Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies – American Indian and Alaska Native Public Witness (Day 1, Afternoon Session)
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House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 6
A standing ovation. You, chief. No. Thank you. No problem.
Apologies. We can thank no problem. Thank the seventy-mile-an-hour bus and United Airlines.
Speaker 4
Alright. Chairman Simpson, ranking member Pengary, and members of the Interior Subcommittee, it's a pleasure to speak to you once again. As principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, my foremost responsibility is the welfare of our 475,000 citizens and the protection of our sovereignty. The Chirurgy Nation Reservation is the home of some of the strongest efforts in Indian country to increase the quality of life of dozens of communities and hundreds of thousands of people. It's the home to an array of diversified tribal businesses and effective strategies for economic development and cultural revitalization.
Our reservation is home to the largest health system in Indian country. Now, Chairman Simpson, last year, you and I discussed the fact that our reservation, our nation, is the home to America's first medical school in Indian country, the Oakland State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. I'm proud to report to you now that in 2027, we'll open a nursing school with the University of Oklahoma within walking distance of that medical school on the state of the art, Cherokee Nation Health Campus in Tahlequah. All of these efforts by the Cherokee Nation and many more relate to a single idea, that's tribal sovereignty. As you write and consider the FY '27 spending bills, I would ask you to keep that word in mind: sovereignty.
Keep it top of mind. The federal government must meet its commitment to tribes, but Congress should not tolerate wasteful spending, duplicative spending, or spending that undermines tribal treaty rights. And so our first recommendation is close scrutiny of agency decisions or budget requests that produce waste or undermine treaty rights. My written testimony points to multiple places where this is occurring. That includes the purchase and referred care program within the Indian Health Service, and the Johnson O'Malley program within the Bureau of Indian Education.
Agency lawyers and bureaucrats are disregarding treaties, existing law, congressional intent, and outright logic. The result is waste and redundancy. Generations of Cherokee Nation citizens fought too hard and lost too much to have federal bureaucrats ignore treaty rights that date back to the country's founding, and which have been validated by the courts. Cherokee Nation is the exclusive tribal sovereign over our reservation, and we should be treated as such. When agencies ignore this, they not only disrespect the Cherokee Nation and set a terrible precedent, but they waste taxpayer money.
I've submitted, I've read the submitted testimony of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. I won't respond to all of their outlandish claims about the Cherokee Nation, but I will simply remind the committee that the Cherokee Nation is the exclusive tribal sovereign governing the Cherokee Nation reservation. We are the exclusive tribal party to the unbroken chain of Cherokee treaties. The UKB's reliance on the Department of Interior's opinion, which is suspended, carries zero weight. That opinion was issued by a Biden political appointee days before President Trump took office.
The Trump Interior Department immediately suspended the opinion. The opinions analysis exists in a fantasy land free of facts, law, and logic, and is neither binding nor persuasive. UKB's health care claims are utter nonsense, and calls for new or recurring funding should be rejected. Congress should not allow a federal agency to prop up a duplicative health care system across our reservation, where we already provide health services to every federally recognized tribe citizen, including UKB citizens, through our health system. To tolerate otherwise is fiscal insanity.
My second point is that the eight a program works. It works for Indian country. It provides tribal self-sufficiency. It's under attack. We need this committee's support for the eight a program.
Third, we'd ask the committee to continue to provide funding for those tribes directly impacted by the McGrath case. The McGurth and Haugner cases reaffirmed our status, the Cherokee Nation as the exclusive tribal sovereign within the Cherokee Nation reservation. Since then, we have met the moment, but doing so takes considerable resources. This committee has been there for the McGurdy-impacted tribes, and I ask for continued support. Fourth, the committee should support tribal self governance and self determination by encouraging agencies to fully implement ISDA programs and 477 and the 477 program.
Self-governance works. When we administer programs for our own citizens directly, we do so more efficiently and more effectively than the government of the United States. Committee report language should support the maximum use of those programs. Finally, agencies need a reminder that meaningful consultation is required. The departments of education, interior, and labor have fallen short this past year.
Tribes were not afforded an early opportunity to provide meaningful input on structural changes in those agencies. Language from this committee can help ensure that early consultation occurs, so that agencies can meet their legal obligation. I appreciate the opportunity to testify, and welcome any questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you. I appreciate you. Definitely. You're suggesting that, notifying you is not consultation.
Speaker 6
Well, good afternoon. Sorry for giving folks a heart attack again. Courtesy of United Airlines, I had a wonderful detour to North Carolina. And so I'm here now. But XG, John Dev Choudhury, Jiogifkados, Chair, ranking member, it's an honor to be before you again.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is John Dev Chaudhury, and I'm honored to serve as the ambassador for the Muscogee Creek Nation. Affording tribal nations the platform to share feedback and suggestions for improvement over the annual fiscal year cycle is crucial to improving and enhancing federal budget strategies to best serve tribal nations and uphold treaty rights. As one of the largest federally recognized tribes in the United States, with a reservation spanning over 3,200,000 acres, home to well over 1,000,000 people, and covering eight full counties and parts of three more in Eastern Oklahoma. Our reservation is divided into eight legislative districts corresponding to eight counties in Eastern Oklahoma.
We represent the interests of over 100,000 enrolled citizens, as well as many more Native Americans and non-citizens who call our reservation home. The funding requests and recommendation provided in this testimony are grounded in our commitment to travel sovereignty and operating as good faith partners in our government-to-government relationship with the US federal government. This relationship has been built on the deep-rooted obligations, financial and otherwise, mandated and guaranteed in treaties and agreements entered into with the Muskogee Creek Nation. It bears reminding, without these treaties, the United States wouldn't be here. It is our intention that MCN's testimony can serve as a stepping stone for improved dialogue and partnership between Congress and tribal nations.
A substantial funding gap still exists for Native American programs at DOI, particularly BIA programs, and there is an ample amount of work to be done to fulfill the federal government's treaty obligations. As a sovereign body, the Muskogee Creek Nation has an inherent responsibility to ensure public safety within our reservation boundaries. Since 2020, the Muskogee Creek Nation has undertaken a large-scale capacity building effort to deliver effective public safety services in a complex jurisdictional environment. We've executed more than 60 cross-deputization agreements with city governments, municipal partners, and state agencies to ensure seamless coordination across jurisdictions. Over the same period, we expanded our light horse police from 30 officers in 2020 to 133 officers today.
Since 2020, Muskogee Creek Nation has received thousands of criminal referrals from non-Indian governments and has referred just as many criminal matters to non-Indian governments, and issues hundreds of civil and criminal sanctions every year for traffic violations. Our efforts have been complicated by the Supreme Court's Castro-Huerta decision, as some local authorities have relied on that decision as a basis for refusing to inform us of instances where our citizens are victimized on our reservation. We look forward to working with Congress in our effort to find a solution to the problem caused by Castro Huerta. We encourage Congress to retain funding levels for public safety in courts in Indian country and consider increasing capacity building funds. An increase in capacity building funding would allow MCN to address challenges and enhance the efficacy of our justice system by hiring additional judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and court staff, and to address the urgent need for additional court facilities.
We also encourage members of congress to work with the tribes in crafting statutory language that would create a joint venture construction program in which tribal nations could partner with the Department of Justice to construct or refurbish detention facilities in the same way that tribes do with the Indian Health Service to create new health facilities. Furthermore, based on FY FY '24 funding levels, there exists a funding shortfall of over $12,000,000 for Creek Nation's agriculture and natural resources, programs and functions. Therefore, the nation would request that the house retain existing funding mechanisms, and consider increasing capacity building funds to support land management and development activities. Creek Nation also respectfully requests, just as our Cherokee Nation partners have, an increase in the current funding levels for the Johnson O'Malley program, adjusted to reflect the updated student counts following the full implementation of JOM's Supplemental Indian Education Program Modernization Act of 2018. The Creek Nation is thankfully thankful for the opportunity to provide testimony before you today, and we look forward to working with you to work across Indian country to promote responsible appropriations that honor the trust responsibilities of the nation and recognize tribal nations as effective stewards of public lands.
Mark. Thank.
Speaker 1
you. Let me first ask, Chuck, you talked about the difference between the Cherokee Nation and what was the other.
Speaker 4
The Cherokee Nation is the same Cherokee Nation that was here before anyone ever heard of The United States. Yeah. The first treaties were between Cherokee treaties between the Cherokee Nation and the United States in an unbroken manner to the present time. The United Ketua Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma was created by a statute in 1946 by this congress as a band of Cherokee Indians, is literally what the statute says, and recognized in 1950. The issue relates to the authority to govern the reservation of which we possess exclusive authority.
And what we have found though is confusion among agencies that begin to stand up federal programs, fund health care programs that are duplicative. I mean, you could literally go into our capital and see that there is our health system, which is the gold standard in Indian country, and another health system cropping up using taxpayer dollars. This is the fiscal insanity that I'm talking about. And it's something we work very hard to address, and we think that the committee should scrutinize any request that is duplicative, and we can flag a number of those, including health care, JOM, and others.
Speaker 4
It's duplicative in the sense that if we're administering health care, for example, we provide it to all, right. Members of every federally recognized tribe. And we have put decades of work into it to the point where we have, I really do believe, the gold standard. And so seeing additional, very scarce federal dollars go into building up a duplicative health care system. I think if any American looked at that, they would say, this is not, this does not make sense, and it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1
But what I'm asking is that duplication because of the way we're appropriating dollars or the way DOI is administering?
Speaker 4
It's the way the agencies, including DOI, are administering that. We think it's noncompliant with the law, and we think that the committee has a role in scrutinizing requests that plainly set up duplicative systems, and we have flagged that in the written testimony, in particular.
Speaker 1
Okay. I was, I got in this, I forgot what I was gonna ask. I had something to let me turn it over to Shelly, and I'll think about what I was going to ask you.
Speaker 2
Great. Well, thank you, Chief Hoskins. Nice to see you again. And I will say, when I had the opportunity to visit your community, seeing the medical school was really impressive. Just the idea, and I think the chair was talking about this earlier, the importance of training people in Indian country to go back and work in Indian country.
Not everyone will necessarily, and some people will come in from outside. But it's just such a critically important thing to do and to have a high quality medical school. I'm thrilled to hear you have a nursing school as well. Yes. Yeah.
And I will definitely read through all the testimony and get to know better some of the challenges that you're talking about. But thank you for being here with us today, and thank you for being here. And I know, you know, I think you both brought this up a little bit, but, you know, some of the challenges through McGurth and then through the Castro Huerta complications on top of it boggle my mind. But it is something I think the committee keeps in mind all the time with the unique situation that you have there in Oklahoma and this sort of jurisdictional challenge. So our full chair isn't here, but when mister Cole is here, we can usually get a few extra dollars out of him if we just say the word McGurk.
Okay. So I've learned to put that at the top of my vocabulary just to help us.
Speaker 2
Increase our allocation because we just know that's really a big bill, but it also addresses one of those, you know, challenges that we see a lot about this jurisdictional issue and sort of a unique situation that you have in Oklahoma. So we'll continue to do whatever we can to help.
Speaker 6
And thank you, ranking member. Dollars are always welcome, and certainly, the capacity building that I mentioned relies on appropriate funding. However, addressing the legal jurisdictional problems created by Castro work to remain a priority. And these, there are a dozen cases right now where folks are improperly referring to Castro Huerta's dicta, to argue that our sovereignty does not exist. And until congress can lend its voice to the clarifying, the very devastating Castro Huerta decision, I'm afraid we're going to be spending dollars that could be going to pump public safety, could be going to health programs fighting these ridiculous arguments.
So, thank you.
Speaker 8
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here. Sorry, I was a little bit late. I grew up as a neighbor of Oklahoma in the Northeast Corner of the Texas Panhandle, Perryton. I count the Kiowa as my neighbors.
And I was noticing that the Cherokee and the Creek occupy about 15 to 20% combined of the territory of Oklahoma. And since I missed most of the discussion about what you gave in your opening statements, I was curious, with that big of a border in between your two nations, in what ways do you cooperate in ways that are innovative that we might be able to help out going forward, finding ways that your two nations can collaborate and we can assist?
Speaker 4
Well, I would say, congressman, that we have a great admiration for each other's law enforcement in this McGurth era, and our law enforcement agencies work well together. And if they, you know, in law enforcement, if you're not working well together, people are getting hurt. People could be getting killed. We're not, it's unsafe. And so I think anything that can enhance the working relationship between tribes that as the Muskogee Nation and the Cherokee Nation not only share a border, but a border in an urban area, Tulsa, where there are great challenges for any law enforcement agency.
So I think that's one way that we work together.
Speaker 6
Yeah. And, on behalf of my chief, you know, I'll always defer to the leadership of any nation, especially Cherokees and my nation. But on behalf of my chief, I want to echo chief Hoskins' comments. Historically, and I can say this because my wife's Cherokee, we fought for millennia. But that does not mean we don't have shared interests in supporting tribal sovereignty and protecting everyone within our borders.
And that's been the biggest messaging point that we've tried to make. Despite the sky is falling narratives, we're good. Pandemic struck. We provided vaccines to everybody in our borders. Didn't matter if they were native or non-native. We are good partners to each other, but more importantly, we're good partners to every person within our borders.
Speaker 8
So as we talk about the coordination of law enforcement, yeah. Has that reared his ugly head in a negative way dealing with the city of Tulsa, and anything that might occur on the res with somebody coming from Tulsa doing something bad. I mean, because this is my third time doing this, and we continue to hear about the atrocities being committed by people who are non native, and then fleeing justice. And I see some of our friends are gonna talk later about that. Are you is there something that we can improve in this committee with that coordination?
Speaker 4
I think drilling down to the facts and frontline experience will be revealing. And if our marshal over the Cherokee Nation were here, our top law enforcement officer, he would share with you that the Cherokee Nation Marshal Service has an excellent working relationship with the Tulsa police department, cross deputization relationship. But these really do come down to relationships, and I think that is a difference maker in Tulsa. There in an urban area, there will always be an opportunity for those who want to create a narrative to find something that did not go perfect. I have not met a law enforcement officer who says every day is perfect.
In fact, most days are not. But I think that if you go what this, what this committee could do is some real fact finding and sort of push through some of the rhetoric, the skies falling rhetoric with the Jonadav and I both been on the receiving end from some leadership in Oklahoma. I think you would see that the real reality is a real working relationship that protects people.
Speaker 6
And I would just echo Chief's comments, but also my own comments about Castro Huerta. So when we're talking about a cooperative landscape, you know, it starts with clarity. And, unfortunately, while Tulsa has been, by and large, a very good partner, I'm not going to throw any counties under the bus or any specific municipality. Not all counties and municipalities have been equally cooperative. And, in some cases, through lack of referral of information, there's been a direct attempt to sabotage those relationships and basically create a narrative where McGurtz's a problem rather than an opportunity.
So clarifying the jurisdiction's part of it, but certainly funding, everything starts with funding. We blend our own funds with federal funds to support our light horse. A 133 officers is a huge force, but we are protecting everybody in a jurisdiction that has about 1 million people in it, along with our partners. So at least in Tulsa, you know, things haven't been perfect, but things are good. I don't wanna throw. I'd be happy for our nation to follow up with more specifics if you'd like.
Speaker 8
That's what we're here to do. We're here to try to improve it. And if it's already working well, and you guys said, you know, you're increased, but it's not enough. And so that it's an evolving process where as long as we're making progress, that's what I'm interested in. Yes.
Thank you. I yield back.
Speaker 1
I appreciate it. Now I remember what I was gonna say, it was about law enforcement. You're talking about your 130 officers and stuff like that? Yes. Are there cross depolarization between your two tribes?
Speaker 6
Between, I mean, there's a whole slew of historic cooperative relationships. So, you know, Chief Hoskin works with the intertribal council that has a public service, a public safety funnel to it. So our officers talk on a daily basis. We're clear where our jurisdictions begin and end, but there it's seamless across our border.
Speaker 4
I would agree with that. And our top law enforcement officer knows the Muskogee, Creek Nation's top law enforcement officer on a first name basis. And if there's an issue, there's a phone call, not a let's pick up sides here. It really is.
Speaker 1
Because I gotta tell you, in all honesty, jurisdictional issues on reservations are confusing as hell to me. And it depends not just, I mean, like, what happens if one of your tribal members commits a crime on your reservation? What happens if it is a nonmember, white guy that comes on your reservation who has jurisdiction, as I mean, I get so confused when I start looking at jurisdictional issues, and I think it leads to an awful lot of problems. In terms of, when you look at the murdered missing indigenous women and stuff, we had the FBI in here and everybody else testifying. And I'm just shaking my head at the jurisdictional issues.
I'm one who believes that on your reservation, you ought to be able to do what you want on your reservation. And that's it, but we seem to complicate it a lot.
Speaker 4
I think there are complications caused by the government of the United States. But I think to the extent that there are dangers, it's created by gaps in the resources. And so to the extent that tribal nations are able to put their own resources and have federal resources brought to bear, the complexity can be understood, and the relationships matter, and the funding matters. And so in a complicated world that may be difficult to unwind over the centuries at this point, I think bringing our best effort to law enforcement, and it really is about relationships, makes a difference in our in Cherokee lands. I see that in the Muskogee nation as well.
Speaker 6
And, chairman, I appreciate the insight of your comment in terms of taking the handcuffs off of tribes. So one of the reasons we're a broken record about this Castro Huerta decision is Indian law was complicated enough, but to try to pretend that a reservation in Oklahoma is different than reservations elsewhere creates a whole additional level of complication that law enforcement, that prosecutors have to deal with. When I practiced for twenty years, and reservation was a reservation. And that's important because if you're talking about local solutions to local problems, there's no better friend than tribal nations in terms of going after bad guys and keeping people safe within our borders. If we don't have the authority to go after bad guys, we have to rely on other agencies' priorities.
There's an old saying that nobody washes a rental car. If we have to rely on the US attorneys, great as they are, and the FBI to have our priorities in terms of going after bad guys, we'll never be able to go after bad guys. Same thing with the state. So we are partners, and it comes down to funding and jurisdictional clarity. So we are broken record about Castro Huerta, and there's some ridiculous dicta in that decision.
But we're working through it, and we're working through it in the best interest of everyone within our borders.
Speaker 1
I appreciate that. And what if I will tell you, last year, we had a hearing on murdered missing indigenous women, which is a travesty in this country that we're gonna address. We had a lady testify. She was a member of their travel council. When she was a young girl, she was abducted.
She's taken to a cabin, held for about a week, raped, beaten up, all sorts of stuff. And then she was dumped off the reservation. So all of a sudden, it was, whose case is this? She couldn't identify the cabin where she was held. She could identify the person, but she couldn't identify the cabin.
So they're sitting there. Is this an FBI issue? Is it a county issue? Is it a tribal issue? Who's got jurisdiction over this?
I'm kinda going, this is crazy that that's what today, that individual that held her is one of her constituents. Now that's a tragedy. And that's what leads me to this. We gotta solve this somehow. And I'm more in that camp of, as congressman Elzey said, nobody cares more about tribal members than tribes do.
You guys ought to have jurisdiction over your tribes and your territories on your reservation and stuff. And somehow we've got that's deeper than what our committee does here on appropriating money, but we need to get the resources committee and some others involved, and we need to solve this damn problem. But let me congratulate you on your educational initiatives. I've always said that the only way you're gonna get doctors, dentists, nurses, others, professionals out on some of these reservations that are a long way from nowhere is to educate the tribal members and let them become the doctors and dentists and stuff, and they're more likely to come back and serve the tribes. So, yeah, I congratulate you on that.
Anyway, thank you very much for your testimony. We appreciate it. Look forward to working with you as we put together this bill this year. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1
Yep. Yep. I know. Yep. That's right.
James Dorano, Charles Riley. How are you doing? How are you, sir? Good. James, you're up.
Speaker 3
Chairman, members of the committee, James Duranhon, governor of Santa Clara Pueblo. I lay my respect down to you. Our Tewa language is our first language. English is our second language. Spanish is my third language.
Speaker 3
I'm a retired lawman from the state of New Mexico. I did over twenty-three years. I was a correction officer at first, and I became a lawman. I did SWAT. I did traffic homicide.
I did canines. I was a cadaver finder. I did that for many years. I'm glad to be back in front of you again, sir, and I retired to take care of my parents, and I've been with the tribe now 14 years. So I got kinda trapped into tribal politics, and I'm very, very blessed to have three sons.
One that served in the navy, retired as a corpsman, did a couple tours in Iraq. We pray for our servicemen out there battling the war and servicewomen. I also have a son now currently that's an FBI agent that we pray many years to come to Northern New Mexico, to help us put a dent in crime. And so then I have a son that works at Delta Airlines that's waiting for me to retire one day, so I can travel around the world. But I'm from Santa Clara Pueblo.
If you ever been there, we welcome you to come out to our homeland. We've been there since time of memorial. We're one of our Pueblo people with my brother here from Acoma. We've never left our homeland since time of memorial, and we're still there. We, in 1540, we'll make contact with the Europeans.
We fought off the Spaniards, the Mexicans, The United States, and other tribes. And we're still holding on to our sovereignty and to our ways of life. Our culture, our traditions, our languages are a glue that holds us together. It's what keeps us, our small tribe. We have about 56,000 acres, have less than 2,000 members in our tribe.
We have a beautiful landscape. We live right along the Rio Grande River, and we're very blessed to hold on to those water sources and to our way of life. As I mentioned, I'm a law enforcement man, and I appreciate the comment that you mentioned earlier. I've been finding trying to find solutions in our fentanyl crisis. As you know, Santa Clara Pueblo is incorporated by the city of Espanola, that one time was the capital of the heroin crisis, you know, from cocaine, from pot to cocaine to heroin.
Now we're fentanyl, methamphetamines. We currently have about 20,000 people who are nonmembers living within our boundaries. You talked about how we support police parity. What a huge, we have maybe eight law enforcement. I wish I was like the other tribe and had 100 law enforcement.
But we have only eight law enforcement offices, and we're a self covenant tribe. But we're within the city of Espanola, the county of Rio Arriba, Santa Fe County. We asked you talked about the transparency in the cross commission. The cross commission is there, but it doesn't come with any funding. It comes with just the work, and the crimes committed within our jurisdiction are either private claim or from the nonmembers, as you mentioned.
Santa Clara is one of the first tribes in New Mexico that implemented VAWA. For that reason, you know, the violence against women. And, I've been a strong advocate since I was a young police officer, working for US Customs and the FBI, trying to bring closure to some of these missing, not only native women, but all women and children and men that are missing. And, you know, it's unfortunate that closure is the ultimate outcome, not because the majority of the women that I found were deceased, but at least it brings closure to these families. You know, with this fit in all crisis and that, and, we appreciate the bipartisan efforts to support our IHS programs for behavior health and for rehabilitation and for the money to how do we retain our officers? How do we retain our dispatchers?
When our neighboring counties, Los Alamos is one of the highest paying counties in the country, Santa Fe County as well, the state police, we lose our officers. We're like a training facility, and it's not fair to us. You know? And we're in the heart of all these things. So we try to bring solutions to the table, you know, cross commissioners, but give us a reimbursement.
We don't mind fighting crime, and we don't mind protecting not only our citizens, but the whole citizenry that come up and down that corridor. And it's very challenging for us. We're losing teachers. We're losing janitors. We're losing police officers.
We're losing all of that to the higher-paying county. And how do we do it as a self governance tribe to retain that? It's very challenging for us. So we have to supplement our tax budget. We have to supplement our budget just so that we can retain good, qualified officers to protect our people.
And those are very, very challenging. We're starting to educate our young children on how fentanyl, how these drug and alcohol abuse is affecting us from a second, third grade level now. Before, you never even heard of those things. You know, it's just alcohol and pot. Now it's all those things that are devastating, not only our community, but every community.
We have maybe about a thousand homes in Santa Clara Pueblo. Each home has been affected in one way or another. I can go to every home. It's not only our home in the Pueblo, but it's almost every home in the whole valley of Espanola, Northern New Mexico. There's one way or another they've been affected.
And how do we break that cycle together with the trust responsibility from the government? How do we try to break that cycle? You know, we have to send our children outside to treatment centers across different countries because of the cost, and then we bring them right back and put them right back into the same route. You know, that and we're now buying our property back. You know, Santa Clara lost more land to private claim than any other playground, and we're trying to buy our property back so that we can establish regional treatment facilities, traditional and nontraditional, to heal our people, to put them back in the workforce.
But it takes money. It takes effort. You know? Our behavioral health program is doing an extremely well job and all educated. As you mentioned, we send our children elsewhere to get educated and to come back and help and work.
That's what I did. That's what Governor Riley did. We go outside of our community, and we come back, and we provide our community service and to have a better quality of life for our children, to provide a better quality of life for the ones that are unborn. You know, hundreds of years ago, our ancestors prayed for the unborn. Well, here we are today, and we're fighting for those people.
Not for me. Not for anybody else. The water rights are important. The fentanyl crisis is important. The trust obligations to help us succeed as a small tribal nation, we need that help.
We're not asking for a handout, but we're asking for that trust, responsibility so we can move together. Like a nation should move together. Nation to nation, that's what collaborating is all about. The protection of our sacred sites, the protection of Chaco Canyon, the protection of all our traditional ways of life that we still have ties to this day. Those need to be protected.
Those need to be, and we need that protection from the federal government. We can't do it alone. And those ties have been dwelled in us, in our language, our songs, our prayers, and our ways of life. And we have to continue that. For Santa James.
Yeah. For Santa Clara, we're an extinct creature now. There are not very many of us left. There are not many of us that speak our language. You know, we're blessed to have our children from early childhood to sixth grade that we implement math, science, reading, hell, all in our language now.
Not only in the Tewa language, but in our western society. You know? And then from there on, would they disperse to different public schools throughout New Mexico? But that is the core. That's the key that's gonna keep us together.
We need that federal assistance. We need that help.
Speaker 1
I appreciate it, James. That very passionate about it. And I appreciate that. I appreciate your testimony, and thank you for being here today. Thank you.
Charles?
Speaker 11
Thank you very much, Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Pingri, and members of the subcommittee. I greet you also in our careless language, asking you how your day was, and I hope that you, your loved ones, and all your relations are in good health this morning or this afternoon. My name is Charles Riley, and I'm the governor of the pueblo of Acoma in New Mexico. In my written testimony, I set forth specific recommendations and requests. But at this time, I would like to speak more broadly, and welcome any questions.
First, the Akuma people are an ancient people. Akuma Sky City, originally Mesawku, which means a place prepared, has been our Mesa top home for over a thousand years, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States. As representing the canes we carry given to us by Abraham Lincoln, we share a unique government to government relationship with The United States. The Lincoln Keynes were specifically presented to every Pueblo governor over 150 years ago to acknowledge our sovereign authority over our lands and our people. This cane is a physical embodiment of the recognition of our status and of the commitment of the United States to protect and respect our sovereign rights, as well as to support the well-being of our communities pursuant to federal trust responsibilities.
Like other tribes, we appreciate the subcommittees for their bipartisan efforts to protect the BIA, IHS from federal funding cuts during these recent fiscal years. Second, our water settlement has been reintroduced, and we ask this subcommittee to support full funding for Indian water settlements, which promote economic development and water security for our future. Third, in 2020, President Trump assisted Akuma and other tribes in the return of ancestral human remains and associated funerary objects from Finland. President Trump also played an integral role in supporting the Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony Act, or commonly known as the STOP Act, which Congress passed, and we ask this subcommittee support in urging this administration to issue regulations that were mandated by the STOP Act but were never promulgated. In addition, we asked the subcommittee to provide additional funding for the support of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, as well as funding for the implementation of the STOPPAC and additional funds for tribal historic preservation offices.
These funds are needed to ensure the protection of our land's most sacred and historic objects and ceremonies. Fourth, we request that this subcommittee provide funding for a resource management plan amendment and implementation of the programmatic agreement for the Bureau of Land Management Farmington office. The current plan is severely outdated and does not reflect modern oil and gas technologies or techniques, and an update is needed to ensure the protection of our cultural sites around Chaco Canyon. A programmatic agreement is needed to ensure the agency's Natural Historic Preservation Act obligations are met in a streamlined, yet compliant, matter. Fifth, we ask the subcommittee to dedicate IHS maintenance and improvement and other facility construction funding to the Hauku Health Center to offset significant repairs needed for this facility to become operational.
Last year, during the subcommittee hearing, I informed the subcommittee that Akuma was essentially forced to take over the health care system there because of lack of services, lack of personnel. And it came to the point where we just finally said we have to do this for the well-being of our citizens here at Acoma. The pueblo assumed control of the IH facility in October and was forced to spend its own funds and make critically-needed repairs. As an example, due to chronic underfunding, the facility lacked hot water in the hospital. Plumbing issues, deterioration of the structure.
We were not allowed to enter the facility until they actually turned the keys over, so we didn't know what we were walking into. We just knew we had to take it over. That is why we were asking for some funding dedicated to the Hauco Health Center, so that we can rebuild and move forward and improve our health care system for our people. We need, finally, the public strongly urges Congress to increase funding to properly staff the BIA, BIE, Bureau of Indian Education and the Indian Health Service. These agencies and their respective employees are instrumental for the United States to honor its unique trust responsibilities and obligations to the pueblo and other tribal nations.
While the pueblo does not oppose establishing an efficient federal workforce, federal policies aimed at reducing the federal workforce have constrained the capacity and effectiveness of federal officers serving tribal nations. The pueblo has experienced significant delays from federal offices in fulfilling its responsibilities and obligations caused, at least in part, by reductions in federal staff, resulting in overbearing workload placed on remaining federal employees. For example, the Pueblo has waited years for the BIA to place land use into trust, which has upheld efforts between the Pueblo and the Bureau of Land Management to effectuate a land exchange to reroute the Continental Divide Trail to the El Malpais Visitor Center in the city of Grants, which would enhance public safety and promote tourism. Further, the Hauco Health Center is a vital source of health care to the local community, but does not receive adequate funding to fully staff physicians, nurses, and other key positions. That concludes my testimony.
Thank you for your time. More topics and more details can be found in my written testimony, and I'm happy to answer any questions. I also extend an open invitation to members of the subcommittee and your colleagues to visit Acoma. I would be more than happy to host all of you whenever you'd come out, and I really do encourage you to come see the other side where we as public people have a very unique landscape and a unique form of government.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you both for being here and stuff. You've raised a bunch of issues that are important both obviously to you, but to this committee also. Drugs that you talked about, it's a huge problem on reservations across the country. And the reason that these cartels or whatever you wanna call them, go to reservations is because we don't have adequate law enforcement in those places to patrol whole, and they know they're less likely to get caught in those places.
Consequently, we find this all over Indian reservations all across this country, and it's something we got to address. But that gets back to law enforcement and getting adequate law enforcement. We did increase or reestablish, I guess, the opioid reduction task force that was established during the previous Trump administration. And from what I understand and talking to the secretary then, Zinke that was, secretary when they put it in, it was moving in the right direction and getting some results. And then, for some reason, it just got passed over.
And we reestablished it last year. I think that's a good first step, but it's not adequate enough to address the whole problem that we've gotta deal with. You mentioned the water settlements. We talked about this a little bit just before our lunch break. I will tell you that, it's gonna eat this budget alive if we don't find a way to pay for these.
And I'm not against the settlements or anything. But if we take them out of the budget that we currently have, I mean, we're talking billions of dollars is what these settlements, when you look at all of them across the country and stuff. Some way, we gotta find a way to fund these things. And we're searching. I happen to think they ought to come out of the justice fund, but that's not what it does right now.
We have to appropriate money for it. And, of course, if we appropriate money for that, then something else gets cut down the road. So we gotta find a way to fund these water settlements because I think they're important, that we do that. But it is a challenge, for sure.
Speaker 11
And I completely understand, Chairman Simpson. In the case of Acoma, we've negotiated our water settlement, and we were just trying to get it, it's been reintroduced, trying to get it passed. Yep. In Acuma's case, the water settlement addresses our needs for the future because of the mining that has taken place in and around Acuma. Along Mount Taylor, it has depleted our water source that we relied on for millennia.
The flow in the Rio San Jose historically ran about 14 to 15 CFS, which is not a lot compared to a lot of the other rivers and waterways in The United States. Today, it runs about 1.5 CFS because of the depletion of the groundwater. In our water settlement, we're not in New Mexico, and in the Acoma region especially, it is such a water-short basin that the only way that we can guarantee water for the future of our community and surrounding communities is through this settlement. We would have to pipe water from another water basin into our basin in order to sustain our community, and that is the only way we're going to be able to do it. However, if we don't get this water settlement done and get those projects going, the mining companies are also planning to tap into that, too.
So now the only untapped, uncontaminated source of water that we have is in danger. And that's why we're so adamant about trying to get these water settlements completed and get the money and make sure that our community has water into the future. Yep.
Speaker 1
Believe me. I've and I'm fully sympathetic with the problem that you face. And, I went up and visited the Belknap tribes and stuff, and they have the same water settlement issue up there trying to get funded. Same reason, because they're not gonna have water. They're not gonna have potable water.
And so it's a challenge all across this, but we gotta find a way to do it. And like I say, I'm not against the settlements. I've they just my attorney general called, our state, my state director the other day, I guess my chief of staff, and said, hey. We just came under the settlement with Coeur d'Alene tribe.
Speaker 1
And what she said to the attorney general, what do you need? And she says, well, we just need the funding. And she said, how much are you looking for? And he said 600000000. Okay.
Where are we gonna find that in our budget? I understand what you're saying. I agree with you. It's a matter of we gotta find a better way to pay for this so that it doesn't eat up everything else in the budget.
Speaker 3
What is troubling is that the state or the federal government settled with the Osekias, the non-Indians. But yet, in the Abbott case, we're trying to settle our negotiations. And they and the state or the want us to regionalize, but that doesn't work for the tribe. That doesn't work for us. Yeah.
And so we bring solutions to the table, but nobody wants to, they want us to follow their formula. Yeah. But that formula doesn't work for us. I know. You know what I'm saying?
But yet, when it's a settlement for Santa Clara Pueblo, and not anybody else. But they think it's about them. But those settlements have already gone. They already had their opportunity. This is our only chance.
We only have one chance at this.
Speaker 1
It's like, it's easy if you are trying to divide up water and your assessment is that there's more water than there is. And that's happened throughout the West. We've over appropriated a lot of rivers and that kind of stuff. I was telling somebody earlier that when they did the Colorado River Basin, created the upper basin and the lower basin, they assumed that there was 18 and a half million acre feet of water that ran down the river every year. And somebody told them at the time, this is in the twenties, that no.
You're looking only at the wet years. We add in the dry years. It's actually about 14.5 million acre feet that run down. So they've overappropriated by a ton of water. And now look what you've got going on in the Colorado Basin.
So it is a challenge for all of us.
Speaker 3
And part of the problem is that the irrigation system runs through our property without proper easement. Yeah. But yet they want us to maintain the acequias at whose cost, yeah. You know, at our cost. But yet, there's not even no written agreements from the non-Indian users.
And it seems like the people think, like, they own the water. The water belongs to all of us, you know, and that's our goal, is to be good neighbors, to share the water properly everybody. But the problem is understand that.
Speaker 1
On the East Coast, they have riparian water rights because they're trying to get rid of water. They got so much water. We have prior appropriation water rights in the West because we're trying to save every drop, because we live in a desert, essentially. You know? It's a challenge.
Miss Pingry?
Speaker 2
I'm good. I'm gonna just leave you, not answering any more questions, but I really appreciated your testimony, and I learned a lot from the many things you brought up. So thank you both for being here. Appreciate it very much.
Speaker 1
Your area and stuff because it is a beautiful country, and I haven't been there. I wanna go see them.
Speaker 1
Berlin? And yeah. I was gonna say it. Hi, boo. How are you doing?
See. Let's see. Berlin, you're first.
Speaker 9
All right. Good afternoon, Chairman Simpson, thank you, member, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. I am Berlin Jose, Chairman of the Don O'Otto Nation. I appreciate your dedication to Indian country, and welcome the opportunity to testify today. First, respectfully, I ask that you prioritize funding for our roads.
There are more than 700 miles of BIA roads on our reservation, and most are dangerous for motorists, including emergency response vehicles, school buses, families, and federal personnel. Monsoon flooding can last for months at a time, and can completely wash out our roads, stranding members and isolating entire communities from access to essential services. The BIA Road maintenance program has been underfunded for years and has a deferred backlog of over $400,000,000. More funding must be provided for BIA Road's program in FY 2027. Next, I will address the need for water settlement funding. The nation was one of the first tribes to enter into a federally approved water rights settlement, and we are in negotiations to settle our remaining claims.
Unfortunately, our water settlement has never been fully implemented because of chronic underfunding. Current Colorado River conditions threaten our entitlement. Annual funding must be made available or the nation and other tribes will never receive the full measure of our promised water rights. Federal funding is desperately needed to address our unique public safety challenges. The nation shares a 62-mile border with Mexico, and we work closely with Border Patrol and other law enforcement agencies.
We spent our own funds to assist with border security efforts. We would appreciate more federal financial resources to support our efforts. The nation's police are often the first and only responders to criminal activity, but our police work out of a converted 1950s BIA jail that is not equipped to handle modern law enforcement responsibilities. Our detention center is in poor condition. Interior's Office of Inspector General highlighted serious health and safety concerns at the detention facility three years ago, that have not yet been fully addressed.
In 2024, BIA estimated that the unmet need for public safety programs in the ending country was over $3,000,000,000. This is a real public safety crisis. Congress must provide funding to meet this critical need. Greater federal investments are needed for our failing Indian health service facilities. The current IHS deferred maintenance backlog is nearly 1.5 billion dollars.
The nation's 60-year-old hospital in Sells, Arizona, is one of the oldest IHS facilities, and it can only handle minor medical issues. A replacement facility has been on the IHS facilities priority list for over 30 years, and yet it continues to receive only limited funding allocations. Congress must appropriate more funding to complete the health care facilities on the list in a reasonable time frame. In August 2020, the aging Phoenix Indian Medical Center was forced to close its labor and delivery services. Those services have yet to resume.
Congress must do better to fulfill the trust obligation to provide health care to Native Americans. Finally, more funding for the Bureau of Indian Education facilities. Construction is critical. BIE has identified two of our schools on its list of facilities in poor condition. One of those, the Santa Rosa Ranch School, was forced to close in 2018 due to significant safety issues, and still has not been replaced.
The Santa Rosa Day School, another school on our reservation, is slated for replacement by the BIE but will not be funded until 2028. The poor conditions at BIE schools have been documented for decades. We urge you to provide adequate funding to ensure BIE schools can be renovated and replaced sooner so that native children have a safe and modern and supportive learning environment. We also submitted our written comments in more detail. Thank you for your time.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 12
Doc? Yate, Chairman Simpson, ranking member Penguin, and the committee as well as your staff. My name is Doctor Boonigran, NavaNation president. Thank you for the opportunity to testify again before this honorable committee on behalf of the NavaNation's fiscal year 27 federal budget priorities and priorities in general in Indian country. Many of the items I will testify are rooted in our treaty of 1868, and it is in that spirit of treaty and our government to government relationship that we continue to support the Navajo Nation's support for advanced appropriations for IXS.
Advanced appropriations provide stability and continuity for central health services that we've been enjoying the past couple of years, which allows us to better plan and efficiently utilize our funding. So we continue to urge Congress not only to continue these advanced appropriations beyond fiscal year 27, but also to expand them to key programs within the BIA and the BIE to move toward mandatory funding for these core responsibilities. We urge support for advanced appropriations to these agencies. Also, despite federal trust obligations, the federal investment remains far below what is needed. Federal spending on the IHS is around $4,000 per person annually, which is less than half of what the federal government spends for other major federal health programs like the prison system and the military.
Closing this gap is essential for improving health and lowering overall costs created by preventable health issues. We remain frustrated by the funds. Also, we remain frustrated for the funds that were taken from the Gallup Indian Medical Center late last year. The GMIC is the oldest and largest IHS facility in the country and is in dire need of a rebuild. While I appreciate the honorable secretary Kennedy's attention to this issue, including HXS's visit last week on Friday, we still need to find a way to get the $60,000,000 that was transferred from this rebill so we can continue to stay on track to get this project back on track.
Education funding must also be strengthened. The BIE faces a 1,000,000,000 deferred maintenance backlog, an estimated 6,000,000,000 shortfall in all Indian country school replacements and construction needs, and severe staffing shortages for the 180 plus schools. We continue to urge Congress to increase funding for the Indian School Equalization Program by at least 400,000,000 and fully fund school safety initiatives, including for school resource officers. Additionally, congress must ensure that the BIE has additional funds to accommodate its assumption of the department of education's tribal programs. Funding delays or losses are unacceptable.
Moving on to our public safety. Our police department operates with roughly one officer for every 1,000 residents, or about one quarter of what is recommended. Our officers respond to more than 200,000 calls for service each year across various distances ranging from one hour to three hours. Two of our major public safety facilities were condemned in 2019 and have yet to be replaced, forcing officers and courts to operate out of temporary spaces. The BIA estimates that public safety needs in Indian country totaled 3,100,000,000 annually, yet current funding levels are less than 450,000,000.
There is a substantial probate backlog in Indian country as well. And I also applaud Secretary Bergum, Leonor Bergum, for making it a priority to resolve it. The BIE needs more assistance in its digitization, probate efforts to help reduce this backlog. It is essential that on the Navajo Nation alone, there are tens of millions of dollars in assets in the probate backlog. Those assets should be with our people, and we request that Congress work with the BIA to identify what the full scope of needs, including providing more funding for our 638 contracts for vital records.
We also urge Congress to strengthen funding for programs that protect native children and families. The ICWA program is severely underfunded, leaving the Navajo Nation with 6,000,000 in shortfalls in our ICWA program. We support full funding of 46,000,000 for the ICWA nationwide. We also request 60,000,000 for programs under the Indian Child Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act to help address child abuse, neglect, and family violence in tribal communities across the country. The Nava Nation's emergency medical services system, which responds to nearly 22,000 calls last year, continues to face severe funding shortages.
Dedicated federal funding for tribal EMS is directly needed. Lastly, the office of the Navajo and Hopi Indian relocation window. Relocation is winding down its operations even though, by our estimates, at least 40 families have yet to receive homes and other federal promises have not been kept. Onir was notoriously mismanaged, the BIA, which has taken Onir's functions, which has been an active and communicative partner, I urge you to remain, maintain sufficient funding for Onir's obligations so that this closeout process is not rushed and can be properly, and mainly carried out. Thank you again for this opportunity and for honoring the treaties between our nations.
And I look forward to the discussions that we're gonna have here today. So,
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you both for being here and for your testimonials. When you start talking about roads, it is a problem. We don't fund roads here, much anyway. Most of them come out of transportation subcommittee and stuff.
But I know chairman Cole, when he chaired that committee, was looking at how the funding that went to Indian roads had essentially remained constant while the others had gone up. So he kinda reversed that. But I was reminded of when we visited the Navajo Nation out there. There was me and Betty McCullum and several of us, and they took us out to see a school.
Speaker 1
It's, I think, since been replaced, hopefully. But they put us in a van. We drove out there, dirt road. I had time a Fitbit. Count your steps.
Betty and I were competing with each other, riding in the van. I got 20,000 steps just riding in the van out to the. That's how bad the road was. That's when I realized, yeah, they do need some roads. In fact, it would destroy your van if you drove that out here every day. But, anyway, it is a challenge.
But I appreciate you bringing the issues up to us. I know that we're trying to close out the relocation program and stuff. It is, what we put $7,000,000 into to support the closure of, in last year's bill to support the closure of it and stuff. It's something that we've been trying to do for a long time. Some of these programs have got to end so that we can get other things done.
But you're right. We gotta do it in the right way. Mhmm. So I appreciate your testimony. Yeah.
Speaker 9
Thank you, Chairman Simpson. And I know we you're talking about water rights all day long. It is important because water is like, you know, and the creator has placed all us tribal nations on where we are, where we've lived from time immemorial. It's, I think, the encroachments of the greater good of humanity that continue to drain our aquifers and so forth and left us in between a rock and a hard place, literally. Thank you for your time.
We appreciate.
Speaker 1
Yeah. It is just in Idaho. I mean, not only the Indian water settlement issues and stuff, but you know what's happening in the West this year? There's no water. I mean, we have normally, I would have three or four feet of snow in my backyard, and none.
I live on a golf course. They were playing golf year round, Christmas Day. That's unheard of. And consequently, there's gonna be some real problems this year with water, and then you throw on top of that wildfires that are gonna come. Mhmm.
I was at a wildfire conference last week. And I'll tell you, it's gonna get ugly, I think. We gotta be very cognizant of that, but water is, you know, a huge issue. That's where the old saying comes from. Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting.
Thank you. Miss Pingwee?
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thank you both for your testimony. I really appreciate all you have to say. And I, you're right. We've been hearing a lot of water settlements today, and we really do need to have a big infusion of cash because you put it well.
You were there first, and now this water is not available. And it's obviously essential to the future of your communities. And just thank you for going over so many different areas between the roads and the law enforcement, schools, and health. I'm just gonna hope that we have a decent allocation in our budget this year, we can help to bump up some of those accounts because I know you're operating with just completely inadequate numbers, and, you take care of a lot of people in your communities, and we wanna do whatever we can to help you. So thank you so much for being here and for the example that you set.
Speaker 1
Well, if we don't have a decent allocation this year, you can blame Shelly because she never calls the chairman and no. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1
Yes. She has. That's right. Anyway, thank you. Thank you.
Appreciate it. Francis Griever, AC Locklear, Abigail Echohawk, Conrad Jacket. Okay. I've got Francis first.
Speaker 13
Okay. Good afternoon. Oh, thank you. That's right. Good afternoon.
My name is Francis Cravier. I'm Algonquin, and I'm the CEO of the National Council of Urban Indian Health, a national representative for the 41 urban Indian organizations or UIOs contracting with the Indian Health Service under the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act. I'm testifying today in place of Ron Robin Sunday Allen, who is our board president-elect and the CEO of the Oklahoma City Indian Clinic, an urban Indian organization that provides comprehensive health care to over 26,000 tribal patients representing over 220 federally recognized tribes. Robin was unable to be here today due to the weather canceling her flight, so I will now read her prepared testimony. So thank you, Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Pingree, and members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify today and for your leadership to preserve and protect the Indian Health Service.
This committee understands the federal government's trust obligation to provide health care to native people no matter where they live. UIOs are an integral part of the Indian health system, and they provide high quality health care to tribal members living in our urban areas. The Oklahoma City Indian Clinic provides robust outpatient services from birth to end of life, and is an essential part of the Indian health system in assisting the federal government in fulfilling its trust responsibility to native people. The Indian health system is deeply personal to me. I was born in an Indian hospital, and I received my health care from a tribal Indian health service or urban facility my entire life.
I was the recipient of an Indian Health Service scholarship. That scholarship put me through to the University of Oklahoma College of Nursing, in which I graduated, and then I became the Oklahoma City Indian Clinic. I went back as the registered nurse, and I never left. That was 30 years ago. What kept me here was simple: I saw what this clinic could become, and I wanted our patients to have a better experience than the one I had growing up.
Not because the system was broken, but because I knew it could be so much more. My personal experience, coupled with my professional experience, has fueled my passion for ensuring we deliver the highest quality health care to Native people. The vision of the Oklahoma City Indian Clinic is to be the national model for American Indian health care. We've adopted the congressionally established Malcolm Baldrige Standards of Performance Excellence, and have twice received the Oklahoma State Award for Performance Excellence from Oklahoma Quality Foundation. Our commitment to excellence shows in how we deploy our resources.
Roughly half of every dollar we spend goes directly to preventive care. When you look at our top 10 diagnoses, six of the 10 are preventative care diagnoses. That is what responsible stewardship of federal funding looks like, and it's exactly why an increased investment in urban Indian health pays off. As you know, IHS has been chronically underfunded, and I want to reiterate the request of tribal leaders in calling for IHS and urban Indian health line item to be fully funded and to maintain advanced appropriations. These are not new asks, they're overdue asks, and our funding must be protected from any cuts, sequestration, and freezes.
Historically, disruptions in funding to the Indian health system have resulted in loss of life. However, with the IHS receiving advanced appropriations, funding was able to flow to IHSs without delay during last year's government shutdown, ensuring that our services were maintained for our community. We ask that IHS receive mandatory and full funding, and increased funding will enable our health care system to recruit and retain quality professionals and allow us to meet the growing demand for services in our community. In Oklahoma, we are seeing alarming rises in cancer rates, and to me, cancer has become what I refer to as the new diabetes of Indian country. It is ravaging our community like diabetes has done.
At the Oklahoma City Indian Clinic, we are diagnosing over 20 new cancer patients each month. We have hired a full-time oncology nurse, case manager, and a part-time oncologist. This is why funding for our health programs, as well as the Native American Cancer Outcomes Program, is more critical than ever. In addition to the rise in cancer, we are also seeing a growing behavioral health crisis in our community. We have seen a significant increase in the number of patients presenting with anxiety and depression, and what concerns me most is how much of that we are seeing in young people.
A clinic is not traditionally where you would expect to find robust behavioral health services, but our patients need them, and they are coming to us. We're putting resources where we can to meet that need, but the demand is outpacing what we are able to provide without dedicated, stable funding. This is why SAMHSA programs like Native Connections, which help us address Native youth suicide, must be well-funded and protected. We also request that UIOs be included in future funding for the behavior health pilot program that was established this year. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.
We stand by as a resource to support the federal government as you continue to work towards the obligation to provide health care to American Indians and Alaska Natives. We urge Congress to take this obligation seriously and provide UIOs and IHS with all the resources necessary to protect the lives of the entirety of the native population. You can ensure that American Indian health care isn't just available, but that it is the very best health care. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 14
You, Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Pingree, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for this opportunity to testify. On behalf of the National Indian Health Board and the 575 federally recognized tribal nations we serve, I'm honored to provide testimony on fiscal year 2027 appropriations for the Indian Health Service. My name is A. C. Locklear.
I'm a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, and I have the honor of serving as the chief executive officer of NIHB, the only national tribally-led organization dedicated to advancing the health of all tribal nations. Firstly, thank you for your leadership in providing advanced appropriations for the IHS. During last year's 43-day shutdown, every IHS facility remained open, every patient received care without delay, and every employee was paid. That stability was only possible because of advanced appropriation, and it reflects this subcommittee's long-standing commitment to tribal health. For decades, Congress has provided steady support for IHS through incremental funding increases, and we are grateful that incremental progress is no longer enough.
More substantive investment is needed to address workforce shortages, to modernize infrastructure, and to strengthen care delivery across the system. Through this subcommittee's bipartisan leadership, along with recent actions by the administration, we now have a once in a generation opportunity to move beyond incremental progress and build a health system that is modern, culturally grounded, and capable of delivering the level of care tribal nations deserve. For FY '27, NIHB supports the National Tribal Budget Formulation Workgroup's recommendation to fund IHS as a mandatory program at $7,073,000,000, including the services, facilities, and improvements necessary to bring Indian health system to the same standards as a broader US health care system. The need for modern facilities is extraordinarily pressing. IHS estimates more than 26,000,000,000 is required to address facilities construction needs at current funding levels, that would take over two hundred years.
We are, however, encouraged by Secretary Kennedy's recent announcement to direct 1,000,000,000 in funding towards health care facilities construction to begin addressing the long-standing 1993 backlog. This is an important step forward, but requires the partnership of Congress to make this true progress. But the magnitude of the need requires sustained investment, not only in health care facilities construction, but also in tribal sanitation facilities construction, and facilities maintenance and improvement. At the same time, workforce shortages are also an urgent challenge facing the Indian health system. For the past decade, IHS's vacancy rate has hovered between 20-30%, leaving tribal communities without providers, facilities without administrators, critical services delayed, reimbursement claims unpaid.
We appreciate the administration's newly announced hiring initiative, and now urge Congress to provide resources necessary to sustain and expand those efforts. Programs like purchase-referred care also remain underfunded and understaffed, forcing tribal nations to delay or deny access to specialty care, an outcome that's both preventable and unacceptable. Modernization of the IHS must also include critical investment in health information technology. NIHB requested Congress fully fund the implementation of a modern electronic health records, or EHR, system. Recent federal estimates place the total cost of EHR modernization at approximately 6,200,000,000, reflecting the full scope of implementation, including support for tribal nations that have already invested their own systems to upgrade, integrate, and securely connect.
This is more than just technology. It's about protecting sensitive data in an increasingly vulnerable system, and building infrastructure that is secure, interoperable, and grounded in tribal data sovereignty. Together, this offers us an unprecedented opportunity to finally modernize the Indian health system. If we get this right, the impact will be profound, improving care coordination, strengthening clinical decision-making, and ultimately leading to better health outcomes across Indian country. However, we recognize the growing contract support costs in section 105 l lease obligations, and the limitation of the committee's 302 b allocation continue to constrain investments in other critical priority areas.
Until Congress moves these accounts to mandatory, we do request heightened support for the remaining IHS line items to ensure that tribal health programs have the resources needed to sustain essential services and meet the growing health care needs across Indian country. Behind each of these investments are real patients, families who rely on the system for care that they cannot access anywhere else. Thank you again for your leadership. With continued partnership from you, your colleagues across the house, engagement from the administration, and the leadership of tribal nations, we have a real opportunity to move beyond incremental progress and to modernize the Indian health system, ensuring the federal government fully meets its trust and treaty responsibilities. NIHB looks forward to working with the subcommittee on these priorities and our testimony.
Thank you.
Speaker 15
Hello. Thank you so much, Chair Simpson, Ranking Member Pingri, distinguished members of the committee, and to the staff who put this all together and got us all here. We're so appreciative of all the work that you're doing. I wanna share a story with you. Several months ago, I had a knock on my door at my office as the executive vice president of the Seattle Indian Health Board.
I'm a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, and I'm blessed to work in an urban Indian health program funded by the Indian Health Service, in addition to being the director of the urban Indian health institute, one of the nation's 12 tribal epidemiology centers, but with a focus on urban Indians. That knock on my door. When I opened it, I saw a member of my staff looking very distressed. She let me know. She said, Abigail, we have a situation. Our elders program, which is one that I oversee, she said there is an elder who just let us know that she has recently been raped, and her perpetrator is in the building in the program with us right now.
My team sprang into action. We've ensured that this woman, 80 years old, is in a wheelchair. We ensured that when she asked for new clothes, we went and sorted through sweatpants. And at the time, because of a lack of funding, we only had size five X for a small, dainty little elder. I remember pulling the string of those five x sweatpants to make sure when we brought them to her, we could slide them up her legs and tie them tightly around her waist, so after a rape, she could wear clean clothes.
We brought her into a room where I called our clinical social worker, our traditional Indian medicine practitioner, and our elders. Our community came together as fully well-trained staff focused on the cultural needs of this individual and the medical needs of this individual. As she sat there and I held her hands and the tears ran down, her face creasing through the wrinkles, she told me, she said, Abigail, I don't want to make trouble, but I don't want anybody else to get hurt. She allowed me to call 911. I called 911, and I left her with my capable staff trained by our programs that we self-fund because with the workforce shortages in Indian Health Service and the lack of workforce development funding, we invest more than 500,000 of our own dollars to ensure my staff could respond in a moment like this.
In that moment, when I called 911 and I said, hey. I have a rape victim here. She's 80 years old. She's in a wheelchair. She is receiving hospice care.
She has been raped, her perpetrators are in the building. I hung up. I expected a police response. I waited 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, an hour and 15 minutes with no response from the police. The response that was happening was in that room with those culturally attuned care providers, the facility that we have worked so hard to build up to ensure those services exist.
And without them, this woman would have never seen any kind of love, compassion, and she's never going to see justice. When they finally showed up, I'll leave that to the side, because that's not what matters. It's four hours later. We put her in a taxicab with all of the resources that she needs, and we continue to follow up. The work of Urban Indian Health Programs, Indian Health Service, is this.
That $73,000,000,000 is investments in ensuring the care, the health, and the well-being. And I don't care if you're 80 years old or 8 minutes old. We provide that care and all in between. And without the full funding of the Indian Health Service, you're gonna see providers like myself, other people taking 5x sweatpants and attempting to pull the string so we can just fit them up the legs of a rape victim. That is something that shouldn't be happening, and yet happens too often.
Our tribal epidemiology centers, which I am blessed to direct, have led in working and ensuring that we get the resources for our missing and murdered, those who have been sexually assaulted. And over the last several years, I've sat in front of you, I feel like I tell you the same stories, all in the same time. And in fact, last year, I told you the story of a dementia survivor who had been beaten and strangled so many times that she was suffering from memory loss in her early thirties. And we couldn't give her resources or services because our dementia funds, those funds from IHS, are only for people over age 50. And so we looked, we searched, I connected after I spoke with all of you, and we couldn't get the resources or help, so we're doing it ourselves.
We have launched the very first survey to find out the incidence of traumatic brain injury for sexual assault, domestic violence, and trafficking survivors, and there is no money for it. And, in fact, I'm partnering with local native Hawaiians in Hawaii because they have the same issues. And I was sitting with a mother of a young woman who had been brutally murdered in the military. Her husband was active-duty military in Oahu. She was 19 years old, native Hawaiian in Blackfeet.
He murdered her, dismembered her, and then burned her. And when he was prosecuted, this is what Auntie Francis wanted me to share with you all now. I'll end with this. She told me she was grasping onto my arm, she said, Abigail, when you go to Congress next time, tell them. Tell them there has to be accountability.
Tell them to care as much as I did for my daughter, who laughed so much, who was so loved. Tell them that there has been a change, but we need more. And the full funding of the Indian Health is essential to that at the full $73,000,000, and ensuring that the tribal epidemiology centers and the work that my team and I, in addition to the other epicenters do, are essential to the health and well-being of our communities. That woman, as she held my hand with the tears streaking down her face, Auntie Francis, and the story I told you in the beginning of the rape victim, they said the same thing. I'm only doing this, and I'm only sharing my story, so no one else has to.
Thank you.
Speaker 16
Wow. That's pretty hard to follow-up right there. I really wish that you guys could take that in consideration because that's a strong testimony right there, miss Echo Hawk. I very much appreciate that coming straight from the heart. Thank you.
Do I? Good afternoon, Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Pingri, and respected members of the committee. I'm Connor Jacket. I serve on the governing body of the Albuquerque Indian Health Board. I am from the Immanuel tribe.
I'm also an elected member of my tribal council. Thank you for inviting me to speak, and thank you for your continued dedication and hard work to support Indian country. We have submitted written testimony that details our federal funding needs for fiscal year 2027. AAIHB is a consortium of several federally recognized tribes in New Mexico, southern Colorado, and eastern Utah. We consist of the two bands of Navajo, Tehajule, Rama, the two Apache tribes, Muscularo and Hickorya, and the two Ute tribes, Southern U and U Mountain.
We also provide health care services to citizens and other tribes throughout New Mexico, Southern Colorado, Utah, and West Texas. Our tribal organization is mostly funded with federal dollars. About a third of our funding comes from the IHS. As we all know and have heard from tribal leaders, IHS has been underfunded for years. Although we appreciate the committee's efforts to protect and preserve IHS funding, we ask that Congress find new ways to increase IHS funding.
At the very least, we urge you to ensure that IHS funding is increased to keep pace with inflation. We greatly appreciate Senator Kennedy's strong support for IHS. Today, I'm here to tell Congress that without an increase to the 2027 budget, health care programs throughout Indian country will face across the board cuts. This is due to the rising cost from medical inflation, as well as more and more patients using IHS or tribally contracted clinics. Our existing funding is simply not enough to cover our current programs, let alone absorb more costs.
For example, my organization has contracted some services from the IHS on behalf of our member tribes, including IHS ideology. We are the only provider of hearing services for many of our rural tribal communities, which includes elders, veterans, and children. We ask that Congress increase IHS funding so that we can continue to provide essential health care services that Indian country relies on. We also ask that Congress continue to protect, preserve, and advance appropriations for IHS. We thank you for serving advance appropriations.
This area of bipartisan agreement will allow us to provide stability for our staff and patients. We ask that Congress continue to provide advanced approach appropriations going forward. As administration carries out realignment efforts within IHS, we strongly urge this committee and Congress to ensure that funding for IHS remains a priority. We ask that this committee ensure that IHS programs are fully funded. In particular, we ask for full funding for the division of epidemiology and the center prevention, tribal ethnology centers, special diabetes programs for Indian communities health representatives, division of behavioral health, injury prevention, and the HIV, HCV, STI program. These programs provide critical services and are very valuable to tribes and tribal organizations throughout the nation.
Put simply, these programs save lives. Lastly, we recognize Medicaid is not directly under you guys. We ask that the members of this community continue to support and fund Medicaid with expanded coverage for American Indians and Alaska natives. This provides additional and much needed resources to not only IHS beneficiaries, but also to our tribally run and operated health care programs. Before I conclude my testimony, I'd like to say on behalf of AIHP, Abakirk Indian Health Board, we are very thankful for you to continue your hard work that this committee does year after year to help promote and safe for the safety and health of Indian country.
We urge the committee to continue that work by safeguarding and finding ways to increase the federal funding that Indian country relies on. We truly appreciate this committee's hard work, and I would be very happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank.
Speaker 1
You, Conrad. Thank you all for being here today. I know that, if you've lessened any of the members or any of the testimony, The advanced appropriation was a huge step forward, but it was only a step forward. We would all like to, I think, get mandatory funding for the Indian Health Service. I said this morning that I think it's the only health service program in the federal government that isn't mandatory funding.
Speaker 1
And Tom Cole was sitting here, he said, and it was the first one. And it's the only one to stop the mandatory funding. So we're still working on that, trying to figure out exactly, because first question I ask is, so how do you make it mandatory? And it's not a simple process, but it's something that we gotta continue to work on and get. But, obviously, last year during the shutdown, it was obvious, what, how important that advanced appropriation was.
And, again, I'll tell you, I think you were the chairman, weren't you Shelly when we did that? Yeah. And, so a lot of credit goes to her. A lot of people worked on it, but she was the chairwoman at the time. So she deserves a lot of credit for pushing that and stuff.
But thank you for all you do, and thank you for your testimony today. And, Abigail, I just wish you could get a little passion for these issues. You know? I try. You do a great job.
Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thank you. Bye. Thank you all for being here. You do some of the most important work in Indian country, and thank you for that.
And you are a brilliant storyteller, but I'm sorry for the stories you have to tell. Really, it's just so sad to hear them, and appreciate the dedication that you have and the work that you do there in Seattle. And really to all of you, in the organizations that you lead and that you work with. Just so, critically important. I too would like to see us get to mandatory funding, and, I think it's just a travesty that we are so underfunding Indian health, and particularly when we have other government funded health programs that do better than this.
So it just is a bad reflection of our priorities, and we should reverse that as soon as we possibly can. And you brought up so many things that we've been talking about already today, but just, you know, really getting that adequate funding there. I, Conrad, you mentioned Medicaid, and I'm worried about the cuts coming to Medicaid and how that will impact Indian country because I know we not only are underfunding Indian health, but we depend on Medicaid supplementing the system. And I just don't know how that will impact things going forward. So I think we have to put whatever protections we can into the language of this appropriations bill about how we hold that harmless and make sure that CMS understands that this Indian health funding just can't be a part of the regular Medicaid cut.
Yeah. One thing that, Francis, you mentioned when you said that cancer was the new diabetes, that's deeply disturbing. I mean, I know how devastating diabetes has been to Indian countries. So just give me a little bit of sense of, are there certain kinds of cancers that you're all seeing more of or that you're referring to? I mean, we know there's a rise in cancer, but just that's really worrisome.
Speaker 13
Yeah. So, I can get information from you from Robin from the Oklahoma City Indian Clinic. But I know that it's been significant, and she's had there been a lot of different issues there. And I don't know, Abigail, if you had any data on that.
Speaker 15
Yeah. So, when we look at the epidemiology of what's going on around cancer, some of the ones that native people die the most of are the ones that are the most preventable. Colorectal cancer is one of the ones. I was working on a project one time where we were trying to get an education program out for people to understand what it takes to get your colonoscopy, what age you do that at. But what we found is that while we could get people a basic test prior to understanding if they needed a colonoscopy.
There was no funds in the tribe, nor did the Indian Health Service. It was one of the least priorities in regards to when they get to the bottom of their dollars, who gets the colonoscopy. And so despite us getting people interested in being screened, they still wouldn't have gotten a colonoscopy anyway, which is why native people are more likely to die of colorectal cancer when it is the number one preventable cancer. We've seen the rise of other cancers and we can see a lot of work going on in research right now tying it to environmental factors, particularly reservations close to nuclear plants, example, or where there is a lot of water. And so we see the impact of these extractive mines and other things that have left behind a legacy of toxins that are directly impacting. And so we're seeing this rise, whether or not you're in an urban setting or whether or not you're on the reservations.
Speaker 2
Mhmm. Yeah. That's deeply disturbing. Well, I hope we can spend a little more time and money following that, and also get the preventative care there. But, you know, one of those things is if there's not enough health care dollars, preventative care is often the thing that goes first.
So that's a big challenge. But, again, I really appreciate you all being here today, and thank you.
Speaker 15
And I'll just say, you know, the work that Robin does in Oklahoma City and others is, there's so many stories of success in Indian country. The screenings, during COVID-19, we had the highest vaccination rates. We see that even though we see diabetes increasing, we have seen more results in any other racial or ethnic group in the country and getting more of a flatline prevalence, not seeing it as shooting up as high as some other populations, even though it's still very, very bad. And I think that we need more opportunities to tell the strengths of Indian country. For example, around missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, it was something that developed after the hearing. I'm so thank you so much for allowing me to testify in that hearing on missing and murdered indigenous women, girls, and people. I look towards what happened in Chicago where the bones of an individual were found. A cold case detective had begun to see all this stuff in the media and on, you know, and understanding.
I think our hearing probably had something to do with it too, as to where he dedicated his time. And a woman that had been missing since the early nineteen sixties from the Yakima nation in Washington, she was found, her bones were returned, and it was only because of the dedication of that police department, non native, but who were beginning to see what's happening across the country. We see the implementation of Savannah's Act, the Not Invisible Act. We know that when done appropriately, these pieces of federal legislation can work, and we have success stories. But it requires success stories and continued oversight to ensure that we see the success that Indian country deserves.
It's our treaty and trust. That's what we're pushing for.
Speaker 16
Chairman? If I can add on just a quick, you know, we talk about cancer and where it's coming from. I can also tell you White Mesa, mill energy field. That uranium waste facility has already contaminated one aquifer and is going down to another aquifer. And you can tell from the people in that community and the surrounding community that they're being affected.
So it is coming here. It's coming here with all the studies. I just like to put.
Speaker 1
that out there. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you all for what you do, and thanks for being here today. Appreciate it very much.
Thank you. Theresa Sanchez, Esther McCorro, Aaron Hines, and Linda Ross. Is that right?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Leandra. Okay. Because you can tell, I'm not really good at pronouncing names other than, like, Tom or Mike.
Speaker 1
How are you? Yeah. She can't come up here, Hester, without a sign. No. I'm just kidding.
Theresa, you're first.
Speaker 5
Good afternoon, chairman Simpson, ranking member Pingri, and members of the subcommittee. I'm Teresa Sanchez, a tribal member and representative of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians and the Board President of the Riverside San County Indian Health. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the funding and other needs of tribal health programs in the California IHS area. Founded on the Morongo Reservation in 1968, Riverside San Bernardino County Indian Health has grown from a local effort into a major health network serving multiple tribes across Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. Our evolution from a single clinic to a key provider reflects our dedication to enhancing health care quality and access for Native American communities in Southern California.
We thank the subcommittee for allocating funds in the IHS budget for several years to help tribal health programs secure generators. These generators allow clinics to function and safely store medications during power outages caused by wildfires and emergencies, which are essential for patient care. We thank the subcommittee for directing IHS to study access to hospital and specialty care and purchase in referred care-dependent areas like California. This study will reveal challenges faced by clinics and patients due to inaccurate PCR funding, underscoring the need for increased resources in underserved regions. The California IHS area lacks IHS-sponsored clinics, affecting health services for tribes.
Congressional action is needed to provide services equivalent to those in other areas. Tribal entities depend on loans and limited third-party revenue for clinic construction and staffing, while IHS often fails to uphold its legal trust obligation to California tribes. I request that the subcommittee include language in the appropriations bill authorizing IHS to build health clinics in the California area, as it has done in other areas. This is urgent for California tribes. Additionally, I urge the appropriation of federal funding to staff these facilities, given that existing tribal health programs were built with tribal resources.
The California IHS area lacks IHS-sponsored hospitals, in critical need of more PRC resources. Tribal health programs rely on PRC funding for specialty and non-primary care services. However, the California area receives the sixth-lowest PRC funding per patient, even less than some areas with IHS hospitals. This leads to care rationing as funds often deplete before the fiscal year ends, increasing patient risk. Boosting PRC funding for the California area would better align it with PRC-dependent regions and support essential services.
The FY '26 enacted PRC budget is flat funded at $996,000,000, with the California IHS area's share around $58,000,000. I urge the subcommittee to increase resources for this area to $82,900,000. The proposal would provide around $940 per Indian patient, potentially saving more American Indian and Alaska native lives. California tribes are working with Congressman Kevin Kiley and other representatives to advance this initiative. The IHS facility support account is underfunded, affecting services such as a master plan update and technical assistance for tribal health programs. The California area receives only $2,700,000 or 1,100,000 square feet of clinical space, which is about $2.3 per square foot, significantly less than the $9 in similar areas and $14.5 in better funded regions. This funding shortfall leaves California tribal health programs with unmet facility needs and inadequate support, hindering their competitiveness for IHS resources.
I request that the subcommittee include provisions in the appropriations bill to ensure equitable FSA funding for the California IHS area, ideally mandating parity in funding between tribal health programs and IHS facilities. I request that the subcommittee include provisions in the appropriations bill to ensure. I was reading that again. Regarding the IHS alignment proposal, the vast majority of California tribes oppose it. We need our local IHS area office to keep functioning as it has historically, especially in making decisions about the local operations.
On behalf of the Riverside San Bernardino County Indian Health and our member tribes and patients, thank you for this important hearing on IHS and related programs. I urge your support for my outlined requests and look forward to discussing them further. Thank you.
Speaker 10
Hi. Good afternoon. I'm Jared Simpson, ranking member Gray. Oh, it's on that. Okay.
Great. So, good afternoon. Chair Simpson and ranking member Ping Gray. I apologize, I have a little bit of a cold. I just stuffed my whole mouth full of candy, so let's hope that doesn't come off too much.
So first, I have to say it's a real honor to be here. I'm so grateful to the staff who continue to make time for us even despite, you know, flight challenges and things like that. Today, I'm asking you to really invest in our urban Indian health organization line item. And for the first time, I'm asking for over 1 billion dollars. So 1,000,000,000, 93,999,000.
Mhmm. I'm saying that number out loud because it's slightly different from my written testimony, and I want you to know that I'm aligning with the national tribal budget formulation. That's very important. But I have to ask for this money because we all agreed that we wouldn't go backward. And trust me, I know how hard you have fought to make sure that doesn't happen, especially you, Joe Simpson.
I've heard it throughout Congress, how hard you have fought for us to maintain our funding. And at the same time, like you said, ranking member Pingree, I am very concerned about Medicaid cuts because the Seattle Indian Health Board is not only an urban Indian organization, but we're the first urban Indian organization to become a federally qualified health center. And that means we are dependent upon this third-party revenue to balance out the IHS budget. I know that the federal government understands that IHS has been underfunded since its inception. I also know that the federal government has utilized other resources through SAMHSA, through third party revenue, billing revenue, through other funding entities to help us offset that budget shortfall.
Well, that's not happening now. Now those funds are being threatened. And the other thing is that we all made a commitment to one another. Chair Simpson, you said, I need you to be a good steward of these resources. So I want to tell you what we've done.
So our residential treatment program, 92 beds, with 15 beds dedicated to serving pregnant and parenting people, opens on July 11, and I'll invite all of you to the grand opening. We're incredibly proud of that 38000000 project. I wanna tell you that it's $38,000,000 because I've recently heard that Secretary Kennedy is making a billion-dollar investment in infrastructure, right, in NIHS, and that they're going to use the 1993 priority list to be able to distribute those funds. So if our 92-bed residential treatment program cost $38,000,000 and has taken us roughly five years to get going, think about how far $1,000,000,000 is going to go. That's not very far.
Think about the fact that we have a priority list from 1993. Why is infrastructure important? Because building infrastructure allows us to use innovative approaches to diversify our revenue streams. Right? One of the things that we bond over is the fact that, you know, business is important, and we can function in an effective business manner.
The Seattle Indian Health Board, we've been able to establish our first LLCs and our subsidiary businesses to begin to diversify our revenue streams. This would have been impossible without the infrastructure investment in those ARPA funds. I hate to even bring up the $1,000,000,000 investment in infrastructure because urban programs are not eligible, and I never want to take resources from our tribal partners. They've been waiting since 1993. And at the same time, our urban programs are trying to serve those 76% of American Indians, Alaska Natives living in urban areas.
So we need to make sure that we actually have some funds that are dedicated to that. And back to what Abigail's point was is we have magic happening in Indian country. We have always been your greatest return on investment. We need to take a look at those wins, and we need to reinvest our resources into those wins. When you think of a program like Seattle Indian Health Board that started with one family medicine residency program, and now we have 32 training programs, 32 learning programs, that should equate to an additional investment.
You see where I'm coming from? Those are the things that have value. I just wanna say another thing that you've really invested in is getting traditional new medicine to become billable practice. Particularly, representative Elsie circulated that letter that forced states to be approved for that. In the state of Washington, I want you to understand that because urban programs are not eligible for a 100% FMAP, we're likely to be removed from that option of being eligible, which is so sad because the Seattle Indian Health Board is the only organization that has a proven mechanism for that billing system. We have to go back.
We now have real data. The CBO score can be real. And use that data to make sure that a 100% FMAP is implemented in perpetuity. I need your help on this, guys. I can do magic with that money.
Just help me get there. Thank you very much.
Speaker 19
Afternoon. My name is Aaron Hines, and I'm the chair of the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board. And I also serve as the chief executive officer of the Elhawk Tribal Health Center, which is owned and operated by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. You know, just the little bit that I've already sat here, and I'm sure you guys know this, the comments that I'm gonna share with you are no different than what you've already heard so far, just in a different way, in a different form. But I think our message across Indian country is the same, and I think you guys are hearing it so far.
And I hope the committee does take to heart what we're sharing with you, as you are already hearing the direct impacts that the IHS has on our tribes and our members or the lack of action from the administration. And so as we talk to you as our elected officials, we really do hope that you hear our words because it's as it's already been mentioned, that these words have been shared time and time again, year after year, the same message over and over yet. There's little to no action that has a great impact. And so, but that's not gonna deter us from coming here time and time again to share the same message over and over again until we are heard so that we can ensure that the services, that are supposed to be provided to our people are met. And so on that note, I'll start off with, you know, our first request is to, again, ensure that this committee as well as congress and the administration, continue to honor the trust responsibility that the federal government owes to the tribes and to uphold the legal and moral obligation of the treaty obligations that are outlined in all of the treaties that we have with the tribes and to ensure that these words that have been written and agreed to by the leaders that came before us are not fallen on deaf ears.
It's already been noted, but, you know, again, we'll say it again that our first ask is to take a look at the advanced appropriations as we look to FY 26, 27, 28, that number that has been noted already, $76,000,000,000. And looking at what's currently in the budget for FY '26 is just a little over $8,000,000,000. So there's quite a bit of a shortfall as it comes to fully funding IHS. And so towards that end, as we talk about mandatory funding, whether it's for 105 l leases or contract support costs, which on that note, you know, it was a win a couple years ago when the Supreme Court did rule that contract support costs did need to be covered through IHS dollars, that, well, that's the ruling. One thing that wasn't added was that there was not more money appropriated to IHS to help cover those costs.
And so that is a concern that we still have. And even prior to that is that this pie continues to get sliced smaller and smaller and smaller. And so we are doing our best, on our end, and I think as was just shared by Miss Lucero that, we can do that magic when those dollars are appropriated to us. We'd best know how to utilize and spend those dollars. And as it pertains to the Portland area, we are one of the areas that has no IHS or six thirty-eight hospitals.
And so for our funding and in our request to IHS, we look to increase our purchased and referred care dollars. And so until such time, we are currently working on a specialty referral center for the Portland area. And until such time, though, as the rising cost of health care continues to go up and without an increase to PRC dollars, that is a concern for us as while our tribes are doing their best to be sustainable, whether it's through third party billing or other means and resources, this is a concern for us. And, again, probably just, on another note, you know, we'd like to see that some of these dollars that come through, whether it's for the special diabetes program for Indians or the behavioral health initiative, that those grant funding opportunities be redirected back through contracts and compacts tribes so that we're not competing for these dollars. That has been an ongoing concern and issue when we have to compete with our fellow tribes to try to obtain those dollars because they do have great impacts on our communities.
I know I can speak to the Yematilla tribe that the behavioral health initiative dollars that we've received has been tremendous, especially as mental health has been a huge issue in our area. And especially after dealing with COVID and seeing a mass exodus of the behavioral health professionals following that, now more than ever, that's one of our top issues that we're dealing with as well as diabetes and obesity in our community. But this is just an example of, again, we need the money, and we hope that this committee can carry that message to the full committee, to the rest of Congress, and we'll continue to work with the administration on there's a lot of issues that we need help on and work, and we look forward to working with you. And thank you for your help.
Speaker 20
Good afternoon. My name is Leandra Ross, and I'm a citizen of the Clinton Haida tribes of Alaska and a tribal member of Salamatof. I'm sharing with you today in my capacity as the vice president of executive and tribal services for South Central Foundation, and I want to thank Chairman Simpson, ranking member Pingree, and the distinguished members of the subcommittee for holding these hearings. SCF is the designated tribal health care organization for 12 federally recognized Alaska Native tribes and operates under the authority of Cook Inlet in that region. SCF is one of the 10 largest employers in Alaska and provides health care services to over 70,000 customer-owners.
This is SCF's term for patients, as we're both the customers of our health system and we own our own health care journey. Through the Alaska Native Medical Center, which SCF co-manages with partner, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, we also provide specialty inpatient outpatient services to more than 155,000 Alaska Native and American Indian people statewide. Across SCF, we provide primary care, dental, behavioral health, and addiction treatment services, totaling more than 850,000 encounters each year. SCF services depend on the Indian Health Service appropriations. While there is much covered in my written testimony, I'll highlight just a few topics today.
The first of these is workforce development and housing. Alaska is arguably one of the most beautiful states, but it's also not the easiest place to recruit people to come and live due to extreme cold, seasonal darkness, and isolation. Combined with nationwide shortage of health care workers, this makes recruitment in rural communities' off-road system difficult. In many of the rural communities that we partner with, there's just not enough housing. Additional federal support would significantly strengthen our ability to recruit and retain providers to reliably deliver care, especially as the recent rural health care transformation funding cannot be used for these purposes.
Federal funding for workforce housing is further constrained by the Build America, Buy America Act requirements. The goals of BABA are important, but it creates barriers which often make projects infeasible in Alaska due to the high costs. Existing waivers take significant time and can cause tribes to miss full construction seasons, driving costs even higher. We recommend that Congress adopt a narrow tribal exemption to support the efficient use of federal funding. Further, we recommend that the subcommittee build on the progress made in the FY 26 budget for Indian health professions and direct IHS through report language to fully utilize its authority to set aside funding for workforce development scholarships administrated by tribes and tribal organizations.
The next topic I'd like to highlight is behavioral health funding. Mental health is so important, and while there are modest increases in the mental health and alcohol and substance abuse accounts from last year, they remain insufficient to address needs. Currently, we rely on a patchwork of grants and third-party reimbursements to maintain services, leaving programs vulnerable to funding instability. Tribes have long requested that IHS behavioral health grants be delivered through self-governance contracts and compacts, and we urge the subcommittee to readapt report language from the FY 19 Consolidated Appropriations Act supporting this approach. And I love what Miss Luzardo had to share, that we're the best return on investment.
And I'd say that that's true in Alaska also. We're happy to share that we will be opening a crisis stabilization and crisis residential, as well as expanded detox facility called Yesh Yeshta. I am safe place, and would love to have members come to that opening this summer. So finally, advanced appropriations and mandatory funding. We've heard this throughout, and I'll just be echoing the remarks.
I know the subcommittee is no stranger to the ask. The IHS receives advanced appropriation, but this remains crucial in FY 27. I appreciate your comments, Chairman Simpson. Before advanced appropriations, the 2019 government shutdown demonstrated the risk this posed for tribal communities, and the FY 2026 shutdown showed that advanced appropriations work to keep clinics open during federal funding disruption, saving lives. To take this issue off of all of our lists, it's time for Congress to implement mandatory funding for IHS key obligations, specifically contract support costs and Section 105 l lease payments.
SCF requests that Congress prioritize these payments by making them mandatory, even if it's not possible for other IHS appropriations yet. Their current status outside of advanced appropriations leaves them unprotected in the event of a shutdown. Mandatory contract support costs and 105 l payments would ensure these areas do not continue to stress the limited funding allocation this subcommittee receives. Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on behalf of South Central Foundation and the Alaska Native people we partner with on our journey of health and wellness.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you all for being here. I'm gonna have to remember that term, limited lightness. Is that what you're limited by daylight? Yeah.
Seasonal. Seasonal darkness. Seasonal darkness. Okay. I'm just well, first of all, thanks for all you do.
I've been doing this for a long time, and we've had hearings for a long time. A lot of you have come back many times. And I've wondered if in the back of your mind, going, here we go again.
Speaker 1
Roy's back asking the same thing, ta da da da, you know, all that kind of stuff. And does anybody hear us? Good question. I will tell you, people on this committee hear you. The reason that we've been able to do as well as we have in a bipartisan way is because we do hear you.
Do we get everything we want? No. This would be different if I were king for a day, or if Shelly were queen for a day. You know? But you guys do make a difference, and we're trying to do our best.
And I know that because we hear you say, thank you for not cutting our budget like we do the others, and that kind of stuff. But you kinda wonder, you know, how can you not fund treaty and trust responsibilities. Yeah. Yeah. When you're funding other things that are more discretionary? You know?
It's a good question. But it's one of those things that we fight for. And I will tell you, out of all of Congress, this is the area that there is probably more bipartisan cooperation and support for than any other area that I've dealt with. So in case you wonder if you're doing any good or if this is just a waste of time, it's not. It's important to us that you come and talk to us.
And it's important for us that we get out and talk to you, too. So, Johnny?
Speaker 2
Well said, Mr. Kia. And, yeah, we're gonna have to run to votes. But I just wanted to thank you too, for all of you being here. Really appreciated the work that you're doing, that all that you're saying, and just mention a couple of things on the BABA waivers. Interestingly, I just sent a letter to HUD myself last week because in my home state of Maine, affordable housing is being slowed up by that, because housing is way more complicated than building roads and bridges.
So while I believe in Buy America, I can't even imagine what it's like in Alaska to try to build. But we had some huge complications. And I also think they're just not moving fast enough on granting the waiver. So, we're definitely following that one closely. And I know that's not actually health, but I appreciate that you brought it up, because housing and, you know, these things are all related.
And I appreciate the work that you're doing in your testimony. And also thought if I I'll try to understand better the issues that you have as an urban health center, not being able to get the traditional Indian medicines covered. Because that just seems so critically important, the work that people have been doing and incorporating that seems to add so much more value to the health system. So if there's anything else we can do to be useful on that, I don't understand it that well, but I'm happy to. And just, again, really appreciate all of you.
Your testimony was very good, and thank you for being with us.
Speaker 1
No. Thank you. We really do appreciate you being here today, and we've got about 30 seconds left in our vote on the floor.
Speaker 1
So committee stands in recess, and we'll reconvene for our last two panels right after this vote series. Committee will come to order. Angelita Albert? I'm not gonna ask if that's how I'm supposed to pronounce it. An awake.
Okay. I'll just remember, I'm awake. An awake. An awake. Anawake, you're first.
Speaker 21
Chairman Simpson, ranking member Pingri, other members of the subcommittee. Thank you for holding the hearing today. My name is Angelique Albert. I'm a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Montana. I've served as the CEO of Native Forward Scholars Fund since 2017.
I'm here to testify on the Bureau of Indian Education's higher education scholarship and financial aid programs. For more than 55 years, Native Forward has empowered over 22,000 students representing more than 500 tribes across all 50 states with more than 350,000,000 in scholarships and support services. Our mission is simple, to ensure every native student who seeks higher education has access to it. But even with the support of federal appropriations and private fundraising, we can only cover a small fraction of the rising college costs. Last year alone, Native Forward documented a $17,800,000 unmet need among the students applying for BIE funding scholarships.
And demand is surging. Applications for our scholarship opportunities have increased by nearly 50% this year, with more than 12,000 native students seeking support. This is a historic number for us. Today, I'd like to highlight three specific BIE scholarship and financial aid programs supported through the annual discretionary appropriations process, and respectfully request that you reference my written testimony for the specific FY 27 funding recommendations. I would like to begin with a special higher education program known as SHEP within the BIE budget.
SHEP provides financial aid through two initiatives that are administered by Native Forward. First, the SHEP graduate level scholarship program supports students pursuing degrees in fields that are essential to tribal sovereignty and federal trust responsibilities such as law, education, business, counseling, and public health. Last year, the program funded 163 graduate level students with an average award of $9,000, yet faced a $6,700,000 unmet need. Second is our loan for service program, which provides scholarships to students pursuing public service careers. After graduation, these scholars serve roles that directly benefit tribal communities, including positions at the BIE, BIA, IHS, tribal governments, and tribal organizations.
Participation in this program has doubled since 2020 due to its proven impact as a tribal workforce development tool. Last year, it supported 99 students yet had a documented unmet need of $2,500,000. Another critically important scholarship program is the Science Postgraduate Scholarship Fund, which is transforming native representation in STEM fields at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels. Established in 2014, this fund supports students in disciplines critical to Indian countries such as medicine, public health, nursing, engineering, environmental science, and these fields are essential to health care delivery, environmental protection, and infrastructure development. Over the past five years, this fund has supported an average of 194 scholars per year, yet last year faced an $8,600,000 unmet need, making clear that current funding levels fall far short of supporting native students in these critical STEM fields.
In 1969, there were only 38 native lawyers and 15 native doctoral students in the entire country. Since then, SHEP, Loan For Service, and SPGSF have played a pivotal role in advancing native representation and contributed to the attainment of over 2,200 law degrees and more than 2,000 doctoral degrees. Leaders like Boo Nigran, president of Navajo Nation, who earned his doctorate in organizational change and leadership, as well as Ari Martin, a former acting deputy assistant secretary at US Department of Interior, now uses her legal training to advance tribal sovereignty and to protect native families. Bu and Arin are just two of the many native forward scholars, representing tribal nations from across every country in every corner of Indian country, including Chairman Simpson, the Shoshone Bannock tribe of Idaho, and ranking member, wow, I just lost my chain of thought. Sorry.
Pingri, the Passamaquoddy nation of Maine. These students demonstrate what is possible when we invest in native students. In closing, I urge the subcommittee to increase its support for BIE-funded scholarship and financial aid programs in FY '27. With current funding, Native Forward could support 6,029 out of the 12,000 applications we received this year. From those applications, we have a documented $340,000,000 unmet financial need, needs that extend well beyond the BI programs discussed today.
This is not simply a funding gap. It is a barrier to tribal workforce development, economic mobility, and the federal government's treaty and trust obligations. Native Forward stands ready to continue our partnership with this subcommittee and the Bureau of Indian Education to ensure tribal students and tribal nations have the resources they need to thrive. Thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 17
I'm awake. Chairman Simpson, freaking member penguin. My name is Anewake Rose. I'm a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. I'm also of Muskogee descent, and I have the honor to serve as the president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium or AHEC.
We welcome the opportunity to testify before you today. TCUs operate currently 35 tribal colleges and universities that are accredited across the United States in 16 states. We just added a new TCU in California, and we operate more than 90 campuses. We're currently serving about 160,000 American Indians, Alaska Natives, and rural residents annually. First, I wanna express my appreciation to this subcommittee for all of the work that you've done for Indian education.
If it had not been for you, quite frankly, with the president's budget that you received last year, tribal colleges might have closed. So thank you for your continued partnership and your understanding of how important tribal colleges are. As you know, TCUs are powerful engines of opportunity, economic growth, and community development. Last year, AHEC released an economic impact study, which provided a powerful testament to the fact that TCU stands far more than beyond the walls and classrooms that we provide. Tens of thousands of TCU alumni are currently employed across the US, and their collective contributions generate $3,800,000,000 in added income to the national economy.
That's the equivalent of just over 40,000 jobs in 2023. We've provided you with the details of our budget request and our written testimony. But for my time today, Chairman Simpson, I want to focus on the question that you asked President Hall a few weeks ago. He is our president of Blackfeet Community College in the hearing that you hosted. You asked what TCUs can do to address workforce gaps in the Indian Health Service, and we are uniquely positioned to be a part of that solution.
As one of the most cost-effective pathways for higher education, averaging just 4,000 in annual tuition and located in close proximity to many IHS facilities, TCUs represent a practical and strategic partner to strengthening the healthcare workforce serving tribal nations. TCUs are especially well positioned to strengthen the nursing pipeline. Nearly half offer nursing degrees ranging from associate to bachelor's programs, and of those, two institutions in Montana hold national accreditation. Yet many TCUs require targeted investments to expand and sustain these programs, including funding for essential equipment, such as anatomy tables and clinical training tools. Despite our promising programs, too many TCU nursing graduates struggle to secure positions at nearby IHS facilities, and must instead seek employment in the private sector.
Given the documented workforce shortages, there is a clear opportunity to better align TCU nursing graduates with the existing IHS workforce needs. Therefore, AHEC is proposing a collaborative approach to turn this challenge into an opportunity. This subcommittee could fund a designated set-aside or a demonstration initiative within an already established program. There are several proven models to reference, such as the TCU Head Start Partnership Program at HHS, which is designed to help TCUs establish and sustain early childhood education career pathways. Best practices from this successful program can inform the creation of a TCU IHS nursing partnership program.
Or, we could strengthen the already existing IHS American Indians into Nursing program, which was authorized under the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. Although the program acknowledges TCUs as a priority applicant, the current limitation of only one award per region greatly prohibits TCU participation. We stand ready to support the committee as a partner to advance targeted workforce needs and solutions within the IHS. As the subcommittee considers these workforce strategies, Chairman Simpson, along with a committee a few weeks ago, asked to visit one of our tribal colleges, and we would love to be able to help create an opportunity for the committee to come and visit. I'm not sure we can provide you the bumpy bus ride that you had out to Navajo, but we would love to get you out to Montana so that you can visit our schools and see firsthand what our accredited programs are doing.
Lastly, AHEC appreciates the subcommittee's continued commitment to support tribal education. And as you consider the fiscal year 27 budget, I urge you to view tribal colleges as not just educational institutions but as strategic partners capable of strengthening rural health care systems, stabilizing local economies, as well as advancing the federal government's trust and treaty responsibilities. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you both for being here, and thanks for your testimony. You guys are way ahead of where I was in this. You're already doing what I thought, yeah, that needs to be done. Just out of curiosity, we talked about both in the hearing that we had in Labor H a couple weeks ago.
Let's suggest I'm a tribal member. I'm a young kid in high school. I wanna go to college, and I have a dream. I wanna become a doctor someday, or I wanna become a dentist, or one of those things. And, so I work with you and your tribal community college, and you get me so far.
I get a degree there, and then I've gotta go on to medical school or dental school. Right? How, because you don't run any medical or dental schools, do you?
Speaker 17
No, not currently any medical or dental schools within tribal colleges. Although we do have DHAT programs in Alaska.
Speaker 1
See, the reason I asked this question, I'm curious. I'm curious about tribal health issues. Mhmm. That are different than what I will say mine. Tribes have used herbs and things that have done great jobs with those kinds of things that are kind of, not, I don't want to say not accepted, but are not the normal treatment that you would get today. The best treatment for diabetes is actually getting tribal members eating the traditional foods that they've always eaten and stuff.
I mean, bar none. That's the best way to do it. When you send a tribal member to a medical school, do they have the opportunity to learn those types of things that are important to the tribes? Or how do we make that happen so that they don't just, and I don't want to put a separation. They just don't learn the medicine.
They learn your medicine, too. You know?
Speaker 17
So I think that's a really great question. And I think, you know, if we started a tribal college and then we create a pipeline onto UND or other programs, and our tribal colleges have great matriculation agreements between those universities in our four years. But there's another issue at place, and that's creating clinics within IHS. Because once we graduate those folks, we want them to come back and work in our communities. So let's say they do need to leave to go to UND, we want them to come back and work in our communities.
We need to create a better opportunity to do clinical rotations within IHS, because right now, it's just not there. They need funding for infrastructure to be able to build that clinical rotation. And did you know, we don't even have a list of all the IHS facilities that offer clinicals. Really? There's not a national list to do that.
So if we could start there, it's hard to know how to build their infrastructure when they don't even have one solid place that we could go to understand it. But even as we create that pipeline from a student from our TCU to the four-year institution, on to medical school, we want them to come back. And then that means making sure IHS has the facilities and opportunities to be able to do that for our students.
Speaker 21
And we have seen like, I'm a product of a tribal college, and there are courses that integrate tribal ecological knowledge, which is what you're talking about.
Speaker 21
See that at tribal colleges. And then the beautiful thing that we're seeing at Native Forward is since we fund over 1,700, we fund students at these campuses and then coordinate different efforts with them. And we're seeing more tribal professors teaching courses on campuses. And I think that, the more of that we see, the more integration of those tribal ecological knowledge that will be integrated. I've seen that in the agriculture field.
So when we teach, when we do collaborations with the University of Montana, some of the professors there are just amazing where they're teaching courses that integrate the tribal knowledge into mainstream universities. And I do think that that is a benefit that our students and our people can contribute to society. So.
Speaker 1
Yeah. That's the other question I was going to ask. Are we treating or are we teaching people like me that might wanna go to medical school to learn anything about tribal ways of doing things? Because who knows? I might go practice in Blackfoot, Idaho, where the southern border of my town is the Port Holiday Inn Reservation.
I might have a whole lot of Native Americans to come and see me and stuff, you know, and that type of thing. Because I've discovered over the years, at least I've come to believe, I've come to understand that there's a lot of knowledge, ancient knowledge in tribes that we don't understand. And I say we don't understand, and not just in medicine and that type of things. I mean, I've been fascinated. We're dealing with wildfires.
Looking back how the Indians manage lands.
Speaker 1
In the, you know, eons before we ever came. We could learn a lot. And I guess what I'm getting at is how much interaction is there, that goes on, between these tribal colleges and advanced degrees and other things that because there ought to be a lot of interaction.
Speaker 21
Well, and I think that that's something that we can always work on doing a better job. But since the inception of our organization in 1969, that's something that our founders have felt was important. We have to have representation, and we have to have educated natives with graduate and professional degrees.
Speaker 21
That starts with culturally congruent education, and then leads us into those graduate and professional degrees so that we can have voices in spaces where we can make a difference. So whether that's in policy work with Deb Holland, or whether that's leading educational institutions. So there are a lot of the graduates of the BA programs who are leading tribal colleges right now. So they're leading those tribal colleges, but also people like Doctor Henrietta Mann who served in an administrative position at a mainstream university. Well, a couple of them, and then which was University of Montana and Montana State University.
So she was at an administrative level. And it's when you have that type of leadership at that level that you see change, and you see partnerships, and you see the integration of more tribal customs into the mainstream universities. So I think that is kind of key, is making sure that our people have the support at a local level and with the tribal colleges, but then are able to have the support through the BIE programs to get those higher level degrees so that their voice is heard. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thank you. Really interesting discussion. Jocelyn was just showing me that there is some sort of finder tool on the IHS website.
Speaker 2
Know if that's new or not what you're looking for. On residencies, maybe?
Speaker 17
Thank you. I will take a look. The last time I looked for a list just for folks that would do clinicals, that was not provided for nursing clinicals. But if that's an updated list, thank you so much.
Speaker 2
I'll take I did, I didn't mean to derail your suggestion because I also thought what you were saying earlier was this idea of, I mean, I was sort of shocked to hear you say that people could come out of a nursing school and then not be able to get correct. A job in some IHS. That seems crazy, since we're looking for so many people. So, I'd be interested to know, you know, if you wanted to write some language that maybe we could think of putting into the approb spill or just any way to sort of move forward on that idea of a certain number of placements, because I do like that idea, and it seems like just a natural kind of coupling.
Speaker 17
AEC is currently in the middle of writing a red paper to look at all of the policy solutions, whether those be legislative letters or administrative fixes that we can do to correct this. It is really quite fascinating how many roadblocks are across the way. Everything from our folks graduated a GS-2, and they won't start hiring until a GS-4. That seems like a very simple solution, right, that we should be able to address. And so we look forward to sharing that with you.
Speaker 17
But we would absolutely have some language to start addressing this right away. Thank you.
Speaker 2
And one other thing you mentioned that you had a 50% increase last year in request. So, what do you attribute that to? More people wanting to go to college or other sources of funds drying up?
Speaker 21
Other sources of funds drying up, and not just the supports. And, you know, the number one barrier to college for native students is affordability. And so scholarships are the core things that we focus on and will be until we can address that. But it's the scholarship funding that comes from other sources as well as those support services on campus. So we've seen a massive increase in the number of calls that we get with students needing just additional support, access to resources.
So we have seen, yeah, a decline in those other resources, so them leaning on us.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, I mean, we've been talking a little bit about this all day. But with other cuts in the budget, then it just puts that much more pressure on the money that's there, whether other scholarship programs are being cut or some of the other support services. If you're a student, you don't qualify for SNAP anymore, then all of a sudden, that's a new problem, or if you can't access housing. So I think we have to be aware of that when we're thinking about the fact that we never have enough resources here to begin with.
And when some of those other funds are gone, that's really problematic.
Speaker 21
And our average college-going student is head of household who's working and making an average of $35,000 a year, and our average unmet need is $26,000. We did a college affordability study with three key partners of ours. And the surprising thing that we took away from that is 16 percent of our native scholars across the country are experiencing homelessness. And I've talked to many of those students. And when I tell that number, they're like, that's me.
I had to live out of my car to be able to go to college. So you have to choose if you want housing, or if you want an education. So just feeling the effects of the scholars is pretty there, there is a heavy burden on them.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Yeah. You guys, whether you realize it or not, you're the key. Yeah. To the future of ending poverty, yeah. Reservations across this country.
So, thanks for what you do.
Speaker 1
You bet. Cecil fires under Cecilia fires under, and Harina Martin. Sorry.
Speaker 7
I greet you with a warm handshake with good feelings to my heart. And I also wanna acknowledge the women who sit on this committee, the marches, women recognizing women who succeed, but also recognizing all the Indian women in Indian country who are working somewhere to help their families and their communities. Thank you. My Lakota name is Bear Who Climbs a Tree. I grew up speaking Lakota, learned how to speak English in a Catholic boarding school.
And so today, I come to you in a really good way. Chairman Simpson, ranking member Pingree, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony regarding funding for the Bureau of Indian Education, tribal treaty schools, 183 in Indian country. My name is Sasaya Fyersonder, and I come to you as a lifelong educator, president of the Lakota Nation Education Coalition, and president of Little School Board. Little One School Board became 638 in 1978, shortly after the 638 bill was passed. So our school board and our school has been under local control for 48 years.
Obviously, we're doing something right. What do you think? Yeah. I also represent the Saint Francis Indian School on a Rosebud reservation and a Laurel Brew Indian School on a Laurel Brew reservation. We're reaching out to pull in other schools that are on the same funding level to help each other.
I wish I could sit here and tell you that our schools are thriving, that our kids have safe buildings, strong teachers, and all the tools they need to succeed. But that is just not the case. Our local control Bureau of Indian Education schools are underfunded, outdated, and in some cases, unsafe. On behalf of these schools and the native students they serve, we respectfully request full support for the FY 2027 Bureau of Education budget request totaling $1,844,000,000, including $1,444,000,000 for operation of Indian education program and $400,000,000 for education construction. As we look at our budget and our line items and our tribal schools, it is very obvious that our schools need additional resources.
The Indian School Equalization Program, called ICEAP, in $2,031,000 5,000,000 was enacted. We're requesting for 2027, 9501.5 million. Education facilities operations was funded at $83,800,000. We're asking for $109,000,000. Education facilities maintenance, 76,200,000, were asking for $100,000,000. Tribal grant support costs, 98,800,000 funded in 2026, were asked for $150,000,000. In transportation, 71,400,000 in 2026, we're asking for $75,500,000. I can go down this list and tell you over and over, you have it in front of you, of the needs that we have. Because of the age of the schools, maintaining them costs additional dollars. ICEPT is to educate our children, pay teachers' salaries, and buy books and materials.
However, because the line items in those areas for maintaining our building continue to fall, we pull money out of education to make up for those shortfalls. For many tribal communities, BIA-funded schools remained a primary education institution. And so one of the other areas that I want to be very clear about right now is the Pine Ridge Reservation. We have 4 school systems. We have the BIA schools, and we have the BIA school, one of them.
We have five public schools and then private schools. I want to leave you with asking this question. How come four school systems on one reservation get funded differently? The BI school, our schools get $8,200 per student. The public schools get $17,700 per student.
And the Department of Education, the Department of, DEA schools are $25,000 per student. And the public schools, I meet the private schools at a lower level. I know my time is going to be up, but it's also important for you to know that we look at every piece of funding that we get. We reach out to help other schools. We share knowledge and information, so we're able to come to Congress and give you numbers each time.
In conclusion, I'd like to just say that it's the responsibility that we have to come in front of you to ask for continuing support. And I'm not even going to mention treaty obligations because that's a given, correct? That's a given. However, we also want to encourage you to really seriously think about how we can help you do a better job to make sure those resources reach our community and our schools. In conclusion, I'd like to say this.
Our tribal schools have graduated some amazing human beings. We're talking about health care here, a few minutes ago. My high school has a RN program encouraging them to seek nursing as a career. The good news is last year, one of our high school students who graduated went on and became RN as now a nurse practitioner. And so the goal of education is not to be a senator or a congressperson.
The goal of education is for somebody to have a skill so that one day they can go to work, get a paycheck, buy food and make car payments and car insurance payments. That's the goal of education. So I think no matter what, across the Pine Ridge Reservation, we're doing okay. However, our buildings have fallen apart, darn it. You guys, you need to help us get more money.
Thank you. Mhmm.
Speaker 1
I agree. I've been out there, and I've seen some of the schools. And the one we went to, I don't know if it's still there, but this was.
Speaker 1
Fifteen years ago, when we went on a tour. Yeah. Out there and stuff, part of it was condemned.
Speaker 1
Because I'm kinda going, but we were still sending students to the other part that wasn't condemned. You know? Mhmm. Jeez. It was and I tell people all the time, frankly, we were putting children in schools that I wouldn't put my dog in.
I don't mean that disrespectfully, but I mean, that's, you know, I love my dog. Okay. And that's a problem. But, anyway, we'll talk about We got yolking. Arena?
Speaker 18
Afternoon, Chairman Simpson, thank you, Member Pangry. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you today. My name is Auren Martin, and I am here today as secretary of the board of directors for the National Indian Child Welfare Association, or NICWA, and also as the proud mom of two adopted children who I was able to adopt through Indian child welfare programs, tribal Indian child welfare programs. I'm honored to be here today on their behalf to share testimony regarding BIA human services programs. NCWA is based on, I'm not close.
I'm just gonna relax. NCWA is based in Portland, Oregon, but our work supports tribal nations and urban Native communities across the country. We focus on strengthening policies and services that improve outcomes for Native children and families. We work in close partnership with tribal nations to ensure our efforts reflect their priorities and their lived experiences. At the heart of our work is a simple and important truth.
Tribal self-determination and tribal sovereignty are essential to building effective human service systems for our people. While there are many ways to address challenges, the most effective and sustainable solutions are those designed and led by tribes themselves. Many native communities continue to face serious challenges, including child abuse and neglect, mental health stressors, violence, and substance abuse. What we understand more clearly today is that these issues are often rooted in trauma, both from present-day experience and from historical events that have impacted generations. Trauma has long lasting effects on brain development, behavior, overall well-being, and health.
It's not on my list, it does. And when it goes unaddressed, those impacts continue, affecting not just individuals, but families and entire communities. That is why it is so important that services are not only available, but also culturally grounded and responsive to the community needs. Across the country, tribal nations are redesigning their human services programs to better reflect their values, strengthen family engagement, and improve outcomes, and these efforts are working. In child welfare, many tribes and urban Native organizations are using Indian Child Welfare Act funds to support culturally based prevention services, services that strengthen families and reduce the need for foster care.
One example comes from the confederated tribes of the Umatilla and Oregon. They redesigned their child welfare system to improve coordination, increase family engagement, and better integrate the tribal court system. In retrospect, their changes seem so simple and intuitive, but they did three things that I think are really impressive. They switched from being reactive to trying to do prevention, to stop things from happening before they happened. They also changed their image.
They wanted to make sure that the community knew that they weren't there to take children, to remove children, to accuse people, but to help keep them together. And that helped incredibly in the community. And then they widened the circle. They worked with families, extended family, and brought them into the process to help support the families that they were working with, the smaller families. The result was impressive.
There was a 60% reduction in foster care placements. Just as importantly, families are now reaching out for support earlier, before situations become a crisis. This is what culturally grounded, community-driven approaches can achieve. When tribes incorporate culture into their service, they strengthen protective factors that help families heal from trauma and build resilience over time. And this work isn't isolated.
Tribal nations across the country are seeing similar successes, not just in child welfare, but across human service systems more broadly. The BIA Tewahi Initiative is another important example. It supports tribal nations in integrating services across child welfare, social services, housing, and general assistance, helping families access more support in a coordinated and effective way. Red Lake did much the same thing as what did with this system, and they were able to reduce foster care placements by 50% and reunifications by 300%. In many respects, tribal nations are leading the way in designing systems that move families towards stability and long-term well-being.
Tribal nations are also strengthening state systems. Many tribes partner with states to improve services for Native families. I have experience with that. That's what I did when I was an ICWA worker or ICWA attorney. We provide cultural experience, connections to community resources, and critical context that leads to better outcomes.
Like many native families, my own experience reflects the importance of community, culture, and connection in ensuring children grow up in stable and supportive environments. These connections are not just meaningful, they are essential. When tribal nations have the resources they need, they deliver results. Thank you again for your time and consideration. I'm happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you, and thank you for both being here today. And I got to say you asked a good question, and that is, how can you have BIA, BIE, state, whatever, all the schools on the reservation? There seems to be that there's not any coordination in how we do all this. You know?
Speaker 7
You know, I am living and working in my community. I work with all four school systems.
Speaker 7
And then I began to realize the inequity. So these four schools sit on the same tribal land. Yeah. Nontaxable land. Yeah.
Some get impact aid, others don't. Interesting, yeah. And so part of my job as a community leader and just a nosy person, I'm going to try to find out why do those inequities exist. You know, whenever we began to take a look at really understanding your tribal community, there's so much information. Laws that were passed, legislation that was passed that impacted us over the years.
You thought you knew something, and then something else happened twenty years ago that changed that as well. Yep. But, really, the challenge is to try to create, within your own community, an understanding. But most importantly, you know, I just wanted to comment on your diabetes and all this stuff. I'll be 80 years old in October.
I'm not diabetic. I don't have high blood pressure. I have no health care problems because I grew up in an old Indian way. You know why I'm not diabetic? I don't eat white flour.
White flour is poison. How many of you know that? Let me tell you a story about Minghelakadi. You know who Minghelakadi is? He was the first Indian agent for Pine Reach in 1889.
Okay. So what happened is they put us on a reservation. They took away how we lived and how we ate. And so they brought us bags of white flour and sugar and lard. But they didn't tell us what to do with it.
So as he was riding his horse across the reservation, he saw bags of white flour, kletsimod. He got really upset. What the heck? You know, we're trying to feed you. What the Indians, the Lakota women said, What is this?
What do you do with it? And so pretty soon, some white woman came and told them how to make bread. Okay? Anyway, long story short, our bodies were not designed to metabolize white flour. So, the foundation of diabetes is white flour and sugar.
And so if you don't eat, if you really don't want to be diabetic, you don't eat white flour. Anyway, can go on. In '87. Did you know that?
Speaker 7
In 1888, the first Catholic school was built by the Jesuits. For your information, President Grant gave Pine Ridge to the Episcopal Church. So in 1877, Chief Red Cloud, an entourage, came to DC to meet with President Hayes to get permission to build a Catholic school on the Pine Ridge Reservation. So education is something that I've looked at from 1888 to today, and it's a really interesting history. However, no matter what, and I'm going to do it, I may do something right now that I may not get permission from my colleagues.
But because we're not getting the kind of resources, and thank you for trying really hard to get us resources, we're going to introduce a bill to once and for all, put the kind of money we need to repair and replace our schools. What do you think? We have to. We keep coming to you. Thank you for your generosity, but we're not getting the kind of money we need to, once and for all, fix our schools.
So we're going to go ahead and see if we can introduce new legislation for once and for all, get the kind of money we need to repair and replace our schools. So you're going to help us sponsor that, by the way. The
Speaker 1
I've always noticed that the defense department does a pretty good job of schools on military bases and stuff, and they have a program that they do that. And it was put in by, I think, Norm Dix kinda started at.
Speaker 1
But they've done a great job, frankly, of rebuilding schools on military bases and stuff like that. And I've thought in the back of my mind, how do they do that? And how could we do so, you know, but then the defense budget is half our total discretionary budget and stuff. So it would take obviously more resources and stuff. But I just want to thank you for what you do in terms of child welfare and stuff.
That's so important. And you said you're an attorney?
Speaker 18
I started my career doing equal cases for the United Travel of Wisconsin.
Speaker 1
Well, you mentioned when you sat down the number of women that are here, I look around the room and see all the women and everything. When I first became chairman the first time, the chairman usually put some artifacts around the room or whatever. And I told the Shoshank tribe. I said, give me some artifacts of your tribe that I could put up here. So they went and had one of their artists paint this picture up here.
And it is of the Bannock and Shoshone women. He says they are so important in our culture and the strength of our culture. Mhmm. And so that they gave me that and said, as long as you're chairman, we'll keep that there. But anyway, I appreciate it.
Thank you for being here.
Speaker 2
doing and for your thoughts. And I agree. I mean, we should have some sort of mechanism. It's like I heard someone describe it once as, you know, the Marshall Plan for tribes. We should, at some point, just say we have to round up a lot of capital. Yep.
To just get ourselves back to zero, to equal, to, you know, fix the infrastructure. Because there's no way we are ever gonna catch up with the small amount of allocation that we get now. And so for some of these things like school buildings or health care, hospitals, we really do need or we need some funding mechanism that's just dedicated to that, you know, something, a specific tax stream or something.
Speaker 2
I agree. It and I don't think, you know, it's not an ideological difference or something that people oppose. And if most people hear the stories of how poorly we meet our treaty and tribal obligations, they would be, you know, embarrassed as Americans that we've done so poorly. So I do think it's something we should try to think about, at least to boost it in some way. And I wholeheartedly agree with you.
White flour and sugar, that's what makes you sick.
Speaker 2
I'm all in on that one. Exactly. And thank you. Really, it's such important work, and it's really impressive to hear the, you know, the changes that have been made when we take on the challenges that families face differently and also understand the structural issues that families are dealing with. So it seems like you're doing really good work.
Speaker 18
Absolutely. And the committee has been fantastic in supporting increases in those programs, but also supporting flexibility, because that's been the real key to making these changes where you would have these very stratified programs. Now we're able to. Collapse them and ease the administrative burden, but also just redesign them in a better way.
Speaker 7
Can I add something to her testimony? Anytime children are removed from their home, they have an emotion called abandonment.
Speaker 7
Our schools, we have behavioral health programs to allow our children to touch those feelings. So anytime a child is removed from their home to over here, they're going to need therapy. Because even as a child, when you're taken from your mother or your father and given to a stranger, you feel like you're being thrown away or rejected. A term with abandonment. I know the term really well because I work at the boarding school I went to, and working with former borders and talking to them, that was the most important emotion they felt when they drove away and left them at the boarding school.
They don't want me anymore. They don't love me. Sense of abandonment is deep. Any child in foster care needs therapeutic services. That's all I know.
And then so we get to them at our schools. Our behavioral health programs look at all those things on a historical basis as well. So even me, I had to deal with abandonment issues too, going to boarding school. I know the term really well. And so a lot of our kids, so even though the NHL welfare is doing a great job, I just don't want any more kids put in social services.
That's what I pray for. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. And thank you for the work that you guys do. It's very important.
Speaker 1
So we look forward to working with you as we try to address these issues.
Speaker 1
Again, thanks to all the witnesses for being with us to discuss the issues that are important in Indian country. This subcommittee stands adjourned until tomorrow at 9AM. Right? Thank you.
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