American Indian and Alaska Native Public Witness Day 2, Afternoon Session
House Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
2025-02-26
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Source: Congress.gov
Participants
Transcript
The committee will come to order. Good afternoon. Welcome to our public witness hearing for the American Indian and Alaska Native programs. I want to welcome all the distinguished tribal elders and leaders here today and to thank our witnesses for appearing before the committee and sharing your concerns on these important topics. I will call each panel of witnesses to the table one panel at a time. Each witness will have five minutes to present testimony. That's five minutes to present testimony. The full written testimony will be included in the record, so witnesses shouldn't have to feel pressured to cover everything in five minutes. And I was told we actually do read the testimony that you submit to us, so we appreciate that. We will be using a timer to track the progress of each witness. When the light turns yellow, the witness will have one minute remaining to conclude their remarks. When the light turns red, I'll have to ask the witnesses to stop so that we can remain on schedule. We'll hear from every witness on each panel before members will be provided an opportunity to ask questions or request that we try to keep things moving so that we can stay on schedule and respect each other's times. We may have votes later on this afternoon, but we hope to conclude this afternoon's witnesses before we have to vote. Otherwise, we'll have to break, and then we'll be gone for an hour before we come back and stuff. We'll try to keep it on schedule. I also wanted to note that the committee rules prohibit the use of outside cameras and audio equipment during these hearings. The hearings can be viewed in its entirety on the committee's website and an official hearing transcript will be available at GPO.gov. You don't know how hard it is not to say GOP.gov. I'm sorry, but it's GPO.gov. Now I'm happy to yield to Ms. McCollum for any opening statements she might have. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I wouldn't just say Dem.gov. I'd have to say DFL, Democratic Farmer Labor Party. That's right. You guys are confusing up there.
We're very confusing, so watch out for us. I would like to really repeat the chairman's warm welcome to the second day of public hearings on tribal programs under the jurisdiction of this committee. And I think the chair deserves a big round of applause because he said no to no one. And so we're doing three days, which is unprecedented in the history of this committee. So thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I do want to... You do. You deserve it. It's only been a few short weeks since the Trump administration has been in office, and many of us feel like chaos has been unleashed and the disruptions have impacted everyone across this country, including indigenous communities.
And for many, it's created anxiety and uncertainty for tribal members, for their employment status, the continuation of critical healthcare needs, education services, and some have even felt challenged with their citizenship. And we heard from tribal brothers and sisters from the southern part of the United States, and I know that we in the Bold North, and we do have some people from Minnesota here today and Michigan, also have tribal IDs that go back and forth. And if you've had any encounters, please let us know. So we hope to hear from you on how these you know, this chaos is impacting your feelings on being able to deliver service to your employees because of cuts in some of the administrative branches that deliver trust and treaty responsibilities back to you. So, like the hearings yesterday, we got a lot of information. I'm looking forward to learning more. And thank you again, Mr.
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Unknown (SPEAKER_10)
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