[Senate Hearing 117-352]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-352
.
INVESTING IN NATIVE COMMUNITIES:
TRANSFORMATIVE OPPORTUNITIES IN THE
INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT AND JOBS ACT
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 28, 2022
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Indian Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
U. S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
48-402 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii, Chairman
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Vice Chairman
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
JON TESTER, Montana JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada STEVE DAINES, Montana
TINA SMITH, Minnesota MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico JERRY MORAN, Kansas
Jennifer Romero, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Lucy Murfitt, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Field hearing held on June 28, 2022.............................. 1
Statement of Senator Smith....................................... 1
Witnesses
Anderson, Hon. Keith B., Chairman, Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux
Community...................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Baumann, Jeremiah, Chief of Staff, Office of the Under Secretary
for Infrastructure, U.S. Department of Energy.................. 35
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Benjamin, Hon. Melanie, CEO, Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe........... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Chavers, Hon. Cathy, Chairwoman, Bois Forte Band of Chippewa..... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 14
Dupuis, Sr., Hon. Kevin, Chairman, Fond du Lac Band of Lake
Superior Chippewa.............................................. 17
Prepared statement........................................... 17
Fowler, Elizabeth, Acting Director, Indian Health Service, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services........................ 30
Prepared statement........................................... 32
Larsen, Hon. Robert, President, Lower Sioux Indian Community..... 21
Prepared statement........................................... 23
Newland, Hon. Bryan, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs,
Department of the Interior..................................... 25
Prepared statement........................................... 27
Savariego, Adam, Tribal Secretary, Upper Sioux Community......... 20
--------------------------------
Additional Statement Submitted for the Record by Hon. Michael
Fairbanks, Tribal Chairman, White Earth Nation................. 53
INVESTING IN NATIVE COMMUNITIES:
TRANSFORMATIVE OPPORTUNITIES IN THE INFRASTRUCTURE
INVESTMENT AND JOBS
ACT
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TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Indian Affairs,
Prior Lake, MN.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:00 a.m. CST in
the Minnetonka Conference Room, Mystic Lake Center of the
Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, the Hon. Tina Smith
presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TINA SMITH,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA
Senator Smith. Good morning. The Committee will come to
order.
It is meaningful to convene this Committee hearing on the
sovereign lands of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community and
I thank the Tribe for their generosity in hosting us.
We are in the Minnesota River Valley, which has been the
home to the Dakota people for many generations. This place that
is now called Minnesota is the ancestral home of the Dakota and
Anishinaabe people, and other indigenous people, who have lived
in and cared for this beautiful part of the world for
millennia.
In this hearing, it is important to understand the
government-to-government relationship between Minnesota tribes
and the Federal Government. This is a relationship based on the
Constitution, the laws and treaties between the United States
and sovereign tribal nations, and it is our responsibility to
respect and recognize these treaty responsibilities.
In this spirit, I am proud to serve and represent
Minnesota's tribal nations and urban indigenous communities on
the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and on all the committees
that I serve. I take this work seriously, because I have heard
time and again from tribal leaders who have been frustrated by
policy decisions being made without Native voices at the table.
I know that the Biden Administration understands this and
has taken a strong stance that the government-to-government
relationships with tribal nations will not be taken for
granted. The appointment of Secretary Deb Haaland to the
Department of the Interior is historic for this reason. We were
honored to welcome Secretary Haaland to Minnesota earlier this
spring. During her visit she met with, I believe all of
Minnesota tribal leaders, almost all, in a historic gathering
that Senator Klobuchar and I also attended, along with
Lieutenant Governor Flanagan and Representative McCollum.
Being a partner for Minnesota tribes in Washington is a
great honor for me, so I am very glad to chair this field
hearing, and to welcome Assistant Secretary Newland, Acting
Director Fowler, and Mr. Baumann from the Federal Government,
to Minnesota to discuss the infrastructure priorities of tribal
nations in Minnesota.
I want to note that the last field hearing of this
Committee in Minnesota took place at White Earth, where Senator
Al Franken highlighted the importance of addressing the needs
of tribal schools, especially Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig. In that field
hearing, Senator Franken and then-Chair Byron Dorgan of North
Dakota highlighted the appalling conditions at the school and
others like it.
After that hearing and with great perseverance by the Bands
and Senator Franken, the school received a $16 million grant to
rebuild. This is what happens when the Federal government-to-
government relationship works and when we hold field hearings
like this one. We can start in these hearings to address the
historic wrongs against Native and Tribal communities.
So it is fitting that our topic is infrastructure, and
especially how President Biden's Infrastructure and Jobs Act
can benefit tribal nations. It is fitting because the Federal
Government has long failed to live up to its promises and trust
responsibilities to provide the roads, bridges, broadband,
drinking water, and wastewater systems that Native communities
need.
For decades many Native communities have experienced the
direct negative impacts of Federal underinvestment and
underfunding of critical community infrastructure. Many roads
in Native communities are primitive or in poor condition,
hurting safety and hampering economic development. Native
communities lag behind the rest of the Country in accessing
broadband services. Just 46 percent of housing units on tribal
land have access to fixed broadband. Native American
households, particularly those on trust lands, are 19 times
more likely to lack indoor plumbing, contributing to a
significant disparity in health outcomes.
Tribal nations are rich with cultural and economic
opportunities, but it is difficult or impossible to realize
these opportunities without adequate infrastructure. With these
disparities in mind, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
that passed at the end of last year is a transformational
investment for all of Minnesota, and for tribal nations. It is
the largest long-term investment in our Nation's infrastructure
and competitiveness in a generation, and the biggest investment
in infrastructure on tribal lands.
The Infrastructure Bill will bring billions of dollars to
Minnesota for roads and bridges, broadband, water
infrastructure, and much more. And it must work for tribes,
also.
The purpose of this hearing to understand how these
transformational infrastructure investments can benefit tribal
nations in Minnesota. This bill has $13 billion for tribal-
specific programs and set-asides. I am committed to making sure
these resources are equitably distributed and accessible to
tribal nations, and that it can make a lasting impact.
These $13 billion will help address the longstanding
infrastructure inequities in tribal communities that impact the
health and economic well-being and safety of Native peoples.
Here are just a few highlights.
There is $3.5 billion for Indian Health Service sanitation
facilities that will make drinking water safe and improve
sewage and waste disposal systems. There is $3.8 billion for
roads and bridges on tribal lands, to make roadways safer for
cars and pedestrians. There is $2 billion for broadband on
tribal lands, which will improve access to education,
telehealth, and economic opportunities. There is $200 million
for climate resilience, so that tribal nations can plan for and
implement responses to climate change.
This bill can be a turning point for how the Federal
government partners with Tribal Nations. I will do everything I
can to support the work of Minnesota tribal nations to access
these dollars.
The tribal leaders who are here to testify today will speak
directly to their priority projects, but I would like to lay
out some broad priorities they have already shared. First,
grant funding needs to be equitably distributed and accessible
to tribal governments. Especially for smaller tribes, Federal
applications and reporting requirements can be burdensome, and
it often is difficult for smaller tribes to get access to even
compete for these resources, even though their needs are great.
It is also deeply challenging for tribes to be put in a
position of competing with each other for infrastructure
investments that they all need, and that have historically been
underfunded. Through a robust consultation process, we need the
Federal agencies overseeing distribution of funds to consider
these challenges and to resolve them.
Second, funding needs to be flexible. I strongly believe
that these leaders and the governments they oversee, which are
closest to the needs of their communities, know best what will
work in their communities. We need to listen to them and create
the flexibility they need to accomplish the most they can with
the resources they have.
Third, Minnesota tribes are ready to lead the way, they are
already leading the way on clean energy and sustainability. We
had an opportunity, Chairman Anderson, to see a little bit of
what the Shakopee Mdewakanton community is doing with the
organics facility. It is just one example.
We can learn a lot from these smart, bold ideas that
Minnesota tribal nations have been tackling on climate change,
reducing emissions and putting their communities at the
forefront of a clean energy future. From organics recycling to
solar arrays, electric vehicle charging to PFAS mitigation,
tribes in Minnesota are ready to put infrastructure funding to
use to address this existential threat of climate change.
I hope that this hearing will be an opportunity for our
witnesses to engage with one other and with Congress to
celebrate the opportunities for Indian Country in the
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and to make sure this funding is
equitably accessible and distributed to tribal nations across
the Country and in Minnesota.
Before I introduce our witnesses, I would like to extend a
thank you to Chair Brian Schatz and Vice Chair Lisa Murkowski
of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Although they are not
with us today, I am grateful for their partnership, and for
allowing this important field hearing to happen in Minnesota
today. They both have a strong commitment to advocating for
American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native people. I am
grateful for their leadership
I also want to take a moment to thank staff, Connie Tsosie
de Haro, and Breann Nu'uhiwa, from the Senate Indian Affairs
Committee, for being with us today. And also thank my staff,
Ravyn Gibbs and Anna McCloskey, for helping to put this
important hearing together. A lot of work has gone into this,
and I am quite grateful.
I am now going to introduce our witness panel. We will
start with the tribal leaders and come to the Federal
Government witnesses. I would like to introduce first the
Honorable Keith Anderson, Chairman of Shakopee Mdewakanton
Sioux Community, Prior Lake, Minnesota; the Honorable Melanie
Benjamin, Chief Executive Officer of the Mille Lacs Band of
Ojibwe; the Honorable Cathy Chavers, Chairwoman of the Bois
Forte Band of Chippewa, in Orr, Minnesota; and the Honorable
Robert Larsen, ``Deuce'' Larsen, President of the Lower Sioux
Indian Community in Morton, Minnesota; and the Honorable Kevin
Dupuis, Chair of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior
Chippewa, Cloquet, Minnesota.
In addition, we are grateful to recognize our Federal
Government witnesses, the Honorable Bryan Newland, Assistant
Secretary of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior,
Washington, D.C.; Elizabeth Fowler, who is Acting Director of
the Indian Health Service, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, and Jeremiah Baumann, Chief of Staff, Office of the
Under Secretary for Infrastructure, Department of Energy,
Washington, D.C.
Thank you very much. We will start with the Honorable Keith
Anderson.
STATEMENT OF HON. KEITH B. ANDERSON, CHAIRMAN, SHAKOPEE
MDEWAKANTON SIOUX COMMUNITY
Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Senator Smith.
I am going to run right into the oral piece of the letter
that we had sent you earlier on our project. I want to thank
you for the opportunity today to speak in support of the
Federal investments in tribal infrastructure.
As you have seen earlier today, my tribe, the Shakopee
Mdewakanton Sioux Community, is guided by our Dakota values.
This includes a tradition of living in harmony with our
surroundings as all tribes do, and sharing our natural and
material resources in abundance that we have with our
neighbors. Our infrastructure, particularly all of our projects
that help to protect the environment, is a big part of our
commitment.
Today I wish to highlight one noteworthy project that we
had started years ago, approximately 10 years ago. It is called
the Organics Recycling Facility. This was born out of a project
that didn't start out to be just what it is, it was going to be
much more. But I think our neighbors and even the State aren't
ready for source separated laws, and materials that are
required to be disposed of in certain ways. We haven't gotten
to that.
But as we call it, the ORF, that is the acronym for the
Organics Recycling Facility, it is the natural process of
breaking down our organics and the materials that would have
been tossed into a landfill. Instead, we produce a high-quality
compost and compost blends and mulch. We sell those products or
donate them to local schools, cities, and non-profits. We have
quite a list of those.
From 2013 to 2020, the ORF accounted for 23 percent of all
organic material composted in the Twin Cities metropolitan
area. So a few years back, the Minnesota Pollution Control
Agency set a statewide goal of recycling 75 percent of waste by
the end of 2030. That is an ambitious goal to be met, and it
can only be met if our facility dramatically expands its
capacity.
Our tribe is currently in the permitting phase to relocate
the ORF to a new and more industrial location on our land in
nearby Louisville Township. Our new ORF facility will be able
to process up to three times the food waste we now handle. It
will also incorporate the latest technology for efficient
production odor containment.
It will include a stormwater and PFAS, which is
polyfluoroalkyl, it is a substance that comes from products
that get into plastics and smaller pieces that might be in
contamination, but you get it to a grind and compost small
enough that it just becomes something you want to be able to
contain should it rain. We want to prevent these chemicals from
migrating into the groundwater in the Minnesota River.
So we greatly appreciate your support of our $2.5 million
request for Congressionally directed spending for community
project funding in the Fiscal Year 2023. This would provide an
80 percent Federal matching contribution against the roughly $3
million stormwater system costs that we are going to incur. It
is a component of our $20 million overall project cost.
So we were pleased to see that last week, that the same
$2.5 million request of our representative, Angie Craig, has
been included in the House Committee on Appropriations draft
list in the 2023 projects to be funded. We hope you are able to
persuade your colleagues to include the same request in the
Senate's draft Fiscal Year 2023 appropriations bill.
Senator Smith and members of the Committee staff here
today, the SMSC is grateful for the opportunity to showcase
some of our projects and highlight some of our infrastructure
that we have rebuilt on our homelands. We look forward to
working with you and the Committee on mutual government-to-
government commitments and the rebuilding of Indian Country
infrastructure.
I want to make a point before I end. We are very, very
fortunate here at Shakopee. But that doesn't mean that that
carries forward to the rest of the tribes in Minnesota, or even
the region and across the Country. For every one of us, there
has to be at least 20 or more gaming facilities that provide
the intent of tribal gaming, for jobs and for adding to the
coffers. But they need all the help they have ever gotten; they
need even more. Their needs are greatly unmet. I think this
would be the start of something that would be very helpful for
tribes across the Country.
Pidamaya, thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Anderson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Keith B. Anderson, Chairman, Shakopee
Mdewakanton Sioux Community
Introduction
Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity to testify on the need
for federal support for the development of infrastructure in Indian
Country so that all tribal communities can catch up to the rest of
America.
Welcome
Welcome to our reservation, where the ancestors of our community of
Dakota people have lived for hundreds of years. And where we have cared
for what we call U`ci Mak` a, or Grandmother Earth, as we have hunted
wild game, fished in its rivers and lakes, and aligned our lives with
its changing seasons. This reservation is our home and we cherish it,
which is why we work so hard to make sure the infrastructure we need
does not destroy the very earth that sustains our tribal Community.
Background
Throughout history, Dakota culture has focused on the values of
living in harmony with our surroundings and sharing our natural and
material resources with our neighbors. These values continue to guide
our tribal government decisions and our Community life today.
In living out our culture, intertwined as it is with our natural
surroundings, the tribal government of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux
Community, or SMSC, uses the latest science and technology to help
protect and restore wetlands, aquifers, soils, air sheds, prairies, and
forests, and to protect and encourage the ability of native plants,
animals, and insects to make our lands their home. As a result, our
reservation is home to land stewardship programs, different green
technologies, and an organic garden, all of which enhance our
commitment to a healthy environment.
SMSC Infrastructure
Being a good neighbor, good employer, and good steward of the earth
is a core part of who we are and what we do. Through partnerships and
collaborations, we seek to embody Dakota values of helping others. All
this would not be possible without our tribal government's strong
defense of tribal sovereignty. Our sovereign authority as a federally
recognized tribal government is the key to our efforts toward self-
sufficiency.
The appropriate use of infrastructure, in the right places and in
the right ways, is essential for our tribal Community to survive and
thrive. That's why our tribal government has contributed millions of
dollars to, and partnered with, neighboring governments to provide for
mutually beneficial regional infrastructure such as roads, water and
sewer systems, and emergency services. We share this earth with our
neighbors, and together we must care for it.
There are many examples of SMSC's commitment to enhancing
infrastructure, from our state-of-the-art regional wastewater plant to
our highway safety improvements to our fire, rescue, and medical
emergency response equipment and services. But today, I wish to
highlight just one, noteworthy project--our SMSC Organics Recycling
Facility and some of the exciting new plans we have for this tribal
enterprise.
SMSC's Organics Recycling Facility Infrastructure
The SMSC Organics Recycling Facility, or ORF, is a unique project
that our tribal government has operated for more than a decade on our
reservation. The SMSC ORF reflects our Dakota tradition of care for the
earth by recycling organic waste into useful materials through the use
of innovative infrastructure investment.
The ORF uses natural processes to break down organic material to
produce compost and compost blends for retail and wholesale purchase.
The resulting compost product is a nutrient-rich, natural fertilizer
for gardening, farming, and landscaping. We also process wood to be
used as mulch. Basically, we take what may have been tossed in a
landfill and instead create high-quality compost, compost blends, and
mulch.
The ORF regularly accepts yard waste, Christmas trees, and
Halloween pumpkins for free from Scott County residents who have, since
2013, made more than 40,000 deliveries to our facility. The SMSC ORF
also provides commercial customers as well as neighboring governments
and school systems in our region with the opportunity to dispose of
their paper, food scraps, tree stumps, and yard waste sustainably and
productively. \1\ Our facility's close proximity to these metropolitan
sources of waste means that our supply customers and hauling companies
lower their carbon footprint, saving drive time and fuel costs. And, of
course, our facility also recycles and repurposes organic waste from
the SMSC's many tribal departments and enterprises on our reservation,
including this Mystic Lake Center, the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, Little
Six Casino, and our natural food market Mazopiya.
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\1\ Scott, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, and Washington County
governments have used the SMSC ORF. As have the cities of Apple Valley,
Arlington, Belle Plaine, Bloomington, Brooklyn Park, Burnsville,
Chanhassen, Cologne, Columbia Heights, Eden Prairie, Edina, Golden
Valley, Henderson, Hopkins, Hutchinson, Inver Grover Heights, Le Sueur,
Lonsdale, Maple Grove, Mayer, Minneapolis, Minnetonka, Northfield,
Norwood Young America, Plymouth, Prior Lake, Rosemount, Savage,
Shakopee, St. Louis Park, St. Paul, Victoria, Waconia, Watertown,
Woodbury. The ORF has also served agencies including the Metropolitan
Airports Commission, Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools, Ramsey/Washington
Recycling and Energy, Shakopee Public Schools, Shakopee Public
Utilities Commission, St. Paul Academy & Summit School, and Three
Rivers Park District.
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The SMSC ORF markets its composted products widely. It also donates
compost soil and mulch to neighboring cities, schools, and nonprofit
organizations. While minimizing waste is a significant benefit of
composting, our compost and mulch products also improve soil structure,
increase nutrient content, and work to ward off plant disease. Fertile
soil has far greater moisture retention, allowing gardeners,
landscapers, and business owners to use less water.
Our SMSC ORF recycles an average of 70,000 tons of organic material
each year on our 24-acre site, including 11,000 tons a year of source-
separated organics, or SSOs. Ours is one of only two large-scale
composting facilities processing source-separated organics in the Twin
Cities metropolitan area. From 2013-2020, the ORF accounted for 22.9
percent of organic material composted in the metro area.
In 2017, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency adopted the
Metropolitan Solid Waste Management Plan for the Twin Cities metro area
that set a goal of recycling 75 percent of waste, which calculates to
be a minimum of 616,000 tons of organics, by December 31, 2030. This
ambitious goal can be met only if SMSC ORF dramatically expands its
capacity.
The SMSC ORF Relocation and Expansion Infrastructure Project
The SMSC recently announced that we have acquired industrial land
in Louisville Township, nearby our main reservation, where we intend to
relocate our SMSC Organics Recycling Facility in 2023. The relocation
project is currently in the approvals and permitting phase, and the
SMSC tribal government is actively collaborating with the Township,
Scott County, and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in a mutually
beneficial permitting process. Construction is expected to begin spring
of 2023. The 60-acre site is zoned for heavy industrial uses and is
located adjacent to the Dem-Con Landfill, the Bryan Rock Products
Quarry, and the Renaissance Festival site.
We have decided to relocate the SMSC ORF to increase our capacity
to meet the metropolitan-scale demand for its services. The SMSC
General Council, the highest governing body of our tribal government,
has authorized a multimillion-dollar investment of tribal funds in
order to enable this ORF relocation and expansion. Our new ORF facility
will be able to process up to three times the food waste we now handle,
part of an annual total of 172,000 tons of organics including 35,000
tons per year of SSOs, when fully built out.
Our new ORF will incorporate the latest technology and processes
for state-of-the-art odor containment and efficient production,
including an aerated static pile system and a storm water management
system to contain polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The diversion of
organic waste from landfills to the new SMSC ORF will reduce carbon
dioxide equivalent emissions by an estimated 21,000 metric tons per
year at full capacity. Part of our relocation plan also involves making
infrastructure improvements to the Highway 41 intersection, adding turn
and by-pass lanes on Highway 41 near our site.
The SMSC understands the value of investing in advanced technology
to keep up with growing demands while eliminating harmful chemicals. A
stormwater/PFAS management system is vital for organics recycling
because the technology prevents PFAS from migrating into drinking water
as well as the rest of the environment. The tribe's new facility will
be located in an industrial area next to the Minnesota River valley,
which requires additional protections to prevent chemicals from
entering the groundwater and nearby surface waters. Stormwater/PFAS
management will be a critical part of these protections.
Senator Smith, the SMSC greatly appreciates your support of our
$2.5 million request for FY 2023 congressionally directed spending or
community project funding. The amount we have requested would provide
an 80 percent federal matching contribution against the $3.125 million
stormwater system cost component of the SMSC's $20 million overall
project cost. The federally funded stormwater reclamation system will
reuse all water runoff on the new ORF site (approximately ten million
gallons annually) and allow the new ORF site to operate without
discharges off-site even in extreme rainfall conditions.
We were pleased to see just last week that the same $2.5 million
request of our Representative, Angie Craig, has been included in the
House Committee on Appropriations draft list of funded FY 2023
projects, and we hope you, Senator Smith, along with Senator Klobuchar,
are likewise able to persuade your Senate colleagues to include that
same $2.5 million request in the Senate's draft FY 2023 appropriations
bill in the coming weeks.
SMSC will use this federal funding investment to complete the water
reclamation system in our new ORF facility, providing a regional
example of how best to protect surface water and ground water while
operating an organics recycling facility when handling organic
materials which may contain PFAS and other elements that give rise to
environmental concerns.
Conclusion
Chairman Schatz, Ranking Member Murkowski, Senator Smith, and
members of the Committee, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community is
honored to host this field hearing on our reservation. We are grateful
for the opportunity to showcase some of the infrastructure that we have
rebuilt in our homelands. And we look forward to working with you and
the Committee on expanding our mutual, government-to-government
commitments to the rebuilding of Indian Country infrastructure. Thank
you.
Senator Smith. [Phrase in Native tongue.]
Chief Executive Benjamin?
STATEMENT OF HON. MELANIE BENJAMIN, CEO, MILLE LACS BAND OF
OJIBWE
Ms. Benjamin. Aaniin, Boozhoo. Good morning, Senator Smith
and Members of the Committee. Miigwech for this opportunity to
testify how Federal infrastructure investment can best help
restore our Native homelands.
As we talk about more Federal investment in tribal
infrastructure, it is important that we consider the historical
context. Until the 1990s, there was hardly any Federal support
for infrastructure in Indian Country. The old joke was, you
could tell where the reservation begins by where the pavement
ends. We have a lot of catching up to do, and are grateful to
you, your colleagues and the Biden Administration for making
sure tribes were included in this historic legislation.
In my written testimony I describe several projects we hope
will soon be turned into reality for our Band communities. For
example, special Federal funding is needed for our water and
sewer extension project in the town of Isle. This will correct
a disappointing decision by the town and Federal agencies to
completely bypass our tribal neighborhood when the town
expanded its water and sewer system.
Senator Smith, we are grateful for your support of our
request and your current efforts to persuade your colleagues in
the Senate and House to appropriate the funds that will correct
this modern-day miscarriage of environmental justice. Thanks to
your efforts, we are partnering with Pine County to expand
broadband service into underserved households and communities.
Within the next two years, many of our Band members in Pine
County will gain access to affordable, reliable and high-speed
fiber broadband service. This will allow for innovative tele-
health services, remote work, educational opportunities, and
economic connections.
We are also grateful for your support of Federal funding to
renovate and construct a business incubator building in
Hinckley so we can support new and diverse businesses within
our tribal economy. We are excited to see the return on these
investments.
These are some very exciting developments, but I will close
with a request for caution. The Mille Lacs Band is very
concerned about the impact of climate change on our environment
and has already experienced its effects. Our pine and our maple
trees are moving farther north, changing the habitat for our
plants, animals, foods, and medicines. Even our ceremonies have
been impacted because some plants we require are now much
harder to find.
Lawmakers are pursuing policies that support what they call
a green economy in an effort to slow climate change. But too
often throughout history, the solutions to problems in this
Country have been at the cost of Indian tribes and people. We
saw it with the railroads that crisscrossed our hunting and
fishing grounds, disrupting our way of life. We saw it with
toxic air and water pollution from transportation, farming,
manufacturing, and electrical power production. And in our
Great Lakes region, we have seen it from mining.
Senator Smith, our people, our water, fish, and wild rice
must not be treated as collateral damage to be sacrificed in
the name of pursuing what some call green economic development.
I speak of a proposed nickel-cobalt mine located in Tamarack,
Minnesota. The mine is being promoted as a way to fuel electric
vehicles which are seen as the silver bullet that might slow
down climate change.
The batteries for these cars currently require nickel. But
there are only a handful of known places in the United States
where high quality nickel has been found. This site is only 1.3
miles from the Mille Lacs Bands and the homes of our tribal
members in District II.
The process of removing nickel from the earth is one of the
most toxic and dangerous forms of mining in existence. There is
very strong pressure from Federal, State, and industry to get
that nickel out of the earth. The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe
wants to be a part of the solution to climate change. But we
cannot jeopardize the safety and welfare of our people, our
drinking water, our lands, and our resources to solve a problem
we did not cause.
We ask the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to assist the
Mille Lacs Band in ensuring that infrastructure development for
the Country does not mean environmental injustice for us.
In conclusion, I want to say Miigwech to you, the Congress,
and the Biden Administration for enacting the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act, and especially for the emergency scale
infusion of Federal funding and authority into tribal
communities. There is a stunning amount of backlogged need on
our reservation and throughout Indian Country. The new
infrastructure law is a promising good start and a better path
to better opportunities for tribal communities, so we can catch
up to the rest of America.
Miigwech, Senator Smith, for holding this hearing in Indian
Country, and for your support of our initiatives. We look
forward to our continued partnership with the Committee on
these issues.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Benjamin follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Melanie Benjamin, CEO, Mille Lacs Band of
Ojibwe
Aaniin, Boozhoo (Greetings in Ojibwe). Good Morning, Senator Smith
and Members of the Committee. My name is Melanie Benjamin and I am the
Chief Executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. We have three
districts in east-central Minnesota: District I is located on the
shores of Mille Lacs Lake; District II is located near McGregor,
Minnesota; and, District III is located near Hinckley, Minnesota.
Miigwech (thank you in Ojibwe) for this opportunity to testify on
how federal infrastructure investment can best support the restoration
of our Native homelands.
Our Mille Lacs Reservation was established by the 1855 Treaty with
the Chippewa, which set aside more than 61,000 acres along Lake Mille
Lacs for the Mille Lacs Band. In the decades that followed, our
ancestors refused to yield to the federal and non-Indian pressures
trying to force them to abandon our Reservation homelands. Even when
our Reservation homes were burned down, our villages flattened, our
timber cut down and stolen, and our agriculture and other property
destroyed, our ancestors stood their ground. As a result, we became
known as the Non-Removable Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.
As we today look at the promise of federal investment in our
Reservation infrastructure, we must acknowledge that, for far too long,
railroads and other infrastructure investments were a one-way street
that facilitated the theft of our Reservation resources. As a few
members of this Senate Committee on Indian Affairs noted in a report in
1900, 122 years ago: ``Out of the tangle of verbiage of which treaties,
laws, and rulings are composed[,] the Indians of the Mille Lac
Reservation are able only to realize that somewhere in their dealings
with the white race bad faith has been extended to them.''
Today, the Mille Lacs Band is committed to partnering with the
federal government to change this; we need to make federal
infrastructure investment in and around our Reservation a two-way
street for the mutual benefit of the Mille Lacs Band and our neighbors.
I want to describe several projects we hope will soon be turned into
reality in our Reservation Tribal communities.
Isle Water/Sewer Extension Project
In the last two decades, the Town of Isle, which is within our
Mille Lacs Reservation, has secured federal and state infrastructure
funding to build and rebuild its municipal water and sewer system.
Unfortunately, the Town's plan, and the federal and state funding for
it, completely by-passed a Tribal neighborhood in Isle populated mostly
by Band member households. In a time when environmental justice is in
the spotlight, this was extremely disappointing. Many Band members
continue to rely on well water as their primary source of drinking
water and this critical water source has at times been compromised by
septic system and groundwater contamination, posing significant health
and safety risks to our community.
Consequently, the Mille Lacs Band has requested congressionally
directed spending for a special, Mille Lacs Band Isle Water Extension
Project that will construct a water and wastewater system to connect
the existing Isle municipal system with our Tribal neighborhood in
Isle.
The Band's Project will connect approximately 85 Equivalent
Dwelling Units (EDUs) near the intersection of Minnesota State Highways
27 and 47 east of Highway 169. Our project is currently in the design
phase but will be ready to build in 2023 if funded in FY 2023. It
supports the goals of the Safe Drinking Water Act by ensuring the
responsible and sustainable development of water and wastewater
infrastructure, both of which are essential for Band members and non-
Indians who reside within the City of Isle and must otherwise rely on
shallow wells for drinking water. It also supports the Clean Water Act
by protecting Mille Lacs Lake, one of the largest and most popular
trophy fishing lakes in Minnesota that also contains valuable, treaty-
protected fish and water assets held in federal trust for the Band. It
will relieve pressure on lake ecosystems created by recent lakeshore
development and will enhance public health by protecting drinking water
from septic system and groundwater contamination.
The Band's Isle Water Extension Project is a $5,307,000 project,
for which the Band is requesting $4,245,000 in FY 2023 congressionally-
directed spending to add to the Band's 20 percent matching
contribution. Miigwech to you, Senator Smith, for joining with Senator
Klobuchar in supporting our FY 2023 request for congressionally-
directed spending. We hope your colleagues in the Senate and House will
agree with you that this modern-day miscarriage of environmental
justice must be quickly rectified.
Pine County Broadband Project
Since the Band and its neighbors share some rural areas that have
been chronically under-served by communications infrastructure, the
Band joined with Pine County in requesting FY 2022 congressionally
directed spending to expand broadband service into more remote areas of
Pine County where over 4,800 people live and where hundreds more visit
and work at St. Croix State Park, St. Croix State Forest, the Band's
Pine Grove Academy, the Band's Health and Human Services facility, and
many other small businesses and resort communities. We were quite
pleased when Congress agreed to fund our FY 2022 request as supported
by Senators Smith and Klobuchar, in the amount of $5,576,250. Miigwech
for your leadership on this, Senator Smith. As a result, in the next
two or so years, many of our Band members in Pine County will gain
access to affordable, reliable and high-speed fiber broadband service
for innovative telehealth services, remote work, educational
opportunities, and economic and social connections.
Tribal Economy Business Incubator Project
The COVID-19 pandemic devastated Tribal communities across America
and revealed to a broader audience the weakness of Indian Country
economies. Decades of underdevelopment have created outsized
consequences and disparities within Tribal communities.
In our region, studies show that public administration is the only
growing base industry sector. There is widespread interest in increased
entrepreneurship and in growing the number of locally owned businesses
and creating paths for start-up success. This takes facility space and
communications infrastructure, both of which we lack on our
Reservation.
In response last year, the Band requested $1.3 million in FY 2022
congressionally directed spending to renovate and construct a business
incubator building in Hinckley to enable the creation of new
businesses, build wealth, help establish a robust entrepreneur
ecosystem, create greater industry diversity within the Mille Lacs
tribal economy, and help historically underrepresented persons build
wealth and better participate in the broader economy. This
infrastructure resource is reducing barriers to entrepreneurship,
boosting the economic and social wellbeing of the region, particularly
for Mille Lacs Band members, and supporting the ongoing development of
our community as a whole.
We were so pleased earlier this year when Congress appropriated
$1.3 million in the FY 2022 budget to fund the request made by Senators
Smith and Klobuchar in support of our Tribal Economy Business Incubator
Project, to which the Band contributed an additional $822,300. We are
eager to see the return on these investments. Miigwech to you, Senator
Smith, for making this possible.
Tamarack Talon Mine
I will close with a word of caution. The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe
works very hard to be a progressive government. We believe in finding
new and innovative ways of making progress for our people and
surrounding communities. We need our Reservation infrastructure to
catch up to the rest of America. As the original environmentalists, we
welcome the growing concern about the environment and how to best
battle climate change caused by human activity.
However, plans that some might define as ``progress'' can literally
overrun a way of life and a culture. We saw it with the railroads that
crisscrossed our hunting and fishing grounds, disrupting our way of
life. We saw it with toxic air and water pollution from exploding
transportation, farming, manufacturing, and electrical power
production. And in our Great Lakes region, we've seen it from non-
ferrous mining of minerals and precious metals.
Our challenge today is that we are finding we must battle to
preserve our environment here at home because it is being treated as
mere collateral damage that others are ready to sacrifice in their
effort to battle climate change and pursue greater economic
development. I speak of the proposed nickel-cobalt mine in Tamarack,
Minnesota. That mine is to be located within a mile or two of the Mille
Lacs Band lands and the homes of our Tribal members in District II. It
is being promoted as a way to fuel electric vehicles which are seen as
a ``silver bullet'' that might slow down climate change. The batteries
for these cars currently require nickel. And there are only a handful
of known places in the United States where nickel has been found--right
where our precious water, fish and wild rice have sustained our culture
and people for generations.
The process of removing nickel from the earth is one of the most
toxic and dangerous forms of mining in existence. Nickel mining has a
100 percent track record of polluting the environment. This Talon Mine
project is being watched around the world. There is very strong
pressure from federal, state, industry and international interests to
get that nickel out of the earth. Our water, fish and wild rice--our
way of life--are all in the way.
As Anishinaabe, it is our sacred duty to take care of the gifts the
Creator gave us. The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe wants to be part of the
solution to climate change. But we will not jeopardize the safety and
welfare of our people . our drinking water . our lands . and our
resources . to solve a problem we did not cause. Infrastructure
development must not sacrifice indigenous rights.
As the Mille Lacs Band government, we will do whatever is necessary
to protect our environment and cultural resources . because like our
language . they are critical to our identity. Along with being
caretakers of our language and culture, being caretakers of the earth
is who we are. We ask that the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
assist us in ensuring that infrastructure development does not destroy
us and our way of life.
Conclusion
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided an emergency-
scale infusion of federal funding and authority to Indian Country. The
Mille Lacs Band strongly supported its enactment and is actively
engaged in helping federal agencies to implement it effectively. There
is a stunning amount of backlogged need on our Reservation and
throughout Indian Country. Overcrowded, remote and aging buildings
demand replacement. All-weather transportation facilities are
critically needed for year-round public safety, education, jobs, and
commerce. Green energy networks must be adapted and extended to rural,
remote Tribal community locations. Antiquated communications systems on
Reservations must be brought into the 21st century. New water and
sanitation systems are essential for our health and the health of the
environmental resources held for us and future generations by our
trustee--the United States government.
Isolated Tribal communities from rural Minnesota to villages in
Alaska deserve a better chance of connecting to the health,
educational, employment and market resources enjoyed by the rest of
America. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is a promising,
good start on the path to better opportunities for Tribal communities.
It is now up to us to run this race to catch up to the rest of America.
We have made great progress in recent decades but we have much, much
more to do.
Miigwech, Senator Smith, for holding this hearing in Indian Country
and for your support of our initiatives. We look forward to our
continued partnership with the Committee to ensure that our tribal
communities have equitable access to infrastructure resources and
equitable justice in protecting our environment and resources.
Senator Smith. Miigwech, Chief Executive Benjamin. Thank
you.
Chair Chavers, welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. CATHY CHAVERS, CHAIRWOMAN, BOIS FORTE BAND OF
CHIPPEWA
Ms. Chavers. Thank you, Senator Smith. Ahneen, Boozhoo. My
name is Cathy Chavers and I am the Chairwoman of the Bois Forte
Band of Chippewa. I am also the current President of the
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe which includes the six Chippewa bands;
White Earth, Mille Lacs, Fond du Lac, Leech Lake, Grand
Portage, and Bois Forte. I am very honored and humbled to be
testifying to you today on the Infrastructure Bill.
I just want to briefly give you a little information about
Bois Forte. We are a small, rural tribe located in northeastern
Minnesota, 50 miles from the Canadian border. We only have
approximately 3,500 tribal enrolled members. We have three
sectors of our reservation which located many miles apart.
I have been the tribal chair and on the council since 2016
but I have worked for the tribe for over 30 years in healthcare
and education also. I have witnessed how the Band and other
tribes have struggled with the inadequate funding throughout
all our programs in the many years I have worked.
I would like to talk about the flexibility and the ability
to have the guidelines that are going to be set forth by the
Infrastructure Bill to allow tribes to use it in a manner that
meets our needs and not what the government feels our needs
are. The reason is right now, we have a sewer system at one of
our communities, Indian Point, that we want to pipe underneath
the lake to put our sewer system into the city of Orr sewer
system. I don't know if any of those categories would fit that,
but that is a unique need that Bois Forte has.
The tribes are unique with the needs that we have for
infrastructure. Due to inadequacies of funding throughout the
years, basically we don't have the infrastructure in place that
we need to have. We have individual septic systems that need
upgrade. We have a community where 20 to 30 of our drain fields
are failing, but we don't have funding to fix them.
So when you are talking about smaller tribes in rural
Minnesota, I really applaud the accomplishments of these tribes
that have talked before me. We don't have those opportunities.
We have critical needs at Bois Forte because we don't have the
data for applying for grants. We don't have the staff.
The monumental amount of money that we received from ARPA
and the COVID pandemic and now the Infrastructure Bill is
really placing a hardship on our staff with reporting
requirements, all the backlog of data that we need that we
can't get. The financial part of it is really stressing out our
accounting department. They are overwhelmed.
We have 300-plus grants within our small tribe that we have
to manage along with our small accounting staff to do the ARPA,
the COVID and now the Infrastructure Bill. Administrative costs
would be very helpful for smaller tribes to get the staffing
that we need to help with that big backlog of work that is
involved with these monies.
The other thing is that when we apply for all these grants,
please don't make them competitive. We shouldn't have to
compete against our neighbors. With smaller tribes, we don't
have the staff. People wear many hats at small tribes.
We need GIS services, for example, at Bois Forte. We can't
get the data to fill in for some grants or applications that we
want to apply for, because we don't have it. It is very
expensive. We are very remote. We are not near a city. We are
65 miles from a city.
So water and sewer, we also have ponds that need to be
expanded. In order to get more housing, there is such a lack of
housing in northeastern Minnesota, we need more infrastructure,
more water and sewer put in. But our ponds also need to be
expanded. IHS has their SDS list, but their funding is
inadequate to meet that need. They help us so much with so
little money, but they need a lot more to even get us to where
we can actually manage our own programs and help our people
out. It takes many years to get the need on the SDS list
through IHS to even get us to where we need to be today.
Climate resiliency, because Bois Forte is so small, we
don't even have a program that deals with climate resiliency.
We don't have the staff. We need an updated water quality lab.
We have the best wild rice in the world, and our dam is in the
process of failing. If we lose our dam, we lose our lake, it
will drain our lake, we will lose our rice and there will never
be Nett Lake wild rice again.
Our fish ladders are not working. We are working, we
declared a state of emergency on our dam. The waters have
flooded up north in northeastern Minnesota. Last year was a
drought. Mother Nature plays her many courses with us.
But we need a lot. Small tribes need a lot. Rural tribes
need a lot. Our roads are inadequate. We need equipment.
Sometimes we can't purchase equipment. We need a grader for our
reservation roads so our tribal members can go hunting and
gathering in the woods for their traditional medicines and
berries.
We just need adequate funding and resources to deal with
climate change and resiliency. How is it impacting our wild
rice? How do we do that?
Workforce is another issue that is really affecting the
tribes. We can't recruit any staff in rural Minnesota. We can't
compete with the outside world. We can't. We just cannot get
the adequate people that we need to run our programs. We need
change.
So what I would like to say in my testimony today is that
some of the items I just listed are some inadequacies we have
at Bois Forte. I have tried to list some of the important ones,
like GIS, our dam. But we really need the flexibility, and we
also need a formula that will work for all tribes.
Bois Forte just acquired 28,000 additional acres in the
past two weeks from the PotlachDeltic Corporation. We are a
timber industry up north, we have lots of trees, and mosquitos.
Huge mosquitos. But the thing is, if land base is going to be
used, I am not sure what the formula is for this distribution
or how it is going to be distributed, tribes need input on
that. Because right now, that land is not within the BIA
registry. It was just two weeks ago. But that was the largest
land acquisition in Indian Country, in this Country and in the
State of Minnesota.
But I just want to say that we very much appreciate all the
recent funding opportunities that we as tribes have been able
to get. It has been almost like Christmas for us every day. We
have never had that much money to deal with as tribes. We have
always been dealing with inadequacies and making our dollars
stretch. It has been very unusual.
But as Chairman Dupuis has always said, we have been the
most regulated people when it comes to programs and services.
We make the best of whatever funding or situations that arise.
So I hope that through our testimony today that you will
listen to the tribes, their accomplishments, and us tribes that
don't have the resources, people, or funding to do the things
that we want to do.
Again, Chi Miigwech, thank you very much for allowing Bois
Forte's voice to be heard in this testimony today. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Chavers follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Cathy Chavers, Chairwoman, Bois Forte Band
of Chippewa
Boozhoo Ahneen, my name is Cathy Chavers and I am the Chairwoman of
the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa. I am also the current President of the
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe which includes the six Chippewa bands; White
Earth, Mille Lacs, Fond du Lac, Leech Lake, Grand Portage and Bois
Forte. I am very honored and humbled to be testifying to you today on
the infrastructure bill.
I want to briefly tell you some information about Bois Forte, just
so you have an idea of who and where we are located. Bois Forte is
located in extremely rural northeastern Minnesota. We have
approximately 3600 enrolled tribal members enrolled within our tribe.
There are three sectors of the reservation located many miles apart
which include the Vermilion sector, located near Tower, Minnesota, the
Nett Lake Sector which is the main sector of Bois Forte and the Deer
Creek sector that has no tribal members living there. We have
approximately 500-600 people who reside in Vermilion and Nett Lake. A
majority of our tribal members live in the state of Minnesota.
I have been the Tribal Chairwoman for Bois Forte since 2016 and
worked for the tribe 30+ years in the areas of education and
healthcare. We know that historically the federal government has not
fulfilled their trust responsibility. Throughout my years as a tribal
leader and employee, I have witnessed the band struggle with inadequate
funding throughout all our programs. Historically, this lack of funding
has created great inadequacies and disparities throughout all bands.
These shortfalls are Especially prevalent in the areas of tribal
infrastructure.
Due to the pandemic, we as tribes have seen instrumental and
substantial amounts of funding that have never been seen before. What
we have learned from this historic funding that we have received from
the U.S. Treasury for the pandemic and issuance of ARPA funding, is
that the tribes would benefit from consultation on how the
determination of funding is decided. As we have experienced with the
various formulas that were initiated from the US Treasury, some tribes
benefit, and others do not. This infrastructure funding for the
betterment of Bois Forte should be based on square miles, acreage, etc.
and not just solely on census date or population. Government agencies
need to consult with tribes to get a better understanding of our
limitations in various aspects due to inadequate funding such as
additional administrative costs being allowed. The need for federal
agencies will fund programs new or existing but do not provide adequate
funding for administration and operating costs for programs to continue
and be successful. These costs are then the responsibility of the tribe
which the tribe cannot sustain, or support and the tribe loses the
program which was very much needed. Sad to say but this is an on-going
issue for many tribes.
With the infrastructure bill, we need to be allowed to have the
administrative costs to add additional personnel to assist the tribes
with these various funds being allocated. A small tribe as Bois Forte
does not currently have the capacity due to current ARPA funding and
now with new funding to be appropriated. Our current staff is stressed
and current out with the additional workloads, responsibilities and
reporting requirements from the previous pandemic funding to have to
take on more work. Another way to help tribes is to make funding
categories and uses more flexible to meet the needs of the tribes.
Tribal needs are at times unique situations that do not fit into the
federal governments categories to expend the funds. Tribes have limited
staffing capabilities to also apply for any competitive grants. It also
is not in any tribe's best interest to have to compete for grants
against ones another. There needs to be noncompetitive grants allocated
or a non-restrictive direct allocation (which Bois Forte prefers) to
the tribes bypassing the federal agencies bureaucracy. Too many times
funding is allocated late with short timelines for spending and or too
many obstacles/hurdles to jump through to access the funding.
I will be breaking down Bois Forte's comments within the following
categories:
Critical Needs
I am not sure if you are aware of Bois Forte's recent land
acquisition of 28,000+ acres of land within the reservation boundaries
this past week or two. We are extremely excited but will also need to
import our newly acquired land acreage into our BIA inventory list. If
infrastructure funding for roads is based upon existing inventory, it
would be critical for Bois Forte to get this new land into the current
inventory list.
One area that is extremely critical for Bois Forte is GIS. We
currently to not have the funding, equipment or resources to have this
very valuable service which is needed for all areas of infrastructure
such as precise road inventory data, water and sewer shut off markings,
allotment and parcel boundary markings for example. We need this
important data for any type of grant and other funding opportunities in
Bois Forte's future. We currently lack in the areas mentioned when
applying for funding.
Energy
Due to our rural location and having limited access to energy
resources, we can see the need for more energy efficiency opportunities
such as LED lighting for all reservation buildings, programmable HVAC
systems to allow for controllable heating and cooling after employee
hours to reduce heating and cooling costs, back-up generators, HVAC
replacement and funding for replacement parts and labor due to old and
inundated equipment.
Bois Forte would be extremely willing to have solar farms in
multiple locations throughout the reservation, but that would require
the electrical infrastructure grid to be updated throughout the entire
reservation and perhaps electrical substations to be built close to the
reservation. We are working closely with our local electricity
providers to work on the issues that we both have currently and for
years to come.
Renewable energy, electric cars and charging stations in and around
Bois Forte is a high priority as well. There currently are no charging
stations available on or near the reservation, so this is very much
needed. We currently have a Housing area of approximately 30 homes that
has outdated and inadequate electrical boxes to meet any car charging
needs in the future.
We also need extensions of our emergency siren alert system for
emergencies to our current communities in Nett Lake and Vermilion, plus
upgrades and additional communities to ensure the safety and lives of
our families. Helipads in both Nett Lake and Vermilion communities for
access of Life flight-air ambulance is also a priority as the nearest
trauma center is over 100 miles away.
Water and Sewer
Bois Forte abides by the Clean Water Act under federal law.
Infrastructure needs in the area of water and wastewater is an
extremely high need at Bois Forte. We see the dire need for future
expansion of our water and wells throughout the entire Bois Forte
Reservation, Nett Lake and Vermilion communities. Expansion of water
and sewer, pond expansion, sewer replacement, failing drain fields in
our housing area where there is no funding to replace them. We do have
as SDS list through Indian Health Service however funding for these
projects can take years from now. We have various types of housing,
such as HUD, low rent, tax credit, recreational, private homeowners.
Current water and wastewater systems also need to be established to
provide additional housing in our area. Lack of adequate housing and
apartments contribute to difficulty in recruiting employees to fill
open positions and no place for families to live. We have been tasked
with providing for the next seven generations according to our culture
but without the proper and updated infrastructure that will hinder this
immensely.
We realized that we need collaborations and partnerships with area
towns, municipalities etc. An example of how this can happen is the
Indian Point community sewer system. This system is and has been a
problem at Bois Forte. We will have the opportunity to if given the
funding to connect to the waste system in the City of Orr to alleviate
this problem. This would entail installing a underground piping system
under the lake to the City of Orr to connect. Orr's current system is
only at 25 percent of its full potential. We can also connect our
neighbors as well to enhance our area for housing. As a smaller tribe
we look to our neighbors and others as we know that we cannot do many
things on our own due to our small size and funding shortfalls or
restricted requirements for funding.
Climate Resiliency
Bois Forte is what we consider to be rich in natural resources with
our vast amount of forest, streams and lakes. Nett Lake is well known
for having the best wild rice in the world. We have our lake that grows
our wild rice where we do not allow any type of motorized vehicles on
our lake which allows our rice to be considered ``organic''. Our
current dam that controls the lake is failing along with our fish
ladder and we are barely maintaining preventative measures to keep the
dam from totally failing and then emptying our lake which in turn will
be the end of Nett Lake wild rice forever. We have failed to find
funding to properly address this project, due to this, our own DNR
department is going to install rock arch dam which will allow the fish
to get to the lake and will be less mechanical and more natural.
We currently do not have funding or resources available to work
specifically with climate change. We consider ourselves a tribe rich in
our natural resources but not rich financially. In order to deal with
climate resiliency, we need adequate funding to update our current
water quality lab and other resources to develop this type of program.
At Bois Forte, we have no one dedicated to this extremely important
issue.
Workforce
Workforce development has turned into a huge and difficult issue at
Bois Forte. We are located 65 miles from any city one way on where to
recruit staff for various positions. This is especially difficult in
rural areas. The pandemic brought broadband to the forefront for
teleworking, meetings, telemedicine and schooling. There is and always
will be a need for broadband especially with upgrades to equipment,
supporting data infrastructure software and much more. Bois Forte
currently has an aging workforce and limited funding for educating and
getting qualified staff in technical areas such as IT, water and
wastewater operators, wildlife biologists, GIS and support staff in the
areas of administration such as accountants. It is difficult for small
tribes to compete with off reservation entities that can offer more pay
and other perks or benefits. Programs for technical training would be
welcomed with open arms and on reservation would alleviate the
transportation issue that is in rural areas. Bois Forte is trying to
implement succession planning for our organization but again lack of
funding is a barrier.
Summary
The items listed in my testimony are just some of the inadequacies
we have at Bois Forte. I have tried to list some of the more important
infrastructure projects but there are more and always will be more. I
appreciate and again am honored to be able to testify today on behalf
of Bois Forte but also on behalf of the smaller rural tribes who
struggle to meet their community's needs. We are very much appreciative
of the recent funding opportunities, as this again is very unusual for
us in Indian Country. We have been the most regulated people when it
comes to programs and services, and we make the best of whatever
funding or situations that arise.
Again, Chi Miigwech (Thank you very much) for Bois Forte's voice to
be heard in this testimony today.
Senator Smith. Miigwech, Chair Chavers. Thank you very
much.
We will now turn to Chair Dupuis, from Fond du Lac.
Boozhoo.
STATEMENT OF HON. KEVIN DUPUIS, SR., CHAIRMAN, FOND DU LAC BAND
OF LAKE SUPERIOR CHIPPEWA
Mr. Dupuis. [Greeting in Native tongue.] Hello, everybody.
Miigwech for this hearing. It is good to see everybody. Senator
Smith, thank you so much, members of the Committee.
I can't believe I am going to say this, but I have to say
it. I don't know what the protocol is, but I am going to give
up my time for this today. You have my white paper. I have
always spoken what I believe I need to speak and how I should
say it. I never read from a piece of paper.
But where we are today with this, we have 11 tribes in the
State of Minnesota. Again, you received our white paper, so you
know the concerns of Fond du Lac and what we have with that. It
is an opportunity for all 11 tribal leaders that could be here.
Hopefully in the future we can set this up again in a manner so
they are all here to speak.
I don't know what the protocol is, but I would like to give
up my time for the representative for Upper Sioux, if that is
possible. Miigwech.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dupuis follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Kevin Dupuis, Sr., Chairman, Fond du Lac
Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
Chairman Schatz, Vice Chairwoman Murkowski, and respected members
of the Committee, I am Kevin Dupuis, the Chairman of the Fond du Lac
Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. On behalf of the Fond du Lac Band of
Lake Superior Chippewa, I would like to thank you for inviting me to
testify. We submit this testimony in support of the significant and
much needed funding provided in the Infrastructure Jobs Act (IJA).
As we talk about funding for infrastructure in Indian country, it
is essential to keep in mind that the problems that communities face
nationwide are far more severe for Indian communities. Tribes have
greater infrastructure, economic and social deficits than other
populations and historically have been left behind when it comes to
ensuring federal funding at levels necessary to build basic
infrastructure. Even in February of 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic
started, Native Americans had a higher unemployment rate than other
racial groups, with a 7.5 percent unemployment rate. \1\ According to
2016 census data, the median household income of American Indian and
Alaska Native households in 2016 was $39,719 compared $57,617 for the
nation as a whole. \2\ That data showed Native American poverty at a
rate of 26.2 percent compared to 14 percent for the rest of the
population. \3\ Native Americans have also historically lacked access
to clean water and sanitation infrastructure. \4\ An estimated one in
ten Native Americans lack access to clean water or basic sanitation.
\5\ The Fond du Lac Band has worked, and will continue to work, to find
solutions to problems of this kind and we appreciate Congress'
recognition of and support to meet the needs for more infrastructure
funding in Indian country. We hope this is a trend that will continue.
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\1\ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2022/02/09/despite-
an-optimistic-jobs-report-new-data-shows-native-american-unemployment-
remains-staggeringly-high/. Native Americans are recovering slowly. In
January 2022 the unemployment rate among Native American workers was
11.1 percent, well above 4.4 percent for the rest of the economy. Id.
\2\ https://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2017/aian-
month.html.
\3\ Id.
\4\ https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-26/native-
americans-clean-water
\5\ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/28/indigenous-
americans-drinking-water-navajo-nation; See also https://www.kunc.org/
environment/2021-12-08/many-tribal-homes-dont-have-clean-water-and-the-
road-to-getting-it-is-lined-with-hurdles (estimated 49 percent of
tribal homes lack access to clean water or sanitation)
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When we have resources to address our infrastructure needs, the
Band has been able to make significant strides in improving the
conditions on our Reservation that will continue to have positive
impacts on the health and welfare of our members. We have proven time
and time again that we know how to leverage federal funding to the
maximum extent possible and build successful, but much needed,
projects. For example, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic we were
successful in applying for and receiving multiple grants to complete a
``Fiber to the Home Network'' throughout our Reservation. This project
was critical in helping us when the COVID-19 pandemic erupted and our
members had to switch to remote learning and working. By becoming our
own Internet service provider, we have been able to control rates to
make sure they stay affordable for our community. This has a made a
significance difference in ensuring access to such an important and
needed infrastructure service for our members.
We have also been successful in utilizing federal funding to build
up our Food Sovereignty Infrastructure. Our mission is to build a
sovereign, holistic food system, which is rooted in Anishinaabe values
that is environmentally responsible and empowers a thriving resilient
community. We have been slowing building and expanding our capabilities
since 2009 as resources have allowed. We cannot have food sovereignty
without basic infrastructure to support a growing tribal community. We
have had to develop agricultural infrastructure, including farm
development, food processing and storage facilities, as well as secure
and developed water capabilities. We have also been able to develop and
built a geodesic growing dome and have invested in equipment
infrastructure.
This infrastructure has been critical to not only ensuring that our
members have access to healthy foods given the significant increases in
food costs and inflation but is helping to improve the health outcomes
and build resiliency for our members. Since the beginning of 2022, we
have held multiple feasts, harvested over 500 pounds of produce from
our geodesic green house, supported our Farm to School program and
Elderly Nutrition Program with farm fresh produce, and hosted
workshops, tours and community groups. There are over 40 producers
participating in our producer training program in partnership with Fond
du Lac Tribal Community College, and about eight of those producers
have created businesses or are selling at farmers markets. We provide
weekly classes and have opportunities for our members to gain hands-on
experience in environmentally sustainable farm development practices,
including on a small home-level scale.
We are excited about the opportunities that the IJA provides to
continue to build on our successes, though we are still working on
fully understanding all those opportunities. We applaud the
Administration's on-going efforts to implement the IJA and assist
tribes in accessing funding. We also appreciate Congress' interest in
ensuring careful implementation of the IJA and have several
recommendations to make infrastructure funding more accessible to
tribes.
First, the Band recommends federal agencies provide training and
technical assistance on how tribes can coordinate and best leverage the
many opportunities available. The IJA contains an enormous amount of
funding that requires significant amounts of staff time just to
identify the various applicable funding sources a tribe may utilize for
potential projects of interest. Having liaisons assigned for each
agency to tribal regions to assist in sorting through and identifying
these opportunities and how to access them would help ensure tribes are
able to utilize these funds to their fullest potential. In addition,
while the Band appreciates the many updates and webinars that the White
House and federal agencies host to discuss the IJA, it is difficult to
attend all of the meetings when they are scheduled. It would be helpful
if these updates and webinars could be recorded and made available to
tribes. Moreover, many of these announcements only to go tribal leaders
and this information needs to reach our staff. It would be helpful if
agencies had a dedicated website that tribes can regularly check to
access these updates and webinars.
Second, infrastructure funds need to be available in a more
holistic way that considers the way in which funding from multiple
programs can be leveraged and utilized to fund a single tribal project
that has many elements, only some of which are eligible for certain
funding sources, but other elements would also qualify for other
funding sources. A more holistic application process would cutdown on
award time, confusion, and deadlines and it would help tribes to better
articulate their needs and how the various programs rely on one
another. One approach could be modeled on the Department of Justice's
(DOJ) Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation (CTAS). The CTAS
approach streamlines the process for tribes by promoting long-term
planning to ensure tribal program alignment and simplifying
applications by requiring one descriptive narrative about the
particular tribe, and then each program submits its specific project
description. This model would serve the programs authorized by the IJA
well because federal agencies could coordinate funding initiatives to
ensure that awards meet overall tribal goals. Additionally, this would
better allow tribes to leverage available funding programs for a global
project. In furtherance of this, funds should be provided in Block
Grants or 638 contracts to the maximum extent possible.
Third, communication needs to be more streamlined. There are a
variety of deadlines which tribes must track across agencies for
funding, and many tribes must do this in an already understaffed
capacity. \6\ The current approach to communication with tribes has
been somewhat piecemealed and comes out of various agencies and
programs. Having a central place where tribes can track each federal
agency's upcoming deadlines for funding, with links on where to access
more information for the specific funding opportunity that is regularly
updated, would help all tribes currently struggling to meet the
capacity needs of tracking all of the various funding opportunities.
This could also help the various agencies better coordinate overlapping
deadlines and consultations. One positive example is recent emails that
get distributed by the U.S. Treasury Department regarding information,
funding deadlines and updates for the American Rescue Plan Act. Those
emails have been very helpful and could be used as a model for IJA
funding.
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\6\ In addition, deadlines have been extended from time to time,
but tribes that have already submitted applications don't have the
ability to pull their submission back to improve it. This should be
corrected to allow tribes that have likely rushed to submit
applications to have the ability to pull back and improve their
applications for resubmission.
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Fourth, navigating the reporting requirements for certain funding
has been challenging because of the time and process involved with
setting up a user id on the ID.me system. Some tribal members are
unwilling to provide all the personal data needed for work purposes.
The process for registering is also very cumbersome and time-consuming.
We received multiple errors when trying to submit the reports due for
the American Rescue Plan Act. If these types of requirements will
continue to be used for other funding streams, these issues need to be
addressed to ensure that tribes can meet the requirements in a timely
and efficient manner. A possible solution would be to assign a ``grant
manager'' to each tribe, that we could reach out to with questions.
Most grants we receive have a ``program manager'' and a ``fiscal
manager'' at the granting agency that are assigned as our contacts.
Lastly, matching requirements greatly hinder the ability for tribes
to secure these funds. It does not seem appropriate to force tribes to
be required to provide set levels of matching funds, or to provide the
funds up front, only to be reimbursed upon completion of the approved
project. The Band acknowledges that some of these matching requirements
are statutorily required but believes that Congress should encourage
agencies to make efforts to ensure any statutory restrictions create as
minimal a barrier as possible, including minimizing matching with as
small amount as possible. This can be done in a variety of ways
including considering rate payer funds and other federal funds as
matching funds. This would help tribes because many tribes already
receive federal funds which could be used to help with cost-sharing
requirements. And, where matching is not statutorily required, agencies
should be required to not include matching requirements for awards to
tribes.
Senator Smith. That is fine with me. Thank you, Chair
Dupuis.
Welcome.
STATEMENT OF ADAM SAVARIEGO, TRIBAL SECRETARY, UPPER SIOUX
COMMUNITY
Mr. Savariego. [Greeting in Native tongue.] I am Adam
Savariego. I am the tribal secretary for Upper Sioux Community.
Chairman Jensvold asked if I could attend this hearing
today, and I thank you for the opportunity for allowing me to
speak very briefly on Upper Sioux Community's concerns.
The first concern I want to bring up, and I thank Dupuis
and Deuce for approaching me prior to this hearing, because on
principle they disagreed with only five of the elected tribes
being here today. We have to constantly do that as indigenous
nations to reaffirm our sovereignty, not only to ourselves but
out of respect for our other tribal nations. It would be a
disservice to each individual tribe if we don't acknowledge
that. I think we as indigenous people have always known that
notion.
We opened up today speaking on the Constitution of the
United States, and that it is the duty of the Federal
Government to acknowledge treaties and the sovereignty of
tribal nations throughout the Country. However, I often teach
in my college classes that our sovereignty is an inherent human
right that preceded the foundation of this Country and the
Constitution itself. It is something I take very seriously in
my obviously young years of being an elected leader for the
Upper Sioux Community.
We learned of this hearing through Deuce just the other
day. I came because of Chairman Jenvold's wishes. I didn't know
what to expect. I was here to listen and observe until, again,
as I said, they approached me.
In terms of infrastructure, for the Upper Sioux Community,
for the last 15 to 20 years we have had the self-determination,
whether it is a water treatment plant, in 2005, I believe we
installed fiber optics, which was the first in the rural area.
Just for reference, the Upper Sioux Community is about two and
a half hours west of here in a very remote town of 2,800 people
in Granite Falls, Minnesota.
Due to our self-determination, we are constantly at the
whims of local agencies and governments. One example I will
bring up is Mediacom. They don't really appreciate that we have
our own infrastructure in terms of broadband. We have to
constantly again reaffirm to ourselves that we are competent
enough to develop our own infrastructure.
Frankly, Mediacom didn't have their fiber optic access up
until a few years ago. So the Upper Sioux Community was ahead
of the curve by at least 10 years in that regard. At any point
in time, we are ready to expand that access.
But again, because of the landlocked system we have to live
in, with the reservation system, we are at the whim of Mediacom
in terms of how fast we can increase our speeds. The running
joke on the reservation is, we still have res-internet, because
it is considerably slower, and Mediacom does have that
authority and power to I guess limit or inhibit our speed in
the first place.
We are also at the whims of farmers around in the local
area, particularly when it comes to our waterway systems. A
constant reference Chairman Jensvold makes is county ditch
nine, in the Yellow Medicine County area, that as soon as it
hits our reservation, it turns back into a creek somehow, even
though we know by June, July if there are e-coli levels in
there that makes it unsafe to even be around.
In 2019, we had historic flooding in the Minnesota River
Valley that we do believe led to the infrastructure depletion
of Highway 67 which we have been talking to MNDOT in regards to
the right-of-way access. Upper Sioux would probably assume
responsibility for maintaining that highway.
So like I said, fighting the narrative of the local
interests, local governments, the county, the State and
frankly, the Federal Government, today we have to constantly
reaffirm to ourselves that we are competent. The funding
definitely helps, particularly when it comes to that need of
infrastructure.
I want to make known, though, I think as with all the
elected leaders here today, that a consistent story I am
hearing is we know what we are doing, because we are the
original caretakers of this land. Again, Pidamaya, Miigwech,
thank you to Dupuis and Deuce for allowing me the opportunity
to speak on Upper Sioux Community's behalf. Thank you.
Senator Smith. Thank you. Could you please repeat your
name, just for the Congressional record?
Mr. Savariego. My name is Adam Savariego. I am the Tribal
Secretary for Upper Sioux Community.
Senator Smith. Thank you very much.
Chair Larsen?
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT LARSEN, PRESIDENT, LOWER SIOUX INDIAN
COMMUNITY
Mr. Larsen. [Greeting and opening in Native tongue.]
Senator Smith and members of the Committee, I appreciate the
time. My name is Robert Larsen. Most folks call me Deuce when
they get to know me. It is my honor and privilege to serve as
the President of the Lower Sioux Indian Community in the State
of Minnesota.
I want to say again, Pidamaya, thank you for allowing me to
give my community a voice before the United States Senate
Committee on Indian Affairs to discuss investing in Native
communities.
I do want to echo, though, that I understand time
constraints. But there are 11 distinct voices that should be
heard at these hearings. I want to echo that out.
Our community, though small, is a sovereign and federally
recognized tribe in southwestern Minnesota, about an hour and a
half west and south of here. In Minnesota, the Mni Sota Makoce,
which was our original homelands, this whole State that is
called Minnesota now, reduced to less than our 1,700 acres, is
our reservation. Our name for this region is Cansayapi, which
translates to ``where they mark the trees red.''
Despite various Federal laws and policy that have been
aimed to extinguish our people, and some still on the books
today, our citizenship is thriving. The Lower Sioux has
experienced a 70 percent growth since 2000, with over one-third
of our citizens under 18 and almost half under 50. We thrive
despite being exiled in our own homelands, homelands that
predate the establishment of the United States. Our people
risked death to continue to live here. The fact that we are
still here and flourishing is a testament to the strength of
our ancestors and the Dakota people.
Our goal as leadership for Cansayapi is to always think and
act while keeping in mind the next seven generations. We are
encouraged that this Act supports specific infrastructure needs
and is a tangible example of Federal trust responsibility to
the tribal nations.
This legislation helps support our community as we continue
to thrive with our goals of improving infrastructure. Cansayapi
intends to use the available funding from the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law to support our endeavors to strengthen
sustainability, notably in the areas of our broadband and
wastewater treatment.
When our community was shut down due to the COVID-19
pandemic, we, like many governments, communities and businesses
became more reliant on the internet to continue operations.
Having reliable high-speed internet is critical for our
continued growth. Our local broadband company self-identifies
as providing available, reliable coverage, but in reality, that
is not the case.
Currently, the Community has developed a broadband fiber
installation plan to improve connectivity for the community's
citizens living here. Our goal is that all community citizens
living on the reservation will have access to high quality,
reliable internet service. After completing a feasibility study
in the summer of 2020, our hope is to ultimately have fiber
broadband installed and operational soon.
We also struggle with inadequate housing, which according
to HUD's own study, we are 87 units short of the community's
need. With our efforts to build stronger broadband services on
our small land base, we need to ensure that future development
does not create inequity in accessing reliable broadband.
As our population grows, we have discovered our current
wastewater treatment facility cannot accommodate our needs much
longer. It is critical that the community builds a new
wastewater treatment facility. Again, we are encouraged with
these efforts.
To us, water is sacred, a life-giver, and vital to our
growing community. The interconnectedness of our people and the
waters of our nation are tantamount to our identity and play a
key role in our cultural traditions. We currently have a small
project that would allow construction of individual sanitation
facilities for three new and other category homes, including
homes we are building with hempcrete that we hope to get
started this year. We are growing our own and having a facility
to make the hempcrete.
With our growing population, the demand will only continue
to rise. These systems are costly and critical to ensure safe
living conditions for the health and welfare of our citizens,
and to prevent overcrowding in homes which often can inundate
existing systems.
Funding from this Bipartisan Infrastructure Law supports
the community's sustainability efforts and supports Cansayapi's
official vision that ``The Lower Sioux Indian Community is a
healthy, safe, and happy community, grounded and guided by
Dakota culture, traditions, and language, where every person
contributes to a diversified social and economic life. The
people grow, adapt, and innovate together, through
opportunities that span the generations and seek continuous
success.''
Out of respect for the time, our written testimony has more
information, vital infrastructure needs related to the
endeavors that will support job opportunities, and road safety
measures. We are very appreciative of every member of Congress
who supported this bill. The community also thanks Senator
Smith's office for keeping us apprised and for providing more
information about the many funding opportunities that come from
this historic law.
The community also thanks Chair Schatz and the entire
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs for the invitation to
testify before you today. Pidamayado.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Larsen follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Robert Larsen, President, Lower Sioux Indian
Community
I. Introduction
Good afternoon, Chair Schatz, Vice Chair Murkowski, members of the
Committee and honored guests. My name is Robert ``Deuce'' Larsen and it
is my honor and privilege to serve as President of the Lower Sioux
Indian Community in the State of Minnesota. Thank you for allowing me
to give my Community a voice before the United States Senate Committee
on Indian Affairs to discuss Investing in Native Communities:
Transformative Opportunities in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs
Act.
II. Lower Sioux Indian Committee in the State of Minnesota
The Lower Sioux Indian Community is a sovereign and federally
recognized tribe in southwestern Minnesota, or Mni Sota Makoce, the
original homelands of the Dakota people. The Lower Sioux Indian
Community is part of the Bdewakanton Band of Dakota. Our name for this
region is Cansayapi, which means ``where they mark the trees red.''
Pride in our history and our culture are the heart and spirit of
everything we do.
Despite various federal laws and policy that have aimed to
extinguish our people (with some still on the books to this day), our
citizenship is thriving. Lower Sioux experienced a 70 percent growth
since 2000, with over one-third of our citizens under 18 and almost
half under 50. We thrive despite being exiled on our own homelands--
homelands that pre-date the establishment of the United States. Our
people risked death to continue to live here, and the fact we are still
here, and flourishing, is testament to the strength of our ancestors
and the Dakota people.
We aim to ensure our people grow, adapt, and innovate together,
through opportunities that span the generations. Our goal as leadership
for Cansayapi is to always think and act while keeping in mind the next
several generations. We are encouraged that this Act supports specific
infrastructure needs and is a tangible example of federal trust
responsibility to tribal nations.
This legislation helps support our Community as we continue to
thrive with our goals of improving infrastructure. The programs and
opportunities with this legislation creates programs that will directly
benefit the Lower Sioux Indian Community. Cansayapi intends to use
available funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support our
endeavors to strengthen sustainability, notably in the areas of
broadband and wastewater treatment.
III. Regarding Broadband
When our Community was shut down due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, we,
like many governments, communities and businesses became more reliant
on the Internet to continue operations. Having reliable high-speed
Internet is critical for our continued growth. Our local broadband
company self-identifies as providing available, reliable coverage, but
in reality, that is not the case.
At present, the Community has developed broadband fiber
installation plans to improve connectivity for the Community's citizens
living in the tribal community. Our goal is that all Community citizens
living on the Reservation will have access to high quality, reliable
Internet service. After completing a feasibility study in the Summer of
2020, our hope is to ultimately have fiber broadband installed and
operational. We were pleased to see the commitment to grants that can
be used to expand access to and the adoption of broadband service on
tribal land or remote learning, telework, or telehealth services and
does not limit such expanded access to the COVID-19 pandemic. This
effort can also assist with insuring connectivity to future housing
expansion. We struggle with inadequate housing, which last estimated is
to be 87 units short of the Community's need. With our efforts to build
stronger broadband services on our small land base, we need to ensure
that future development does not create inequity in accessing reliable
broadband.
IV. Regarding Wastewater Treatment
As our population grows, we have discovered our current wastewater
treatment facility cannot accommodate our needs much longer. It is
critical that the Community builds a new wastewater treatment facility.
This legislation invests $6 billion dollars to support water
infrastructure in Tribal communities, including $3.5 billion over five
years for the Indian Health Service Sanitation Facilities Construction
program. To us, water is sacred, a life-giver and vital to our growing
Community. The interconnectedness of our people and the waters of our
nation are tantamount to our identity and plays a key role in our
cultural traditions.
We currently have a small project that would allow construction of
individual sanitation facilities for three new and other category
homes, but as I mentioned previously, our Community is in need of an
additional 87 homes all of which would require access to adequate
sanitation facilities. With our growing population, the demand will
only continue to rise. These systems are costly but are critical to
ensure safe living conditions for the health and welfare of our
citizens and to prevent overcrowding in homes, which often can inundate
existing systems.
V. Regarding Transportation
Review of the Act provides significant opportunities for
transportation infrastructure. We are especially interested in road
maintenance, preventative safety measures and transportation
facilities. The Act provides ways to incorporate tribal interests at
the forefront with the addition of key positions in government.
Moreover, the Act recognizes that tribes and its leaders need to be
consulted and part of decisionmaking for activities in their lands.
VI. Closing Statement
Funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law supports the
Community's sustainability efforts and supports Cansayapi's official
Vision that ``the Lower Sioux Indian Community is a healthy, safe, and
happy community--grounded and guided by Dakota culture, traditions, and
language--where every person contributes to a diversified social and
economic life. The people grow, adapt, and innovate together, through
opportunities that span the generations and seek continuous success.''
Out of respect for the Committee's time during oral testimony, we
included more information on potential funding opportunities the
Community plans to seek to support vital infrastructure-related
endeavors. The number of funding opportunities and the amount of
infrastructure that can be funding through the Act is unprecedented.
This law will bring jobs and with that economic development and
security into our Community. This Act represents a tremendous amount of
opportunity for the Community. Vast opportunities are available, so the
need for technical assistance with these programs will be high. The
Community is also interested in many areas in the Act, such as cyber
security, energy efficiency and research.
We are appreciative of every member of Congress who supported this
bill. The Community also thanks Sen. Smith's office for keeping us
apprised and for providing more information about the many funding
opportunities that come from this historic law. The Community also
thanks Chairman Schazt and the entire Senate Committee on Indian
Affairs for the invitation to testify before you today.
Pidamayado.
Senator Smith. Thank you very much, Chair Larsen. I
appreciate that.
I also want to note and give greetings to Grand Portage
Chair Deschampe. Thank you for being here. All of the Minnesota
tribal leaders are going to have an opportunity to join
together for a working lunch with the Committee after this. I
look forward to that as well.
I will now turn to the Honorable Bryan Newland for your
testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. BRYAN NEWLAND, ASSISTANT
SECRETARY FOR INDIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE
INTERIOR; ACCOMPANIED BY: JASON FREIHAGE, DEPUTY
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF MANAGEMENT
Mr. Newland. [Greeting in Native tongue].
Good morning, everybody. My name is Bryan Newland. I am
Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs here at the Department
of Interior. I am really glad to be back home-ish in the Great
Lakes region.
Prior to serving in this role, I served alongside many of
the tribal leaders here as tribal chairman for my own tribe,
the Bay Mills Indian Community. I have to say it is a blessing
to be amongst them again. I learned a lot from them during my
time as tribal leader, particularly through the pandemic when I
watched many of my friends here lead not only their communities
but serve as examples for pandemic response for the entire
Nation.
So I am really glad and honored to be here, and Senator
Smith, grateful for the invitation from the Committee to appear
before you today. I am also grateful to Chairman Andersen for
hosting this field hearing. It is always great for us to have
an opportunity to get out into Indian Country and into
communities where we are hearing directly from tribal leaders
and representatives.
In total, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, or the
Infrastructure and Jobs Act, invests as you noted, Senator,
more than $13 billion directly into tribal communities, and
tribes may apply for billions more through various other grant
programs. From this law, the department has received more than
$3.1 billion directly for tribal communities, and tribes have
been made eligible by Congress for additional department
programs to support building resilience for wildland fire and
drought, restoring ecosystems and enabling fish passage.
The department began implementation of the Infrastructure
and Jobs Act with three tribal consultations, covering all of
the programs for which tribes are eligible. We heard some
consistent themes in those consultations, including the need
for interagency coordination, technical assistance, and
streamlining our permitting process.
The White House Council on Native American Affairs and its
committees meet regularly to discuss our work to implement the
Infrastructure and Jobs Act. Our Indian Affairs spend plan
includes the creation of an interagency coordinator position
and regional positions to directly provide tribes with the
technical assistance we heard about during those consultation
programs.
The timely approval of permitting and realty actions are
critical to success. The BIA recently issued an update to our
permitting national policy memorandum to streamline the rights-
of-way and business leases for projects that are funded by the
American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure and Jobs Act as well
as telecommunications and renewable energy projects. We want to
make sure we are not the choke point that keeps this money from
turning into benefits at the tribal community level.
Overall, Indian Affairs within the Department of Interior
received $466 million through the Infrastructure and Jobs Act,
which included $216 million for tribal climate resilience,
adaptation and community relocation. In addition to our grant
program on this topic, the department will announce several
community relocation pilot projects to serve as demonstration
sites for the United States to relocate willing communities on
the front lines of climate change. We know that leveraging
Federal funding through this Act and the Rescue Plan and other
appropriations with our partner agencies is going to be
critical to our success.
We also received $250 million for irrigation and power,
safety of dams and water sanitation. We have $50 million
available to us to spend each year. This funding is critical to
address our deferred maintenance backlog in these areas.
In Fiscal Year 2022, we allocated $10.6 million for water
sanitation. Water and sanitation project funding has been
coordinated with IHS, and will be used to support improvement
and repair projects that address public health and safety
compliance issues at our BIA-owned drinking water and
sanitation systems.
In Fiscal Year 2022, let me back up, Senator, and just note
that even though those are BIA-owned systems that they are
direct service systems and directly benefit people in tribal
communities.
In Fiscal Year 2022, we allocated $10 million for
irrigation and power projects. Within this total, 70 percent is
directed to Indian irrigation projects, and 30 percent of that
funding is used to support BIA-owned power utilities. For
safety of dams, we invested $29.1 million in Fiscal Year 2022
to begin to address the $1 billion deferred maintenance backlog
for BIA-owned dams.
The Department has received funding in other areas from the
Infrastructure and Jobs Act. In February, for example, we
allocated $1.7 billion to fund Indian water rights settlements
that had been enacted and fulfilled all the outstanding Federal
payments necessary to complete the terms of those settlements.
The Infrastructure and Jobs Act also provided $150 million
to address orphan wells and well sites on tribal lands. And the
Act provided the department with $905 million for ecosystem
restoration and resilience funding. Tribes and tribal lands are
eligible for most of that funding, whether through grants,
agreements, or contracts, and in this fiscal year BIA received,
as a portion of the department's funding, $4.8 million for
these activities.
We are also providing nearly half of those funds as
competitive grants through the America the Beautiful Challenge
Fund administered through the National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation.
Indian Affairs is engaged with other Federal agencies to
implement the Infrastructure and Jobs Act. For example, the BIA
is in the process of allocating funding from the Department of
Transportation to tribes to tribes for the Tribal
Transportation Program here in Minnesota and across the Nation.
So these are just some of the examples and highlights of
the work we are doing under the Infrastructure and Jobs Act. I
do want to note that between the American Rescue Plan and the
Infrastructure and Jobs Act, tribes here in Minnesota have
received nearly $47 million in funding, separate and apart from
the Rescue Plan funding that the Treasury Department
distributed to tribes.
So this has been a historic level of investment in Indian
Country. As Chief Executive Benjamin mentioned, we have a lot
of catching up to do. I have heard a tribal leader in one of
our consultations describe this as the great catch-up, not the
great bottle of ketchup, but the great catch-up on
infrastructure investment. It has been transformative in many
tribal communities and is a great way for us to start in our
work between our co-equal branches of government in meeting our
trust responsibilities.
Senator Smith, I want to thank you and thank the Committee
for inviting me to testify today. We have submitted our
complete testimony for the record. I am happy to answer
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Newland follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Bryan Newland, Assistant Secretary for
Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior
Good afternoon, Senator Smith. Thank you for the opportunity to
provide a statement on behalf of the Department of the Interior
(Department) on how the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA),
also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), is an investment
in Native Communities. I appreciate the opportunity to address
implementation of these critical infrastructure investments and their
impact across Indian country.
IIJA Funding for Indian Affairs and Across the Department
In total the IIJA invests more than $13 billion directly in Tribal
communities across the country and Tribes may apply for billions more
through various grant processes being deployed throughout other
agencies. These resources go to many Federal agencies to expand access
to clean drinking water for Native communities, ensure every Native
American has access to high-speed Internet, tackle the climate crisis,
advance environmental justice, and invest in Tribal communities that
have too often been left behind.
The Department received over $3.1 billion directly for Tribal
communities, which included a $466 million investment for the Bureau of
Indian Affairs infrastructure projects and climate resiliency
initiatives, $150 million for Tribal orphaned wells, and a historic
investment of $2.5 billion to help the Department fulfill pre-existing
settlements of Indian water rights claims. The IIJA also made Tribal
communities eligible for additional Department programs to support
building resilience to wildland fire and drought, restoring ecosystems,
enabling fish passage, and addressing legacy pollution from abandoned
mine lands and orphan oil and gas wells.
Consistent with the Administration's commitment to consult with
Tribes and support self-determination the Department began
implementation with three Tribal consultations covering all programs
for which Tribes are eligible. The consultations were completed within
the timeframes necessary to inform spend plans that were required by
the IIJA. The consultations served both to increase awareness of
funding opportunities for Tribes and to gather input from Tribal
leaders. There were three consistent themes: interagency coordination;
technical assistance, and streamline permitting. As the IIJA programs
will be implemented over several years, future consultations may be
necessary.
Additionally, the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) continues to
conduct Tribal information and listening sessions on investing IIJA
funding with a commitment to supporting Reclamation's strong
relationships with Tribal communities. Starting in December 2021 and
continuing through the spring, Reclamation hosted consultation sessions
with Tribal leaders on IIJA implementation. Reclamation also conducted
separate outreach sessions for Tribes and appreciated the opportunity
to hear from these communities about the effectiveness of its IIJA-
funded programs. These Tribal consultation sessions provided additional
ideas for broadening outreach to Tribes who are eligible for
Reclamation's IIJA-funded programs described below.
Creating a Whole of Government Approach and Maximizing Impact
Indian Affairs is often called upon by Indian country to represent
its needs and help drive an all of government approach to maximizing
the many opportunities available to Indian country. We are working to
implement Indian country's recommendations through interagency
coordination, technical assistance, process improvement, and leveraging
of acquisition authorities.
Enhancing Coordination
Successful implementation of the IIJA requires significant
consultation, coordination, and leveraging of partnerships. Within the
Department, weekly coordination meetings with all bureaus and
Departmental leadership ensure the needs of Tribes are considered for
all Department IIJA programs.
We are also engaging across the Federal government with several
coordination strategies. First, we are leveraging existing interagency
coordinating venues. This starts with the White House Council on Native
American Affairs (WHCNAA). The Department, in coordination with WHCNAA,
is uniquely positioned to define and communicate the benefits of the
infrastructure law to Indian country. The various subcommittees of the
WHCNAA are critical to Federal coordination and communication. We also
worked with the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs to
release a Tribal Playbook which clarifies all the IIJA funding
opportunities available to Tribal communities. Second, across
programmatic areas, our team is leveraging interagency coordination
through ongoing participation in the White House Tribal Broadband
Coordination Committee and working with the Council on Environmental
Quality's climate resilience working groups and the Environmental
Protection Agency-led Water Infrastructure Task Force.
Technical Assistance
The need to provide technical assistance to Tribes cannot be
overstated. Therefore, the Indian Affairs spend plan included the
creation of an Interagency Coordinator position who will assist Tribes
and Tribal organizations identify and apply for available funds. The
incumbent in this position will also be charged to work within the
federal family to assist sister federal agencies in making their
programs more accessible to Indian country.
Streamlining Processes
Timely approval of permitting and realty actions are critical to
infrastructure investment in Indian country. To this end, BIA announced
a National Policy Memorandum (NPM-TRUS-44) which streamlines the
rights-of-way (ROWs) and business lease application process for
projects funded by the American Rescue Plan Act and IIJA, as well as
Telecommunications and Renewable Energy Projects. This action advances
the policy of the BIA to support Tribal Nations in exercising their
sovereignty to govern their lands and pursue economic self-sufficiency,
conservation practices, and climate resiliency. Specifically, this
National Policy Memorandum provides clear direction to ensure that ROWs
and business leases are expedited so there is no unnecessary delay in
deploying critical infrastructure to Indian country. Additionally, the
fiscal year (FY) 2023 President's Budget requests an additional $2
million that will allow the BIA to increase staffing for realty
functions which are critical to infrastructure investment.
Leveraging Buy Indian Act Authorities
Indian Affairs is also working to expand the impact of IIJA and
other infrastructure funding by increasing the use of Buy Indian Act
authorities. This is being done by focusing on engaging with and
maximizing opportunities for Indian small businesses, and using an
integrated approach of policies, procedures, training, and strategic
contract implementation. The recent update to Buy Indian Act
regulations are a critical step forward. The updates allow the
Department to eliminate barriers to Indian Economic Enterprises from
competing on certain construction contracts, expand Indian Economic
Enterprises' ability to subcontract construction work consistent with
other socio-economic set-aside programs, and give greater preference to
Indian Economic Enterprises when a deviation from the Buy Indian Act is
necessary, among other updates. The update also aligns Indian Affairs
and Indian Health Service regulations to facilitate more contracting
opportunities for eligible entities under the Buy Indian Act. In order
to leverage this rule change, Indian Affairs will solicit proposals
from Native-owned construction businesses for a new $1.5 billion
nationwide contract that will cover a wide range of projects for
bureaus across the Department.
Implementation of Department Programs Directly Benefiting Tribes
Meeting Our Obligations for Indian Water Rights Settlements
In February, the Department announced allocations totaling $1.7
billion for enacted Indian water rights settlements that have
outstanding federal payments necessary to complete their terms. The
Bureau of Trust Funds Administration is managing and investing over $1
billion for Tribes in trust fund portfolios pursuant to tribal
financial objectives and the remainder of the funds were allocated to
Bureau of Reclamation for settlement project implementation. This
funding allows the administration to uphold our trust responsibilities
and ensure Tribal communities receive the water resources they have
long been promised. These investments promote economic development and
ecosystem restoration. For example, the funding allocated to the
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will be used to rehabilitate
and modernize the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project and restore
damages to fish and wildlife habitat, while providing water for farmers
and ranchers who depend on irrigation for their livelihoods. As part of
the implementation strategy, an Indian Water Rights Settlement
Completion Fund Executive Committee was established, comprised of the
Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, Chairperson of the Working
Group on Indian Water Settlements, Director of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, Assistant Secretaries of Water and Science and Indian Affairs,
and the Solicitor. The Executive Committee will recommend future
allocations of the remainder of the Completion Fund to the Secretary.
In order to complete allocations of remaining funding, BIA is engaging
with Tribes to finalize indexing costs which are necessary to determine
their final settlement payments. The Bureau of Reclamation will
continue to work with the Department to identify project specific
allocations from the Fund to meet implementation needs.
Advancing Climate Resilience
The IIJA included $216 million for Tribal climate resilience,
adaptation, and community relocation planning, design, and
implementation of projects which address the varying climate challenges
facing Tribal communities across the country. Within this total, $130
million is directed toward Community Relocation and $86 million is
directed toward Climate Resilience and Adaptation Projects. Total
funding of $43.2 million is available each year for fiscal years 2022-
2026.
On April 11th, Indian Affairs announced the request for proposals
from Tribes and Tribal organizations for approximately $46 million from
the Bureau of Indian Affairs Branch of Tribal Climate Resilience which
is funded by the IIJA and FY 2022 annual appropriations. Tribal needs
are diverse. Each Tribe has its own various climate resilience
capacities, needs, and issues to address. The existing Tribal Climate
Resilience Awards Program has been focused on training, capacity
building, and planning since its inception in 2011. IIJA funds will
enable BIA to expand the Awards Program to start funding implementation
projects developed from their plans.
In addition to the Awards Program, the Department will announce
Community Relocation pilot projects in a few communities to serve as
demonstration sites. The sites will be chosen based on factors such as
risk level, community-readiness, existing plans, and potential to yield
lessons-learned for other Tribes facing similar issues. A study
conducted by BIA estimated that addressing unmet infrastructure needs
associated with relocation will cost $4.8 billion in Alaska and the
lower 48. Given this significant cost of implementing community
relocation, effective coordination with Federal, State, local and NGO
partners is critical to ensuring we successfully increase resilience of
Native communities. Leveraging additional federal funding will be
critical to success.
Investing in Irrigation and Power, Safety of Dams and Water Sanitation
Improvements
The IIJA included $250 million for Irrigation and Power, Safety of
Dams and Water Sanitation, with $50 million available to spend
annually. This funding is critical to address our deferred maintenance
backlog in these areas. In FY 2022, $10.65 million is allocated for
water sanitation projects on the Hopi Reservation, Columbia In-lieu
Treaty Fishing sites, and the Northern Idaho water system on the Nez
Perce Reservation. Water and Sanitation project funding has been
coordinated with the Indian Health Service and will be used to support
improvement and repair projects that address public health and safety
compliance issues at Indian Affairs-owned drinking water and sanitation
systems.
In FY 2022, $10 million is allocated for Irrigation and Power
projects; within this total approximately 70 percent will be directed
to Indian Irrigation Projects and the remaining 30 percent will support
BIA-owned power utilities. BIA will prioritize funding of projects that
reduce deferred maintenance and the risk of failure and align with
condition assessments and modernization studies to rehabilitate aging
infrastructure. For Safety of Dams, $29.1 million is allocated in FY
2022 to begin addressing the $1 billion deferred maintenance backlog
for BIA owned dams. This includes at least $20 million for
rehabilitation of the Oglala Dam within the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation in South Dakota. The allocation of funding follows current
program practices which prioritize project funding. The BIA routinely
performs inspections and analysis of all high-hazard program dams to
understand the risk each structure presents to downstream residents.
BIA uses the results of this work to prioritize distribution of design
and construction funding to the highest risk dams.
Collaboration Across Interior
Outside of Indian Affairs, our team continues to collaborate with
other Department programs on program implementation in areas such as
wildland fire, abandoned mine lands, and orphan wells.
The IIJA also provided the Department with $905 million for
Ecosystem Restoration and Resilience funding, of which $464.6 million
is made available to various bureaus. For the initial allocations for
FY 2022, $4.87 million was allocated to the BIA. The range of projects
funded include restoration of ecological health by improving forest
health and reducing the risk of resource loss to environmental factors
such as insects, disease, and wildfire. This investment will allow
adaptation/plant ecologists to provide regional technical expertise to
support ecological restoration efforts on Indian lands at various USGS
Climate Adaptation Science Center regions. Additionally, the Department
is providing funding to the recently announced America the Beautiful
Challenge Fund administered through the National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation. Tribes will be eligible to compete for these grants.
The $8.3 billion investment under Title IX (Western Water
Infrastructure) of the IIJA supports Reclamation's ongoing work to
improve water infrastructure while addressing needs in underserved
communities. IIJA provides significant funding for longstanding
Reclamation programs including WaterSMART, which has been identified by
numerous Tribes across the West as an essential program for enhancing
water infrastructure and attenuating drought conditions. IIJA funding
will expand the reach of WaterSMART and allow Reclamation to leverage
additional resources, including funding and technical assistance
provided by Reclamation's Native American Affairs Program, to modernize
infrastructure and increase water reliability and resilience for Native
communities.
We also are engaged with partners in other Federal agencies to
support their engagement with Tribes. For example, BIA is in the
process of allocating BIL Tribal Transportation Program (TTP) funding
from the Department of Transportation to Tribes in Minnesota and across
the Nation. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
recently announced funding opportunity of up to $12 million available
under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to implement fish passage work
and build Tribal organizational capacity. This funding will support
Indian Tribes, Tribal commissions, and Tribal consortia in implementing
Tribal priority fish passage projects, including organizational
capacity building, that benefit migratory fish in coastal ecosystems,
including the Great Lakes. To help support coordination on fish passage
investments, the Fish and Wildlife Service is working with the federal
agencies receiving IIJA fish passage funding to convene a workshop in
July with Tribal representatives, state fish and wildlife agencies, and
non-governmental organizations as a first step towards identifying
shared goals and improving collaboration and coordination. I look
forward to updating the Committee in the future about how IIJA funding
from our partners benefits Indian country.
Conclusion
The Department is thankful to the leadership and members of the
Committee for their continued support for Indian country and the IIJA.
The Department looks forward to continuing to work with the Committee
on implementing this once in a generation opportunity for Indian
country.
Senator Smith. Thank you very much.
Ms. Fowler?
STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH FOWLER, ACTING DIRECTOR,
INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
AND HUMAN SERVICES
Ms. Fowler. Good morning, Senator, and our honorable tribal
leaders and distinguished Federal colleagues. I really am
thankful for the opportunity to be here this morning, and I
appreciate the warm welcome. I am pleased that we have our area
director for the Bemidji Area Indian Health Service, Mr. Daniel
Frye, here this morning as well.
I am thankful that I have an opportunity to provide an
update on the Indian Health Service program benefiting American
Indian and Alaska Native communities under the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act. I testified on May 4th on this topic
and provided a lot of background on our sanitation facilities
construction program. This morning I would like to provide a
few updates that have occurred since that time.
On May 31st, IHS announced the Fiscal Year 2022 allocation
decisions for $700 million that was appropriated to the Indian
Health Service within the IIJA, Infrastructure Investment and
Jobs Act. Leading up to the allocation decision, the IHS
conducted three virtual tribal consultations on the
Infrastructure and Investment and Jobs Act from November 22nd,
2021 to January 5th, 2022.
Based on review and consideration of input received through
tribal consultation, the IHS decided to use current Sanitation
Deficiency System data in the agency's existing funding
mechanisms to allocate these resources. This includes IHS
direct service projects funded through Federal acquisition
regulations contracts for tribal procurement in Indian Self-
Determination and Education Assistance Act construction
contracts.
The IHS will allocate approximately $581 million in Fiscal
Year 2022 funding for Tier 1 project construction costs. The
Tier 1 project is considered ready to fund, because planning is
complete. The IHS will also allocate $60 million for design and
construction document creation activities related to these Tier
1 projects, which include engineering and design activities for
proposed sanitation facilities, contract documents and contract
plans and specifications.
Tier 2 projects have a level of their engineering
assessment complete and have a well-understood deficiency and a
recommended solution, while Tier 3 projects have deficiencies
identified but are still in the planning phase, which may
include identifying solutions.
The IHS will allocate approximately $33 million in Fiscal
Year 2022 funding for the planning, design, and construction
contract document creation for Tier 2 and Tier 3 projects. The
IHS will also use its Fiscal Year 2022 annual appropriations to
support additional planning, design, and construction document
creation activities for Tier 2 and Tier 3 projects.
The Sanitation Deficiency System currently includes 661
Tier 2 projects, totaling approximately $2.2 billion, and 361
Tier 3 projects, totaling approximately $505 million. These
allocation decisions align with recommendations from our tribal
consultations to prioritize funding for projects that have
completed the planning phase and can be immediately placed into
the design and construction phase, and to provide sufficient
funding for planning and design activities to get projects
ready to fund.
Within the IHS Bemidji area, which includes Minnesota, 19
Tier 1 projects totaling $9.3 million in IHS-eligible costs
will be funded with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
appropriation. A listing of those Tier 1 projects was included
in our written submission.
Here in Minnesota, IHS will allocate in Fiscal Year 2022
nearly $1.6 million to the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White
Earth Band, for the Rice Lake sewer extension, nearly $3
million to the Menominee Indian Tribe for Keshena sewer
improvements, approximately $9,000 to the Lower Sioux Indian
Community for lift station grates, and $41,000 to the Minnesota
Chippewa Tribe, Fond du Lac Band, for the Ridge Road water
system water meter installation.
Historically, IHS has received limited program support
resources to address the SSC project workload. SFC project
funding has increased since Fiscal Year 2018 and the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding will
significantly increase the SFC workload.
However, the IIJA limits funding for program support
activities to 3 percent per year. Given this limitation it is
possible that the average project duration could be greater
than the current average project duration of 3.6 years. The
IIJA also restricts program support funding to Federal
activities, which means that tribes that operate their SFC
projects directly cannot access these needed administrative
resources.
To address this need for administrative support, the Fiscal
Year 2023 President's budget request, more than $49 million in
facilities and environmental health support resources, to
support IIJA implementation. This funding would be available
for Federal activities and to tribes who compact or contract
under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance
Act to implement SFC projects. This investment is critically
necessary to maintain existing project completion deadlines and
ensure successful implementation of IIJA resources.
We look forward to continuing our work with Congress
related to the SFC program, and the use of IIJA funds to make
improvements in tribal communities. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Fowler follows:]
Prepared Statement of Elizabeth Fowler, Acting Director, Indian Health
Service, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Good morning Senator Smith and Members of the Committee. Thank you
for the opportunity to provide another update on Indian Health Service
(IHS) programs benefitting American Indian and Alaska Native
communities under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).
The IHS is an agency within the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) and our mission is to raise the physical, mental,
social, and spiritual health of American Indians and Alaska Natives to
the highest level. This mission is carried out in partnership with
American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal communities through a network
of over 687 Federal and Tribal health facilities and 41 Urban Indian
Organizations (UIOs) that are located across 37 states and provide
health care services to approximately 2.7 million American Indian and
Alaska Native people annually.
Sanitation Facilities Construction Program
The 1988 amendments to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act
require IHS to maintain inventories of sanitation deficiencies for
existing Indian homes and communities, to prioritize those
deficiencies, and to annually report those deficiencies to Congress.
Since 1989, IHS has annually reported these needs to Congress in the
form of projects, which are currently catalogued in the Sanitation
Deficiency System (SDS). Projects are identified in terms of the
facilities to be provided, the cost of those facilities, and the number
of homes to be served by the facilities. Funding for projects is
distributed to the Areas based on an allocation formula that takes into
account the relative needs identified in each Area's SDS inventory. The
Sanitation Facilities Construction (SFC) program employs a cooperative
approach for planning, designing and constructing sanitation facilities
serving American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Each project is
initiated at the request of a Tribe or Tribal Organization, and
coordination is maintained throughout project planning, design and
construction.
At the end of fiscal year (FY) 2021 about 7,228, or 1.9 percent of
all American Indian and Alaska Native homes tracked by IHS lacked water
supply or wastewater disposal facilities; and, about 108,459 or
approximately 29 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native homes
tracked by IHS were in need of some form of sanitation facilities
improvements. Many of these homes without service are typically located
in remote locations such as on the Navajo Nation and in some remote
Alaska Native Villages. The capital cost to construct these facilities
are significantly higher than the provision of similar facilities in
other geographic locations. Additionally, the cost burden associated
with operation and maintenance of these facilities usually exceeds the
capacity of the Tribal utility to generate sufficient revenue from the
system users to support ongoing operation.
The IHS tracks sanitation projects in the SDS. The list of
sanitation projects in the SDS is not static. In collaboration with
Tribes, IHS annually updates the SDS project listing to account for the
addition of newly identified sanitation deficiencies and to update cost
estimates due to increases related to inflation, labor and material
costs, and project scope changes.
At the end of FY 2021, the SDS included 1,513 projects. Of this
total, 945 projects were feasible and 568 projects were infeasible with
a combined total database cost estimated at $3.4 billion in eligible
costs and an additional $735 million in ineligible costs that will have
to come from other non-IHS funding resources.
Ineligible costs are the costs associated with serving commercial,
industrial, or agricultural establishments, including nursing homes,
health clinics, schools, hospitals, hospital quarters, and non-American
Indian and Alaska Native homes. The Sanitation Facilities Construction
Act prevents the IHS from using its appropriations for these costs.
However, the IHS regularly partners with Tribes and other Federal
Agencies to identify alternative resources to successfully support
these ineligible costs. If our Federal funding partners are not able to
contribute financial support for the projects that have IHS ineligible
costs, those projects will not be fully funded and hence cannot be
completed if the Tribe does not have the financial capability to fund
the ineligible portion of the project.
Economically infeasible projects are those that exceed a per unit
cost set for each IHS Area, and three different regions within the IHS
Alaska Area. While there was not a statutory barrier to funding
economically infeasible projects, the IHS had not been able to fund
these projects in light of limited annual appropriations before the
IIJA was enacted. The IIJA provided $2.2 billion for economically
infeasible projects.
The IHS categorizes SDS projects into three Tiers depending on a
project's progress toward completing planning activities.
Tier 1 projects are considered ready to fund because
planning is complete. However, design and construction contract
document creation activities are not yet complete for current
Tier 1 projects. These projects then move through the design
and construction contract document creation steps before a
construction contract can be initiated through Federal or
Tribal procurement methods.
Tier 2 projects are projects that have a level of
engineering assessment completed, such that the deficiency is
understood and a recommended solution has been analyzed and
scoped; these projects have a cost estimate and design
parameters that are accurate within plus or minus 25 percent.
Tier 3 projects are projects with cost estimates and design
parameters that do not have a specific accuracy target, but are
based on the best information available at the time of
submission. These projects demonstrate that an eligible
deficiency has been identified, but the Area may not have
determined the recommended solution.
The IHS also assigns a Deficiency Level to each project in the SDS.
Deficiency Levels are assigned in accordance with section 302(g)(4) of
the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (IHCIA) (25 U.S.C. 1632(g)(4))
for each sanitation facilities project that has been identified as a
need to support Indian Tribes and communities. The Deficiency Levels
are explained in the table below.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sanitation
Deficiency Level Description
------------------------------------------------------------------------
V An Indian tribe or community that lacks a safe
water supply and a sewage disposal system.
IV An Indian tribe or community with a sanitation
system which lacks either a safe water supply
system or a sewage disposal system.
III An Indian tribe or community with a sanitation
system which has an inadequate or partial water
supply and a sewage disposal facility that does
not comply with applicable water supply and
pollution control laws, or has no solid waste
disposal facility.
II An Indian tribe or community with a sanitation
system which complies with all applicable water
supply and pollution control laws, and in which
the deficiencies relate to capital improvements
that are necessary to improve the facilities in
order to meet the needs of such tribe or
community for domestic sanitation facilities.
I An Indian tribe or community with a sanitation
system which complies with all applicable water
supply and pollution control laws, and in which
the deficiencies relate to routine replacement,
repair, or maintenance needs.
0 No deficiencies to correct.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SFC projects can be directly operated by the IHS through Federal
Acquisition Regulation contracts or through Tribal procurement. Tribes
can directly operate SFC projects through Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act construction contracts (25 C.F.R. 900 Subpart
J, 42 C.F.R. 137 Subpart N).
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
The IIJA appropriated a total of $3.5 billion to the IHS SFC
program. The Act includes $700 million annually from FY 2022 through FY
2026. The Act includes a maximum 3 percent ($21 million) set-aside for
salaries, expenses, and administration each year. These funds are
limited to Federal costs only. It also directs that the IHS provide 0.5
percent ($3.5 million) each year to the Office of Inspector General for
oversight of these funds. Finally, the Act also directs the Agency to
use up to $2.2 billion of the $3.5 billion appropriation on
economically infeasible projects.
The IIJA funds will support the construction of water, wastewater,
and solid waste facilities in American Indian and Alaska Native tribes
and communities. The IHS support for these facilities is an integral
component of IHS disease prevention activities. As a result, infant
mortality rates and mortality rates for gastroenteritis and other
environmentally-related diseases have declined. Research supported by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states populations in
regions with a lower proportion of homes with water service, reflect
significantly higher hospitalization rates for pneumonia, influenza,
and respiratory syncytial virus. \1\ Researchers associated the
increasing illnesses with the restricted access to clean water for hand
washing and hygiene.
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\1\ Thomas W. Hennessy, Troy Ritter, Robert C. Holman, Dana L.
Bruden, Krista L. Yorita, Lisa Bulkow, James E. Cheek, Rosalyn J.
Singleton, and Jeff Smith. The Relationship Between In-Home Water
Service and the Risk of Respiratory Tract, Skin, and Gastrointestinal
Tract Infections Among Rural Alaska Natives. American Journal of Public
Health: November 2008, Vol. 98, No. 11, pp. 2072-2078.
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The SFC Program works collaboratively with Tribes to assure all
American Indian and Alaska Native homes and communities are provided
with safe and adequate water supply and waste disposal facilities. The
residents of these homes will benefit from reduced health care cost
associated with water related illnesses. The IHS estimated in FY 2021
that for every $1 in funding provided for sanitation facilities
resulted in $1.23 in avoided medical cost related to inpatient and
outpatient visits related to respiratory, skin and soft tissue, and
gastro enteric disease. As required by the bill, IHS will update the
Congressional spend plan for these funds annually through FY 2026.
FY 2022 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Funding Allocations
On May 31, 2022, the IHS announced the FY 2022 allocation decisions
for $700 million appropriated to the IHS in the IIJA.
The IHS conducted 3 virtual tribal consultations on the IIJA from
November 22, 2021, to January 5, 2022, and based on review and
consideration of input received through tribal consultation, the IHS
decided to use current Sanitation Deficiency System data and the
agency's existing funding mechanisms to allocate these resources. This
includes IHS direct service projects funded through Federal Acquisition
Regulations contracts or tribal procurement, and Indian Self-
Determination and Education Assistance Act construction contracts.
The IHS will allocate approximately $581 million in FY 2022 IIJA
funding for Tier 1 project construction costs. A Tier 1 project is
considered ready to fund because planning is complete. The IHS will
also allocate $60 million for design and construction document creation
activities related to these Tier 1 projects, which include engineering
design activities for proposed sanitation facilities, contract
documents, and contract plans and specifications.
Tier 2 projects have a level of their engineering assessment
complete and have a well understood deficiency and a recommended
solution while Tier 3 projects have deficiencies identified but are
still in the planning phase, which may include identifying solutions.
The IHS will allocate approximately $33 million in FY 2022 IIJA funding
for the planning, design, and construction contract document creation
for Tier 2 and Tier 3 projects. The IHS will also use FY 2022 annual
appropriations to support additional planning, design, and construction
document creation activities for Tier 2 and Tier 3 projects. The SDS
currently includes 661 Tier 2 projects, totaling approximately $2.2
billion, and 361 Tier 3 projects, totaling approximately $505 million.
These allocation decisions align with recommendations from tribal
leaders to prioritize funding for projects that have completed the
planning phase and can be immediately placed into the design and
construction phase, and to provide sufficient funding for planning and
design activities to get projects ready to fund.
Within the IHS Bemidji Area, 19 Tier 1 projects totaling nearly
$9.3 million in IHS eligible costs will be fully funded with the IIJA
FY 2022 appropriation. *
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* The listing of the Bemidji Area Tier 1 projects has been retained
in the Committee files.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sanitation Facilities Construction Workforce and Support Resources
Historically, IHS has received limited program support resources to
address the SFC project workload. SFC project funding has increased
since FY 2018, and the IIJA funding will significantly increase the SFC
workload. However, the IIJA limits funding for program support
activities to 3 percent per year. Given this limitation, it is possible
that the average project duration could be greater than the current
average project duration of 3.6 years. The IIJA also restricts program
support funding to federal activities, which means that Tribes that
operate their SFC projects directly cannot access these needed
administrative resources.
To address this need for administrative support, the FY 2023
President's Budget requests +$49 million in Facilities and
Environmental Health Support resources to support IIJA implementation.
This funding would be available for federal activities and to Tribes
who compact or contract under the Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act to implement SFC projects, unlike the
administrative set-aside in the IIJA. This investment is critically
necessary to maintain existing project completion deadlines and ensure
successful implementation of IIJA resources.
The IHS will leverage the use of multiple strategies and available
authorities to support IIJA recruitment and hiring, including the use
of global and open-ended job announcements to streamline the hiring of
multiple candidates for jobs across the IHS system, developing a
dedicated website to focus on the recruitment of these positions, and
targeting job fairs. The IHS will also explore compensation
flexibilities, like special salary rates and authority to approve
larger recruitment, relocation, and retention incentives. Such
incentives are necessary to increase IHS' competitiveness with both
private and public sector organizations.
We look forward to continuing our work with Congress related to the
SFC program and the use of IIJA funds to make improvements in tribal
communities. We are committed to working closely with our stakeholders
and we understand the importance of working with partners to address
the needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives.
Senator Smith. Thank you, Ms. Fowler. We will now hear from
Mr. Baumann.
STATEMENT OF JEREMIAH BAUMANN, CHIEF OF STAFF,
OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR
INFRASTRUCTURE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Baumann. Thank you, Senator Smith, and thank you,
honorable tribal leaders. It is an honor and a privilege to be
here today.
I work at the Department of Energy. My name is Jeremiah
Baumann. I am the Chief of Staff to our new Under Secretary for
Energy Infrastructure.
It is an honor and a privilege to be here on the ancestral
lands of the Dakota, your ancestral lands. Thank you for
hosting, Mr. Chairman, here on the lands of the Shakopee
Mdewakanton Sioux.
On a personal note, I am eager to be here. I graduated from
Rosemont High School, just a few miles down County Road 42. I
should confess last time I was at Mystic Lake, I don't think my
parents knew. So we will keep that among us.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Baumann. My written testimony has been submitted, and
there is a list of different programs, both for which tribal
nations and every indigenous community can get direct
allocations of funding out of the Department of Energy, as well
as those where Congress set it up as a competitive program. I
thought, rather than list them all out, I will talk a little
bit about how we are organizing the Department of Energy to
implement these programs in a way that hopefully maximizes
accessibility especially for Indian Country, and to talk a
little bit about some of those programs sort of grouped by
themes, to give a sense of some of the opportunities and hope
that that sets up for us to learn how to best improve access to
our programs.
I do want to mention briefly some non-IIJA programs that
might help as tribal communities look to navigate some of our
programs, or that also might help to maximize opportunities.
First, in terms of how the department is approaching the
implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act,
the department takes very seriously its trust responsibilities,
and more than that, the President's directive to uplift and
meaningfully engage all overlooked and marginalized
communities, but particularly our indigenous neighbors and
community partners, for whom we know too long our programs have
not been made accessible, but for whom for too long the energy
systems of the past and our current energy economy have caused
damage or harm or left disproportionate burden.
So we take our responsibility to fulfill the President's
commitment to equity very seriously. We think that when it
comes to building a new clean energy economy, which is the
current charge of the Department of Energy, it is a chance to
hopefully go beyond catching up. And there is catching up to do
with our energy infrastructure and certainly with the energy
infrastructure in tribal communities, but to actually address
historical injustices by building a new clean energy economy
that is more just and more equitable in terms of how it is
built, how it is planned, on everything from not just
consultation and engagement, but to actually equitably
distributing benefits to as great a degree as we can.
You may have heard of the President's commitment often
referred to as Justice40, that 40 percent of the benefits of
clean energy investment will flow to disadvantaged communities,
including people of color, including tribal nations, including
low-income communities who have too often been on the bad end
of the disproportionate distribution of harms and burdens in
our energy system.
We have a Senate-confirmed leader of an Office of Economic
Impact and Diversity at the Department of Energy who is
translating what that means when it comes to building the new
clean energy economy. If you look on our website, we have
defined eight categories of energy benefits that range from
minimizing new environmental burdens and reducing historical
environmental burdens to reducing the disproportionate energy
cost burden that is faced by too many tribal communities, to in
some cases, I think the most extreme energy injustice in the
Country, the tens of thousands of people in Indian Country who
still don't even have access to affordable, reliable electric
power from the grid.
That is one theme that cuts across how we are planning our
investments in Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act programs.
There are 72 of those programs that total $62 billion in
funding. The Secretary has charged us as we design how the
program will work, how the funds will be distributed, to embed
those equity principles into each of the programs.
We are also actually organizing the structure of the
department itself in ways that we think will make us more
accessible, make our programs more accessible for a variety of
communities. DOE is interesting as an agency, in that for most
of its history, about 80 percent of our resources have been
research and development, developing new energy technologies in
labs, trying the next generation of solar panels and wind
technology that brings costs down and makes it more accessible.
But we haven't actually specialized in how to more directly
make those technologies more accessible with the predominance
of our funds. Our energy efficiency and renewable energy teams
have done a lot of work in that regard.
But we see this as a huge opportunity because with the good
work that Senator Smith and others did in putting together this
law, 90 percent of the funds, more than 90 percent are actually
for both demonstrating technologies, so helping both investors
and companies that are going to deploy these technologies,
understanding new technologues, but demonstrating them in ways
that help communities understand the technologies, what are the
pros and cons of these technologies, what are the costs, what
are the risks and benefits to help figure out how they want to
deploy the technologies, but also directly supporting
communities in deploying those technologies.
So the Secretary created a new Office of the Under
Secretary for Infrastructure. Instead of being organized the
way we energy nerds organize things, by renewable energy and
fossil energy and nuclear energy and electricity, it is
organized by the strategy or the community that we are trying
to serve with these demonstration and deployment projects.
So we created a new Office of State and Community Energy
Programs, and we have actually moved the Office of Indian
Energy Policies and Programs to sit alongside our State and
Community Energy Programs, so that we are working together to
build the capacity of the department to support clean energy
deployment.
Those offices are sitting alongside our Loan Programs
office, our Clean Energy Demonstrations office, our
Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains office, so that all
these programs are working hand in hand with the teams that are
working to help these technologies get deployed in communities.
Let me just talk briefly about a few of the types of
programs I think might be of particular interest. First, we
have three primary programs where Congress gave us a formula
allocation that includes tribal nations and communities getting
a direct allocation of funding. Those include energy efficiency
and conservation block grants. That is $500 million to be used
for a wide range of clean energy purposes, from planning what
your community wants to have happen to its energy systems, to
actually deploying energy efficiency or renewable energy
projects.
The Weatherization Assistance program, which is a
longstanding program that improves home energy efficiency for
low-income families, there is a huge infusion of $3.5 billion
into that program. Those funds flow through both tribes and
States to non-profit action agencies that actually do hire
contractors and do the energy efficiency work in homes. I
should highlight, that program is also eligible to used for
workforce development and training a local workforce to do the
work in buildings that will make those buildings more
comfortable and reduce energy bills for families.
The third category where there are formula dollars that
directly allocate funds for tribal nations and communities is
in the department of upgrading our electrical grid
infrastructure. Specifically, one program called Preventing
Outages and Enhancing the Resilience of the Grid allocates $2.5
billion by formula to States and Indian tribes, primarily for
increasing resilience to natural hazards that are increasing
with climate change, from wildfire, storms, flooding, et
cetera. A wide range of resilience activities are eligible,
including building and developing microgrids and distributed
energy resources which I know is something many American Indian
and Alaska Native communities have expressed interest in.
Senator Smith. Mr. Baumann, I am so sorry, I know it is
quite difficult because we don't have timers on the table, but
if I could ask you to wrap up your verbal testimony, we will
have time to look at all the written testimony, so that we have
time for questions.
Mr. Baumann. Absolutely. Let me just quickly acknowledge
one challenge, which is that some of the formula programs
unfortunately both the ways the formulas work do result in
quite small allocations, specifically to tribal communities. I
think it was Chairwoman Chavers who mentioned the costs that
can be imposed in terms of overhead and paperwork and financial
reporting.
So we are looking very hard at how we can be creative to
help people access these funds in ways that might not have that
overhead or that might leverage really small grants for much
bigger benefit.
I would be happy to talk more about some of those
opportunities, including other programs of the department, as
you would like. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Baumann follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jeremiah Baumann, Chief of Staff, Office of the
Under Secretary for Infrastructure, U.S. Department of Energy
Good afternoon, Chairman Schatz, Vice Chairman Murkowski, Senator
Smith, and Members of the Committee. My name is Jeremiah Baumann, and
it is my honor and privilege to serve at the Department of Energy (DOE
or the Department), as the Chief of Staff for the Office of
Infrastructure. The Department of Energy is responsible for upholding
our trust responsibilities to federally-recognized tribes, and we are
also directed by the President to uplift and meaningfully engage
overlooked and marginalized communities to ensure the new clean energy
future holds the same promise for everyone in the United States,
including Tribal Nations and Native communities.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am pleased to be
able to highlight the work that the Department of Energy carries out
related to opportunities provided through the Infrastructure Investment
and Jobs Act (IIJA also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
(BIL)) and specifically investments in Native communities.
In support of IIJA, in February, DOE in February announced a
realignment to ensure the Department has the structure needed to
effectively implement the clean energy investment in President Biden's
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (or BIL) and the Energy Act of 2020,
which includes over $60 billion primarily for major clean energy
demonstration programs and more than triples DOE's annual funding for
energy programs.
Further, to embed equity into the way DOE does business and support
the President's efforts to build a better America, the Department
released a Roadmap to Equity. The Roadmap set five strategic equity
goals as the foundation for helping us create a more inclusive, diverse
environment for American communities, including Tribal Nations. The
goals of this Roadmap include (1) addressing gaps in data collection to
facilitate data-informed decisionmaking; (2) increasing opportunities
for new applicants to DOE funding opportunities; and (3) increasing
participation in DOE research and development and financial assistance
programs.
Investing in Native Communities
The IIJA (or BIL) positions DOE to support American communities,
including Tribal Nations and Native communities, to upgrade and
modernize infrastructure to build the clean energy economy that our
Nation needs, to address climate change, and longstanding inequities in
our energy system and our economy, and to move towards energy and
environmental justice. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law makes a
historic investment in infrastructure--more than $62 billion for DOE to
deliver a more equitable clean energy future--and the Department aims
to use these funds to help address a range of critical energy issues in
Indian Country, including the unacceptable fact that many in Indian
Country still don't have access to reliable, affordable electricity.
Congress made funds available specifically to Indian tribes for
energy efficiency and conservation, clean energy projects, and
preventing outages and enhancing resilience of the electric grid. This
historic investment in clean energy demonstration projects will create
jobs and economic opportunity for all Americans, including American
Indian and Alaska Native communities.
To maximize the benefits of BIL, including its benefits for Indian
country, the Secretary implemented a historic realignment of the
Department's organizational structure. DOE's energy programs have
historically been approximately 80 percent focused on relatively early-
stage research and development. By contrast, the programs authorized in
the Energy Act of 2020 and the IIJA are more than 90 percent focused on
later stage demonstration projects, to commercialize new technologies,
and deployment work, to help communities and the private sector widely
and rapidly adopt clean energy technologies. To this end, the Secretary
created a new Under Secretary for Infrastructure and instead of being
organized around technology type, it is organized by demonstration or
deployment strategy. The Office of Indian Energy Policies and Programs
is overseen by that Office, alongside a new Office of State and
Community Energy Programs, so that both teams can work together as the
Department further develops its capacity to help local communities with
clean energy deployment. These offices compliment the activities of the
Loan Programs Office, as well as offices that focus on modernizing the
grid, building manufacturing and energy supply chains, and constructing
clean energy demonstration projects.
There are a number of provisions within the IIJA specifically for
tribes and Native communities. These were detailed during the Secretary
of Energy's March 29th consultation with Tribal Leaders across the
country.
Provisions with specific allocations for Tribal Nations include:
Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants--a formula
program that will allocate $550 million to Indian tribes,
states and local governments. The funds can be used for a range
of clean energy purposes.
Weatherization Assistance Program--This existing DOE program
will provide $3.5 billion to improve home energy efficiency for
low-income families, reduce energy costs, improve household
comfort and safety, and cut pollution. The funding flows
through states or to Tribal Nations to provide to
weatherization services to low-income families.
Programs to upgrade the electrical grid--
-- One of these--Preventing Outages and Enhancing the
Resilience of the Grid--allocates $2.5 billion by formula to
states and Indian tribes. These funds are primarily for
increasing the grid's resilience and hardening the grid to
natural disasters, using among other things, micro-grids and
distributed energy resources.
-- Many American Indian and Alaska Native communities have
expressed interest in micro-grids and distributed energy
resources. o The Program Upgrading Our Electric Grid and
Ensuring Reliability and Resiliency is a competitive grant
program that will offer $5 billion to states, Indian tribes,
and others, for a broader range of projects to upgrade and
modernize transmission systems.
In addition, tribes can apply to a wide range of programs offering
investment in various new energy technologies, ranging from hydrogen
hubs to advanced battery manufacturing to long-duration energy storage
demonstrations. Several of these programs may be of particular interest
to tribes and Native communities in rural areas or those who have a
legacy of mining, fossil energy production, or other industrial
activity.
Other provisions under BIL which may be of interest to Tribal
Nations and Native communities, include:
The Energy Improvement in Rural and Remote Areas program
provides $1 billion to carry out activities to improve the
resilience, safety, reliability, and availability of energy and
to provide environmental protection from adverse impacts of
energy generation in rural and remote communities with
populations of 10,000 or less. Eligible projects may include:
(a) constructing cost-effective energy generation,
transmission, or distribution systems; (b) siting or upgrading
transmission and distribution lines; (c) reducing greenhouse
gas emissions from energy generation in rural or remote areas;
(d) providing or modernizing electric generation facilities;
(e) developing microgrids; and (f) increasing energy
efficiency. DOE anticipates emphasizing energy reliability and
resiliency for the funding, and will conduct stakeholder
engagement over the next few months to inform the structure of
the program.
The Clean Energy on Mine Lands program: The $500M in funding
associated with this BIL effort will lead to the deployment of
up to five clean energy projects on lands subject to mining.
The projects will provide an opportunity for mining communities
to benefit from the next generation of energy development. DOE
is currently in the research stage, with community level
stakeholder engagement planned to start this summer, a
technical assistance and grant program to commence in the fall,
and solicitations for demonstration projects in mid-2023.
The Advanced Energy Manufacturing and Recycling grants
program will offer $750 million in communities where coal mines
or coal power plants have closed to help build new or retrofit
existing small or medium-sized manufacturing or industrial
facilities. These facilities are envisioned to produce or
recycle clean energy products or to reduce carbon emissions
from industrial facilities.
The Battery Materials Processing grant program and a Rare
Earth Elements Demonstration Facility effort will invest in
processing critical minerals and elements needed for the clean
energy supply chain, and will solicit projects to acquire those
minerals and elements from acid mine drainage, mine waste, or
other deleterious materials. These efforts will offer the
opportunity to create new industrial jobs and build a domestic
clean energy supply chain in the course of cleaning up and
restoring these waste sites where it is much needed.
In addition to opportunities through BIL, the Department has been
supporting Indian tribes and Native communities through the Office of
Indian Energy Policy and Programs. Since 2010, the Office of Indian
Energy Policy and Programs has invested over $114 million in more than
200 tribal energy projects, making tangible benefits in many Native
communities. These investments have resulted in more than 43 MW of new
generation, and more than 10 MWh of new battery storage, providing
electricity to over 8,600 tribal buildings across the Nation. These
investments have saved over $13.7 million annually and are estimated to
save over $295 million over the life of these systems, resulting in
$3.46 saved for every DOE dollar invested.
Because we are here in the great state of Minnesota, I will
highlight that the following Minnesota Tribes have received financial
assistance from the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs: (1)
Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, (2) White Earth Nation (2 awards), and (3)
Lower Sioux Community. Additionally, in March, Leech Lake Band of
Ojibwe was selected for an award to install 534 kilowatts of solar
photovoltaic to power nine existing and to be constructed tribal
buildings, estimated to save the Tribe over $2.5 million over the life
of the systems.
In May we announced two upcoming funding opportunities, one to
deploy energy infrastructure on tribal lands and one to power
unelectrified tribal homes and buildings.
For larger scale projects, the Tribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program
(TELGP) under DOE's Loan Programs Office is authorized to provide up to
$2 billion total in partial loan guarantees to support economic
opportunities for American Indian and Alaska Native communities through
energy development projects. The Department is particularly pleased to
report that for Fiscal Year 2022, Congress provided the DOE's Loan
Programs Office the ability to offer direct loans through the U.S.
Treasury's Federal Finance Bank for tribal energy development projects.
Conclusion
Across all of DOE's IIJA efforts, the Department will prioritize
the President's commitment to create quality jobs and his commitment to
environmental and energy justice. These infrastructure investments
represent a historic opportunity to make sure communities that have
faced disproportionate environmental, economic, or other impacts from
past energy production activities or that face the loss of jobs or
other economic benefits aren't left behind.
The realities and unmet needs that exist in Native communities are
not congruent with the vast untapped energy resources that exist on
Native lands. Tellingly, American Indian and Alaska Native communities'
interest in developing these resources have increased in recent
decades. Like many communities in the United States, Native communities
are working towards strengthening their economies and increasing their
well-being and accessible and reliable energy is foundational to
achieving these goals.
At DOE, the President's commitments require applicants for most
programs to engage with communities where their work will be located
and to develop specific plans to address job quality; diversity,
equity, inclusion, and accessibility so that DOE can assess its
progress toward meeting the President's Justice 40 commitments.
On behalf of the DOE, thank you again for the opportunity to
testify before you today. I appreciate the ongoing bipartisan support
for the development of energy resources in Native communities. We want
to create more opportunity for dialogue about how tribes, Alaska Native
Corporations, and Native communities can lead the way to a clean,
secure, and reliable energy future.
I welcome your questions.
Senator Smith. Thank you very much.
Thank you to all of our testifiers. We are now going to
move into a question period. Because it is just me asking
questions, I am going to open up with some questions to our
tribal leaders.
But I want to welcome some give and take. If the tribal
leaders have specific questions you would like to ask of our
Federal witnesses, I would be really happy to facilitate this.
Obviously, this is a huge topic, and it is not possible for us
to get all our questions answered. But my goal from this is
that we can get some next steps that I can then take back to
the Committee for the work that we can do together.
Let me start out with a question to any or all of the
leaders here. I love this, I can't remember who said this, but
the idea of the great catch-up when it comes to infrastructure,
roads, bridges, broadband, water, and sewer.
Chair Deschampe, I don't want to put you on the spot, but
you certainly would be more than welcome to come and join as
well.
I would like to hear a little bit from our tribal leaders
who are here, what do you see as the most important impacts of
this infrastructure spending? This gets to what is embedded in
all of your testimony. What are the one or two most important
things we can do that this $13-plus billion in formula dollars,
as well as grant dollars, what is the most important thing we
can do to make sure you have good and equitable access to those
resources? What do you think will be the greatest advantage and
what do you think is the most important thing we can do to
ensure equitable access to these resources? Would anybody like
to start? Chief Executive Benjamin, and then Chair Dupuis.
Ms. Benjamin. I think we have heard a lot of the tribal
leaders talk about the allocation of funding and direct funding
to the tribes. I think that is something that is going to be
very beneficial. When I think about the Mille Lacs Band of
Ojibwe, we are a smaller tribe, but we have been fortunate that
we have a grants department that can assist in securing some
funding, even though they are overloaded as well.
But direct funding I think is so important to tribes, so
the smaller tribes or other tribes that don't have the capacity
are not left out of the opportunity to have funding to make a
better life for their community members.
Senator Smith. Thank you. Chair Dupuis?
Mr. Dupuis. I think the impact isn't here yet, but to
Melanie's comments, I completely agree with that. It is one of
the biggest things tribal leaders have been saying for years,
ever since I have been part of this, since 2002, is direct
funding. If we get the direct funding, it allows us to build
what we need, it allows us to look at the need, but most
importantly, the unmet need. By traveling to the reservations,
some of you, you get to see the good thinking, the good ways
that tribes are implementing things.
For example, microgrid. Fond du Lac has an electrical
corridor, a microgrid. Our brother over here brought up the
infrastructure piece of broadband. We also have our own
broadband company, started before COVID. We need to be able to
access that out farther than it is, off the reservation
boundaries.
But it is imperative that the direct funding comes to the
tribes. That allows us to do what is needed for our
constituents. But most importantly, so we can secure a future
for the unborn. That is the ultimate goal of the tribal
leaders. Miigwech.
Senator Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Deschampe. Yes. A lot of the dollars that we get
through IHS for projects, they require a tribal match. Some of
the smaller tribes, we are in no position to make that match.
We have a sewer project in the works, it is on our SBS list.
There is a line there, that where is your part coming from. We
don't have that.
So it comes with a lack of funding for us up north, and a
lack of a grant department, too.
Senator Smith. Thank you. For the record, Chair Deschampe,
could you identify yourself?
Mr. Deschampe. Robert Deschampe, Grand Portage Tribal
Chair.
Senator Smith. Thank you very much.
Would other tribal leaders like to comment on this, answer
this question? Chair Larsen?
Mr. Larsen. I think the biggest piece is just respecting
the tribes as sovereigns. Like they said, we know what the
needs are. The restrictions on some of the funding pieces are
what hurt, not having access to the match, not having
departments that, I mean, we have an environment office of one
staff. So when we are talking climate issues, we have one
staff. We have a grant writer and a new grant writer that is
learning.
So those things aren't always as easy as you think, just
write a grant and you can get it. I just want to put those out
there.
Senator Smith. Thank you. Chair Chavers?
Ms. Chavers. Yes. I would like to say that for some of the
programs that you listed, the direct funding allocation would
be great for tribes. But when the funding comes or when it is
announced, sometimes it is like a square trying to be fit into
a round hole for us, because it doesn't meet any of those
categories or those funding opportunities. Our needs are
unique, so don't make such specific funding categories where it
can't meet our need.
That's why I think the direct funding is better. If you can
do the direct funding, then basically the tribes have the
ability to say, well, we can address that need with that
funding. But if we went your route, we wouldn't even be able to
access the funds.
All the programs you mentioned, sir, Mr. Baumann, no
disrespect, I don't have a clue what you are talking about.
I'll be honest. And I am a small, rural tribe in need of
Department of Energy money.
We don't have renewable energy. We don't have any type of
energy needs that are being met, because we don't know about
it. We are small. You have to realize, the tribes that are
small, one environmental staff, yes. We have one. That is the
comment I have.
Senator Smith. Chair Chavers, how many people do you have?
Help us understand that a little bit better, because I think
this is a really big deal.
When you are getting information, others can respond to
this as well, Secretary Savariego, I would love to hear from
you as well. When you are receiving information about funding
opportunities, especially grant opportunities, which is the
biggest challenge, it seems to me, how do you get that
information? What would be better ways of getting access to
what is available out there?
Ms. Chavers. Usually a tribal leader and/or a director of a
program will get the funding opportunity, the funding
announcement letter. Then we route it to the appropriate
individuals. We have one grant writer. And we have to
prioritize what our grants are going to be used for. Right now
we have an issue with elderly housing.
Senator Smith. Right.
Ms. Chavers. Then the other part about it is having the
ability to provide the backup documentation for that grant, the
data.
Senator Smith. You mentioned this in your testimony.
Ms. Chavers. We don't have the data. We don't have the
capability of collecting that data. So we hear about shovel-
ready projects, we are scrambling to get shovel-ready projects.
Because we don't have the resources.
A lack of resources, and staff, and collection of data,
broadband, internet, we are doing our own fiber at home. We are
finally going to have high-speed internet. Internet is huge in
rural areas, in all tribal communities. With the pandemic, it
came to the forefront.
So that is it, the resources. We have a lot of inadequacies
that, you think of the larger tribes, I am thinking southwest
and whatever, but in our area, we are all struggling with
staff.
Mr. Savariego. I want to reiterate her point. Tribal
Secretary, Upper Sioux Community, Adam Savariego. For the past
year at Upper Sioux Community it is lack of professional
talent, particularly in rural areas has been difficult.
Particularly for our tribal planner, who is our lead grant
writer. It took us eight, nine months just to get a resume
submitted for an application. Then obviously someone, if they
are not privy to tribal nations, sovereignty, and the politics
of it all, that is another year-long process for them to learn
the needs of our tribal community.
So direct funding access, as we keep mentioning, has helped
a lot. The ARPA funds, the ability to use those funds
immediately for a variety of different programs, post-COVID or
the post-pandemic phase was really beneficial to our tribe.
As Deuce said, tribes know themselves best. So believe us
when we say that ultimately, particularly because of the lack
of staff, if we are not a metro area tribe, by any means.
It has just been a battle, like I said, for the past year
now in this position, looking for someone with the capability
and competence, to attract them to a town of 2,800 people in
southwest Minnesota.
Senator Smith. Thank you. Would anyone else like to comment
on this question?
Mr. Larsen. As far as getting the information?
Senator Smith. Both, yes, as far as getting the
information.
Let me go to Chair Anderson. I don't think you have had a
chance to speak on this question yet. I am asking generally
sort of two related questions. One, what do you see as the
benefit of these infrastructure dollars, and what specifically
do we need to do to make sure that benefit can be equitably
distributed? We have had some really good comments about direct
funding, flexibility. Chair Anderson, please?
Mr. Anderson. Chairman Anderson, Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux
Community. I wanted to mention and reiterate all my addressing
of your questions were answered. The biggest piece of the lack
of workforce, especially in a rural area, and expertise, is
going to have to be addressed in this funding. I think you
might have some allowance for that assistance.
Then if you have a lack of workforce to get these projects
shovel-ready, you will just keep dragging it on. So I think
that direct funding, and there might even be a question about
the equitable distribution of it as well. You have more needs
in certain areas, and Bryan, I think you certainly addressed
all of these things the BIA is responsible for.
I like the tiered effect of the sanitary funding that the
IHS is looking at. There is a piece for the planning process.
We all know that takes a certain percentage of the dollars it
takes to do a project. So if you have a million-dollar project,
you might spend $100,000 on planning for it, or engineering it.
All of these things, along with everything everyone was
saying about access, open communication, impacts the timing of
all these projects, especially for the rural tribes, because
they need that time to make sure they are doing the right thing
and the planning process so key to that.
Senator Smith. Thank you. Chair Larsen?
Mr. Larsen. I think the piece that would go along with it
is that technical assistance would be nice. We have gotten a
lot of the information from your office. Ravyn has been great,
I will have to say. To be able to get that technical assistance
for our staff to help navigate through it would be a great
help.
Senator Smith. Thank you very much.
Chair Dupuis?
Mr. Dupuis. I would like to add, on the technical
assistance, if we take a look at it, and you can vouch for this
too, for a very long time we never had that. So a lot of
different things were put into place, starting with the
initiation of Indian gaming, for example. I can speak for Fond
du Lac, we didn't call outsiders in to build a casino. We
didn't call outsiders in to do this; we did it on our own.
But it only carries so far. And the principles that come in
as a tribal leader, our grant principles will come to me as an
email, and my job is to disperse that out to whoever we have.
But there is a lack of technical assistance or technical
knowledge within that structure. That Infrastructure Bill will
allow tribes to set that up also within our community colleges
and principles like this for this training and technical
assistance that we need.
But again, it all goes back to one simple thing in my
opinion, is that direct funding. If anybody in the Country
knows how to stretch the dollar, the tribes have proved that.
The tribes have proved it over and over that we are the group
of people who are forced to stretch their dollar to try to make
things work. Again, the most important thing is, what we do
today as tribal leaders is to protect the future for our unborn
and ensure there is a future for our unborn.
There are things that we need. But it kind of relies on
that simple principle of giving us the direct funding. It
allows us to build the infrastructure that we need to reach our
unmet needs. It is nobody else's responsibility, because nobody
else can do it. For 530 years, somebody has tried to tell us
what is best for us, and it has failed.
If we get that direct funding, that allows the tribes to
build up that infrastructure that we need to secure that future
for our unborn. Miigwech.
Senator Smith. Thank you. I want to ask if Mr. Roy would
like to say a few words. I see you have joined the table. If
you could please identify yourself.
Mr. Roy. Thank you, Senator Smith. My name is Secretary-
Treasurer Alan Roy of the White Earth Nation. I just really
appreciate the comments that are being offered by our Federal
counterparts. It is very encouraging to hear Mr. Baumann with
his remarks related to energy.
I know on my last leg of my service in tribal government,
we focused on a number of areas. It is just very encouraging to
see that there is plenty of opportunity out there.
I would just say communication is a huge thing. Ms. Chavers
has emphasized that. We just don't know about a lot of these
programs. By having a field hearing and bringing the folks out
here to meet us, it makes a huge difference. That leader-to-
leader discussion, it can't be replaced by email or ``dear
tribal leader'' letters. I get tons of those every week. But
just seeing somebody face to face makes a huge difference.
Thank you.
Senator Smith. Miigwech.
I am going to turn to our Federal witnesses. I am quite
confident that the emphasis you are hearing from tribal leaders
today around direct funding and flexibility, challenges around
tribal match, and technical assistance are all things you are
quite familiar with.
Mr. Newland, would you like to respond and just tell us a
little bit about how the Federal Government where you are,
especially Interior, is working to respond to these needs from
tribes?
Mr. Newland. Sure. At the Department of the Interior, we
have much clearer legal authority to do the direct funding that
we have heard about today through Public Law 638 contracting,
as well as self-governance annual funding agreements. Many of
our fellow agencies don't have that explicit power. So the
relationship, rather than being a government-to-government
relationship, is often, when we talk about square peg in round
hole, it becomes a grantor-grantee relationship.
We have heard about this, and also have heard about, Chair
Chavers, the frustrations about not knowing all of the other
components of funding available to tribes. We are trying to get
at that in a number of ways, including through the White House
Council on Native American Affairs, and making sure that our
folks in BIA who often, in the field, have the most regular
communication with tribal leaders and staff, are conduits for
that information.
I am also aware that when it comes to these notifications
for consultation or funding availability, they come either not
at all or all at once. So as tribal leader, you go to your
mailbox in the tribal office and there is a stack this thick of
tribal leader letters from different agencies, and
consultations are overlapping and deadlines are overlapping. So
your staff of one or your staff of one-half are forced to come
to you as tribal leader, your tribal administrator and try to
triage all of that. It is very challenging.
So we are working at the Department of the Interior with
our colleagues across the government to help folks understand
self-determination and flexibility. In Executive Order 13175
from President Clinton, it talks about consultation but it also
directs Federal agencies to work with tribes on waivers for
these program requirements for grants, so that when there are
technical requirements that tribes can't turn on a dime and
meet quickly that agencies have a directive from the President
to waive those requirements in partnership with tribes.
So we are trying to educate our colleagues and other
agencies on their authority, not only their authority, but
their directive from the President to use those powers and to
work with tribes on consensual policy making, and to coordinate
our consultation notices and notices of availability, and to
really turn our relationship across the Federal Government away
from a grantor-grantee relationship into a government-to-
government partnership.
We have seen that with the Rescue Plan funding, as the
secretary noted. It comes with the ability to use as needed to
respond to crises and urgent needs with a lot of flexibility
and without a lot of really detailed restrictions. We have seen
tribes do just amazing work with that to benefit their own
communities as well as neighboring communities.
Senator Smith. I remember quite well, leaders, the many
conversations we had between the CARES Act and the American
Rescue Plan, which I think was an example of a significant
improvement in terms of providing direct funding. I have been
able to visit some of the tribal nations around the State to
see the benefits of that in terms of how you have already
deployed those resources so effectively.
I want to follow up, Mr. Newland, on something you said. It
is really important. Rather than a government-to-government
relationship, which is what should be, we have a grantee-
grantor relationship, which is a completely different thing.
You mentioned there are challenges because not every agency has
the authorities they need in order to fulfill that government-
to-government treaty and trust and legal responsibility.
Did I understand that correctly? Because that is a
Congressional issue.
Mr. Newland. Correct. The 638 contracting authority is
really limited to the Department of the Interior and to Indian
Health Service. Then there are examples in other agencies for
limited purposes. So even where we have agencies that have, and
agency officials that have a desire to provide a lot of the
flexibility with funding that we are talking about, they don't
have the broad scope of authority to do that that we have
within Indian Affairs.
So the Executive Order that President Clinton issued, that
President Biden has reaffirmed, tries to make up for that by
directing agencies to waive some of these restrictions. But
that is a muscle that hasn't been exercised consistently in the
last two decades. It is a workaround for some of these
challenges. But it doesn't shave the square peg into a round
peg.
Senator Smith. Thank you. I think that is very important,
and suggests a place for further work on the part of Congress.
I think a lot of times Federal agencies are trying to figure
out how to implement something when Congress also has a job to
do that it hasn't done.
I am also just struck by the fact, I can't even count the
number of Federal employees that must work in all the agencies
that are interacting one way or another with tribal
governments, and the level of understanding of what that
government-to-government relationship should be is dramatically
different.
I know the State of Minnesota has worked very hard to do
significant training around what that government-to-government
relationship looks like. I know there is work that is being
done in the Biden Administration to try and improve that.
But we are talking about hundreds of thousands of
individuals that one way or another are doing this work. That
is one of the reasons why, on the side of the tribes, that it
often doesn't feel like there is coordination and cooperation.
Chair Dupuis wanted to say something, and we are going to
wrap up in a few minutes. I want to give a chance to Ms. Fowler
and Mr. Baumann, if you had something else you wanted to add to
this conversation.
Mr. Dupuis. I was on a call not too long ago about tribal
ecological knowledge. And the conversation that we are talking
about right now was brought up within it. When you have that
many agencies that want to work with tribes it becomes a
logistical nightmare. One of the things they are saying is,
they want to have consultation with all the tribes. Well, there
are 576 tribes. How is that going to happen?
So the conversation went into a regional, but it also went
into the training, what is going on within the State of
Minnesota, and how you can apply that at a Federal level.
Because within the consultation policy at the Federal level, it
works both ways.
So the question I am going to ask [indiscernible] is the
Executive Order, if I remember reading it, I can't remember if
it says shall and will, or may. So I think the Executive Order,
where it is put into place, is how the interpretation comes
through. The tribes, when they request that under the
interpretation or request that waiver principle, designating an
Executive Order, an agency will turn around and say, no, we are
not going to do that.
So by an Executive Order being put into place, it becomes
law. So we don't want to make it any harder than it is, but
agencies are violating the law. That is one of the issues we
ran into in the State of Minnesota, is the execution of
statutes, that if they don't follow the statutes, it is
violating the law, or breaking the law in its simplicity.
So those are some of the key things I think have to be done
on that interpretation principle from the Federal Government to
the tribes in that manner and its agencies. But to have
consultation with 576 tribes on ecological knowledge is going
to be an absolute logistical nightmare. So the idea was to
break it up into regions. I think that is where this should be
going. By doing that, we are able to build up that training
principle for the staff of these Federal agencies.
I just wanted to let everybody know that conversation has
been in a call with the feds on tribal ecological knowledge.
Miigwech.
Senator Smith. Thank you.
Ms. Fowler or Mr. Baumann, is there anything you would like
to add to this conversation, of what we have been discussing
around solidifying the government-to-government relationship
within this process as we work hard to get these infrastructure
dollars out the door?
Ms. Fowler. Yes, thank you. Thank you for that opportunity.
I just wanted to say a few words about some of the issues
that were raised this morning. First of all, we are aware that
the $3.5 billion that was appropriated to the Indian Health
Service under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was
really aligned with the inventory in our Sanitation Deficiency
System. So at the end of December of 2021, we had $3.4 billion
worth of projects in our SDS.
But I think what is important for folks to understand is
that is not a static list. It gets updated annually. There may
be changes to State or Federal regulations that require
additional projects to be added, maybe that we haven't
identified all the deficiencies that are out there. So those
need to be added. Then we need to remove those that have been
funded.
So there will still be a need for sanitation facilities
construction funding. But we are really excited about the
opportunity for such an infusion of funds. There are some
restrictions we have to work with this, statutory for the most
part. For example, I believe the matching that was mentioned, I
think that refers to the ineligible costs of our projects.
We are able to fund our water and sewer system projects
that benefit Indian homes. So there are portions, we are not
able to spend our appropriations on non-Indian homes or
commercial businesses.
But we have a responsibility to work with the tribe to
identify alternate resources to fund those costs that are
ineligible for our appropriations. For example, the $581
million that will go toward 475 projects in Fiscal Year 2022,
Tier 1 projects, we know there is $118 million of ineligible
costs that go along with those projects. But we are going to be
working hard to identify alternate resources.
Senator Smith. Thank you.
Ms. Fowler. We also know that the administrative and
administration costs are an issue. That is why we requested the
additional $49 million in the President's budget for Fiscal
Year 2023.
But we are going to be also working as hard as we can on
the Federal side. We are ramping up our hiring so that we can
provide as much technical assistance as we can, since the
tribes are unable to access the administrative portion of those
funds that were appropriated.
Overall, we are really excited. We are committed to tribal
consultation. I really encourage tribes to work with their area
sanitation facilities construction program. They do a great job
in helping to identify those deficiencies. We are always open
to hear how we can improve on that.
Senator Smith. Thank you very much.
Mr. Baumann, did you want to add anything?
Mr. Baumann. Very briefly, to some of the specific issues
that you and the tribal leaders have raised. I will identify,
Department of Energy is one of these agencies that doesn't
really have the flexibility to move more of our funds into
direct funding. Congress tells us which ones are formulas and
which ones are competitive. So we would love to work with you
and the Department of Interior to figure out where is our best
creative flexibility there.
Several tribal leaders have raised this issue of technical
assistance, which is a very big one. Chairman Chavers, I want
to recognize that our stuff is very complicated.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Baumann. Most people don't speak Energy Greek.
So one thing we try to do, we have both an ongoing Office
of Indian Energy Policy and Programs that has technical
assistance grants to help tribes hire a consultant, hire a
person, find someone who can help with the planning and the
technical assessment of things.
And we are looking for where we can within our authority
actually take portions of the Infrastructure funding and
dedicate to technical assistance on the front end, so in some
cases we will say, we will have a specific program and money is
set aside, so that you can use the first year's funding to plan
a project and figure out what you can do with it, then the
second year's funding to build a project, is one example.
Senator Smith. Thank you very much.
Before Chair Dupuis speaks, does anyone else have something
they want to add? Chief Executive Benjamin?
Ms. Benjamin. Melanie Benjamin, Chief Executive, Mille Lacs
Band of Ojibwe. That is the first time I have done that through
this whole hearing.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Benjamin. I have a question regarding trust
responsibility. That is going to be addressed to you.
I talked a little bit in my testimony about wanting to make
sure that we address climate change. Then when we look at that,
that tribes sometimes are the ones that are kind of pushed out
of the way for this advancement of technology and mining and
things of that sort.
So how do you address trust responsibility to tribes when
you are also looking at trying to address climate change? I
have a story that just recently we had a rep from Department of
Energy come to one of our areas, and we were talking about the
Talon Mine. We brought up trust responsibility. The
individual's long-term employee talked about yes, that we need
to have a relationship where we trust each other and we can
communicate.
So there is not a lot of the staff that maybe understand
what that trust responsibility is. Then when there is a
conflict, I believe that you have a trust responsibility to the
Mille Lacs Band on some of our issues.
We are going to address this whole Talon Mining, so then
there are two positions that you have to be involved in. That
is mainly what I think about in terms of where does that line
get drawn, when we are talking about trust responsibility with
the tribes. But you are also talking about some of these green
projects that are moving forward that are going to have a
negative impact on our way of life and our water.
I think about the Talon Mine up in Tamarack. That will have
an impact all the way down to Minneapolis-St. Paul. I think a
lot of people don't understand that. So that is kind of what I
think about too.
I just wanted to throw quickly to Indian Health Service,
technology, I know we have to be more modern terms of this
technology to provide the services. So I want to throw that
out, that we are going to really need more discussion and more
support about bringing all of our technology up to speed to be
able to provide the best medical services for our reservation
members and our community members that utilize our clinics.
Thank you, Senator Smith.
Senator Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Baumann, do you want to respond to that quickly? Then I
will turn back to tribal leaders to see if they have any last
questions before we wrap up?
Mr. Baumann. I am happy to. Thank you so much for those
comments, Chief Executive Benjamin. The issue you identified is
a big one that is very much on the Secretary's radar screen.
To answer your question about trust responsibility, the way
I think about it is we have to take responsibility for it at
multiple levels. That means both in the kind of literal sense,
we have to get Department of Energy's trust responsibilities
right.
We also have to work with our interagency partners, because
for a lot of these specific projects, like a mining project, it
gets complicated quickly.
If I understand correctly on the Talon Mine situation,
there is a Department of Energy grant that is going to a
project at the site to assess one of the minerals for a carbon
storage potential. It is not to do any extraction of nickel or
cobalt.
But it is more complicated than that, too, because often
even if we were directly involved in a project, we might not be
the permitting agency that does the land and the water and the
air permitting. That might be Interior, it might be EPA.
So we have to do a better job as a Federal family getting
coordinated and making sure we are collectively exercising our
trust responsibilities.
I would also say that I think they go beyond this sort of
just technical check the box pieces of getting the consultation
and engagement to taking the whole issue you are raising
seriously. This issue of critical minerals that are needed for
electric vehicles, for renewable energy, is an important one.
There is a rush, like you are talking about, to try to be less
dependent on other countries for a lot of those minerals as we
build these economies. But we have to get it right in terms of
the impact on the environment, on communities, on sacred lands.
I want to mention that, it is in my written testimony, so I
won't go into any detail, but we do have some programs looking
at how we find those minerals other ways from recycling,
getting them out of batteries that are otherwise being thrown
out, how we actually get them out of mine waste, coal waste,
hard rock mining waste, so the communities that actually want
old mines cleaned up can get some jobs in the process and we
get a better source of minerals in some cases.
Senator Smith. Thank you very much.
I want to be respectful of everybody's time. I think we are
getting close to when we were scheduled to end this hearing. As
I said, we have the opportunity to have a working lunch after
this, which I am looking forward to.
I also want to turn to Minnesota leaders who are here today
and see if you have any further questions or comments that you
want to make right now before we wrap up.
Mr. Dupuis. I just want to make the comment, Region 5 for
IHS is the lowest-funded region, and it has always been. I
think if we are going to look at IHS, I think the additional
funding needs to come up. There was a balance under that
principle. If we can take a look at what have within the State
of Minnesota as an unmet need, we have the most dispersion of
children out of placement in the entire State, what it carries
through per capita to the entire Country.
So Region 5 under IHS really needs to be looked at under
that principle of adding more funding to Region 5 to reach the
unmet needs.
One of the comments you made under the DOE is under the
department that there is not a direct line or a direct funding
principle. We understand that. But there can be tribal set-
asides so that we don't have to compete with others under that
manner. I think the tribal set-aside is very important if we
getting to a place that tribes have the equality principle to
do that, they don't have to go through the competitive process
against a larger corporation or organization. Simple tribal
set-aside revenue put into place can help the tribes in that
manner.
Miigwech.
Senator Smith. Thank you.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today
and for providing your testimony and this conversation. I think
the opportunity with the Infrastructure and Jobs Act is
significant. It is equally significant that we ensure that that
opportunity works for Minnesota tribal nations and for tribal
nations all over the Country.
We have heard today from these leaders about the importance
of direct funding and respect for flexibility in the way that
the dollars are disbursed. We have also heard about the special
challenges that small tribes and rural tribes in particular
have, not only with providing matches and for funding for the
people to fill the jobs that you have, but realizing that you
might not even have the jobs that you can fill in order to
participate as fully as you might like to in the grant-making
process.
I think it is a really good thing that we have Mr. Newland,
who has experience both as a tribal leader and now working with
in the Federal Government system, who I think understands, as
do all of our witnesses on the Federal side, about what these
challenges are like on the ground for tribal leaders who are
trying to do the very, very best they can to take good care of
their members and their responsibilities.
We also heard about the importance, the deep need for
technical assistance and the challenges around trying to figure
out how to put together the data that you need to put together
in order to participate in these strategies, and again the
historic underfunding that makes it difficult to take advantage
of this now historic funding that is here to improve the lives
of people living on tribal lands. We have not today talked very
much about urban indigenous communities, but this is also an
extremely important thing that I keep in mind all the time as
well, as I think about these responsibilities.
I want to thank very much Chair Anderson and the Shakopee
Mdewakanton Community for hosting us today and your generosity
in having us all be here. I also want to let all of our
witnesses know that you may receive follow-up questions,
written questions for the record from me or from other members
of the Committee who are not here. We will let you know if we
have any of those.
This hearing record will be open for two weeks. I want to
thank all the witnesses for your time and your testimony today.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at approximately 12:50 p.m. CST, the hearing
was adjourned.]
------
ADDITIONAL STATEMENT SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Prepared Statement of Hon. Michael Fairbanks, Tribal Chairman, White
Earth Nation
Chairman Brian Schatz, Vice Chairman Lisa Murkowski and Members of
the Senate Indian Affairs Committee:
Thank you again for holding this important Field Hearing:
``Investing in Native Communities: Transformative Opportunities in the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act'' in our own State of Minnesota.
We believe Native Members across this state will be able to demonstrate
excellent examples of transformative actions in infrastructure with the
assistance of this bill.
The people of the White Earth Nation are very supportive of the
passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. We worked hard
for passage of this important legislation and we are very pleased with
the expansion of programs for native people. However, we strongly
believe critical infrastructure needs for tribal nations are still key
to improving life for all of our people through significant investment
I am attaching my written testimony that was sent to your Committee
on July 2, 2021. As you can see our needs are very basic in three
critical areas: roads, transit and water and sewer. Each of these areas
are extremely underfunded and keep the White Earth Tribal Nation at a
competitive disadvantage with our non tribal neighbors. We are very
hopeful with the increased funding levels in this legislation for the
various programs for tribal nations, we can improve our critical edge.
The greatest need the White Earth Tribal Nation has for
infrastructure improvement is simply more funding for roads. We are a
very large reservation in a rural area. The formula for tribal lands to
distribute funds for roads has actually been diminishing for
reservations like White Earth. A key formula area was changed over a
decade ago and now large rural reservations without large traffic
volumes, like White Earth Tribal Nation, actually suffer with this new
formula. We believe another key factor needs to be added to the formula
determination: the size of a reservation and the number of roads
required by the tribal government to maintain. As you can see, our
estimates show we need $30,000,000 for just basic road repairs and
upgrades. Many of our roads are still gravel or dirt roads. We need to
upgrade these roads for better connection with all communities and to
improve safety on tribal roads for everyone.
Another critical area for the White Earth Tribal Nation is transit
as I outlined in my testimony to you again last year. The White Earth
Tribal Transit program is an active program with transit buses
connecting members throughout our reservation and other communities in
the area for medical, education, and employment. We critically need to
upgrade these facilities with improved hub facilities for our members
as they use these facilities in temperatures that can range from over
100 to near -40 Fahrenheit degrees. Our members need reliable
transportation if their personal vehicles are not working and transit
provides the best alternative.
Another important area is improvement of the Water and Sewer
infrastructure on our Reservation. As you can see from my testimony
from last year, we estimate a need of $13 million to replace aging
water storage tanks and improve the four water treatment facilities. We
currently estimate another $4.5 million to repair the wastewater
treatment ponds and service lines and this does not even start to cover
the cost of further upgrades needed in other areas of the water and
sewer programs to our many homes and businesses across the reservation.
The infrastructure needs for the White Earth Tribal Nation are
great. This tribal nation plans to actively seek grants under most of
the key categories for the $13 billion outlined in the legislation such
as the traditional programs for Rebuilding Roads, Bridges and Public
Transportation in Indian Country, Promoting High Seed Internet,
Protecting our Shared Environment and Promoting Clean Energy, Ensuring
Clean and Safe Water, Upgrading Sanitation Systems, and Investing in
Tribal Cybersecurity. But we also plan to seek grants and funding in
the general categories for non-tribal programs as well especially in
the new areas for multimodal freight and highway projects for rural
areas, railway-high grade separation projects, and many other
competitive grant programs in various new categories.
Thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony on this
important legislation. We believe these funds can help propel tribal
nations into a new level of connectivity for surface transportation,
transit and bus programs, Internet, water and sewer and many other
areas of this legislation that will provide tribal people with new
tools to improve lives and make reservations not only a better place to
live but a safer, cleaner and more productive environment as well.
Attachment
Chairman Brian Schatz, Vice Chairman Lisa Murkowski and Members of
the Committee:
On behalf of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe (the ``Band''), as the
duly elected Tribal Chairman, I am grateful for the opportunity to
share with our some of our needs to ensure that our concerns and voices
are heard on these issues. My name is Michael Fairbanks and I have been
serving as the Tribal Chairman since 2019. Thank you for this
opportunity to address infrastructure needs in Indian Country. I
respectfully submit the following written testimony for the Senate
Committee on Indian Affairs for your consideration.
Established by the Treaty of 1867, the White Earth Reservation is a
36 mile by 36 mile square in northwestern Minnesota. Our homelands are
very important to us but lagging investment in infrastructure over the
last several decades has created serious need within our communities.
This testimony will focus on roads, transit and water infrastructure.
Roads
Based on the Band's Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) to meet
future residential expansion and economic growth, we require a total of
thirty million dollars ($30,000,000.00) for road repairs and upgrades.
These repairs and upgrades will not only assist the Band in meeting our
goals within our LRTP but provide safer transportation within the
Reservation boundaries. Many roads Band members use to travel to their
homes and between communities are gravel or dirt roads and this
investment will help make our roads safer and more well suited to our
northern climate.
Transit
The White Earth Transit Department requires a new transit facility,
which would cost four million dollars ($4,000,000.00). This new
facility will serve as the hub of tribal transit. The new location
would be centered to better serve the Reservation and our membership,
as well as new equipment to meet operation and maintenance needs on our
fleet of buses.
The Transit Department also requests funding to expand broad band
to serve the new facility. This would provide optimal communication
between customers as well as our employees. Broadband access is sorely
lacking on the Reservation, which hinders the daily lives of our
members, including the further use and development of our transit
system.
Water and Sewer
The White Earth Water and Sewer Department is in need of thirteen
million dollars ($13,000,000.00) to replace four water treatment plants
and recondition three elevated water storage tanks. Replacing the aging
plants would serve as a benefit to consumers as well as the staff to
provide optimal treatment in removing contaminants and easier
maintenance with new equipment. New equipment would provide the
technology to remotely monitor the water plants as well as provide
backup power ensuring no down time or outages.
Additional funding is needed to provide efficient wastewater
services to the tribal communities as well. White will require four
million three hundred thousand dollars ($4,300,000.00) provide repair
and upgrade to four wastewater treatment ponds and service lines. These
proposed upgrades and repairs are similar to the water treatment
request in that new equipment would provide the ability to remotely
monitor and backup power to ensure no failure or outages in service.
This is benefit not only to our staff's safety but public health
preventing any wastewater exposure in the event of a failure/sewer back
up in the street or residences.
White Earth has many needs for investment in our tribal
infrastructure, but these needs are our priority for development and
will assist our tribal members. Thank you, Chairman Schatz and
Committee members for hearing our priorities and for acting
accordingly. Chi-miigwech!