New leadership for Indian Affairs

RAPID CITY—Given the Biden Administration has now replaced the Trump Administration, tribes are understandably optimistic about the February 3 selection of Democrat Brian Schatz, the senior U.S. Senator from Hawaii, as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Trump had a decade’s long conflict with tribes over casino issues, and made racially insensitive remarks, repeatedly calling Senator Elizabeth Warren, “Pocahontas.”

Not everything the Trump Administration did was hostile to tribes, although the energy policy certainly was— the Trump administration was pro-pipeline and escalated fracking operations in Converse County, Wyoming, and opened previously protected Alaskan wilderness to aggressive energy extraction. His Department of Interior attempted to disestablish the trust status of Mashpee Wampanoag land in March of 2020, for the first time since the Termination Era, which ended in the mid-1960’s, and saw the termination of over a hundred tribes. Trump did support Crow Tribe hunting rights in the case of tribal member Clayvin Herrera crossing over into Wyoming to bag two elk.

The current Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has been in place since 1993. The original Committee on Indian Affairs was started in 1820 and abolished in 1947. The Termination Era then kicked in but ended with the Menominee Restoration Act of 1973. That year, Democratic Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota introduced a joint resolution to reestablish a federal commission. On June 4, 1984, the Select Committee on Indian Affairs was made permanent, and in 1993 it became just the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Over the years, the committee has been comprised of mostly senators from western states or states with tribal interests. Those selected for the committee are balanced between Democrat and Republican, and the chairman before Schatz was Republican Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota. A banker and former governor, Hoeven became chairman in 2017. He was preceded by ultra-conservative Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming. If tribes are expecting better policy from the committee now that Democrats are in charge, let us look at what the committee did just before Trump left office.

In December of 2020, Hoeven announced that the Senate had passed 15 Indian bills, and that eight of those bills would proceed to Trump’s desk to be signed into law courtesy of “a strong bipartisan effort.” In keeping with his finance background, Hoeven was especially proud of his bill, the Indian Community Economic Act of 2020. This bill, now law, basically tries to create banking relationships with tribes. The bill abolished matching fund restrictions from the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. North Dakota Republicans are generally hostile to tribal sovereignty, but whatever Hoeven’s ideas or actions in that regard, his bill addresses the economic areas where he is expert, and on paper attempts to assist “Indian industrial entities in the implementation of enterprise development.”

One Democratic congressman getting a lot done for Indian country was Ruben Gallego of Arizona HR 6237, introduced by Gallego, is now law. This law allows for the Indian Health Service to be reimbursed for service provided to veterans.

Gallego introduced another bill that become law, HR 6535, which extends tort claims coverage for certain personal injury claims to urban Indian organizations and their employees. Rapid City has an Indian community almost 20,000 strong which could benefit from this new law.

During the 116^th Congress, eight bills were signed into law, and seven more were sent on to the House. The Senate passed 32 bills introduced by the Committee on Indian Affairs, with 20 bills going to President Trump.

The 117^th Congress will be dealing with a new committee, with Schatz as chair. Other members are Democrats: Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, Senator John Testor of Montana, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota, and Senator Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico. Republicans are: Vice Chairman Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, Senator Steve Daines of Montana, Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, and Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas.

The Democrats on the committee will tend to introduce bills that correct injustices, address tribal rights or resources, or establish sovereignty protections. The Republicans are not as easy to characterize. Murkowski is a centrist from a state applying intense pressure to open protected areas for energy extraction. Her top priority mentioned when she was reelected as Vice Chair was to “continue to support tribal communities by promoting economic recovery through job creation.” This is boilerplate GOP approach to Indian issues, but one where there is at least occasionally real impact on the quality of reservation life. Hoeven, Lankford, Daines, Rounds and Moran are all conservatives who backed Trump to varying but significant degrees. To the extent they will sponsor or support bills from the committee they will probably be energy friendly and tribal rights hostile. On the flip side, they will probably push to get economic bills that benefit tribes enacted into law, since they see strong reservation economies as investing tribal interest in associations outside the trust relationship with the federal government, and creating more business and tax dollars for their home state.

Newly elected Chairman Schatz focused his hopes on progressive minded issues. He opened by praising the committee for its track record of bipartisan effort to the “solidarity of Native people,” and he then added, “Through languages, cultures, and knowledge systems, Native communities across the country have contributed in so many ways to our shared American history.” He pointed out that the “guiding light in our service to this committee” should be protecting the federal trust responsibility to tribes. It is no surprise that the Republicans on the committee did not speak of that ‘guiding light,” as it runs contrary to their long term hopes to end tribal sovereignty.

(Contact James Giago Davies at skindiesel@msn.com)

 

 

 

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