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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

+ + + + +

TREASURY TRIBAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

+ + + + +

PUBLIC MEETING

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WEDNESDAY

OCTOBER 26, 2022

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The TTAC convened in the Main Treasury 

Building Cash Room, 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, 

Washington, D.C., at 1:00 p.m. EDT, W. Ron Allen, 

Chair, presiding.

TTAC MEMBERS PRESENT:

W. RON ALLEN, Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe; Chair 

REBECCA BENALLY, Navajo Tribe*

SHARON EDENFIELD, Confederated Tribes of Siletz 

 Indians*

WILL MICKLIN, Central Council of the Tlingit and 

 Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska*

JEAN SWIFT, Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation*

STEPHANIE WILLIAMS, Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of 

 Texas
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ALSO PRESENT:

JANET L. YELLEN, Secretary, Department of the 

 Treasury

MARILYNN MALERBA, Treasurer of the United 

 States; Chief of the Mohegan Tribe

KRISHNA VALLABHANENI, Office of Tax Policy, 

 Department of the Treasury, and Designated 

 Federal Officer

FATIMA ABBAS, Department of the Treasury

LYNNE CAMILLO, Internal Revenue Service

RENEE FERGUSON, Social Security Administration

WIZIPAN GARRIOTT, Department of the Interior*

JULIE HANLON-BOLTON, Internal Revenue Service

KIMBERLY KOCH, Department of the Treasury

RACHEL LEVY, Internal Revenue Service

TELLY MEIER, Internal Revenue Service

TRICIA MILLER, Internal Revenue Service

MARY MODRICH-ALVARADO, Internal Revenue Service

MORGAN RODMAN, White House Council on Native 

 American Affairs*

SCOTT VANCE, Internal Revenue Service

*participating via videoteleconference
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CONTENTS

Call to Order ................................. 4

Tribal Opening ................................ 6

Remarks By Secretary Janet L. Yellen .......... 7

Comments by Members of TTAC .................. 11

Remarks by Treasurer Marilyn Malerba ......... 20

Election of TTAC Officers and Organizing ..... 30

Business

Federal Agency Updates ....................... 45

TTAC Subcommittee Updates

General Welfare Exclusion .................... 83

Dual Taxation ................................ 86

Tribal Pensions .............................. 93

Miscellaneous Discussion ..................... 99

Public Comments ............................. 112

Other Items ................................. 150

Closing Remarks ............................. 154

Closing Blessing ............................ 158

Adjourn
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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

1:02 p.m.

MR. VALLABHANENI: All right. I think 

we're ready to begin. My name is Krishna 

Vallabhaneni. I'm the Designated Federal Officer 

for the Treasury Tribal Advisory Committee. I'd 

like to welcome all of you who are able to join 

us today here at the Treasury Building, as well 

as virtually around the country.

In addition, I'd like to thank all of 

the TTAC members, tribal leaders, and those of you 

who work with the tribes. And I'd like to also 

thank everybody who has, not just with respect to 

this meeting but throughout the past four years, 

provided input with the subcommittee and the TTAC 

as a whole to get us to where we are today. Public 

input is extremely important. Input from tribal 

leaders is extremely important, and we look forward 

to continuing this dialogue as we move forward.

What I will do right now is, in order 

to establish a quorum for the TTAC, do a roll call 

of the members to determine whether or not a quorum 
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is established. I will start with Chairman Ron 

Allen, and I will ask that each member also, other 

than just saying aye or present, also state their 

tribal affiliation.

MR. ALLEN: Ron Allen, Chairman of the 

Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe, present.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Rebecca Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Rebecca Benally from 

Navajo Nation, TTAC member, present.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you. 

Councilwoman Sharon Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Sharon Edenfield from 

the Confederated Tribes of Siletz, present.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Vice President Will 

Micklin. Mr. Micklin, can you hear us? Okay. 

I will get back to Mr. Micklin.

Ms. Stephanie Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Stephanie Williams, 

Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you. Four 

members being present for the meeting, a quorum 

is established. At this point, I would like to 
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introduce Ms. Williams to provide a tribal opening 

prayer. I'm so sorry. Jean Swift.

MS. SWIFT: Hi, Jean Swift, present. 

I'm from the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Apologies for 

missing you, Ms. Swift.

I'd like to now turn it over to Ms. 

Williams, who will be offering a tribal prayer.

MS. WILLIAMS: Dear Heavenly Father, 

thank you for this day. We thank you for the 

opportunities that have been given to us, Lord, 

and the freedoms that we have. Lord, we thank you 

for the tribes and the people of this nation, Lord. 

We thank you that you would give us this day, Lord, 

each and provide us our needs. Lord, we thank you 

that you will be asked to bless everyone that is 

here today, everyone that has joined us virtually. 

Lord, please be with us and help us as we conduct 

business, Lord. We just thank you for the 

Secretary and ask that you be with her, as well. 

Lord, we thank you for all that you do for us. 

In Jesus's name I pray.
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MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you, Ms. 

Williams. It's now my pleasure to introduce 

Secretary Janet Yellen, a woman who doesn't need 

much of an introduction but I will point out she's 

not only the, well, she's the 78th Secretary of 

the Treasury, she's the first female Secretary of 

the Treasury, she's the first Secretary of the 

Treasury to ever have participated in a TTAC 

meeting, and she's also today the first Secretary 

who ever participated in person in a TTAC meeting.

So without much ado, I'll turn it over 

to Secretary Yellen.

SECRETARY YELLEN: Thank you, Krishna. 

And good afternoon, Treasury Tribal Advisory 

Committee members, tribal leaders, and attendees. 

Thank you very much for inviting me, and it is 

a privilege to kick off, this is the first in-person 

TTAC meeting since 2019.

I want to welcome the fourth Vice 

President Will Micklin, Jean Swift, and Stephanie 

Williams, the newest members of the Committee. 

And, Chairman Ron Allen, congratulations on your 
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reappointment.

For those who are in-person, welcome 

to Treasury. I know many of you have traveled far 

and wide to be here, and thanks to all who are 

joining us virtually.

Although initially established to 

focus on matters regarding the taxation of Indians, 

this committee's work is a crucial part of 

Treasury's broader effort to strengthen our 

nation-to-nation relationship with tribal 

governments. We know the needs in Indian country 

are urgent. Even before the pandemic, the poverty 

rate for Native Americans was twice the national 

average. Tribal citizens had a higher 

unemployment rate than any other demographic, and 

many of these economic disparities were rooted in 

prior federal policy and they were exacerbated by 

COVID-19.

Over the past couple of years, we've 

been proud to partner with tribal governments to 

provide relief to tribal communities. We have 

provided over $30 billion in direct aid to tribal 
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governments since the pandemic hit; and these funds 

have literally saved lives by helping fight the 

pandemic, and they've also kept people housed and 

expanded broadband access.

As we invest in tribal communities, 

we've sought to strengthen the trust between 

Treasury and Indian country. We've increased our 

direct engagement with tribal leaders, and we are 

listening. For example, Treasury will be 

consulting with tribal leaders before we implement 

the Inflation Reduction Act's clean energy tax 

incentives. These provide real opportunities for 

tribal governments to make climate security 

investments with global benefits, and, of course, 

we appointed Chief Malerba as our treasurer. When 

Chief Malerba assumed her office as our nation's 

first Native American treasurer, she didn't just 

take on the normal slate of responsibilities. 

She's leading the newly-established Office of 

Tribal and Native Affairs, which is charged with 

coordinating tribal policy and engagement across 

the Department.
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The issues that you cover as Committee 

members are a crucial part of our efforts to partner 

with tribal governments as we secure the economic 

security of tribal nations. Today, this group 

will be discussing a wide variety of issues. I'm 

looking forward to hearing your thoughts on dual 

taxation, general welfare exclusion rules, and the 

protection of pensions of tribal citizens. So 

thank you for inviting me to join you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you, Madam 

Secretary. At this time, I'd like to invite the 

members of the TTAC to offer their comments. I'll 

go down the roll in alphabetical order, starting 

with Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Thank you, Krishna. And 

Madam Secretary, it's a real honor to be able to 

be here with you and it is a special honor that 

you are here with us as tribal leaders dealing with 

the issues that are so complex in Indian country. 

You did a great job of capturing the challenges 

that we have throughout the tribes. There's 574 

tribes from Alaska to Florida and Maine to 
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California.

One of the things that is emergent out 

of the 20th and into the 21st century is the federal 

government's commitment to enhance the tribes' 

ability to be self-reliant, to not be dependent 

on the federal government. And I mentioned this 

yesterday in our pre-meeting. We work with OMB 

on how much resources are actually made available 

for the tribes, and, currently, in 2022, it's 

somewhere around $28 billion throughout all the 

federal programs. We believe the need is north 

of $250 billion a year in order for us to be able 

to enjoy the rights and opportunities throughout 

our communities like the rest of mainstream 

America.

So how do we get there? It's about how 

the tribes can become more self-reliant and 

generate our own revenue base. Taxation issues, 

access to capital are all critical and essential. 

Recognition of our sovereignty in our tribes is 

essential for us to become a part of the family 

of American governments. And for us, that is 
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critically important.

The commitment you are making, the 

Office of Tribal and Native American Affairs, is 

a huge step, one that we've asked for for many, 

many years, and this administration and you have 

delivered it. So we want to say thank you.

SECRETARY YELLEN: Thank you. Thank 

you, Ron.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Next, I'd like to 

invite Rebecca Benally for some comments.

MS. BENALLY: Good afternoon, TTAC 

members and Madam Secretary Yellen. Thank you for 

being with us during our meeting today. I 

appreciate your comments. And as was echoed 

earlier of creating offices that is a benefit to 

Indian country, an objective that we have as far 

as dual taxation is that tribal nations as 

sovereign governments should be and shall be the 

only taxing authority for all businesses and 

economic activity occurring on which or within 

their reservations. And I believe that by 

creating these offices for Indian country members 
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and leaders to be part of U.S. Department of 

Treasury is a big step in that direction.

So with that, I just wanted to 

appreciate and thank you for being us today.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you, Ms. 

Benally. I'd like to invite Councilwoman 

Edenfield for some remarks.

MS. EDENFIELD: Good morning, 

Secretary Yellen. I apologize. I was hoping to 

be there in person, but I've not been able to fly, 

so I am very honored that you were able to join 

us today. I think the last time we met was 

virtually. You were at a virtual meeting with us.

So I just want to again thank you and 

appreciate your comments that you stated this 

morning and both Ron and Rebecca's comments. So, 

again, thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you. Next, 

I'll invite Vice President Micklin to offer some 

comments.

MR. MICKLIN: (Native language 

spoken.) Good morning. In English, I'm Will 
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Micklin. (Native language spoken.) I'm of the 

Teikweidi Brown Bear clan from the House of Kaats 

of the Tongass Tribe. I'm Vice President of the 

Executive Council for the Central Council of 

Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. 

Richard J. Peterson is our President. We're the 

regional tribe in Southeast Alaska with aboriginal 

title to over 35,000 square miles, 135,000 square 

miles, and 34,000-plus tribal citizens. I'm also 

the CEO of Ewiiaapaayp Band of the Kumeyaay Indians 

in East San Diego County, California.

I thank you for the opportunity to work 

with this committee on issues of tax policy and 

tax administration. Taxation, as you all know, 

is one of the core attributes of a sovereign 

government, and this is a tremendous opportunity 

to advance issues of interest to tribes that are 

really vital to improving our communities, and I 

sincerely thank you for the opportunity to engage 

in this discussion.

(Native language spoken.) Thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 
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much. Now I'll invite Ms. Jean Swift to offer some 

comments.

MR. SWIFT: (Native language spoken.) 

Good day. Again, my name is Jean Swift from the 

Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation. I'm the former 

treasurer of the tribal council and a recent member 

of IRSAC.

Good afternoon, Madam Secretary, 

honorable members of the TTAC, and guests. The 

Tribal General Welfare Exclusion Act provided for 

education and training for internal revenue field 

agents who administer and enforce revenue laws with 

respect to Indian tribes. As a member of the TTAC, 

I would like to see TTAC consult with the Secretary 

to establish this training which is critical to 

the proper administration and enforcement of the 

GWE. It would also be helpful to tribes for 

Treasury to issue regulations implementing GWE, 

including procedures for audits.

Finally, with various changes in 

federal law, including the Inflation Reduction 

Act, tribes will need assistance in assessing 
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changing tax policy. I would like to suggest that 

a subcommittee of TTAC assess changing tax policies 

related to tribal governments. This subcommittee 

could initially focus on the newest programs and 

policies from the Inflation Reduction Act and help 

assess any other major changes in tax policies for 

tribal governments in the future.

Thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you for those 

comments. I would now invite Ms. Stephanie 

Williams to offer some comments.

MS. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Madam 

Secretary, for being with us this morning. I am 

one of the newest subcommittee members or, 

actually, Committee members of the TTAC, and I 

consider it a great honor to serve on this 

committee. On behalf of the Alabama-Coushatta of 

Texas, you know, we are very thankful that you are 

taking an active role and a commitment to work with 

the tribes in this effort to further the policies 

so that we can meet our work that needs to be done 

on each subcommittee.
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Every one has kind of stated what I'd 

like to say, so I'll just make it brief. I just 

want to thank you for always considering federal 

policy, that these policies should keep tribal and 

all economies growing as much as possible, and we 

thank you for that. So I look forward to working 

with you.

Thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you, Ms. 

Williams. I think, at this time, Secretary 

Yellen, I understand that you need to depart our 

company, and you have a lot of things on your plate 

to juggle, so we understand.

SECRETARY YELLEN: Well, let me just, 

before I go, thank everyone for the comments that 

you've made about the issues that are top of mind 

to you, what you're concerned about. I visited 

the Rosebud Indian Reservation this past summer, 

and some of the concerns that you mentioned in the 

go-around are exactly the same things that I heard 

last summer. I think they're issues that are 

important to tribal citizens across the country.
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I'm very thankful to have Treasurer 

Malerba as a partner in our efforts to address these 

concerns. And as we think about the items that 

are on your agenda today and the broader challenges 

facing Native Americans, your input and advice is 

very important and it's something I look forward 

to hearing about on a regular basis. I'm looking 

forward to hearing more about your discussions 

today, and I appreciate the opportunity to join 

you. I hope you have good discussions and a good 

meeting.

Thank you so much.

MR. ALLEN: Thank you, Madam 

Secretary.

(Pause.)

SECRETARY YELLEN: Thank you, thank 

you, thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. Thank you, Treasurer Malerba.

I now have the honor and privilege of 

introducing someone that I think may need even less 

of an introduction to those attending today. The 
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way I view it, we have two first ladies here at 

Treasury. You just heard from one of them, 

Secretary Yellen. I'd like to also introduce now 

Treasurer and United States lifetime chief of the 

Mohegan Tribe -- I was going to try your Mohegan 

name, but I'm going to do a quick pass -- Chief 

Marilynn "Lynn" (Many Hearts) Malerba.

Before she speaks, I'd just point out 

why she's, you know, maybe there's the obvious 

parts about her being a first lady, but, you know, 

she's the first female chief of her tribe in modern 

times, and that's a big deal. And I think also, 

obviously, she's also the first tribal citizen to 

be the Treasurer of the United States, which I think 

we are all extremely happy about.

Without further ado, I will turn it over 

to Chief Malerba. Thank you.

CHIEF MALERBA: Thank you, Krishna. 

And it's always my honor to be here in whatever 

capacity that I get invited to be here, so welcome 

to everyone. (Native language spoken.) Welcome, 

everyone. My name is Chief Many Hearts Lynn 
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Malerba of the Mohegan people. And so I 

acknowledge the First Peoples on this land, 

including the Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey 

Nations, and all of our related neighboring 

Virginia tribes, some of whom were just recently 

re-recognized, as I say. And we thank all of the 

ancestors in the stewards of the land that we meet 

on today.

I greet everyone here in this room 

because I know everyone brings a good heart and 

a good mind to all of the work that they do. Ron 

and I have been on just about every tribal advisory 

committee that is in existence, I think, so it is 

greeting an old friend here. And I am thrilled 

to have our new members of the Committee join us. 

I think it will bring new voices and new energy.

I'm super honored to be the first 

indigenous Treasurer of the United States. And 

as my family lovingly says TOTUS, Treasurer of the 

United States. But I would say that, you know, 

I will work for the best interest not just for 

Indian country but all of our citizens of the United 
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States because it is an additive, not a reductive, 

process. When everyone does well, everyone does 

well, and so it's really important to always keep 

that in mind.

But even prior to my formal 

appointment, I was able to accompany Secretary 

Yellen as she demonstrated her commitment to Indian 

country by visiting the Rosebud-Sioux and meeting 

with the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen's 

Association. At that point, she did announce my 

appointment and also the establishment of the 

Office of Tribal and Native Affairs, and that's 

something that we've long advocated for. So I'm 

very excited to be a part of this, to be a part 

of establishing this and to be at the beginning 

of a really wonderful adventure, and so I'm 

grateful for Secretary's partnership and her 

leadership on this journey that we will be on 

together.

And having said that, we have a lot of 

work to do, so I'm looking to our Committee members 

and all of the people around the table because we 
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share this responsibility. It's important that 

we always honor the trust and treaty obligations 

that the United States has to its indigenous 

peoples; and as representatives of Treasury, we 

do that.

And so, once again, I'm thrilled that 

we are going to reinvigorate this committee. We 

have a lot of work ahead of us, so I hope you're 

all ready to roll up your sleeves. We will be 

consulting in the very near future, stay tuned, 

on both the Inflation Reduction Act and, as you 

heard Jean talk about that, I think it gives us 

an opportunity to relook at how we look at taxation 

and how we look at opportunities that tribes want 

to take advantage of.

We will consult on the general welfare 

exclusion report and the subsequent proposed 

regulations when they are available, but we thought 

consulting first before we develop the regulations 

is very important because that allows for feedback 

and it allows us time to really thoughtfully 

consider that feedback.
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We will reconsult on the dual taxation 

report. There are several people in this room that 

have worked on that with me, including Jean Swift, 

as a Committee member, and Rebecca Benally, because 

it's been a while and it's been a while since we've 

met, and I just want to refresh everyone's mind 

around that report and perhaps get a different look 

at that now that a few years have gone by and also 

now that we've had the experience of having 

Treasury directly fund programs for tribes. You 

know, I think that that was a very unique experience 

for us, and it was very exciting that tribes would 

have that very direct connection to Treasury.

I want to make a special note of 

everyone who has worked hard to make this meeting 

happen because it's not easy to do both in person 

and virtual. So I thank, Krishna Vallabhaneni, 

Fatima Abbas, Josh Jackson, the Treasury events 

team, Treasury travel team, and especially our IT 

folks in the back of the room. Thank you for 

bringing everyone into the room with us. It's 

never easy to make that happen, and so we're 
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thrilled that it does happen.

I'd like to acknowledge all of our 

partners here we have both virtual and in person. 

We have the White House Domestic Policy Council, 

Bureau of Indian Affairs, IRS, Tax Policy, Social 

Security Administration, tribal organizations, 

and, again, very importantly, the tribal leaders 

who are joining us both virtually and in the room. 

We are so thankful for your thoughtfulness when 

we go out to consultation for the way that you 

respond to consultation and the way you view the 

consultation process. It's very key to our 

relationship, and we look forward to that.

So I look forward to the discussion 

today. Our work is very important, and, together, 

we will improve the lives of our tribal citizens 

and the financial health of our tribal nations. 

So thank you, and I'm really happy to be a part 

of the meeting today.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Yes, if I might, Krishna. 

Just a follow-up comment to Madam Treasurer --
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you got to get used to this -- remark. She comes 

with extensive experience. It's been an honor, 

as she pointed out, that we've worked together on 

many advisories throughout the federal system. 

We know that your office, Krishna, has worked hard 

to understand Indian country and the complexity 

of the tribes, from north to south to east to west. 

It is challenging, but now you have someone who 

actually has worked with the tribes throughout all 

the corridors. There are areas even stronger on 

healthcare that was a big issue as we dealt with 

the Affordable Healthcare Act as it applies to 

tribes but beyond that, the issues that in this 

department with regard to taxes and access to 

capital, et cetera.

I do want to do a shout out for Fatima 

Abbas who has helped Jacob Leibenluft with regard 

to American Rescue monies and bringing additional 

talent and expertise coming from the National 

Congress of American Indians who provides the 

overview of all issues that affect Indian tribes 

with regard to our governance and our mission on 
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self-governance and self-reliance.

So I want to say this is a welcome 

presence in this department and a welcome presence 

with regard to this body, as we move forward with 

many issues that you already addressed. It's been 

a bumpy ride here these last three years, but now 

we're back together.

So thank you for the reappointments. 

I think I got myself fingerprinted at least a dozen 

times.

MR. VALLABHANENI: We had to be sure.

(Laughter.)

MR. ALLEN: I want to make sure I was 

not a lummy just for the presence of my good friends 

in the audience.

All right. Well, thank you. I just 

want to say thank you. Lynn, I just wanted to have 

a quick comment on your remarks, and I look forward 

to working with you and your office. I am 

expecting my face to be on the three dollar bill, 

though. Just saying. All right.

MR. VALLABHANENI: I hear people can 
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personalize their own monopoly money these days.

MR. ALLEN: That's true, and we do have 

a Jamestown S'Klallam version.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you, Chairman 

Allen. Are there other members of the TTAC who 

would like to offer comments with respect to 

Treasurer Malerba?

MS. EDENFIELD: Krishna, this is 

Sharon Edenfield.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Please go ahead.

MS. EDENFIELD: I just want to thank 

Madam Treasurer Malerba. I have to tell you, it 

was an honor serving with you when you were on TTAC. 

So when you got the position that you're in now, 

it was like, you know, it was a great win for Indian 

country.

So I really look forward to working with 

you in your new role and wanted to thank you for 

being here today. And I'm sure we'll be talking 

a lot when it comes to the GWE issue. So thank 

you.

CHIEF MALERBA: Thank you, Sharon.
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MS. BENALLY: This is Rebecca Benally 

--

MR. VALLABHANENI: Please go ahead.

MS. BENALLY: -- with Navajo Nation. 

I just would like to congratulate and thank Madam 

Treasurer Malerba. It was a great honor to work 

with you on the Dual Taxation subcommittee, and 

I know you will do well and well deserved. You 

have great leadership and knowledge and experience 

and very excited to work with you. And, again, 

congratulations.

MR. SWIFT: Hi, this is Jean Swift 

again. I just wanted to say congratulations, 

Chief Malerba. Madam Treasurer, it's an honor to 

work with you and even more so an honor to call 

you my friend. Thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Any other --

please, Ms. Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: I too want to say 

congratulations to Madam Treasurer. I like saying 

that. As I was saying earlier today, you know, 

it's been a long-time coming, so I remember working 
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with you on the Indian Health Service Committee, 

and so I know back then you were a strong voice, 

and so I'm glad to know that you're going to be 

using that strong voice in the Treasury.

CHIEF MALERBA: Well, thank you all for 

your lovely comments, and I do consider you all 

friends and colleagues, and I think that's what 

makes this committee so special.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you, Madam 

Treasurer. I'm going to call an audible here and 

see if she's interested in offering her own 

remarks. Fatima Abbas.

MS. ABBAS: Oh, there we go. I just 

said thank you all for coming. As Chief Malerba 

mentioned, we have a very robust tribal agenda with 

many consultations on critical substantive issues, 

so we look forward working with the TTAC, IRS, and 

the Office of Tax Policy. Thank you, Krishna.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you, Fatima. 

Okay. We will now move to some sort of formal, 

official, however you would like to describe it, 

business. Since we have newly-appointed and 
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reappointed members of the TTAC, the TTAC now has 

to elect officers and roles. So we will begin that 

process.

I'm going to begin with taking motions 

for the appointment of both the chairperson and 

the vice chair of the TTAC. If any TTAC members 

would like to nominate themselves or someone else, 

some other member of the TTAC for the role of 

chairperson, please do so now.

MS. BENALLY: This is Rebecca Benally, 

and I would like to nominate Ron Allen for 

chairperson.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you. I'm not 

sure if I need a second, but I'm sure there is a 

second.

MS. EDENFIELD: This is Sharon. I'll 

second if you need one.

MR. VALLABHANENI: All right. Thank 

you. Okay. So I will just go down the roll call 

of the members who can indicate their vote by simply 

saying aye or any.

Ms. Jean Swift.
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MR. SWIFT: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Rebecca 

Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Sharon 

Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Mr. Will Micklin.

MR. MICKLIN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Stephanie 

Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Chairman Ron Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Nay. No, I'm just 

kidding.

(Laughter.)

MR. VALLABHANENI: Too bad.

MR. ALLEN: I accept. Thank you very 

much.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. With that, to the extent he desires to take 

on the role right now, I would like to offer the 
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run of the meeting to Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Thank you, Krishna. And 

thank you, fellow colleagues, for this honor, and 

I look forward to taking on this particular role, 

working with Krishna and Lynn and the whole team 

here at Treasury.

So that takes us to the vice chair of 

the TTAC, so the Chair would open up for nominations 

for the vice chair position.

MR. SWIFT: I would like to nominate 

Sharon Edenfield as vice chair.

MS. BENALLY: I will second.

MR. ALLEN: Okay. Any further 

nominations? If not, then I'm going to turn to 

Krishna to do the roll call of the vote.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Happy to do so. 

We'll start again, Ms. Jean Swift.

MR. SWIFT: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Rebecca 

Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Mr. Will Micklin.
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MR. MICKLIN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Stephanie 

Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Councilmember 

Sharon Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Aye. Thank you, and 

I will continue being Ron's wingman.

(Laughter.)

MR. VALLABHANENI: Someone has got to 

keep him in control.

So now that we have -- I don't know. 

Chairman Allen, do you want to say any additional 

words before I offer it to Sharon Edenfield?

MR. ALLEN: No. I think that it's 

important for us to get on with the business of 

the TTAC. Like I said to the Secretary, we are

anxious to get back to work, and we want to thank 

the Treasury to finally getting the vetting process 

done and we look forward to our seventh member that 
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we hope will be nominated or will be appointed and 

confirmed before our next meeting that we will set

up.

So we're all very excited about this 

opportunity, so thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you. Vice 

Chair Edenfield, would you like to say remarks?

MS. EDENFIELD: Yes, just thank you and 

I agree. We're all anxious to get ready to go back 

to work. I know we've got some big hurdles to go 

over, and you'll hear from us when we present our 

TTAC, our GWE Subcommittee report. So I'm looking 

forward to working on the many issues, and thank 

you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. The next item of business is appointing 

co-chairs to the various subcommittees. We will 

start with, I think the General Welfare 

Subcommittee already has its members, but we can 

maybe focus on Dual Taxation and Tribal Pensions 

first.

If any TTAC members would like to 
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nominate themselves or some other member for the 

role of co-chair of the Dual Taxation Subcommittee, 

please do so now.

MR. ALLEN: I'll take the lead. I'd 

like to nominate Jean Swift to be the co-chair, 

along with Rebecca Benally, for the Dual Taxation 

Tax Parity Subcommittee.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. We will just 

go through the roll call very quickly to get the 

votes from the members. I will start with Vice 

Chair Edenfield. Could you repeat that? I'm 

sorry.

MS. EDENFIELD: Yes.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. Micklin.

MR. MICKLIN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Swift.

MS. SWIFT: Aye.
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MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: All right. The 

ayes have it. I'd like to welcome Ms. Swift as 

a subcommittee co-chair for Dual Taxation and 

re-welcome Ms. Benally as co-chair for the Dual 

Taxation Subcommittee.

I think we'll, unless the 

newly-appointed co-chairs would like to say 

anything, I think we can move to appointing the 

Pension Subcommittee co-chairs. Okay. Is there 

a TTAC member who would like to nominate for 

position of chair and vice chair of the Tribal 

Pension Subcommittee?

MR. ALLEN: If I might, Krishna, so let 

me take the lead and nominate Stephanie Williams 

and Will Micklin as the two co-chairs for the 

Pension Subcommittee.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. I'll go 

through a quick roll call vote again. I'll start 

with Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Aye.
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MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Swift.

MS. SWIFT: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Vice Chair 

Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Mr. Micklin.

MR. MICKLIN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. I think 

we've got the unanimous vote again, and thank you 

all for that.

Okay. Technical advisors. Per the 

TTAC bylaws, each member is permitted to designate 

a technical advisor. There are certain procedures 

that need to occur, one of which is motioning at 

a TTAC meeting for that person to be appointed a 

particular member's technical advisor. I will 

turn it over to Chairman Allen to begin.

MR. ALLEN: Thank you, Krishna. So I 
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would like to nominate Kellen Moore from the Native 

American Finance Officers Organization as my 

technical advisor.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Sorry about that. 

It was off mike for a second. So per Section 8 

of the bylaws -- and I apologize for sort of 

dragging this out, but, having our hybrid setup 

here, it's difficult to sort of just raise hands 

very quickly -- we do need a simple majority vote, 

so I'll just go down a quick roll call again. 

Sorry.

Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Swift.

MS. SWIFT: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Vice Chair 

Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Mr. Micklin.

MR. MICKLIN: Aye.
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MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Thank you. 

I'll offer it to Ms. Williams to designate her 

technical advisor.

MS. WILLIAMS: Chairman, I'm 

nominating Robert R. Yoder as my technical advisor.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay, all right. 

We'll go down through a quick roll call vote again. 

Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Swift.

MS. SWIFT: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Vice Chair 

Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Mr. Micklin.

MR. MICKLIN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.
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MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Thank you. 

Next, I'll turn it over to Rebecca Benally to offer 

her technical advisor nomination.

MS. BENALLY: Thank you for the 

opportunity to nominate my technical advisor, 

Derrick Watchman from the Navajo Nation. He's 

president of Sagebrush Hill Group.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Thank you 

very much. I'll go through a quick roll call vote. 

Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Vice Chair 

Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Mr. Micklin.

MR. MICKLIN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Swift.

MS. SWIFT: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.
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MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Thank you. 

I'll next turn to Vice President Micklin to offer 

his technical advisor nomination.

MR. MICKLIN: I nominate Ms. Wendy 

Pearson of Pearson Law, LLP, as my technical 

advisor, and I submitted her declaration.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Thank you. 

I will go through a roll call vote. Chairman 

Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Vice Chair 

Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Swift.

MS. SWIFT: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Mr. Micklin.

MR. MICKLIN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Thank you 
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very much. Vice Chair Edenfield, I offer the 

opportunity for you to nominate your technical 

advisor.

MS. EDENFIELD: I nominate William 

Nelson. He's our retired controller for the 

Confederated Tribes of Siletz.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Thank you. 

Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Vice Chair 

Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Mr. Micklin.

MR. MICKLIN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Swift.

MS. SWIFT: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you. Okay. 

Ms. Swift, I offer the opportunity for you to 
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nominate a technical advisor.

MS. SWIFT: Thank you. I nominate 

Charles H. Ferguson, controller for the 

Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, as my technical 

advisor.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you. I think 

this is our final roll call vote. Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Vice Chair 

Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Mr. Micklin.

MR. MICKLIN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you. Ms. 

Swift.

MS. SWIFT: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you all very 

much. We have gone through that business, 
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Committee business. I now --

MR. ALLEN: We can say the table has 

been set.

MR. VALLABHANENI: The table has been 

set. Hopefully, we'll get to a little appetizer 

now.

Okay. I've been doing a lot of 

talking, and so, to preserve my voice a little, 

I'm going to turn it over first to our colleagues 

here at the table from different federal agencies 

to say some remarks. I'll turn it over to Telly 

Meier.

MR. MEIER: So being from the IRS and 

you're saying the table is set and then calling 

on me makes me a little nervous, but anyway. Hi, 

everybody. It's good to be with you again today 

and happy to be back at these in-person meetings.

Since we last spoke, our office has gone 

through a pandemic, as all of you. We have changed 

the way we've done things and changed our personnel 

a little bit. So one of the management changes 

that I wanted to highlight for everybody is Tricia 
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Miller, who is here. You might remember Carmen 

Zucker. She's our technical manager. Carmen has 

now stepped into a new position, and Tricia is 

taking her place. So Tricia is doing a wonderful 

job, as well as Mary Modrich-Alvarado, our new 

attorney in our office. So I'm happy that they 

can be with me here today.

We've been hiring, so you may see some 

new agents for exams or TIF work. You're going

to run across some new names, and we plan to 

continue. This is not part, so we're clear, this 

is not part of kind of the big hiring package. 

This is just, you know, backfilling. We have 

gotten older, as a lot of the workforce, and so 

we are just making sure that we have the capacity 

to continue to carry on our mission.

We have done a lot of, you know, we've 

really kind of got into this virtual space. A 

pandemic will do that, right? So we've done a lot 

of outreach, and we've really kind of gotten 

comfortable. In September, we had an employment 

tax, our annual employment treatment workshop. 
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It was attended by almost 300 participants, so very 

happy with the turnout. Look to do that again next 

September.

We've also had Bank Secrecy Act and 

sportsbook outreach events. I know sportsbooks 

is kind of the new trending thing. We just want 

to make sure that people know about their filing 

requirements, 730s every month, 11-Cs every year. 

Hopefully, that makes sense to those that are 

practicing in the area. So just want to make sure 

that folks don't kind of trip up on some of those 

filing requirements.

I'm also happy to announce or maybe 

re-announce that we are partnering with the NIGC, 

the Gaming Commission, on a symposium on our shared 

customers on gaming issues here in December. And 

I know Mary is going. I don't know if she'll be 

presenting. No, okay. So you have to wait until 

another time to hear Mary present.

And then the last thing, I would invite 

folks to check out our website. We have been hard 

at work over the last couple of years redesigning 
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it, making it more user-friendly, really bringing 

it up to date. We have spent a lot of time and 

effort in it, and I wanted to, I don't know if he's 

online, but Sam Cohen, our IRSAC member, was very 

instrumental in helping us make it more 

customer-friendly. And so IRS.gov/tribes should 

have the new face to our website, a new landing 

page. And we're going to continue working making 

things better behind the scenes, but right now I 

hope it's even more user-friendly than it had been 

in the past.

And as we go forward, you know, you can 

sign up for updates. Please, I invite you to do 

that; you can get our updates. But then you can 

go to our web page, and we are doing a lot more 

24/7. That's a space we're going to try to get 

into as we go forward is, if you need the 

information, it's there on the website, either 

videos or maybe publications. So I invite you to 

check that out. We really kind of put a lot of 

thought and effort into that space.

That's all of the updates I have so far. 
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I'm happy to take any questions. But for now, 

I will turn it over to Scott. Is that okay?

MR. ALLEN: That's great.

MR. VANCE: Thank you. Thanks, Telly. 

Good afternoon, everyone. For those of you 

online, (native language spoken) good morning. 

My name is Scott Vance. I'm the Associate Chief 

Counsel for Income Tax and Accounting at IRS 

national office. That's a long title. 

Essentially, what income tax and accounting does, 

just for those of you who are not familiar, we have 

jurisdiction over a lot of areas, and it will jump 

out pretty quickly which one is relevant here, what 

is including gross income, timing of income and 

expense recognition, personal credits, charitable 

contributions. So we have a pretty large 

umbrella. We also get involved in everything from 

guidance, regulations for example, to taxpayer 

rulings to controversy matters in some cases.

So the most relevant to this group is 

our work in the guidance space and our work in gross 

income specifically in the guidance space. So 
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you've heard general welfare exclusion come up a 

couple of times here, and that is definitely a big 

focus for us.

Let me talk a little bit what was gone 

before and then a little bit about what's coming 

next. So there is a general principle of general 

welfare exclusion, and we have in the past year 

or so consulted twice, last June and again in 

January of this year, on some of the issues specific 

to the Coronavirus Relief Fund, state and local 

fiscal recovery funds, the extent that these 

affected tribal members. There were some 

frequently-asked questions posted in preliminary 

format back in March and then updated to reflect 

certain clarifications, for example, on treatment 

of dependents.

We found the consultations extremely 

helpful, but, at the same time, we recognize that 

there is a specific issue that is a big focus, and 

that is Internal Revenue Code 139E, and, put in 

plain English, that is a general welfare exclusion 

provision fairly recently enacted specific to 
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tribal members. The Committee did share with us 

drafts of the proposed regulation some time ago. 

We have looked at that. It's very helpful.

Where we're going with that is, 

imminently, there will be a dear tribal letter 

going out with some questions that will help us 

direct where we head next with that guidance. We 

understand it's a big priority for this group. 

I can tell you, I shared this with this group 

yesterday, I'll share it with the group at large

today, in my office over on 1111 Constitution, I've 

got a whiteboard. On that whiteboard is the list 

of major guidance coming out that we are working 

on. 139E is on that, and I see that everyday I 

walk in the office, so that is a priority for me 

personally, as well, to help move that forward.

The way that the guidance process 

generally works for this kind of thing is we have 

a statutory provision. Regulations are generally 

the ultimate outcome, so there's a notice and 

comment process that we take very seriously to make 

sure, A, that we get it right; and, B, that we don't 
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run afoul of a lot of administrative and procedural 

requirements. So we are actually front-loading 

some of that notice and comment process in working 

with the Committee. I think that's extremely 

helpful as a best practice, if I'm honest.

The next steps would be to get the 

additional information, have some discussions, 

generate what's called a notice of proposed 

rulemaking. That's essentially proposed 

regulations, go through a notice and comment on 

those, and ultimately get final regulations out 

under this code provision.

I understand, and I've been in this role 

about nine months now, I understand this is a high 

priority for this group. We take it very 

seriously, as well, so I appreciate the opportunity 

to get your input and work with you on this issue.

I'd also like to introduce, by the way, 

the Deputy Associate Chief Counsel in Income Tax 

and Accounting, Julie Hanlon-Bolton, and I do not 

mean to take up all the airspace. Julie, do you 

have additional comments?
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MS. HANLON-BOLTON: Yes, I just wanted 

to add it's good to be back. I don't know if 

anybody remembers, but I was here a few years ago 

in person for a TCJA-related consultation, and I'm 

so happy to be back in this room with all of you.

And just to echo some comments of 

Scott's, we've committed resource, time, and 

talent. We have a crack team of attorneys that 

include very experienced attorneys in this space, 

and it is exciting to start working on that. I 

mean, we've been working on it, but, after this 

consultation, hopefully, we'll move it 

expeditiously. But great team, and thank you for 

letting me be here.

MR. VANCE: That's all for income tax 

and accounting. Thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Thanks. 

I'll turn it over to Rachel Levy. You can 

introduce yourself and your even longer title.

MS. LEVY: I know. It is a mouthful 

indeed. I'm Rachel Leiser Levy. I'm also an 

Associate Chief Counsel with the IRS Office of 
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Chief Counsel. We affectionately refer to, I 

think affectionately, we at least refer to my 

office as EEE, which is Employee Benefits, 

Employment Taxes, and Exempt Organizations. 

Indian tribal government issues also come within 

my jurisdiction but also so for Members Williams 

and Micklin, you know, on the pension side, 

Employee Benefits includes retirement plans and 

pensions. In the Exempt Organization space, there 

are a lot of issues that touch on issues that I 

think are of importance to the members here.

It is an actual honor, I don't use that 

term lightly, it is an honor to be here. I joined 

IRS Chief Counsel in 2020, so during the pandemic, 

so I've had the pleasure of participating in some 

TTAC meetings in the past, but they've all been 

virtual and before the appointment of Chief 

Malerba. So it is very exciting to be back, but 

also it's lovely that we can do it virtually.

And in terms of, we, too, have had some 

shuffling in our ranks. So as I said, I've been 

here around two years. We have a new Deputy Chief 
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Counsel, Lynne Camillo, who is here with me, and 

she is over Exempt Organizations and Employment 

Taxes. Some of you might be familiar with Janine 

Cook, who had spoken a lot, especially during the 

Coronavirus, sort of the beginning of the 

Coronavirus, so Janine is in the position that --

excuse me -- Lynne is in the position that Janine 

had filled prior to this, and Lynne is excellent.

We are also hiring as sort of fill 

behind, so send good people our way. We have a 

wonderful group of people and, unfortunately, 

people do need to work in the District of Columbia. 

So you need to be willing to live in the area, 

but we do have openings.

I'll mention just really briefly, 

before handing it to over to Lynne to just introduce 

herself, two items in terms of updates. One will 

be familiar for anybody who follows our priority 

guidance plan, and that is fishing rights. That's 

been on for a while. It is making its way through 

the process.

The other issue that I wanted to mention 
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that is something that we've been looking at and 

we sometimes get or often get questions about is 

the question about whether and under what 

circumstances a corporation that is wholly owned 

by a tribe should be recognized as a separate entity 

from the tribe. I don't think that it will come 

as a surprise to anybody in this room either 

virtually or physically that that's a complex 

issue. We have a working group that's looking at 

it and that is preparing a document. That document 

is not quite ready for public consumption yet but 

just wanted to mention that it very much is. It's 

not just on our radar.

I, too, have a whiteboard. It's empty 

right now because I prefer charts on my computer. 

But if it were not, that would be top.

I'm also joined by Pamela Kinard and 

Andy Negash who are two of the people who do just 

a tremendous job working on these issues day-in 

and day-out. So thank you and, Lynne, I don't know 

if you want to just say hello.

MS. CAMILLO: Thank you, Rachel. I'm 
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Lynne Camillo, Rachel's deputy. This is my first 

TTAC meeting. I'm really happy to meet you all 

and to be here. We have a great team of attorneys 

that work on Indian tribal tax issues in our 

division, and I'm looking forward to working with 

you all, as are they. Thanks.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you. 

Chairman.

MR. ALLEN: Yes, if I might, Krishna. 

I appreciate the updates by everybody. So I was 

almost ready to say it's good to see old faces but 

good to see faces, period. And congratulations 

to everybody. We survived the COVID pandemic, and 

so we're back here in realtime.

So I have a couple of issues that I want 

to raise, and you touched on one of them, which 

is the status of the tribal corporations. I will 

say, I was talking to Telly yesterday, that we're 

getting a little anxious why it's taking so long 

to recognize our sovereign authority to establish 

corporations like any other sovereign authority, 

which the states contend they are. And so it is 
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a huge deal for us. It's a huge deal with regard 

to the standing of our many corporations that we've 

done.

I'm probably repeating obvious 

knowledge. Section 17 to the BIA is a pain in the 

backside, and it's because it takes so long to 

change it if you want to change it. And it's a 

federal system that is annoying, but it's annoying 

for us because of our sovereign status why we have 

to go through as a government through the federal 

government in order to establish corporations for 

the benefit of economic development, primarily 

economic development.

So getting that clarified is really 

important to all of our corporations. Some are 

small, some are large, depending upon their 

success. And so in the absence of knowing what 

the thought is, we don't know where you're coming 

from, we don't know where's the hiccup, where's 

the pause in legal authority.

And so we want to be able to engage. 

Our attorneys want to be able to engage with us, 
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and so we hope that's another issue. So as we're 

here to talk about the GWE and implementation, 

pension, which is critically important, the dual 

taxation critically important. But that one is 

right up there. So I just want to throw that out.

MS. LEVY: I appreciate it. Can I, 

Krishna? So I appreciate that. There will, of 

course, be time to engage. Understood that we want 

that time sooner rather than later, but, you know, 

rest assured.

I would also be remiss, I should have 

probably led with this, it's actually 

Passthroughs, which is another office within Chief 

Counsel, that is taking the lead on this. It's 

us, Passthroughs, and then another office, as well. 

So I will pass this on. You know, rest assured, 

we work closely together, I'll pass on how 

important this is. So thank you.

MR. ALLEN: Okay. I was getting that 

from Telly. It's not my wheelhouse. I went, 

well, wait a minute, whose wheelhouse is it in?

So I suppose one point here is, because 
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we're rebooting here, it would be helpful for us 

to have a roster reiterating, as we engage, you 

know, maybe three to four times next year and 

beyond, just to make sure we're clear whose offices 

you're in and what the responsibility of the 

offices are. So, you know, we as tribal leaders, 

we deal with a lot of different federal agencies, 

and this one has its own set of complexities, and 

the roster, quite frankly, is helpful.

MR. VALLABHANENI: I agree.

MR. ALLEN: You need it, too?

MR. VALLABHANENI: It took me about 

three years to figure out how this building works, 

so yes.

MR. ALLEN: Okay. Well, anyhow, so I 

just wanted to throw that out as part of the 

discussion. We're looking forward to, you know, 

kicking that can down the road.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yes. Before we 

move on too much further, I want to just check if 

there are other federal agency representatives who 

are on Zoom who would like to say some remarks.
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MS. FERGUSON: Hi, this is Renee 

Ferguson from the Social Security Administration. 

Can you hear me?

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yes, we can.

MS. FERGUSON: Thank you, Krishna. 

Appreciate that. It's a pleasure to be with you 

and the ongoing engagements of the TTAC, including 

Social Security Administration's travel 

consultation last month, which many of you 

supported so I thank you for that. I see those 

familiar faces. And apologize I'm in Dallas. 

Hopefully, you can hear me okay.

This is Renee Ferguson. I serve as the 

Deputy Associate Commissioner for Social Security 

Administration's Office of Quality Review, which 

is out of Baltimore. I additionally serve as the 

agency executive lead for tribal policy matters.

So today I'm thankful to be with you 

and part of your agenda at my first TTAC meeting 

to provide just two updates real quick on behalf 

of SSA. So, first, the first agenda item I'll 

share is a highlight that the agency released in 
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a press release. The second agenda item is related 

to the General Welfare Exclusion Act. It is a 

policy concern that we are aware of. I want to 

share with you that we are actively addressing it 

and also know that we are reaching out directly 

to tribal members who are receiving Supplemental 

Security Income based on the negative impacts that 

we are aware of.

So the first topic, September 27th our 

acting Commissioner announced in a press release 

and she also announced the Tribal Broadband Summit 

that SSA is establishing a National Office of 

Native American Partnerships. So it's going to 

be established within the Office of the 

Commissioner, and that is occurring right now. 

ONAP, for short, as we'll call it, as we all need 

one more new acronym, ONAP hopefully rolls off our 

tongue. This new office is going to elevate and 

centralize efforts to administer comprehensive 

programs and policies that are related to American 

Indian and Alaskan Natives and serve as a point 

of contact for TTAC directly.
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Many of you have worked over the years 

with our agency tribal consultation official, 

Nancy Berryhill, and she is now serving as the 

Interim Director for ONAP as this acting 

Commissioner is establishing this new office. So 

Interim Director Berryhill.

Our website has been updated to reflect 

the press release, so that will inform you the 

expectations the Commissioner has for the Office 

of Native American Partnerships. The ONAP will 

remain in contact on matters certainly related to 

the General Welfare Exclusion Act and, most 

directly, how payments may be impacting tribal 

members who are also receiving Supplemental 

Security Income. So that's the needs-based 

program that SSA administers.

So for the second agenda item, this is 

a policy matter related to TGWE Act, this second 

topic is really in regards to the impact of the 

COVID-19 disaster payments. Those were those that 

were paid out via various relief efforts through 

the CARES Act, CAA, ARPA, and I'm sure several other 
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financial supports that were provided during the 

pandemic. And, ultimately, for tribes, tribal 

payments may have been provided to tribal members 

who receive a needs-based benefit under the SSI 

program. So just to clarify, so not in regards 

to Social Security benefits, those are benefits 

that have no impact on monthly payments or 

eligibility if you receive other benefits. This 

is specific to tribal members who are on a 

needs-based program with Supplemental Security 

Income or what's referred to SSI benefits, so we 

administer both programs.

So the needs-based program, which is 

a monthly income and resources evaluated ongoing 

in order to continue to receive such monthly 

benefits, there could be a result such as 

suspended, terminated, or sometimes ineligibility 

for SSI if one receives other resources from other 

programs. This is one that Chairman Allen reached 

out to us and others to let us know and check to 

see if the Tribal General Welfare Exclusion Act 

apply so that we could exclude those payments and 
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not impact those receiving SSI. It's a vulnerable 

population receiving SSI but also then receiving 

a tribal benefit.

For SSA, their determination is no 

impact with TGWE in regards to the Social Security 

Administration Act. There was no changes. 

However, although this may be a year into the 

pandemic, the agency was authorized under a special 

emergency authority to recognize that the agency 

could provide an exclusion under the pandemic. 

And so in year two, SSA implemented that change. 

That is the offered exclusions, even though it 

didn't apply under the General Welfare Exclusion 

Act, we were able to implement this change.

However, this took place retroactive. 

So we automated updates to benefits to retroactive 

fixed benefits. We've worked manually to take 

actions. And, lastly, we provided mailed notices, 

and that was our third attempt to retroactively 

fix a negative impact of the disaster payments.

So I just want to share an update here 

that all of those mailed notices have gone out to 
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tribal members over the last 11 months. It started 

last December. It's a very low response rate, and 

these are notices to inform tribal members that 

they are most likely entitled to benefits.

I just want to state that I shared this 

message, critical message out of FOA earlier this 

month and shared a copy of what the notice looked 

like so that we can continue to message this 

critical information to tribal members who may have 

been negatively impacted.

So thank you for your time, and I'll 

hand the microphone back over to you, Krishna.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Thank you 

very much. Does anyone have any quick questions 

or --

MR. ALLEN: I'll just say, I'm sure 

Sharon may well chime in, Sharon Edenfield and I 

have been very active with Renee and her colleague, 

Nancy Berry. They've been very responsive to the 

concerns that we have over the negative impact on 

SSA payments to our tribal elder citizens who are 

eligible, and so they're coming up with some 
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solutions that we think are going to be helpful. 

But we also know that there's going to be some 

additional work that we need.

So this is a topic that we hope to keep 

active within this committee as we work with SSA 

and the great help we were getting from Renee and 

Nancy Berry. Thank you.

MS. EDENFIELD: Krishna, I do have a 

comment.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yes, please, go 

ahead.

MS. EDENFIELD: Thank you, Renee. As 

Ron stated, we've been working with Renee and Nancy 

Berryhill for, I don't know, a couple of years, 

and it started with me doing a welcoming to one 

of the consultations. And I made out all the 

concerns our tribe was facing and the issues that 

we were hearing from other tribes regarding SSI 

payments, mainly to elders because they're the ones 

that, to us, the neediest of the needy in our tribe. 

And I feel like we finally have someone in Social 

Security actually listening to us.
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You know, we're taking great strides. 

We still have a long ways to go because I firmly 

believe that, if you're getting a GWE benefit, to 

me, that's a need and that's based on need from 

whatever policies tribes have. And so we're not 

there yet, but, hopefully, at some point, we will 

get beyond that and find out what that fix is. 

We've got a good subcommittee on GWE that's helping

myself and Ron work on that with Renee and Nancy.

So thank you, Renee, for attending 

today.

MS. FERGUSON: Thank you for that.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. Are there other federal offices who would 

like to share some remarks?

MR. RODMAN: Hi. This is Morgan 

Rodman, Executive Director of the White House 

Council on Native American Affairs, and I'm happy 

to go next and share --

MR. VALLABHANENI: Please do.

MR. RODMAN: -- brief updates, if that 

pleases the Committee.
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MR. VALLABHANENI: Please do.

MR. RODMAN: Thank you so much. I'd 

like to thank you for this opportunity to engage 

with the Treasury Tribal Advisory Committee. It's 

always an honor and a pleasure when I can connect 

virtually or in person with the leaders of Indian 

country. And, of course, I'd like to thank 

Secretary Yellen and Treasurer Malerba and Fatima 

Abbas for your leadership, as well.

My name again is Morgan Rodman, and I 

serve as Executive Director for the White House 

Council on Native American Affairs. This is the 

second time I've served in this position, the last 

time being in 2015 and 2016. And I'm also Cherokee 

and Osage from Oklahoma.

So I believe that the TTAC may be 

familiar with the White House Council on Native 

American Affairs, but just a few quick highlights 

to kind of get us started here. The Council is 

co-chaired by Secretary Deb Haaland, the first 

Native American cabinet secretary, of course, and 

Ambassador Susan Rice, the Director of the Domestic 
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Policy Council. And the actual Council members 

are the cabinet members and senior administrative 

officials, and Treasury is an active and important 

participant on the Council.

The Council itself, at the cabinet 

level, meets at least three times a year, but the 

work between the meetings happens with my 

colleagues here, federal colleagues joining me 

today, federal team members across the Executive 

Branch, and the executive director.

There are six committees of the Council 

that cut across all issue areas of Indian country, 

and Treasury supports a number of those committees. 

And starting this year, Secretary Haaland also 

committed the Council and her cabinet colleagues 

to at least three tribal leader engagement 

sessions, and these are national meetings that were 

held via Zoom this year but are really just 

unscripted conversations between the cabinet 

leadership and tribal leaders on the Council 

initiatives and federal policy.

Also, the Council supports the annual 
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White House Tribal Nations Summit at which the 

President and Vice President and cabinet 

leadership make significant announcements on 

tribal policy and engage in high-level diplomatic 

discussions with tribal leaders and federal 

officials. The summit is very important for 

accountability for the agencies, as well. They 

know they'll be expected to have deliverables and 

to really make good on the goals they've set earlier 

in the year.

And you may have heard and, if you 

haven't already, I'm happy to share with you today 

that last Friday the White House announced the 2022 

White House Tribal Nations Summit, which will be 

in person at the U.S. Department of the Interior 

in Washington, D.C. on November 30th and December 

1st. And while last year's summit was virtual, 

this year's summit will be in person and will be 

the first time it's held in person since 2016. 

The summit presents an opportunity for tribal 

leaders to engage with the highest levels of 

leadership of the federal government to share their 
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insights and their recommendations.

In order to accommodate all 574 

federally-recognized tribes, we're asking that 

each tribe designate one tribal leader to attend 

and represent them in keeping with the protocol 

that was set in the Obama administration.

So please go to the White House Council 

on Native American Affairs web page. You can 

Google the White House Council on Native American 

Affairs, and the website will pop up. And you'll 

find a link there that will go to the White House 

landing page for the Tribal Nations Summit where 

tribal leaders can register. And your staff 

members can also register you, as well. There's 

an entry for that.

So at its essence, the key activity of 

the Council is the cross-agency coordination and 

communication, getting the departments to 

strategically work together in really setting a 

pattern and an expectation of that cross-agency 

work. The benefit of this, of course, is better 

services and products for tribes and better policy 
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development.

And just briefly, one of the committees 

that Treasury plays a really important role in of 

the Council is the Committee on Economic 

Development, Energy, and Infrastructure. And 

this interagency team has been instrumental in 

coordinating outreach, resource deployment, and 

leading an overall effort on working with tribes 

and Native entrepreneurs on the various resources 

from the American Rescue Plan, which is the single 

largest federal investment in Indian country at 

$32 billion; the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 

which was more than $13 billion; and, the most 

recent, Inflation Reduction Act. So that 

committee that Treasury is a part of is really 

collaborating on how to best meet tribes where they 

are to ensure that those resources are used and 

that they are useful.

So in looking ahead, the Council will 

continue deepening that interagency group for the 

federal departments to really settle into. And 

the Council will also seek to embed an 
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understanding and appreciation of tribal nations 

and the responsibility throughout the whole 

Executive Branch and continue working on tribal 

consultation as a part of that and, most 

immediately, really focusing on a successful 

Tribal Nations for tribal leaders next month.

And, again, it's a pleasure to be here. 

I look forward to doing the work for TTAC. So 

that's a brief update.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you so much. 

Do any of the TTAC members have any questions or 

would they like to make any comments?

MR. ALLEN: This is Ron Allen, Morgan. 

Thank you for the update. We definitely are 

looking forward to the White House meeting,

resuming our very unique relationship in person 

to talk to the President, the Vice President, and 

the cabinet members led by Secretary Haaland. So 

we're very excited about that.

And we appreciate the hard work that 

you're doing with the advisory council and, in 

particular, the subcommittees that are 
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established. Without a doubt, one of them has to 

be a clearly relative to the self-reliance agenda, 

so tribes can become more diversified in generating 

unrestricted revenues to bridge the gap of the 

needs of our communities.

So we appreciate your hard work, and 

we look forward to next month's meeting.

MR. RODMAN: Thank you, sir.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. Are there other federal offices that would 

like to make any remarks?

MR. GARRIOTT: Yes. (Native language 

spoken.) Good afternoon. I greet each and every 

one of you with a good heart. My name is Wizipan 

Garriott. I serve as Principal Deputy Assistant 

Secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department 

of Interior. I, too, have a very long title, as 

some of my federal colleagues.

I wanted to, you know, begin by 

expressing appreciation for our friends and 

colleagues at Treasury. We have a long or a 

strengthening and developing relationship with 
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them, and one of the best things about my job is 

I get to work with some really, really amazing 

people, you know, here at Interior serving under 

the leadership of Secretary Haaland and Assistant 

Secretary Bryan Newland, and then working with 

folks like Morgan, and then also with our 

colleagues, you know, just amazing to have Chief 

Treasurer Malerba, you know, someone that I look 

up to, as well as being able to interface more 

directly with a lot of tribal leaders, some of my 

personal heroes, like Chairman Ron Allen who I have 

known for a while.

As far as updates, you know, one of the 

things that Morgan mentioned was we're prepping, 

putting a lot of time and energy in prepping for 

the White House Tribal Nations conference, so 

that's taking up a lot of our time in the immediate. 

But some of the things that we've really been 

working on over the last year that really relate 

directly to our federal treaty and trust 

responsibility to protect tribal sovereignty and 

to revitalize tribal cultures and economies and
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land stewardship. A lot of it is centered around 

funding, and, you know, we've worked very closely 

with Treasury on a number of funding issues and 

appreciate their leadership and support in that 

area.

And so I wanted to kind of give a quick 

update on some of our Bipartisan Infrastructure 

Law funding. As many know, that is five-year 

funding and that, while we get a kind of overall 

top-line number, we have a certain amount of 

allocation that we're able to spend each year. 

And in fiscal year '22, $93 million for Indian 

affairs was available to us, and, of that, $49.5 

million has been allocated for irrigation, power, 

and safety of dam projects throughout the country. 

And we also expect to be making some award 

announcements around some of our climate 

resilience funding. We received a substantial 

amount in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

That also included $2.5 billion for 

Indian water rights settlements, and we're pleased 

to have about $1.8 billion of that out he door for 
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tribes to support their water rights settlements.

We were also very, very excited about 

the Inflation Reduction Act, which, in total, 

provided about $385 million to Indian affairs, 

about 220 of that was for climate adaptation and 

resilience projects, about 10 million of that was 

to support fish hatcheries, and about 145 million 

to support what will likely end up being a new 

program around home electrification. And so I 

think we're going to want to get some more input 

from tribes around some of that funding and what 

tribes would like to see in that.

Also, one of the things that when we 

consulted on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was 

that tribes really wanted to see a lot more 

technical assistance and more information being 

made available on where all of the pots of money 

were. There was funding that was very specific 

for tribes, and then a large amount that was also 

available to tribes to compete for. And just 

sifting and sorting through, you know, many, many 

billions of dollars and opportunities is a task, 
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and so, you know, we're working and I think getting 

close to being able to stand up our technical 

assistance office. As everyone knows, sometimes 

in the federal government we aren't able to always 

move and act as quickly as we would sometimes like, 

and so that's taken us a while to get going. But 

I'm excited that we're going to see some movement 

on that. And, you know, part of the big purpose 

of that is to work directly with tribes and tribal 

organizations to help them find where some of that 

funding is.

And then also it's not talked about as 

much, but I think the lessons from the pandemic 

have taught us that data is incredibly important 

and that being able to have data that's also 

protected and shared when tribes want to share that 

data to help inform us from a policy standpoint, 

not just at Interior but really across the entire 

federal government, is incredibly important. And 

so we've been working very closely with our 

colleagues at Treasury around standing up the 

intergovernmental data initiative that's, you 
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know, work that includes Interior, U.S. Census 

Bureau, and others. So that's also a big part of 

our work, you know, working collaboratively with 

our friends over at Treasury and others.

We have a lot going on. We continue 

to talk and talk, but, as an uncle of mine says, 

we have two ears and one mouth for a reason, so 

I will be quiet and listen. But, again, really 

thankful to our colleagues, to the TTAC, for 

inviting us. Thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you so much 

and very happy that you were able to join us. Are 

there any questions from any TTAC members or any 

comments?

MR. ALLEN: Yes, let me start it off. 

So, Wizi, good to see you, and I just want to 

express my deep appreciation for yours and 

Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland's leadership on 

collaboration with the Secretary. You have 

developed quite a team over there to deal with the 

complex issues that we have in Indian country, so 

I'm deeply appreciative. No one knows better the 
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complexity of our needs and challenges in Indian 

country than you.

The Indian Trader Act, you want to keep 

that on your radar. That's something that we knew 

that the Assistant Secretary had a high priority 

for. We're over here talking about taxation 

issues and access to capital. So the HEARTH Act 

and all those areas where you can help advance the 

jurisdiction of tribes is deeply appreciated with 

regard to your support.

So I want to thank you. You folks work 

hard over there for Indian country.

MR. GARRIOTT: I wanted to just say one 

more thing. You mentioned it, Chairman, that I 

think it's so refreshing to be able to see the path 

to federal service being opened up through 

leadership in serve and tribal government. You 

know, my boss, Secretary Newland, is a formal 

tribal chairman. We have Chief Malerba in her 

leadership position. And the work that tribal 

leaders deal with on a daily basis is big and it's 

complex and requires selfless service, so always 
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just thankful to our tribal leaders.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. Any other TTAC members, would they like to 

offer comments? Okay. Thank you.

Just want to see if there are any other 

federal offices that would like to make any 

comments or say any remarks, provide any updates. 

Okay.

At this time, I think we'll turn it over 

to the subcommittee members, the chairs, for their 

updates, and we'll start with the General Welfare 

Exclusion Subcommittee.

MR. ALLEN: So thank you, Krishna. 

And I'll lead off, as Sharon Edenfield and I are 

the co-chairs. And to say the obvious to our 

audience and to our members of our TTAC Committee, 

it was a little frustrating that the report that 

we provided a couple of years ago didn't get in 

the hopper for some technical reasons. So we're 

going to kind of right that ship, so to speak; and 

we are ready to submit our report in our recommended 

regulatory regulations to apply the report and the 
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provisions in the report. We think that it's ready 

to be submitted for comments by the tribal 

leadership, and we know that the tribal leadership 

is ready and waiting for it to be published so that 

we can start to get those comments.

We're aware that the department has 

some key questions. We're aware the department 

has already been reviewing the initial draft that

we submitted back in June of 2019. So we feel that, 

once we can get comments from the tribes, we can 

reconcile the comments and the perspectives of the 

department and the tribes to try to get some final 

regulations out for final comment and I would 

assume final publication.

That would trigger us to work with the 

IRS in their training of their agents with regard 

to the implementation, which we think is critically 

important as a part of it. We know that the IRS 

is already engaging in government-to-government 

consultation with regard to the relationship with 

other issues, audit issues and other matters that 

are still active as we speak. But I think what's 
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most important for us right now is that we need 

to get it out to Indian country, get this report 

accepted, formally accepted, by the body and kick 

that can down the road. That's a technical phrase.

MR. VALLABHANENI: It's important, 

though, to kick it in the right direction.

MR. ALLEN: That's right. Keep it out 

of the ditch.

MR. VALLABHANENI: That's right. 

Vice Chair Edenfield, would you like to make any 

remarks?

MS. EDENFIELD: Yes. I think the only 

thing I want to just put out there is, just as a 

refresher, you know, a survey was done, we 

solicited letters out to tribal leaders, we did 

a couple of virtual forums to go over all of that, 

all the comments were taken into consideration with 

everybody that's on our committee. And I would 

like to take the chance to thank our committee 

because we have a really good working group, and, 

hopefully, I don't miss anybody. I know that Kim 

Parsons is on our committee, Wendy Pearson, Robert 
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Yoder, Robin Delfino, Sam Cohen, and Lawrence 

Stafford. So I apologize if I missed anybody, but 

those are the ones that I could think of off the 

top of my head this morning on all of the people 

that help myself and Ron go through these.

Some of them were very technical, so 

we appreciate their assistance, and we look forward 

to this going out for consultation and getting the 

feedback. And, hopefully, that's going to come 

back to us, so we can respond to what comes out 

from your consultation. And I know you've already 

announced that that's going to happen, so we look 

forward to the day that that happens.

So thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. Next, I'd invite the co-chairs of the Dual 

Taxation Subcommittee.

MR. ALLEN: Do we have to formally 

accept the report by votes? That's a question.

MR. VALLABHANENI: We could, yes.

MS. EDENFIELD: I would like to just 

for the record, so it's on record.
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MR. VANCE: Sure, absolutely. All 

right. And the motion is?

MR. ALLEN: The motion is to accept the 

GWE report and proposed regulations to be submitted 

for the record, published for tribal comment.

MS. EDENFIELD: This is Sharon. I 

second.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Thank you. 

I will go down the roll call. Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Yes.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Vice Chair 

Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Yes.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Yes.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Mr. Micklin.

MR. MICKLIN: Aye, yes.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Swift.

MS. SWIFT: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: The report will be, 
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well, the TTAC members, I guess I will just 

acknowledge that the TTAC members have recommended 

and approved the General Welfare Exclusion 

Subcommittee's report, and it will be made public, 

and we will be, very shortly I believe, sending 

it out for, well, we will be doing a consultation 

on the report.

MR. ALLEN: Yes. If I might add, so 

the report is inclusive of the appendix, which is 

the draft regulations.

MR. VALLABHANENI: That's correct.

MR. ALLEN: So that's the comments we 

need back from both the department and from the 

tribes. Thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. And thank you for clarifying that.

I will move to invite the co-chairs of 

the Dual Taxation Subcommittee. Alphabetically, 

I will start with the Ms. Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Again, good afternoon 

and thank you for this opportunity and time to give 

an update on dual taxation or tax parity. As we 
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work through this subcommittee, our objective has 

and have been dual taxation where state and local 

government taxes on reservation business activity 

is addressed, tribal governments will struggle to 

enhance or diversify their reservation economies.

And so until tribal taxes can be 

stabilized, regulatory environments, until those 

are addressed, tribal governments can have equal 

standing with governments within the United States 

regarding taxing and regulatory authority. With 

that, in our previous discussion, we have submitted 

our report with health. I don't mean to leave out 

anybody but would like to thank Chief and Treasurer 

Lynn Malerba and Henry Cagey, Robert Porter, 

Michael Connelly, Jean Swift, the new co-chair, 

and Michael Willis, and then technical support from 

Fatima and Liz Malerba and Emory Realbird and 

Derrick Watchman.

And so because of some pause and 

experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic, we would like 

to take this back out to tribal nations for input 

and consultation. And so we are at that point to 
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regroup, and we value the input of Indian country. 

So we feel like we're at that point while we 

regroup, and I want to thank everyone in this 

meeting. And going forward, that's where we, I 

believe we are before we do the next steps. 

So I'll give some time to Jean.

MS. SWIFT: Thank you, Co-Chair 

Benally, I think you've covered the bases well. 

Appreciate that. I'm looking forward for us 

going out for further consultation, I think kind 

of refreshing the opinion out there in Indian 

country, particularly after the pandemic, is very 

relative and timely. So thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you, 

co-chairs. I think, at this time, I'll motion or 

I'll offer to accept motions by members of the 

Committee as to moving forward with a consultation 

on the dual taxation report.

Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Well, I make the motion 

that we charge the Dual Taxation and Tax Parity 

Subcommittee to reach back out to Indian country 
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for consultation with respect to their report, its 

findings, and recommendations to discern whether 

or not, discern what are the next steps that needs 

to be taken within the department, as opposed to 

what might require legislative remedy.

And then I'd also add to the motion that 

they assess whether or not that they have any 

vacancies. Each committee is made up of seven. 

They may have some vacancies in that they would 

collaborate with a National Congress American 

Indians and Native American finance officers in 

terms of finding individuals qualified to assist 

the Committee to fill those vacancies, which we 

can address at the next meeting.

Sorry. That was a long motion.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yes, that was a long 

title. So I will just run down the roll call again 

for Committee members' votes. Chairman Allen.

MS. BENALLY: Chairman Allen, do we 

need a second on that?

MR. ALLEN: Yes, it would help.

MS. BENALLY: I'll motion to make a 
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second to the motion.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you.

MS. SWIFT: If I may, I just ask that 

maybe we could amend the motion to include new 

comments be solicited, as well.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yes.

MS. SWIFT: Okay.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yes, right. The 

purpose of the consultation and reconsultation on

the report would definitely be to receive 

additional comments from tribal leaders.

Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Yes.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Vice Chair 

Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Mr. Micklin.

MR. MICKLIN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Swift.

MS. SWIFT: Aye.
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MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. I'll next invite the newly-appointed 

co-chairs of the Subcommittee on Tribal Pensions. 

Ms. Williams, do you want to start?

MS. WILLIAMS: Actually, if I could 

defer to --

MR. VALLABHANENI: Definitely. Vice 

President Micklin, if you would like to begin.

MR. MICKLIN: Thank you. Well, we're 

probably in the same boat here. I am familiar with 

the Pension Subcommittee report dated September 

16th, 2020, but it's likely the last activity for 

this subcommittee. It does provide an initial 

report on the core issues regarding tribal 

pensions, including the omission of tribal 

governments in the PPA and IRC and the 

applicability of ERISA and other issues, core 

issues, of central government services and 

commercial activity.

 I think the operative question is in 
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the report, section five, that refers to the 

collection of data, additional data necessary for 

the report for the subcommittee to proceed paid 

by a third party. So I guess my, I will end with 

just an inquiry to Chairman Allen or other federal 

officials that are engaged with the Pension 

Subcommittee on the status of this data collection 

and the identity of the third party and whether 

the outreach is just with third-party research or 

whether there was any intent on going out to tribes 

to solicit more information about their current 

engagement with the pension issues.

So that's -- I'll end this with a 

question. It's not very satisfying, but I think 

it's a question of where we are for the subcommittee 

to know what the next step is.

I will add that it would be helpful if 

we could obtain the contact information the federal 

officials at the meeting today and for the purposes 

of the Pension Subcommittee, Chief Counsel and 

others that are engaged on the pension issues, so 

that we can develop information that may be 
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available.

So, Chairman Allen, are you aware of 

the status from this report in Article 5 for 

third-party researcher or what the status may be?

MR. ALLEN: So if I might, Krishna, 

yes. So the report was provided, and the report 

provided the outlying and an assessment of the

challenge that tribes have with regard to their 

pension plans. The biggest one was the 

distinction between pension plans established for 

tribal governments versus pension plans that are 

established for tribal business operations, your 

corporations, et cetera. And it created some 

challenges for the tribes in terms of the way they 

want to construct their pension plans.

There were other issues that were 

identified. So I would propose, Will and 

Stephanie, I propose in the form of a motion that 

we reconstitute the Pension Plan Subcommittee to 

assess its plan and reach back out to what are the 

best steps that could be proposed within the 

department's purview and what may require 
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statutory remedy to address the problems with 

regard to the pension plans for the tribal 

leadership. I would include the same as the Dual 

Taxation Subcommittee that they probably are 

missing some members of their committee that they 

would collaborate with the national Indian 

organizations and their own technical advisors to 

recommend individuals to fill those vacant slots 

for their committee.

MR. VALLABHANENI: I'll recognize the 

Treasurer.

CHIEF MALERBA: Councilman Micklin, 

you asked a question about the status of the report 

and the data, and I think that is exactly why you 

need to go back a little bit to that report because, 

as it stood and as I remember the last status of 

that report, the person that compiled all of the 

data considered it proprietary information and 

that was why we were kind of thinking that we needed 

to go back to the drawing board. So I'm not certain 

that you can use that data, so I do think you, as 

a subcommittee, need to look at how you might 
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reconstitute your committee and do some of, you 

know, kind of redo some of that work.

I hope that helps.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you for the 

clarification.

MR. ALLEN: Thank you. If I might, 

Krishna, following up to the Treasurer's comments, 

yes, she's absolutely correct. And that would be 

one of the things that the committee can review 

with regard to the way it was conducted last time 

that resulted in a very slim report, actually, on 

this subject matter. So it needs to be vetted. 

And there is data that's needed, but it's a matter 

of how we protect the data from the tribes as a 

matter of propriety. So the Treasurer is correct 

about that, so that's why I'm making the motion 

that they reconvene and, more importantly, assess 

what next steps are necessary to make some 

recommendations to the Treasury.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Is there a second?

MS. WILLIAMS: I will second that 

motion.
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MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Thank you. 

I'll just go down the roll call very quickly. 

Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: Yes.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Vice Chair 

Edenfield.

MS. EDENFIELD: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Benally.

MS. BENALLY: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Mr. Micklin.

MR. MICKLIN: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Swift.

MS. SWIFT: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ms. Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: Aye.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you.

Okay. What would you like to do next 

now?

MR. ALLEN: I would suggest at this 

point, I do want to just put on the table for the 

next meeting, for consideration, we are not 

interested in stretching our resources out too 
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thin.

But, there are a number of issues that 

tribes are very concerned about that are not in 

the purview of these three committees. And to not 

keep adding subcommittees.

There may be an appropriate tribal 

taxation miscellaneous issues. I'm winging it 

right now, --

MR. VALLABHANENI: Understood.

MR. ALLEN: That we can come up with 

a title that some of these other issues, like I 

raised an issue with the audit that are not GWE 

audits. They're other audit issues that are out 

there.

The issue that I raised earlier about 

the status of tribal corporations, et cetera, those

numerous issues that we keep hearing about, we may 

need to put them into a subcommittee. And to be 

addressed by a smaller group in terms of 

recommendations.

So, I just want to put that on the table, 

if you will, for now. And that we can discuss it 
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later.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. I realize 

that when I was trying to save my voice that I forgot 

to say anything about what the Office of Tax Policy 

has been working on. I'll try to be very quick.

You heard a lot from our colleagues at 

the Office of Chief Counsel at the IRS about 

projects related to some of the work of the 

subcommittees. 

But, as I think of the -- as I know, 

the Secretary and the Treasurer had both mentioned, 

our office is hugely focused on implementation of 

many of the tax provisions, there are quite a few, 

in the Inflation Reduction Act that was signed into 

law by the President on August 16.

Many of those provisions you could, at 

least in my brain, what's left of it, I categorized 

into sort of two large buckets. One is, I think, 

what everyone maybe aware of, there's several clean 

energy tax incentive provisions in the Bill, or 

in the law.

There's also a second part of that, 
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which I basically view as corporate tax rules. 

There's a new corporate alternative minimum tax, 

which, you know, looks at the financial statements 

of a corporation in determining whether or not the 

tax liability owed under the so called regular tax 

system is higher or lower than what might be viewed 

on applicable financial statements. That's the 

technical term.

In that, I'll just raise that. And why 

I sort of kind of focusing on this, is the corporate 

rules don't get necessarily a lot of attention.

People like tax credits. They're not 

necessarily looking for new taxes. So, but there 

are, the one thing, and you know, Vice President 

Micklin, I raise this to you also, that there are 

certain rules in there around Alaska Native 

corporations.

So, I think when we do our consultation, 

we'd want to definitely hear from tribal leaders 

on that in the corporate space. There's a separate 

rule that also applies to corporations, it's an 

excise tax on stock.
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People would say stock buy backs. But, 

it's a repurchase of stock by corporations. I 

think, you know, it's primarily looked at as an 

ex -- as a disincentive to repurchase or redeem 

shares instead of possibly issuing dividends to 

shareholders.

That is also something that, you know, 

I haven't had much in the way of any discussion. 

So, I'm kind of winging it here too.

I think that based on our experiences 

over the last few years with the, and the 

information we learned earlier about Alaska Native 

corporations and their unique both operational 

and, you know, tax rules, I think those are things 

that we would definitely want tribal input from.

The other thing, and getting back to 

the clean energy provisions very quickly, there 

are two sort of rules that, I think, would be of 

particular interest to tribal leaders.

There is a -- the heading is, I think, 

termed or coined as the, an environmental justice 

allocation. There is a -- very quickly, it's in 
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the rules related to electricity production tax 

credits and investment tax credits.

And it relates, it basically allows the 

Treasury Department with input, and obviously it's 

a tax provision, so, it would involve the IRS to 

some degree, to allocate a total of 1.8 gigawatts 

of allocation credit capacity to certain projects 

built in certain geographic areas.

One of those areas is similar to where 

one could qualify for new markets tax credits. 

Another is, I believe, federally financed 

affordable housing, or partially federally 

financed, or perhaps also governmental financed.

The last one, and I think is also, it's 

probably of most interest, is Indian lands. These 

are, there are definitions.

But, you know, as I've learned over the 

last few years, now, not everyone gets it right 

the first time in defining things, so, we'll 

definitely look for input from tribal leaders on 

that as we move towards implementing it.

The other thing, and I failed to 
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actually bring this up yesterday, or earlier, the 

Inflation Reduction Act makes a big change in how 

these energy tax incentives work generally for 

governments, including tribal governments, 

because, you know, they're tax credits. 

Governments don't pay federal income tax.

So, there's a novel, people call it the 

direct pay mechanism, that essentially creates 

what is basically a refundable type of tax credit, 

so that for entities that do not file, or are not 

subject to federal income tax, they too can qualify 

if they go and meet the normal requirements for 

qualifying for the credit.

Instead of getting credit on a tax 

return, there will be a process, and there's no 

information on this yet. So, it will be 

forthcoming, a process by which governments, 

definitely clearly including tribal governments 

in the law, can apply to file a return or show that 

I put this facility, placed it in service. I 

quality for the credit. I elect to receive a 

payment.
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So, that is something that we would 

assume that not just tribal governments, but all 

governments and other organizations, entities not 

subject to tax, would be interested in.

So, I just wanted to put that on 

people's radar. You'll be hearing more about 

implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act 

provisions, you know, in the near future.

But, I just wanted to raise those two 

points that I think might be of particular interest 

to tribal leaders.

Chairman Allen?

MR. ALLEN: Thanks Krishna. Well, 

that's an interesting update on the Inflation 

Reduction Act as it applies to green energy, --

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yeah.

MR. ALLEN: Alternative energy. And 

so, will there be, I don't know if it's an FAQ or 

a notice, on how it will apply with respect to the 

tribe's eligibility?

And, which types of energy, or who makes 

the determination on what types of energy that the 
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tribes would be venturing into?

There's a wide variety. I mean, from 

windmills, to solar, to biochar, on down the line. 

And we're all venturing into that territory.

So, is this program going to be 

administered by Treasury? Or is it going to be 

administered in collaboration with the Department 

of Energy?

MR. VALLABHANENI: Which one? The one 

about the gigawatts?

MR. ALLEN: Yes.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yes. 

That -- that's a discussion that's hard right now. 

Because, I think that -- one aspect that I failed 

to mention, is that there's a general allocation 

of 1.8 gigawatts of credit capacity per year.

Each project that qualifies, can only 

get five, can only have, be a project that produces 

up to five megawatts. So, these are sort of 

focused small --

MR. ALLEN: Turn on your mic.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Oh, sorry. Sorry 
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about that. I'll just repeat it very quickly.

The allocation project, the allocation 

provision is to allocate 1.8 gigawatts of credit 

capacity per year. Each project can only be one 

that produces up to five megawatts.

So, there's going to be, you know, only 

very few people apply. There would still, each 

project would only get five megawatts.

If you just divide the 1.8 gigawatt 

number by five megawatts, you come up with 360. 

And, you know, that was, if that was the case, 

it would be pretty easy to allocate.

The question of how allocations occur 

when there's more than 360 applicants, is something 

that's being seriously discussed, and has not yet 

been determined.

MR. ALLEN: Okay.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yeah.

MR. ALLEN: Okay. But --

MR. VALLABHANENI: But -- but yes. I 

would also say that we would definitely be --

MR. ALLEN: Yeah. We need more 
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information --

MR. VALLABHANENI: Absolutely.

MR. ALLEN: In terms of, you know, of --

MR. VALLABHANENI: Absolutely.

MR. ALLEN: Often these programs, you 

know, you get out there in America, and people are 

zeroed in on it. And the issue is, it is 

opportunity.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yeah.

MR. ALLEN: And so, will -- the 

question in my mind is, will the tribes get a fairer 

shot at these opportunities?

MR. VALLABHANENI: Good question.

MR. ALLEN: Because we are -- okay, 

literally, not everybody, but a lot of us, are 

venturing into energy --

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yep.

MR. ALLEN: Program.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yeah.

MR. ALLEN: So, okay. Fair enough. 

All right.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yeah. So, another 
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aspect of sort of why there's nothing on this yet. 

We did put out, you know, to the general public 

just a request for comments on a variety of issues.

We -- just to sort of start hearing 

things. That, I think the comment period for that 

ends on Friday, November 4.

But, outside of that, I always -- I tell 

people that, you know, the Office of Tax Policy, 

we get -- we get very few love notes. We get a 

lot of hate mail.

So, people -- people are very 

encouraged to send comments to the -- with respect 

to these notices.

I am going to, after this I'll work with 

our Office of Tribal Affairs to get some additional 

information out on those. And we can get that 

distributed appropriately.

The other thing is that this program 

is supposed to be stood up. But, there's a 

statutory deadline by, I'm going to guess, February 

13, just based on -- it's 180 days after the date 

of enactment. The date of enactment was August 
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16.

So, I think it's mid-February will be 

the first time that anyone can actually submit an 

application for an app -- to be considered for an 

allocation.

So, we have a little time. But, not 

a whole lot of time to get our ducks in a row here.

MR. ALLEN: Okay. Well yeah, we need 

a lot more information.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yes, sir.

MR. ALLEN: So we know whether or not 

we can take advantage of either program right now.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yes. And to your 

point about the different technologies, by statute 

for, I think, the first two years, perhaps three 

years, it's only wind and solar.

And then there's the ability to, after 

the sort of introductory time frame there, to open 

it up to other advanced technologies.

MR. ALLEN: Oh, it's focused in on 

solar?

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yeah. Wind and 
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solar up front.

MR. ALLEN: Oh, I see. Okay.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yeah. Okay.

MR. ALLEN: Okay.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Sure. Kim, did you 

know?

MS. KOCH: No.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Well, I 

would just introduce Kim Koch, who works with me 

in the Office of Tax Legislative Counsel.

And, is you know, critical to the 

general welfare exclusion provisions, as well as, 

you know, a lot of the work on the FAQs that went 

out last year on tribal general welfare.

It's thanks to Kim's work with our 

colleagues in the Office of -- I'll just say Scott's 

office and Julie's office. Our titles do get a 

little long here.

Okay. So, next on the public agenda, 

unless the Members would like to do something else 

first, is our public comments section.

I believe, okay. I'm missing, is 
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it -- Vice Chair Edenfield?

MR. ALLEN: Yes.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Is going to just --

MR. ALLEN: We have a written that Vice 

Chair Edenfield is going to read, I think, correct?

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yeah, that's 

correct.

MS. EDENFIELD: Okay. 

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you.

MS. EDENFIELD: Well, we received a 

letter from Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian 

Community. It Dear TTAC, the Salt River 

Pima-Maricopa Indian Community believe that it 

would be helpful to secure additional guidance on 

tribal business structure.

This issue has been on the IRS priority 

guidance list for a lengthy period of time, 

throughout which there have been substantial 

advances in the manner in which tribes conduct 

business.

For example, what started with the 

request for guidance on tribal corporations have 
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clearly evolved into the need for guidance on newer 

structures such as limited liability companies, 

as well as joint venture projects.

The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian 

Community strongly believes that future guidance 

on these important topics must be developed with 

input from tribes.

The Community appreciates that TTAC 

would assist in bringing these issues to the 

forefront, as well as ensure tribal input 

throughout the process of developing guidance. 

Sincerely, Martin Harvier, President.

And so, I'm not sure if he's on 

virtually or there in person, because I was going 

to ask if he wanted to have additional input. And 

I didn't get that information.

So, thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. I'd open it up -- I'm not exactly positive 

how we are doing public comments.

But, I think we're going to do virtual 

comments after we have the opportunity to hear from 
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tribal leaders who have been able to join us here 

in person.

Any particular way you want to handle?

MR. ALLEN: No. I mean, I would just 

have them line up at the mic. Yeah, and they can 

introduce themselves and make their comments.

Do we have a time limit? I can't 

remember.

MR. VALLABHANENI: I --

MR. ALLEN: I'd say Indian time, but 

that's not necessarily good for an expedient -- so, 

five minutes?

MR. VALLABHANENI: Five minutes sounds 

great.

MR. CAGEY: So, is it my turn?

MR. VALLABHANENI: You're on.

MR. CAGEY: Oh good. (Native language 

spoken.) Henry Cagey from the Lummi Nation. And 

I want to thank you folks for listening in and see 

how you guys are doing.

You know, we've come a long way with 

this TTAC. You know, it was one of our things that 
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we wanted to get, we're finally in the door with 

the Treasury.

And it's taken us along time to get 

here. And these TTAC folks were created for a 

reason, with a look at what was going on at home.

We looked at what the IRS was doing in 

taxing our -- looking at taxing all our people for 

everything that we were doing.

But, this work that they started is 

important. So, I'm kind of disappointed in the 

general welfare report.

That should have been done when the work 

was finished. And now it sounds like we're 

starting over.

I don't like that. Because we spent 

a lot of time on this report. Consultation after 

consultation.

So, this report that we want to see, 

Mr. Krishna is that it's got to be looked at now. 

We want you to have your own public comment.

It shouldn't be the TTAC doing this 

work. It's now in your hands. It's on your lap 
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to see what you're going to do about it.

This dual taxation is the same thing. 

We've put a lot of time in dual taxation. Now 

is the time to look at what you're going to do about

it.

Now is the time to look at what needs 

to happen around dual taxation, because we're tired 

of what we're seeing with the State of Washington 

coming in and reaching in and taking our taxes that 

should belong to the tribe.

You know, these monies go right back 

into the economy. I think people don't realize 

that these taxes that we generate go right back 

into the state anyway.

So, the more we can keep on our 

reservation, the better our economy gets. We'd 

like to see Treasury and Secretary Yellen's words 

executed around dual taxation.

We want to plan. What is the plan for 

dual taxation? What is it? And we'd like to see 

what you're going to do about it.

Not just talk about it again. We don't 
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want consultation. We want to see you put some 

action together. And what does that really mean?

We want to get behind you and your work 

that you -- we've started with this dual taxation.

And get behind you on what you're going 

to do. These guys have gone as far as they could 

on that report. I worked on that report.

So again, we want to see some things 

happening with Treasury and what you're going to 

do, because it's a legislative fix and it's an 

administrative fix that needs to happen.

So, we want to see what the, what your 

office wants to do about it. It's nice that you 

can hand out money and give us credits, but on the 

ground we want some long term impact of what our 

economy is going to do.

We want some long term effects, because 

we're only here for a short time. I've been at 

this thing for as long as Ron, about 30 years now 

we've been at it.

You know, so we want to see some things 

happening with Treasury. One thing I'd like to 
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recommend to the subcommittee, is that one of the 

things we're seeing is the treaty provisions.

And we're seeing this treaty memo 

coming out of the Administration around, around 

treaty rights. We know that's coming.

So, we want to see some treaty 

provisions, maybe a subcommittee with the advisory 

committee to look at building us a shield for treaty

right.

Because in our rec -- in our treaty, 

it talks about regulating commerce. It talks 

about, you know, what does the treaty vision look 

like, and how does that look?

One of the things that we want to, you 

know, begin to resurrect is Indian trade. So,

before the treaty, you know, we were Indian 

traders. We traded with the white man all the 

time, for money or for other things.

You know, we've got the Cougar Den folks 

back here that are, you know, we're doing it right 

now through Yakama on their treaty rights.

And we're selling tax free fuel. And 
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it's working. And the tribe's doing really well 

with it.

But again, we want to see these treaty 

provisions a little bit stronger. Besides the 

Cougar -- it's not about fuel. With Cougar Den, 

it's about the treaty rights.

What does that look like? And we want 

some better shields from the state and from the 

county, because most of the time they're really 

not our friends.

We want some ways that Treasury is going 

to help as our trustee. As their federal 

responsibility to look at, you know, what they need 

to do to rebuild our economy.

We want to be in that big thick book 

every year in your report. I've seen that book 

on Treasury's table.

That's a pretty big thick book. And 

we're not in it. So, we'd like to be in that book 

at some point while you're here.

So, we'd like to recommend some, maybe 

some committee more work. I don't know if we need 
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another subcommittee, but there's a lot more to 

do, Advisory Committee.

And maybe we need some more 

subcommittees to help, you know, these folks along.

What else I want to talk -- how much 

time do I got left? But again, Mr. Chairman, 

congratulations on your appointment.

I want to make sure that we have some 

action coming out of this committee. And I don't 

want to wait another two years to get it this far.

You know, it's important because things 

are, things are happening at home. Things need 

to change.

And we would like to see a little bit 

of hope that's coming out of your office, Mr. 

Krishna, on what's going to happen.

So again, thank you on behalf of the 

Lummi Nation. Thank you for allowing me to speak. 

(Native language) to all the visitors. Thank 

you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. Would any other tribal leaders, who are here 
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in person, like to provide any comments?

(No response.)

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay.

MR. JACKSON: Go to virtual?

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yep. So, at this 

time we'd like to open up for virtual comments.

MR. JACKSON: Yeah. First up we have 

Tina Abrams. If you would like to unmute yourself 

and turn your camera on if you feel comfortable. 

You'll be able to make comments.

MS. ABRAMS: Can you hear me? This is 

the Seneca Nation. I'm Tina Abrams.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yes, we can hear 

you. Please go ahead. Thank you.

MS. ABRAMS: Okay. (Native language 

spoken.) I'm Tina Abrams. I'm a member of the 

Wolf Clan. I've been elected in this council 

position for 21 years.

I want to start by congratulating newly 

appointed Treasurer, Lynn Malerba on her 

appointment. You have been an ally to the Seneca 

Nation, and we send our best to you in your new 
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role.

I also want to thank the Tribal Treasury 

staff for providing support to Indian country. 

Our nation has relied on Fatima and Jean's help 

throughout the pandemic, as we have tried to manage 

and implement the various COVID-related programs.

We're glad to hear that Treasury is 

creating an Office of Tribal and Native Affairs. 

This is way long overdue.

And we can look forward to working with 

the new office. We ask that the office report to 

the highest levels of the agency in order to ensure 

that native nations are elevated as the sovereign 

governments that we are.

It really has been a while since the 

TTAC has met. I want to raise a couple of issues 

and concerns that have come up, and we need these 

issues to be addressed in a timely manner in order 

to assist our nation for the benefit of others as 

well.

First, the IRS has stopped providing 

service directly to native nations. Instead of 
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allowing their Indian tribal government staff to 

work directly with native nations as sovereigns, 

the IRS higher ups have forced native nations to 

join the long queues as any regular individual 

taxpayer or a mere business.

This decision is unacceptable. What 

is worse, is that it was made without consultation 

with native nations. We are all facing 

constrained resources as governments during these 

difficult financial times.

Remember, it's important that if native 

nations do not received their tailored and 

expedited assistance, our governments are 

impacted, and that real people are hurt.

Second, the Treasury recently 

announced that it does not have the administrative 

resources and flexibility to continue to offer in 

depth support for COVID program implementation.

The Deputy Secretary recognized that 

native nations would be impacted more than others 

by the agency's decision to cut back on support 

and services.
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But, he made this announcement over an 

email, and without native nation consultation. 

This is a huge disappointment.

Culturally appropriate support to 

native nations must continue so that we can comply 

without the complicated federal guidance and 

reporting.

Congress must act to support Treasury. 

But, Treasury must communicate better with native 

nations, especially before I decides to cut support 

services it knows that we heavily rely on.

Making these decisions without nation 

consultation violates President Biden's 

memorandum on government to government 

consultation. Again, native nations are 

governments, not individuals and businesses that 

are members of the general public.

President Biden and his administration 

committed to treating us as governments, and 

request that the IRS and the Treasury go back to 

providing direct customer services to native 

nations, and please consult with us before making 
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such big decisions in the future.

In order to prevent a gap in the future, 

the TTAC must commit to regularly quarterly 

meeting. Regular meetings will be helpful so that 

native nations may have more notice regarding 

potential negative policy decisions that an agency 

is considering before it adopts them, such as the 

two issues raise.

The TTAC meetings are the only way the 

native nations are officially able to provide input 

on matters relating to how Treasury and how the 

IRS interacts with native nations.

We must have the nation to nation 

dialog. This is why Congress established the TTAC 

and made it formal.

The Seneca Nation was very involved in 

the development and the ultimate passage of the 

Tribal General Welfare Exclusion Act in 2014. We 

worked hard to help and ensure that this law was 

available to Indian country.

We wanted the TTAC to exist as a forum 

for native nations to raise issues with agency. 
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And it must continue to meet in order for this 

to be possible.

We care very deeply about ensuring that 

the GWE law is implemented correctly. Our leaders 

have attended every single TTAC meeting, and have 

provided remarks at almost every single one, and 

it's been documented. We want this GWE law and 

the TTAC to continue for future generations.

With respect to the TTAC's mandate, the 

nation is particularly focused on the GWE 

subcommittee recommendations.

The GWE subcommittee developed the 

series of recommendations and received comments 

from native nations over two years ago. Since 

then, the COVID pandemic hit and native nations' 

general welfare views have been changed and 

impacted.

In light of the changed environment, 

the GWE subcommittee needs to reconsider its 

report, and conduct another round of consultation 

with native nations to decide whether the report 

needs to be modernized.
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This must occur before the agency 

engages in formal consultation on the outdated 

report. The COVID pandemic changed a lot of things 

on how native nation governments must provide for 

their members.

General welfare became a bigger 

priority during the pandemic. And we need to make 

sure that our experience during the pandemic is 

reflected in the GWE guidance.

Tax lawyers primarily drafted the GWE 

subcommittee report, and they did so without having 

to deal with a health pandemic like COVID or 

perspectives of native nation leaders who had to 

struggle through it.

At the Seneca Nation, we had a 

significant loss in lives amongst our people. So 

have other nations.

We struggle to get access to vaccines 

at the beginning of the pandemic and maintain 

support throughout. Our economic enterprises 

also continue to lag behind pre-COVID levels of 

revenue.
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All these factors impacted our view of 

what constitutes general welfare. It is important 

that the GWE subcommittee develop GWE guidance that 

defers to the maximum extent possible to native 

nation governments.

The GWE subcommittee must meaningfully 

vet its proposed guidance with and between native 

nation leaders.

The COVID experience has shown us how 

important flexibility is, and the need for the 

federal government to support having native nation 

governments' flexibility and streamlined 

processes within its programs and policies.

At various times during the pandemic, 

Treasury readjusted its guidance and reporting 

requirements when it realized the significant 

burdens being proposed -- being imposed on the 

native nations.

It also expanded flexibility and 

spending, and recognized broader cuts, when 

different COVID ways came. And, Treasury learned 

how native nation governments needed to spend their 
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funds to address COVID and to help their people.

Critically, Treasury was receptive to 

administrative changes like deadline extensions. 

And hosted webinar and consultation sessions in 

determining the allocations and program rollouts.

These lessons must be applied to the 

GWE guidance context. Treasury's flexibility, 

commitment to consulting, willingness to amend 

guidance and reporting, and listening to native 

nation leaders, must be reflected in the GWE 

guidance.

Government responses to COVID was a GWE 

experience. GWE guidance must allow for the same 

sort of flexibility, agency communication, and 

guidance reconsideration and consultation with 

native nations.

It is very important to get these 

principals down correctly in a draft guidance, 

before engaging in the formal rule making process.

Thank you for your consideration.

MR. ALLEN: Thank you very much. 

We'll -- well, the only thing I would add Tina, 
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there was a lot to unpack in your remarks and 

recommendations.

So, it would be helpful, particularly 

for those of you who are going to testify or provide 

public comments, if you would send a letter to us. 

Because it's easier for us to capture it.

So, we are recording it. I got 

confirmation that it's being recorded. But, we 

often might miss the point and the ask in the 

message.

So, thank you very much for your very 

thoughtful remarks.

MS. ABRAMS: We will send the letter, 

an official letter document with the verbatim of 

the comments I just read.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much.

MR. JACKSON: Next we have Mr. Mark 

Horvath.

MR. HORVATH: Hello, Mr. Chairman, can 

you hear me?

MR. ALLEN: Yes.
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MR. HORVATH: Okay. Thank you. Mark 

Horvath. I'm with the Office of General Counsel 

for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. 

My title is Senior Counsel Enterprises.

And I'm here to talk about, and 

hopefully I'll be brief, the tribal business 

structure issue that Chairman Allen has raised 

already.

And I would like to say thank you to 

Chairman Allen. We support his comments. And 

hopefully the Committee will address that.

Just to provide a little more content 

to what we're talking about, is guidance on federal 

income tax for tribal businesses formed under 

tribal law.

In other words, corporations formed 

under tribal law, and limited liability companies 

formed under tribal law.

So, to provide a little bit of 

background, way back in '94 there was a revenue 

ruling that did provide some clear guidance on 

several different business structures.
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First, if a tribe operated under a 

Section 16 IRA Constitution, in other words, just 

operating like a division, no federal income tax.

Secondly, if there, if the tribe 

organized under a Section 17 IRA, federal 

Constitution, no federal income tax.

And then thirdly, if the tribe formed 

a state corporation, then that corporation would 

be subject to federal income tax.

The problem is, for all these years now, 

we've had no guidance on entities formed under 

community law, or tribal corporations and limited 

liability companies formed under tribal law.

So that, it does create real problems. 

So, ever time the tribes are looking for, looking 

to figure out how it's going to structure either 

maybe a particular enterprise or even all of its 

enterprises, this unknown often times it puts a 

factor in forming say a Section 17 corporation, 

or operating as a division.

And I guess, as a matter of sovereignty, 

the tribe should have a, that should not be a 
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factor. So, we hope that, you know, the IRS will 

rule on this and so we'll have some clarity.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. ALLEN: And thank you, Mark. And 

if you would provide examples of the problem to 

our dual taxation, as well as the point about the 

issue with the, the status of tribal corporations 

and the challenge that it has.

Send it to us. And so that we can use 

these examples as we engage with the department.

MR. HORVATH: Okay. Be happy to.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much.

MR. ALLEN: Can I pause? Excuse me, 

I'm sorry, Krishna.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Go ahead.

MR. ALLEN: Can I pause? We, I missed, 

we have a Yakama representative, Teo, Harris. Do 

you want to come forward?

I didn't realize that he was going to 

testify from the audience. So, --

MR. TEO: Well, I probably wasn't.
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MR. ALLEN: Yeah, my apologies.

MR. TEO: (Native language spoken.) 

Thanking the committee and the members for holding 

this important session on behalf of our people.

On behalf of efforts of many people 

within these tribes to generate economic 

opportunity not only for their members, but also 

for their children and their elders, to take care 

of one another.

What we'd like to support today is, and 

Chairman Allen brought it up, was the Indian Trader 

Status Act. Cougar Den, which I represent, is an 

economic development opportunity for tribes across 

this country.

We have a 2019 Supreme Court win. The 

Supreme Court of the United States, that provides 

us, and it supports our elders' words from 1855.

In 1855 they assured their children 

that they would be able to continue to travel and 

trade in their current routes that they traveled 

for thousands of years, and trade with other Indian 

tribes throughout the country. Their own people. 
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Their own people.

So, what we're looking for is something 

that solidifies this treaty right within your rule 

making process. So that as we go from state to 

state, even in the State of Washington, we're still 

fighting our treaty right.

We're still fighting our treaty right 

that the Supreme Court has given us a victory in. 

But nonetheless, we keep moving forward with our 

elders' words, and continue to make strides amongst 

our Indian governments, or tribal governments.

So, we're looking for solidification 

with this Indian Trader Status Act. We believe 

that would help us do that.

It would send a message to the state 

through the federal government, the trustee of that 

treaty right. Thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. We have another?

MR. JACKSON: Yeah. We have one more 

speaker, Mel Towle wants --

MR. ALLEN: Yeah, hang on a second, 
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Josh. We have another person in the audience that 

didn't testify. Rob?

MR. PORTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, 

Robert Odawi Porter, I'm a Seneca Nation citizen, 

former President of my Nation. And I'm here 

working with the Lummi Nation and the Coushatta 

Tribe of Louisiana.

I work in a number of different areas, 

and really thankful to be here. And glad to see 

you here in person.

I wanted to highlight a couple of 

procedural issues, I think, relating to the work 

of the Committee. One of them relates to the 

consultation.

As you read the Statute, it doesn't 

really say anything about the TTAC needing to 

consult with tribes. And I'm sure we can get all 

kinds of differing opinions about whether that's 

necessary.

But, we do know that the Treasury is 

obligated to consult with tribes. And I think in 

terms of establishing policy, Councilman Cagey 
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raised a very important point, that the work had 

been completed related to the dual taxation report.

And it's been out for two years. It's 

been on the website. Everyone's been able to see 

it.

And it's an example of where we would 

hope and expect that Treasury now has it in your 

court to be able to start implementing.

And if there were recommendations, an 

action plan for how to do that. And I think that 

would invite the need for formal consultation once 

Treasury is deciding I wants to take some action.

But, I think it might be useful for the 

TTAC to have a policy, you know, about when you're 

consulting. Because, you know, as someone who 

supports your work, there's a lot of leaders who 

support your work, we certainly applaud 

consultation.

But, it can be an endless process of, 

of hopefully we haven't created another 

bureaucracy, you know, to have to work through.

And so, what is that point where we can 
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start looking to Treasury to implement, you know, 

a recommendation from a subcommittee, or from the 

full committee?

I would just invite that.

CHIEF MALERBA: So, thank you for that. 

And I agree with you. You know, the 

nation-to-nation relationship is not between a 

subcommittee and tribes. It is with the agency 

and tribes.

And so, I appreciate your comments 

there. I think, you know, the subcommittee 

provides a recommendation to say we're ready to 

consult. You know, here's the document. We want 

you to look at it. We want you to take some action. 

We want you to consult on that.

And I think that that's, you know, 

that's kind of the proper process for that. And 

surely here, there have been conversations at 

Treasury around GWE with both IRS and tax policy.

And so, I think because there's been 

such a time lag, we just want to make sure that 

if there are any other tribal comments, we're 
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getting in there, we're getting them in so that 

we can consider them.

And then, I think, then it's up to the 

agency to just say okay, here's what can happen 

administratively. Here's what needs to happen 

legislatively.

And even if we, you know, get to the 

point of really implementing some of those changes 

that tribes have been asking for, at some point 

we need to go back out to Indian country to say, 

how's it working?

Right. Because it's one thing to 

implement something. It's another thing to then 

look at it again and make sure that there aren't 

any unintended consequences around that.

So, we will have some internal 

conversations around that. And obviously, Fatima 

will be very engaged in that as the Acting Director 

of the Office of Tribal Affairs.

But, know that we're interested in 

making change. You know, we have a very short 

window for some of these actions and activities. 
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We want to make sure we get them done.

Thank you.

MR. PORTER: Thank you, Chief, for that 

reaction to the comment. Because like all of us 

coming out of the pandemic, you know, I myself have 

gotten a little bit more patient about when my 

dinner comes at the restaurant a little cold, 

because there's, it's just tough on staff.

And so, I don't want to sound too tough 

on anybody here. But, I'm really glad everyone's 

in place to be able to do the work.

A related point relates to the need that 

was focused on regarding treaty rights. As you 

may know, of course, the Administration is also 

inviting consultation and action in relation to 

how every agency is responding to their obligations 

to defend and protect tribal treaty rights.

One of the inherent challenges, 

especially as it relates to tax law, is that tribal 

treaty rights are inherently vague in treaties, 

because the treaties existed in a time before there 

were any taxes.
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So, no treaty is going to invite 

specific exemptions. There's a very horrific 

case, I have to mention it, involving a Seneca 

Nation citizen, Perkins versus Commissioner, in 

which the IRS and Treasury lawyers went on the 

offense against a Seneca person who was simply 

doing what was natural in terms of our economic 

development within our nation, to generate gravel 

income. Income from gravel.

And, it was an example, in my view, of 

just the way the system has kind of operated. But, 

it was an attack on native people and a tribe, my 

tribal nation.

And it's something that every tribal 

nation, in terms of being in Cougar Den, and the 

treaty rights there, where state governments are 

coming after it.

I would just invite either a 

subcommittee that focuses on treaty rights and 

audit and oversight, because these are very 

important rights that are being lost, sometimes 

through bureaucratic process.
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And I'm assuming no one was 

intentionally trying to hurt anyone in this 

particular case, or any case. But, to try to do 

your job.

But, because the nature of tax law and 

treaty rights is vague, because the taxes didn't 

exist at the time of the treaties, you know, we're 

confronted with the need, I think, for pro-action 

on the part of federal officials to ensure that 

our rights are protected.

So, whether that's through a 

subcommittee, or some other mechanism within the 

TTAC, I invite you to work on that and add that 

to your list, because as we see, if they're not 

given full focus and attention, those rights can 

be lost, cemented adversely to native people.

And I think that that's wrong. So, now 

I thank you for your opportunity to comment.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much. I think we can go back to the virtual 

comments? Yeah.

MR. JACKSON: Yeah. We have someone 
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calling in, Mel Towle. Your line should now be 

open if you want to unmute.

MR. TOWLE: Hello, this is Mel Towle, 

can you hear me?

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yes, we can. 

Please go ahead.

MR. TOWLE: Okay. Okay. Yes, so 

again, my name is Mel Towle, from the Mille Lacs 

Band of Ojibwe. I've been authorized by Chief 

Executive Melanie Benjamin, to make comments on 

the behalf of the Mille Lacs Bank of Ojibwe.

And I'll keep them very brief, because 

both of these topics have been touched on already. 

So, first of all, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, 

we expect our support for the general welfare 

report and proposed legislation when submitted to 

the TTAC by the DW Subcommittee.

The second item is there's been 

comments already made about tribal business 

structures, support for a tribal business 

structure subcommittee.

In particular, I want to make reference 
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to a letter that was read earlier. It was a letter 

that was authored by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa 

Indian Community and signed by their President.

And to save time, I would just like to 

share that we, we share those same comments in our 

support of a tribal business structure 

subcommittee.

And that's all I have. I would like 

to just leave, leave time for you and others. So, 

miigwetch for holding this. And for the 

opportunity to comment, and especially for the 

opportunity to comment virtually. Miigwetch.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very much 

for the comments.

MR. JACKSON: The last comment that we 

have so far, if nobody else comes into the chat, 

will be Member Will Micklin would like to make 

comments.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. Please 

proceed.

MR. MICKLIN: (Native language 

spoken.) Thank you. Will Micklin. I just wish 
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to support the comments that were made that 

highlight that this is, in the near term, an 

important period for the TTAC Committee, and for 

tribal interests.

There are a number of federal statutes 

now unwinding over an expedited period, like the 

Inflation Reduction Act, like the Bipartisan 

Infrastructure Law, that have a number of 

provisions, and quite fortunately, that expressly 

recognize the eligibility of tribal governments.

But, also bring to the forefront 

questions that we have been working on, and others 

that will arise, that need be resolved within this 

shortened period where these monies and these 

opportunities need be monetized.

So, included in that, and an example 

of this where the TTAC and tribes -- information 

could be helpful. An example is like in the Cares 

Act, where we had the Paycheck Protection Program, 

PPP, loans that could be forgiven.

But, the eligibility for that from the 

tribal point of view, was limited to firm 
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fixed-priced contracts. And for Tlingit-Haida, 

our tribal corporation, engages in those.

But, the majority of our contracts are 

cost reimburse, reimbursable. And so, not 

eligible for forgiveness. So, while the loans 

were helpful, they would be more helpful if 

forgiven.

So, this is not a question of 

re-litigating PPP, but to suggest that a careful 

evaluation of what issues may arise under the BIL 

and the IRA, are going to be important as to 

corporate structure, the dual tax issues, and 

pensions, all with matters related to these issues.

So, it puts a burden on us to address 

these as quickly as we can, as comprehensively as 

we can. And, to try to continue information as 

guidance for our federal partners, because we all, 

I think, realize that once proposals are made, it's 

difficult to revise them substantially.

So, the first drafts out of the block 

ought to be as well informed and as close to tribal 

interests as we possibly can.
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And that's through consultation with 

tribes and the work of the TTAC will be helpful. 

And it puts a burden on us to do that within this 

time frame.

So, I just want to thank those tribal 

leaders that commented and brought to our attention 

these issues that are of vital importance for 

tribes, and will have a significant effect on both 

general welfare of our tribal citizens, essential 

infrastructure that we hope to improve and build 

out, and the support for building tribal economies.

Thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very 

much, Vice President Micklin. I think that's it 

for folks who have indicated that they'd like to 

comment.

Are there -- but before, I'll just ask, 

are there any tribal leaders virtually or in the 

room that we may have missed that would like to 

provide comments?

(No response.)

MR. VALLABHANENI: Okay. I think I'll 
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turn it over to the Chairman for any other items.

MR. ALLEN: No, I don't have any 

others. I mean, I always appreciate the fact that 

we keep it open to the public so that tribes, tribal 

leadership and support staff, et cetera, that they 

can engage with what we are doing, the 

conversations that we're having, identify issues 

that we maybe missing that we need to address with 

the leadership of the department.

And, you know, as I said earlier, you 

know, we've been in limbo here because of the COVID 

pandemic. And now we're regrouping.

What I would say is that we do want to 

tee up next year's schedule. And so, what we'd 

like to do, is we need to huddle up with you, Lynne, 

Fatima, et cetera, to identify dates.

At a minimum, we need at least three 

meetings, and maybe up to four meetings. We need 

to collaborate with the co-chairs on their 

scheduling, their sidebar meetings, so that we can 

report to the tribal leadership.

I will be attending the National 
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Conference of American Indians annual meeting next 

week in Sacramento. It's the first time the tribes 

are coming back together again so that we can get 

a catch up on a lot of issues.

But, this -- there's a subcommittee 

there, and Henry Cagey actually back there, is one 

of the co-chairs of that committee, and so, will 

be providing a report on the outcome of this 

meeting, and what our expectations are.

I want to say thank you to you, and to 

Lynne, congratulations again. We're quite proud 

of you. And to the whole team. So, thank you. 

I appreciate that. Kelly, I don't know about you.

(Laughter)

But, anyhow, joking aside, you know, 

I think the challenge here, and when I was talking 

to Stephanie, you know, some are just getting their 

feet on the ground in terms of what we need to do. 

And we are excited about rebooting our efforts.

I appreciate Henry Cagey's comment 

earlier, what took so long? Okay, we can come up 

with all kinds of excuses, but that's water under 
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the bridge. And so, we are where we are.

And so, the issue here is now we can 

move this, move this agenda forward. We're here 

driven by the general welfare docket.

We're here driven by our purpose, the 

tribes, to serve our people. To help them and 

elevate them and bring them up.

That's what general welfare doctrine 

and those benefits do to our people. And it's just 

a matter of clarity.

And so, when the IRS guys come out and 

do the audit of our operation, they want to know 

what these programs are all about.

You know, and Cares and American Rescue 

monies, Transportation monies, any of these other 

funds that are out there, anything that might end 

up having benefitted tribal citizens.

We want to make sure that we have 

clarity to it. And they keep coming. Like the 

Inflationary Reduction Act. So, we're excited.

And the point that was made earlier is 

that this Administration is recognizing tribes are 
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a part of America. And we have tribal leadership, 

you know, within this department, the Department 

of Interior.

We're excited about it. We have a 

tribal leader in the Cabinet. We have tribal 

representatives in the White House. And we have 

tribal office in OMB.

These are big deals for us. These are

major achievements. We have, and so from our 

perspective, the tribes are at the table.

You know, we're not outside the door 

waiting to see what's going on, what's happening. 

And so, we want to be recognized as part of their 

solution.

It's complicated. And I'll remind everybody 

in the room, particularly those that are at the 

table who don't have a lot of history, we are in 

the Constitution for a reason.

And so, I just want to underscore that 

as we move our agenda forward. So, we want to thank 

everybody for what we're doing.

And that's all I have. I don't know 
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if our other colleagues have comments, closing 

comments before we adjourn.

MR. VALLABHANENI: I recognize the 

Treasurer.

CHIEF MALERBA: This isn't a comment. 

I just want to say thank you. I think it's been 

a good meeting.

But, I wonder if all of the tribal 

leaders in the room could come take a picture. 

Don't leave. You know, so we can have a photo 

together if somebody's willing to take the photo.

So, but I just think from, you know, 

it would be nice to, you know, kind of have, 

memorialize the day. So, thanks.

MR. ALLEN: The main reason I come here 

is for the photo op. You know that, don't you?

(Laughter)

MR. ALLEN: Okay. That's all I have 

Krishna.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Are there any other 

TTAC Members who would like to offer any closing 

remarks?
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MS. EDENFIELD: So, this is Sharon 

Edenfield. I also would like to thank all those 

that are in attendance, and all our federal 

partners that are here.

I know that we've submitted the GWE 

report. But, that's just the beginning of it. 

There are a lot more steps once you finish your 

consultation part of it.

To me then, that's when the real work 

begins. And so, and being part of that 

subcommittee, I look forward to that.

And I know that there's a lot more 

issues that has come from that. And I bring up 

social security all the time.

But, it's not just social security. 

It's debt trends, it's USDA food, it's housing, 

that pause counting those GWE benefits, you know, 

against our tribal citizens when they're going for 

other services.

So, that's just one step of what I feel, 

you know, that we will be working on. Thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you, Ms. Vice 
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Chair. Are there other TTAC members that would 

like to speak? No?

Ms. Williams, sorry.

MS. WILLIAMS: I just want to say what 

a great honor it is to finally be a part, or be 

invited to the table, and to sit amongst people 

who are movers and shakers in Indian country and 

on the government level as well.

So, thank you for being here, and thank 

you for coming to the table with us. It's been 

a long time coming.

I remember sitting at many meetings 

just on the side, listening to our tribal leaders, 

looking for that opportunity. And once the 

opportunity came, you know, we were ready to go.

So, I'm looking forward to working with 

the subcommittees. And it just sounds like we have 

a lot of work to do. And I'm ready to get started. 

Thank you.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you very much. 

Are there other TTAC Members who would like to 

provide any closing remarks?
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(No response.)

MR. VALLABHANENI: I guess then we will 

adjourn the meeting. Oh, please go ahead.

MR. ALLEN: If I might.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Ah, I forgot, yes.

MR. ALLEN: Closing prayer.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Yes, I apologize.

MR. ALLEN: Could I -- it's just a 

tribal cultural issue that we like to open with 

a blessing, and close with a blessing as we move 

forward in our work, in our path.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Please proceed, 

Chairman Allen.

MR. ALLEN: So, I volunteered to do it. 

So, pray according to your own way and your own 

spirit.

Heavenly Father, we always come to you, 

because you are our comforter. You are our guide. 

Your spirit is in our hearts, in our minds, in 

our souls.

Your spirit guides us and provides us 

the wisdom that we need to do all the things that 
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are so important to our people that we serve. We 

always ask that we use those gifts and talents that 

you bless each and everyone of us in a way that's 

pleasing to you and the people that we serve.

We're always ever thankful for your 

healing hand that is always caring for all of our 

people, from our children, to our families, to our 

communities, to our elders, and our veterans. 

We're always ever thankful that you care for them.

For those who have lost loved ones 

through these troubling and challenging times with 

this pandemic, we ask that your healing hand and 

your spirit would be upon them, to help them in 

their losses that they have, they have lost from 

either family or friends.

We ask that we continue to move forward, 

always have trust in you that we would do good 

things. That we will continue to benefit our 

people, to create better partnerships between 

tribal governments and the federal government.

So, ask that you continue to take us 

home in our travels safely, whether it's near or 
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far. And so, we always look to you for guidance.

We ask this afternoon in Christ Jesus' 

name. Amen.

MR. VALLABHANENI: Thank you. The 

meeting is adjourned.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

went off the record at 4:00 p.m.)