Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies – American Indian and Alaska Native Public Witness (Day

Good morning and welcome to the second day of our public witness hearings for American Indians and Alaska Native programs. I want to welcome all the distinguished tribal leaders and leaders and other leaders here today. Thank you for all to all of our witnesses for appearing before the subcommittee to share your concerns and perspectives on these important topics. These hearings are incredibly important. And we appreciate the opportunity to hear from so many tribes and national and regional tribal organizations across Indian Country. Indian Country has been and will continue to be a bipartisan priority for this subcommittee. I look forward to continuing to work with Ranking Member Pingree to expand the subcommittee's efforts to strengthen our federal commitment to honor our treaty and trust responsibilities with American Indians and Alaska Natives. Thank you for appearing before the subcommittee and sharing your concerns and perspectives on these important topics. In terms of hearing logistics, I will call each panel of witnesses to the table one panel at a time. I'd like to ask everyone to please keep your testimony to five minutes. I know that's hard sometimes. I understand the need in Indian Country is great and I don't want to disrespect anyone, but I will have to gavel if folks run over so that we can hear from all of our witnesses. Just as a reminder, your full testimony will be included in the record. We will be using a timer to track the progress of each witness. When the lights turn yellow, the witness will have one minute remaining to conclude their remarks. When the light turns red, I'll have to ask the witness to stop so we can remain on schedule. We'll hear from every witness on each panel before members are provided the opportunity to ask questions. Because we have a full day ahead, I request that we try to keep things moving so we can stay on schedule and respect each other's time. I also want to note that the committee rules prohibit the use of outside cameras and audio equipment during these hearings. The hearings can be viewed in its entirety on the committee's website and an official hearing transcript will be provided at gpo.gov. Before I yield to our distinguished ranking member for her remarks, I'd like to take a moment to recognize one of our long-serving committee staff members, Jocelyn Buck-Hahn, on her well-earned retirement. She has been a dedicated and passionate colleague, especially on some of the on some of the tribal issues we have discussed during tribal witness days. She's been a great counterpart for my staff who have enjoyed working with her over the years. The hearing today will be her final hearing for the committee and we send her into retirement with our warmest wishes and congratulations. I think this is what the second or third retirement that you've had. But thank you, Jocelyn. You have been a great member of this committee and and an important member of this committee. You're lucky, you get to retire. [Laughter.] Now I'd yield to Ranking Member Pingree for any opening statement she might have.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I too want to thank all the witnesses for coming today from all over the country. It's a really important hearing for us and we value your thoughts and information so much as we put together the FY 2027 bill and and just really appreciate your time. And I want to add my thanks to Jocelyn. You said it very well, Mr. Chair, but we have really valued your service. You're just an incredible staffer, always have the information that any of us needs and I don't know how we will operate without you, but you deserve this retirement and we will all look forward to having you drop by and visit every once in a while just to just to torture us. Thank you so very much.

Thank you, Ranking Member Pingree. It is in case any of you guys don't know it, the only success we have here is because of the staff that we have around here. They do such a fantastic job and we hate to lose them, but I understand that they get to retire and that's we're going to miss we're going to miss you all. So thank you. Okay, the first panel is Jonas Hill and Michael Conners. Jonas, you're first.

Greetings everyone. Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Pingree, and members of the committee. I am honored to be here today on behalf of the Oneida Nation. The Oneida Nation is Title 4 and Title 5 self-governance tribe that serves a population of more than 17,000 members. The nation's annual economic impact is $1 billion in Wisconsin and is one of the largest employers in Brown and Outagamie Counties. Our government provides an array of services to our community, employees, and tribal citizens. These include healthcare, emergency services such as police and fire, housing, public works, and much more. Many of these services are funded in part by the federal government. These programs are not discretionary, they are legal obligations rooted in treaties, trust obligations, the U.S. Constitution, and long-standing federal statuses. We appreciate this administration is working to improve efficiency within the federal government, however, this must not come at the cost of fulfilling the federal trust and treaty obligations to tribes. We ask that Congress make it clear that all federal programs that serve tribes should be exempt from funding pauses and staffing reductions. As Congress considers policy policies to increase efficiency and reduce bureaucracy, I would like to point out a successful Indian policy that can help achieve these goals: tribal self-governance. Through self-governance compacts, hundreds of tribal governments are delivering federal programs more effectively and more efficiently than the federal government had previously, all while meeting the unique needs of our tribal communities. As a self-governance tribe, great control over our healthcare programs and law enforcement has been transformational for Oneida Nation, allowing us to focus our efforts on prevention and building capacity by training our citizens to fulfill these roles. Funding levels themselves, however, make becoming and continuing to act as a self-governance tribe extremely difficult. The funding amounts we receive for almost every line item are the same as they were when we first negotiated them in 1994. The current amounts cover less than one to eight percent of each BIA program we operate. Simply put, Congress and federal government are not meeting trust and treaty responsibilities to Indian Affairs. Congress should carefully review the Tribal Interior Budget Council budget recommendations and identify resources to meet the needs of Indian Country. Head Start is another important program for the Oneida Nation and Indian Country at large. We are proud that our Oneida Head Start program incorporates Oneida language and culture into our curriculum, which is key to building confidence and success in the students and families we serve. In recognition of the federal government's trust and treaty obligations to tribes, there must be no elimination or cuts to the tribal Head Start program. Another priority for the nation is shifting Indian Affairs programs out of the discretionary budget and making funding mandatory. The current system results in unpredictable funding levels, ranging for annual cost to large increases, which in turn make it more challenging for tribal governments to manage their own budgets and plan for the future. In the meantime, advance appropriations for the entire Indian Affairs budget should be put in place until its spending is made mandatory. This would eliminate the uncertainty tribal nations face due to continuing resolutions and shutdowns. Oneida Nation is proud to operate our own police department, covering the reservation boundaries over 100 square miles and over 27,000 residents. We've established collaborative relationships with parity with local law enforcement agencies through intergovernmental agent agreements and our officers are cross-deputized by county sheriffs. Unfortunately, tribal law enforcement remains extremely underfunded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, with Oneida Nation receiving less than $140,000 annually for law enforcement. This covers less than three percent of our annual operating cost for the Oneida Police Department. Tribes in Public Law 280 states like Oneida Nation also face the misconception that we do not have public safety needs. This couldn't be further from the truth. Our police department received over 23,000 calls for service in 2025, of which they responded to over 10,000 within the boundaries of the reservation. Oneida Nation strongly supports increased Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement funding for all tribal public safety programs, including these in Public Law 280 states. In conclusion, there are dozens of other vitally important programs within the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill that are important to the Oneida Nation. However, in the interest of time I will conclude my remarks here. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you again for this opportunity and I look forward to working with you.

Thank you, Jonas. You did that perfectly. You had 11 seconds left. That was really good.

That's two minutes faster than I practiced.

[Laughter.] Michael.

Good morning. Greetings Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Pingree, and honorable members of the subcommittee. On behalf of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, we thank you for this opportunity to testify before the subcommittee. Our tribe is a federally recognized tribal government responsible for promoting the education and welfare of all of our tribal members. The tribe is located on the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory in New York and has over 16,580 enrolled tribal members where approximately half of these members live on the reservation. As our territory exists on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, we have an increased need for resources to support our law enforcement and public safety services. We also heavily rely on programs funded through the Environmental Protection Agency due to three off-reservation Superfund sites located directly upstream and upwind from where we draw our drinking water and reside. For these reasons and more, the tribe is requesting that this subcommittee consider the following requests. First, direct the Department of Interior, including the BIA, BIE, and IHS, to uphold its treaty and trust obligations to federally recognized tribal governments. As the complex interplay between Congress, the President, and courts wrestle with issues in an increasingly chaotic world, we need your help to ensure stability for the BIA, BIE, and IHS as they uphold their trust obligations to us. This is best accomplished by fully funding these critical programs. The appropriations process is the best mechanism by which Congress can direct these organizations to do so. Second, increase funding for BIA public safety programs. As our tribe straddles the U.S.-Canada border, it has developed a partnership with various state and federal agencies to provide extensive public safety and justice services to address cross-boundary issues in addition to normal police work on the American side of the border. However, additional funds for tribal courts, law enforcement, criminal investigations, and the correction system are needed as public safety threats continue to grow. Third, fully fund the BIA and BIE at $27.1 billion. Indian Country cannot afford more cuts to crucial programs. On our reservation there are over 1,000 school-age children. They rely on the reliable funding guaranteed to us by our treaties with the federal government. To ensure those obligations are met, we ask you to fully fund the BIA and BIE. Fourth, fully fund the IHS at $63 billion and continue advance appropriations to protect tribal healthcare services during government shutdowns. American Indians experience severe health disparities and chronic diseases at much higher rates than other populations. These conditions are compounded by the chronic underfunding of the Indian health system, which must be reflected by fully funding IHS. We also urge the House to once again include advance appropriations for IHS for fiscal year 2027 in order to prevent uncertainties arising from government shutdowns that destabilize the continuity of care needed to reduce these disparities. And fifth, fund tribal EPA programs and fully fund the removal of the General Motors dump in Massena, New York, which is adjacent to our community. The tribe is finalizing the work plan and budget for renewal of the next five-year performance partnership agreement or PPA. The tribe currently has 16 programs included in the PPA. The PPA streamlines the award of funds to the tribe and allows flexibility for implementation and is therefore an integral part of the tribe's ability to implement environmental protections and exercise self-governance. One of the most pressing environmental issues for the tribe is a General Motors Superfund site in two Northern York counties on the St. Lawrence River. In the 1960s and 70s, the Alcoa Reynolds and General Motors factories in Massena dumped cancer-causing PCBs on land near Akwesasne. GM also released PCBs into the St. Lawrence, Grasse, and Raquette Rivers nearby. The site is adjacent to and upstream from our reservation and impacts around 4,000 Mohawks. The community traditionally uses these river waters and wetland areas for drinking water and cultural traditions. For decades, the released chemicals caused severe health problems for tribal members and that continues today. A fully complete cleanup of the health hazard would ensure a safer community for our tribe and the neighboring communities. Niawen:kówa, thank you for taking the time to consider the appropriation requests of our tribe. We look forward to working with you as you implement measures to uphold the federal trust obligations.

Thank you. Thank you both for your testimony today. As Chairman Cole said yesterday during the hearing, advanced appropriations will continue. Yeah, they will continue as we try to work toward making that health program mandatory funding. I think most people agree that it ought to be, it's the only health program the federal government does that's not mandatory funding. All the rest are. And as Chairman Cole said yesterday, this was the first federal government health program and it's the only one that's not mandatory. So we'll be working on that and trying to get that done. But I did notice and I've heard it more yesterday during testimony and today, both of you mentioned law enforcement and the need on the reservations and stuff to increase funding for law enforcement. Something that we're very concerned about, something that we did in last year's bill, not nearly enough of what needs to be done, but law enforcement on reservations is critical. And with the drug cartels, I mean they go to reservations because they know that there's no law enforcement there that's going to pick them up or it's lacking, you know. And so I think that's a real challenge for us. But I've heard that more than I have in past years about the need to increase law enforcement funding. So anyway, thank you for your testimony. Ms. Pingree. I have in past years about the need to increase law enforcement funding. So anyway, thank you for your testimony. Ms. Pingree?

Yeah, thank you both for your testimony and we certainly heard many of the same concerns yesterday and know that it's really important for us to meet our treaty and trust obligations and and increase those numbers. So I hope we're able to this year. Um... Yeah, thank you both for your testimony and we certainly heard many of the same concerns yesterday and know that it's really important for us to meet our treaty and trust obligations and increase those numbers, so I hope we're able to this year. Chief Conners, I'm interested to know a little bit more about the, you ended with the cleanup site and so are you still, is that still pending being approved for cleanup or where does that stand?

Well, it's cleaned up in EPA's eyes, not in our community's eyes. There's a giant toxic dump sitting there still. It's capped according to EPA's remedy, but not according to our tribal remedies. It is still leaching water into our community, into our rivers, which leads to our drinking water, to our drinking water system. It's traditionally been leaking water into a cove adjacent to the GM site which is on our territory that our kids used to swim in. Our former chief used to swim in there and across the river, across the site, our current chief used to swim in that river, the other Grasse River. And that happened for years and years and years and it's had health disparities for our community, cancer at an alarmingly high rate and other diseases. And it's centralized in a cluster near where the GM site was. And in Massena, it's also said that there's another cluster by where the Alcoa site was. So it's been happening for decades and there's been cleanup according to EPA's remedy but not according to our remedy.

Got it. So are you pursuing anything right now with the EPA about that?

We've been looking at a full funding of a full removal. We've been advocating for that for years. Several years ago it was $20 to $22 million that the estimate was, but there's been no approval for that. We still push for that. We have annual meetings with EPA and it's on the table every year and it's been on the table for the past 15 or 20 years or more. Well, we push and push for that every year. We haven't gotten it yet though. That's why it's mentioned today.

Great. Well, thanks for bringing it to our attention. I'll certainly look into that. Appreciate it. And thank you both for your testimony.

Mr. Ellzey.

Thank you, Chairman. I'm going to continue on with that. This site's been this way, so it was a 1959 to 2009 aluminum parts plant?

Yes. Correct.

And they've been saying it's complete, right? They spent a lot of money on it, but they kind stopped working on it a couple years ago because the EPA says it's done?

The EPA says it's cleaned up to their satisfaction, yes.

And what kind of cluster did you have, a cancer cluster?

Yes, there's cancer all in the area of the Raquette River area, many instances of cancer and other diseases.

So what's the resolution here if the EPA says they're done, they run it, you say it's not done, what's happening next?

I believe nothing is happening next for EPA. There's continued monitoring on our end, but what we want and pushing for is to take in that complete dump, removing it and getting it out of our community because it's still sitting there.

What's in the dump?

All the toxins from decades of operations from General Motors.

But I thought that was cleaned up.

It's not, it's sitting there.

Okay.

There's a giant heaping mound of toxins sitting there covered by dirt.

Covered. Oh, that's the cleanup.

That's their remedy, yes.

Okay. So it's still leaching into the groundwater.

Yes.

Got it. Okay. Thanks for clarification.

Our environment division does testing constantly in the area and it's happening.

Okay. Thanks so much.

Let me follow if I could for just a second on what Congressman Ellzey said, what's next? What is next? I mean you sit and talk to EPA all the time, what's your next steps?

On their end monitoring, on our end we keep pushing for the complete removal. We want the dump removed and out of there.

Directly to the EPA?

It's been talked about.

Has it? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Ms. McCollum.

So Mr. Hill, the things that you had in common in your testimony, I want to acknowledge that and thank you for that. But I've worked on cleaning a lot of contaminated sites. They've mostly been DOD sites. The state of Minnesota has intervened through our pollution control agency, maybe every tribe relations are different. And we got into how clean is clean. So sometimes they decide that they're only going to clean up to industrial standards. And the land was not an industrial site before they got there, it was in your territory. It was clean. One of the things, and forgive me, I just, this just tripped my trigger so I went and Googled it. They said that you were not granted, they were not granted access to two areas of tribal land, was that because you were disputing how clean is clean or are you familiar?

That was a conflict with a family that owns the property. And they've been pushing for the full removal also. They weren't granting access because they weren't going to sign off on less than how clean is clean.

And in here it says that the EPA will perform its work in 2026, is that when they capped it?

No, they capped it probably five to seven years ago.

So do you know what they've done that they finished in 2026?

That's this year, I don't believe they've done anything yet this year but there's probably continued talks with our environment division and EPA. We have annual meetings with them, but the cap that they've done is just covering up what's sitting there and it's still leaching into the ground.

So I've worked with the DOD and the EPA on clearing lands that primarily they used for arsenals and their big thing was, oh we'll just cap it, it's fine, we just push it onto the next generation, the caps can fail and everything else. So yeah, you've got our attention. That was the plan. Thank you, Mr. Hill.

Welcome.

Thank you both for being here today, we appreciate it. You bet. Eugene DeCora and Joseph Rupnick. Move your hands, I want to see the beadwork. All right. Great work. Thank you. Eugene, you're first.

Hąįpį, hįnįkaragįwi, good morning. Good morning Chair Simpson and Ranking Member Pingree and honorable members of the subcommittee. My name is Eugene DeCora, I have the honor of serving on the Winnebago Tribal Council. I appreciate the subcommittee's long-standing commitment to tribal communities and the opportunity to share our fiscal year 2027 priorities. Today I'd like to highlight two critical areas of increased federal investment is essential for our community: public safety and justice and education. First, public safety. Long-standing BIA law enforcement staffing shortages and the overall insufficient level of police services on our reservation have left our community vulnerable. This has led the tribe to make the difficult decision to assume full operations of the Winnebago Tribe Tribal Law Enforcement Department in October of 2025. This was an important step in advancing tribal self-determination and ensuring accountability for the safety of our community. We proudly swore in our new police chief, Jeremiah Lonewolf, a Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of Winnebago Public School. We've hired four officers and an administrative staff member. Our chief of police and his team have hit the ground running in engaging with the community and strengthening partnerships in neighboring jurisdictions and public safety agencies. However, the transition has been accompanied by significant challenges. The transition of operations from BIA District 1 has been hampered by delays in transferring vehicles, equipment, and case records. The tribe was forced to cover 100 percent of law enforcement operating costs for several months due to the federal government shutdown. Due to limited federal resources, the tribe continues to supplement the department to maintain basic services. Detention services presents an even greater challenge. The tribe is preparing to assume full responsibility of corrections later this year. Until that transition occurs, BIA remains responsible for providing correction services. Unfortunately, corrections officers are currently only available Monday through Friday during the daytime hours and detention is a 24/7 public safety function. Equally concerning is the lack of nearby detention space. When local facilities are unavailable, our officers must transport detainees to the BIA facility in Wagner, South Dakota, a five-hour round trip. When an officer leaves the reservation to conduct transport, our already understaffed department loses critical coverage, placing our community at a greater risk. Ultimately, the tribe plans to establish local detention contracts and develop a comprehensive justice center. However, meaningful federal investment will be necessary to make that vision possible. I would like to highlight the importance of school resource officers. For many years, the Winnebago Public School has a dedicated SRO helping maintain a safe learning environment. That position was recently reassigned, leaving a gap in school safety. The tribe has stepped up to ensure an officer's present, but additional federal funding is needed so tribal communities are not forced to fill these gaps alone. Finally, I'd like to speak about Little Priest Tribal College, who was named after our last great war chief, Chief Little Priest. And his last words to our community were, "Be strong and educate my people." LPTC provides associate degrees, career training, and cultural education rooted in our language and traditions, plays a vital role in preparing students for careers, transfer to four-year universities, and leadership within our community. In recent years, the college has experienced remarkable growth. Enrollment has more than doubled, reaching the highest level in its history, and the number of academic programs has expanded from six to 20. Despite the success, funding for tribal colleges through the Indian Student Count formula has remained stagnant. Institutions like LPTC have stretched thin limited resources to cover instruction, student services, facilities, and accreditation requirements. Many of the college's buildings are aging, with some dating back as far as 1947. Funding is needed for major repairs, classroom expansion, student housing, and implementation of the campus master plan. Tribal colleges are engines of opportunity in Indian Country. Increased investment will allow institutions like Little Priest Tribal College to continue growing and serving our students. In closing, the Winnebago Tribe respectfully urges the subcommittee to increase funding for BIA public safety and justice, increase funding for tribal colleges and universities. These investments are essential to ensure safe communities, strong educational opportunities, and continued success of tribal self-determination. Thank you for your time, your continued support of tribal nations, be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Joseph.

Good morning. Thank you. My name is Joseph Rupnick. I'm the chairman for Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. I am a service-connected vet and lifetime membership with the VFW and the DAV. I want to thank you for the invitation to testify. And I need to talk about healthcare, and it sounds like you have already had many folks come up here and talk about healthcare, but I would like to start out by saying thank you to the subcommittee for everything that they've done as far as the increases in healthcare, but the problem is that we have already been underfunded to begin with. And as the years go on, we continue to be in a hole where some tribal funding mechanisms are pirated from other different departments to be able to maintain that certain funding level to help our tribal members get the healthcare that they need. One of the other areas that we were looking at is that the funding mechanism right now has two severe flaws, and it's almost based entirely on what the amount was for last year. And so if you start in the hole and say, well, you're only going to receive what was given to you in the last year, then you're making no headway. And part of that does not account for any inflation or other extended costs that it takes to fund rural healthcare facilities. As you know, being able to have competent providers in those rural areas is a challenge. And we have done everything that we could to make sure that we have those folks out there that are able to serve our community. We talk about spikes, you know, in like gasoline and things like that, those are all added to those costs there that are going to take for us to serve our other community or our community members that live within the boundaries of the reservation. We have had seen an increase in, you know, terminal diseases on the reservation, and those are added costs as well. I cannot say definitively what is contributing to those, but it seems to be an increase over the years. For us, you know, sizeable cut to healthcare means that we're going to have to start reducing some of the essential programs that we have. Right now, we have a current mobile MRI unit that we're able to provide those services to them, our members, and if cuts are experienced, then we're going to have to go ahead on and lose that one there. That would include cuts to staff and those essential services like facility maintenance and administration. We all appreciate, you know, being or living within a budget. And we understand what it takes. I have to go through budgets every year, you know, to fund 30 different departments within my government organization, and I understand that. But when we're looking at, you know, a 2 to 4 percent inflationary increase and we're already starting out at ground zero, that really doesn't help my situation at all. So anything that you could do, I thank the committee for allowing me to testify here today, and we're asking that we increase that funding, especially on tribal healthcare. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you both for your testimony. It is as I was mentioning earlier, it seems like there's kind of an emphasis with a lot of the tribes Thank you. Thank you both for your testimony. It is as I was mentioning earlier, it seems like there's kind of an emphasis with a lot of the tribes on law enforcement and stuff. In the past, it's always been healthcare. And then I think what happened is that we did the advanced appropriation so that during the government shutdown, you didn't have to worry about that and those kind of things, which helped a lot. But you're absolutely right in that if you look at the total amount of spending that we're doing in healthcare in Indian Country, it's not sufficient. We mentioned yesterday that, and Chairman Cole educated me to this, if you look at the amount of money we spend per patient with veterans, which you would expect it to be high because a lot of them have injuries and, you know, lost limbs, all that kind of stuff, you'd expect that to be a high number. But then you look at the rest of the population in general, it's at a certain level, and what we spend per Indian on healthcare is substantially less. And we need to address that, and we're trying to do that. But you're right, it is hard to catch up once you're behind like we are. But we've been trying to do that, but it's kind of interesting to watch the testimony that's now, it's kind of, it was almost all healthcare before. And now it's kind of the other issues, education and law enforcement, that is also vitally important to the tribes. So that's something that we will continue to work on and try to address. I've been, well, last year we held the first hearing that I think Congress has held on the murdered and missing indigenous women and people. I was shocked when I heard that we lost 6,000 people every year. And frankly, nobody knows it. And I will go to a meeting in Idaho, I mean, you know, we have tribes in Idaho and stuff, but I will go to a meeting of a Chamber of Commerce and I'll say that and people are going, what? Why don't I know anything about that? I've been involved in this committee for 24 years. And I just saw it watching a public television program. And I'm kind of going, you got to be kidding me. How come I don't know that? And somehow we've got to address that. And that's why we're trying to put additional money into law enforcement and that kind of stuff, but ultimately you got to, where it all begins is education. And so.

I can't speak on every other state, but I know one of the problems in the state of Kansas is that Indians are classified as others. So if they live off the reservation and something happens to them, they're an other and we never really know. Also a jurisdictional issue.

And that's when we had this hearing on the murdered and missing, we had the FBI here and the other, and I came away from that going, and I study a lot of Indian issues and stuff to get myself familiar with them and stuff, and I understand them when I can read them, and then I get to the part on tribal justice and it just confuses the hell out of me about who has jurisdiction of various things when you got the FBI, you got local, you got county, you got state, and you got tribal law enforcement, you know. And somehow we've got to address this. I happen to be one that believes that tribes ought to be able to do what they want on their reservation. They're in charge.

Thank you. Appreciate that.

I mean, that just makes sense to me. But somehow this jurisdictional issue, and it comes back to what you just said, they're classified as other. So I mean, you can't obviously do justice on your reservation, you got to have our influence on how to do it. You know, that might have been the thinking 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. It's changed substantially. I know that when I was a kid growing up, the southern border of my town was the Fort Hall Indian Reservation and stuff. If you talk to any of the police officers or the sheriffs at that time, they didn't trust the police officers at the Fort Hall Reservation. Now, but they're trained just like state police, just like the local police, all that kind of stuff. And now they're getting memorandums of understanding and cross-deputization with the counties and stuff.

That part of it's important right there is being able to work together.

Yep. That is vitally important. But we need to work on, and this isn't this committee's jurisdiction, it would be the Natural Resources Committee that does it, we need to work on the jurisdictional issue, I think, if we're going to address a lot of these problems on reservations and stuff.

One of the things that we were pushing last year was called the PROTECT Act, and that would allow the tribes to prosecute those that were drug dealers to be able to get that, kind of like how VAWA is. I think that hit a stumbling block because some folks added some other different things in there and then that's too bad. But, you know, that jurisdictional issue and how our tribal officers are licensed, because most of us are gaming tribes, we have to have them licensed through the state, through the BIA, because they have to understand who committed the crime, on what type of land it is, in order to figure out appropriately how to charge that individual. So there's a lot more involved where county officials have no idea where they're at and what's going on.

Yep. And being able to work together. It is confusing as hell. It is not only how you treat a tribal member that commits a crime on your reservation, but a tribal member from a different tribe that commits a crime on your reservation, or if you're a non-tribal member that commits a crime on your reservation. I mean, it is, that's where I get lost when I read all this and go, who put this together? Anyway, it's something that we really need to address if we're going to address the challenges that you face. And it is amazing if you sit and look at the number of police officers, how large some of our reservations are and the number of police officers that you have there, it is way insufficient to actually do law enforcement. I mean, you get a domestic disturbance call, it might be a two-hour drive to get there and you got one officer on duty, you know. I mean, that's unacceptable. So we're going to continue to work on it, but I appreciate your testimony on it. Ms. Pingree.

Yeah, thank you. The chair did a good job of covering our big concerns about law enforcement and I appreciate, you know, what you were telling us about the work you're doing to create your own law enforcement, but hopefully we can provide you with the resources to have your own detention facilities or some local arrangement that sounds really like a huge impediment to what you do.

It's been difficult. You call down to the local contract that's in our county and they're telling us that the facility's full. Sorry, we won't take your prisoner.

That's really awful.

And that's a local contract that's controlled by the BIA in that function there. You know, if we had control of it to be able to go and get a contract to anybody local that works for us and is able to do that, then it keeps our officers on the reservation.

Yeah, it would make so much more sense. It just seems ridiculous. Chair Rupnick, you mentioned that you had had an increase in terminal diseases. That's a disturbing thought. So is that anything in particular? I know there are a lot of challenges when you don't have sufficient healthcare, people don't get the preventative care, but is there something specific going on?

Of course, you know, we're in a farming community. You know, I think a lot of that is attributed to pesticides and herbicides and things like that. While the tribe has pretty strict standards on the use of those chemicals, that doesn't necessarily mean those tribal members that are farming within that community have to follow that. And so many times you see an overuse of fertilizers and things like that, which we have seen a huge increase in algae blooms. So I think that that is all kind of interconnected as well.

Wow. Yeah, that's fascinating. That's a hot topic of debate, so interesting to hear that you're experiencing that. Well, thank you both. Really appreciate your testimony. We always learn a lot from these.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Mr. Zinke? Or not Mr. Zinke, excuse me, I saw you. Mr. Ellzey.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've always wanted to be compared to the beautiful looks of you. Councilman DeCora, you mentioned the five-hour round trip to the detention center. Is that in Wagner?

Correct.

The Yankton facility?

Yep.

And that's the only one in South Dakota and Nebraska?

District one in our area right now.

District one. Is there another one nearby?

Not a BIA facility, no.

Okay. And there's no, there's no aircraft that can transport either?

No.

Because there's a runway at Yankton. But you're laughing. The tribes can't just share an airplane?

No, no.

But it's really spread out. So, but the preponderance of any Indian Country population isn't up in Yankton, it's down...

No, in northeast Nebraska.

Yeah, it's in y'all's area. Okay. So is that facility full? Is there, would you, when you mention a problem, I'm always looking for a solution. So is a solution having another one down by y'all in the eastern half of Nebraska?

Or even just the tribe having control of its ability to negotiate the local contract. That would probably be the most simple solution, like you're talking about, you're trying to find a solution. That would be the simplest route there.

And you can't because...

It's a BIA function.

And they won't work with you on it.

Until you do self-governance.

Until we do self-governance.

No, for the tribe, the 638 contract. Until the tribe takes over responsibility over it. And that's what I mentioned in my testimony is to take over responsibility over it.

Now I'm clear. Okay. Thank you for clarification.

Thank you.

And if you wonder, he's from Texas and so y'all is a term that they, you know, we have a tendency to think that's what you do when your dog runs off, y'all at them, you know.

I got an aunt that lives in Dallas, I use y'all all the time.

My wife's from Texas, so I understand completely.

Betty.

Well, Mr. Chair, I am just amazed and honored that you know where Yankton is. [Laughter.] Two things. Councilmember, thank you for bringing up the tribal colleges. I think this is something, Mr. Chair, that we are going to have to take a look at because the tribal colleges are finally taking off. And this is good for Indian country's economy, but it is good for our national economy too. And you are also not just training people for their two-year degree, maybe to be an accountant or a nurse aide and then go on to get their four-year, right, a CPA, whatever, nurse practitioner eventually maybe. But also from what I read in here, you are reaching out to do more of the trades, carpenters. That is very exciting because there is a huge workforce shortage for the trades. Just had our first graduating class this past summer.

And how amazing is that to have people on site when the BIA comes in and builds a school or something with somebody who can pick up the phone and say, I don't think so, whatever. So, thank you for bringing that up. And I think we need to look at that because we have done a lot for historically Black colleges and others, but tribal colleges were kind of a sleeper because the enrollment wasn't going up, and now it is going up. I had a different question for you, but if you want to piggyback on that, go ahead.

Absolutely. One of the things that I would like to bring up to the committee is I am the treasurer for the Haskell Board of Regents. And Haskell has always been continuously underfunded regardless, and there is no set formula on how they should be funded per student. And right now the last estimate that I had is that BIE had not done any deferred maintenance on the facility and they were sitting at about 100 million in the hole as far as buildings and structures and infrastructure there to be able to keep that facility going. That college serves 147 different tribal nations across the United States. And right now it is, of course, we got a bill in to try the Haskell Improvement Act, but you know, we are still working through a lot of that language on where it is going to be and where it is going to land. But that is a facility that really needs to have, you know, looked into and figure out what is the correct funding formula per student to be able to give these folks the education that they need.

Well, thank you. Thank you. I am going to take just another second. So, you know, we work on all tribal nations, but all politics is local, so my tribes are MASC, so I might not be signing on to your bill, but I am with you in spirit.

We are a member of MASC because our reservation, and I didn't add that into my opening, we have our reservation in Illinois now.

Oh, okay.

Prairie Band is in Illinois now, and they asked us to join MASC.

All right, well then I will get real parochial and with the Potawatomi with the removal and everything, yeah, that makes total sense. I just wanted to take a second on healthcare. You are a veteran. What branch of the service were you in, sir?

I was in the Army.

Okay. Thank you for your service.

I was a scout. I mean, you know. [Laughter.] I see your insignia.

I am an Air Force brat that came via Army Air Corps, so I got your back. So, we work a lot on veterans and as Mr. Chairman Simpson pointed out, there is a discrepancy. One of the things that with what it comes to VA healthcare, especially for Native Americans, you served disproportionately at a higher rate than the rest of the population. Then you tend to go back to very rural areas. Could you just for a quick minute, we will get more some more information, describe what your journey's been like with VA, with also being on a reservation and also covered by Indian Health because we don't get this opportunity very often. We have a lot of people who come testify in front of us, but I don't think we have ever asked that question here before.

Okay. My experience, and this is some of the members that I have talked to that are veterans from like the Vietnam War and later, a lot of folks have this, they do not want to go to the VA for one reason or another. And I have been going to the VA, part of that was well because I used to work for the VA as a budget analyst and a program analyst there. So I was kind of familiar with the system, but trying to get other tribal members to go down to the VA is a challenge. Some of that has to deal with transportation, some of it is just mistrust. When the VA signed the MOU with Indian Health Service, that system does not work. So there is no way that the VA is funding the Indian Health Service for those veterans that are being seen solely at tribal clinics or IHS. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You bet. Mr. Zinke?

Mr. Zinke, your microphone is on.

So in order to get the contracting ability, you have to go to the 628, right? 638?

638.

638. So where is that in the process?

Right now I believe we are working towards July of this year is what we are working on right now. Originally we were going to take it over in January of this year, but with the shutdown and the lack of being able to go hire staff, train them, get them down to Artesia and back, we decided to wait until July.

And that was your decision to wait until July?

Correct.

Is there any hurdles between now and July other than...

Not that I am aware of at the moment, no.

And once that occurs, the aviation side should be the contracting...

Correct, we should have control over the contracting side of it.

Okay. Certainly if it becomes a hurdle or something like that that something comes up, I am sure we would help you on it.

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Other than that, I am good. Glad to see you.

Let me ask, first off, thank you for your testimony. As you know, there was staffing shortages throughout government, frankly. How has that affected you?

The ability to have clean communication. I think that is probably the biggest thing right there for myself that I would speak on.

It has pretty much affected us a couple of different ways. Of course, like I said, I was on Haskell Board of Regents, we lost a lot of instructor down there when the first round of cuts came through. Many of those haven't been hired mostly because of the titles that those folks had. So some of them just went ahead on and left. Also to trying to work with some of the other agencies like some of the local agencies, the farm agencies and things like that. Most of those folks have left out and trying to get communication up to a higher level has been a challenge, not knowing who to actually contact. The same with our BIA regional office. I think we used to have a full staff at the Horton Agency. Now we have to go all the way down to Anadarko, Oklahoma to be able to contact those folks and try and get everything worked through there. We are in the same process of trying to self-governance and 638 many of our structures there just because of the lack of personnel and folks there to try and help us out. That becomes another problem there too because while we may be contracted, it still has to be funded. And there is no guarantee from where I am sitting at that they are going to be funded at an accurate level. On top of that, we also had a problem with some of the costs and those indirect costs and what is the correct amount. And so we are still going through that struggle today with IHS because our clinic is contracted through them, but they pay us what they said it was, not necessarily what are all the realized costs that we have.

Well, thank you. Again, thank you for being here. I thank you for your interest in the tribal community colleges, they are the future, frankly.

Winnebago Tribe is completely proud of that place. It is a trailblazer in the tribal community.

Yep, and they are doing great work throughout the country and stuff, and the growth of them is going to be the future of... You know, I was a dentist in the real world. And as we have been out and visited tribes, how do you get a dentist or a doctor to come on some of these remote areas that they cannot make enough to actually pay off their student loans and stuff like that? The only way you are going to do it is actually educate tribal members and send them to medical school and to dental school and nursing and that kind of stuff, and they are more likely to come back to the reservation and this is the future.

Our tribal college doesn't just serve our tribal community either, it is the surrounding area of northeast Nebraska.

Absolutely. So anyway, thank you all. I appreciate you being here today.

You bet. Thank you.

Next is Mike Natchees and Laurel Ann Yellowhorse. Welcome. Mike, you are up first. I love the tie.

Thank you. Mike, do each goose, hello and good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. My name is Mike Natchees and I'm the Uintah Band representative and also serve as the vice chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee. And I just want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to testify on behalf of the Ute Indian Tribe and the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. Today I am here to ask the subcommittee to take action on two issues of great importance to us. We urgently need the subcommittee's support for energy development and to secure more funding for tribal law enforcement. First, we need the subcommittee's urgent support to ensure our tribe's oil and gas operations can continue to supply energy to the state of Utah and also the country. The Ute Indian Tribe has the largest oil and gas sector in the state of Utah. Our oil and gas production supports thousands of jobs, approximately over 8,000 jobs and over $1.5 billion in value. You will hear many important and urgent funding requests during these hearings, but let me please be clear. What I'm asking for today is good for our tribe, it's also good for the state of Utah and also good for the entire country. Given the recent disputes around the world and the president's very vocal call for increased domestic energy production, the Ute Indian Tribe stands ready and willing to meet this call. As any oil and gas producer can tell you, water is critical for energy production. We and our industry partners use water for drilling, extraction, and to keep all of our systems working. Simply put, in order to produce oil and gas, we need water. Our reservation sits in one of the driest states in the U.S. Water is mainly sourced from the winter snowmelt and so this means that our storage is essential for ensuring access to water during the summer. The United States has recognized our tribe's legally reserved water rights and promised many times to build water infrastructure and storage on our reservation. Yet despite our needs and the federal government's trust responsibility, the U.S. has repeatedly broken these promises. Congress did try to fix this back in 1992. It authorized appropriations for water storage for our tribe in the Central Utah Project Completion Act. 34 years have passed since that act. No administration has requested that these appropriated funds be used for our tribal needs in building our own water storage. Today as we face an ongoing drought, this inaction directly threatens our ability to produce oil and gas. The federal government's support for tribal oil and gas operations must be increased to combat this issue. The second matter we are here to discuss today is also securing funding for our tribal law enforcement. Our reservation is the second largest in the U.S. with approximately 4.5 million acres. Yet we only have three BIA-funded law enforcement officers to serve the entire reservation. This means it's dangerous and practically impossible to combat the illegal drugs that have been entering our community. Our tribe supplements over 40 percent of our law enforcement programs, but that's still not enough to fix this problem. This means that our police officers are forced to work alone. This is extremely dangerous and against all modern police procedures. When officers have backup, it's safer for everyone involved. However, we simply do not have the funding to achieve that. Not only do our police officers have to respond to calls alone, but our tribal staff is also endangered by this funding problem. Our fish and game officers regularly encounter trespassers and drug dealers. Yet they aren't given the resources they need to adequately protect our community. Just recently, one of our tribal fish and game officers came across people illegally trespassing on tribal land. She had applied for a Special Law Enforcement Commission or SLEC. However, because the BIA's Office of Justice Services does not have enough resources to process these applications, she didn't get her SLEC. This meant she was unable to make a federal arrest and an altercation stemmed from the trespass. Afterwards, she was charged with exceeding her authority by the federal government. This crisis forced our tribe to close access to our reservation and suspend new leases and permits, all in an effort to protect our officers, our reservation homeland, and our community members. This was a result of the BIA simply not having the funding or resources to fulfill their trust and treaty responsibilities to the tribe. Encounters like this are one of the reasons we have asked the BIA to approve federal SLECs for our qualified fish and game officers. Most of our fish and game officers have already graduated from federal and Utah state police academies. Yet our SLEC applications have been pending for years, some going as far back as 2022. Our police officers simply need help and our fish and game officers need federal arrest authority, and I cannot emphasize that enough. Illegal drugs are entering our country and our communities. Our law enforcement officers are doing their best to combat these drugs on our reservation, but we do need your help to do this. We need the subcommittee to provide enough funding for tribal law enforcement and the Office of Justice Services. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I'm available for any questions you may have. Thank you.

Laurel.

Good morning Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Pingree, and the members of subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Laurel Ann Yellowhorse. I am the tribal chairwoman for the federally recognized tribe, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah. The Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah consists of five bands: the Cedar Band, Shivwits Band, Indian Peaks Band, Kanosh Band, and Koosharem Band. Since time immemorial, the tribe has been located in and around southern Utah. I want to thank you for meeting with us today to discuss the importance of Tiwahe. Tiwahe is an initiative that started in 2015 with the simple idea, the idea that we need to be bringing our services together more around serving families rather than leaving them in silos serving individuals. The Tiwahe initiative is a family-centered whole-of-government response to assist families in becoming self-governing and thriving contributors in their communities. That whole-of-government response is not only at a federal and state level, but also within our tribal governments. Too often government systems are designed around programs that serve individuals in isolation. Tiwahe changes that approach by bringing services together around the strength of family, ensuring that support is coordinated, culturally grounded, and responsive to the real needs of our communities. For the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, Tiwahe has grown to be more than an initiative. It is a pathway for empowering families to realize their fullest potential while building upon the dignity and inherent strengths of our people. Through Tiwahe, we have successfully strengthened coordination across critical areas such as housing, education and workforce development, health and behavioral health services, culture revitalization, and family support programs, ensuring families receive the support that they need to succeed. The tribe conducted the Willow Basket survey in 2025 and to highlight a few of the key outcomes from the Tiwahe program, I will discuss some of the barriers that our members faced and the successes we have had to overcome through the help of the Tiwahe program. Nearly 90 percent of Paiute families report at least one major health condition. To combat this, we have strengthened our focus on culturally grounded wellness programs, chronic disease prevention, and behavioral health services. These services ensure that our members are receiving the care that they need. Educational attainment has improved dramatically since 1968, which that was the last time an assessment has done on our tribe, with approximately 90 percent of tribal members completing high school and nearly half obtaining education or credentials beyond high school. Employment opportunities have diversified significantly with tribal members now working in healthcare, education, business, leadership, and skilled trades. Building on findings from Willow Basket assessment, the tribe and Southern Utah University are now developing community education programming and short-term certification pathways that integrate Paiute culture while preparing tribal members for careers in healthcare, leadership, business, and skilled trade. The tribe is also strengthening culture revitalization efforts including language learning, storytelling, and tribal knowledge programs identified by community members as priorities for future generations to ensure that the tribe's cultural tradition and knowledge continue to thrive for generations to come. Tiwahe has helped advance a coordinated one-stop model for social services, job placement, youth programming, elder programming, ICWA, and education programs, improving access for families and reducing barriers. The tribe is also developing its first ever tribal court, strengthening tribal sovereignty while creating a family-centered justice system that supports accountability, healing, and family stability. While these examples are significant, they represent something far greater, which is real families whose lives are changing for the positive. They represent parents gaining stability, children staying connected to their culture and community, and families rediscovering hope and confidence in their future. Tiwahe underscores the significance of tribal sovereignty and illustrates the positive outcomes that can be achieved when tribal nations are given the authority to develop solutions tailored to their communities. We respectfully urge the subcommittee to increase funding for the Tiwahe initiative to achieve parity between newly participating tribes and the original six pilot tribes. Additional funding will also promote collaboration among participating tribes, enabling the development of initiative tools and reporting systems that integrate family-centered outcome measurements and support expansion to additional tribes. Tiwahe is not simply an investment in an initiative, it is an investment in stronger families, stronger tribal nations, and stronger communities across this country. Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today and for your continued commitment to support tribal nations and strengthening native families.

Thank you, Laurel. Thank you both for your testimony. Mike, you mentioned energy development and stuff. I know that's important in Utah. And then you need water for energy development. And you talked about the Central Utah Water Project. Not funded in our bill, it's in the energy and water bill, which I used to chair. What the hell is happening to the money we're appropriating every year?

That's what we'd like to know as well. [Laughter.] It seems like, you know, when they did the Central Utah Water Project, the state and the federal government got all of their projects completely funded, built, and they have their storages all throughout the state. But when it comes to the Ute tribes, we have almost nothing, nothing there. And so we have the oldest water right there in Utah, dates back to the establishment of the reservation in 1861. So we have the senior priority water rights, but we're unable to fully utilize those water rights. And so all of the water is, it's just underdeveloped, unused, and uncompensated right now.

And this is going to be a really ugly year in terms of water. I come from southern Idaho and that, you know, we don't have any snow on the ground up there. A lot of my staff have places in Utah and they said there's been no snow down in Utah like there traditionally is and stuff. It's going to be a challenging year for sure. But do you have places that you would do water storage, that you would have, that you'd work with the Army Corps of Engineers to build dams or?

So we're looking to see if we can get some storage in some of the existing reservoirs there in Utah and the tribe is also actively exploring creating our own storages, our own reservoirs at this moment.

How does that work with the Colorado River Basin and the upper basin and lower basin and how the water's divided and so forth when you start doing storage? Is that a challenge?

It certainly will be. And our reserved water right that we have in the Green River, which is one of the main tributaries to the Colorado River, is over 500,000 acre-feet. So we're able to contribute a significant amount to that. And if we were to store that, it would definitely have an impact. But as of right now, the water's just flowing downstream completely unfettered and the recipients of that water is the folks downstream, you know, the lower basin. And they've been receiving this water for all these years with junior water rights. And it's not compensated water. And so, you know, the simple fact of the matter is that the lower basin has simply over-allocated themselves. And now they're looking to get to continue to keep getting their cut. And up at the headwaters where we're at, we're kind of at the mercy of Mother Nature. And a lot of our water cuts come from nature itself. You know, as mentioned, we don't have the snowpack that we used to have and just the hydrology of it all is really kind of working against us at this time.

Yeah, if you want to find a, if you want to read an interesting history, read the development of the Colorado River water system in the upper basin and the lower basin at the time, and I think it was 1926 or something when they decided to create the upper basin and lower basin because they were afraid that all the water was going to the Imperial Valley and everything in Las Vegas because that was where it was going to be. So they divided it up and at the time they said they believed that there's 18.5 million acre-feet of water that go down the Colorado River every year. And people at the time said, no, that's not true. That's in the wet years. You're not accounting for the dry years. In reality, there's about 14.5 million acre-feet that go down the river every year, but they've appropriated 18.5 million. That creates some problems for both the upper basin and the lower basin to some degree. So it is a huge challenge, as you know, living in the West. As I said yesterday, whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting. It is a real, it's going to be a real challenge this year. But Laurel, thank you for your testimony on the Tiwahe program and Tiwahe program. It's very interesting how that works and I enjoy listening to your testimony about how it's developing families.

Yes, thank you.

Ms. Pingree.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you very much for your testimony. And I too concur, we hear a lot about Tiwahe and I just hope we can increase the funding and make sure it's available to more tribes. It just seems like it has such great benefits.

It really does because there's 10 full sites getting full funding, 12 satellite sites, and there's over 400 tribes that receive some type of funding from Tiwahe.

That would be great. Are you so you're currently in the oil and gas?

Yes.

Yeah, got it. It's just that you need the water storage to get through summer and to expand.

Yes.

Hear your need. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Zinke.

I think I've seen the treaty. I think it's 1863. I think it was signed by Abraham Lincoln. But it guarantees sovereignty. So on law enforcement, are you a 638 tribe?

Not for law enforcement, no. But the tribe, we do have tribally funded positions to supplement the current BIA police officers there. And so we're expending our own resources just to provide the most basic minimum level of law enforcement that we can have. And obviously with the reservation that large and with the population size that we have, we just need more officers.

Seems short. So on the hurdles of your sovereign nation, you should be able to develop the resources as you see fit. What are the hurdles on oil and gas right now?

One of the big challenges that we have is simply just the bureaucracy of the BIA and the BLM to try to get some of these permits streamlined. That's one of our big pushes and it's always been is to be able to effectively manage our own resources. And the big challenge is that when oil and gas producers want to develop on state or private land, they can get their permits and everything done in a matter of weeks, whereas when they come to the tribal side, it can take months, sometimes even years to get some of these applications through and it just really bottlenecks everything. And with the recent cuts in BIA and with the shutdown and everything that happened last year, it bottlenecked all of the people there to process some of these applications and the permits on the BIA side. There's simply nobody there to process the permits. And so there's a big need to keep those funded and get those positions back and get that hiring freeze lifted so that...

And BIA is not the center of oil and gas development. So I think their skill set is in other areas other than permitting. Would you have the capacity if we were to redo the permitting process on sovereign land to coordinate, to have them coordinate, but you control the oil and gas permitting?

I believe we would. We're not new to this game. The tribe's been in the oil and gas industry for nearly 100 years.

Mandans are the same way. There's a lot of resource tribes that certainly have as much skill or more skill than a bureaucrat that doesn't know where Utah is.

And so we have very robust tribal departments that actively manage our mineral resources and I do believe that we would have the capacity to effectively manage those resources if we were allowed to.

So why is BLM involved in your permitting on sovereign land? What stake do they have?

They have a pretty big interest in that because they tend to treat the reservation land as public land. And so BLM really does have a lot of say in the permitting process. But that's one of the areas too where there is that bottleneck there. It seems like things just don't move quickly enough.

We have two bottlenecks. If you're in the county property, you have maybe BLM, but you have BIA and BLM.

Yes, so it definitely compounds the issue.

Maybe we should re-look at streamlining on sovereign territory because I've seen the signature. I think Abraham Lincoln signed it. It's the big monument at the end of the mall there. [Laughter.] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.

Ms. McCollum.

Thank you. First off, Chairwoman Yellowhorse, thank you for your comments on Tiwahe. Yesterday when Red Lake Nation was here, it came out of them wanting to take control over many of the programs that you talked about and make sure that families, council members working with state and county at times for resources, whether it be SNAP or whatever, that there be one-stop shopping on that. But it's grown into so much more as each tribe makes it unique to their needs. So thank you for your words on that. I have a question. I was reading your testimony on water, sir, and how are you fixed for potable water? I mean, a lot of the water that we're talking about is in order to keep your industry going. Get that, that's important. But are you in the same straits? How's your potable water, your drinking water affected by this?

So our culinary water and drinking water is primarily sourced through springs that we have there on the reservation. But the problem that we have with that is aging infrastructure for our water systems. Actually my grandfather was one of the people that put the water systems in and that was back in the '60s. And so we have old aging pipes that they're continuously breaking just because of the condition that they've deteriorated at. And there's a need for funding in those areas too to begin beefing up that infrastructure. It seems like every couple of days I'm getting an alert or an email from our water systems notifying the various communities that you have no water today because of a break.

Yeah, okay. I was wondering, I didn't know if it was same source or separate source. Either way you have challenges and problems. So thank you both for your testimony. Mr. Chair, I'm going to leave as the Montana tribes are coming up here. I mean no disrespect. I have some Minnesota tribes who because of the weather who are in my office right now who didn't get a chance to be here. And I'm really impressed. We know Mr. Ellzey who left knows where Yankton is, so we're making progress here for the Dakotas too as well on this committee. So we will keep in touch with you and I have your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, can I ask one more question?

Sure.

Just one thing I meant to ask you and I lost my train of thought. When you were talking about trying to get the federal SLEC applications approved and you had some sitting there since 2022. I want to make sure we bring some of those things up when we have the BIA with us because we were worried about staffing challenges in the past, seems like a lot of things are slow, and then there have been a lot of cutbacks in the last year. And I just can't imagine how something which sounds fairly simple like an application like that could be sitting there for that long. That's something you routinely experience?

Yes, not only with that process, but it seems like a lot of other areas when we deal with the federal agencies, things move at a very, very slow pace and applications do have a tendency to just kind of languish out in the void somewhere. Another good example of that is the tribe put in an application, a TERA application, it's an environmental helps with in the oil and gas industry, and the tribe put their application in nearly 20 years ago when this program was first announced. And we still haven't really received any word on that. What's interesting about that is my mother was the chairman at that time. And now I'm sitting in this seat. So it's intergenerational sometimes when how long some of these applications and things take.

You know, and I'm not going to excuse them on any of those. I know oil and gas and some of the environmental permitting, I can sort of understand why some of those things would take a while. But this you made this sound like this was someone who was fully qualified to be covered as a law enforcement personnel and we know what the problems are of not having sufficient law enforcement personnel. So to think that somebody's sitting there in the position, ready to go, and it's just an application approval, that seems outrageous to me.

Yeah, all of our tribal fish and game officers, they go through the police academy. And a lot of times our tribal officers receive more training than our local highway patrol or the county sheriffs. So the discrepancy there is pretty big in kind of the standards it seems like the tribe has to meet just to provide services.

And the way you told the story that she was arrested for exceeding her authority when she had actually applied to be covered under that authority. So it just sounded like a crazy story.

Yeah, what had happened really quick is she came across two non-tribal members who were trespassing utilizing... we have a no UTV or ATV policy as well, we have ordinances that cover that. And so these two individuals were joyriding. And so when the officer stopped them, they became combative and they attempted to run her over and drag her. And so she was forced to draw her firearm and open fire on them to protect herself. But she was dragged through the court system and ultimately she had to take a plea deal when she was acting in her official capacity.

Well, the way you told the story that she was arrested for exceeding her authority when she had actually applied to be covered under that authority, so it just sounded like a crazy story.

Yeah, what what had happened really quick is she came across two non-tribal members who were trespassing, utilizing we have an a no UTV or ATV policy as well. We have ordinances that cover that. And so these two individuals were joyriding. And so when she when the officer stopped them, they became combative and they they attempted to run her over and drag her. And so she was forced to draw her firearm and and open fire on them to protect herself. But she was dragged through the through the court system and ultimately she had to to take a plea deal.

Oh wow. Well, it just seems like a way to get more law enforcement officers on reservations, so maybe we can work on that. But thank you again. Thank you both for your testimony.

Yes, thank you both for being here today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. Now it seems like we have Montana. Cody Shambo, Michael Dolson, Michael Comes At Night, and Justin Dupree. Is that right? Did I get those close?

Yeah, you did fine with me.

[Laughter.] Cody, you're first.

Morning, Chairman, members of the subcommittee. My name is Cody Shambo. I'm the Mountain Gros Ventre representative for the Fort Belknap Indian Community Tribal Council. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. Our top priority is the passage and funding of our Fort Belknap Indian Community Water Settlement Act. The act affirms our water rights and settles our damage claims against the United States. In 1908, we went all the way to the Supreme Court to fight for our water rights in the Winters case. The court held that our reservation included the water we needed to make a homeland. This is known as the Winters Doctrine. Under this doctrine, all tribes are able to protect and quantify their water rights. More than 100 years later, we still have not completed our water rights. And the water projects the United States promised are failing or were never built. Our water rights claims are currently pending in court. If we are forced to litigate, there's no question who will win. We have the oldest priority date, and farmers, ranchers, and towns upstream from us will have to stop using our water. We'd rather settle. Our settlement is a win-win that provides water for all. Litigating 31,000 water rights claims would take another 40 years, waste taxpayers' money, and upset about 10 percent of Montana's gross domestic product. Settlement also provides the funding to fix water infrastructure that was built in the early 1900s. This aging water infrastructure threatens the economy, towns, and livelihood of North Central Montana, including more than 120,000 acres of non-Indian irrigation and more than 25,000 acres of irrigation on our reservation that feeds about one million people a year. This infrastructure also provides drinking water for more than 20,000 people. Our water settlement will cost about $1.3 billion and has already passed the Senate twice. Our settlement has the full support of our tribes, the administration, the Montana Governor, the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council, the Milk River Joint Board of Control, the Saint Mary Rehabilitation Working Group, local counties, water users, stockmen, conservation groups, individual members, tribal members, and more. The subcommittee should provide mandatory funding to help implement our water settlement and other tribal water settlements. We need these funds to ensure that our settlement is final and enforceable. We need a stable and permanent fund just like the Department of Justice settlement fund. We should not have to spend all of this time negotiating a water settlement and then have it come back, have to come back year after year for discretionary funding. Water is not our only priority. We also need to provide for our youth. I am dedicated to providing a safe place and opportunities for our youth. Suicide has been a leading cause of death for Indian youth across the United States for over 40 years. Indian youth die by suicide more than any group. In 2019, our reservation was caught in a plague of youth suicide. Our council declared a state of emergency. I was not on the council yet, but did what I could to help mentor our youth. I work to create safe places and activities for our youth. Congress must do more to help us overcome the drugs and crime infecting our youth and create opportunities in our communities. In return for vast lands and resources, we were promised the best education and healthcare the United States could offer. Our schools are falling down and Indian Health Services is chronically underfunded. Congress and this subcommittee have a treaty obligation to provide the funding we need. There are also too many restrictions on funding we do receive. Everyone wants tribes to take over, but our hands are tied behind our backs. One promising program is the Tiwahe program. We support the Tiwahe program and ask that the subcommittee increase the funding. Tiwahe means the interconnectedness of families and supports tribal self-determination by allowing flexibility in how we run our programs. Tiwahe breaks down silos between programs. Tiwahe is also allows us to use culture in our programs. We use Tiwahe to support our family wellness program. We work directly with each family and individual to design services that they need. We are able to reach across programs and collaborate and pool resources to help our families. Our programs are designed to restore our people's self-confidence, gain employment, and become independent. Tiwahe also supports our Soaring Eagle program. Soaring Eagle was originally started to reduce recidivism, including drug possession, truancy, and criminal contempt. We established an elders council and address underlying anger, grief, and abandonment that often leads to offending. We have been able to reduce recidivism by 34 percent, which is well below national levels. Our approach has become extremely successful. Currently, our six-month rate of recidivism is 34 percent for 2025, with a four-year average of 36 percent, which remains well below national levels. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Michael, you're next.

Good morning. [Speaking native language.] Okay, good morning, Chair and members of the subcommittee. It's an honor to be here before you. Mr. Zinke, good to see you also, John. Individuals I work closely with. Good morning, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak with you today regarding the need to adequately fund the Blackfeet Nation's law enforcement, tribal court, and transportation road department. My name is Mike Comes At Night, I serve as the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council for the Blackfeet Nation of Montana. My testimony addresses how the federal government has failed to adequately fund law enforcement, tribal courts, and transportation road department for the Blackfeet Nation, respectfully requesting an increase in funding. Law enforcement, I speak today because of the public safety is something that affects every family across the great Blackfeet Nation. Many residents of the Blackfeet Nation, including elders, families with children, constantly worry about our safety. Officers themselves often work long shifts on limited equipment with limited equipment and support. With a department as underfunded, it becomes harder to recruit and retain officers, maintain vehicles, providing training, implementing prevention programs that could reduce crime before it happens. Currently, our law enforcement is severely underfunded. They are stretched too thin. The crime runs rampant in our community. Last year, the Blackfeet law enforcement responded to over 15,000 calls from across our reservation, which covers a large geographical area of 1.5 million acres, and there are simply not enough officers or resources to meet the needs of our community. At this time, we currently have 16 officers. Moreover, there is a serious cartel presence on our Blackfeet reservation dealing dangerous drugs and infecting our community. The cartel presence results in serious safety concerns and is directly related to the lack of federal funding. The problem with our inability to adequately police our reservation does not just impact our Blackfeet Nation and tribal members. It creates a breeding ground for crime, which ultimately spills from our borders into the neighboring off-reservation communities. Increasing funding doesn't just help the tribe, it helps our neighboring as well. The Blackfeet Tribal, two, tribal court. The Blackfeet Tribal Court plays a critical role in upholding justice, protecting community safety, and preserving the sovereignty of the Blackfeet Nation. Despite the court's essential responsibilities, it faces significant resource constraints. Caseloads that steadily increase, however, funding levels have not kept pace with the growing responsibilities, inflation, and the cost of living. Significantly, we cannot offer attractive compensation to law-trained judges and attorneys to enforce the rule of law. The compounds, the problem we face with inadequate law enforcement funding. Justice and the rule of law are something that all Americans should have access to. Currently, such access for the Blackfeet Nation members is being frustrated because of the woefully inadequate funding in our tribal court. For instance, the tribal court budget only allows prosecutors to be paid $16 per hour. How many prosecutors do you know that would prosecute crimes on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation for $16 per hour? And there are currently over 4,000 pending criminal cases. Additionally, funding would allow the Blackfeet Tribal Court to expand judicial capacity by hiring law-trained judges, more clerks, and experienced prosecutors and defenders, and address a severe backlog of both civil and criminal cases. We especially need more funding for the tribal court and law enforcement to properly administer tribal justice system on the Blackfeet Reservation. Transportation. The Blackfeet Transportation Department is also severely underfunded. The Blackfeet Nation receives $672 per lane mile annually. The BIA receives $817 per lane per annually. Combined, this equals an average of nearly $750 per lane mile for the BIA and the tribally owned roads. This is woefully inadequate and leads to disastrous road conditions on the Blackfeet Reservation. For context, the Montana Department of Transportation, the MTD, spends more than $7,884 per mile. The Flathead County, a neighboring district, receives approximately $5,981 per lane mile. The compensation illustrates that the Blackfeet Nation operates to eight to 11 times less funding per mile than state or county governments, leaving BIA and tribal roads in serious repair. The insignificant funding has created serious deferred maintenance and safety issues. The tribe is effectively subsidizing a federal program that is supposed to maintain roads on tribal land and still struggling to meet the basic transportation needs of its residents. The data clearly shows that the Blackfeet Nation roads are chronically underfunded. Increase funding doesn't just support the Blackfeet Nation membership, it increases safety for all people who visit our reservation. The Blackfeet provides direct access to Glacier National Park, which is visited by millions annually. We want to keep our members and guests safe on our failing roads. We ask for the support not just for the Blackfeet Nation, but for our friends, neighbors, guests as well. In closing, the federal government has failed to uphold its trust responsibility, adequately fund law enforcement, tribal court, transportation roads on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. On behalf of the Blackfeet Nation, I respectfully request federal funding increase in these critical areas to improve public safety on the Blackfeet Reservation. Thank you.

Thank you. Michael?

Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Pingree, and respected members of the subcommittee, thank you and good morning. My name is Michael Dolson, and I am the chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Tribal Council of the Flathead Reservation. We appreciate the opportunity to share our thoughts on addressing the challenges facing our tribal community and the subcommittee's commitment to improving the lives of our shared constituents. We appreciate the subcommittee's continued work to support law enforcement, health professionals, social service providers across Indian Country, especially as fentanyl and other opioids plague our communities. CSKT is an original self-governance tribe. By carrying out all functions of IHS and BIA for decades, our local control and wise fiscal management of these programs have allowed us to dramatically improve the quality of services to our community. However, despite these efficiencies, we are limited by the available resources, always money. Full funding for the Indian Health Service and additional funding for the Bureau of Indian Affairs is therefore a critical component of our ability to adequately address mental illness and addiction. CSKT is administering several cutting-edge programs to address these challenges. Some examples include the development of a drug treatment court as a diversion to criminal charges pending before our tribal court, a reentry program that assists individuals returning to their communities after encounters with the criminal justice system, and streamlining the delivery of services through our participation in the Tiwahe initiative. Tiwahe was established to improve the health and well-being of families in tribal communities by reducing poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence, and associated outcomes such as youth suicide. Through Tiwahe, we have improved the coordination among social service providers and are seeing positive outcomes for our children and families. We are grateful for the subcommittee's support of the Tiwahe initiative and excited to see the positive outcomes that increased Tiwahe funding will have on our people. Also want to take a moment to acknowledge the brave men and women in law enforcement that keep our communities safe. I'm proud of CSKT's first-class law enforcement program, which serves as the first line of defense in slowing the import of opioids and other illegal drugs to our reservation. I encourage the subcommittee to continue to look for ways to ensure that these tribal law enforcement officers have the resources they need to protect our people. Similarly, I implore the subcommittee to continue to increase support for tribal fire programs and the brave and dedicated tribal fire personnel. For the past several years, we have experienced unprecedented drought conditions, with predictions suggesting another challenging fire season this summer. Extreme drought conditions present threats to public safety as well as our land, water, and natural resources from fire and other natural disasters. The Flathead Reservation, our permanent homeland we reserved under the Hellgate Treaty of 1855, encompasses over 1.2 million acres of timber, range, and farmland in western Montana and is situated around the southern half of Flathead Lake, the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes. Our tribal forestry and fire programs carry out a full array of services to prevent wildfires and quickly respond when fire strikes. Adequate funding for these activities and associated infrastructure helps to ensure responsible timber harvest, fuel reduction, forest management for more fire-resilient forests. Our dedicated staff wear multiple hats, oftentimes transitioning from seasonally transitioning to fire from all kinds of other activities. We continue to need the subcommittee's help to bring the paychecks of these tribal firefighters in line with those of their federal counterparts. We look forward to continuing our work with the subcommittee to address wildfire as we adapt to changing snowfall patterns and drought conditions. On behalf of the CSKT Tribal Council, thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony and for your partnership with us as we face these challenges. Thank you, Michael. Jestin?

Chair and members of the committee, good morning. My name is Jestin Dupree. I represent the Fort Peck Assiniboine Sioux Tribes as a member of our tribal council. I would like to thank you guys for the opportunity to present testimony on behalf of my tribe. I also appear on behalf of our water supply system. The Fort Peck Reservation is located in northeast Montana, 45 miles west of North Dakota and 50 miles south of the Canadian border. Our reservation spans more than 2 million acres. First, on behalf of our tribal water supply system, Congress authorized this project in PL 106-382, and this act requires the BIA to fund 100 percent of the OM&R cost for the project. For FY 2027, our water supply system requires $5,265,000, an increase of $298,000 from the previous year. When completed in 2026, the system will serve 7,750 square miles connected by 3,200 miles of water pipeline, providing clean and reliable drinking water to almost 20,000 members, tribal and non-tribal, in northeastern Montana. In my written testimony, I documented the need for funding within IHS pertaining to our behavior health, our dental, and our public nursing. These are programs that my tribe now operates pursuant to the Indian Self-Determination Act. I urge the committee for support in these critical programs as they virtually touch every family on our reservation. Regarding IHS, my tribal board directed me to testify on a situation that has gone on for far too long. The area of concern is where IHS fails to pay timely providers for approved PRC services. Tribal members are often harassed by creditors despite being responsible for payment. When IHS fails to pay, providers turn the debts over to collection agencies and then in turn our tribal members are, their credit is dinged, and it's causing a lot of stress. During recent self-determination negotiations, we learned that the Fort Peck service unit owes Northeast Montana Health Services approximately $3 million for PRC services dated back to 2018. We request that the committee direct IHS to provide a full report on any delinquent payments, including a timeline for repayment, offer technical assistance to providers and patients to ensure they understand that federal law prohibits creditors from billing tribal members for approved services, and establish a protocol requiring IHS to pay those bills within 72 hours of receipt. Secondly, I as a veteran have served in the military and have firsthand experience with the failure of IHS and the VA to properly serve native veterans, especially in our rural areas. Both the federal trust responsibility and the nation's obligation to its veterans demand better coordination. We request the committee to direct IHS and the VA to develop a plan to help our native veterans. With regard to other needs facing our community, public safety and justice remain a priority. The tribe has operated our law enforcement program since 1996, and we were among the first in the nation to establish a cross-deputization agreement with the state, city, and county agencies. However, we are losing officers to burnout and other high-paying positions. Fort Peck has maintained an independent judicial system for nearly 60 years, and we also have an appellate court. Our system includes court-trained staff and we exercise expanded jurisdiction under VAWA and Tribal Law and Order Act. This level of responsibility requires stable, increased funding to maintain these services. The other areas of need facing our community include housing and social services. We greatly appreciate the Congress's rejection of the proposed cuts to these programs and for your continued support of funding, but more needs to be done. If we do not invest in these areas, we will continue to have a crisis in our public safety and justice programs. We must give our people the tools to stand up for themselves and break the generational dysfunction that leads to bad decisions and unhealthy behaviors. My ancestors signed treaties and preserved a permanent homeland for us, which is my responsibility to protect and preserve. This is why we are thankful for the support of the BIA natural resources program and the buffalo bison program. The tribes also appreciate the committee's support for the state tribal assistance grant programs within the EPA. The STAG supports our general assistance, our water quality, and our solid waste management programs. In closing, I would like to thank you all, the committee, for the opportunity to present testimony to you guys. Thank you for your service to our country. Have a nice day.

Thank you. Thank you all for your testimony. You bring up a lot of subjects. Cody, I enjoyed coming up and visiting Fort Belknap last year and talking about the water rights and stuff, but I agree with what you said, but I'll tell you what, it's a real challenge that we're looking at how we're going to fund these water agreements because there are water rights agreements, there are a lot of them across the country. And we're talking about billions and billions of dollars when you add them all up. We've got to find a way to do it. And I don't want it coming out of discretionary funds that we're funding other things. Otherwise, it's just going to reduce funding for other things. We've got to find, I would like to see it frankly come out of the justice fund where other judgments come out of in the Department of Justice. Getting it there is a challenge. But we're certainly looking at ways to do it because it's amazing how many of these water settlements there are and they're going to cost us a ton of money to do, but it's the right thing to do. We've just got to find a way to do it. So I appreciate your testimony on all of the issues that we're going to deal with. I'm going to let Mr. Zinke ask most of the questions because he knows more about all of you than any of us do. So, Ms. Pingree?

Yep. Thank you for your testimony and I concur with the chair, we really have to figure out a way to fund these water settlements. It was interesting for you to say that yours is one of the oldest and that's a long time to be waiting for the federal government to meet its treaty and trust obligation. So we absolutely need to do this and I know how critically important it is, particularly as we're experiencing more drought and other challenges, communities really just need this water. And so many of you brought up law enforcement, that's another area where we're just woefully behind. I think we meet, you know, less than 20 percent of the actual need, so you know that. You need more money for law enforcement and the courts and I hope we can move those numbers up a little bit this time. And you mentioned some things around the IHS payment of PRC services. It's hard for me to fathom that they have bills going back to 2018. And as you said, making it very clear that that's not the responsibility of the patient, the client, and to have that go onto people's credit ratings is just, it's really outrageous. So I hope we can look into that a little bit more in this round. I'm just deeply worried about these payments not being made, especially if the money is there for it to not get through. And we've heard before this morning about the VA connection and we know that the VA has more money than IHS, so we want to make sure that those payments get made and IHS has that money available to them. So thank you to all of you. I too will defer to Mr. Zinke, I know he's got his finger on the pulse of Montana.

That's right. I did want to mention one thing that was brought up and that's the wildfire fighting. And we're going to have wildfires this year, I think, because of the drought conditions that exist in the West. And I know that in the Department of Interior, they've taken the BIA wildfire fighters, the BLM wildfire fighters, the National Parks wildfire fighters, and Fish and Wildlife wildfire fighters and combined them into one agency and stuff. And it might be the right thing to do, I don't know. We're still asking a lot of questions about it and how it's going to work and some good questions. It might, like I say, I'm kind of agnostic of whether it's the right thing to do or not because I just don't know. I've got a lot of questions that I've got to get answered. And there is a proposal to take the Forest Service wildfire fighting and put it over in the Department of Interior. A lot of questions remain, but we'll be dealing with that. But I'm glad you brought that up because it is going to be a real challenge this year, no matter how it's done. So, Mr. Zinke.

A lot, a lot in here and thank you, Mr. Chairman. One is the Tiwahe, I think we all agree that's been a great program. It gives you the flexibility and there's differences between even the tribes in Montana culturally. And I think it gives you the latitude and flexibility to what makes sense. And I think those dollars are well spent. So I don't want to talk for the other committee members, but that's been a very successful program and actually I'd like to see some increased funding on it. On water compacts, from a former secretary view, one, it should not be appropriated dollars. It's not an appropriation, it's a treaty obligation. It's no different than a treaty with Guam or one of our territories. It happens to be a territory within the continental United States and it's a treaty obligation. Whether it's from 1863 or the Hellgate Treaty, you can pick one. And the Fort Belknap is the last of the compacts, but there's a Blackfeet fix to it. Because the Blackfeet, and you look at the water compact the Blackfeet signed, there's an addendum on it that the Belknap issue had to be resolved with water. And I think we've looked at it, I think we've got the document where it's sound. On actuary, the reason why it doesn't have a CBO score is because it's outside the 10-year window. So you don't have a CBO score. Secondly, any actuary will tell you a settlement reduces long-term liability. That's why it's a settlement, because it's a settlement between the sovereign nation, the state, and the federal government through the BIA. But those should not be appropriated dollars. The account it should come from, which historically it's been used before, there's two accounts it's been used. One is the Department of Justice settlement fund. That fund is for settlements. And the second is customs, which has been used. But both accounts should not come through appropriated dollars. These are my thoughts. The Northern Montanan, which is the Belknap, it really is the Upper Missouri because it affects everything downstream. But also there are other tribes that also, the Navajo being one of them, we just need to get it done. And I don't think you care how it gets done, you just want to get it done. And my thoughts are, I've talked to the White House, I think I got the President in a good spot to have one big, beautiful American Indian compact bill. We'll name it, it'll be wonderful. It'll be big, it'll be beautiful, but it needs to be done. And we're trying to get them where they're behind and I think we're almost there. But you have, there's about probably $12.5 billion or so of tribal water compacts that are mature, that are already through the process. Yours is the oldest, yours is the most senior. But you have the Navajo, you have a tribe in New Mexico, there's a bunch of them, you add them up. And as the Chairman says, they're a lot of money, but they're not in comparison. We blew $200 billion plus in Ukraine, I can go through all things and really this has to be settled on home turf and it's a treaty obligation. So this is a bipartisan issue, it's not a partisan issue. So I think there's going to be progress. The Senate has already passed some of them in this area, the Senate is actually ahead of us. That doesn't happen very often. But I'm fairly optimistic that we'll get the last of the compacts done in Montana this term. And quite frankly, I think it'll probably go on suspension because there's on both sides there's a compelling argument and a desire. Again, it's not appropriated dollars. On law enforcement, it's interesting on prosecutors, $16 an hour, that's less than McDonald's. And I don't know what the state rate is, I would imagine the state rate for prosecutors in Montana is somewhere around $80 an hour. But we'll look into that, how to have parity because you can't have $16 an hour and absolutely agree. For the CSKT, thank you for the water level, big issue. But the water in Montana, whiskey's for drinking, water's for fighting. All tribes have water issues on there and I think we're at least looking at those. Other issues, a lot of ground. On IHS, I'm under the belief now we're going to have to reorganize it. People have been complaining a long time, we had the IHS here, we've had multiple hearings, but it doesn't seem like it resonates. And we've talked to the new director, the old director, the directors in past, but the complaints are about the same. So I think we're going to have to look at how to reorganize it and probably more sovereignty on the front end. And the payment process, when you have 2018, I can't think of another system that has payments out there for something that's been approved. It's not like they're not approved, they were approved by a competent authority and then there's no payment ever. And I agree strongly with the link between the VA. Fort Peck's a long ways away from Helena. So you're not going to be able to go in unless it's a routine physical or something like that. Anything acute, you're not going to be able to go to, I don't know what the closest facility is at Fort Peck, it might be Billings, I don't know, but it's a long ways away. So that link between the two should be an easy for payment because you're a veteran, you know you're a veteran. Thank you for your service. The Montana tribes and tribes across the country serve at higher rates than I think anyone else as a people and certainly that should be returned in a veteran's a veteran. So you should be the same service and the same payment with that. But I think I can speak for the committee is that we strongly support sovereignty of the nations, but sovereignty should mean something. And what in my experience is, sovereignty means you have more bureaucratic nonsense than a county next to you. And the roads, I'm just interested on the roads, what part of the tribal from Browning to Babb is tribal?

Those are state, but in between like we're talking towards Heart Butte.

Okay.

Probably going, so there's 89, then we have one from...

So all the way in from Browning to Heart Butte is tribal?

Yes, the west side route one.

Thank you, Chairman. Chairman Star Comes Out.

Another Marine. Semper Fi. Semper Fi.

Okay.

I believe it's Duffy Comes At Night Memorial Highway.

I've actually driven that and I agree with you, it's not a great road.

Well, the one from Heart Butte to Birch Creek is like, like the bombs hit that road, you know. If you swerve on one side to miss a pothole, you're definitely going to hit one on the other side. So you got to drive very slow and there's a safety issue. I did have our roads department go out and patch some of it, but with severe weather, the elements of in our community, that doesn't fix, it only fixes the problem for a little while then it's back to where it was or even worse.

And inside baseball, understand the Pondera County on snow plowing and stuff. So also I think we're meeting today.

We are.

So we'll talk about the youth center or whatever that $20 million has been sitting out there for three years. We just got to figure out how to execute it on that. So I appreciate all of you being and I honor my name, Awanga Intatcha, and the Bell family for a lot of reasons, but it's my pleasure representing you as best I can. So thank you.

Well, on a personal note, let me just say that on behalf of the committee that this will be the last tribal days that Mr. Zinke will be serving and Indian Country as a whole, but specifically the state of Montana and y'all will be losing a powerful advocate whose shoes will not be able to be filled easily. So thank you for being a strong advocate for Indian Country, Commander Zinke.

I appreciate it. I'm not dying. Like all battleships, you got to return to port for repair and reload. So it's just my time to go back into dry dock for a little while.

Thank you, gentlemen. God bless.

Thank you.

Next up, we have from South Dakota, Ryman LeBeau, the Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Peter Lengkeek, Chairman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, Frank Star Comes Out, President of Oglala Sioux Tribe. Welcome, gentlemen.

Thank you.

Thank you all for being here. Appreciate everybody being here in the audience. Understand we're running a little bit behind timeline. We'll try to get the trains moving on time again. So try to keep your comments to five minutes that way we can ask some questions. We're going to begin with Chairman LeBeau. Please go ahead, sir.

Is this on? [Speaking native language.] Good day, wish you all a good day and members of the committee. We thank you for this time. I'm Ryman LeBeau, I'm the Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. And we wanted to discuss important matters with you today regarding the appropriations. Cheyenne River is a big, beautiful reservation. We're one of the largest. We have about 3 million acres that make up our reservation. And we are a treaty tribe. Our ancestors signed the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. And because of this, we enjoy the provisions of that treaty, which include law enforcement, which include healthcare, which include our land base, education, and that of which we're going to go over today. Law enforcement, public safety is a huge issue on Cheyenne River because of our large land base. We have, and the funding that we get from BIA, we have a 638 contract that allows for about 23, 24 officers. 16 of those are patrol officers. And there's sergeants, there's the lieutenant, there's the chief of police, there's two detectives. And so we have to make do with that. And there's three officers on per shift, throughout the day and the night. And that is a challenge for our safety of our people and the amount of crime and drugs we see on our reservation. To battle those, we need those dollars increased. We need it doubled, basically. Doubled would be the appropriate amount for our reservation and our size. So the roads that we face, these are BIA gravel roads. And there's several of them throughout our reservation. And again, we are a large land base and we have a long, a long gravel roads throughout the reservation. And all of them are BIA and they are some terrible roads. They're probably the worst in this country, I would suspect. Our school, our Takini School, they're on the west end and they, when it gets, when it rains too much, when it snows too much and it melts, it turns muddy and they can't have school, they call off school. And so and the also the buses that are hauling our children on these roads, sometimes they it's too dangerous and too muddy. The bus driver's concerned about sliding off the road and so he'll let the children out at the bottom of the hill and the children will walk up the hill and he'll, you know, he'll drive up just to be safe, just so the bus don't slide off the road with the kids in it. So that's the type of situations that we're faced with. The solution, we support more funding for BIA road maintenance in fiscal year 2027 of $58 million would go a long way in helping our situation out with our roads. The school, the BIE school, we have, we've been approved, our tribe, our biggest school is the Cheyenne-Eagle Butte School. And we are getting a new school. However, the funds that were assigned to this new school is not enough to completely build our school. It'll build approximately half of the school. And so we'll need additional funds to be allocated to complete the school. And it's not only the school, it's also the teacher housing and also the dorms. You know, dorms are very important, provide a safe place for our children to stay throughout the school year rather than having in some of the situations at home are not good for our children. So the dorms provide that safe place. So yeah, we need additional funding to build the entire school. And we do have another school in our area that will be, have to be built, and that's the Little Wound School. So they'll need that, we'll all need that extra funding of $470 million. So on the Indian Health Service, we need dedicated funding for specifically for substance abuse treatment. And right now there is none. Currently, we are planning and building our own treatment center, but that's with our own funds, with our third-party revenue that we generated. But if we can get a dedicated line in IHS to fund these treatment centers throughout Indian Country, that would go a long way and it would be a great situation to have funded for our people. And as far as the prevention part of it, we are, again, we are building our own using 105(l) funds. That's a very important line item as well. But using the 105(l), we're going to build health and wellness centers throughout our reservations to help prevent the illnesses that turn fatal on us, like heart disease, like lung disease, like cirrhosis, accidents. Those are some of the top things that turn fatal on Native Americans in South Dakota. So we're building the health and wellness centers, and we would enjoy direct funding to fund these facilities as well because we're getting creative and using 105(l) lease funds and that situation to help with to build these facilities. So with that, members of the subcommittee, I thank you and appreciate you for your time and dedication. And once we get this school built and these health and wellness centers up, we want to invite you guys out to Cheyenne River to help us celebrate. Thank you.

Thank you. Chairman Langdeek.

Good morning. Good morning, Chairman, Ranking Member Pingree, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Peter Langdeek, and I have the honor of serving as chairman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, representing the Hunkpati Dakota people. I am a United States Marine veteran, and I appreciate the committee's continued work to uphold the federal government's trust and treaty responsibilities to our tribal nations. The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe is comprised of the Hunkpati Dakota people, whose history with the United States includes forced removal, military violence, starvation policies, imprisonment, and government-sanctioned bounty hunters. Our ancestors were forcibly removed from our homelands in Minnesota following state-sanctioned violence and mass executions. We were forcibly removed to South Dakota and left our homelands and sacred sites without infrastructure, food systems, or protection. Our conditions today are inextricably linked to the policies of dispossession and exile in the 1800s. The Crow Creek Sioux Reservation spans more than 280,000 acres across Buffalo, Hyde, Hughes counties in South Dakota, with headquarters in Fort Thompson. Crow Creek is a direct service tribe, meaning the treaty and trust obligations are delivered directly by federal agencies like the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Services. Because of this structure, federal staffing shortages and funding instability disproportionately affect whether our tribal citizens receive basic services that are federal functions of the trust responsibility. The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe seeks self-reliance and self-determination, but meaningful progress requires federal partners to fully meet their trust obligations. I have provided supporting documentation regarding staffing shortages and federal workforce reductions affecting the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I respectfully request unanimous consent to enter these materials into the Congressional Record, including the 2026 GAO report on federal agency workforce changes and a 2023 letter from Congressman Dusty Johnson regarding the public safety emergency facing Crow Creek Sioux Tribe.

Without objection.

Hand these to you now. Thank you. Thank you, sir. The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe requests following report language be included in the final FY 2027 appropriations bill. The committee has received from all corners of Indian Country testimony expressing crucial concern over trust and treaty obligations being compromised by staff reductions in Indian service. The committee shares these concerns. The committee directs the Indian service to issue a report to the committee 90 days of this bill being signed documenting staffing levels since FY 24, titles, positions, responsibilities of departed employees, accounting for the DPR engagement and the RIFs. The committee directs the Indian service to provide the committee with a corresponding brief as to the Indian service capacity and requisite staffing levels to meet the treaty and trust obligations to direct service tribes in particular. The committee directs the Indian service to provide quarterly updates as to the impacts of staff reductions, loss of institutional knowledge, and elevation of current staffing levels. The committee is concerned that the staff reductions have compromised the Indian service capacity to meet treaty and trust obligations effectively, redefining the federal government's treaty and trust corpus. Today I have two modest tribal-specific requests. First, the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe is seeking support from our federal partners in the conveyance of an abandoned law enforcement facility. We request $1 million in fiscal year 27 to support pre-development activities to repurpose an abandoned BIA law enforcement facility into a functioning tribal public safety facility. The tribe plans to operate the facility under ISDEAA Section 105(l) lease program. The project represents the first step transitioning in some federal function strengthening tribal self-determination in public safety. Federal investments in this project supports our transition to greater tribal control and accountability in justice systems. Our second request is for family support and prevention programming. Therefore, the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe requests $1 million in fiscal year 27 to expand family support programming focused on prevention and early intervention. The requested funds would support additional staff positions, parent and youth support services, family stabilization programs, and culturally grounded prevention initiatives. The need is significant. According to the 2020 census, children of the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation are the poorest in the United States. Nearly all 600 students of the Crow Creek Tribal School qualify for Title I services. Investing in prevention reduces downstream cost in child welfare, justice systems, and emergency services and reliance on costly interventions. Strategic investments in public safety and infrastructure and family prevention services will strengthen our ability to care for our people and build safer communities for our children. With reliable federal partnerships, we can move closer to the goal that federal Indian policy has long promised: true tribal self-determination. Thank you for your consideration, and I am happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Chairman. Chairman Star Comes Out. Another Marine. Semper Fi.

Semper Fi. Good morning, Ranking Member, Chief or Chairman Ellzey, I believe. Yes. Semper Fi. Today I want to go a little bit different route and just talk about some things. But first of all, I'd just like to say for the record that, you know, my tribe, the Oglala Sioux Tribe, is a large land base, federally recognized treaty tribe, and which has 54,000 members and 3.3 million acres of land. And there's a lot of issues that are going on within my tribe and with all large land-based tribes. And I also like to, I'm also the chairman of the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen's Association for the Great Plains region, which is 17 tribes in the Great Plains. So I also want to speak on some of the large tribes' behalf also because we all share the same problems and lack of resources and needs. One thing I've noticed at the beginning of this administration, and this is my second administration coming into office, is, and I appreciate the funding that was increased, but I want to say for the record and tell you, the ranking members here, that that is not enough. That is not enough. And currently in law enforcement, I'm also here to speak on law enforcement because I do believe that's one of our priorities, not only within my tribe, but the Great Plains region, where we're severely underfunded, under-resourced, undermanned, and it's causing a huge amount of crime and other issues within our reservation boundaries. So that's very important that we need to address the elephant in the room, so to speak. And you know, I had to do some research and some of the conclusions I came up with, you know, in the 90s, there was a, I guess Congress had a problem because he realized law enforcement in Indian Country was in trouble. So they created this what they call a Circle Project, which consisted up to five tribes. They did a basically a pilot project on. And within that pilot project, it, I guess in the 90s, Congress' decision in pushing large land-based tribes into DOJ funding was the result of law enforcement going from, we had 113 officers down to 30 in one year because of how that was set up. And you know, when OJS was created and when DOJ went away, the DOJ funding, BIA was left. That was the only funding left. And today that's currently the base funding that's in place right now. So it kind of got rid of the COPS grant, which is greatly needed because it did benefit the tribes back in the 90s before the COPS grant ran out. So and I need to stress that, that the base funding needs to be reset because that is the root of the problem. And we all need to understand that. You know, I sat here and listened to all these tribes giving us the same problems with our law enforcement and other programs, but we got to look at the structure. You know, that's great when Congress gives us a pot of money, but how is that pot of money being divided? And me, I truly believe that we shouldn't be putting all the tribes together and fight over this pot of money because we're all different. Large tribes are different than smaller tribes, how their funding goes, their geographical location, and where they come from, their land base. All those things need to be taken into consideration. But when you put us together and tell us to fend for ourselves and come up here and lobby, and we do lobby, it doesn't work for us. It doesn't work for us because you have smaller tribes representing large tribes, and they don't even have the funding we do or the programs we do. And when I say by programs, I mean when you have self-determination tribes over that are, when you have those tribes, the self-determined tribes over the other tribes, it's looked at differently. But when they sit on these boards, we're drowned out when we express our concerns. And so our needs are never met. And we have to suffer. Ultimately, our tribal members suffer. So that's the thing I'd like to change is this is one of the reasons why we pulled out one of the largest organizations in this nation, NCAI, is because we don't have a voice at that table. Large tribes do not have a voice at that table. They're all represented by mostly casino tribes who have funding. And tribes like some of our tribes in the Great Plains, we struggle. How do we compare to that? That's what needs to be looked at. And that's what I wanted to come here today and express because for federally recognized large land-based treaty tribes, the United States government has a treaty obligation to uphold. And right now it's severely underfunded and under-resourced. And we need to hold the United States accountable based on our treaties. You know, yesterday I had the opportunity to tour the museum and look at the 1868 treaty, the 1851 treaty, and the 1825 treaty. Very powerful to see our ancestors' signatures there marked by an X. Very powerful to see our leaders stand up and take a stand for us so we can sit here and talk today and continue fighting for our people. And to see that to me is probably going to be a once-in-a-lifetime deal. And that's what I'm here for is to make sure that we follow and what our ancestors put in there for us so we can continue for the next generations, for our children. And Congress needs to understand that we're here, we're alive, and we're not leaving. And our membership is growing and growing, but the funding is not. So that's what I wanted to stress today. You know, we have treaty rights, we have treaty obligation, but when funding gets involved, we tend to forget treaty obligation. And that needs to change. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President. Ranking member.

Well, thank you all for your testimony and thank you President Star Comes Out. You know, there's one thing you really learn on this committee seeing the over 500 tribes across the country is just how different they are, how seriously different their needs are, and all too often we try to do a kind of one-size-fits-all or really just an inadequate approach to funding and it doesn't take into consideration the great differences that you have and even the differences between treaty tribes and direct service tribes. I think it's something that's just very little understood and you couple that with the inadequate funds, you know, we just don't begin to come close to meeting the resources of things like law enforcement, you know, we're probably under 20 percent of what the actual need is out there and just so many of our programs just don't work right and I'm just sorry that we don't get closer to doing the right thing and I hope every year we try to get a little closer but it's just such inadequate funding and you can't start with such a low base as many of you have said. And thanks for pointing out some of the challenges of direct service tribes. I'm really worried right now about the cuts in staffing. I mean, it was already horrendous two or three years ago hearing about how long it took to do the things that needed to be done or to get the funding there or just to make the payments of things that should go out at IHS or other places. And then in this last year we've just experienced these deep cuts in staffing and I don't know how anything honestly gets done over there. I'm looking forward to our hearings this year with BIA, BIE, IHS, it's just really inadequate. So I thank you for bringing some of that to our attention. It doesn't solve the problem but I know we'll have a focus on it this year and ask for, you know, as you were detailing some of the things, just much closer scrutiny of what's getting done in the staffing levels over there. I think we just have to crack down on that right now especially. And really feel for you in building of the new school. Congratulations on being able to build it, but I know that happens all too often right now between, you know, material shortages, tariffs, just everything that the costs are much higher than people anticipated. So I hope we're in a position to make sure that you get that funding. We just got Office of Inspector General report on the schools and it's just not good. It's not good how inadequate, I mean, I don't have to tell anyone how inadequate it is. And when you talked about roads, someone was just talking in one of the earlier panels about the inadequacy of the roads and just the idea of, you know, kicking the kids off the bus and, you know, making them walk up a muddy hill. It's just, it's a graphic display of how bad it is out there. So I'm not solving anybody's problem today but I really, it means a lot to have you talk about it in such detailed terms. It really, it helps us to think about how we go through this budget cycle this year. So thank you all very much.

Thank you, Miss Pingree. Gentlemen, thank you for being here. I had a quick question for you, Chairman Lengkeek. You've done a lot of work in counseling to prevent suicide. Yes, sir. With your description of your, I'm assuming is that just for your res that you do that?

Yes, sir. Thank you for that question. For many years I have worked exclusively just on the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation, but recently here have been appointed to some positions where I'm helping on a national level now. I'm the chairman of the IHS National Suicide Prevention Committee.

And are you seeing an increase in the need for that kind of counseling?

Yes. Yes, an increase. Definitely, a huge increase.

And since you are able to see the top level, what's is there one thing that's causing that, or is it can you can you say it's despair?

Multiple layers. Multiple dynamics. Despair.

Okay.

A lot of it goes back to, if I may, sir, a lack of education, a lack of prevention, lack of resources, of course, and the ability to I'll stop right there.

Okay. Well, I appreciate you doing that, and I, you know, I want to speak for on behalf of Chairman Simpson, who really does take this to heart. He had to step out, and as you look around this table, there are a lot of names but not a lot of members. I just want to point out to those who are here who've done this year after year, thank you for coming up, coming on your own dime. It's very difficult to get out here. And that in spite of the fact that there's a majority and a minority group here, that the members of this subcommittee are united without exception. I think I can say that, Shelly, that we are united without exception in the understanding that we actually feel very strongly about the issues that every tribe who comes before us and brings. And I would say that I think most of us feel and agree that we got off to a rough start a year ago with specifically what you were talking about on a new administration on some of the things that occurred with cost cutting that that didn't sync up with treaty obligation. Doesn't matter what country you have a treaty with. You are obligated. It's not an option. And like Ryan Zinke said, I think you guys were sitting here before, it's not an option. It's not discretionary. Now, I don't I'm not going to speak on behalf of Chairman Simpson on should it be mandatory spending, but I do agree with Chairman Zinke that it should be coming from certainly on the law enforcement from the DOJ fund. That that should just be we owe that. And if you're not able to patrol, how many how many law enforcement officers? 54,000 tribal members, right? How many law enforcement officers do you have now?

Did you say 30? 30.

30 for 54,000 people and 3,000,000 acres?

Yes.

That's a disgrace. Yes. That is an absolute disgrace. So it doesn't help when you go back home and said, well, we made an impact and they said it's a disgrace and you still only have 30. So I just want you to know everybody on this committee, there's not enough money for you. We want there to be more because that is when we talk about missing and and and one of the most important things to Chairman Simpson is missing and murdered indigenous people and the travesty that that is and the the lack of syncopation between the res and not the res on how we deal with those issues and justice. We are united on it. I hope that we make progress year after year after year. I'm not again, it's never enough, but we're united on it and we're all emotional about it and we want we are all on this committee because we care.

Well, thank you, Chairman. I definitely appreciate that and and it's good to acknowledge that or that you acknowledge that. You know, it does mean something when we hear that because sometimes we don't get to hear that, especially from a committee. But one thing I wanted to point out was, you know, we did declare a state of emergency and this and it rolled into this administration and our stats are still the same. So it definitely needs to be looked at and according to treaty obligation. Treaties are the supreme land of the law. Consultation needs to happen also when those decisions are made. Thank you.

May I make one final comment? Yes, sir. Thank you. One final comment, please. The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe did declare a state of emergency on public safety in 2023 on the heels of a murder and a lot of other violent acts that were going on on on a reservation. So I declared that state of emergency. And here recently, I just declared another state of emergency on the health and wellness of our children. Recently here looking at data getting ready for appropriations and consultations and things, I was looking at the Agency for Children and Families. And in that data, it it had Crow Creek Sioux Tribe listed as a high risk environment for children. In fact, it's the highest risk environment for children in the United States. I firmly believe the federal government and the tribes put their heads together and come up with solutions centered around prevention and education would probably take what probably take this even further to be more effective and efficient for our future generations. So thank you.

You bet. Well, I think we do need to prioritize this as a nation and I honestly I think that culturally I think the American people are starting to pay more attention to something that's been long ignored in a very in a more positive way. And you know, when Zinke leaves, I'm going to talk about him behind his back, but when he leaves Congress, I would like to see him take an a a bigger role that's that the administration could find create for him to to you we have czars for a lot of things and Indian Affairs is one of them and it's you as you go throughout the country trying to solve these problems. And I'm way over time, but you guys deserve it. You can't accomplish what you need to get across to us in five minutes and I appreciate that and I'm sorry it's limited to five minutes. You guys are a treasure to your nations and you're a treasure to the United States as a whole. So thank you for being here. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you. Thank you. Appreciate you committee. Next up, we have Chairman Steve Sitting Bear from Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota and Lana Street, the chairperson from Spirit Lake Tribe in North Dakota. And Frank, Frank, are you still in here? Hey, I would like to get some information from you on the the rates of service members from the from the Indian nation is higher than any other ethnic group in the United States. I'd like to know how we can get more police officers from the tribes. More people serve the United States than serve the tribes. Yes. So let's find a solution. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all very much for being here. We're way behind timeline and again, thanks for all the patience for the people in the back. We're going to try to get the train moving again. So we'll start with Steve. Okay. So when you see this, yellow is when it starts flashing red, your five minutes are up. I'm not going to gavel you, but just just be prepared. We can ask more questions if if y'all stop at five minutes. So please go ahead. Chairman Sitting Bear.

Thank you. Ambetu waste. Amato yutka amachape. And I want to say good morning Representative Ellzey and members of the subcommittee. My name is Steve Sitting Bear. I am the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. We have about 16,000 members living on and off our reservation. Our reservation exists both in North and South Dakota. Our ancestors signed treaties with the United States in 1851 and 1868. We ceded vast lands and resources so that this country could pursue its dreams. And the United States, in return, promised protection and services. The homelands we reserved are about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. The United States is failing to live up to our treaties. After decades of chronic underfunding, we lack the basic infrastructure that every government needs to secure and provide a homeland. Despite all of this, we are moving forward. I am launching a agribusiness initiative to promote sustainable economic development, healthy traditional foods, food security, and food sovereignty. This includes reestablishing Standing Rock Farms and Ranch to cultivate high value crops and manage our bison herds. For too long, most of the agricultural revenue from our land leaves the reservation. In 2022, USDA reported that there was 270,000,000 in agricultural revenue from the two counties overlapping our reservation. USDA also reports that 47,000,000 of this is reported as net profit. We don't see that profit. We get some value from the grazing and hay leases BIA approves, but most of this revenue leaves the reservation to benefit others. It is time for the BIA, USDA, and other federal agencies to support tribal economic self-determination. Even with this vision, we can't get the land data. We need to plan for resource management and economic development. Five months ago, right after I swore in, I asked the BIA for the location and status of the lands we own and could use for development. I also asked for the data on land buyback. How much land was purchased back and where is this land? I'm still waiting for that response. Our tribal council has been asking these same questions long before I took office. I'm going to show you guys something. This is a map of Standing Rock. This is the legacy of the federal government's failed allotment policies. In the late 1800s, the government divided up tribal lands into individual parcels. Our tribal lands were homesteaded by non-Indians and some lands were taken by the government. We were left with a checkerboard of individual parcels and highly fractionated lands. Some parcels have 10, 100, even a thousand owners. The tribe owns many fractionated interests in these lands, but we don't know where. We can't manage and plan for what we cannot see. Our staff is trained to use the federal land database TAMS, but we are still denied access by the BIA. More than a hundred years after allotment ended, we are still struggling to get basic land data. We need the subcommittee to modernize BIA land management. We need realty staff with expertise, experience, and the technical resources to make our land data easily accessible. Without this basic information, we cannot achieve economic self-determination. Our hands are tied behind our back with no way to move forward. We are the best stewards of our own lands, but we cannot plan for a future while we're being kept in the dark. The United States has a treaty and trust responsibility to support the highest and best use of our lands and resources. Instead, we get failed policies and chronic underfunding. This extends to the promises the United States made to our ancestors in treaty. Healthcare is just one example. Our hospital was built in 1962. It is a 60-year-old patchwork of modular units where the roofs leak and the boiler fails in the winter. When a medical helicopter lands at night, our nurses run out into the street to guide the pilot with their cell phone lights. We need a new facility. But a building is only as good as the people inside of it. Our facility is failing, and that is only half of the battle. We are facing severe staffing crisis with nearly half of our positions vacant. We are asking for the funding to fill 265 new positions and the housing required to retain them. Law enforcement is another example. We have only seven to 12 officers to cover 2.3 million acre reservation. As I'm speaking here today, we have officers being detailed off Standing Rock to other areas of the country. On a typical shift, we have just two officers on patrol for an area the size of Rhode Island and Delaware. Recruitment is a constant problem. Our recruits must travel 1,200 miles to New Mexico just to attend police academy. The subcommittee must fund a BIA police academy in the Great Plains so we can train and retain our own people. Our detention center is another example. The BIA recommended condemning our detention center five years ago. But here we are today, still using it at three times capacity. Instead of contracting to send detainees away from their families and communities, BIA should spend that money to build a safe and secure detention center on Standing Rock. Finally, the federal government's treaty commitment to educate our youth is being met with total neglect. Our Rock Creek Grant School is not safe and it's losing students. There is no fire sprinkler system, failing ventilation, and a heating system that leaves them in the cold. Part of the building is over 120 years old. In 2020, BIA rated its condition as poor, but there has been zero follow-up since. BIA estimates that we need 21 million to fix this, including 7.8 million for immediate emergency repairs. We are not asking for luxury. We're asking for a roof that doesn't leak and a school that won't catch fire. The BIA can't give us the information we need to do our own planning. Federal rules and regulations tie us up in red tape. We can't exercise the authority that every government relies on. Our land, our jurisdiction, our funding sources, and our authorities are as checkerboarded as that map. Untying our hands should be easy, but the federal government only makes things more complicated. The administration wants to supercharge 638 contracting, but Congress won't provide the full funding that we need to take over these programs. Tribal governments could raise tax revenues, but we are surrounded by state and federal governments that tax our people, our lands, and activities on our reservations. Everyone knows there is no law enforcement on our reservations, but no one will restore tribal government authority so that we can enforce the law. Our sovereignty, self-determination, creativity, and leadership are locked. We're locked up in a maze of more than 100 years of failed federal policies, oversight, and fractionation of our lands, resources, and authorities. Fifty years later, we still lack meaningful self-determination. We try to take action, but we have to navigate a maze of fractionation, red tape, and limited authority. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is not asking for a handout. We are here to collect on a debt by the United States. We live in the wealthiest nation on the planet. This country can pay its bills. Our 1851 and 1868 treaties are the supreme law of the land, but the United States seems to have forgotten the promises made in those treaties. It is time for the United States to make good on its word. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I'm available to answer any questions.

Well, thank you. Chairperson Street.

Anpetu waste, Iyokpiya wacinnyankapi. Good morning, subcommittee. I thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of my nation today. My name is Lonna Street, the chairperson of the Spirit Lake Nation in northeastern North Dakota. We have provided you with a written testimony already, but I thank you for the opportunity to be here today to speak. My statement today will focus on several Spirit Lake specific funding requests as well as other programmatic requests. Our treaty of 1867 promises that our Spirit Lake Reservation will serve as a livable permanent home. Treaty-based funding for Indian nations and tribes is essential to our Spirit Lake native people and communities. The Spirit Lake Nation consists of 8,000 tribal members. It's about 450 square miles and 250,000 acres checkerboard tribe as was stated earlier. We experience a 27.2 percent poverty rate and our life expectancy for our men is 47 years old and 56 years old for our women. And sometimes even younger with our addictions and, you know, with our social problems and healthcare that we health issues that we experience on our on our tribal nation. Currently at Spirit Lake, we are seeking the return of our lakebed. Our lakebed was part of our original 1867 treaty. Our treaty mandates that competent health healthcare our treaty mandates competent physician-led healthcare, but we continue to have poor health, diabetes, heart disease, violent crime, homicide, suicide, poor housing, poor nutrition, and poverty. Currently at Spirit Lake, we do need a new healthcare clinic to accommodate these conditions. We applied for the joint venture funding, but we were denied. So we plan to use the Section 105(l) of the Indian Self-Determination Act to build one, and we are requesting Congress to keep that program fully funded. It currently is one of the only tools for tribes in our situation. We need $2 million for our BIE Tate Topa school road. Our Tate Topa tribal school is a tribally controlled BIE on our reservation school that serves 443 K through eight students. This route is the only one into the school and it is in terrible shape. It's a danger to our school children and to the community, continuously needing repairs to our school buses. We also need to add another kindergarten classroom next year, but no available space exists to accommodate this need in our school. There are several essential programs, including our FACE program, alternative school, and our middle school culture classroom. They're all housed in portable units outside of our main building, and for us that's a concern, especially when we experience 40 and 40 below weather in North Dakota for more than five or six months at a time. We also need a new roof, a major building upgrade to provide our students with an equal education opportunity. As tribes, we should be eligible for impact aid funding to pay for classroom instruction. Currently at our Tate Topa tribal school, we lack funding to provide we lack funding for those students who are deemed non-beneficiary because they don't meet the requirements for enrollment, and so we end up funding them, you know, from I guess from an empty account basically. Tiwahe program, our Tiwahe program is a initiative that the Spirit Lake Tribe was able to become a part of back initially when the initiative became available. In our language, Tiwahe means Dakota or in our in our language, Tiwahe means family. And the Tiwahe program brings together families. The Tiwahe program is a community-based initiative provide culturally appropriate community support for native families by integrating tribal practices, cultural norms, values, and traditions into social service programs. Roughly about 3.5 billion annually is needed to meet minimum requirements across Indian country. For law enforcement, Congress needs to enact an Indian Country Violent Crime Fighting Act to codify President Trump's Lady Justice Task Force. We need joint BIA and DOJ funding for annual tribal master law enforcement plans. In FY 26, funding was less than 600 million. Indian country needs about 950 million for fiscal year 27. We need the funding to save lives. We need more tribal police officers. Recently, we had a young lady on Spirit Lake lose her life. We currently have two tribal police officers at any given time on Spirit Lake, and that is only because there's officers detailed from the Turtle Mountain Tribe, which is roughly about 80 miles away. She did everything she needed to do. She called 911, waited for a police officer to respond. However, when you're only working with one officer who at the time was on on the east end part of the reservation, he didn't make, you know, make it in time. She actually called 911 because she was being surrounded by coyotes, and so she went into the water. And it was early October, and at that time, you know, it's cold in North Dakota already. And so she she succumbed to to the water because the officer didn't respond couldn't respond on time because we only had one officer on. And so these are the issues that we, you know, we in Indian country face because we lack law enforcement officers in our community. Our other BIA programmatic requests include 27 27 billion for Indian Affairs programs in fiscal year 27, which is the recommendation of the tribal the TBIC the TBIC committee. Robust increases are needed for all federal-based funded programs and additional funding to address public safety and justice in tribal communities, the economic and social well-being of our citizens and all those who visit or do business in our community, the backlog of school, community, and government infrastructure construction and maintenance, taking land into trust, and addressing cultural protections within tribal and federal lands. In 2024, BIA submitted a report to Congress estimating a minimum base level of service to all federally recognized tribal nations, including 1.72 billion in needed for tribal law enforcement programs, 1.5 billion is needed for tribal courts, and 285 million is needed to adequately fund existing detention centers. So overall, more than 3.5 billion is needed for public safety and justice in Indian country. BIA received 39.19 million for the BIA road maintenance program in fiscal year 24, and BIA has a deferred maintenance backlog of approximately 400 million. Additionally, the annual funding levels for this program have been relatively flat, especially when compared to the increasing level of deferred maintenance roads needs. This program is critical to the safety of all those driving on the approximately 29,100 miles of roads and 1,100 bridges in Indian country that are often overseen by BIA. We support TBIC's fiscal year 26 recommendation of 400 million for the BIA road maintenance program to address deferred maintenance needs in Indian country. In Indian education, BIE programmatic funding nationwide for fiscal year 27 needs over $3 billion. This covers 169 elementary and secondary schools, 14 dorms, and post-secondary institutions serving roughly 40,000 students. Core operations for fiscal year 27 needs are $1.9 billion in fiscal year 27. Elementary and secondary needs, roughly $1 billion for elementary and secondary. Post-secondary and management should remain at least at 26 fiscal year funding level of $100 million. Funding challenges are the $7,500 per pupil amount for Native students compared to a $25,000 national average per pupil. Congress needs to close this gap. We also need funding for our vocational rehab services building. We need increased funding to serve growing numbers of Native adults with disabilities. We need more counselors and job placement specialists, especially those trained in culturally grounded rehabilitation. We need funding for transportation solutions for clients in rural and remote areas like that we all experience in our tribal nations. We need expanded training and technical assistance for the vocational rehab. And we also need to address housing. Housing is much, much needed in Indian Country and much underfunded. Currently at Spirit Lake, we currently have around 400 people on our waiting list. I thank you today, thank you the committee for hearing my testimony, and I do stand for questions.

Thank you. Ranking Member Pingree.

Well, thank you both. Really appreciate your testimony and the horrendous challenges that you are facing, many of which we have been hearing about over the last couple of days. So we will certainly be doing our best to try to increase some of the funding for law enforcement, Indian health, Indian education. I mentioned earlier there is just a new report out yesterday from the Inspector General about the things you are just talking about about how horrendous the conditions are. And thank you for sharing that story about the woman who perished. That is just awful to think of someone being that far from law enforcement, but I know we hear it all the time that with underserved reservations, you can do everything you are supposed to do and still not make it. So thank you, we certainly will work on that. And I appreciate you sharing this map with us. I would have to get a graduate education to begin to understand how complicated these situations are that you are dealing with on the reservation. And I really appreciated hearing about the plans you want to make to have an agribusiness and do more growing and take back some of the leases that have been used. So I can't dig into it all now, but maybe at another time I could begin to understand a little bit better about how we could help with that. It is something I also serve on the Agriculture Committee, so it is one of my joint interests is how do we help those communities that really want to get back into growing their own food or doing more of it, and it sounds like you have got some huge challenges to face. I just can't, I mean, I know it is true when we hear about it all the time, but the idea that you can't access the information and the data that you need just to do what you are trying to do is a horrendous situation and it just seems like something that we ought to be able to make some progress on. So love to talk to you more about that. We won't try to do it today, but if we could connect up later, that would be great. Thank you both, really, for your testimony. Appreciate it very much.

Chairman, I think, I think if you get your the information that you have requested five months ago to this committee, we can get that to your because you span North and South Dakota, right? Your res. So we can get that to them and we can spur a little, we can put a little spur to the horse to try to accelerate that. And that should be digitized and it should be far simpler in today's world to access whether or not you can, what you can develop on, whether you can or can't. And that is just ridiculous. A year ago you had a multiple murder, three were murdered. Can you in a minute tell me what occurred there?

So it all stemmed from lack of law enforcement. We had, we have tribal security that we try to fund ourselves through our own tribal, our local budgets. And there was a DUI driver. Law enforcement couldn't respond and so our tribal security had attempted to respond with no, I guess no luck. And so being frustrated with what had transpired, he was frustrated knowing that his grandfather was a law enforcement officer from back in the 80s. And it was so stressful for him and he was so distraught that he went home and he took the lives of his mother, his niece, and his sister. His niece and his sister. The mother survived the shooting and so she was the sole survivor of that shooting. And there again our lack of law enforcement and underfunding.

Okay. Well, thanks for sharing. That is a real-world story of could, had there been more law enforcement, it might not have happened at all and it could have certainly been limited. So thank you, thank you for sharing that tragic story. Okay. Thank you all very much for being here. We got work to do. Thanks. Finally for the morning session, we have got Chief Jeff Wacoche from the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma, Chairman Jacob Keyes from the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma, and Chairman Rick Sylestine of Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas. Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you all for being here. Remember green and yellow are good, red when it starts flashing the five minutes up, we want to get through this so we have got some times for questions. If it is okay, I am just going to sit here and bleed in front of you for a little bit. Cut, you know when you are bald you cut yourself shaving every once in a while and it is not on the face, but don't mind me. We are glad you are here. It is good to see you again, Rick. It seems like a year went way too fast and I hope we have made some progress and I hope that your testimony is good. So Jeff, we are going to start with you. Welcome. Go ahead.

Appreciate that. So Chairman Ellzey, Ranking Member Pingree, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Jeff Wacoche and I am Chief of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma. The UKB is a federally recognized tribe headquartered on our Cherokee reservation in northeastern Oklahoma. We have been federally recognized since 1946 and have struggled to receive the rights and benefits to which we are entitled as a legal successor in interest to the extinct historic Cherokee Nation and the treaties our ancestors entered on behalf of the entire Cherokee people. We are entitled to provide healthcare services directly to our people under ISDEAA. In the early 2000s, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma assumed key IHS programs related to the Tahlequah service unit, including purchased referred care and control of Hastings Indian Hospital without our consent. This was a direct violation of federal law which requires that when one tribe seeks to assume a program for a shared geographic area, all other tribes in that area must consent. IHS unlawfully awarded a 638 contract to CNO for clinical services and PRC despite knowing that we have never given consent. As a result, our members have been underserved and denied healthcare services despite being entitled to receive care. As I said last year, this was not a technical oversight. It was a breach of trust. After reviewing this history, IHS confirmed that we are entitled by law to operate our own tribal health system and proposed securing it under the new tribes funding budget line in its FY 24, 25, and 26 budget requests. IHS's responsibility is clear. It must provide healthcare to all federally recognized tribes regardless of how long they have been recognized. The new tribes funding budget exists for this exact reason. IHS now seeks to correct its error. This error resulted in an ISDEAA contract which transferred $5.6 million in non-recurring funding to the UKB for 2024. Because PRC was the only program transferred in the 2024 contract, the entire 5.6 was allocated to PRC. In 2025, again UKB received $5.6 million in non-recurring funding, this time receiving $4.6 million for PRC and $1 million for hospitals and clinics. We await award for 2026 of $5.6 million in non-recurring funding which will be allocated across the programs negotiated for in 2026. While another tribal official has falsely alleged that our PRC funding is disproportionate to what other tribes receive, the full story is that we are entitled to $5.6 million annually for healthcare. Once we begin operating the additional programs, the $5.6 million will be allocated across those programs just as it was in 2025. Recurring funding is necessary to allow the UKB to build upon our current successes and make substantial investments in furtherance of our healthcare system. Our request for recurring funding has been met with bipartisan support in both chambers. Unfortunately, we have not been included in the FY 24, 25, or 26 enacted budgets. We have already proven our ability to operate high-quality health programs under ISDEAA, successfully managing behavioral health and substance abuse services throughout our reservation with an annual IHS funding amount of $99,000. Our track record of efficient operations and prudent management is self-evident by our ability to transform that meager funding into a behavioral health system which now operates across seven locations and provides services to more than 1,800 patients while employing a workforce of nearly 100 in rural northeast Oklahoma. We look forward to replicating this success throughout our tribal health system. Yesterday you heard from one tribal leader who urged you to inflict harm upon a sister tribal government. How a tribal official who professes to be a sovereignty warrior could openly oppose critical health and education funding to another federally recognized tribe is beyond me and disrespects all tribes. His words have nothing to do with fiscal responsibility. Providing healthcare funding for the UKB will have no impact on funding to any other tribe, especially CNO, and will only increase access to care on the Oklahoma Cherokee reservation. On behalf of the United Keetoowah Band, I urge you to correct this moral and legal error and enact the IHS's request to fund the UKB on a recurring basis. Wado.

Thank you, Chief. Chairman Keyes.

Good. Can you hear me? All right. Haw-way-pay. Jacob Keyes in-gah-nyay Keyes. Bah-ko-je wahn-yee-hee ah-day nah-hay. Nah ah-ho-hee haw-wee-gee wah-day-gloke-kee-kee. I want to say good morning to the subcommittee. My name is Jacob Keyes, I'm the Chairman of the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma. We are the Bah-ko-je, which means people of the gray snow. Our reservation homelands are between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. We're a small tribe, just over 950 tribal members. But we're the largest employer in our rural area, which is a very rural area. We operate many businesses, a couple gaming properties, fire department, police department, but we're also in the middle of building a $40 million health facility that will also have a childcare center and a DOJ center. We're less than a month away from opening a new gaming facility with Caesars called Harrah's Oklahoma. We'll have 400 new jobs when that casino opens. So keep in mind that's in the poorest county in Oklahoma. We'll build a new hotel next year that will add another couple of hundred jobs. So we'll reinvest those gaming funds not only into our tribal community, but the surrounding community. We're great Oklahomans. One of our most important investments is our nationally known Grey Snow Eagle House. The aviary provides rehabilitation and long-term care for injured eagles and other birds from across the United States. We've rehabilitated hundreds of bald and golden eagles and have released 55 eagles back into the wild. Through rehabilitation, education, research, and sanctuary, we're working to preserve this culturally significant species for the next seven generations. This all began with a small U.S. Fish and Wildlife grant. Today, the aviary is completely funded by our tribe from our general fund, which primarily comes from our gaming revenues. I point that out because this is a prime example of how a small federal program can make a lasting impact. But my testimony today is focused on programs that support tribal economic development and healthcare. But first, I need to address the administration's reckless firings, reductions in force, and attempts to cut and consolidate Indian Affairs programs. The Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma has a government-to-government relationship with the United States. Our ancestors negotiated treaties and agreements and ceded vast amounts of lands and resources in exchange for programs and services promised by the United States. Our tribe paid for these programs and services upfront. I want to point out that we're also designated as a Purple Heart tribe. We're very proud of all of our veterans, our Grey Snow warriors. I point that out because some of that payment upfront was with blood. The United States is failing to uphold its end of the deal. BIA, BIE, and IHS employees touch every part of our lives and every tribal project. They're already underfunded and understaffed. Each employee is already doing the work of four people. Losing just one federal employee can bring our economic development projects to a halt or threaten life-saving healthcare. Eliminate, eliminating staff without any consultation or transition plan violates the United States' treaty and trust responsibilities. Funding and staffing Indian programs and services must be mandatory. Treaty programs and services cannot be subject to political changes. The Indian Health Service is an important example of this. This subcommittee has done a lot to provide advanced appropriations, increase funding, and protect IHS, but IHS is still chronically understaffed and underfunded. If we lose one employee, our healthcare system stops working. It's time to make IHS appropriations mandatory. Mandatory funding would ensure stable and predictable funding for the healthcare we were promised in our treaty. IHS also receives significantly less funding than other federal healthcare programs. Recent estimates say that IHS needs about $76 billion to fully be funded. Again, the United States must uphold its end of the deal. Even after surviving decades of broken promises and failed policies, the Iowa Tribe is strong and growing. We're using economic development to provide services to our members and many others in our rural area. We're making investments in jobs, law enforcement, and healthcare that will support our tribe but also the surrounding community. This is real important to me. Before being elected, I started my own business. I'm a tribal entrepreneur and a businessman. I believe that we make our own opportunities and that by helping others we help ourselves. I also know that there are a lot of doors that are closed to tribal members. Business investment and financing in our rural area is simply not available. The federal government has a trust responsibility to help overcome those barriers. We need programs like the BIA guaranteed loan program. With just $13 million, the loan guarantee program can support and guarantee 200 million in funding for tribal businesses. The administration tried to zero out this program. We need more access to investment and capital, not less. When I started my business, the intention was not for it to be known as a native-owned business. But when I started to gain attention for that, I noticed that I had tribal members and other natives in our community come to me and express how they were inspired that somebody like them that came from where they came from could start a business. I grew up in Little Axe, Oklahoma, poor. My remote control was a pair of pliers. And the idea of having a million dollars to start my business honestly just seemed like it was not for somebody like me. So I urge that we fight to keep this program available. The Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma is not holding back. We're growing our economy and building our infrastructure. I appreciate the subcommittee for your support on these programs and thank you for the opportunity to testify today. Thank you.

Rick. Chairman.

Chi-ka-ma. Hello. Ranking Member Pingree, Congressman Ellzey, a-lee-la-mo-lo, thank you for this opportunity to testify today. My name is Ricky Sylestine, I am the Chairman of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas. First, I would like to thank this subcommittee. With the invaluable help of Congressman Luttrell and Congressman Ellzey and this subcommittee, report language was included in the fiscal year 2026 bill calling attention to the long-standing funding inequity affecting our tribe's law enforcement. As a result of this language, we have had constructive discussions with the BIA. Despite these positive discussions, it is clear that we have exhausted our administrative actions and are now asking Congress to act directly. I would like to, I would like to provide some historical context. The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe has a long history in what is now deep East Texas and has called this area home since the 1700s. In the 1850s, the Texas legislature purchased land in Polk County that forms our reservations to this day. Congress granted us federal recognition in 1928, but that recognition was terminated in 1954. In 1987, after years of uncertainty, Congress restored our federal recognition through the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and the Alabama and Coushatta Tribes of Texas Restoration Act. That act is central to the issue before you today. Before 2013, our tribe received PL 638 funding from the BIA to support our tribal police. Then in 2013, the BIA's Southern Plains Regional Director concluded that because the Restoration Act conferred criminal jurisdiction over our reservation to Texas, there was no remaining federal criminal jurisdiction and therefore no basis for 638 law enforcement funding. Here is the legal reality. Our Restoration Act placed our tribe under the 1968 optional version of Public Law 280, not the 1953 mandatory version. The mandatory version extinguished federal jurisdiction in six specific states. Texas is not one of them. The optional version, which applies to us, preserves concurrent federal jurisdiction. The Department of Justice says so explicitly in the U.S. Attorney's Manual, and critically, the BIA's own Southwest Regional Office has already deemed Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, who was restored under the same Restoration Act, eligible for the 638 law enforcement funding. They are receiving funding, they are receiving that funding today. We are not. There is no principled legal basis for treating us differently. I want the subcommittee to understand that this is not just our problem. There are at least nine federally recognized tribes across the country in the opt-in Public Law 280 states that are similarly not receiving BIA law enforcement services or funding they are legally entitled to. The BIA's interpretation has created a systemic funding gap, not just for our tribe, and Congress is uniquely positioned to close it. We are asking this subcommittee to include report language in the fiscal year 2027 Interior Appropriations bill that, number one, confirms the eligibility of opt-in Public Law 280 tribes for PL 93-638 law enforcement funding. Number two, appropriates $7 million in the public safety and justice account for these tribes. And number three, directs the BIA to identify all eligible tribes within 30 days and begin allocating funds without delay. With my remaining time, I would like to briefly note two additional priorities. Our tribe continues to seek legislation that explicitly codifies our coverage under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. We simply want to be treated the same as every other federally recognized tribe, and we urge Congress to examine the rapid growth of prediction markets and the serious threat they pose to tribal gaming revenues and the governmental services those revenues fund. The Alabama-Coushatta people are a resilient and proud nation. We have been patient. We have worked through the proper channels for over 12 years. We are not asking for anything we are not legally entitled to. We are simply asking Congress to ensure that the federal government lives up to its responsibilities to our tribe. A-lee-la-mo-lo, and thank you, and I am happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Chairman. Ranking Member Pingree.

Thank you, Chairman. Ranking Member Pingree.

Yes, thank you all. Obviously, very different testimony, very different issues. Thank you, Chairman, for bringing up the... Yes, thank you all. Obviously, very different testimony, very different issues. Thank you, Chairman, for bringing up the prediction markets. The chair isn't in the room right now, but we were talking about that earlier this morning and the challenges that's presenting to Indian gaming. It's just one of those things that's kind of exploded, and I think we have to take that very seriously for tribes around the country. So thank you for that and bringing up some of the other concerns that you have. And Chairman Keyes, interesting story about your tribe and the business success that you've had, and really appreciate you making a point of something that's been concerning me quite a bit is that's the understaffing and the fact that there've been some huge changes and maybe some consolidation, and honestly, this committee doesn't know that much about it because we haven't really been fully informed ourselves. So it'll be a big priority this year, I think, in appropriations is just to make sure we have a better handle on what was already an understaffed group of departments and now is probably much more severely so and I can just imagine how that's impeding the work that you do. So thank you for reminding us of that and bringing it to our attention. And also we understand there's some really serious issues there and some challenges that you've brought before us and I promise I'll take a little more time to pay attention to them but I know you have some real concerns. So thank you for bringing that to us. Appreciate it. Yield back.

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you all for being here. It's great to see you. We're going to adjourn now. Thanks to all the witnesses for being here. We're going to adjourn until 1:00 PM. Committee stands adjourned.