their self-governance compacts, but have then

discovered that the Federal Government is unwilling to live up to

its responsibilities under those compacts.

The lack of funding for contract support costs, which have been

promised under the Indian Self-Determination Act and self-governance compacts leads the list of concerns that I frequently hear from

Alaska tribes. I would hope this morning each of the witnesses will

address themselves to the question of whether inadequate contract

support costs deterred tribes from entering into self-governance

compacts.

Now, we hear that BIA is giving their employees cost of living

increases, but will not fund cost of living increases for tribal employees who perform the same functions under the self-governance

compacts. While it is true that tribes can ask the Federal Government to take back the responsibility for delivering programs and

services, self-governance is truly a matter of pride. Self-governance

tribes will squeeze as much as they can out of a dollar, but more

and more I am hearing that there is less and less to squeeze.

I am pleased that the committee is turning its attention to the

issues of self-governance tribes today. I am hopeful that this hearing will lay the groundwork for continued dialog, the 110th Congress and I appreciate your initiative on this, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. Skibine, please come sit down, the Acting Deputy Assistant

Secretary of Policy and Economic Development for Indian Affairs at

the U.S. Department of the Interior, and old friend of the committee. He is accompanied by?
3

Mr. SKIBINE. I am accompanied by Ken Reinfeld, who is the Acting Director of the Office of Self-Governance.

The CHAIRMAN. Good, thank you. Welcome. Please proceed.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE SKIBINE, ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, POLICY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

FOR INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ACCOMPANIED BY KEN REINFELD, ACTING DIRECTOR, OFFICE

OF SELF-GOVERNANCE

Mr. SKIBINE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator Murkowski. I am pleased to be here today to present testimony on the

oversight hearing on tribal self-governance.

Essentially, I think my comments have been furnished to the

committee and my statement will be made part of the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.

Mr. SKIBINE. Okay, thank you.

The self-governance program started in 1991 with seven tribes for about approximately $27 million. In 2006, there were 91 funding agreements providing services to 231 tribes for $300 million. So

the program has been extremely successful since its inception and

the department strongly supports self-governance as an exercise of

tribal sovereignty and self-determination.

Its framework is one of administrative flexibility, which allows

tribes to determine for themselves what are their program priorities. We have been essentially one of the success stories, I think,

for the Administration since its inception.

Indian tribes, of course, may negotiate a non-BIA funding agreements for programs which are of special geographical, cultural and

historical significance to the tribe, and they are first negotiating

funding agreements with the BIA or other Interior agencies for programs which are available to Indians because of their status as Indians. Each year, the department publishes a list of available programs for inclusion in funding agreements to be negotiated by Interior bureaus other than the BIA. Currently, there are funding

agreements with the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of

Reclamation, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service, and the Office of Special Trustee. Overall, approximately

14 agreements.

In addition, one of the policies of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs is to hold quarterly meetings with the Self-Governance

Advisory Committee to discuss and resolve issues of mutual interest. We participate in yearly self-governance conferences at the

tribes’ invitation. So we are essentially involved with self-governance tribes on a consultation basis pretty much year-round, so that

we are well aware to feel the pulse of the tribes when it comes to

issues facing those tribes in the self-governance program.

Finally, we are currently working with the title IV tribal self-governance task force to explore the need for amendments to title IV.

The Secretary’s office asked me this year to lead the department’s

team in this effort because there was some frustration on the parts

of tribes and within our Administration over the length of time it

was taking the department to move forward on the negotiations. So

at this point, I hope that progress can be made in reaching mutually acceptable solutions to the issues raised by the proposed
4

amendments. I am sure some of the tribal witnesses will testify on

that issue.

We did submit a list of issues we have with the proposed amendments. The tribes have responded and we are now looking forward

to starting a negotiation meeting with the Tribal Advisory Committee and hopefully we can resolve most, if not all, of the issues that

are of concern.

Finally, I point out in my testimony that the department this

year issued a national policy on contract support costs, and hopefully that policy will help alleviate some of the issues regarding

contract support funding and having the money accessible to tribes.

With that, I will complete my comments, and I am pleased to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

[Prepared statement of Mr. Skibine appears in appendix.]

The CHAIRMAN. How many years have you been dealing with

these issues?

Mr. SKIBINE. Excuse me?

The CHAIRMAN. How many years have you been dealing with Native American issues?

Mr. SKIBINE. With Native American issues, myself? About 29

years.

The CHAIRMAN. About 29 years. And we saw when self-determination and self-governance began that it was a great success, in

1975. Right? We saw more and more tribes taking advantage of

self-governance contracting, because that is the whole theory of our

treatment of Indian tribes, to allow them to self-govern as much as

possible. By weaning themselves away from the BIA, IHS, and others, they were able to exercise much more self-governance. Right?

Mr. SKIBINE. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. How do you account for what appears to be a retrograde of tribes exercising self-governance and the lack of additional tribes seeking the ability to do so? It seems to fly in the face

of everything that tribes seek and what we as a Nation want tribes

to be able to do?

Mr. SKIBINE. Mr. Chairman, I am, and I stand to be corrected by

my acting director, but I am not aware that we are having a regression in the number of tribes that participate in the self-governance program. It is true that the number of tribes seeking self-governance contracts has slowed progressively down because ultimately we have reached a certain plateau and we are certainly

open to have more tribes participate in self-governance. I think ultimately tribes, it is their decision of whether to enter into self-governance compacts or not.

The CHAIRMAN. In the 1980’s when I first started getting involved in Native American issues from a legislative standpoint,

self-governance seemed to be the way that we thought all tribes

were going to go. And now, many of the major, largest tribes have

not done so. Would you like to comment?

Mr. REINFELD. Self-governance began in 1991. You are talking

about, since 1975, the contracting, the 638 contracting.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. REINFELD. One of the requirements to get into self-governance is to have been operating successfully a contract for 3 years.
5

So contracting has diminished because some of these tribes, all of

these tribes have come into self-governance.

The CHAIRMAN. So we don’t have any problems?

Mr. REINFELD. I didn’t say that.

Mr. SKIBINE. I guess maybe we are not having, in the self-governance, under title IV, we have seen a steady increase and no reduction in the number of tribes. There has been a leveling off of

the number of tribes entering into self-governance compacts because many tribes, at their option, may decide that they want to

continue having 638 contracts under title I of the act, or want direct services for whatever reason. It is really their decision.

If we have a problem with tribes wanting to enter into self-governance and not doing so, then we need to hear from tribes that

that is the case. I think we have not heard that.

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Here is what we are going to hear from

the witnesses, that there are bureaucratic obstacles, and there are

other impediments that discourage tribes. For example, the committee has been informed that the BIA is not releasing the full

amount of funding appropriated for self-governance and that these

administrative hold-backs account for as much as 5 to 10 percent

of the funds authorized. The Ak Chin people tell us that, and others.

Why is that occurring? Why would we hold back 5 to 10 percent

of the funding?

Mr. SKIBINE. I think that there may have been a hold-back because of congressional rescissions that were essentially held back

against all of our budgets, whether central office of tribes, pending

knowing exactly whether there was going to be some rescission. I

am not all that familiar with the inner working of the budget-area

issues. If you want, we can look and ask our Office of Administration to look into that.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we are also told the BIA sometimes doesn’t

distribute funding in a timely fashion. Is that legitimate?

Mr. SKIBINE. Do you have any comments on that?

Mr. REINFELD. Yes; there are certain funds that do get to our office late in the fiscal year and don’t get to the tribes.

Mr. SKIBINE. But why is that?

Mr. REINFELD. Well, it depends on the particular program. Federal Highway funds is one of those. The methodology for contract

support and welfare assistance gets to the tribe in two installments, so some of it gets later in the year when there is a better

knowledge of the needs, the full need level that could be funded.

Those are capped appropriations, so the tribe does not get 100 percent, but there is a pro-rata reduction to keep it within the appropriation limit.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me get this straight. The tribe enters into a

contract with somebody to provide a certain service and they agree

to pay that contract to that organization, whatever it may be, only

they don’t get the full amount of money to pay it. Now, if I were

a tribe, I would say to heck with that. I will just let the Government pay it.

Mr. REINFELD. The appropriation language does limit the amount

that can be spent for the contract support and for the welfare as-
6

sistance. So to keep within that appropriated level or ceiling, it is

pro-rata reduced for all the tribes.

The CHAIRMAN. The IHS tells us that approximately one-half of

its budget goes to tribes through self-governance contracts and

compacts. I think that in your written testimony, you tell us tribes

have only contracted for $300 million in the BIA programs. It

seems to me IHS has been more successful than the BIA. Is that

a legitimate comment?

Mr. SKIBINE. I am not familiar with the IHS program and funding, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Murkowski.

Senator MURKOWSKI. Thank you.

I don’t know if I heard an answer there in the exchange with the

Chairman, but in my opening statement I asked for the witnesses

to address the question of whether or not inadequate contract support costs are deterring tribes from entering into self-governance

compacts. I am not sure if you acknowledge that you agree there

is a deterrent effect, if we are not adequately funding the contract

support costs.

Mr. SKIBINE. I am not sure if there is a deterrent for the tribe.

They can address that better than I can. I think that what we have

done this year to try to ameliorate the situation with contract support is adopt this national policy, for which we have the following

objectives. It will stabilize funding to each tribe from year to year.

It will expedite payments for each tribe, and it will respect the

Act’s prohibition against reducing contract amounts from one year

to the next.

The policy accomplishes these goals by requiring that, subject to

appropriations, a tribe be paid the same amount it was paid in the

preceding year. It allows the payment to be made very early in the

fiscal year, and the only restriction is that the BIA must ensure

that tribes do not receive more than 100 percent of its total requirements.

So the adoption of this policy certainly represents forward

progress in the area of self-governance. We believe that it will significantly improve administrative flexibility and fiscal stability for

tribes with funding agreements. To implement the funding aspect

of the policy, the President’s 2007 budget included a 14-percent increase for contract support costs.

Senator MURKOWSKI. So do you consider this full funding for contract support?

Mr. SKIBINE. I am not sure that it is or not.

Do you have any comment on that?

Mr. REINFELD. It remains to be seen, according to what the needs

are. It may not be. I do want to add that self-governance tribes receive contract support on the same basis as contracting tribes.

Senator MURKOWSKI. Did you mention, Mr. Skibine, in your initial comments, that there is a report due out on the contract support costs? You mentioned the national policy.

Mr. SKIBINE. Yes; the national policy that we have adopted.

Senator MURKOWSKI. Okay. And that policy was adopted how

long ago?

Mr. SKIBINE. It was adopted this year.
7

Senator MURKOWSKI. So this next fiscal year will be the first

time that it is actually in place?

Mr. SKIBINE. That is correct.

Senator MURKOWSKI. Let me ask you about the PART requirement. OMB requires that Federal agencies justify their programs

using the program assessment review tool. One of the concerns

that we have heard from our tribes is that, well, self-governance

is working for them. They have concerns that BIA is not collecting

the data necessary to justify the program. Can you give me your

thoughts on this? What are we doing to address this concern?

Mr. REINFELD. I think that the department is changing its strategic plan so that the data that is to be measured in that process,

in the Government Performance and Results Act process [GPRA],

is going to be more relevant to the tribes’ activities.

Senator MURKOWSKI. It is not my understanding that it is relevancy so much as just the data is not being collected. Is there

going to be an effort to step that up to make sure that we have

the data that is needed for this review or required by this review?

Mr. REINFELD. We have put in the funding agreements provisions which tribes are agreeing to provide the Government Performance and Results Act, which is one of the first steps in the

PART process. So yes, we have moved forward on that.

Senator MURKOWSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just get this straight. The tribe enters

into a contract for a certain service for a certain amount of money.

But because of budgetary constraints or acts by the Appropriations

Committee, there is not enough money, so they don’t pay them as

much as they originally contracted to pay. Is that correct?

Mr. REINFELD. The provision in the fund agreement says that it

is just an estimate and we really don’t know until the year goes

on.

The CHAIRMAN. What is just an estimate?

Mr. REINFELD. For the, like, welfare assistance. They don’t know

what their need is going to be on contract support. They don’t know

what their need is. So it is an estimated amount and it is going

to be based on the indirect cost rate that is negotiated. So it is dependent on how many funds they get, and it is a certain percentage

of that. Part of the funding is non-recurring.

The CHAIRMAN. That is interesting, but again, is it a fact that

the tribe enters into a contract for certain services, and that contract, they are able to do that under self-governance. Right?

Mr. SKIBINE. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. So they enter into that contract and they

say they will pay them a certain amount of money to perform that

service, but then because of appropriations cutbacks, you may not

have sufficient money to allow them to pay the commitments under

that contract. Is that correct?

Mr. SKIBINE. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I wonder what would happen if we did that

with the defense contractors? I mean, that would be interesting. It

would be a fascinating experience.

Mr. REINFELD. We do have a provision in the funding agreements. We negotiate off the President’s budget.
8

The CHAIRMAN. Excuse me. But the tribes are negotiating off of

what their needs are. They are contracting-out a certain service.

Right?

Mr. REINFELD. We do adjust according to the appropriation, and

that is a provision.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you ever adjusted up?

Mr. REINFELD. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. You have?

Mr. REINFELD. If Congress appropriates more dollars for a program, yes, they get more dollars.

The CHAIRMAN. So again, suppose that our defense contractors

were dependent upon how much money the Appropriations Committee appropriates for a certain program, and I am sorry we didn’t

have enough, so we are not going to pay you completely. I mean,

that doesn’t make any sense.

Mr. REINFELD. We roll up their base funding into one number

and then adjust it. There is also not only if the President’s budget

is greater than the appropriated amount, then we reduce it to the

appropriation. But we also add the pay costs to it, so any increases.

One time, there was TPA increase, tribal priority allocation increases, that were also added. So I mean, tribes are not only getting reductions, but they are getting increases just by the nature

of how it is formulated.

The CHAIRMAN. But is it true that some contracts are not given

sufficient amount of money to fulfill the obligation under that contract? Is that true?

Mr. REINFELD. We have pro rata reduced contract support and

that is true for that.

The CHAIRMAN. For contract support?

Mr. REINFELD. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. If I were the guy doing the contracting, I would

say, I am not sure I want to get into this contract if I could be paid

5 or 10 percent less than what I entered into. In fact, I think I

would see you in court.

Senator Dorgan has just arrived. Do you have anything?

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Chairman, let me offer my regret that I

was detained at another meeting, but thank you both for being

here. I will defer questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you. We will get more into this, but

really, Mr. Skibine, we have known each other for a long time. It

just doesn’t seem appropriate to me that as we encourage tribes to

contract out for certain services, and they are making the decision

to do it, and then they obviously should have guidance as to how

much money they can contract out for. I am sure that that is the

case. But if they can’t pay their bills, then it seems to me that that

is not a very attractive way of doing business, where if they would

just rely on the Federal Government to do the contracting, the Federal Government very rarely does not pay its bills. So I can see

why this might be a disincentive.

Do you see my point?

Mr. SKIBINE. Yes; I see your point. We will certainly look into

that.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. I would appreciate it. Thank you. It is

good to see you all again. Thanks for coming.
9

Mr. SKIBINE. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Our next panel is Delia M. Carlyle, chairwoman

of the Ak Chin Indian Community; Floyd Jourdain, chairman of

the Red Lake Band of Chippewas; Melanie Benjamin, chairwoman

of the Mille Lacs Band Assembly; and Ron Allen, chairman of the

Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, an old friend of the committee.

We will begin with Delia M. Carlyle, since she hails from the

great State of Arizona, a prerogative of the Chair. [Laughter.]

STATEMENT OF DELIA M. CARLYLE, CHAIRWOMAN, AK CHIN

INDIAN COMMUNITY COUNCIL

Ms. CARLYLE. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman,

and Senator Murkowski.

My name is Delia Carlyle and I am currently the chairman of the

Ak Chin Indian Community.

The CHAIRMAN. Located?

Ms. CARLYLE. Okay. I have that coming up, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Okay.

Ms. CARLYLE. Our reservation was established in May 1912 and

was originally comprised of over 47,000 acres. In the same year, 3

months later, our reservation was reduced by more than one-half,

to its present-day size of just under 22,000 acres. My community

is located approximately 35 miles south of Phoenix, AZ, and near

my sister tribe of the Gila River Indian Reservation. We are a

small, but proud tribe, of 767 enrolled members.

Today, my community is being significantly impacted by hypergrowth in our area. We were once a small rural farming village,

but today my area is one of the fastest growing suburbs of Phoenix,

if not also in the United States. The explosive growth has also

brought big-city problems to my community, which adversely affect

our air, water, land, culture, traditions and our own tribal members.

Thus the need for timely and full-funded self-governance programs is more important than ever to assist my community in providing necessary services for our tribal members. I am here today

to speak about self-governance programs as they pertain to my

community.

At Ak Chin, we have social services, criminal investigator, education, roads maintenance and other consolidated tribal government programs which includes the courts, enrollment, adult education, Band adult education in our self-governance compact. In

theory, self-governance was intended to allow an Indian tribe to

consolidate all its BIA 638 program funds and reporting requirements into one self-governance compact. The primary objective of

self-governance programs is to enable the tribe, not the BIA, to operate its own tribal programs.

Unfortunately, self-governance programs have strayed away from

their original intent to strengthen Indian self-determination and

self-sufficiency.

One of our biggest problems for my tribe’s self-governance program is that the BIA’s Office of Self-Governance has become an additional layer of BIA bureaucracy. The problem is that our negotiator is not a local person. The individual is located over 1,000
10

miles away and three States away in Vancouver, WA. Thus, they

do not know the local resources of our area.

Another example is that my tribe may need a social worker,

teacher, nurse, therapist, or police officer to help implement a selfgovernance program. Because there are no local resources through

the OSG, my tribe has to turn to the BIA agency and/or regional

office for administrative and technical support to implement and

operate our self-governance programs. This creates several problems.

First, there is no local BIA support because of the BIA’s agency

or regional office lost their technical support person, who was let

go or reassigned when OSG took over the program administration.

Furthermore, tribes may be stuck in the middle of an OSG and

agency regional office turf battle. At times, tribes pay the price for

BIA internal strife when an agency office loses personnel and funding to the OSG. The result is that the tribe gets the bureaucratic

runaround instead of its questions answered.

In addition, technical assistance funding is practically gone. This

hurts tribal program development because of the lack of BIA program technical assistance and support. This is especially true for

navigating through the complex funding formula process.

Besides a lack of adequate funding for tribal programs, a huge

problem is getting the available self-governance funding drawn

down to my tribe. These funds are already authorized and appropriated, but my tribe gets excuse after excuse from OSG that the

BIA central office has not forwarded the funds.

For example, in my case, my tribe has not yet received our fiscal

year 2004 reservation roads funding. Because of my area’s hypergrowth, roadway infrastructure is a major need. From 2004 to the

present, we were promised almost $200,000 for road construction

from OSG. Based on that information, we planned and negotiated,

along with State and local county officials, for a joint roadway

project to help alleviate the mass congestion of traffic going

through the main road in my village. The road was built, but the

funding has yet to come.

Therefore, my tribe had to cover the funding gap, which meant

that other tribal programs such as meals services to our elders, as

well as budget cuts to early childhood development programs, as

examples, were used to make up for the self-governance shortfall.

Finally, we have recently been informed by OSG that the funding

should be available soon, but the amount is less than originally

promised.

Another glaring problem is the expanded use of administrative

hold-backs by the BIA. In short, the BIA central office is not releasing the full amount of authorized and appropriated funds for tribes,

and holding back about 5 percent to 10 percent of tribally earmarked funds. This is a direct violation of section 405 of the Interior Appropriations Act, which requires any hold-backs to be approved by the Appropriations Committee. To this date, there has

been no such approval.

In some cases, the BIA claims that hurricane relief or Cobell litigation fees consumed the funds. In addition, at times we have also

been told by staff within the BIA that instead of the funds going

to the tribes, those funds were returned to the Treasury. In any
11

case, the funds are not going to tribal programs. As a result, tribes

have to cut other much-needed tribal programs to make up for the

hold-backs.

We offer the following recommendations to hopefully resolve

some of these problems. First, positive impact comes simply from

the BIA following Federal law and not enabling administrative

hold-backs. It seems that streamlining the funding process would

be another good start. There are still too many bureaucratic layers

involved. It should not take over 2 years to have funds drawn down

to my tribe or any other tribe. We rely on the promised self-governance funding and incorporate those funds into our annual budgets.

If we do not receive those funds, we have to make cuts from other

important tribal programs, which impact our elders, youth, and all

our tribal members.

In addition, we respectfully recommend having local negotiators,

limiting the number of tribes per negotiator, and rewarding good

negotiators, while getting rid of the ineffective ones.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman and committee members, I would

like to thank all of you for this opportunity. Our community has

high hopes that this committee will address the problems of selfgovernance and we look forward to working with you toward solutions.

Thank you.

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

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Floyd Jourdain? Is that the proper pronunciation, sir?

Mr. JOURDAIN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Welcome.

Mr. JOURDAIN. And I agree, Arizona is a beautiful State. [Laughter.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF FLOYD JOURDAIN, JR., CHAIRMAN, RED LAKE

BAND OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS OF MINNESOTA

Mr. JOURDAIN. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman, members of

the committee, good morning. Thank you for this opportunity to

present our issue today and provide the testimony on behalf of the

Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians in Northwestern Minnesota.

I will focus my remarks on the harsh impacts on my tribe and

on other tribes that have been caused by the failure of the BIA, the

OMB and the Congress to fully fund pay cost increases for self-governance programs. As an aside, I want to add that the Red Lake

Band supports the bootstrap amendment that Chief Executive Benjamin and Chairman Allen have testified upon, and having title V

authority applied to our title IV agreement would help Red Lake

in our ongoing negotiations with the BIA.

To my main point, under Public Law 93–638, tribal employees do

what Federal employees previously did for tribes. Congress has regularly encouraged the Administration to treat 93–638 tribal employees the same as BIA employees are treated with respect to pay

cost increases and other fixed costs. Because Congress and the Administration have failed to fully fund these costs, Indian tribes

have been forced to either absorb the pay cost increases by reduc-
12

ing services, or to deny tribal employees the pay cost increases received by their Federal colleagues.

As a result, the House Appropriations Subcommittee wrote in its

fiscal year 2005 Interior report

Absorption of costs associated with the Federal pay increases and other unfunded

fixed costs cannot continue indefinitely without further eroding core program capabilities.

Over the past 3 years, the Indian programs have absorbed over

$500 million in unfunded costs. Reducing Indian services by $500

million every 3 years in order to pay our tribal employees their

basic cost of living increases is not a choice tribes like Red Lake

can live with.

My written testimony sets out in detail the painful funding cuts

that the Red Lake Band has endured in the past 5 years. I will

briefly summarize these cuts. For fiscal year 2006, we timely submitted our pay cost worksheet to BIA. If fully funded, that would

have given us an increase of over $260,000. The President requested and the Congress enacted fully funded pay costs for the

Department of the Interior in fiscal year 2006, but BIA gave us

only $97,000.

Why was Red Lake shortchanged $153,000? It turns out BIA did

not collect some pay cost worksheets from other tribes when OMB

was calculating a totally funded Interior need. So BIA decided to

distribute erroneously smaller amounts pro rata among other

tribes. Once again, tribes like Red Lake had to pay for BIA’s mistakes.

For fiscal year 2002, there apparently was such acrimony between the BIA budget office and Interior’s Office of Self-Governance that when OSG missed a deadline for submitting pay cost information on self-governance tribes to BIA, $3.3 million was not included in the request that went to OMB and the Congress. When

we learned about this mistake, we pleaded with the Congress to

correct it. The House added $3.3 million, but at conference with the

Senate, that amount was halved. So BIA pro-rated the shortfall to

all tribes. Once again, tribes like Red Lake had to pay for Interior’s

mistakes.

For fiscal year 2003, 2004, and 2005, Red Lake believes the BIA

has miscalculated Red Lake’s proper share of the limited pay cost

funding that was requested and appropriated. We have repeatedly

asked BIA to report to us how it calculated our share for those

years. They have repeatedly failed to give us the report. We even

made BIA promise in our legally binding self-governance funding

agreement last year to provide us with this information by April

1 of this year. The date has come and gone without the BIA report.

Mr. Chairman, the BIA’s neglect and disinterest in self-governance borders on hostility because we insist on being dealt with fairly and honestly. Must a tribe like Red Lake sue the Secretary just

to get something done? This year marks Red Lake’s 10th anniversary under self-governance, but is there cause for celebration?

Certainly, there have been some good things that have come

under self-governance, and I describe a few of them in my written

testimony. Yet the fact is that prior to fiscal year 1996, the Red

Lake Band enjoyed relatively stable funding for our tribal priority
13

programs, and even saw an occasional increase for the cost of inflation.

Then, beginning with the devastating $100 million cut to the

TPA in fiscal year 1996 when Senator Gorton was an Appropriations Chairman, Red Lake saw in that year alone a sudden reduction of 16 percent to 18 percent in funding for our core service programs, including law enforcement, fire protection, social services

and natural resources. That was the year we began self-governance

and we have never recovered, what with the mandatory and targeted rescissions and pay cost cuts.

No matter how efficient we have become at spending our funds

as a result of self-governance authority, we have gone backward because of all the funding cuts and BIA miscalculations of our pay

cost increases. Core service funding is less today than 1 decade ago.

Contract support has been chronically inadequate and uncontrollable fixed costs have not been funded.

It might seem easiest for some tribes to simply revert back to

BIA direct service. At least the BIA service providers would get

their annual and step pay increases. But is that really in our best

interest? Red Lake does not think so. We want to continue on the

self-governance path, but we will need your continued help, Mr.

Chairman, and that of this committee, to ensure that self-governance tribes are treated fairly by the BIA, by Interior’s Budget Office, by OMB and by the appropriators.

To that end, we have a couple of requests we have outlined in

my written testimony. We suggest a series of questions for you to

consider asking the department, and some of them you have asked

today; a letter to trigger a GAO investigation of the pay cost

debacles at Interior; and a request that you demand that the department immediately provide the Red Lake Band with the pay

cost report promised to us by April 1, 2006; and provide us with

the funds that should have been given us in prior years and add

them to our base funding in future years. We need your help and

we need the help of this committee.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, the failure to fully fund tribes’ uncontrollable costs, especially pay costs, during the last 5 fiscal years,

has caused serious and irreparable harm to tribal core service programs. Errors, omissions, and miscalculations on the part of the

BIA have compounded this problem. These matters are clearly a

disincentive for tribes to continue participating in or to expand

their participation in self-governance.

On behalf of the Red Lake Band and tribes across the country,

thank you for asking me to testify today. I appreciate the opportunity and for your assistance in drawing attention to the matters

that I have presented today.

Thank you.

[Prepared statement of Mr. Jourdain appears in appendix.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Chairwoman Benjamin, welcome.
14

STATEMENT OF MELANIE BENJAMIN, CHAIRWOMAN, MILLE

LACS BAND ASSEMBLY

Ms. BENJAMIN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of

the committee. You have my written statement, so I will be brief.

I also want to say Arizona is a beautiful State. [Laughter.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Ms. BENJAMIN. The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe has been among

a handful of Indian tribes that have——

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Dorgan says that is not a requirement

for witnesses. [Laughter.]

Ms. BENJAMIN. The Mille Lacs of Ojibwe has been among a handful of Indian tribes that have devoted countless hours over the past

18 years to the task of shaping Federal-tribal self-governance laws,

regulations, and practice. Our former tribal Chairman Arthur

Gahbow was among the 10 tribal leaders who met in Kansas City

under the name of the Alliance of American Indian Leaders in

1988. They were led by Roger Jourdain and Wendell Chino. As a

group, they first proposed the concept of self-governance.

Our goal has always been to expand tribal participation in selfgovernance. But to do that, we must remove the obstacles. It is no

secret that generally speaking the Federal bureaucracies are

threatened by any expansion of tribal self-governance because it results in a shift of power, money and job away from the Federal

agencies and into tribal government employees.

From the beginning, our tribal allies in Congress such as you,

Mr. Chairman, have had to push self-governance laws without support from the Administration. Today, we are here to report that

after 6 years, we have been unable to persuade the Department of

the Interior to support detailed reform legislation. We only want to

bring the title IV BIA self-governance statute into conformity with

the title V Indian Health Service self-governance statute.

So we ask that, as an interim measure, the Congress pass a simple technical bootstrap amendment. We realize that these are the

closing days of Congress, yet this amendment is so important. It

will provide interim relief to expand tribal self-governance at BIA.

The bootstrap amendment would simply capture the improvements

made by Congress in 2000 regarding Indian Health Service and extend them to the BIA and Interior at the option of the tribes.

Put another way, it would allow self-governance tribes to apply

other provisions of Public Law 93–638, especially title V, to their

BIA self-governance agreement. The bootstrap would immediately

make self-governance more attractive to tribes because it will, first,

increase tribal flexibility in the administration of our programs;

second, produce cost savings by allowing tribes to conform our BIAfunded administrative practices to our Indian Health Service-funded administrative practices; third, expand eligibility and simplify

the application process; fourth, shorten negotiations by applying

time lines for decisions in dispute resolution; and fifth, expand investment authority over advanced funds.

It is a very cautious approach to reform because it would apply

to only existing law and authority from title V to Interior self-governance agreements. This is a law that has been working well for

the past 6 years at Indian Health Service. It is time to allow tribes
15

and BIA self-governance compacts to take advantage of these improvements.

From its beginning days, the goal of tribal self-governance has

been to allow Indian tribes to redesign programs to better meet the

needs of our people and to allow us to prioritize the funds ourselves

to address the needs with administrative efficiency. The bootstrap

amendment would help us achieve these goals.

On behalf of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, I thank you, Mr.

Chairman, for considering it and urge its swift passage.

Thank you.

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

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Ron Allen, welcome back.

STATEMENT OF W. RON ALLEN, CHAIRMAN, JAMESTOWN

S’KLALLAM TRIBE

Mr. ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is always an honor to

be here before you and this distinguished body, so I am very honored to be here. So I thank you and the vice chairman for inviting

me.

For the record, I am Ron Allen, chairman for the Jamestown

S’Klallam Tribe. You have my testimony, and I am submitting it

for the record.

The CHAIRMAN. The written statement of all the witnesses will

be made a part of the record.

Mr. ALLEN. Thank you, sir.

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Allen, would you like to tell us your

thoughts about Arizona? [Laughter.]

The CHAIRMAN. Or North Dakota.

Mr. ALLEN. It is hot. [Laughter.]

I am from the Northwest. We like it a little cooler up there, but

not as cool as it gets in North Dakota in the wintertime, mind you.

Anyhow, I am very honored to be here with my colleagues with

regard to self-governance. Self-governance, as Melanie had pointed

out, has been advancing since 1988. I am very honored to have

been a part of that process. I remember Chairman Roger Jourdain,

Chairman Art Gahbow, and Joe DeLaCruz from the Quinault Nation, Wendell Chino and Alex Lindeman from the Rosebud, and Ed

Thomas from Tlingit-Haida.

There were 10 of us who wanted to move this agenda forward.

I am very, very delighted that we have been moving forward, but

we are here before you to talk about why it has slowed down, why

we are now entering a new phase of struggles with the Administration and with the advancement of this very progressive concept of

empowering tribes. That is what self-governance and self-determination is all about. It is empowering tribes to take care of ourselves, because we can be more efficient with the limited Federal

dollars that are made available for our people than any other system that exists. We have shown that.

We have written books and have countless examples of how efficient that we can be. You have seen it move forward from 1988 to

the enactment of title IV in 1994 and enactment of title V in 2000.

As Melanie Benjamin has advocated, we are looking forward to another step progressively forward.
16

You have asked some interesting questions earlier with the Administration. Why are we slowing down? What is going on? What

is the problem? Chairwoman Carlyle talked about her experiences

down in Arizona. Quite frankly, you have an Administration who

is digging in their heels. Self-governance moved forward very progressively and it has been shown to be quite successful. But now

you have a bureaucracy that really does not want to let go. And

that has been always the historical challenge, to let go of Indian

affairs, to let us control our own destiny. And they don’t want to

let go.

So you have a concept out there called inherent Federal function.

You have a concept called residual funding that goes with inherent

Federal function, that only the Federal Government can do, that

quote/unquote, the tribes cannot do. The question is, now, is that

starting to grow? The answer is yes. They are starting to come up

with new ways of couching what they can do and only they can do,

and we can’t do, and they need more resources.

So when you look at available dollars that are made available to

the tribe, they are becoming less and less and less. So consequently, tribes who are interested are looking at this picture and

saying, there is a problem with this picture because you are not letting go of the system. The way it was conceptually back when we

began this process in the 1990’s was that as we took over more of

the Federal system, you should see a marked diminishment of the

Federal system because their role has changed in terms of their liaison with the Congress, with regard to what the tribe is doing

with those dollars. So those dollars should reciprocate as the system adjusts down, and the tribes grow in their strength, and we

report to you the successes of what we are achieving.

That was what was happening, and now it is starting to slow

down. We came before you after 1994 and advocated an adjustment

to title IV when title V got enacted. We were opposing some significant comprehensive adjustment to move it forward beyond the BIA

and into the Department of the Interior, all agencies into the Department of the Interior.

Remember back when this thing started in 1988 when you did

your investigation. You said, well, we made a big mistake. We are

doing a terrible job. Let’s talk about a whole new Federalism concepts. Let’s take our Federal dollars and turn it over to the tribe.

We said we liked the concept, but we want to do it on our own

terms. We want to make sure that you are not relinquishing your

legal liabilities and obligations to Indian country, so it had to be

on our terms.

If we are going to move that concept forward, there has to be

continuity. There has to be consistency on how these Federal Governments and agencies are administering this concept. You don’t

have consistency. So when you look at the BIA, 231 tribes, $300

million, well, what is that? You have about a $2-billion BIA budget.

That is about 15 percent, if my math is right. If you looked at the

IHS, you have around 306 tribes and you probably have around

$900 million. So we figure that it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 percent of its budget. I think the number is around $2.4

billion, something like that.
17

The issue is, why is it working over there? Well, you have more

flexibility. They have empowered tribes. Congress has made it clear

what tribes’ discretion and authority is. So we have more authority,

so they have less ability legally to try to restrict the tribes. We still

have problems over there. You do need to know we have some

issues over there. Why is it we only have 40 percent of that money?

We should have a whole lot more of that money. More tribes should

be taking over those resources. Under BIA, you have talked about

a number of issues that are out there.

So we think that the bootstrap proposal for title V into title IV

helps us move and break the logjams. We want a more comprehensive piece of legislation, but we need a progressive first step to send

a clear message from the Congress to the Administration.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Prepared statement of Mr. Allen appears in appendix.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Just briefly, Chairwoman Carlyle, because I think this is a concrete example of what we are wrestling here, unless I am missing

something. You made an agreement with the State of Arizona to

have a road through the reservation. Is that right?

Ms. CARLYLE. There is a road. It is called Ralston Road, which

borders the county and our side. It borders Ak Chin.

The CHAIRMAN. So this road was an agreement between you and

the county?

Ms. CARLYLE. Right.

The CHAIRMAN. And did you seek permission or inform the BIA

that you were going to enter into this contract?

Ms. CARLYLE. Yes; we did, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. And were you assured that you would get the

money for it?

Ms. CARLYLE. We were told that the dollar amount given for

those years is what we would be getting, the projections. I have to

admit one was a projection. And so based on that, we moved forward with the road, again, to alleviate the congestion going

through what is known as Farrell Road, which is the main road

through the village area.

The CHAIRMAN. So did you have that in writing?

Ms. CARLYLE. Yes; we have documents. We have an agreement

about the moneys to be received.

The CHAIRMAN. Send a copy of those documents to the committee, would you?

Ms. CARLYLE. I sure will.

The CHAIRMAN. And then when it came time to pay?

Ms. CARLYLE. We are still waiting to get paid.

The CHAIRMAN. But you had to go ahead and pay, along with the

county, for the construction of the road, so you had to take it out

of tribal funds?

Ms. CARLYLE. Yes; we did. It was a commitment. It was on

schedule, which apparently the funding cycle for the bureau does

not meet the schedule, obviously, with our budget. So we went

under the promise that we would be reimbursed for those costs.

The CHAIRMAN. And how long has that been?

Ms. CARLYLE. We are still waiting 2004. We got our first dollar

numbers for the roads project, and just recently as of yesterday I
18

called back home to see what the status was and the remark was

still the same. It is at the area office waiting for a draw-down. I

said, well, we would have withdrawn those moneys 2 years ago,

and we are still waiting. That is the excuse we are getting. It is

there in the central office. All it needs is a signature, but we are

just not able to draw down the funds.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, then if I were you and the tribal council,

I would say next time to the county, deal directly with the BIA.

Maybe you will get all your money that way.

Ms. CARLYLE. Well, hopefully the full amount, because we were

notified that what we were told we were going to receive was less

than what now they say we will be getting.

The CHAIRMAN. So even if you receive the money, it is going to

be less than what you were told.

Ms. CARLYLE. Exactly.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Dorgan.

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Chairman, we decided to hold this hearing

because we wanted to understand why the tribal self-governance

program was not working particularly well, why tribes were not

coming to this program and making themselves available to participate.

I think when I hear the testimony today, I think I understand

why that is the case. I don’t think this is a mystery. Nobody is

going to want to sign up to a program that puts you in this position, where you have certain requirements, contractual expectations that are not met.

So I think we have learned what we intended to learn or what

we had hoped to learn today. What is going on here? Why are more

tribes not coming to this program? I think I now know, and I think

it gives us some responsibility here on the committee, and opportunity as well to begin to address these issues. Because I think the

program, if run properly, can hold out some real promise. I think

self-governance for many tribes is attractive, makes a lot of sense,

gives them opportunities to make their own decisions about their

own priorities. All of that makes great sense. But it doesn’t make

sense to sign up to something that won’t work.

So I think this has been very helpful to me to hear the testimony

that you all have submitted. I appreciate very much your coming

to Washington, DC, and Arizona is a wonderful place. [Laughter.]

And so is North Dakota. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. North Dakota is wonderful. [Laughter.]

Could I ask you all, since you are on the receiving end, if you

would correspond with us to tell us what you think the fix is. Is

it legislative? Is it a mandate from Congress that full compliance

with contracts that were freely entered into with the approval of

the BIA have to be honored? Is that one of the answers, Ron?

Mr. ALLEN. We believe that if we are going to move it forward

like we did in the 1990’s, Congress has to send a clear message

back to the Administration that we intended for the tribes to be

empowered, to address their own affairs. You are slowing it down.

So get back to work and re-empower the tribes. That message has

to come from the Congress.

The CHAIRMAN. Chairwoman Benjamin, do you communicate

with the BIA these concerns that you have?
19

Ms. BENJAMIN. Yes; we have ongoing dialog. When we have our

regional meetings and we have the regional reps in the meetings,

we have discussions. I think Mille Lacs is in a different position because the funding is short. We are shortchanged and we are in a

position where we use our other revenue streams to kind of balance

that out, but that still doesn’t make it right. And also, there are

a lot of other tribes across the country that are not in that same

situation.

The CHAIRMAN. Chairman Jourdain, overall do you still support

strongly the concept of self-governance?

Mr. JOURDAIN. Yes; we do. We feel self-governance is a very positive thing, and the tribe would like to continue on with self-governance. We are hurting as a result of the cuts and the pay cost is

really an issue for us. It is hard for us to compete when, say, for

instance our law enforcement officers are being paid one-third less

than BIA cops. They go train. They get whatever credentials they

need, and then they leave to go somewhere else to work for higher

pay.

We want to carryout those programs. And us, just like the other

bands represented here, have to pull money from other areas in

order to cover those shortfalls. We do not have a lot of resources

tribally to do that.

The CHAIRMAN. Could I end by asking a question unrelated to

this hearing, that continues to be of great concern to all Americans

and to you. I begin with you, Chairwoman Benjamin. How serious

is the methamphetamine problem?

Ms. BENJAMIN. We are starting to see that rise on our reservation. We are about 100 miles from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area,

and we are the southern-most Ojibwe Tribe in the State of Minnesota. There area those entities that are in the cities, we call it

the cities, Minneapolis-St. Paul, that then travel north. We understand that there is a strategic plan from some of the drug cartels

to come to the reservations, and even to marry tribal members so

they have a foot in there to be able to start that new clientele, if

you will.

For the Mille Lacs Band, we are working very hard to make sure

that we get a hold of this. Law enforcement is one issue that is

very important, but also the other important issue is why are people turning to this as their escape. We know that we have a lot of

depressed people in our reservations, based on generations of oppression. So we want to go from that, and find that peace, and help

our members find the peace within themselves so they don’t turn

to those kinds of releases.

So we do that in terms of making sure that we really enhance

our cultural opportunity for them, to bring them back to the ceremonies and make sure that we have adequate housing, education,

and find jobs. One of the things that we did just recently is that

there are a lot of folks who for some reason are not able to work

in the economic development normal sense of work. So they are unemployed and look at some of the welfare benefits.

So what we did is we now have what we call a cultural labor

pool, where we are allowing our tribal members to go out and do

cultural related things for their families, for instance fishing, wild

rice, harvesting maple syrup, and that would be their job. We will
20

pay them to do this job, because is does help their families. Any

of those harvesting activities that they do, and they have enough

for their families and they want to sell the other portion of that,

we allow them to do that to enhance that income for their families.

So we are trying to look at new ways and innovative ways to

make sure that our tribal members have the opportunity to be successful. So we look at that in new ways, and hopefully educate our

youth of the dangers of that meth.

The CHAIRMAN. Chairman Jourdain.

Mr. JOURDAIN. We are one of the more remote tribes in Minnesota, so we don’t have a lot of exposure to the methamphetamine, although it does exist on our reservation. We are battling

a crack cocaine epidemic on our reservation. But because minimally

we have not seen a lot of the methamphetamine abuse on the reservation, at this point even one instance we take very, very seriously. We are concerned about methamphetamine in Indian country and the State of Minnesota, and we are talking to the other

tribes as much as we possibly can to network, along with local and

State and Federal authorities to see what we can do to curb drug

trafficking and methamphetamine abuse in Indian country.

The CHAIRMAN. Chairwoman Carlyle.

Ms. CARLYLE. Senator, you know, I talked about hyper-growth in

our area. We were just that small little rural community of about

1,000 people or so, including the town of Maricopa. I believe we are

up to 18,000 plus currently, and in a few more years they are projecting 100,000 to 130,000 residents in our area.

Chairman Ron Allen was just out in our area and saw the hypergrowth happening around us. Because of that, we feel that the

meth issue is there. However, unfortunately, it seems to be well

hidden in our small community. Our law enforcement people have

taken steps to combat this, along with council members and other

community members.

Unfortunately again, too, is that we seem to be a traffic stop area

from the south. Those who are drug-trafficking from the south, and

Maricopa seems to be for some reason the local stop. We are still

far enough from Phoenix, but still close by, if you can see what I

mean about exchanges in that area to off to different ways. The

O’Odham reservation has also expressed that concern about their

boundaries, the border issue.

Meth, unfortunately, as we all know, is a growing problem and

its effects, however, have been real devastating. We are not sure

if meth was related to the suicide of three beautiful young ladies,

two were 13 and one was 14, all within a span of three months.

They killed themselves. So we do what we have to do and we are

coming together as a community because it is not the council’s

problem. It not the PD’s. It is not the housing. It is all our problem

to find a solution to do away with this horrible, horrible, I refer it

to as a disease.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Chairman Allen.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, in my community meth is a serious

problem. It is a serious problem in Indian country. Our president

at NCAI has declared war on meth in Indian country because it is
21

so devastating to our people and to our families and to our community.

We are experiencing it in my small community. The thing that

is most disturbing is the limited amount of resources available to

fight it, to educate our people like my colleagues have commented,

and to provide them better opportunities. There are very little dollars, and so we have to use precious hard dollars to fight that fight.

But it is out there. It is the ugliest drug I have ever known, and

we have a lot of people getting exposed to it. Worse yet is the devastation it causes their families and our communities.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the witnesses. We will continue to make

that one of the highest priorities that we can, and our sympathy

to the families, Chairman Carlyle, of that tragic incident.

I thank you all very much. This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 10:40 a.m. the committee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]

(23)

APPENDIX

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE ASSOCIATION OF ALASKA HOUSING AUTHORITIES

The Association of Alaska Housing Authorities [AAHA] is pleased to have this opportunity to submit testimony for the record at this important hearing.

AAHA’s membership consists of the 13 statutorily created Alaska Native regional

housing authorities which collectively provide services on behalf of approximately

two-thirds of the tribes in the State, with combined annual budgets of just over $100

million. Alaska’s regional housing authorities (in partnership with the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation which also holds a seat on the AAHA Board) serve residents in every part of Alaska—in larger urban cities, in small towns and in Alaska’s

rural, ‘‘bush’’communities. The regional housing authorities have built well over

6,000 housing units since their inception in 1971 and are the primary builders of

new housing in rural Alaska.

Although we realize your focus is primarily on tribal self-governance programs administered pursuant to titles IV and V of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 [ISDEAA] [Public Law 93–638, as amended], we know

the committee is well aware of the fact that housing is a critical—and sadly lacking—basic need throughout Indian country and that the policies and issues under

consideration by the committee have direct cross-over implications and application

to the programs AAHA and other tribes and tribal organizations administer through

HUD pursuant to the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination

Act of 1996 [Public Law 104–330, as amended] [NAHASDA].

As the committee members consider the future of tribal self-governance and the

testimony presented by the various tribal leaders presenting at this hearing, we respectfully request that a brief look backward to the genesis of self-determination

and its evolution into self-governance may be instructive.

In 1970, President Nixon gave his historic ‘‘Special Message to the Congress on

Indian Affairs.’’ In his message he stated:

For years we talked about encouraging Indians to exercise greater self-determination, but our progress has never been commensurate with our promises. Part of the reason for this situation has been the threat of termination. But another reason is the fact that when a decision is made as to

whether a Federal program will be turned over to Indian administration,

it is the Federal authorities and not the Indian people who finally make

that decision.

This situation should be reversed. In my judgment, it should be up to the

Indian tribe to determine whether it is willing to assume administrative responsibility for a service program which is presently administered by a Federal agency. [Emphasis added.]

In response, Congress passed the ISDEAAM in 1975, giving tribes at least a limited level of the decisionmaking authority President Nixon had advocated for. Tribal

self-governance, which was passed as a demonstration project in 1988 and made

permanent in 1994, was of course an extension, or evolution, of this self-determination philosophy.
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It is well to remember however, that as tribal leaders formulated and advanced

the tribal governance concept, from its infancy through the successful passage of the

concept into law, tribal leaders and many Members of Congress had a much broader

vision of self-governance than that which has been realized to date.

When self-governance was made permanent in 1994 [12 years ago!], the House report which accompanied the legislation contained a discussion of concerns held by

the House Resources Committee over resistance within the Indian Health Service

to certain aspects of self-Governance implementation. As the report stated:

This resistance is due in large part to the misapprehension that tribal selfgovernance is a temporary project. Tribal self-governance, as reflected in

this legislation, will be a permanent program and it is the committee’s intent to expand tribal self-governance to include each Department of the

Federal Government. [Emphasis added.]

Cong. Rec., at H11141, October 6, 1994.

AAHA is hopeful that the Senate Indian Affairs Committee shares the views expressed by the House Resources Committee. We contend that expanding the SelfGovernance model to HUD and the Indian/Alaska Native programs which it administers pursuant to NAHASDA is a logical and much overdue next step in this evolutionary process.

In fact, it should be noted that Congress has already expressed its intent to move

in this direction by passing the NAHASDA amendments of 2002 [Public Law 107–

292], which included the following new provision:

‘‘Section 202. ‘‘Eligible Housing Activities.

(8) SELF-DETERMINATION ACT DEMONSTRATION PROJECT.—(A) IN

GENERAL.—Consistent with the provisions of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act [25 U.S.C. 450 et seq.], the Secretary

shall conduct and submit to Congress a study of the feasibility of establishing a demonstration project in which Indian tribes and tribal organizations

are authorized to receive assistance in a manner that maximizes tribal authority and decisionmaking in the design and implementation of Federal

housing and related activity funding. (B) STUDY.—Not later than 1 year

after the date of enactment of the Native American Housing Assistance and

Self-Determination Reauthorization Act of 2002, the Secretary shall submit

the study conducted under subparagraph (A) to the Committee on Banking,

Housing, and Urban Affairs and the Committee on Indian Affairs of the

Senate, and the Committee on Financial Services and the Committee on

Resources of the House of Representatives.

AAHA is not aware of any attempt by HUD to comply with this mandate. The

mandated report was supposed to be submitted to this Committee over 3 years ago!

Again, we are aware of no effort by HUD to comply, and if it did, to our knowledge

this information has never been shared with Indian country.

The critical issue at this point in history, at least from AAHA’s perspective, is

that we are no longer interested in a study. Tribal Self-Governance has been aggressively pursued and implemented in Alaska now for over 15 years. Alaska has a

higher concentration of Tribal Self-Governance Compacts than any region or State

in the country. Most of the BIA funding and almost all of the IHS funding is already

administered under Tribal Self-Governance Compacts. AAHA does not see ‘‘a study’’

as providing any value or benefit in terms of the ultimate objective—the improvement in the delivery of housing programs and services to our beneficiaries. To the

contrary, a study would simply be an unnecessary diversion and an unfortunate

waste of scarce resources.

Administering Federal Indian/Alaska Native programs and services within the

framework of Tribal Self-Governance should no longer be considered novel, unique

or something that needs to be done in a ‘‘demonstration’’ mode. The reality is that

Tribal Self-Governance is now a proven, ‘‘mainstream’’ model for the successful administration of Federal programs and services. It is time the model be extended to

housing programs administered within HUD and that those Indian housing service

providers who choose to exercise self-determination and self-governance rights by

adopting a self-Governance model be allowed this option.

AAHA assumes the committee is well aware that NAHASDA is up for re-authorization in 2007. While NAHASDA was a much needed improvement relative to the

pre-NAHASDA administration of programs under the Housing Act of 1937, the act

has significant defects and numerous substantive amendments are needed—starting

with provisions that remove the necessity for some of the oppressive, bloated bureaucracy that stifles tribal innovation and drains much needed resources away

from direct services in favor of meeting administrative/regulatory requirements that

add little or nothing in terms of accountability or actual improved services. BIA’s
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(and perhaps to a lesser extent IHS’s) programmatic oversight pales in comparison

relative to that currently exercised by HUD.

As an example of just one gross inefficiency, funding under NAHASDA is provided

and required to be tracked by the recipient on a separate grant year basis, with a

lengthy ‘‘Indian Housing Plan’’ (much of which is needless boilerplate) to be submitted each fiscal year. This necessitates that recipients administer complex financial

systems that have to spread the expenditures across multiple grants and submit a

separate Annual Performance Report for each grant year that remains open, even

though the goals and objective for each successive year are likely to be very similar

if not identical. Under the Tribal Self-Governance model, funds are simply rolled

over from year to year and accounted for through the Federal Single Audit process

until expended, a system which saves considerable administrative expense.

In closing, AAHA respectfully requests that the committee exercise its jurisdiction

to the fullest extent possible, and that members exercise their individual influence

to assist tribes and tribal organizations to expand the tribal self-governance model—

a model which has proven to be so successful in the BIA and HIS service delivery

arena—into the delivery of HUD housing programs and services. In short, if Congress wants more and better services per dollar of funding provided, this is the clear

path toward achieving that objective.

Thank you for this opportunity to express our concerns and positive recommendations for how we can provide the highest quality services to the tribal members we

serve, with the with the least amount of administrative bureaucracy, while maintaining the highest level of accountability to all interested parties.
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