[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED
AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2009
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington, Chairman
JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia TODD TIAHRT, Kansas
MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York JOHN E. PETERSON, Pennsylvania
JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri
ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia VIRGIL H. GOODE, Jr., Virginia
TOM UDALL, New Mexico KEN CALVERT, California
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
ED PASTOR, Arizona
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
Mike Stephens, Christopher Topik, Greg Knadle,
Delia Scott, Beth Houser, and Kim Jefferson
Staff Assistants
________
PART 7
Page
Public Witnesses -- Native American Issues....................... 1
Public Witnesses -- Other Issues................................. 278
________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
41-969 WASHINGTON : 2008
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin, Chairman
JOHN P. MURTHA, Pennsylvania JERRY LEWIS, California
NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida
ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia RALPH REGULA, Ohio
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia
NITA M. LOWEY, New York JAMES T. WALSH, New York
JOSE E. SERRANO, New York DAVID L. HOBSON, Ohio
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut JOE KNOLLENBERG, Michigan
JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia JACK KINGSTON, Georgia
JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey
ED PASTOR, Arizona TODD TIAHRT, Kansas
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina ZACH WAMP, Tennessee
CHET EDWARDS, Texas TOM LATHAM, Iowa
ROBERT E. ``BUD'' CRAMER, Jr., Alabama ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri
MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York KAY GRANGER, Texas
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California JOHN E. PETERSON, Pennsylvania
SAM FARR, California VIRGIL H. GOODE, Jr., Virginia
JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois RAY LaHOOD, Illinois
CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan DAVE WELDON, Florida
ALLEN BOYD, Florida MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
MARION BERRY, Arkansas DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana
BARBARA LEE, California JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
TOM UDALL, New Mexico RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana
ADAM SCHIFF, California KEN CALVERT, California
MICHAEL HONDA, California JO BONNER, Alabama
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
TIM RYAN, Ohio
C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas
Rob Nabors, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2009
Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
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TESTIMONY OF INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS
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PUBLIC WITNESSES--NATIVE AMERICANS
Mr. Dicks. Good morning. I want to welcome all of our
witnesses this morning to the first of two days of public
witness testimony. Today we will hear from citizens about
issues affecting Native Americans in Indian Country. Tomorrow
we will hear additional testimony from Native Americans, and we
will hear from citizens testifying about other issues under the
jurisdiction of the Interior and Environment Subcommittee. As
members know, the right of the public and of our tribes to
petition the committee is provided by the First Amendment of
our Constitution, and I am glad to host the second year of
public witness hearings for this subcommittee.
The President has once again submitted a completely
inadequate budget for Indian Country. His request reduces
funding for virtually every program in the Bureau of Indian
Affairs. The Indian Health Service is also reduced below last
year. Furthermore, the budget request completely ignores the
increasing costs of high population growth and medical
inflation that will inevitably lead to substantial shortfalls
in Indian health programs. This subcommittee will do its best
to see that these reductions are reversed and that programs in
Indian Country are given the attention they deserve.
I need to remind our witnesses that we have many speakers
scheduled to appear today. To ensure that we are able to
accommodate everyone, I ask that our witnesses respect the
five-minute limit. A yellow light will flash with one minute
remaining of your time in order to give you the opportunity to
wrap up your statement. When the red light comes on, then your
time has expired. Your prepared statement will of course be
published for the record along with a transcript of your actual
testimony.
Mr. Dicks. Our first witness is Frances Charles, chairman
of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, State of Washington. Frances,
welcome.
Mr. Tiahrt, our ranking member, will be here in a few
minutes.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
LOWER ELWHA KLALLAM TRIBE
WITNESS
FRANCES CHARLES
Ms. Charles. My name is Frances Charles. I am the tribal
chairwoman for Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. Good morning,
Chairman Dicks, members of the subcommittee. Our reservation is
located near the mouth of the Elwha River on the north coast of
the Olympic Peninsula, about five miles west of the city of
Port Angeles, Washington.
I am here today to request full funding for the Indian
Health Service of physical budgets of 2009. We return here to
testify on the health issues because it is an important matter.
We were here last week. I testified in the 1990s on a similar
request and still many shortfalls in the budgets of all Indian
programs. We are requesting an increase of $486 million on
mandatory inflation and population growth, $152 million on the
Contract Health Services, $160 million increase on the full
funding contract support costs, $5 increase on the Indian
Health Service Office of Self Governance, continued annual
funding for the special diabetic programs for the Indians, and
$150 million until new authority is enacted. That affects all
ages of our communities. Increased funding levels are needed to
maintain existing healthcare services, unmet needs for the
healthcare needs in our growing population and support tribal
self-determination efforts.
The Lower Elwha also supports the Johnson-O'Malley Housing
Improvement Bureau of Indian Affairs-based programs along with
increase of the Tribal Priority Allocations of the BIA and also
the contract support costs of BIA data management. In addition
we continue and welcome the Port Angeles region. Our tribe is a
partner with the State and the Federal Government in both river
restoration and Port Angeles harbor cleanup but I will want to
focus my testimony mainly on the health issues.
Prior to entering the self-governance in 2002, we took over
the Tribal Health Service from Indian Health Service Neah Bay
Service Unit in 1995. Our clinic is located just west of Port
Angeles and the clinic serves about 1,000 members, non-member
Indians including 416 individuals who lack insurance. Ours is
also the only clinic in Port Angeles that area that is
accepting Medicare, Medicaid patients including non-Indians. In
addition, under a recent negotiation MOU with the Veterans
Administration, our clinic will soon be serving both Indian and
non-native veterans and it is very important in our community
because we are under unique standards in the Port Angeles area
and we have really good working relationships with the
agencies. Unfortunately, the Contract Health Services programs
remain seriously underfunded. In 2007, the program received
$517,108.75 to serve 642 eligible Native Americans living on
the reservation and 197 to buy prescription drugs for this
population which again is a concern for the national events
because of the costs of the prescription drugs, and a lot of
the times our families have to really make a base of whether
they provide for some of the prescriptions that they cannot
afford.
We do not collect contract support costs from our Contract
Health Services allocations and forced to use third-party
revenues to attempt to make these shortfalls. In 2007, the
Contract Health Services budget was severely impacted by two
cancer patients, that we have a rise in the cancer patients in
our community, that a lot of the times with the priority one we
have to really put a priority to limb and life and death
situations which means that the referral stops for any of the
children or elders that need medical care except for a life-
threatening situation so we do need more funding in that area.
Increased funding also facilitates the purchase to acquire
equipment, X-ray machines and medical supplies. Our veterans,
elder care and children caseloads are all increasing and our
service population ages. We hope to construct and operate an
assisted living facility serving veterans and tribal elders. We
especially honor and care for our veterans and we are proud to
have such a high proportion of our Indian people who served and
continue to serve in the armed forces and we want to provide
them the best medical facility possible. Please continue
prayers for those that are at war.
In 2008, our tribe is faced with many challenges regarding
healthcare and we are asking to increase the physical budget
for the insufficient to cover the increased costs for the
medical expenses that it has incurred with our communities.
Mr. Chairman, you can see that we have some of the same
health problems as the country at large, increase in uninsured
veterans, elders and children care. If anything, our service
population has greater healthcare needs than the general
population but because of the cuts rather than growth in the
Indian Health Service budget and because the Indian Health
Service requires us to subsidize contract support costs, we
actually are forced to treat our children and our elders and
veterans with diminishing funding and we ask for the increase
to be more realistic in the upcoming years.
And finally, Mr. Chairman, we would express many tribes'
appreciation for Congress in the efforts toward reauthorization
of the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act. With that, we thank
you.
[Statement of Frances Charles follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you for your statement. I just want to
say, one of the things I have been concerned about since 2001,
the Interior budget has been cut by 16 percent, EPA by 29
percent, Forest Service by 35 percent, and this year our bill
was cut from last year's level, 2008 level, $1 billion below
what we did last year, and Mr. Tiahrt and I will work hard to
try to come up with a good bill, but when that happens, it is
almost possible to do it.
Now, I think our allocation in the Democratic budget that
has not passed yet but will pass will give some more money for
our area but the bottom line at the end of the year is, if the
President will not sign the bill and says you have to come down
to his level, you know, we are faced with a tough problem
because we want to get our bill signed. So we took care of most
of these problems last year. We are going to do the best we can
to take care of them this year.
Ms. Charles. We appreciate that.
Mr. Tiahrt. I want to commend the chairman. He did a great
job of putting a high priority on healthcare for our Native
Americans and we are going to try to make sure that we sustain
that and it is going to be difficult here to do that, but this
is a high priority with both of us.
Frances, thank you, and I appreciate your coming by, and we
know what your other priorities are. We have to make sure we
save earmarks or we are going to be in deep trouble.
Ms. Charles. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Testimony of Jeremy C. Weso, and we will put your entire
statement in and try to keep it close to five if you can.
Mr. Weso. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
MENOMINEE TRIBE OF WISCONSIN
WITNESS
JEREMY C. WESO
Mr. Weso. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. My name is Jeremy C. Weso and I am the tribal
administrator for the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. I am
here on behalf of 8,467 of my tribal members, so it is a great
honor for me to be here. I wish to thank the committee for the
opportunity to express the hopes and fears my people have and
impress upon the committee the importance federal funding plays
in shaping the everyday lives of Menominee people.
My tribe's rich culture, history and residency in the area
now known as the State of Wisconsin and parts of the States of
Michigan and Illinois dates back 10,000 years. Through a series
of treaties entered into with the U.S. Government during the
1800s, the tribe's land base eroded from 9.5 million acres to a
little more than 235,000 acres today. Further setbacks occurred
in the 1950s with the U.S. Congress's passage of the Menominee
Termination Act, which removed federal recognition over the
tribe. Fortunately, the tribe won back its federal recognition
in 1973 through a long and difficult grassroots movement that
culminated with the passage of the Menominee Restoration Act.
Like many other tribes, the Menominee Tribe is greatly
dependent on funding provided by the Federal Government to help
it meet its people's basic human needs like providing food,
shelter and clothing. Unfortunately, the funding we receive
barely helps us meet those needs, let alone preserve our
language and culture, manage our natural resources, promote
economic development and expand educational opportunities for
our people. For far too long we have settled on pretending like
we can do a little more with a lot less and hoping that next
year's appropriations will actually enable us to do more with
more. We need your help.
Our exceptional need is supported by a dismal array of
statistics and other unflattering facts. Though too numerous to
mention them all, some of them include the following. Menominee
County, which includes about 99 percent of the Menominee Indian
Reservation, is the 72nd unhealthiest county among the State of
Wisconsin's 72 counties. What is sad is that my people are
dying from diseases that are preventable and treatable but we
lack the financial resources necessary to turn this around.
Menominee County ranks second among the State's 72 counties for
violent crimes. Our 45-bed detention facility, which is always
at or above capacity, and the three probation officers that we
have to manage a caseload of 288 clients, and growing, is
defining a standard of justice unlike any we have ever seen. At
11.6 percent, Menominee County's unemployment rate is the
highest among Wisconsin's 72 counties and nearly two and a half
times greater than the national average of 4.8 percent. Our
housing waiting list consists of 180 individuals and families,
meaning that we are only able to provide housing to about 55
percent of our population eligible to receive it.
We receive an average of $1.2 million from the BIA to
manage our 219,000 acres of heavily forested lands but we still
need an additional $1 million annually to properly manage them.
In fiscal year 2007, the tribe experienced contract support
cost shortfall in both BIA and IHS funds totaling $730,843. We
anticipate an even greater shortfall in 2008 and 2009.
The President's fiscal year 2009 budget proposes to cut
overall BIA funding by 4.4 percent and reduce funds provided to
the tribe through the TPA process by 8.3 percent. If the
proposal is passed as is, the Menominee Tribe will lose an
estimated $571,970 in direct funding from the BIA. This type of
cut will have a reverse multiplier effect, one that few people
understand or realize. It will result in more Menominee people
being unemployed and receiving fewer services, more Menominee
people demanding services already heavily burdened and
underfunded, and more Menominee people being placed on waiting
lists. It will also mean that the Menominee tribe will lose
other federal dollars since the Menominee tribe uses BIA and
IHS funds to satisfy the cost-share requirement of other
federal awards. It will mean more desperation.
This committee has a tough charge in front of it, and I
realize that there are intense pressures to present a sensible
budget but when you stop to consider the extraordinary needs
that exist in Indian Country, the billions of dollars being
spent in foreign aid and the fact that Indian Country is
located in this Nation's backyard, I hope that this committee
will find it sensible to reject the Administration's proposal
to eliminate the Housing Improvement Program and Johnson-
O'Malley Program, reject the Administration's proposal to
significantly reduce funding for tribal government, human
services, national resource management and community and
economic development, support across-the-board increases in TPA
and non-TPA programs, support increased funding for payment of
contract support costs so that tribes do not have to use TPA
funds or locally appropriated funds to cover any shortfalls,
require all funds for TPA be promptly allocated by the BIA for
only TPA programs, functions, services and activities, provide
bonus incentives to tribes that demonstrate exemplary
performance through innovative programming, support the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights 2003 report recommendations,
especially with respect to gauging unmet needs in Indian
Country.
Thank you.
[Statement of Jeremy C. Weso follows:]
Mr. Dicks. I think that was a very good statement, and I
appreciate your calling attention to that civil rights report
in 2002. I will take a look at it.
Mr. Weso. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Tiahrt, do you have anything?
Mr. Tiahrt. No.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Now we are going to have the Puyallup Tribe, Washington
State. Mary Pavel is going to present the testimony. Mary,
welcome.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
PUYALLUP TRIBE OF WASHINGTON
WITNESS
MARY PAVEL
Ms. Pavel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee. On behalf of Herman Dillon, I extend his regrets. He
came down with a virus. He has been having some health issues
and could not travel. He asked that I share with the committee
the Puyallup Tribe's priorities, and I will hopefully save the
committee some time this morning.
Mr. Dicks. We will put your entire statement in the record
and you can summarize.
Ms. Pavel. But the tribe's priorities are a lot of what you
guys will hear today. They include increased funding for law
enforcement, natural resource funding, which is near and dear
to the Puyallup Tribe's heart. They led the struggle in
Washington State to establish our treaty rights for the tribes
in Washington. And finally, healthcare funding, increased
healthcare funding. The Puyallup Tribe was the first tribe in
the country to operate their clinic, as the chairman knows,
through a 638 contract and have done so successfully. They
service 25,000 Native Americans within the Pierce County
District and they are running at a crisis level of shortfalls.
I want to thank you for the committee's commitment to that
and urge your continued efforts to provide full funding for
those programs. Thank you.
[Statement of Herman Dillon, Sr., follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you, Mary, and we will do our best. As I
said, it is a pretty difficult situation we are faced with.
Billy Frank, Jr., chairman of the Northwest Indian
Fisheries Commission, and a very good friend. Welcome, Billy
and----
Mr. Frank. Michael.
Mr. Dicks. Michael.
Mr. Frank. And Ed.
Mr. Dicks. Ed.
Mr. Frank. And we got Chairman Henry Cagey with us. Good
morning.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you said, we have been together
a long----
Mr. Dicks. A long time.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
NORTHWEST INDIAN FISHERIES COMMISSION
WITNESS
BILLY FRANK, JR.
Mr. Frank. I am honored to be in front of the committee
again, and my name is Billy Frank, chairman, Northwest Indian
Fisheries Commission. Indeed, it is a privilege to be among
such a distinguished cadre of tribal leaders, who are also here
to present funding requests of their people.
On behalf of the membership in the Northwest Indian
Fisheries Commission, I will speak to our natural resource
management funding request for 2009 budget for the Bureau of
Indian Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency. With me
today is Mike Grayum, our executive director of Northwest
Indian Fisheries Commission, and Ed Johnstone on my right,
Quinault commissioner for the Northwest Indian Fisheries
Commission, and the chairman of the Lummi tribe, Henry Cagey,
sitting in with us in support.
We are the infrastructure of the Pacific salmon in the
Northwest, and to summarize our appropriations is Mike Grayum.
Mike.
Mr. Grayum. Just a quick summary of our request. To start
is the securing and enhancing our Western Washington fisheries
management base funding through the Bureau. First off, we want
to make sure that the $1.8 million cut that the President
included in his budget directed at our Pacific salmon treaty
support funding gets reinstated, and then secondly, we are
asking that the account be increased----
Mr. Dicks. That is number two, right?
Mr. Grayum. That is the second bullet. And then secondly,
the enhancement of the base funding of $7.5 million to support
the increased management obligations and costs that are not
being covered right now, in part due to shellfish and marine
fish obligations.
[Chart.]
Mr. Grayum. This chart that I have in front of me, which I
do have copies of it if you care to have it, is a reflection of
what has happened to this account, our base fisheries
management funding, since 1978 to 2007, expressed in 2007
dollars and then adjusted to 1970 at the zero mark to show that
we are getting less money now in buying power than we got 30
years ago to do significantly more work. And then the second
page adds in some other dollars that have been provided largely
through this committee in hatchery reform and hatchery
maintenance and mass marketing and TFW that we have been using
to fill in the gaps but we are reaching a point now where we
cannot continue to fill those gaps in and that is why we are
asking for the enhancement of that base.
So going on very quickly then, we are asking that the
Timber, Fish and Wildlife, $1.74 million, which is again not
included in the President's budget, be included and we are
asking for a mass marketing amount of $2.4 million. Again, we
have been receiving some money for that but it is not in the
President's budget either, and as the chairman knows, we are
trying to address costs associated with expected increase of
selected fisheries in the State of Washington.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. Grayum. And then moving on quickly, EPA. We are looking
for dollars, $2 million specifically, to allow the tribes to
effectively participate in the governor's partnership effort,
and then very importantly, we are looking for money both in the
hatchery maintenance and rehab account of the Bureau, which has
been grossly underfunded in the past. It is a national account
and many of those hatcheries exist in the Northwest. And we are
looking for money, $2.43 million, to support our hatchery
reform effort and we have projects already teed up that account
for that $2.4 million. And then lastly, to strengthen tribal
wildlife management and assurance of treaty-protected hunting
rights, we are requesting an additional $5 million to do that
work.
Mr. Dicks. Ed.
Mr. Johnstone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, the 20 member
tribes want to lend our support to the national Tribal Priority
Allocation. Tribes request funding for levels within the BIA
for trust responsibility, Tribal Priority Allocation and self-
governance that pertain to fisheries management implementation
of the U.S.-Canada Pacific salmon treaty, $160 million to fully
fund the BIA contract support costs, provide necessary pay cost
adjustments for existing and emerging programs, and support
full funding of EPA's Indian General Assistance Program gap.
Mr. Frank. Mr. Chairman, I just want to let you know how
important this committee is to our tribal people. You know, we
are dependent upon the United States Congress for our funding
and this is where we come to testify.
[Statement of Billy Frank, Jr., follows:]
Mr. Dicks. I appreciate that, and I just want to say, I
hope that next year we can do a lot better because I think
whoever is elected President, I think we will have a more
adequate budget for these programs. I mean, I cannot imagine
that this kind of billion-dollar cut in a bill like this--we
should have gone up $600 million and so it makes our job really
tough when you cut this thing $1.6 billion to fill in all the
holes because you have to take it from somewhere else to do
this, and everything is sensitive in this bill.
But Mr. Tiahrt and I will work hard, and we will have a
good bill in the House again like we did last year. We had a
great bill coming out of the committee last year. But then if
you want your bill signed, you have to cut things back and that
is where it gets painful. So we will do our best.
Mr. Frank. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. Dave Hererra. Dave, why dont you sit right
there? He is from the Skokomish Tribe. This tribe is about 12
miles from where I live on Hood Canal so we have been
colleagues and worked together on many issues for many years.
Dave, nice to have you here.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
SKOKOMISH TRIBE OF WASHINGTON
WITNESS
DAVE HERERRA
Mr. Hererra. We appreciate that comment. Good morning, Mr.
Chairman and committee members. I am Dave Hererra. I am a
fisheries and wildlife policy representative for the Skokomish
Tribe. I am here on behalf of Denese LaClair, the chair of the
Skokomish Tribe. The reservation is located in Washington State
at the base of the Olympic Mountains and our population is over
1,000 people. The tribe appreciates the work of this
subcommittee in supporting and funding initiatives that are key
to the development of tribal communities.
I wanted to mention a few things today. We have a concern
about the Indian reservation road maintenance fund that the
Administration has proposed a cut of 50 percent to that fund
from $26 million to $13 million and they have also proposed to
reduce SAFETEA-LU funds, which provide for road construction,
to take 25 percent of that money and put it towards road
maintenance, and we need both construction and maintenance on
reservation roads. I wanted to give you a statistic. For the
period of 1975 to 2002, the incidence of fatal crashes on
federal highways has decreased by 2.2 percent. At the same
time, the incidence of fatal crashes on reservation roads has
increased by 52.4 percent. The National Congress of American
Indians has asked that the IRR fund be increased by $100
million. While we recognize that is pretty difficult to do, we
think that there is a real need for funding for roads on
reservations.
With respect to law enforcement, the Skokomish Tribe
requests increases in funding for BIA law enforcement programs.
We commend the BIA's request for an increase of $2.9 million
this year for law enforcement services but this is not nearly
enough to meet tribal needs. Over the last 11 years the
Skokomish Tribe's public safety department has grown from one
untrained officer now to 10 State- or BIA-certified law
enforcement officers. The need for our services is actually for
18 officers. In order to help meet that need, we support the
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs request for a $10 million
increase over fiscal year 2008 funding level. We also support
their request that these funds be distributed proportionately
to the BIA and to tribal enforcement programs. We noted that 78
percent of law enforcement activities are undertaken by
tribally operated police agencies and therefore would request
that 75 percent of any increase be directed to these tribal law
enforcement agencies.
With respect to tribal courts, the Administration has
proposed a $2.5 million decrease. We would urge the committee
to reject that and to fund the courts at the level of $15
million, which is a $700,000 increase over the level from
fiscal year 2008.
Under the Environmental Protection Agency, the tribe thanks
the committee for their continuing commitment and funding of
environmental programs that are important to tribes, in
particular for the STAG grants that the committee has provided
to the tribe and to Mason County to develop a wastewater
treatment system. We see this project as a linchpin of our
collaborative efforts to restore the health of the Hood Canal,
which the governor has called the jewel of the Puget Sound. I
do want to point out that we are having a little bit of trouble
with the red tape in dealing with the EPA in implementing this
grant and would ask for some----
Mr. Dicks. The STAG grant?
Mr. Hererra. Right. In particular with respect to the
match.
Mr. Dicks. As I understood, we were able to get some match
from the legislature. Did that happen?
Mr. Hererra. Not that I am aware of.
Mr. Dicks. This was on the first grant about three or four
years ago.
Mr. Hererra. Well, the EPA regulations require the match to
be in hand before we can access those funds, and we would ask
that that requirement be waived and the match be met at the end
of the grant, but also----
Mr. Dicks. We will work with you on it. We will check on
that.
Mr. Hererra. So again, we thank you for your support. We
also support the comments that Billy and Mike made of the
Fisheries Commission. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. And then we will get all the rest of them as
well.
[Statement of Dave Hererra follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Larry Wawronowicz. Is that close?
Mr. Wawronowicz. Yes, you did a very good job.
Mr. Dicks. Welcome. We will put your statement in the
record, and you can summarize.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
LAC DU FLAMBEAU BAND OF LAKE SUPERIOR CHIPPEWA INDIANS
WITNESS
LARRY WAWRONOWICZ
Mr. Wawronowicz. I appreciate that. Mr. Chairman and
members of the committee, I am Larry Wawronowicz. I am the
deputy administrator in natural resources for the Lac du
Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. President Doud
was not able to come today. She had some important matters at
home she needed to take care of. She sends her best. It is an
honor and privilege to provide this testimony on behalf of our
3,000-plus members, and it is also an honor and pleasure to
discuss our issues and concerns about this budget with this
committee.
Lac du Flambeau is surrounded by the State of Wisconsin and
it is blessed to be located in the Great Lakes Region. The
traditional name for Lac du Flambeau is Waswagoning. It is a
great place to raise our children because the natural resources
are plentiful. The 86,000-acre reservation has 260 lakes, 71
miles of rivers and streams, 24,000 acres of wetlands and
41,000 acres of upland forestland. These precious resources
provide food, educational opportunities, economic opportunities
and a way of life and medicine for our tribal members.
Mr. Chairman, I really do not know where to start. The
fiscal year 2009 budget proposed by this Administration is a
nightmare in Indian Country and I think you indicated that very
well in your opening statement.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Mr. Wawronowicz. We are alarmed by the erosion of funding
in Indian programs. We certainly oppose some of the major cuts
such as JOM, HIP and cuts in research programs but the worst
problems are the result of flat funding and across-the-board
rescissions the tribes are subject to every year. There are two
issues I would like to emphasize and request the subcommittee
to consider. First, the tribes cannot absorb the across-the-
board rescissions that have been applied in recent years. As
cost of living, cost of fuel--when I left home, it was $3.39 a
gallon for regular--and the cost of other resources rose over
the years, many important programs see little or no increases,
and increases that are provided are eliminated once the
rescission is applied. We ask that Bureau of Indian Affairs,
EPA, tribal programs and Indian Health Service be exempt for
any rescissions applied in the fiscal year 2009 bill.
Second, the high cost of health insurance impacts the
tribe's ability to provide services to all tribal members. This
goes across the board. Anything that you can think of that is
going on in Indian Country, healthcare costs are to the point
where it is getting to be a problem. Currently, a $20,000-a-
year employee, which is a $10-an-hour employee, is costing us
an additional $20,350 for family health insurance policy for a
total of approximately $40,000 per employee.
And you talk about flat line budgets and budget cuts that
the President is proposing, it exacerbates the problem. When
the tribe is forced to supplement underfunded BIA and Indian
Health Service programs to cover costs, direct services to
tribal members and memberships suffer. We have less money
available to provide counseling to students, support a student
going to college, collect water samples, put more officers in
the field and provide for basic healthcare services. Without
substantial increases in funding, the tribe will continue to
decrease services to tribal membership because we just cannot
absorb these costs anymore. We may be forced to eliminate
health insurance benefits, which will seriously impact our
ability to recruit and maintain our labor force. My wife is a
breast cancer survivor and I fully understand the value of
health insurance and consider myself lucky that I was one of
the lucky Americans to have it. Otherwise I would be in
financial ruin or a burden on contract health system because my
wife is a Lac du Flambeau tribal member.
I also want to briefly address some of the major cuts
proposed this year. Written testimony submitted by the tribe
goes into a lot of the detail, and I just have to mention that
four pages is getting to the point where it is not big enough
to deal with all the budget cuts this Administration has given
Indian Country.
So I want to highlight the following: education. We urge
the subcommittee to restore funding to JOM programs and reject
the proposed $5.9 million cut to higher education. This is so
important to our tribe.
Mr. Dicks. Last year we were able to do that.
Mr. Wawronowicz. Yes, and we really appreciate that. And it
is unfortunate we have to come back and do it again. Our JOM
money supports a counselor to help students transition every
year from majority Indian elementary school to majority white
high school. Without JOM, this counselor would be cut. Road
maintenance was mentioned before by other tribes. Housing
improvement needs to be restored at the fiscal year 2007 level
of $19 million. Of course, natural resources, since I am deputy
administrator natural resources, is very important to me. We
ask the subcommittee to provide for cost increases for natural
resource programs, restore funding for the Tribal Wetland
Waterfall Enhancement Initiative, which you guys have done over
the years, and we support full funding for the Great Lakes
Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission since we are a member
tribe.
Last but not least, the need for Indian Health Service
funding is still great. At Lac du Flambeau, we anticipate that
our contract health shortfalls will be more than $3 million
this year.
So Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the tribe
understands you have a hard job to do. I do not want to be in
your position. When working on the budget, please remember that
treaties were signed between the Lac du Flambeau Band and the
United States. Remember along with the treaties the promises
that were made to Indian people, the federal trust
responsibility that comes with those treaties, and the treaties
of the United States are protected under the Constitution under
Article 6, clause through 2. Treaties must be honored. Our
integrity as a Nation depends on it. Congress needs to do this
because as just indicated by all the cuts that the President
proposed, he does not understand what treaties mean.
[Statement of Victoria A. Doud follows:]
Mr. Dicks. We understand. We are caught with the same
problem. We would like to be much more generous on these issues
and were last year until the hammer came down at the end of the
year and it is very unfortunate that because of the veto
threat, we cannot do what is necessary, and we want to. And by
the way, Mr. Obey is chairman of this whole committee from
Wisconsin and he has been very helpful in trying to give us a
better allocation to work with and that made it possible for us
to correct these problems last year. But then at the end we had
to do a cut to get down to the level where the President would
sign the bill and he would have vetoed the bill and then we
would have been on a continuing resolution, which we did not
think was the right way to go.
Mr. Wawronowicz. We definitely appreciate your hard work.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Dicks. So we are trying our best. And make sure you
talk to Mr. Obey too.
James Zorn, welcome.
----------
Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
GREAT LAKES INDIAN FISH AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION
WITNESS
JAMES ZORN
Mr. Zorn. James Zorn, executive administrator of the Great
Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission. It is a pleasure to
be back here again. Our 11 Ojibwe Tribes, 34,000 members, we
serve a 60,000-square-mile area, a large part of Lake Superior
that deals with off-reservation hunting and fishing rights. You
will note from our written testimony it is basically the same
line item that the Northwest Commission is funded under. We
have an additional need with EPA that deals not with gap
funding but with the Great Lakes Geographic Program, the Great
Lakes National Program Office. And so what I would like to do
is have the written testimony speak for itself.
And I always like to have a picture say a thousand words,
and I would like to bring a reminder of what we do, the types
of programs we do. Mr. Calvert, I do not know if you are
familiar with us. For our member tribes, we provide biological
services, conservation, law enforcement services, public
information services and so on throughout that large area. We
implement court orders that secure these rights for the tribes,
deal in intertribal comanagement among and between the tribes
themselves as well as with other managers. We really need to
protect the BIA base because what that allows us to do is to do
value-added projects for our members. For example, our recent
language project that we did with Administration for Native
American Funding. We produce an atlas of the area where our
tribes are in their own language that identifies the geographic
places to help preserve the culture, help keep the connection
with the children, encourage intergenerational transfer of
knowledge from the elders down to the kids so that people
remain connected to the natural resources.
What I would like to do is provide examples that you can
use to help support the job you are trying to do. One of the
reasons we need an increase in some of our law conservation
enforcement funding is that it took until the last year before
the State of Wisconsin and it legislature recognized our
conservation officers as legitimate law enforcement officers.
We had a local district attorney that was threatening to
prosecute one of our conservation officers for impersonating a
law enforcement officer after 20-some years in the business. So
finally we worked with the legislature----
Mr. Dicks. Did you get it straightened out?
Mr. Zorn. Well, we did, I mean, with the little threat of a
federal court action, but then we thought, you know, you can
work together, and so we went to the State legislature and
Governor Doyle signed an act this past fall that integrates our
officers into the regional law enforcement emergency services
network. The point I wish to make with the committee with that
is that this base funding helps us leverage other funding and
other substantive measures that help us get the job done. We
have been able to diversify our funding base in the face of
these funding cuts to the point now where as much as 25 percent
of our funding, it is not as secure as our BIA base but comes
from other programs like ANA, Fish and Wildlife Service
invasive species programs, State programs and so on. So just
remember that that base is important for us to do more.
Again, another example, I do not know if you recall this
from last year but I brought out the mercury in fish maps. This
is a map that helps our tribal members know how much mercury is
in the fish that they eat in the lakes where they fish.
Mr. Dicks. We have the same problem in the Puget Sound.
Where does the mercury come from in your area?
Mr. Zorn. Well, is it a good thing our friend from West
Virginia is not here today but we do have the issue of the
coal-fired power plants and the idea of coal----
Mr. Dicks. This is emissions from coal power plants?
Mr. Zorn. Yes. We have some mining operations----
Mr. Dicks. We have the same problem in Tacoma when we had
Asarco and the emissions would come down into the lakes and
cause very serious problems.
Mr. Zorn. Exactly.
Mr. Dicks. And so I understand what you are saying.
Mr. Zorn. We are trying to understand the process by which
this mercury becomes taken up in the fish tissue and then
becomes a human health problem.
So in terms of the EPA, just one short point here, and that
is, I think last year we talked about the Great Lakes regional
collaboration strategy, and I just want to point out for the
committee's attention on page 12 to 13, how these eight States,
every federal agency that works in the Great Lakes, a myriad of
non-governmental organizations as well as 1,500 citizens that
participated view the tribe's role. They recognize that any
even small funding cut to tribes can amount to a virtual
elimination of tribes' abilities to participate in the
implementation of the strategy. We are seeking $300,000 to keep
tribes part of this. It is non-gap funding. It would go through
the GIMPO office, and as that office funding is increasing for
the Federal Government's participation in this, we would like
to remind the committee that implementation takes place at the
local level. The tribes and others are the program deliverers.
That is where the money needs to get.
Mr. Dicks. We have a Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
Do you have a regional group with all the tribes?
Mr. Zorn. GLIFWC has 11. There is the Chippewa Resource
Authority and the 1854 Authority. They are all funded under the
same line item so it could be funneled through that same
direction but again, it is under EPA. We have a good
relationship with GLIMPO but their hands are tied in terms of
getting money into the hands of tribes to keep them at the
table to implement the strategy.
Mr. Dicks. We are struggling with the same problem.
Mr. Zorn. Exactly. And just the final point is, the tribal
programs are not just another DNR. They relate to the tribal
communities in a culturally appropriate way. If the tribes
cannot do the jobs for themselves, no one else is there to do
it for them.
[Statement of James Zorn follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much.
Ron His Horse Is Thunder, chairman of the Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe, welcome.
----------
Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE
WITNESS
RON HIS HORSE IS THUNDER
Mr. His Horse is Thunder. Good morning, Mr. Chairman,
members of the committee. Thank you for allowing me some time
today. Mr. Chairman, I need to say thank you for visiting our
reservation last year with Congresswoman Herseth.
Mr. Dicks. Stephanie is one of our really good members. She
really cares about these issues, and I was delighted to be out
there.
Mr. His Horse is Thunder. I understand you had to step over
some broken glass when you visited one of our buildings. It
shows you an example of for us law enforcement, and that is
part of what I want to talk to you about today as public
safety, education, economic development and natural resources
and we think that all these are intertwined with each other and
interrelated in terms of providing a safe environment as well
as lifting up reservations to help themselves.
In the area of public safety, I think that the biggest
victims on our reservation across Indian Country are women and
children. Our youth, of course, suffer all the ills associated
with poverty: alcohol, substance abuse, violence, gangs, crime
and suicide, which is a huge problem on our reservation.
Violence against women likewise is a very significant problem.
On our reservation, to give you an example of a problem, our
reservation has 2.3 million acres, about 2,500 miles of road.
We are almost the size of the State of Connecticut. For that we
have 10 law enforcement officers which must patrol our
reservation. On a good night we might have three officers on a
Friday or Saturday during a shift. Other times we probably only
have one officer on duty to cover that reservation that size.
One disaster, if you will, in terms of law enforcement on our
reservation was in 2003 we had a reported rape victim, Leslie
Iron Root. Her rape was never investigated by the BIA, by the
FBI, nobody investigated it, and a week later she died. She was
20 years old. I think that is a tragedy.
Interestingly, last year Congress gave the Bureau of Indian
Affairs a $5 million increase to provide 50 more officers on
the reservations across the country. Those 50 officers have not
been disbursed at this time, simply because they have not come
up with the matrix yet to the appropriate criteria on how they
are going to disburse these 50 but given that Standing Rock
Reservation has the second highest crime rate of any
reservation in the country, we think they should be able to at
least give us one, much less be able to disburse----
Mr. Dicks. Have you talked to the BIA about this?
Mr. His Horse is Thunder. We have, and they said until they
develop that matrix they are not going to put those people out
in the field.
Mr. Dicks. Well, we will talk to the BIA about this.
Mr. His Horse is Thunder. I appreciate that.
Mr. Dicks. We should have had them here today.
Mr. His Horse is Thunder. One of the other problems we
believe we can take a look at is youth detention facilities. We
do not have a youth detention facility and we have to transport
our youth 120 miles away, assuming that they have beds. If they
do not have beds available, then we catch and release on our
reservation so the youth are developing a mentality they can do
anything that they want to. We do have a $30 million grant from
the Department of Justice but is underfunded to the tune of
$1.2 million.
So we are recommending that BIA's budget be increased $25
million in BIA criminal investigations in police services, $50
million increase in BIA public safety and justice facility
improvements and repair, and are asking for $20 million for
travel justice support services to help improve our tribal
courts. That is an area of public safety.
In education, we think that the Bureau's educational budget
is an absolute disaster. We are recommending this committee
fully restore and increase the Administration's proposed $34
million cut to Indian education. We would like actually to have
that number double the year 2008 funds. We need to have the
enacted levels come up for Johnson-O'Malley, early child
development and the technical colleges, one of them being
United Tribe Technical College in Bismarck, North Dakota, which
is actually zeroed out, and to take a look at the scholarship
and adult education program as well as special higher education
scholarships. In the area of scholarships, the Bureau has
flatlined the special higher education scholarship by $2.1
million and imposed a $5.9 million cut in scholarships. If you
work that out, on our reservation we give out over 300
scholarships and we receive $500,000. That is about $800 per
student per semester. We understand there is a shortfall there
and so the tribe has taken its own initiative and we put in $3
million into this fund over the last three years and we gave
our students an additional $3,000. We are making up that
shortfall because we believe that education is absolutely
needed in order for our reservation to move forward. Most
tribes are not in a position to do that and so we ask for those
increases.
For economic development, we are recommending an increase
of $10 million in the Administration's $13 million to the BIA
Community and Economic Development Program and basically also
adding $10 million over last year's level for the BIA's 477 job
placement and training program and economic development.
We are asking Congress to restore the cut of $13 million
also to the BIA road maintenance program. If they want economic
development on reservations, if we want our children to go down
safe roads in their buses, then we need to have this restored.
In terms of streets, our tribe believes so much in safe roads
that we have pumped in $26 million into our roads. We actually
had to borrow that. We are on a payback of a 30-year note on
that. We believe in safe roads, and I think that it is
absolutely imperative for economic development as well as safe
roads for everybody including the buses that drive down these
roads.
[Statement of Ron His Horse Is Thunder follows:]
Mr. Dicks. We know the concerns on natural resources. We
will try to do our best there.
Mr. His Horse is Thunder. I appreciate the time, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much.
Gene Joseph, Council Member, Confederated Tribes of the
Colville Reservation, welcome.
----------
Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF THE COLVILLE RESERVATION
WITNESS
GENE JOSEPH
Mr. Joseph. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Gene Joseph
from the Colville Business Council. Good morning to you,
Ranking Member Tiahrt and other members of the subcommittee. I
thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am here to testify
about funding for two programs of interest to the Colville
Tribe and to other tribes nationally. The first is the
restoration of about $630,000 for the Lake Roosevelt Management
and Enforcement Program, and the second is ask your support for
a $1.5 million programmatic increase for the Bureau of Indian
Affairs energy and economic development programs.
As for Lake Roosevelt Management Enforcement Program, what
the money is used for is for our tribal officers to patrol Lake
Roosevelt primarily and other water bodies on the Colville
Reservation but most of the focus is on the reservoir. It is a
151-mile reservoir. Spokane and Colville have management
responsibilities for the zone in the reservoir that abuts their
respective reservations. The tribe provided testimony in 2006
about an incident in 2006 in which a float plane was seized
that contained about $2 million in contraband drugs, and one of
the apocryphal tales out of that incident was that the plane
was disabled by a rock, disabling the prop so they could not
take off, and we have been fighting with OMB for several years
since the multi-party agreement in 1992 to maintain this
funding and every year we have had to come back to Congress to
seek restoration of these funds and we would appreciate----
Mr. Dicks. This is the Lake Roosevelt management?
Mr. Joseph. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. Yes, Senator Murray, I think, has been very
helpful on this.
Mr. Joseph. And we either would like to have this program
funded or the tribe's natural resources, not the tribes but----
Mr. Dicks. Was it part of the base at any time?
Mr. Joseph. In 1990 it was just money that was put in there
by the Secretary's special representative that the agreement
was included and it was in there.
Mr. Dicks. It was in there?
Mr. Joseph. It was in there. It was stripped out in 1991,
and it is just the history of----
Mr. Dicks. This is a BIA issue, right?
Mr. Joseph. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. Well, we will see what we can do. We will try to
help you.
Mr. Joseph. Well, thank you. As for the $1.5 million
programmatic increase on the Indian energy program, my tribe
has received a grant under this program to develop a woody
biomass cogeneration facility so it is a very helpful program
not only to us but to other tribes across the country. We are
aware that approximately 70 other tribes since fiscal year 2000
have received these grants and they enable us to develop other
economic development enterprises that have no relationship to
gaming and we are just asking for an increase in the Bureau's
funding for these grants and for the TERA agreements that are
part of this program.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I conclude my statement and thank
you again.
[Statement of Gene Joseph follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, thank you, and we will work with you on
these issues.
Mr. Calvert. Mr. Chairman, just one quick question.
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Calvert. Jump in any time, by the way.
Mr. Calvert. Is the predominant drug methamphetamine that
is being----
Mr. Joseph. It is cocaine, methamphetamine, anything. The
reservation is surrounded on three sides by the Columbia and
Okinalaga Rivers. It is very isolated. We have five major lakes
there. The pilot who was seized testified that this was just
one of 19 trips that he had made to drop off the drugs.
Mr. Dicks. From Canada, right?
Mr. Joseph. Yes, from Canada.
Mr. Dicks. Yes, there is a real problem up there on the
border. Actually boats come across the Straits of Juan de Fuca,
too. Does Lake Roosevelt go into Canada?
Mr. Joseph. It goes into Canada.
Mr. Dicks. That is what I thought.
Mr. Dicks. So they could come in by a boat there too.
Mr. Joseph. Well, it is the Columbia. The reservoir is
formed by the creation of Grand Coulee Dam, the largest hydro
facility in the United States.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much.
Mr. Joseph. You are welcome.
Mr. Dicks. We are going to have a vote here. We are going
to have to run over at some point.
Liz Mueller, vice chairman, the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe,
welcome. We will put your statement in the record, and you have
five minutes to summarize.
---------- --
--------
Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
JAMESTOWN S'KLALLAM TRIBE
WITNESS
ELIZABETH MUELLER
Ms. Mueller. Thank you. First of all, I want to say good
morning, and Ron Allen was not able to be here today but he
sends his best regards. I do not talk quite as fast as Ron but
I will try to hit the highlights for our community.
One of the things that I want to first of all highlight is
Tamanawas Rock is our sacred site in East Jefferson County, and
Tamanawas Rock has an oral history for our people. Our oral
history has to do with the flood 3,000 years ago and also the
people of East Jefferson County are in total support of helping
us, you know, secure this land.
Mr. Dicks. Okay. Good.
Ms. Mueller. The second thing that I want to highlight has
to do with fish and wildlife. Our fish and wildlife department
has never been fully funded by the BIA. When we were recognized
in 1981, we had our funding that went to the Point-No-Point
Treaty Council but it was never fully funded. They just added
some additional dollars to that, and now some of the dollars
that the tribes have pulled out of the Point-No-Point Treaty
Council, that leaves Jamestown with not the full funding that
is very important to us. And I do not have to tell you about
what we have done in our natural resource program, you know,
the Jimmy Come Lately Projects, the dungeness----
Mr. Dicks. I have been there and seen that project. I think
that is a great project.
Ms. Mueller. Exactly, and just recently, you know, the EPA
recognized us with a certification for our watershed base plan.
We are the first tribe in the United States to receive that
certification.
Mr. Dicks. Congratulations. You deserve it. It is a great
project.
Ms. Mueller. It is, and----
Mr. Dicks. Do you get funded from the Salmon Recovery Fund
on that?
Ms. Mueller. Yes, but the BIA needs to step up and fund us.
Mr. Dicks. BIA needs to step up. If you have been here, you
have listened to what has been said.
Ms. Mueller. Yes, exactly.
Mr. Dicks. BIA has a lot of problems.
Ms. Mueller. And so, you know, if you can give them the----
Mr. Dicks. And they are all dumped on us.
Ms. Mueller [continuing]. Gentle persuasion to help fund
fish and wildlife.
Mr. Dicks. We will do more than that.
Ms. Mueller. And the next thing is, you know, we are the
original tribes for self-governance and yet in the last 10
years we have not received any more additional funding in our
self-governance budget, no cost of living. Ten years ago, we
were screaming that we were paying $1 for a gallon of gas. Now
it is 10 years later and we are paying $4 almost a gallon for
gas. We just need to have that funding. We have maximized as
much as we possibly can for in our self-governance, and you
know, it is very obvious what we have done with our self-
governance dollars.
The fourth one is, and you already mentioned it,
Congressman, in relating to the Indian Health Service and the
BIA budget, what is being proposed in President's Bush 2009
budget in the Indian program cuts. It is just unconscionable--
--
Mr. Dicks. It is.
Ms. Mueller [continuing]. What is being done. In Washington
State alone, if you are familiar with the Ombudsman Report,
that the Indian children have the highest mortality rate of all
other children, that teen suicide is the highest with our
American Indian teens and that our Indian children are
languishing in foster care. So the education, the housing, all
of these programs are important to us.
Mr. Dicks. Healthcare.
Ms. Mueller. And healthcare. Exactly. So with that, thank
you.
Mr. Dicks. We are going to do our best. We will try to do
our best. It is hard to do.
Ms. Mueller. Thank you very much.
[Statement of Elizabeth Mueller follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Ervin Carlson, president, InterTribal Bison
Cooperative. Ervin, welcome, and we will put your statement in
the record, and you have five minutes to proceed as you wish.
---------- --
--------
Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
INTERTRIBAL BISON COOPERATIVE
WITNESS
ERVIN CARLSON
Mr. Carlson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. My name is Ervin Carlson. I am a member of the
Blackfeet Nation in Montana and the president of the
InterTribal Bison Cooperative, ITBC. Please accept my sincere
appreciation for this opportunity to testify before the
honorable members of the Appropriations Subcommittee on
Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies.
ITBC is a Native American nonprofit organization
headquartered in Rapid City, South Dakota, comprised of 57
federally recognized Indian tribes in 18 States. On behalf of
the member tribes of ITBC, I would like to address the
following issues: one, request an appropriation of $4 million
for the fiscal year 2009 from the Department of the Interior,
Bureau of Indian Affairs for operation of Indian programs; two,
explain to the committee the unmet needs of the members of the
ITBC; and three, update the committee on present initiatives of
ITBC.
And we also appreciate the fact that this subcommittee has
funded the ITBC for every year for many years. The American
buffalo, also known as bison, has always held great meaning for
American Indian people. The buffalo provided the tribes with
food, shelter, clothing and essential tools. Indian people
developed a strong spiritual and cultural relationship with the
buffalo that has not diminished with the passage of time. It is
this connection that caused multiple tribes to come together to
organize ITBC with the mission of preserving the sacred
relationship between Indian people and the buffalo through
restoring buffalo to tribal lands. Federal appropriations have
allowed ITBC to successfully restore buffalo to over 50
reservations. In ITBC's 17 years of existence, the population
of buffalo has grown from 1,500 to over 15,000 in Indian
Country.
With healthy, viable buffalo herds, opportunities now exist
for tribes to utilize buffalo for prevention and treatment of
the diet-related diseases that gravely impact Native American
populations such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease
and others. Viable buffalo herds also offer tribes the
opportunity to develop sustainable economical development
projects.
The InterTribal Bison Cooperative respectfully requests an
appropriation for fiscal year 2009 in the amount of $4 million.
The total unmet needs----
Mr. Dicks. Has that been an earmark or is that in the
budget? It has been an earmark? Who has put it in? Do you know?
Both sides have put it in. Okay.
Mr. Carlson. One research we have done on it too was to see
if it was an earmark, and we did not I guess consider it but--
--
Mr. Dicks. It should be in the budget. I do not understand.
It is such an important program.
We have a vote here. Mr. Moran is going to take over as
chairman until I get back. Mr. Tiahrt and I are going to go
vote. Just keep rolling. We will be right back.
Mr. Carlson. Okay. As I said, the InterTribal Bison
Cooperative respectfully requests an appropriation for fiscal
year 2009 in the amount of $4 million and the total unmet need
for our tribes' projects in 2009 is $12 million. In fiscal year
2006, ITBC was funded through appropriations at $4 million. The
President's budget in 2007 and 2008 eliminated funding for
ITBC. ITBC was funded $1 million by the BIA in 2007 and $1
million in 2008 through a Congressional appropriation. The cuts
came just as ITBC had started a successful marketing program
and health initiative that addressed diet-related health
problems that are epidemic on most of our reservations. The
cuts damage the economic stability of the ongoing tribal bison
programs.
The requested funding level will allow our member tribes to
continue their successful restoration efforts to restore our
marketing initiative and health initiative for the prevention
and treatment of diet-related diseases among Native American
populations while simultaneously building economic
sustainability for tribal projects. With restoration of funding
to the 2006 level, new member tribes will not receive adequate
funding to begin buffalo restoration efforts. Tribes that have
successfully restored buffalo to tribal lands will not receive
adequate technical assistance and resource development funds to
ensure the sustainability of our existing herds.
Furthermore, the investments made by Congress in 2006
towards ITBC's healthcare initiative has been cut to the point
of almost being nonexistent. As indicated above, this was
designed to utilize buffalo meat for prevention and treatment
of diet-related diseases among Native American populations.
ITBC is committed to providing buffalo meat to Indian
reservation families both as an economic development effort for
Native American producers and more critically as a healthy food
option, and I know that there have been many up here talking
about health, and this is also a prevention that can help in
those areas. Current research indicates that the diet of most
Indian reservation families includes large amounts of high-
cholesterol processed meats that contribute to diabetes,
obesity, cardiovascular disease and other diet-related
illnesses.
ITBC tribes were beginning to implement a preventive
healthcare initiative with the 2006 funding that provided easy
access to buffalo meat on Indian reservations and educated
Indian families on the health benefits of range-fed buffalo
meat. The decrease in funding has led to the elimination of the
program. ITBC and its member tribes have created a new
reservation industry, tribal buffalo production resulting in
new money for reservation economies. Because of the depressed
economies on the reservations, jobs are scarce and our buffalo
restoration efforts on the reservations have created hundreds
of direct and indirect jobs relating to buffalo management and
production. As a result, a significant amount of revenue
derived from buffalo products is beginning to circulate through
Indian reservations.
We ask that there be no report language this year as there
was last year restricting funds going to the ITBC organization
itself. We do allocate the lion's share of funds to our member
tribes but we also provide substantial services to our member
tribes from our staff and we need to be able to use some of the
funds for operation of our organization so that we can provide
these services.
I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to
present this testimony, and the members of the ITBC invite the
honorable members of the committee to visit our tribal buffalo
projects and experience firsthand our successes. ITBC and its
member tribes are appreciative of the past and current support
from Congress and the Administration.
[Statement of Ervin Carlson follows:]
Mr. Moran [presiding]. Thank you, President Carlson. This
is an important request, and we are talking about much
healthier meat than meat that comes from cows. Are you able to
export any of it?
Mr. Carlson. Not at this time. We have looked into that
though.
Mr. Moran. It seems to me that would be a source of
revenue. I do not know why there was the restriction on the
bison cooperative, and I will ask about that. I am not directly
involved but I do have an interest. We appreciate you giving
this very important testimony, and thank you for making the
trip here. We appreciate it, and I know those who are in the
InterTribal Cooperative are very appreciative, so thank you,
President Carlson.
Mr. Carlson. Thank you for your support in the past and for
continued support.
Mr. Moran. So your request is that there be no restrictive
report language in this year's bill?
Mr. Carlson. Yes.
Mr. Moran. I do not know why that restrictive language was
put in. I will ask for an explanation. We appreciate your
informing us of that. Thank you for coming to Washington. I
know it is expensive but it is important that you do that.
We will now hear from Assistant Chief Gary Batton from the
Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. We are going to hold up on Chairman
Peters until Chairman Dicks is able to join us.
----------
Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
CHOCTAW NATION OF OKLAHOMA
WITNESS
GARY BATTON
Mr. Batton. Mr. Vice Chairman and distinguished members of
the committee, I thank you for inviting the Choctaw Nation of
Oklahoma to speak before you this morning. I am representing
the Honorable Chief Gregory Pyle, and I come before you today
delivering a request of the 170,000-plus tribal members of the
Choctaw Nation for the fiscal year 2009 budgets on Bureau of
Indian Affairs and Indian Health Service and related agencies.
First of all, I would like to say that we support National
Indian Health Board and National Congress of American Indians
in restoring funding for the National Indian Urban Health
programs, and I will synopsize these and you do have a written
report because I know you will hear a theme as you go
throughout today but we do ask for $160 million increase for
100 percent full funding of IHS contract support costs
including direct service costs. I would like to request $486
million increase for IHS mandatory inflation and population
growth. You know what the rising costs of medical care that
even with the funding that we have been to--even if we get 3
percent, that still does not keep up with the current cost of
medical inflation and so we still have a decrease in regards to
trying to achieve the level of care for our tribal members. We
also ask for $152 million increase for Contract Health
Services, and one thing that is important I think to need to
know is that these dollars go directly into the private sector
for these tertiary care facilities that help keep their
communities alive. It helps keep their EMS services alive and
it is real important not only to Native Americans but to the
non-Indians as well. We request you restore $21 million for
healthcare facilities construction, maintain annual funding for
the special diabetes programs for Indians at $150 million until
new authority is enacted, and we have been able to do some
great things with those dollars and it is detrimental if we are
not able to keep that funding. We request a $5 million increase
in the Office of Tribal Self-Governance.
In the Bureau of Indian Affairs, we would like to request
$25 million increase for Tribal Priority Allocation and tribal
government. We ask that you restore HIP at $13.6 million and
Johnson-O'Malley at $21.4 million. In Oklahoma and of course
throughout the United States, the Johnson-O'Malley dollars go
to our public school systems a lot of times, and it helps
sustain those school systems, which is critical to their
sustainability. If they do not have it, they are not able to
provide the needed resources that they need to help keep the
educational needs for our tribal members as well. We support
increases to tribal education programs and tribal college
operations, a $50 million increase for 100 percent full funding
of direct and indirect contract support costs, annual increase
in tribal public safety and justice programs in tribal
communities, $500,000 for Office of Program of Data Quality and
support increase in the Office of Self-Governance for IT and
staffing.
One thing that the Choctaw Nation, we are requesting an
exemption from the moratorium on distribution of Indian Student
Equalization Formula. Currently the Choctaw Nation has paid and
completed construction of a new $10.2 million grade school,
grades one through six, and we are needing this exemption
desperately and it is vital to give the dollars that are needed
to achieve a successful education of our students.
Lastly, I would like to say that I am very proud to relate
a success story to you for our school, Jones Academy. In
January of this year, teachers at Jones Academy received
monetary awards from the State of Oklahoma for being recognized
as one of only three schools in the State to receive the number
one in academic performance index. And lastly, I would like to
say Chief Pyle and I want to thank you personally in this
committee for what you have done to fight and sustain the much-
needed level of funding in Indian Country. Thank you.
[Statement of Gary Batton follows:]
Mr. Moran. I know the Chairman particularly appreciates
that, and we appreciate your testimony. Thank you very much. It
was good and succinct and to the point.
We are going to skip over Mr. Gipp because Congressman
Pomeroy wants to introduce President Gipp so we are now going
to hear from Eugene Guerito and Faye BlueEyes, school board
president and director of finance, respectively.
----------
Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
DZILTH-NA-O-DITH-HLE COMMUNITY GRANT SCHOOL
WITNESSES
EUGENE GUERITO
FAYE BLUEEYES
Mr. Guerito. Good morning, Presiding Chair, and the
honorable members of the committee. My name is Eugene Guerito
and I am the president of the school board which operates the
Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community Grant School on the Navajo
Reservation in Bloomfield, New Mexico. With me is Faye
BlueEyes, our school finance director.
And to get right to the point, the Administration's budget
request for our school operation betrays us and our children.
The question is, how can the Federal government demand that our
student makes an adequate yearly progress report under the No
Child Left Behind mandates but yet withholds the financial
resources that we need to meet these goals. The United States
Government has made a commitment to support the tribal control
of education through the Indian Self-Determination Act and the
Tribally Controlled Schools Act but the BIA consistently
violates this commitment by poorly funding the administrative
costs which we incur when we take over direct program
operations under the federal Indian self-determination policy.
I urge you to meet the government's obligation to the Indian
children and the school system that it created for them. So at
this time, Ms. BlueEyes will describe the parts of the budget
most in need of your attention.
Mr. Moran. Thank you, Ms. BlueEyes. Actually can I just say
that a couple times?
Ms. BlueEyes. Sure.
Mr. Moran. Faye BlueEyes. What a wonderful name.
Ms. BlueEyes. Thank you. I do not have blue eyes though.
Mr. Moran. I know. I was looking. I did not want to gawk
but I was trying to see. They are not blue, but whatever.
Ms. BlueEyes. Administrative cost grants--BIE seeks no
additional administrative cost grants. These grants are
supposed to help cover the administrative costs incurred in
tribal-operated schools. Five more schools will be converting
to grant schools. This means that instead of the 125 schools
now in the system, 130 will be covered by the same amount of
money. In the current school year, we only receive 65.7 percent
of the funding required. With five more schools, this is going
to be even lower, probably below 60 percent.
Our administrative costs continue to increase in critical
management areas such as finance, property, personnel,
insurance, auditing and legal. Right now we can only afford two
people in the business office. This jeopardizes our internal
control systems yet BIE asks us for $1.5 million to cover their
administrative cost needs for severance pay for the employees
being terminated at the five schools. It is so discouraging
that the agency responsible for educating Indian children
thinks only about its own needs, not the needs of the schools.
Full funding for AC grants would require at least $66 million.
If this is impossible to achieve in this budget, please supply
at least $53 million, which will get us to 80 percent level.
Student transportation--we thank Congress for supplying
more funds for student transportation last year. We really
needed this extra funding, so please do not agree to cut $1
million this year as the BIA requests. In our area of New
Mexico, we pay over $4 per gallon for diesel fuel. Last year a
bus fill-up used to cost $115. Now it is going to run over
$200. Please increase student transportation to a level that
produces $3.15 per mile so we can cover our ever-increasing
costs to get children to and from school.
Indian School Equalization Formula--the ISEF must supply
funding for teacher salaries, all other parts of our education
program and dormitory personnel but BIA's request of $364
million is only 5.3 percent higher than what we got six years
ago. We are totally committed to the goals of the No Child Left
Behind Act. We want to see all students perform at the
proficient level, but in our school system, this is merely a
dream, not the reality. Students in the BIA school system
produce some of the lowest achievement scores in the Nation. We
face many roadblocks in our efforts to improve student
achievement. I will give you just one example. Low ISEF funding
puts us at the bottom of teacher pay scales, which means we
cannot effectively compete for qualified teachers and certainly
cannot compete with BIE-operated schools, which have to pay at
federal wage levels. We not only need better ISEF funding now,
we need a commitment to recurring appropriate levels of support
year after year. That is the only way we can plan for and then
implement innovative programs to improve student achievement.
We ask you to increase ISEF funding by at least 5 percent to
$383 million.
Facilities operation--we could devote our entire testimony
to facility issues. I will be brief, however, and just tell you
that our facilities operation budget is constrained to 51.87
percent. This means we get only slightly more than one-half of
what our facilities require. Most of these funds must be used
to pay utility costs.
In conclusion, as long as poor budgets for the BIE school
system persist, the objective of NCLBA remains only a dream and
a broken promise. We hope you will produce a better school
operations budget than the one proposed by the BIA. Thank you
for helping Indian children.
[Joint Statement of Eugene Guerito and Faye BlueEyes
follows:]
Mr. Moran. Thank you, Ms. Faye BlueEyes. You are absolutely
right. There are far, far, too many Native American children
being left behind in our educational system, so thank you for
making that point. We appreciate the testimony from both of
you. Thank you very much.
Now, we have been joined by a good friend and a very, very
important Member of Congress. This guy is actually the co-chair
of the whole Democratic budget group. He is on the House Ways
and Means Committee. This guy President Gipp must be a pretty
important guy because to get Pomeroy here, holy smokes. So you
can come over and sit in the Chairman's chair if you want or
sit right there.
Mr. Pomeroy. I would rather sit here by my president, Mr.
Chairman, because I really want to look at you as I tell you
about the remarkable leader I am introducing and the
circumstances that he carries to the table this morning. David
Gipp is the president of the United Tribes Technical College.
The college was founded 39 years ago. How long have you been
president?
Mr. Gipp. Thirty-one, going on 31.
Mr. Pomeroy. Thirty-one of those years, a student body of
around 1,000, a retention rate of 81 percent, a placement rate
of 94 percent. They have one-year certificate programs. They
have four-year degree programs. President Gipp has built this
into one of the premier community colleges, tribally
affiliated, in the country. It is unique along with one other
institution in New Mexico in that it is multi-tribe. In fact,
29 tribes are represented in the student body from around the
country. Now, this places it in a different part of the code
than the other tribal colleges and that has been the source of
why this Administration has tried to zero it out, close the
doors on this remarkable facility. This facility had the
support of the Reagan Administration and obviously the Democrat
administrations. It had the support of the George Bush I
Administration. Only this Administration, the Administration of
George W. Bush, has sought to come after United Tribes, never
an explanation of why they wanted to shutter the doors of this
institution. Time and time again, thanks to the great work on
this committee, that recommendation has been turned back.
Funding has at great difficulty been restored. The institution
continues and these young people are getting the career skills
that they will carry with them the rest of their lives.
For the seventh consecutive year, the Administration not
only zeroes out the funding within this committee's
jurisdiction, to make matters worse, for the first time they
zeroed out the Tribally Controlled Post Secondary Career and
Technical Institutions program, a competitive grant program
through the Perkins Act. This is a different committee, but
this impacts--they would lose $4 million here. That would be
fatal. This corollary attack they have now launched this year
on United Tribes would take an additional $8 million. Rather
than understand that bipartisan majorities in Congress will not
see the shuttering of this valuable institution for our young
people, they have not tried to make it impossibly difficult to
keep this college open.
In the face of this, President Gipp has had a mighty
burden, but as is his way, he always puts it forward, and I
cite to you this report of a talk that he gave to his staff,
the staff that do not know whether they will ever have a job on
the first day of the new fiscal year for the last seven years.
Maintaining a workforce like that is challenging, but as
reported in David's report to his staff, ``UTTC future not in
doubt. Budget just needs some work.'' Well, it sure does need
work. This is a guy that finds the glass half full when there
is no water in the glass at all. I really do look to you, Mr.
Chairman, for help, and I know Tom Udall, who represents the
institution in New Mexico that is similarly situated, there is
no higher priority I have in terms of appropriations affecting
my State for the entire year than getting this funding
restored. I am dismayed and very angry that they have made it
an even heavier lift than it has been in the past. With
leadership like you have provided, Mr. Chairman, I know we can
get it done.
With that, I would yield to Dr. Gipp, truly one of the most
outstanding educators I have ever met.
Mr. Moran. Well, thank you very much, Earl. I know Chairman
Dicks is receptive to the request, and Mr. Udall has his top
staff person here monitoring this and is going to report back.
But as you so well do, carrying the load in the Congress for
the entire State of North Dakota, this is your principal
priority. I know that makes a lot of difference to the
committee in terms of what its priorities should be. I trust
that the next addition of that newsletter is going to reflect
how Congressman Pomeroy went out of his way to help lift that
burden. Particularly if George the Wise Bush had included it is
hard to believe why the son would have taken it out.
Congressman Dicks ran over from the floor to make sure he would
get here in time too to hear your testimony, President Gipp.
Mr. Pomeroy. Mr. Chairman, just to introduce President
Gipp, I just want to thank you for the attention and the work
we have done over the years on this issue, United Tribes
Technical College.
Mr. Dicks. You may proceed for five minutes.
----------
Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
UNITED TRIBES TECHNICAL COLLEGE
WITNESS
DAVID M. GIPP
Mr. Gipp. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to also
acknowledge Congressman Pomeroy for his excellent summary, and
frankly, I think he gave quite a bit of the justification for
why United Tribes ought to continue receiving funding for close
to 1,200 adult students and about 500 children that we serve on
our campus because we do have three early childhood centers and
a K-8 elementary school on our campus as well. So we have been
in a growth mode and that represents what is happening
throughout Indian Country. Better than 51 percent of the
majority of our tribal nations are under the age of 25 now and
that means we have a growing population and that one of the
reasons why United Tribes is a growing institution along with
the rest of the tribal colleges and universities throughout
America.
Our request, as Congressman Pomeroy has pointed out, would
be to ask that certainly the funds are restored but that we are
funded at about a $4.5 million level of operation for the
institution for the next fiscal year as well as requesting that
the committee take a harder look at the adult vocational
training programs under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, because
if you look at their total request, no matter how you add it
up, it is about $10 million for the coming year for the current
year and the coming request. That is down by about $50 million
from 1970. In fiscal year 1970, it was $60 million was the
actual appropriation, and not counting the change in dollars
and the inflationary factors. So we see that this overall
effort has been a de-emphasis on adult vocational technical
training, and this is where United Tribes and Navajo Technical
College are very instrumental in trying to address that major
issue for Indian Country.
So having said that, Mr. Chairman, I am going to rely on
the remarks that our Congressmen and the committee are
examining in terms of our details. We can certainly provide you
a lot of other data and information as to the excellence that
we provide in terms of the results for our students.
[Statement of David Gipp follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Somehow we have to get this in the President's
budget. This has got to be there. I mean, in the next
Administration, we have to work on that. Thank you very much.
We appreciate you being here.
Mr. Moran. Mr. Chairman, could I just ask a question?
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Moran. Do you draw people from all over the country?
Mr. Moran. Indian students who are financially needy?
Mr. Gipp. Yes, we certainly do. It will range from this
past year, 55 different tribes, to upwards of 70 different
tribes that are represented in our student body.
Mr. Moran. Thank you. Without any tax base to draw from.
Mr. Gipp. That is correct.
Mr. Moran. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. All right. Now we are going to go back to Jim
Peters, chairman of the Squaxin Island Tribe. Jim.
Mr. Peters. Good morning.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you, Jim. We are glad to see you here, and
we will put your entire statement in the record and you can
summarize in five minutes.
----------
Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
SQUAXIN ISLAND TRIBE
WITNESS
JIM PETERS
Mr. Peters. I am Jim Peters, Squaxin Island tribal chair.
We are located in Shelton, Washington. We are known as the
gateway to the Olympic Peninsula and the headwaters of Puget
Sound. One of the things I wanted to just touch base a little
bit on is, I am not going to go through all the numbers because
you guys have all heard those from the Puget Sound tribes and
our Washington State tribes but some of the key words are fully
funded in numerous programs that we are requesting those funds,
the increase of programs because of the inflation. It is not
necessarily an increase of the programs themselves but it is
actually trying to maintain those programs at what they were
supposed to be met throughout the years. So the increase is
actually going to stabilize those programs and we will be able
to fund the same amount of people with the extra monies that
are coming in. Also, fully fund the direct and indirect costs
of those programs also because it is costing more. Restore is
another key word in our housing improvement programs. Johnson-
O'Malley has been a very vital program for Indian Country for
many, many years to take care of our kids and things.
One of the things that we are emphasizing more is on Indian
health and public safety this year. There are a lot of
priorities within our tribes and our Squaxin Island tribal
leadership wanted to focus on the most important that impacts
our future generations and our elders. Healthcare impacts our
kids a lot more along with our elders. We are in a situation
where we have a doctor that comes in one day a week at our
clinic. A lot of our tribal members are tree harvesters that do
not have insurance. We are trying our best to employ as many
tribal members as possible and get them underneath a benefit
program for, to be able to take care of their health needs.
But a lot of our tribal members are still the traditional
fishers and shell fishers that we have, and they are going to
continue to do that for many years, but, and part of the
problem that we have with this is that they are in the
situation of just the basic maintenance medical needs here. We
are at, as you heard from other tribal chairs, we are at a
situation where it is life threatening, our limbs have to be
done, but unfortunately, when we do not have the maintenance
money, medical maintenance money to keep these people from
getting to that condition, then it is going to cost us a lot
more in these programs to take care of them.
And so it is more preventative methods that we need to deal
with here versus hopefully keeping them from getting these, the
diseases and the death and some of these situations that we
have.
On the public health and safety, Squaxin Island Tribe has a
need to hire six additional law enforcement people, and not
only, we do not cover 24-hour coverage as it is right now, and
with uprising drug and crime rate on the reservation. We are
fortunate, however, that we are co-commissioned with our county
commissioners, and we are able to arrest non-tribal members
that are on the reservation with the cooperation with the Mason
County.
But we also have the situation of our water ways that we
have responsibilities and with the states cutting their budget
every single year on their enforcement, it is the tribes
stepping up and carrying on the responsibility in covering all
of the waters that both the tribe and the state fishes.
So just to wrap this up, we want to also encourage your
support on the Northwest or Northwest Portland Area Indian
Health Board, the Affiliated Tribes in Northwest Indians and
the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
We also want to make sure that we get those shell fish
settlement dollars in there. That is very important. Squaxin
Island Tribe is the, one of the largest shell fish areas or
tribes in the Washington State.
So my time is up, and I want to thank you again, especially
you, Chairman Dicks, for all the help that you have and done
for the tribes and especially ours since we are in your
district.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. Peters. So thank you very much.
[Statement of Jim Peters follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, and the Shellfish Settlement was a big
deal.
Mr. Peters. Yeah.
Mr. Dicks. So----
Mr. Tiahrt. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Tiahrt.
Mr. Tiahrt. Chairman Peters here brought up about
preventative measures for a lot of the troubles that the Indian
youth are facing, and when we have the Indian Health Service
come in, I think we heard last year that there was some
programs that were working well. And maybe we ought to talk to
them about taking those success stories and having Indian
Health distribute it in all the tribes they serve, because I
think it is a very important issue that you bring up, and these
are problems that we see tribe after tribe facing. And a lot of
our American youth are facing the same challenge. And if we can
find a way to prevent that, we will save ourselves a lot of
dollars and a lot of heartaches for our families.
Mr. Dicks. Well, another one you mentioned here--go ahead.
Go ahead.
Mr. Peters. Oh, part of that was, yeah. There are some
great programs out there. It is just the amount of money that
we have. We actually, we have a summer youth program that we
invite not just the tribal members to come in, and it is free
of charge, and they come through and do a lot of that type of
stuff, and we are able to expose those type of programs to even
not just our tribal members but the surrounding community kids
that are coming into our area.
Mr. Dicks. Another one you mention here is special diabetes
program for Indians. Maintain the funding at 150 million. That
expires in 2009, so we are all going to have to talk to Mr.
Rahall, I believe, Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee,
to make sure this thing gets reauthorized. That is, I would
think, a very important program.
I am glad you mentioned it.
Mr. Peters. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
I want to go to Fawn Sharp now from the Quinaults.
It might be Ways and Means? Or whoever it is. Rahall or----
Fawn, good to see you, and we are glad to have you here,
and we will put your entire statement in the record. And you
have 5 minutes to summarize.
----------
Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
QUINAULT INDIAN NATION
WITNESS
FAWN SHARP
Ms. Sharp. Great. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and
members of the Subcommittee. This is my third year to appear
before this assembly, and I truly appreciate the invitation to
provide oral testimony on behalf of the Quinault Nation. Thank
you.
To provide a meaningful context to our request, I would
like to just briefly draw your attention to the many issues
that we have heard this morning and emphasize those regional
and national initiatives that are set forth on page 1. To
provide further context to our Quinault-specific issues, I
would like to briefly share some facts with you.
The Quinault Reservation is located on the Olympic
Peninsula with 23 miles of unspoiled Pacific coastline. Our
land base exceeds 208,000 acres. Presently our enrollment
stands at 2,782 members. We are the second largest employer in
Grays Harbor County with over 700 employees. I will now turn to
our specific requests.
First, we request $2.2 million to provide emergency repair
and maintenance to what we call the McBride Road. The road is
an escapement route available to 1,000 residents living in the
village of Taholah, and it is the only escapement route.
Taholah is a coastal community that is located barely above
sea level and is directly in the tsunami danger zone near the
Cascadia Fault line. What is particularly important to
understand is that portions of this road are susceptible to
mudslides. This past year we experienced two such slides. The
most recent occurrence occurred during the December 1 storm
that devastated entire communities in western Washington. The
mudslide blocked access for 3 days. Medical needs became an
issue, while those in need of kidney dialysis were particularly
affected.
Our second request is an issue that is very near and dear
to my heart. The Quinault River Blueback Restoration
Initiative. Our request is for $762,000. This unique and
valuable stock of sockeye salmon is near collapse. Historically
and up until 1950, our prize blueback filled the Quinault River
at a level that exceeded a million sockeye annually. This past
year we counted just over 4,000 blueback.
The degradation of our blueback can be traced to the turn
of the century when our community witnessed widespread and
senseless logging in the upper Quinault Flood Plain, where
large conifer trees once provided stability to the natural flow
of the system, the decimated basin now flows wildly with a
great deal of unpredictability, leaving a wake of destruction
to natural habitat and now private residences.
Further exacerbating----
Mr. Dicks. Who logged that? Who did the logging?
Ms. Sharp. Landowners, private landowners.
Mr. Dicks. Private landowners. Okay.
Ms. Sharp. Further exacerbating----
Mr. Dicks. So what you are saying is the D&R let us down
because they have a permitting process, they should not have
let them log that close to the river?
Ms. Sharp. Absolutely.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. I floated that river many times, and it is
one of the most beautiful in our State.
Ms. Sharp. Further exacerbating the problem is the
emergency riprapping of riverbanks, which has been factually
and scientifically proven to accelerate the river flow to such
a degree that nearly 3 miles of blueback spawning habitat is
now destroyed.
We have also raised objections over the practice of
constructing cable bog jams parallel to the riverbanks. Just as
we predicted 2 years ago, that practice has led to entire banks
giving way and private residences nearly falling into the
river.
Although it seems bleak, we have an abiding faith that all
is not lost, and there is still hope. Our initiative sets for a
seven-generation, 100-year plan to restore the blueback
population to its historic levels. It is also designed to hold
the current habitat loss and to repair the natural ecosystems
in the Quinault Valley. We have forged public and private
coalitions and partnerships, and we are excited to begin
restoration activities.
Our third and final request is for $529,000 for our Meth-
Amphetamine Prescription Drug Initiative. Some further facts
are worth noting. Eighty percent of students miss alcohol, or
excuse me. Miss school because of alcohol or drug abuse within
the home. Two of every five children experiment with drugs or
alcohol by the age of ten. The youngest, self-admitted user of
meth on our reservation was 14. Over the last 2 years we have
developed a comprehensive meth prescription drug strategy that
sets forth a 5-year plan and includes 227 activities largely
weighted on prevention and educational efforts.
I am proud to say that this is a community-driven
initiative, wherein we have directly engaged our membership in
not only identifying the issues, but more importantly in
developing meaningful plans and crafting long-term solutions.
In closing, I thank you for the opportunity to present our
national priorities and requests. We truly appreciate the
difficult position you are in when evaluating competing
interests. We also recognize that you work very hard to meet
the needs of every community, and we trust that during your
deliberations you will do right by Indian Country and give the
right level of deference to our needs.
Thank you for this opportunity.
[Statement of Fawn Sharp follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, we appreciate your testimony, and we will
do everything we can to help, and you know, again, it is the
bad budget we have received that makes it very difficult to
take care of all the problems.
Ms. Sharp. Yes. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Rodger Martinez, accompanied by Nancy R. Martine Alonzo,
President, Board of Trustees, Assistant Secretary of Education
for Indian Affairs, Ramah Navajo School Board, Inc. Welcome.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
RAMAH NAVAJO SCHOOL BOARD, INC.
WITNESSES
RODGER MARTINEZ
NANCY R. MARTINE ALONZO
Mr. Martinez. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. My name is Rodger Martinez. I am the present
Board of Trustees for the Ramah Navajo School Board that
governs the K through 12, Pinehill School, Bureau-funded school
on the Ramah Navajo Reservation in Pinehill, New Mexico. With
me is Vice-President Nancy R. Alonzo. We are extremely grateful
for coming to, before you and for the funding that we have
received for the last 37 years and which impacts over 400 plus
members of the Ramah band of Navajo Indians.
And today we have two parts of the testimony that we would
like to provide for you; the need to attempt $6 million for, in
2009, BIA budget for a new multi-educational school building,
and the second is the adequate funding for Bureau schools on
fiscal year 2009 budget.
The amount of school building that we are requesting is K
through 12 Pinehill School, Ramah Navajo Reservation only,
Pinehill, New Mexico, to request $10.6 million, and it is, we
have operated the Ramah Navajo School for over 35 years, and
the buildings are pretty much old at this point. We are in the
permiss of submitting a replacement, but it is a replacement,
and our list is only going to be another list to the Bureau
Program, which is already broken.
And the BIA-funded school, we have over 470 full-time
students, 200 of them go to the public school, and we have over
700 community children that we serve here. And the buildings
are getting old. They are more than 35 years, and they are
constantly in needs of repair. And the multi programs that we
have now has out, the space is not adequate enough to meet
those, the special education federal programs battling of
education, gift talents, and other programs as computer
technology has set in within the last several years.
And the enrollment criteria for this has increased also the
last few years, and we need to expand a little bit more on
that. And then the crime and vandalism with the school system
has added to this problem. Part of this request will be for
that.
And at the end I would just like to go ahead and give this
time to Nancy Alonzo to elaborate.
[Statement of Rodger Martinez follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Fine. Thank you.
Ms. Alonzo. Good morning, Chair and members of the
Committee. I want to address the second part of our request,
which has to do with the President's proposed 2009, budget for
Indian programs, and the first on that list is the ICEP Formula
Funds, which is the only source of funds for the instructional
and residential programs at our school, and we have both
categories.
And the greatest challenge that we face in making AYP is
having to share that instructional budget to offset costs for
transportation and facilities. And so we urge that you will
consider increasing the Formula Funds in that category.
The second is the Administrative Cost Grants. As we have
operated for our programs, we have a whole host of number of
programs that we require administrative cost support, and the
budget that is being proposed is about $20 million short of
that. And we would request that that be funded at 100-percent
level.
And the third item is the student transportation. Over 90
percent of our students travel over 450 miles every day over
gravel and dirt, unimproved roads, and with the cost of fuel
and maintenance, this really puts a strain on our instructional
budget because we have to offset those costs.
And then the next item that I want to speak to is the
specific impact of the Welfare Assistance and Reduction Funds.
This covers basic needs of children, the elderly, the adult
heads of household, and they will not be all served if we have
a reduction in this category.
We also use these funds for adult care, burial assistance,
child assistance, foster care, protective services, emergency
assistance, and just general assistance. This year our
community has experienced a high rate of mortality. We have
over 15 deaths, which is the highest for a small community such
as ours, and when we have these disruptions in our family
units, we have to rely on these sources of funds to help our
families to move on with their lives.
And last but not least we want to also make comments about
the Indian Health Service Reauthorization. We thank the
Congress for passing Senate Bill 1200, but we also want to go
on record to request that the Administration's proposed cuts
for the IHS budget be fully restored. Pinehill Schools and the
Ramah community operates a clinic there, and this greatly
impacts our 4,000 population. We also provide services to an
additional 2,000 non-Indian population that resides within our
reservation because we are in a remote area. So this is very
critical to our area, to our region.
And this concludes our testimony, and we stand for
questions, and thank you very much for all of your support.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. We will do our very best. Of course, you
know Tom Udall is a member of this Subcommittee and a very
valued member of our Committee. So make sure he knows about
your issues, too.
Ms. Alonzo. Yes. We have.
Mr. Dicks. Good.
Ms. Alonzo. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Ms. Alonzo. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Lloyd Tortalita, Education Director, Pueblo of
Acoma.
Mr. Tortalita. Acoma.
Mr. Dicks. Acoma. Thank you. Indian House Service Funding.
Welcome.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
PUEBLO OF ACOMA
WITNESS
LLOYD TORTALITA
Mr. Tortalita. My name is Lloyd Tortalita, regions for
Pueblo of Acoma, and you have my testimony. I am here on behalf
of Governor Chandler Sanchez, who is our governor, but I am one
of the tribal elders, and but best of all I am a grandfather.
Mr. Dicks. Wonderful.
Mr. Tortalita. And I think that is a title that we need to
abide by and with, and I am here to testify and give
presentation on behalf of my young people of Acoma, which are
my grandchildren on all aspects of what our needs are.
And I have been before this Committee four times as
governor, as lieutenant governor, and first time I came before
this Committee was when Congressman Yates was----
Mr. Dicks. Yes. Chairman.
Mr. Tortalita [continuing]. Sitting there.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Tortalita. And one of the things he told me was,
Governor, give me your testimony, I will read it, tell me what
you need, and that is what I am here for, to talk to you----
Mr. Dicks. Okay. Good.
Mr. Tortalita [continuing]. And let you know.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. Tortalita. You know, we have a lot of problems with the
BIA with the President's budget right now, and a lot of cuts
are happening. And it is so amazing, it is mind-boggling, you
know, roads, Indian house service, house services, Medicare,
social service, Johnson-O'Malley, and those are all old
programs that grandma and grandpa talked about when I was
growing up, about the responsibility of the Federal Government
to the Indian tribes.
But they keep cutting. And BIA is supposed to be providing
the technical assistance, technical training for people in the
Indian country, but it is not happening. Johnson-O'Malley is
for one. You know, I mean, for the last 4 or 5 years President
has gotten wrong information and Johnson-O'Malley goes back to
1934. And there was another law that was passed, public law
9561, Johnson-O'Malley, parent vested, where the parents are
the ones that conduct Johnson-O'Malley programs. Ninety-five,
five, six, one, which gives the local authority to the
educational agencies. Are those happening? No.
Same way with Indian roads. I mean, BIA constantly wants to
be the ones doing the roads. I can give you an example, Opollo
Vacama, a 5-mile stretch, a 5-mile stretch, which was done 3
years ago because regulation tells us you have to go to the
lowest bidder. We did not get the Cadillac on the roads. I
mean, some of our back roads, back countries, we can at least
take our grader and grade those, but the paved roads, looks
like it has been there for hundreds of years. That is no good.
Mr. Dicks. And it is only 3 years old?
Mr. Tortalita. It is only 3 years old. It is falling apart.
And you know what happened? Pueblo of Acoma sued the contractor
in order to get the--and BIA had to come in and pay for it. So
that is money that is lost again.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. Tortalita. And then the same way with Johnson----
Mr. Dicks. Instead of doing it right in the first place.
Mr. Tortalita. Right. Johnson-O'Malley.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. We restored that last year.
Mr. Tortalita. I know. One of the things----
Mr. Dicks. In the Housing Improvement Program.
Mr. Tortalita [continuing]. That Congress is asking us,
where are the reports, what are you doing with Johnson-
O'Malley? You know, in 1995, they said, we do not want to take
Johnson-O'Malley, and a person who was in that office said, I
do not want to deal with JOM. JOM is the lowest priority. Well,
you know, there is a lot of discrimination going on within the
Bureau. I mean, they are working with BIA to operate schools.
That is only 3 percent of, in New Mexico, versus 90 percent,
and they keep telling us, it is not a priority. We are only
going to address BIA-operated schools. What about the mission
statement of the Bureau? The Bureau of Indian Education. What
are they doing?
You know, I mean, they are discriminating against us, and
you know, segregating us. Well, this is our Bureau-operated
school. We are going to tend to them. You guys are public
schools. You are on your own. That is segregation. I thought
that was----
Mr. Dicks. Is that under self-determination?
Mr. Tortalita. Yes, it is.
Mr. Dicks. Is that because it is self-determination?
Mr. Tortalita. Yes, it is, but there is still----
Mr. Dicks. You took on the responsibility and then they do
not help you any further?
Mr. Tortalita. They do not help us. And one of the things I
asked because it took a lawsuit to stop the reorganization of
the Bureau of Indian Affairs to go into the Bureau of Indian
Education. It took a lawsuit, all in the Public Council and the
Chairman of the Public Council Education Committee, and we had
to sue the Bureau to stop the reorganization because our
reports are not coming from down here at the lowest level.
And all I asked BIA and BIE to do is take them up that
letter so they can come before you, before Congress, who has
the dollars, and read my statements.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Mr. Tortalita. That is all I ask for.
Mr. Dicks. We will do our best. We will do our best but----
Mr. Tortalita. One other thing before----
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Tortalita. Health.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. Indian Health Service.
Mr. Tortalita. It is in there. ACL. I mean, it does not
make any sense closing hospitals. Little hospitals, little
budgets. I mean, we are spending $20 billion a day on the war,
and we----
Mr. Dicks. Not a day but----
Mr. Tortalita. Talk about--oh, well, I mean, that is----
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. That would be in a month. That is
still a lot of money.
Mr. Tortalita. That is what I read in the newspapers.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Tortalita. You know, I mean, we are talking about
Social Security. You and me Social Security and my grandchild's
education. We are talking about that, and Congressmen, help us.
Help us.
Mr. Dicks. We will do our best.
Mr. Tortalita. I will be addressing the next Senator from
New Mexico----
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Tortalita [continuing]. What he is doing here, so----
Mr. Dicks. Yes. We----
Mr. Tortalita. And you are going to be sad to lose him, but
he is going to be----
Mr. Dicks. It will be a loss to our Subcommittee.
Mr. Tortalita. So I bring you that. Read my testimony. I
ask----
Mr. Dicks. We will do it.
Mr. Tortalita. Because that is what Congressman Yates used
to do. Thank you very much.
[Statement of Governor Chandler Sanchez follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you. Thank you very much. He was a great
man.
Joe Herman, Chief of Police, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Department
of Public Safety. Welcome.
Mr. Duke. Good morning. I am Ron Duke. I am here on behalf
of the Oglala Sioux Tribe at the request of President Steele to
give testimony on law enforcement.
Mr. Dicks. Okay. Good.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
OGLALA SIOUX TRIBE--DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY
WITNESS
RONALD DUKE
Mr. Duke. I am a Travel Councilman. I am also a Vice-Chair
on the Tribal Council Judiciary Committee, and Informant Chief
of Police.
We are faced with losing officers within our program. We
have got a reservation the size of Rhode Island, 3.2 million
acres, 50 miles by 100 miles long, and a population of 50,000
people that we have to service. We currently have 51 officers
on our reservation. We went from, 10 years ago from 119
officers down to 61 and currently have 51, in the process of
maybe losing another 21 officers within our tribal program, law
enforcement program.
That will leave us with 30 officers. We were looking at the
possibility of getting some funding from the BIA increase that
they got, but if we are, we have not heard whether or not that
is going to happen. We are in the process of losing these 21
officers in September, and we are going to be stressed with the
lack of police officers within our reservation.
We are here to ask you for some help, and looking at the
numbers that we have given in our testimony, we have a 50
percent drop rate, 60 percent average drop rate, and a $7,000 a
year per capita per household. You know, we live in one of the
poorest, one of three of the poorest colonies in the United
States.
So we cannot afford to give any money from within our
programs to help with law enforcement. That is why I am here
today. We are a non-public law 280 state, which means we do not
have any state jurisdiction, law enforcement, coming onto our
reservation. We have all our own law enforcement through our
treaty obligations.
One of the issues started back in the late '90s when DOJ
started funding law enforcement. BIA had us go over to DOJ and
start funding law enforcement. Probably half of our law
enforcement comes from the DOJ grants, and we have come to that
limit where we are no longer eligible for these grants. We, our
funding, that funds our law enforcement vehicles. Our vehicles
are funded probably 100 percent through these DOJ grants, and
our vehicles are anywhere from 50 to 100,000 miles on them, and
in the process we are going to need to build our law
enforcement police vehicles.
Again, I mentioned a 2008 increase in funding for BIA law
enforcement. We are hoping to get some funding from that
program to at least help maintain our 20, them 21 officers we
are going to be losing.
Mr. Dicks. You know, and that is a big cut all the way
from, what was it, 119?
Mr. Duke. Nineteen.
Mr. Dicks. In the '90s.
Mr. Duke. Yeah. It is a big decrease in law enforcement,
and we are servicing 50,000 people. That is spread out through
that whole 3.2 million acres of land. It is not like a city
where everybody is clumped in one spot.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Duke. You know, we are spread out throughout the
reservation. And, again, I would like to thank you, Chairman
Dicks, for coming to South Dakota, and I invite you to come to
the Pine Ridge Reservation to see----
Mr. Dicks. See the problems.
Mr. Duke [continuing]. The problems we are faced with down
there.
Mr. Dicks. Well, we tried to do an initiative on meth last
year. I know meth is, is not meth a problem for you as well?
Mr. Duke. Yes. It is becoming a big issue.
Mr. Dicks. Big issue.
Mr. Duke. Big issue. Yes. On our reservation.
[Statement of Ronald Duke follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Do you want to make a comment?
Ms. Marks. Just two----
Mr. Dicks. Why don't you give her the mike?
Ms. Marks. I am Patty Marks. I would just like to make two
comments for the record.
One is that with a lot of the tribes, especially the Dakota
tribes, you have, because of the Cops Program, dual funding
that existed for a period of about 8 years. You had Pine Ridge,
30 of the officers are BIA, 21 have been DOJ. When that funding
ran out, we have been fighting for earmarks ever since. It is
something that needs to be addressed for a handful of tribes.
The other point I would like to make is that while the
Administration claims to be increasing law enforcement, and it,
in fact, is in the Bureau, if you take away the $15 million in
the DOJ Indian Law Enforcement Funding, this is the single
biggest cut Indian law enforcement has faced in a long time.
You have to look at it in a comprehensive way.
And thank you so much, Mr. Dicks. If we have a fight, you
are the man I want in the corner.
Mr. Dicks. Well, we will do our best. Thank you.
Ms. Marks. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. I appreciate that.
Mr. Duke. Thank you for your help.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. And Stephanie is a big ally of ours, too.
Ms. Marks. Stephanie is God's gift.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. She really is.
Micah McCarty, Chairman of the Makah Tribe Council, Neah
Bay, Washington.
Mr. McCarty. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to
introduce a colleague of mine, just recently back in council,
Nathan Tyler.
Mr. Dicks. Welcome.
Mr. Tyler. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. Appreciate it.
Mr. Dicks. Is that a little cedar from up there at----
Mr. Tyler. Yes, it is.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. Neah Bay?
Mr. Tyler. Yes, it is.
Mr. Dicks. Good.
Mr. McCarty. And good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. We will put your statement in the record, and
you have 5 minutes to proceed.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
MAKAH TRIBAL COUNCIL (NEAH BAY, WASHINGTON)
WITNESS
MICAH McCARTY
Mr. McCarty. Thank you. First I would like to thank you
publicly for all the many services, not only for the A Tribes
in the Olympic Peninsula but for all 552 tribes that you help
through the Subcommittee and with the assistance and work of
your distinguished colleagues and staff.
Today I will be presenting the top three priorities of the
Makah Tribal Council for the community of Neah Bay for the
fiscal year of 2009.
Priority one is contract support costs for the
administration of our Indian health services.
Priority two is Peninsula Nano-systems and Cape Classit
Nano-Technology Center.
And priority three is the completion of the scenic byway
that comes out to Neah Bay and the replacement of the Sala
River Bridge.
The first priority as you know, Mr. Chairman, we have been
working with this Compact Agreement, and our annual average
direct health services budget is about $3.3 million. We are
currently receiving just over 10 percent of the amount, of that
amount, about $330,000 for contract support costs. We
understand that we are eligible to receive as much as $1.6
million for contract support costs, so the disparity there is
quite apparent.
Of the 336 self-governed tribes funded by IHS, Makah Tribe
is the lowest CSC-funded tribe in the United States. The
average self-governed tribe receives approximately 77 percent
for contract support costs.
We look forward to working with you to help fix this
situation. We recall looking into the feasibility study, and we
provided a public meeting for our people, and one of the tools
that we used in promoting this opportunity to come out priority
one, we used a video that former head of IHS, Charles Grim, and
the title of that video was, Self-Governance Works. I might add
that self-governance does not work without contract support
costs.
Peninsula Nano-Systems and Cape Classit Nano-Technology
Center, this is----
Mr. Dicks. And we will keep working to help with you, help
you on this. I know Tim Lovain, who is here, has been working
with us. We are trying to find a solution, and it is a
difficult problem. We will keep working on it.
Mr. McCarty. Appreciate that.
Mr. Dicks. Tell us about the nano-systems.
Mr. McCarty. The Nano-Technology Systems is a unique
opportunity for the Makah Tribe to diversify its economic base.
As you understand, we are a natural resource dependent tribe,
and I had the great pleasure to meet with one of the cofounders
of Peninsula Nano-Systems or I mean, Micro-Assembly
Technologies. Essentially what this is is this is a unique
opportunity for the tribe to engage in some of these production
facilities with regard to getting the military what it needs
with respect to improved wireless communications.
Makah Tribe and Micro-Assemblies Technologies and Purdue
University have teamed to develop and demonstrate advanced
wireless components for defense communication and cell phone
power reduction.
The proposed 4-year project will demonstrate a military
radio enabled by a switch filter bank ramp up to micro-
machinery production in Port Angeles and to meet DOD
requirements and volumes and test center in Port Angeles with
the state of art test equipment and facilities. We would
appreciate your support in this exciting venture.
Completion of the scenic bypass. As you know, it is the one
way in and out of Neah Bay.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. McCarty. The eastern-most portion of the Cape Flattery
Scenic Byway known as Bayview Avenue is the only passage in and
out of town. The population of about 1,800 year-round
residents, 16 U.S. citizens on the Coast Guard base, and about
5,000 tourists each summer month.
We have paved and repaved most of the byway and upgraded
sidewalks and added wildlife pullouts. We have 3.27 miles of
bicycle and pedestrian lanes along the byway, and we would like
to complete the improvements of the byway through repaving,
drainage improvements, guard rail replacements, and adding
additional sidewalks.
The Makah Tribe seeks to replace the dangerous Sala River
Bridge. Our fish and timber commerce would come to a halt if
this bridge failed, and then, of course, we would have no way
out of town. These improvements would enhance driver,
pedestrian safety and access to the Neah Bay region.
We appreciate your----
Mr. Dicks. Whose bridge is it? It is BIA's or the tribe's
or the State? Whose bridge is it?
Mr. McCarty. I believe it is part of State Highway 112.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. Tim thinks it is BIA. We will check that
for the record.
Mr. McCarty. Okay. In closing, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of
Makah Tribal Council and community members, we would like to
invite you to Neah Bay and to visit us as soon and as often as
you can. You are always welcome on our shores.
[Statement of Micah McCarty follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, I appreciate that very much, and it has
been a great drive, I have told many times that I have been
going up to Neah Bay as, you know, since the '50s, and it is
one of my favorite places in the world, let alone--and probably
my most favorite place in the State of Washington.
So----
Mr. McCarty. That is awesome.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. We have a good time up there.
Mr. Tyler. One more thing. You know, we are part of the
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. Tyler. We support their testimony earlier today, and we
are also part of Northwest Indian Health Board, and we fully
support what they are about to testify on today.
Mr. Dicks. Okay.
Mr. Tyler. So we thank you for your time.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Tyler. Appreciate everything you have done for us.
Mr. Dicks. Well, we will keep working on these problems.
Mr. McCarty. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Okay.
Linda Holt, Chairperson, Northwest Public Area Indian
Health Board. Linda, how are you?
Ms. Holt. Good. How are you doing this morning?
Mr. Dicks. Well, we are holding up. Holding up.
Ms. Holt. That is about what we can say.
Mr. Dicks. You know, we will put your statement in the
record, and you have 5 minutes to summarize.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
NORTHWEST PORTLAND AREA INDIAN HEALTH BOARD
WITNESS
LINDA HOLT
Ms. Holt. Thank you, Congressman Dicks and members of the
Committee.
My name is Linda Holt. I am a Tribal Council Member of the
Skokomish Tribe in Washington State, and I bring you----
Mr. Dicks. Wonderful.
Ms. Holt [continuing]. Greetings from Chairman Foresman----
Mr. Dicks. Yes. We have been working on a few issues.
Ms. Holt [continuing]. And the Skokomish Tribe. Yeah. We
still got some work to go there.
I am also Chairwoman of the Northwest Portland Area Indian
Health Board. We represent 43 tribes in Washington, Oregon, and
Idaho, 29 tribes in Washington State.
I would like to begin by underscoring the significant
health disparities that Indian people face and the progress we
have made to address those disparities. I have included the
statistics in my report.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Ms. Holt. You know, we have made great strides in a lot of
areas. Gastrointestinal disease has been reduced by 90 percent,
maternal mortality reduced by 80 percent, cervical cancer
reduced by 76 percent. However, American Indians, Alaska
natives continue to suffer from other significant disparities
when compared to other Americans.
Four hundred percent more likely to die from tuberculosis,
91 percent more likely to die from suicide, 300 percent more
likely to die of diabetes complications, 67 percent more likely
to die of pneumonia and influenza. Given these significant
health disparities, we must continue to build on the capacity
of Indian Health Services and Tribal Health Programs and
provide adequate funding.
The President's fiscal year 2009 request proposed to cut
the Indian Health Service budget by $21 million. This is the
worst budget request that we have seen in 15 years, and it will
only serve to increase the health disparities that Indian
people face.
The Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board has just
recently completed the budget analysis, and our analysis and
recommendations will be forthcoming. Our fundamental budget
principle is that the President and Congress must preserve the
current health program that the IHS budget funds. If current
service requirements of pay costs, inflation, and population
growth are not funded, then tribes have no alternative but to
cut healthcare services. And this is happening throughout the
country.
We have here a comparison to show how, hospital and health
clinic budget increases and actual inflation rates for
inpatient and outpatient services and how those have just
actually decreased from fiscal year 2000 to fiscal year 2008.
We also have the diminishing purchasing power, which is a
20-year look at the Indian Health Service accounts, actual
expenditures adjusted for inflation and compared to loss
purchasing power when adjusted for inflation and population
growth. This is for fiscal years 1984 to 2007.
Contract support costs increases. As you have heard
testimony from previous leaders, this is where contract support
cost increases have gone from 1992 to 2008, and if you will
recognize the 2001 dip, we are at 2007, which is far below the
2001 spot. This is something we cannot continue with. We are--
--
Mr. Dicks. Something bad happened in 2001.
Ms. Holt. Yeah. And has continued for the last 8 years. But
this is an obligation that needs to be met with the compacting
that tribes are doing. We need full contract support costs to
implement these programs and to keep them running.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Ms. Holt. The rescissions. You and I have talked about this
issue, and it is something that, you know, I look forward to
your help in stopping this from Indian Health Services budget.
This is a graph that shows the 9 years of rescissions from
fiscal year 2000 to 2008, and the eroding effect it has on the
Indian Health Service budget.
Mr. Dicks. How do they do that? Is this across the board?
Ms. Holt. Jim, do you want to explain?
Mr. Dicks. But why would it be 24 percent?
Ms. Holt. This is Jim Roberts. He is our policy analyst.
Mr. Roberts. Congressman, it is proportionate to the level
of the increase.
Mr. Dicks. What is that?
Mr. Roberts. It is relative to the----
Mr. Dicks. It is not a rescission, is it? It is not called
a rescission.
Mr. Roberts. Well, sometimes they have been called
rescissions. Sometimes they have been referenced as across the
board----
Mr. Dicks. Across the board cut.
Mr. Roberts [continuing]. Cut. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. I just think they are way over. No one has ever
done a 43 percent. I mean, that has just got to be the
Department.
Mr. Roberts. No. Congressman, it is not the level cut. That
is the level of amount, that is how much it is cut into the
increase. For example, in 2006, the increase was approximately
$43,000. We had two rescissions that particular year. There was
one contained in the Interior Appropriations bill and one
contained in the Omnibus. And when those rescissions were
applied to the increase, it----
Mr. Dicks. Well, that is of the increase, not of the entire
budget.
Mr. Roberts. Right. Correct.
Mr. Dicks. Okay. I was thinking this is brutal.
Ms. Holt. It is brutal.
Mr. Dicks. These guys are bad but, you know, this is
brutal.
Ms. Holt. But by the time they are applied to a diminishing
budget, they are brutal.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Ms. Holt. They are----
Mr. Dicks. Well, I agree. I mean, it is not good, but I
mean, at least it is not as bad as I thought it was.
Mr. Roberts. Congressman, our position has always been
that, you know, the VA and DOD Programs have been exempt from
across-the-board cuts. Some of their Health Service Programs.
We in the Indian Health Service provide, you know, we are very
comparable to the systems. We provide healthcare services. If
anything, we are subject to much higher rates of inflation than
those particular programs because we do not have the critical
mass in terms of health facility infrastructure and the number
of services that we provide.
So in a very similar fashion we should be exempt for the
same purposes, and I think that is the reason why Congress has
exempted the DOD and VA Health Programs from those cuts is
because of the high rates of medical inflation that they are
subject to.
Mr. Dicks. Okay. All right.
Ms. Holt. Just to close----
Mr. Dicks. Good point.
Ms. Holt [continuing]. Congressman Dicks, I would like to,
our recommendations.
The Committee should provide a $355 million increase to
maintain current services. The Committee should provide $158.2
million to fund past year contract support cost shortfalls and
allow funding for new and expanded self-determination and self-
governance agreements. We recommend increasing the CHS Program
by $70 million to maintain current services and address unmet
need, restore the 34.5 million to fund the Urban Health Indian
Program.
However, current funding for Health Service accounts should
not be offset to make the restoration. This should be over and
above.
Mr. Dicks. Where do you think we will get the money?
Ms. Holt. Well, there is a lot of money going out of this
country, Congressman. I was looking and talking to CDC and
testifying down at HHS this morning. I looked at CDC and the
amount of money that is going out of this country just from
that agency. We have millions of dollars----
Mr. Dicks. The Centers for Disease Control?
Ms. Holt. Yes. I am sorry. We have millions of dollars that
is going out of this country to provide healthcare to other
countries when we are not even meeting the health needs of the
first Americans of this country.
Mr. Dicks. Well, listen. I am completely with you on this
budget. I am just struggling to figure out where we are going
to get the money to do all this.
Ms. Holt. I understand.
Mr. Dicks. We will do our best. As you know, we restored
the Urban Indian Health Program last year and tried to fill in
as best we could. But the President the other year made us cut
a billion dollars out of our bill or he would not sign it. So
it was very unfortunate.
Ms. Holt. And as a tribal leader I appreciate that. I face
that--
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Ms. Holt [continuing]. Same dilemma on how we are going to
come up with money to meet our tribal budgets and----
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Ms. Holt [continuing]. Run our health programs for our
tribal members.
Final recommendation is that the Committee provide at least
$15 million to maintain current services for contract support
costs and an additional $10 million be provided to restore base
funding due to the effect of the rescissions.
Mr. Dicks. Okay.
Ms. Holt. We are also asking for, and as you noticed, the
STPI. I am a tribal leader diabetes committee member. We are
asking for the 5 years at $200 million following the 2009
expiration of that program.
Mr. Dicks. It has to be reauthorized. Right?
Ms. Holt. It has to be reauthorized. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. Do you know which Committee? Is it Ways and
Means or is it--or Resources? Staff says it is in Ways and
Means. So maybe we can get that Committee to join us in writing
a letter to Ways and Means.
Well, we will work on this. That is a big thing. We cannot
let that fall apart.
Ms. Holt. And we are certainly willing from the Northwest
Portland Area Indian Health Board to offer any assistance that
we can in doing that.
Mr. Dicks. All right.
Ms. Holt. I am also a delegate for the National Indian
Health Board and offer the full resources of that Board also to
help in any way that we can. We are also helping with help with
the reauthorization of the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act
and ask that it be expedited out of the House and that you help
us in any way that you can to move that bill through the House.
Mr. Dicks. All right. Thank you very much.
Ms. Holt. Thank you, Congressman.
[Statement of Linda Holt follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Ralph, come on up here. We are getting close
here. We got a few more to go, but we are almost there. Thank
you, Ralph. And we will put your entire statement in the
record, and you have 5 minutes to summarize.
Mr. Forquera. Great. I will be----
Mr. Dicks. And welcome.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
SEATTLE INDIAN HEALTH BOARD
WITNESS
RALPH FORQUERA
Mr. Forquera. Thank you very much, and it is a pleasure to
be here. I will be very brief.
Basically I am here to represent the Urban Indian Health
Programs and ask that the Committee consider the reinstatement
of the Urban Indian Funding in the 2009, appropriations
process. As you know the President has zeroed us out once again
this year, and we have, last year you actually asked me why did
I think he was zeroing us out.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Forquera. So we have done some investigation to try to
figure that out, but then as you have heard this morning, it
does not sound like we have been singled out specifically. It
seems like----
Mr. Dicks. No. They do not discriminate.
Mr. Forquera. Yeah. They----
Mr. Dicks. They cut everything.
Mr. Forquera [continuing]. Have been very fair in their
discriminatory practices, but so we have really, we have, are
really coming to ask for, again, consideration for resources
for this year.
The Urban Indian Programs are a very, very vital piece of
the connection of the tribal communities and the Indian
population. We serve a significant number of Indian people from
throughout the country. You were asking earlier about the
shared tribal representation. We have about 170 to 180 tribes
represented in our service population every year, so we are
seeing people from all over the country at the Seattle Indian
Health Board, and that is similar to the situation in the other
33 urban Indian programs around the country. You are seeing
large numbers of Indian people from throughout the country.
Of course, back in the 1980s, Mr. Reagan also tried to
eliminate the Urban Indian Health Programs as you are well
aware, and you and, again, Chairman Yates at the time were very
instrumental in preventing that from happening.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. Forquera. And we really do appreciate that for an awful
lot of people have been helped as a result of the maintenance
of our programs over the years, and we want to make sure that
we acknowledge that and acknowledge especially your support for
us over the years in that regard.
A rather startling statistic that I ran across just
recently from the Center for Medicare, Medicaid Services said
that by 2070, 17, I am sorry, which is 9 years from now,
approximately one out of every $5 that the Americans, that
Americans spend will be for healthcare. So as the costs of
healthcare continues to rise as it becomes increasingly more
and more important for organizations like ours to be supported
so that we can, in fact, advocate for our communities. If we do
not advocate for the Urban Indian population just like
advocating for the Indian population in general, we oftentimes
get left out of a lot of the initiatives and the other programs
that are being used to address disparities issues or just in
dealing with some of the health reforms that are necessary for
this country.
The Urban Indian Health Programs are the foundation for
doing that work specifically for Urban American Indians. There
is nobody else that does that kind of work, so we are unique in
that particular regard. The argument that, you know, the
President made was that the community health centers could
substitute for the work that we do. We refuted that claim and
so have the community health centers, recognizing the unique
characteristics of the Urban Indian population and the fact
that working with these communities requires an awful lot more
than just healthcare. It also requires case management, it
requires a variety of other kinds of services, outreach
activities, community-based activities, culturally-specific
activities that help to bring people in and move them from
treatment to prevention.
We talked a little bit about prevention, and I think one of
the areas where we have done a remarkable job, I think, is the
Special Diabetes Initiative. We turned an awful lot of people
who were on the course for very bad health outcomes from
diabetes around. We saved an awful lot of people from
amputations. We have been able to prevent----
Mr. Dicks. And you are doing that work in Seattle?
Mr. Forquera. We are doing that work in Seattle. The Urban
Indian Programs are part of the Special Diabetes Initiative,
and I think we have done some fairly remarkable work, as have
the tribes in reaching this particular population.
That kind of targeted approach to disease programs can be
effective. The difficulty is that many of them like the Special
Diabetes Program are only authorized for a period of time, and
so when the resources are pulled away, the ability to be able
to maintain those programs becomes a great challenge for us.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Forquera. Because these are not inexpensive programs as
you are well aware.
In conclusion, I will be, as I said I wanted to be brief,
the Urban Indian Health Programs are a very, very important
piece I think of the whole Indian Health Initiative for the
country. We have struggled in the last several years because of
the activities of the Administration towards, again, not only
us but other elements of the Indian community. And we are very,
very hopeful that we can continue our work in trying to reach
this very vulnerable, very difficult population.
Just for a quick statement, too, we created an Urban Indian
Health Institute, a research institution as part of my
organization in 2000. Just this last Wednesday we published a
new report, which I do not think should be part of the record,
but I would like to have----
Mr. Dicks. We will put it in our files and----
Mr. Forquera. Yeah. Receive a copy of it. It is a look at
the behavioral risk factor surveillance survey that has been
done by the Indian, by the United States, by the Center for
Disease Control for the last number of years. We summarized
that information, found some fairly interesting findings about
the urban population that were unique.
One of the most unique ones was four conditions; diabetes,
obesity, cardiovascular disease, and binge drinking. We found
that there were no differences in rates among populations of
people because of income. In the general population when income
rises, there is usually a decline in these, in the rates in
those situations. This particular report found that that was
not the case in these particular, the data that was collected.
The data is a little bit limited because you have a risk-factor
survey, it was a telephone survey, and a lot of Indian people
do not have telephones.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Forquera. So the population--but it shows, again, these
disparities and the importance of doing additional work and
trying to address the specific needs of these populations.
Mr. Dicks. I assume you have a lot of dental healthcare
issues.
Mr. Forquera. We have a tremendous amount of dental health
problems in the population, both youth and adults. In the youth
population we could oftentimes get kids in for initial
screenings and things like that, but when they have severe
problems, multiple cavities and other kinds of problems,
getting them to pediatric dentists who can deal with children
who have those kinds of multiple problems and can solve them
has been a challenge for us. We are actually trying to
implement that at the Health Board through a small initiative
that we are working on.
For adults it is an enormous problem because so many people
do not have dental insurance, and many Indian people have gone
on for decades without dental care. And so we really are band-
aiding an awful lot of the work that we are doing around adult
dental. And of course, dental services----
Mr. Dicks. And then we make it difficult for people to
volunteer.
Mr. Forquera. Absolutely.
Mr. Dicks. That really is----
Mr. Forquera. Absolutely.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. Outrageous.
Mr. Forquera. And in Washington State reciprocity for
licensing of professional dentists has been a problem for us.
In other states generally if you are licensed in one state, you
can practice in another state. In Washington they require that
you actually be tested before you----
Mr. Dicks. Oh, come on.
Mr. Forquera [continuing]. Can----
Mr. Dicks. How many people are going to volunteer for that?
Mr. Forquera. Yeah. It has been a real problem.
Mr. Dicks. Well, thank you for--I will look at the report.
Thank you for your excellent testimony.
Mr. Forquera. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate your
time.
[Statement of Ralph Forquera follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
James Allen Crouch and the Honorable Reno Franklin,
Executive Director/Chairman of the California Rural Indian
Health Board. Welcome. Thank you for being patient. I am sorry
we were delayed, but we have to vote. That is part of our job
up here.
Mr. Franklin. No problem, sir, Congressman Dicks.
Mr. Dicks. I missed a couple, too, so we can keep this
thing going, so I sacrificed. I hope my constituents will
forgive me.
Mr. Franklin. I think the ones that are sitting right over
there do.
Mr. Dicks. They are very good.
Mr. Franklin. Well, Congressman Dicks, first before
anything else, I wanted to thank you for attending our
appropriations summit for National Indian Health Board last
week.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. Franklin. It was great to see you there. It was great
to hear your real-world analysis of what that budget really
dumps on Indian Country.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. So this is one of the worst budgets I have
seen----
Mr. Franklin. Uh-huh.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. Ever, and that is just shocking to
me, and we are going to do our best to fix it, but, again, with
a billion dollar cut, that does not help us very much.
Mr. Franklin. No. It does not.
Mr. Dicks. When we should have gotten a $600 million
increase on the base funding, and so we have a $1.6 billion
hole. I say that because Mr. Olver is a very powerful Chairman
over here, and I want him to know that I am suffering here
badly. So when he is fighting for his allotment, he will think
of us. Okay. As a member of this Subcommittee.
Mr. Franklin. Well, let me thank you for that now then,
sir. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. He will be there. Anyway, go ahead. You have 5
minutes.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
CALIFORNIA RURAL INDIAN HEALTH BOARD, INC.
WITNESSES
JAMES ALLEN CROUCH
HON. RENO FRANKLIN
Mr. Franklin. My name is Reno Keoni Franklin. I am the
Chairman of the California Rural Indian Health Board, and I am
a tribal council member for the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians.
The California Rural Indian Health Board, CRIHB, was
founded in 1969, by tribal governments in California to serve
as the focal point for the planning, design, and implementation
of the Indian-Controlled Health System in California. For the
past quarter of a century CRIHB has operated under tribal
resolutions as a tribal organization under the authorities of
the Indian Self-Determination Act, providing all levels of IHS-
funded services in cooperation with six locally-operated tribal
health programs. And just to note also is that all Indian
health programs or Indian healthcare in the State of California
operates under the PL93638 compacts and contracts.
And before I go any further, I would like to introduce you
to our Executive Director, Mr. James Crouch.
[Statement of Reno Franklin follows:]
Mr. Crouch. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. I would point your
attention to line 4, paragraph 2 to get to the chase, the
actual request.
California Tribal Health Programs are seeking the expansion
in the CHS funding. We are seeking that you fund for the very
first time Section 211 of the existing Indian Healthcare
Improvement Act for $2 million. That authorization is laying
fallow for a number of years and has created lots of problems
in California where all healthcare is provided through
ambulatory clinics. There are no hospitals. California is one
of four IHS areas that are described as being CHS dependent.
What that means is we do not have access to inpatient care
through IHS facilities, and it means, of course, we do not have
access to those auxiliary services that exist in those
facilities like laboratory and X-ray. And that causes extra
expenses on our CHS budget.
I gave you a lot of data about California area itself, but
I wanted to point out that we did----
Mr. Dicks. Why is that? Why is that? Why did that happen?
Mr. Crouch. Our population is spread over a huge area,
about 123,000 square miles, but we make up about seven-tenths
of 1 percent of the state population. So we are a small
population spread out over a large area. So----
Mr. Dicks. Okay.
Mr. Crouch [continuing]. We have Section 211 of the Indian
Healthcare Improvement Act sets up what is known as an
intermediate risk pool to fund costs that would be otherwise
funded by the local tribal health provider, or if they were
great enough, they would go onto the CHEF Fund. Last year you
gave the CHEF fund 10 million additional dollars. None of those
monies will show up in California if history proves itself
again to be true.
A few years ago we did a study looking at the IHS active
users in California, about 70,000 of them, matching with all
the Medicaid funded care, all the hospital discharge data in
the State of California. And we identified that Medicaid pays
for 40 percent of those discharges, Medicare pays for about 25
percent, private pay pays for about 19, and 15 percent of all
those discharges are left unfunded. IHS, by the way, pays for
about 1 percent.
The IHS data does not even show that we are getting to the
hospitals. You have to go to state systems and match up the IHS
and the state data to learn these things. That means there are
about 2,800 hospital discharges annually and about 700 of them
are unfunded. The value of those unfunded care is about $19
million a year.
That shortfall falls on individual Indians because their
IHS is a discretionary system. If you do not have CHS funds,
you simply deny care to those clients. In many places in
California they provide no inpatient or specialty care.
Turn your attention to the charts in the back of the
document. Not only are we more dependent on CHS funding, but
sadly because you all look at line items, and I do not know who
really does oversight on the IHS, but when you look at other
cuts in how IHS appropriations are distributed, you will find
interesting dis-equity.
In this chart on the top you see the non-CHS dependent
areas in red. You see our sister areas like Portland, Bemidji,
and Nashville in green, and then California in yellow. So we
have consistently less CHS funding per capita than any other
piece of the system, much less the other CHS dependent areas.
That results in a secondary shortfall which is access to
the CHEF Fund. The CHEF Fund should pay for high-cost cases
over $26,000, but if your most generous program caps CHS
coverage at $5,000 per inpatient event, you will never get into
the CHEF.
Consequently, you can see that California in yellow has
almost no access to the CHEF. Comparative area, Billings,
Montana, with about the same number of Indians, has 150 CHEF
cases a year. California has five.
So we would like you to fund Section 211 of the Indian
Healthcare Improvement Act. It would not be an earmark because
this is an existing authorization. It would put in play an
opportunity for us to improve the coordination of care in
California and meet another, a lot of other needs and free up
CHS funding for other things.
Is there anything that you would like to finish with?
Mr. Franklin. Yes, if I may. Another interior
appropriations issue is the Historic Preservation Fund. I serve
as a tribal historic preservation for my tribe, Kashia Pomo
Tribe.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. Franklin. And we would like to thank you for your
support last year and hope that you would continue your support
for our funding.
There are eight tipples in your state, sir, that serve, and
as for a need, you know, the Kashia Pomo Tribe last year was
named as one of the 11 most endangered places, historic places
by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. So we are the
first actual tribal lands on that list.
And the funds that we get for historic preservation, while
they are definitely not adequate for what we need, it is a
definite good starting place, and we would ask that you at
least protect the amount that was enacted last year of 6.4
million.
Mr. Dicks. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. May I----
Mr. Dicks. Yes. Yes. Mr. Olver. Of course.
Mr. Olver. I am a little bit curious. I think I understand
you to say you have a couple hundred thousand Indian people in
California, roughly that.
Mr. Crouch. We are serving 77,000 IHS active users. Yes,
sir. The actual census population would be greater than that,
of course.
Mr. Olver. And the contract, the CHS's contract services is
everything that you do? Do you have specific clinics in----
Mr. Crouch. We have, yes, sir.
Mr. Olver. Where are the clinics?
Mr. Crouch. We have a network of 30 clinics----
Mr. Olver. Thirty clinics.
Mr. Crouch [continuing]. In mostly rural counties from the
southern border to the northern border, mostly along the
Sierra, the backbone of the Sierra Riverside, San Bernardino,
and San Diego.
Mr. Olver. Now----
Mr. Dicks. These are tribal. Right?
Mr. Crouch. Tribally operated. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. All right.
Mr. Olver. Tribally operated. Thirty clinics.
Mr. Crouch. Thirty. Uh-huh.
Mr. Olver. I see. And the contract service is beyond those
30 clinics?
Mr. Crouch. Right. When you, right. What you can do direct
care in those clinics is one source of funding. We have about
50 cents on the dollar from that side, and then what you need
to buy from other providers like rural hospitals, specialty
practitioners, X-ray capacity, pharmacies, you buy with your
CHS money.
Mr. Olver. So what proportion of your money is in the
support of the clinics, and what proportion in the contract
service?
Mr. Crouch. Overall California gets about $120 million a
year for healthcare, of which a little less than about 19
million is in CHS care.
Mr. Olver. So----
Mr. Crouch. So we are heavily invested in the clinic side
and cannot help you when you really need it.
Mr. Olver. Of those clinics, all those clinics have dental
service in them?
Mr. Crouch. Yes. It is fair to say all of them have dental
services. All of them have some level of behavioral health and
some level of medical care.
Mr. Olver. Uh-huh.
Mr. Crouch. But they do not have----
Mr. Olver. The previous gentleman pointed out that, yes,
the dental was particularly difficult. I understand that. We
have worked on it in this Committee for the last couple of
years in trying to upgrade that somewhat.
Mr. Crouch. Absolutely and----
Mr. Olver. You find the same thing?
Mr. Crouch [continuing]. The dental healthcare program in
California funded by the Medicaid Program is very much
threatened as we speak.
Mr. Olver. And do you have contract dental services as well
or only medical services?
Mr. Crouch. With the IHS money or with----
Mr. Olver. With the CHS money.
Mr. Crouch. CHS money we buy both dental and----
Mr. Olver. And medical?
Mr. Crouch [continuing]. Medical. For example----
Mr. Olver. Mental health?
Mr. Crouch [continuing]. Baby--some behavior health, the
example of the dental care would be like baby bottle tooth
decay. It is a very expensive procedure usually done with the
child, you know, knocked out and in a hospital. And we do not
have money, you know, some of those 700 hospitalizations would
have been for that kind of service.
Mr. Olver. And the 30 clinics do not include, there are
urban centers, I take it, several urban centers.
Mr. Crouch. Seven of those. There are seven of them.
Mr. Olver. Seven of those.
Mr. Crouch. Right.
Mr. Olver. And those would be in the biggest metropolitan
areas. But then yours are in the----
Mr. Crouch. Rural.
Mr. Olver [continuing]. Rural. But you, when you mentioned
seven-tenths of 1 percent, that would be the Indian people in
the whole state, in the whole population?
Mr. Crouch. Exactly.
Mr. Olver. Using both the urban centers and the CHS and----
Mr. Crouch. In the tribal areas, the census population----
Mr. Olver [continuing]. Rural clinics.
Mr. Crouch [continuing]. Would be more like around 230,000
of the 640 or so that are in the state. So we are----
Mr. Dicks. How many recognized tribes are there in the
state?
Mr. Franklin. One hundred and nine.
Mr. Dicks. One hundred and nine recognized tribes.
Mr. Franklin. One hundred and nine beautifully recognized
tribes in the State of California. There are, I believe 30 some
odd number of unfederally recognized.
Mr. Olver. And these are all indigenous to California
tribes?
Mr. Franklin. Yes. To California. Yeah.
Mr. Olver. Wow. One hundred and nine.
Mr. Crouch. So that is why we need a structure to
coordinate healthcare statewide like California Rural Indian
Health Board, and that is why the CHS Intermediate Risk Pool
would have some quality impacts on everybody's practice.
Mr. Olver. With that number of people and number of tribes,
do you have any tribal colleges, or is the education system,
since it is so extensive in California and ubiquitous to the
state, your education comes there.
Mr. Franklin. We do. We have a DQ University, which I think
had lost its accreditation a couple of years back.
Mr. Olver. What is DQ?
Mr. Franklin. That is a word that I cannot pronounce. That
is why we call it DQ.
Mr. Crouch. Q is Quatsaquatal.
Mr. Franklin. There you go.
Mr. Olver. And the D is too complicated.
Mr. Crouch. It is non-California----
Mr. Olver. Okay. All right.
Mr. Dicks. All right. Well, and I appreciate the gentleman
probing further here, because I think it is very helpful
because this is a unique system, and we need to understand.
Mr. Franklin. Well, thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you. And----
Mr. Crouch. Thank you for your questions.
Mr. Dicks. And finally, Sally Smith, Chair of the National
Indian Health Board.
Hi, Sally. How are you?
Ms. Smith. I am well. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. Welcome.
Ms. Smith. Thank you. Good morning.
Mr. Dicks. We will put your statement in the record, and
you have 5 minutes to summarize.
Ms. Smith. Thank you. I am an Eskimo from Alaska.
Mr. Dicks. Oh, wonderful.
Ms. Smith. And I understand that you are an avid fisherman.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. I fish up in Alaska twice every year.
Ms. Smith. Please come to the Bristol Bay area. We are the
gateway to the Wood-Tikchik Park System. I extend a personal
invitation to you.
Mr. Dicks. I have fished that back bouncing for king salmon
and did very well.
Ms. Smith. Come back and do that again.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. We had some great trips up there. I usually
fish in southeastern.
Ms. Smith. Oh, no. Come up to the southwest.
Mr. Dicks. Sitka and out of Ketchikan to Coronation Island,
where I got a 54-pound king salmon 3 years ago.
Ms. Smith. We might be able to match or beat that in the
southwest part.
Mr. Dicks. You have some big ones up there, do you not?
Ms. Smith. Yes, we do.
Mr. Dicks. Oh, yes, you do. No doubt about it.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
NATIONAL INDIAN HEALTH BOARD
WITNESS
H. SALLY SMITH
Ms. Smith. Thank you. Today my testimony focuses on the
President's fiscal year 2009 proposed budget regarding the
Indian Health Service budget.
The President's request for IHS is $3.3 billion, which is a
$21 million increase from the fiscal year 2008 funding. The
President's budget request is not adequate to address the high
incidence of disease, behavioral health issues such as youth
suicide and substance abuse. Certainly we have out-of-date
healthcare facilities, vacancy rates, the list goes on.
The National Indian Health Board recommends that this
Subcommittee appropriate at least $4.2 billion to the IHS,
which would restore funding for healthcare facility
construction, alcohol and substance abuse healthcare
professionals, restoration of the Urban Indian Programs, as
well as other substantial increases requested by the tribes
through the HHS budget, tribal budget consultation process
happening today and tomorrow here in your great city.
The request for the $4.2 billion made by NIHB, unlike the
President's budget, does not include consideration of any third
party collections. We believe that such consideration is
contrary to Congressional intent.
Certainly we are appreciative of the increases to certain
line items such as the additional $9 million to contract health
services; however, as you have heard, $9 million is not nearly
enough.
Additionally, contract support costs continue to be
underfunded. The IHS estimates the shortfall at $150 million.
If CSC is not fully funded, program funding is used to
subsidize salaries, inflation, and population growth, resulting
in diminishment of healthcare services to Natives and Indians.
The high incidence of diseases and medical conditions in
Indian Country supports an increase in funding. Native people
continue to suffer from higher rates of disease. As you know,
1.6 times higher in cervical cancer; in diabetes, three times
higher; and, again, 1.6 times higher in suicide.
The Administration defends the President's budget by
claiming that program funding is reduced or eliminated in order
to fulfill the IHS core mission of providing primary care to
Indians on or near reservations blows my mind. But the
President proposed decreases in funding to essential programs
that represent vital components of the Indian Healthcare
Delivery System.
As a representative from Alaska, I appreciate the
President's request to specifically continue construction of
the Barrow Hospital Project. However, many more American Indian
native communities are waiting to build their first facility or
to modernize their outdated facilities.
Mr. Dicks. How much is that Barrow one going to cost?
Ms. Smith. It is going to cost, the construction costs are
so high in Alaska. Eighty-six million. I am groping at that
answer, but I will get you an accurate number.
Mr. Dicks. We hear it is up to $135 million.
Ms. Smith. No. It has gone up that high? You know, I live
in Clarks Pointe. I live in Dillingham, but in Clarks Point we
are building a facility there, a health clinic. At the time we
were quoted at $329 a square foot, until it got delayed and
delayed. A year later it was up to $1,000 a square foot. So I
understand if it is going to 130 plus million. It is
extraordinary. The costs are so high.
Mr. Dicks. Is it in the budget?
Ms. Smith. It is in the budget. It is in the budget. We
thank you for that, but there are so many others that are
outdated.
Mr. Dicks. What year is this in the Barrow thing? Do you
have any idea?
Ms. Smith. I do not have----
Mr. Dicks. Are they already under construction?
Ms. Smith. Yes, it is. It is going through the PJDPOR
process, and so it is under, it is moving through the system.
Mr. Dicks. But it is not under construction yet?
Ms. Smith. No. Actually, they will begin, hopefully begin
construction this summer. So yeah. We invite you up there, too.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Ms. Smith. That would be great.
The average U.S. hospital is 9 years old, and many of the
existing IHS hospital facilities are over 30 years old. A
decrease in facility construction, halting funding halts
current projects, inhibits future construction, and results in
higher construction costs as you have just described.
The fiscal year 2009 President's budget reduced, requests
to reduce health professions by $14 million will result in
substantial reductions. It goes on, we already heard about the
reduction or the diminishment that doing away with the Urban
Health Program. The National Indian Health Board, of course,
supports that.
There is a big--I have Kitty Marx with me, who is the
Legislative Director, and you know that the Medicare and
Medicaid supplementary revenues should be absolutely kept
separate from the Indian Health Services budget.
And then, I wanted to say that the President's----
Mr. Dicks. Now, explain that to me. How does this thing
work?
Ms. Marx. Well, as part of the President's budget----
Mr. Dicks. Just pull it over.
Ms. Marx. As part of the President's budget request they do
request $3.3 million in appropriations, but in describing their
operating budget and what they need to describe their program,
we have interpreted that they are considering the Medicare and
Medicaid collections in that calculation.
Mr. Dicks. So--oh. Okay.
Ms. Marx. Which we, I mean----
Mr. Dicks. So you collect Medicare and Medicaid where you
can.
Ms. Marx. Right. I mean, the, it is estimated that it is
$689 million for fiscal year 2007, that money is returned to
the service units for the operation of the facilities to meet
compliance standards with Medicare, Medicaid to pay for health
professions, salaries, equipment, and X-ray. So this is vital
money that the service units need.
Mr. Dicks. Yeah.
Ms. Marx. But the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act----
Mr. Dicks. Same thing they do in the community healthcare
clinics. So they are going to reduce the amount of money by
689----
Ms. Marx. Well, they are not quite----
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. Because you are going to get these
reimbursements?
Ms. Marx. Yeah. They are not quite reducing it, and that is
kind of, it is a matter of interpretation.
Mr. Dicks. Well, what are they doing?
Ms. Marx. Well, I think they are considering it in their
budget request. If they are only asking $3.3 billion in
appropriations, knowing that they are going to collect close to
$700 million in----
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Ms. Marx [continuing]. Medicare, Medicaid that they
recognize they need, then their full operating budget is $4.2
billion. Well, if the Indian Health Service needs $4 billion to
operate its program, they should ask for that.
Mr. Dicks. And also collect the money.
Ms. Marx. Yeah. And then have the 600, $700 million in
Medicare and Medicaid supplement the program, which was----
Mr. Dicks. Yeah.
Ms. Marx [continuing]. Congress's intent back in 1976. And
that is what our concern is, is that the Indian Healthcare
Improvement Act----
Mr. Dicks. Have you got any history on this? Do you know
where the, can you get us a piece of paper on that?
Ms. Marx. Yeah. We can do that. I mean, I think there is a
long history of----
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Ms. Marx [continuing]. The Administration----
Mr. Dicks. Get us a piece of paper on that.
Ms. Marx [continuing]. Doing this. Okay. We certainly will.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Ms. Marx. Thank you.
Ms. Smith. Thank you for the opportunity to----
[Statement of H. Sally Smith follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Yes. Well, thank you very much, and Mr. Olver,
do you want to ask any questions?
Mr. Olver. I would like to ask just a couple of questions.
Mr. Dicks. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Mr. Olver. I am curious now. How much of an appropriation
do you actually get? Maybe I missed that. To operate the
National Indian Health Board.
Mr. Dicks. Or are you financed by the tribes?
Ms. Smith. Well, actually, we are a non-member, we are a
member organization only in that we have representatives from
all 12 areas, and we have----
Mr. Dicks. These are BIA areas?
Ms. Smith. Well, I suppose you could----
Ms. Marx. Yeah. They are IHS.
Ms. Smith. IHS.
Mr. Dicks. Indian Health Service. Okay.
Ms. Smith. Indian Health Service areas. BIA is a whole
different--I am glad I am not involved with them, but, anyway,
it is Indian Health Service, and we receive under a cooperative
agreement with the Indian Health Service a very small sum of
money, and then through tribal shares the tribes, if they elect
to return the money back to the Indian, to the National Indian
Health Board, that then becomes part of our budget.
Mr. Olver. What is the amount that you get from the Indian
Health Service?
Ms. Smith. It is----
Ms. Marx. It varies. I mean, we do that through a
cooperative agreement, an inter-agency agreement. We are a non-
profit organization, and the Indian Health Service gives us
money to carry out programs to support, you know, budget
formulation, tribal consultation, various activities. So we are
non-profit, and we receive money through them, but we are not a
part of the Indian Health Services.
Mr. Olver. Well, I am curious. What would be the Board's
total budget?
Ms. Marx. It is probably like close to----
Ms. Smith. It is actually very small.
Mr. Olver. Well, I guess it is a question, the reason I am
asking is----
Mr. Dicks. Can you just give us a ballpark number?
Ms. Smith. Between 1.2 and some years in our heyday 3
million, but I would say probably 1.2, 1.5 million.
Mr. Olver. The whole budget of the Board?
Ms. Smith. The whole budget of the National Indian Health
Board.
Mr. Olver. And you said a small piece comes from the Indian
Health Service----
Ms. Smith. Yes.
Mr. Olver [continuing]. As a cooperative agreement.
Ms. Smith. I believe $220,000.
Mr. Olver. Two hundred and twenty thousand. So it is less
than 10 percent of, or a little bit more than 10 percent, I
guess.
Ms. Smith. Yes.
Mr. Olver. You said 1.2 million or did you say 3.2 million?
Ms. Smith. One point two million dollars.
Mr. Olver. Is the total. So it is a little over 10 percent.
And how much do you get back from the tribes themselves?
Ms. Smith. I will use Alaska as an example. There are 243
tribes in Alaska, of which their tribal shares equivalency is
approximately $55,000. So from those tribes in Alaska that is
what they would return back to the National Indian Health Board
to add to our budget.
Mr. Olver. Are they one of the BIA areas? Just Alaska
alone? One of the BIA areas?
Ms. Smith. Well, no.
Mr. Olver. Because there was, I am trying to build myself
in my mind a roadmap of where this system, how this system, how
general the system is. You have, you said you had members from
each of the areas.
Ms. Smith. The way the United States is broken up, there
are 12 areas. So we have 12 regions, Alaska being one, and
there are 11 others.
Mr. Olver. And how much money comes in from other sources,
from donations, from fundraising, or something other than what
comes from either through the tribal allocations back to you
and from the BIA?
Ms. Smith. As of last week the National Indian Health Board
Board of Directors made a determination that we will no longer
be absolutely independent the resources of the Indian Health
Service. We cannot. In order----
Mr. Olver. You cannot be----
Ms. Smith. We cannot be----
Mr. Olver [continuing]. Dependent. You want to try to
become independent.
Ms. Smith. We want to become independent----
Mr. Olver. Somewhat.
Ms. Smith [continuing]. Which means----
Mr. Olver. Do not be too sure about that. Take what you can
get from them.
Ms. Smith. Sure.
Mr. Olver. Do not deny it.
Ms. Smith. But we cannot live on what they give us, and so
we need to become a fundraising----
Mr. Olver. So you need to--
Ms. Smith [continuing]. Organization.
Mr. Olver [continuing]. Fundraise. You have not been doing
that in the past.
Ms. Smith. We will----
Mr. Olver. We will do it in the future?
Ms. Smith [continuing]. We must do it.
Mr. Olver. How many of the recognized tribes actually make
money available to you? They would have to recognize that there
is some significant service of promotion and advocacy, and so
forth that you as the Indian Health Board, National Board,
provide----
Ms. Smith. Yes.
Mr. Olver. [continuing]. That is of service to them.
Ms. Smith. All 563 tribes, I would say maybe 90 percent of
the 563 tribes return their tribal shares back to the Indian
Health Service. It takes a little arm twisting sometimes, but
they return it back. So is there support out there? Yes, sir.
There absolutely is support. So from the tribes. Some of those
tribal shares that are coming back are small. As I would say
$32 would be a tribal share, do as great as $35,000. So is
there support? Absolutely. Do we need to do more? There is no
question that as fundraisers we must now step into a new realm
of going out and asking for money.
Mr. Dicks. I think we better wind this up. I think it has
been very useful. I thank all the tribes for coming today, but
the Committee stands adjourned until 10:00 tomorrow.
Ms. Smith. Thank you.
Ms. Marx. Thank you.
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
TESTIMONY OF INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS
----------
PUBLIC WITNESSES
Mr. Dicks. Welcome to the second of two days of public
witness testimony. I need to remind our witness that we have
many speakers scheduled to appear today. To ensure that we are
able to accommodate everyone, I ask that our witnesses respect
the five-minute time limit. A yellow light will flash with one
minute remaining in your time in order to give you the
opportunity to wrap up your statement. When the red light comes
on, then your time has expired. Your prepared statement will of
course be published for the record along with a transcript of
your actual testimony.
Mr. Tiahrt, do you have any opening comments?
Mr. Tiahrt. No; I just want to thank you for conducting
these hearings, and I realize you are a great advocate for
Native Americans in the tribes and you have given special
attention----
Mr. Dicks. As you are.
Mr. Tiahrt. You have given special attention to the tribes
from Washington and I appreciate that very much because it is a
challenging thing for all of them.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much.
Our first witness today is Virginia Thomas, president of
the National Johnson-O'Malley Association, and the issue is the
Johnson-O'Malley program, which last year our committee
restored, as you know, after OMB and the White House brutally
took it out of the budget. It is just one of those things that
really upset me because they know we are going to put it back
in so they take it out so that they make their budget look like
it is less.
Ms. Thomas. Stay upset.
Mr. Dicks. Anyway, this is a very good program, and I am
still upset, yes. You can proceed for five minutes, and we will
put your entire statement in the record without objection.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
NATIONAL JOHNSON-O'MALLEY ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
VIRGINIA THOMAS
Ms. Thomas. Thank you, Chairman. I am going to share my
time later on with Mr. Harold Dusty Bull, but I am Virginia
Thomas and I am president of the National JOM Association and I
am here with three other board members that are here and we
have been pounding the pavement the last week here with our
issue with JOM, and I thank you for this time.
I feel like I am preaching to the choir because I know that
the support that this committee has given our program, and I
need to let you know that within Indian Country, they know who
you are, they know what you have done for this program and we
thank you again for what you have been able to reestablish in
the last few years to keep us going. But when the President
zeroed us out this last year, we come back every year to the
Hill to have to reiterate what our platform is. We have been up
against several accusations that we have here that the program
is not needed, that we are not monitored and that we duplicate
other programs, and we are very alarmed about how this keeps
coming up and we are so thankful that the committee has an
ear----
Mr. Dicks. Do you go down and talk to these people at the
BIA and down at the White House?
Ms. Thomas. I sure do.
Mr. Dicks. I mean, it is OMB that kind of makes these
decisions.
Ms. Thomas. Yes, they are, and I had a discussion with OMB
when we originally got our 16 and they cut us down to 12, and I
did have a discussion with them. They actually told me I should
be grateful that I did get the 12 and not the 16.
But what we have here, when we had our not-needed programs,
when they say that we are not needed, I have to let you know
that I also am the manager of the Muskogee Creek National
Johnson-O'Malley Program out of Oklahoma, and I serve nine
counties within my area. I have 46 school districts and I
counted in 1994, it is 10,919 students that I was originally to
serve. I do not know why we did not count all of the school
districts but I have over 70, so I have school districts five
miles apart. One gets JOM, one does not. I have got 10,000 that
was counted for. I serve over 16,000 with that same dollar that
the Bureau is giving us. You know, I have been blessed, truly
blessed out of Oklahoma that my tribe was able to assist us.
But it is a trust responsibility. This is not a tribal
responsibility. But our tribe has been able to assist us with
this.
This program here, when it says it is not needed, every
child in Indian Country should have this need met. The law says
it is a special and unique need. It does not say that we have
to meet No Child Left Behind. It does not say we have to meet
AYP. A lot of our students have withdrawn out of school so that
the schools can meet AYP and meet the standards that we have
here. And he also said that we were not monitored. We are self-
monitoring, according to regulations. We have to be self-
monitoring. We do our own needs assessment. We do an annual
needs report along with our applications, and these all have to
match. The problem is, we submit all these to the Bureau. The
Bureau does not even look at them. We no longer have the office
within the central office here. It was phased out years ago.
There is one person standing in this nation left that knows
anything about JOM within the line officers and that is Joey
Martin out of Oklahoma City. When Gary Martin's position was
phased out, I know that you kind of made a stand about what
happened and why this happened and we are really concerned.
When it says that we are duplicating our programs, we are
not Title VII. We are not. The Title VII goes from the State to
the school districts. JOM goes from the Bureau to the tribes to
direct monitoring with the parents. This is----
Mr. Dicks. Explain what you use the money for.
Ms. Thomas. Well, I have 40 school districts and I have 40
education plans. We have after-school programs. We have summer
programs. We have tutoring programs, language programs, culture
programs, everything----
Mr. Dicks. This is for each student who has their own plan?
Ms. Thomas. Each school district that we serve. Each school
district has a parent committee that oversees it and those
parent committees are the ones that are really evolved to make
sure that this happens. The planning----
Mr. Dicks. Now, do you send in a report of what you did
with the money?
Ms. Thomas. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. But they only have one person to read all these
reports from all over the country?
Ms. Thomas. They do not have anybody.
Mr. Dicks. Nobody? Now, remember, you only have one minute
left. You better give it to your colleague.
Ms. Thomas. I will give it over to Harold.
Mr. Dicks. Harold.
Mr. Dusty Bull. Greetings. My name is Harold Dusty Bull. I
am also a member of the National Johnson-O'Malley Association.
I come from the great State of Montana, Big Sky Country, where
we have seven Indian reservations and 12 Indian tribes. These
reservations are located in the most rural and isolated areas
of Montana and the JOM programs are not subsidized. What you
appropriate is what they receive for operation. It is a tragic
reality that the standard of living in American Indian
communities continues to be unmatched by any other group in the
United States of America, characterized by the highest rates of
poverty and morbidity, substandard housing and education. As a
result, American Indian students lack many of the opportunities
and resources available to other students elsewhere.
The JOM program helps level the playing field by providing
Indian students with programs that help them stay in school. We
do not get extra. It just helps level the playing field. JOM
serves only federally recognized Indian tribes and gives
priority to programs that are on or adjacent to the Indian
reservation. One of the samples I want to give you is that a
parent came to my office last week, and this was a father, mind
you, it was the father that came to my office last week to pick
up a purchase order. This purchase order was for an incentive
program that we are providing to our rural community school for
students who met the school's academic standards and attendance
and this father told me, Harold, we really appreciate this
program. This is our program. This was a program that kept me
in school and helped me keep my grades up as a young child
because I knew that I was going to get to go on this trip or
have this incentive activity. I was going to be involved in an
incentive activity. So these are some of the things that JOM
does that most people do not get to hear about but they do help
our children stay in school.
So on behalf of our Indian children across the United
States, we thank you for this opportunity.
[The statement of Virginia Thomas follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Tiahrt, do you have any comments?
Mr. Tiahrt. No.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much. We will try to do our best.
I want you to know, the budget this year is $1 billion less
than the budget last year, and we should have gotten a $600
million increase to stay even, so we have a $1.6 billion hole
that we have to fill. So every time we try to take care of
something like this that is not in the budget, we have to take
it from somewhere else. So it is very difficult. In the first
year we had a few pots of money we could raid but they are
gone.
Ms. Thomas. We hold our faith in you.
Mr. Dicks. We will do our best. This is going to take faith
too, believe me.
Ms. Thomas. Thank you.
Mr. Dusty Bull. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Nolan Colegrove, Sr., president of the
Intertribal Timber Council, BIA Forestry. Nolan, welcome.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
INTERTRIBAL TIMBER COUNCIL
WITNESS
NOLAN COLEGROVE, SR.
Mr. Colegrove. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,
members of the committee. My name is Nolan Colegrove. As you
mentioned, I am the forest manager for the Hoopa Tribe and
president of the Intertribal Timber Council here representing
Indian Country in the name of BIA Forestry. Thank you for your
help in the past. A year ago you helped us restore the $1
million back to the Endangered Species program. That is helping
us to revive some of our activities out at the field level.
In 1991, the BIA ESA program was $1 million for spotted
owl. Then additional listings came on for marbled murrelet. The
funding reached $3 million in 2002. Since then the
Administration though has cut that down until 2007 he restored
it down to zero funding for field-level activities so there was
nothing for the BIA. We do not understand why they do that and
why they are so determined to cut the ESA. The United States
has a trust responsibility for our lands and our resources but
they still have not requested any, and we have urged them----
Mr. Dicks. What do you use the money for?
Mr. Colegrove. It is for mandated activities. When a tribe
wants to do a project through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, you
have to comply with NEPA, and ESA is a major component of that,
and those mandates----
Mr. Dicks. So you have to have a consultation under Section
7?
Mr. Colegrove. With the Fish and Wildlife Service and
National Marine Fisheries Service so you have to go through
the----
Mr. Dicks. And the tribes do not have money to do that?
That is what this money was used for was your efforts to comply
with ESA on your tribal timberlands?
Mr. Colegrove. Right, on tribal timberlands.
In comparison, the BLM requests about $20 million. The Fish
and Wildlife requests about $10 million, and some of that is
used on tribal lands and stuff. If you are looking for a place
to take it, I will give you a little hint. There is a good
place to start. The tribes, this year the only pot of money
they have is about $250,000 and that is really not going to go
for any survey activity. It is going to go for some staff here
at the D.C. office. The BLM request for ESA is about 8 cents an
acre. To be fair, for tribes that would make the tribes on our
56 million acres about 4.4 million. If that was restored and if
there was money to find somewhere, we would ask that $2.2
million be dedicated to bring the northern spotted owl and
marbled murrelet effort back to its 2002 capacity. Those
species are still listed and their management is still
mandated.
The second request I would like to make is the restoration
of the $1 million to the Timber Harvest Initiative. This was
started in the early 1990s and the initiative provided about
$1.4 million to the Pacific Northwest regions to move timber
into the market to partially offset the volumes that were
reduced by the listing of the owl and murrelet. It has remained
an important part of the Bureau's ability to administer the
harvest in those regions, and the $1 million cut will reduce
harvests by about 52 million board feet a year, significant in
Indian Country. If the BIA cannot process that, tribal
governments' revenues will fall. People will lose their jobs.
Their mills may close. The forest health also deteriorates. So
we ask that this committee again restore that $1 million to the
Timber Harvest Initiative.
Mr. Dicks. How much is in the budget for this?
Mr. Colegrove. Right now in the Administration's budget, it
is zeroed out for Timber Harvest Initiative.
Mr. Dicks. So $1 million was all and that is gone?
Mr. Colegrove. That is gone.
Mr. Dicks. So it is zero?
Mr. Colegrove. Zero.
Mr. Dicks. Okay.
Mr. Tiahrt. And again, the money that was in there was for
compliance with the government----
Mr. Colegrove. For government mandates.
Next, we ask that $5 million be added to BIA Forest
Development. Over the 6 million acres of trust commercial
forest, there is a 1-million-acre backlog needing thinning and
replanting. The BIA is not making any headway to reduce that
backlog. These are the tribes' prime timber-producing lands and
the BIA's failure to plant and thin directly reduces those
lands' productivity and tribal prosperity far into the future.
Over the past 13 years, two independent IFMAT reports document
that the Bureau's forestry budget needs to be doubled and the
$5 million for forest development would be helpful and a needed
first step.
Our fourth request is the full restoration of the land
consolidation funding, $59.5 million. Indian land fractionation
is a primary cause of the BIA administrative difficulties and
will only get worse if not aggressively addressed and we do not
know why the program should be eliminated. And to the best of
our knowledge, tribes have not been contacted about any
problems with land consolidation or any effort to find an
alternative approach.
Fifth, I am switching to fire. Please add $4.5 million for
BIA preparedness. At the tribe agency level, preparedness has
been eroding since the year 2000 and we believe that being
proactive and adequately prepared up front will help diminish
the severity and cost of wildfires.
Mr. Dicks. And the lack of the thinning and all of that
that you mentioned earlier, if that is not done in some areas,
that makes the fires worse.
Mr. Colegrove. Yes, the health of the forest gets worse and
the forest becomes a tinderbox and unhealthy and lots of stuff.
Last, we ask that our Indian Hot Shot Crews be funded out
of suppression rather than preparedness. They are a national
suppression resource serving all federal agencies and non-
federal partners and covering their costs out of BIA
preparedness is an unfair burden to the Bureau and the tribes.
So with that, thank you for your time.
[The statement of Nolan Colegrove, Sr. follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Any questions?
Thank you.
Mr. Colegrove. I just want to add one more thing to the
last presentation very fast is that I am a product of a JOM
program about 25 to 30 years ago. It helped me go to school so
I would like to put a plug in for that too.
Mr. Dicks. All right. Thank you.
Joseph J. Brings Plenty, Sr., chairman of the Cheyenne
River Sioux Tribe. Welcome. We will put your entire statement
in the record. It is good to see you again. You can summarize.
You have five minutes.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
CHEYENNE RIVER SIOUX TRIBE
WITNESSES
JOSEPH J. BRINGS PLENTY, SR.
ELIZABETH HOWE
Mr. Brings Plenty. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Dicks,
Ranking Member Tiahrt and honorable members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before
this subcommittee to express the needs of my Lakota people and
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. My name is Joseph Brings Plenty. I
am chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Allow me to
express my appreciation for visiting South Dakota on October 9,
2007, and meeting with several tribal members such as Robert
Conoyer, the Yankton Sioux Tribe, Michael Janitor, who is
chairman of the Lower Brew, John Steel Wallace, executive
director, United Sioux Tribes. I wish to offer you and members
of the committee an open invitation to visit South Dakota to
meet with indigenous leaders of this nation.
With regards to CRST TPA, the Committee on Natural
Resources, Chairman Nick Rahall, issued a letter to
Representative John M. Spratt, chairman of House Committee on
the Budget, regarding views and estimates on the budget,
concurred with Chairman Rahall the contract of Indian programs.
Under Public Law 93-638, it is a great success. But we as
tribes run programs with fewer resources. While funding for the
Bureau of Indian Affairs has decreased, funding for the Office
of the Special Trustee continues to spiral out of control. The
office was set up to oversee trust fund management for reform
throughout the department. It was never intended to administer
Indian programs. In a move referred to as reorganization of the
BIA, the Department unilaterally with no tribal consultation
and virtually no Congressional oversight transferred numerous
programs and almost $200 million out of BIA and into OST and it
continues to increase budget authority. Many of the protections
legislated for tribes by Congress or through the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, for example, Schneider Act in 1921, authorizes
regular appropriations for relief and distress and conservation
of American Indians today. Aid to tribal governments for Tribal
Priority Allocation, TPA, is an outgrowth of this legislative
protection for Indians. I respectfully request an increase in
TPA $10 million as requested for Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in
fiscal year 2009.
Lastly, we respectfully request the fiscal year 2009 budget
provide the Bureau of Indian Affairs with $2.274 billion in
current budget authority which were enacted in fiscal year 2006
levels for Indian programs. Moreover, we respectfully request a
4 percent across-the-board increase to the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, $2,365,240,800. It is requested for the Interior
appropriations bill of 2009. In addition, the Bureau of Indian
Affairs is currently undergoing another reorganization effort.
I suggest this subcommittee consider funding a study for the
National Academy of Public Administration to assess the
organization and needs of the Bureau. The Bureau funded a study
on itself in August 1999 which indicated significant material
weaknesses in their agency. Seven hundred and fifty thousand
dollars is requested to revise the study for fiscal year 2009.
Cheyenne River Hospital, I must speak on healthcare.
Cheyenne River, an independent study commissioned by the Indian
Health Service in 2004, identified existing facility as having
19 percent the need of size and 34 percent of the necessary
staff to provide services for 11,583 tribal members. Urgent
care patients wait in hallway for hours. We have our 200
children who are born every year with no birthing unit or
obstetrician on staff. These findings demonstrate the critical
need to construct a new hospital facility, and short term to
fund Cheyenne River Hospital, and $44,827,000 is requested to
begin construction.
A second healthcare issue is prairie dogs. In 2006, South
Dakota Governor Rounds signed into law a South Dakota prairie
dog program. Tribes are excluded. Rhapsody Journal states that
South Dakota now has about 195,000 acres of prairie dogs
outside Indian reservations. The tribes will come up with their
own plan of dealing with the approximately 215,000 acres of
prairie dogs on their land. In fiscal year 2003, Cheyenne River
Tribe's prairie management was funded at $1.5 million. Cheyenne
River prairie management program was cut in fiscal year 2007.
One point five million is requested for fiscal year 2009.
Indian reservation roads, IRR. Tribal roads are another
critical infrastructure issue. The Cheyenne River
Transportation Equity Act for 21st Century, TEA-21, Congress
attempted to introduce increased funding levels.
Law enforcement, another huge issue. The Department is
responsible for public safety protection of residents of the
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. The reservation law enforcement
department is requesting $5,659,827 in fiscal year 2009
appropriations. We have approximately 2.8 million acres, 96
miles from department headquarters which makes it very
difficult for response time for law enforcement officers to get
to the locations and respond appropriately.
I have with me 911 coordinator, which there are only two
tribes in the United States basically at this point, that is
coordinating these departments. I yield to her to give a short
testimony.
Mr. Dicks. Your time is expired. We will give you one
minute, okay?
Ms. Howe. My name is Elizabeth Howe. I am a member of the
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. I am here today to ask for $640,000
for my 911 program, 911 for emergencies. If you dialed 911
before 2002 at Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, no one would answer.
The tribe took the initiative to go ahead, and we are the
second tribe in the United States, like my chairman just said,
to provide this for 18,000 residents on our reservation. We
provide non-Indian and Indian service. We provide service to
BIA law enforcement, fire, ambulance. We are dispatching
basically for free for them. I need your help. My dispatchers
are way overworked. I know that you visited our reservation. If
you had choked, if you had been in an automobile accident, the
dispatcher was under no obligation to answer the 911 phone. And
also secondary----
Mr. Tiahrt. Mr. Chairman, can I ask, how big is the area
that you cover? You said 18,000 residents but it is over a
large area, is it not?
Ms. Howe. Two point eight million acres, sir.
Mr. Tiahrt. So that is, what, like the size of Rhode Island
basically?
Ms. Howe. Yes.
Mr. Tiahrt. And you have to cover all of that?
Ms. Howe. Connecticut, yes.
Mr. Dicks. And the State does not help you on this at all?
Ms. Howe. No. The State receives property tax money to
supplement their----
Mr. Dicks. Have you looked at the Justice Department? Is
there anything that you can get funded through the Justice
Department?
Ms. Howe. There are a few grants here and there but we need
base funding. We need a 638 contract.
Mr. Olver. May I ask a question?
Mr. Dicks. Yes, Mr. Olver.
Mr. Olver. I heard earlier the number 11,000 and then the
number 18,000. Is the number of residents on the reservation 18
or 11?
Ms. Howe. Eleven is the tribal members.
Mr. Olver. Tribal members?
Ms. Howe. Yes.
Mr. Olver. Enrollees?
Ms. Howe. Yes.
Mr. Olver. But you have 18,000 actually living on the
reservation?
Ms. Howe. Yes, that is non-Indian and Indian together.
Mr. Olver. Is there a tribal college associated with
Cheyenne River? You are right next to Standing Rock, are you
not?
Ms. Howe. Yes. I believe we have Ogallalas there. They have
a secondary kind of sister college there and we also have
Presentation College.
Mr. Olver. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Mr. Brings Plenty. Also Chairman Dicks, I would like to say
thank you for coming out to our reservation.
Mr. Dicks. Yes I enjoyed that trip.
[Statements of Joseph Brings Plenty and Elizabeth Howe
follow:]
Mr. Dicks. Elbridge Coochise, Chief Justice, retired, of
the Independent Review Team on Tribal Courts. Welcome.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
INDEPENDENT REVIEW TEAM ON TRIBAL COURTS
WITNESS
ELBRIDGE COOCHISE
Mr. Coochise. Thank you, Chairman. Good morning, Chairman
and committee. Thank you for the opportunity to come before the
Committee on Appropriations. We are addressing the fiscal year
2009 budget under Public Safety and Justice in the BIA and the
Department of the Interior, and first of all, I would like to
thank you, Chairman, for your appropriations last year for
additional money to the tribal courts. That is the first time
in many years that there was any increase, and we appreciate
that, and when you came to South Dakota and made that
announcement, it was really pleasant.
What we are asking in the 2009 budget, the President's
budget proposed cut of $2.461 million, which includes that $2.3
million that the committee appropriated last year, we would
like to see that restored. Quickly numbers-wise, there are 156
tribal courts that receive federal funds through the BIA
Department of the Interior. There are 299 tribal court systems
which includes CFR courts in Indian Country. And with the 558
or so federal recognized tribes, you can see that only about
half the tribes have their own court systems.
The other request, the second and more important, is
requesting on behalf of Tribal Courts additional new money of
$50 million through the BIA Office of Justice Services Division
of Tribal Justice Support. Our independent review team has been
out reviewing tribal courts since fiscal year 2006. In 2006 we
reviewed 25 courts, in 2007, two courts, and this year, seven
courts, and we have not encountered any tribal courts that have
sufficient funding from the Federal government. With that, we
have found courts with as low as $12,000 per year to try to
operate on, and it is highly unlikely that you have a good
independent justice system when you do not have the--and with
the budget increases for law enforcement, for the meth programs
and detention issues, they all got increases and yet there are
decreases in tribal court funding and all those entities, any
arrest has to come through tribal courts. Any meth issues will
have to be dealt with in tribal courts. And to get to
detention, you have to get through tribal court system. So that
is why we are making a request for and on behalf of tribal
courts. And in our review process, the common denominator has
been the lack of sufficient funding, including staff that are
actually being paid lower than the income level, the poverty
line. So with that, we had submitted last year, and I have
another copy if you wish, the final report from the first 25
courts, that we reviewed, and part of our testimony reiterates
some of those same findings that we made in that first 25.
And so with that, Chairman, we appreciate your support from
the committee to address the funding shortages for tribes and
their court systems, and if you have any questions--oh, I would
like to introduce one of my colleagues on the team, Mr. Al
Gonzalez.
[The statement of Elbridge Coochise follows:]
Mr. Dicks. No, we understand this is a shortage of funds
and this is consistent with every other part of this budget.
The thing that I want everybody to understand is, since 2001
the Interior budget has gone down by over 16 percent, EPA 29
percent, Forest Service 35 percent. And then this year between
2008 and 2009, the President's budget cuts this area by $1
billion so we can only do so much here because anything we add
money to, we have to take it from somewhere else and we are
scrubbing this budget to try to find places to do that but it
is very difficult because these programs are all worthy
programs. So, I just pledge to you that we will do our best
with the resources we have. I think our allocation early on in
the House will be good and we will be able to take care of some
of these things, but at the end of the day we have to come down
to the level of the President's budget to get a bill signed. We
will be in deep trouble, I mean very serious problems.
So I appreciate your good work and all the efforts you have
made to evaluate the system, and we understand what is needed
is additional resources and we will do our best.
Mr. Coochise. Yes, and appreciate your considering, but
again, if you increase the----
Mr. Dicks. You are sitting here and you are hearing all the
other needs are out there too: Education, housing, healthcare.
I mean, you go right down the list. Every single area is
underfunded.
Mr. Coochise. Yes, and we support the increases for law
enforcement and meth but it is not going to be dealt with
unless----
Mr. Dicks. The courts are there, unless you have a court
system. We take that point. It is a serious point.
Mr. Tiahrt.
Mr. Tiahrt. No questions.
Mr. Dicks. Clifton Skye, director of project management,
the United Sioux Tribes Development Corporation. Welcome. We
will put your statement in the record and you have five minutes
to summarize.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
UNITED SIOUX TRIBES DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
WITNESS
CLIFTON SKYE
Mr. Skye. Good morning, Chairman Dicks and Ranking Member
Tiahrt and honorable members of this committee. I would like to
thank you for the opportunity to appear before you here and I
appreciate that you are submitting my testimony for the record.
The United Sioux Tribes has four requests. Two of them are
for the organization and two are for the U.S. Geological Survey
and the Bureau of Indian Affairs for tribal stream gauge
networks, and the other one is for the Bureau to restore the
budget back to 2006 levels, and I understand the restraints on
this body here regarding that.
But before I continue, I would like to thank Members of
Congress, this committee, the House and the Senate for
authorizing legislation for Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson Keeble,
who won the Medal of Honor. The ceremony was held at the White
House March 3. Master Sgt. Keeble won this during the Korean
conflict and that man died January 29, 1982. At the same time
that he was fighting in Korea, federal Indian policy was into a
program for termination. This was between 1953 and 1964. The
reason I bring that up is because the United Sioux Tribes is an
organization that began out of that. It began in 1952 as a
grassroots outfit that was organized to confront this policy.
Mr. Dicks. Of termination?
Mr. Skye. Of termination at the State level, and we were
successfully able to prevent the State of South Dakota through
a referendum, a successful public relations campaign, that
prevented the tribes from coming under 280 law. Unfortunately,
one of the members in Nebraska was able to get out of that in
2006 and we were able to assist him in that effort.
As far as other tribes that were affected, of course
California and Minnesota and Wisconsin, my aunt was able to
help the Menominee Tribe come out of the termination status in
the Menominee Termination Act in 1954. Former President Nixon
signed the Restoration Act in 1972.
The importance of that is that the organization itself
through the Wounded Knee incident in 1973 was able to get
itself involved with the White House during those days. Out of
that relationship with Erlichman and Haldeman, whose names are
not very well thought of at that time, but we were able to put
together a 638 law which is something that all the tribes
benefited from nationally through basic tenets that we
submitted to the White House and was later passed as the Self
Determination Act.
What we are asking for, for the organization, is to fund
our EA, our Employment Assistance program. The EA provides job
referral and job assistance to urban Indians. Sixty-four
percent of Indians live off the reservation so it is an
important program. The funding has always been about $450,000
so its impact is in the regional area of North Dakota, South
Dakota, Nebraska. But it is a national program. It has funded
people beyond those borders. We have not been funded since 2006
but if this committee finds funding for it, we are looking to
leverage funds with the National Tribal Cultural Resources
database. Now, it is hard to find vital statistics on tribes.
The Reagan-era budget cuts eliminated a lot of those amenities
for other federal agencies to provide that. So what we are
looking for is $1.2 million for the National Tribal Cultural
Resources database and we are also looking for $1.2 million for
the Employment Assistance program.
In addition to that, we are asking for $7 million for the
Stream Gauge Network.
Mr. Dicks. Yes, that is a very popular program. I think we
will be able to help on that.
Mr. Skye. And of course, we would like the Bureau funded
back to its 2006 levels, and I thank you for your time.
[The statement of Clifton Skye follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much. We appreciate your
testimony.
Any questions?
Mr. Olver. I have one.
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Olver.
Mr. Olver. Sir, the United Sioux Tribes Development
Corporation, I think I understand that you operate in Nebraska,
South Dakota and North Dakota. Do you represent all of the
Sioux tribes in those three States?
Mr. Skye. Well, the chairmen organized the corporation
themselves back in 1952.
Mr. Olver. Are all the Sioux tribes in those three States
represented and served by the----
Mr. Skye. Through the office of the chairman, yes.
Mr. Olver. And are any tribes other than Sioux tribes
involved in this development corporation?
Mr. Skye. It is strictly Sioux.
Mr. Olver. But you can operate throughout any of those
three States?
Mr. Skye. Right.
Mr. Olver. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Okay. Thank you very much.
Roman Bitsuie, executive director of the Navajo-Hopi Land
Commission Office. Welcome. We will put your entire statement
in the record, and you have five minutes to summarize.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
NAVAJO-HOPI LAND COMMISSION OFFICE
WITNESS
ROMAN BITSUIE
Mr. Bitsuie. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two members of
the Navajo Nation Council that are out in the audience. Mr.
Ramon Max and Mr. Elmer Pagaho are members of the Navajo-Hopi
Land Commission.
Thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony on one
of the most vexing matters in modern federal Indian policy and
a true tragedy for the Navajo Nation. I am the executive
director of the Navajo-Hopi Land Commission Office, an entity
of the Navajo Nation. I have spent my entire adult life working
to resolve the Navajo-Hopi land dispute and the Bennett Freeze
matters. The harsh impact of the federal action that created
these two issues will be with the Navajo Nation for many more
generations. Every day Navajo tribal members come into my
office to tell me of the hardships that they have suffered
because of the relocation law or the Bennett Freeze. For the
first time ever, I have some good news to report, although I
will again bring to the attention of the committee the need for
additional resources to address the human toll of forced
relocation of thousands of Navajo families as well as the
Bennett Freeze. I also want to report on two positive
developments which offer real hope for a brighter future of
these families.
First, the Navajo nation has begun development of the
Paragon Resources Ranchlands in New Mexico. These lands were
provided to the Navajo as part of the relocation law. The
Navajo-Hopi Land Commission Office is developing large-scale
renewable energy generating capacity on these lands. As a
matter of federal law, the net income from the use of these
lands will go exclusively towards addressing the impacts due to
federal relocation law, creating a vital new source of funds
that will be available to address the ongoing harsh impacts of
the relocation law and the various construction fees. The
Paragon Ranchlands have highly favorable characteristics for
large-scale concentrating solar generating capacity. As a part
of phase I development, we have already completed initial
assessments and signed MOUs with two large solar companies. We
ask that this committee help us help ourselves by providing
$1.5 million for phase II of this project out of the budget of
the Navajo-Hopi Indian Relocation Office which should be
increased overall for this purpose.
The second piece of good news is that all of the key legal
issues between the two tribes have been fully resolved, leading
to after more than 40 years the lifting of the federally
imposed Bennett Freeze in the western portion of the Navajo
Nation which has had no significant development for more than
40 years. As a result of this construction freeze, the Bennett
Freeze Navajos have become the poorest of the poor. In 2006,
after a settlement agreement was reached between the Navajo and
the Hopis, the freeze was lifted with most of the area having
been found to belong to the Navajo Nation. For the thousands of
Navajo families who live there, this means that the freeze
served no real purpose other than to bring them misery and
hardship. We ask that the committee support the lifting of the
Bennett Freeze through establishment of the rehabilitation
program for the Bennett Freeze area with a first year funding
level of $10 million out of the BIA resources. After all, this
was imposed by the Secretary of the Interior back in 1966.
In conclusion, I urge the Congress to live up to its
responsibility to the many people adversely affected by the
land dispute and the Bennett Freeze in a way that is fair and
humane and not let the costly mistakes of the past force a
decision today that results in an even greater human toll.
Mr. Dicks. Have you brought this to the attention of the
Natural Resources Committee in the House and the Senate Select
Committee on Indian Affairs?
Mr. Bitsuie. Yes, we did that yesterday, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. That is good.
Mr. Bitsuie. The Navajo Nation is willing and open to
working with the committee to identify the most effective and
practical ways of moving forward. I thank the committee for
this opportunity to provide testimony on these matters.
[The statement of Roman Bitsuie follows:]
Mr. Dicks. We appreciate your good work and your commitment
to helping resolve this very tragic situation.
Mr. Tiahrt.
Mr. Tiahrt. No questions.
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Olver.
Mr. Olver. No questions.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Mr. Bitsuie. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Terri Weaver on behalf of the American Lung
Association and the American Thoracic Society. We will put your
statement in the record and you have five minutes to proceed.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION AND AMERICAN THORACIC SOCIETY
WITNESS
TERRI WEAVER
Ms. Weaver. Good morning, Chairman Dicks and members of the
subcommittee. My name is Terri Weaver. I am the past chair of
the National Board of the American Lung Association. I am also
a past board member of the American Thoracic Society and I am
grateful for the opportunity to provide a statement on behalf
of the American Lung Association and the American Thoracic
Society.
What I would like to discuss with you today is the need for
increased funding for EPA's fiscal year 2009 budget for its
Clean Air program activities to improve public health and more
effectively protect those with lung disease who suffer from the
adverse effects of air pollution. We oppose the
Administration's proposed budget cuts to Clean Air programs.
The proposed budget cuts for fiscal year 2009 by the
Administration would cut overall funding for goal one, clean
air and global climate change, by $33.5 million. The biggest
share of these cuts, $27 million, was for Healthier Outdoor Air
programs. In light of the fact that the EPA has fallen behind
on measures to reduce emissions that contribute to air
pollution, the proposed cuts are really ill-timed and ill-
advised. We oppose the Administration's cut of $9 million to
the Global Climate Change program. We know the health and other
benefits achieved by reducing ozone and fine particulate air
pollution are really quite large. In fact, the EPA conducted a
study of the Clean Air Act from 1970 to 1990 and found that the
benefits to health and the environment of this program was $22
trillion. The Administration's budget cut then we feel, given
the tremendous health and environmental benefits, is a classic
example of pennywise and pound foolish strategy.
We strongly recommend an increase in EPA's Clean Air
budget. The National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone
and particulate matter will require many measures by EPA and
State and local pollution control agencies to design, adopt and
enforce reduction programs that will lower mobile and
stationary emissions. We recommend starting with a 10 percent
increase, which is $64 million, in the Healthy Outdoor Air
Program. We urge the subcommittee to request an assessment from
EPA of the resources that it needs to properly implement the
National Ambient Air Quality Standards. We support increased
funding for State and local agencies. In fiscal year 2008,
State and local agencies received section 103 and 105 grants
from EPA totaling $185.3 million. The agencies have calculated
based on their assessment that they need grant funds in the
amount of $270.3 million. We support the increased funding for
the same reasons that I have mentioned previously for EPA's
Clean Air programs.
We also request support and increased funding for DERA. We
know that researchers have found that families that live in
areas where there are busy roadways have increased lung disease
and problems with lung health. Children are especially
vulnerable who live very close to traffic-related air
pollution. The EPA has provided for federal grants for diesel
fleet replacement and retrofit programs pursuant to the Diesel
Emission Reduction Act of 2005 called DERA. According to the
OMB, this program to date has yielded one of the great cost-
benefit ratios of any Federal government program. The
Administration's fiscal year 2009 budget contains funding for
DERA at the same level appropriated by Congress in fiscal year
2008, $49 million. However, we believe that the urgency of need
and the proven effectiveness of this program justifies an
increase in the level of funding for DERA to the full
authorization which was set for DERA at $200 million per year.
Again, I thank the subcommittee for the opportunity to
appear today and discuss the funding needs of EPA's Clean Air
programs. Thank you very much.
[The statement of Terri Weaver follows:]
Mr. Dicks. I just want to bring it to your attention that
since 2001, EPA's budget has been cut by 29 percent, and we
strongly support having more funds in this area. In fact, the
budget allocation that we approved the last two years will
provide that, but we get faced with a situation where at the
end of the year the President says you have to come down to the
level I requested or he will veto the bill, and there is no
negotiation. I mean, this is just hard ball, and I think you
are pointing out the price we pay, a huge price we pay for
cutting these programs.
Ms. Weaver. Well, we pay for it in the end.
Mr. Dicks. Yes, we all pay for it in the end. Thank you
very much.
Ms. Weaver. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Heather Taylor-Miesle is deputy director of the
National Resources Defense Council. Heather, how are you?
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL
WITNESS
HEATHER TAYLOR-MIESLE
Ms. Taylor-Miesle. A whole bunch of stuff, although Energy
Star is more focused on in the written testimony of course than
the oral.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is
Heather Taylor-Miesle. I am the deputy legislative director of
the Natural Resources Defense Council. Every day we learn more
about the ways in which global warming is already damaging our
planet and its ability to sustain us. The U.N.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, found that
11 of the past 12 years are among the 12 hottest years on
record. More wildfires, like the disaster that just hit
California, more heat waves, more droughts and floods are
predicted to occur as global warming continues unabated. Even
our very own Centers for Disease Control, when not censored by
the White House, calls global warming a threat to public
health. Everywhere one looks, the impacts of disrupted climate
are confronting us.
First and foremost, NRDC supports those in Congress who are
working to immediately authorize legislation that will cut
global warming emissions by 80 percent by 2050. As we wait for
the legislation to be finalized, the Appropriations Committee
is in a unique position to be able to take action immediately
to lay the groundwork for future policy and to put our country
on a path toward a cleaner energy future.
The Energy Security and Independence Act passed in late2007
gave federal agencies several tools in which to address climate change.
Although NRDC supports many programs in environmental agencies, today's
testimony will focus on newly authorized programs that support a new
renewable fuel standard, accelerate the use of carbon capture
sequestration technology and help our land and health agencies address
a newly evolving environment.
First, NRDC urges the Appropriations Committee to provide
$25 million in fiscal year 2009 for EPA to research, create and
implement a renewable fuel standard. The oil that powers our
vehicles accounts for two-thirds of our total oil use and
generates one-third of the U.S. carbon dioxide emissions that
cause global warming. Biofuels offer some hope but only if we
create and implement regulations that are scientifically sound
and sustainable. Reaching this goal will be no small task and
will require that the EPA coordinate across federal agencies
and in some cases with other countries. The regulations that
they establish must take into consideration a huge laundry list
of things that include everything from forestry and crop
development, water quality, supply, pesticide use and disposal,
soil erosion, habitat destruction, air pollution, public lands
protective and invasive species. Once that regulation is done,
they have to consider infrastructure associated with
transportation and storage of new fuels and they have to take
appropriate actions to ensure that there are no negative health
and environmental impacts. This ambitious to-do list can only
be completed with proper long-term federal investment.
Next, NRDC urges the committee to consider adding an
additional $5 million more to the President's request for the
EPA to finish their proposed rules for regulating geological
sequestration of carbon dioxide and $6 million for the
Department of the Interior to carry out carbon dioxide
sequestration capacity assessment. More than 50 percent of the
electricity consumed in the United States is produced from
coal. Coal has a high uncontrolled carbon dioxide emission rate
and is responsible for 33 percent of the carbon dioxide
released into the atmosphere. Coal gasification with carbon
capture technologies is essential if continued use of coal is
to be reconciled with preventing dangerous global warming.
These technologies can present 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide
from escaping from coal plants in the next 50 years but the
technology must be regulated in order to ensure that
sequestration is done in a safe and effective manner. These
funds will help the agency finalize this important rule and
will provide them with a map in which to get the technology off
the ground.
And finally, environmental agencies are facing a new
challenge that they have never encountered before due to global
warming. It is imperative that the Department of the Interior
receive $15 million to incorporate climate change
considerations into their resource management planning process
and the Center for Disease Control and Preparedness receive $20
million to address health impacts of climate change. These
agencies are literally on the front lines of global warming and
their meager resources are not keeping up with the demand of a
totally new problem.
The latest IPCC report predicts an increase of as much of
12 to 13 degrees in the United States by 2100. An upcoming
report by several prominent think tanks and universities will
project the cost of inaction to be about $1.9 trillion annually
in the same time period. This relatively small federal
investment now can help us start to address climate change and
avoid some of the enormous costs in the future. Thank you.
[The statement of Heather Taylor-Miesle follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, one of the things you mentioned here about
carbon dioxide sequestration capacity assessment, I have been
in talks with Mark Myers at the USGS. He says that we have very
little science about how we are going to do this except on oil
and gas lands, that there we have some understanding of how
putting this carbon dioxide into the ground is going to work,
but there is very little real scientific information about how
you do this in other areas which are not oil and gas lands, so
I think you have touched on something. We think we are just
going to go do this and there are going to be a lot of issues
about how do you do this and we have to do it. So----
Ms. Taylor-Miesle. And we keep hearing from Congress that
coal, coal, coal is going to be a part of this and we have to
accept the realities in the environmental community, at least
this is what I have been told, that coal is going to be a part
of us becoming more energy independent and therefore we are
going to have to address it in the context of climate change,
and I think the technology that is possible through coal carbon
sequestration is going to be really important and we have to
make sure that we do it the right way, though. That is our big
thing.
Mr. Dicks. Last year we had a hearing with the federal
agencies. They came in and told us about what they see on the
ground already in terms of the impacts of climate change, so
there is a lot more going on with the scientific level and the
agencies than sometimes people think.
Ms. Taylor-Miesle. Absolutely.
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Tiahrt.
Mr. Tiahrt. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think that there is a lot of science out there that we
have not addressed yet and I think we ought to have a hearing
about it. For example, in Arizona, there is a plant that burns
coal to generate electricity but they recycle the carbon. They
use it to create algae. It is just an experimental project now
but they grow algae and use the carbon and algae to burn again
to create more electricity and then they again grow some more
algae and so they are recycling the carbon. It is a form of
sequestration in that it does not get out in the atmosphere but
it is new technology that we are just seeing. We are worried
about burying it in the ground or inserting it back into the
ocean or something like that for sequestration but probably the
best solution is recycling it.
Ms. Taylor-Miesle. There are a lot of exciting technologies
out there that we can look at through science but it is
important to note that the environmental agencies are operating
at a funding level that is the equivalent of levels that they
received in 1985. So the research that needs to happen in the
environmental agencies is enormous and they need the federal
investment in order to find those creative new ways to make
sure that we can address global warming.
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Udall.
Mr. Udall. Let me say I agree with you. Do you have any
sense on what you think is the magnitude of investment that
needs to be made in areas like carbon sequestration and those
kinds of areas? I mean, some people have said with carbon we
should be investing $1 billion a year for the carbon and coal
and sequestration, $1 billion a year for the next five years to
find out if we are going to be able to use our coal or not, so
that would give us an indication of which direction we should
move in. Do you have any recommendations?
Ms. Taylor-Miesle. You know, we would have loved to come in
and make those kinds of requests but of course I think that the
chairman might have laughed at me.
Mr. Dicks. But we did add $5 million last year for the work
on this.
Ms. Taylor-Miesle. Yes, you did.
Mr. Dicks. So we know this is a problem and we also have a
center at the U.S. Geological Survey for the impact on
wildlife. People have not thought about the consequences to
wildlife. We know about the polar bear and other species on our
own lands here in the United States and of course the polar
bear is part of that in Alaska.
So thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony.
Ms. Taylor-Miesle. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Bill Becker, executive director of the National
Association for Clean Air Agencies. We will put your entire
statement in the record, and you have five minutes to
summarize.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR CLEAN AIR AGENCIES
WITNESS
S. WILLIAM BECKER
Mr. Becker. Thank you, Chairman Dicks. Good morning,
Ranking Member Tiahrt. I am Bill Becker. I am the executive
director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. We
are an association representing 53 States and territories and
more than 165 local air pollution control agencies around the
country. These agencies are directly responsible for protecting
the health and welfare of citizens in every State of the
country.
Today there are more than, according to EPA statistics,
20,000 to 40,000 people who die every year from air pollution.
Twenty thousand to 40,000 people die every year from air
pollution in this country. Millions live in areas exceeding the
health-based air quality standards for smog or fine particulate
commonly referred to as soot and/or live in areas where
exposure to toxic air pollution exceeds what EPA believes is an
acceptable threshold. And of course, we must attend to the
pervasive haze problem threatening not only our national parks
but most other regions of the country.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, State and local air pollution
control agencies in every State in this country receive grants
under sections 103 and 105 of the Clean Air Act to help their
implementation programs so that they can mitigate these
problems. These agencies use these funds for people and
equipment, for developing emissions inventories, for adopting
regulations, drafting State implementation plans, monitoring
enforcement, permitting. The list goes on. These grants are
their lifeblood. The President for the----
Mr. Dicks. Do the States put up any money or the local
government?
Mr. Becker. Yes. Well, it is interesting that you ask. The
Clean Air Act requires EPA to put up 60 percent and the States
to put up 40 percent. Over the past probably 10 to 15 years,
the States have put up close to 75 percent and the Federal
government only 25 percent, and that gap has widened.
Mr. Dicks. Every year.
Mr. Becker. Every year.
The President for the third straight year has proposed
devastating cuts to the State's grants program. In fiscal year
2009, the President has proposed cutting our grants by $31.2
million, or over 15 percent of the total funds we receive from
Congress. That is 15 percent. Last year you were gracious, Mr.
Chairman, in restoring these cuts and all of my members want to
thank you very much for that. That was very helpful.
Our request this year is that you not only restore the
$31.2 million cut in the President's budget but you also
provide an increase of approximately $50 million, which is a
fraction of what is actually needed to protect the health and
welfare of people in every State in this country, and I want to
quickly break these two requests down.
First, restoring the cuts. We have analyzed the impacts of
these cuts State by State and we found that if these cuts go
through, agencies will have to lay off valuable staff or leave
current vacancies unfilled. Many agencies would be forced to
shut down their monitoring networks and curtail important
monitoring programs. Inspection and enforcement programs would
be impaired. Some local agencies would need to be closed and
regional planning organizations would not be able to deliver
important technical services to their constituencies. So
clearly we need that money restored.
Secondly, what would we do with the additional $50 million?
Today State and local agencies face many new and important
challenges and among them are the following. We are smack dab
in the midst of developing State implementation plans for haze,
for ozone, or smog, and for fine particulate, or soot. These
activities which we describe in our testimony are time
consuming, they are labor intensive and they are very costly.
Additionally, as recently as yesterday, EPA has tightened its
health-based air quality standards, yesterday for ozone, less
recently for fine particulate. And we will need to expand our
monitoring capacity, both people and equipment, to address
those new standards. And we will also need to regulate
thousands of smaller sources of pollution, meaning, among other
things, hazardous air pollutants, and the list goes on.
Let me close with two final comments. First, we are part of
an important coalition of over 200 industry, environment and
health groups and State and local agencies who are not only
supporting our request for increased funding for State and
local air pollution control agencies but also supporting $70
million for diesel retrofit projects under the Diesel Emission
Reduction Act. I know you are familiar with the program and the
ALA representative also supported that. And secondly and
finally, we are concerned, irrespective of how much money you
give us, that EPA has begun to earmark our grants for purposes
that they, not State and local agencies, believe are important.
Recently in discussing the fiscal----
Mr. Dicks. So they are taking money out of 103 and 105 and
then saying it has to be used for this purpose?
Mr. Becker. Correct. And to your all's credit, the
Appropriations Committee in the past several years ago had
admonished EPA about this and they seem to have forgotten this
instruction, and it has become a very significant issue this
year. We have better purposes for spending the money than they
have outlined for about maybe $5 to $10 million and it would be
very helpful if you could provide some guidance in your
legislation to address this problem.
Thanks again for your help last year and we hope you can
help us again this year.
[The statement of S. William Becker follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Mr. Tiahrt.
Mr. Tiahrt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
From your title, you are a national association. Have you
worked internationally at all? Because China now surpassed us
last year as a leading contributor to not only carbon but also
pollutants. Every five days they open a new old-technology
coal-fired electrical generation plant and it seems like all
this stuff that we are doing is going to be undone in a matter
of months. So is there any effort to extend beyond the
boundaries of the United States and try to bring the
international community into some form of standard or
compliance?
Mr. Becker. Well, our association is consisting primarily
of State and local and territorial air pollution control
agencies. However, we are very much aware of the international
problem. We attend all the international conferences. We are a
small staff but some of our members go, and we and many other
State officials are trying to work internationally to address
this, but you are absolutely right. Both the developed and the
developing countries need to do more to address this problem
and we cannot do it alone. We would say the domestic response
should not be conditional on China and others acting. We need
to show leadership, but they do need to do their fair share.
Mr. Tiahrt. We do need to bring them along.
Mr. Becker. I agree.
Mr. Dicks. All right. Thank you very much.
Mr. Becker. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Next we have Dr. Soliman, the Association of
Minority Health Professions Schools.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
ASSOCIATION OF MINORITY HEALTH PROFESSIONS SCHOOLS
WITNESS
MAGDI SOLIMAN
Dr. Soliman. Mr. Chairman, committee members, thank you
very much for giving me the opportunity to come and testify
today in front of you. My name is Magdi Soliman. I am a
professor of toxicology and director of the graduate programs
at Florida A & M University. I am also the program director of
the environmental health research program at the Association of
Minority Health Professions Schools.
The AMHPS, or Association of Minority Health Professions
Schools, is a consortium of 12 historically black health
professions schools. Collectively, we have educated nearly 50
percent of all the Nation's African-American physicians, 60
percent of its African-American pharmacists and 80 percent of
its African-American veterinarians. Since 1992, AMHPS had a
cooperative agreement with the Agency of Toxic Substance and
Disease Registry to study the impact of the toxicity of 12
priority hazardous substances. The main objective of this
cooperative agreement is to understand the linkage between
exposure to these hazardous substances such as lead, zinc,
mercury and manganese on the negative health impacts. The idea
was to try to fill in very important data gap in the scientific
knowledge about the toxicity of these hazardous substances. By
trying to fill in these important data gaps, we will be able to
contribute in decreasing the uncertainties of public health
assessment and providing the most effective measures to prevent
or mitigate the human health effect of these toxic substances.
This research has produced an impressive body of knowledge
which has been reported in more than 120 presentations at
scientific national and international meetings as well as more
than 80 manuscripts published in very renown, prestigious peer
review journals.
An additional benefit of this cooperative agreement is the
training of minority students in the areas of toxicology and
environmental health. We have trained not only graduate
students but also professional medical, public health and
pharmacy students. We have also recently produced a document
detailing all of our accomplishments for the past 15 years of
this cooperative agreement. This cooperative agreement with
ATSDR should continue to allow AMHPS to apply findings of the
previous 15 years of environmental health research to improve
public health, especially in low-income underserved and
minority communities.
I come to you today to respectfully request that this
subcommittee fully fund this cooperative agreement at the level
of $5 million per year. In fiscal year 2003, we were funded at
$4 million. Our funding, however, in the last years has not
been that robust. It actually has been decreased considerably.
Mr. Dicks. Have you tried to apply to EPA for----
Dr. Soliman. We are applying with ATSDR. It is a
cooperative agreement with ATSDR.
Mr. Dicks. All right.
Dr. Soliman. And like I said, we have been cut drastically
in recent years. However, due to the commitment of our member
institutions, we are continuing to provide the research in a
very good way and try to do world-class research. However, we
find that this is straining the resources of our institutions
and we find it very increasingly hard to produce first-class
research on a very low budget.
Therefore, in addition to the $5 million for our
cooperative agreement, we request that you also fund the ATSDR
with CDC at the level of $85 million per year, an increase of
about $10.9 million in fiscal year 2008. This is a very small
investment in view of the fact that this research will
increasingly help the society to deal with some of the
environmental health problems that we are seeing today. The
increased need is not only to fund our agreement but also to do
additional research. As you very well know, recently CDC report
described potential health threats that are near the 26
polluted Great Lake areas. Also, we cannot forget the effects
of Hurricane Katrina and we really need to assess the
environmental impact of this hurricane and its effect on
environmental health.
[The statement of Magdi Soliman follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much.
Dr. Soliman. Thank you very much for your time.
Mr. Dicks. Brian Pallasch, American Society of Civil
Engineers. Welcome.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS
WITNESS
BRIAN PALLASCH
Mr. Pallasch. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Tiahrt,
good to see you again. Members of the subcommittee, I am Brian
Pallasch. I am the managing director of government relations
and infrastructure initiatives for the American Society of
Civil Engineers. I am pleased to be here today on behalf of
ASCE and to discuss key components of the Environmental
Protection Agency's budget and the USGS budget for fiscal year
2009.
In the EPA's budget, ASCE urges among other things that the
subcommittee fund the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund
Program at $1.5 billion for fiscal year 2009. Last year you
were able to provide $689 million. Unfortunately, that was a
reduction of $395 million, or 36 percent, from the fiscal year
2007 level. It was the lowest federal commitment to the fund in
more than a decade.
Mr. Dicks. What do you do with their argument? The EPA
argues that the States have enough money now in their revolving
funds and they can revolve and take care of the problems that
are needed in each State. How do you deal with that?
Mr. Pallasch. Well, you counteract that with the fact that
the EPA's own gap analysis which they do over time says that
there is about $390 billion in needs out there in the
wastewater area to replace the infrastructure, and admittedly,
the Federal government does not pay for all of these needs and
the State and local governments, in fact, the utilities pay for
90 percent of that activity.
Mr. Dicks. There is very little outright grant money.
Mr. Pallasch. Absolutely. This is primarily a loan program.
That is correct. So it is all repaid into the system.
Mr. Dicks. And so in many areas of the country, it is very
difficult to do these projects because you have to pay back the
loans so the ratepayers have to pay the rates and if it is too
high, they will not do the projects. They are politically
unsustainable.
Mr. Pallasch. It becomes a difficult process, yes.
The President's budget unfortunately this year continues
this, if you will, retreat by proposing a budget of $555
million for the State Revolving Loan Fund and again that is
just a further reduction from what you all were able to do last
year.
I talked about the EPA gap analysis that put the needs at
$390 billion. ASCE does a report card, as you are well aware.
In 2005 we did a report card for American's infrastructure.
When we talk about the needs and the shrinking federal
investment, we gave wastewater systems a grade of a D minus,
not a very good grade, sir. Meanwhile, the funding levels
continue to go down.
The other area within EPA is the Safe Drinking Water Act
State Revolving Loan Fund. Those dollars have remained
relatively constant. We feel the subcommittee should
appropriate $1 billion for the Safe Drinking Water Act State
Revolving Loan Fund in 2009. This would be a modest increase of
$150 million. The President's budget is at $850 million in
fiscal year 2009. He has maintained that budget for a number of
years. And this is necessary to continue to provide funding for
critically needed upgrades to the Nation's 54,000 water
systems, not to mention some of the mandates that have been put
on them by EPA to get the contaminants out of the water.
With regards to the U.S. Geological Survey----
Mr. Dicks. Now wait a minute. You have another gap here of
$151 million on drinking water. Those are not part of the 390.
Mr. Pallasch. Correct. Drinking water has a similar gap,
correct.
Mr. Dicks. A hundred and fifty-one million.
Mr. Pallasch. It should be billion, I think.
Mr. Dicks. Billion. Excuse me.
Mr. Pallasch. We talk in billions usually on
infrastructure.
Mr. Dicks. So this is well over half a trillion?
Mr. Pallasch. That is correct, sir.
And we are working with Mr. Oberstar and Mr. Blumenauer to
come up with some more different ways to fund this rather than
just straight out of the federal budget as a general
appropriation.
With regards to USGS, as you know, the mission is to
collect and analyze and disseminate geological, topographic and
hydrologic information that contributes to the wise management
of the Nation's natural resources and promotes the health,
safety and welfare of folks. USGS received a little over $1
billion last year. That was the first year you were able to do
that and we strongly support that, and thank you for those
efforts. This year the budget has been proposed at about $968.5
million, which is a modest decrease of $38 million. However,
our concern is the largest reduction is going to come in the
agency's water resources budget, which is proposed for about
$140.7 million, which is down from $151.4 million in 2008. Part
of this a decrease in the National Water Quality Assessment
Program, which would take a cut of $10 million, which is a 15
percent reduction. This program collects long-term data on
groundwater quality and drinking water supplies. The reduction
will effectively eliminate the assessments of water quality at
10 of the Nation's 20 largest aquifers and end the assessment
of drinking water quality at almost 200 community water systems
in California, Arizona, Utah, Massachusetts, New Jersey,
Louisiana and Alabama.
We recommend that the subcommittee restore the budget for
the National Water Quality Assessment Program to the fiscal
year 2008 level to avoid the loss of this cortically important
water quality data. I have heard others today mention the
Stream Flow Information Program. We are pleased with the budget
increases that were received last year. There is a small
increase in the President's budget this year up to $23.8
million, up from $20.1 million. This new money will allow USGS
and other agencies to continue operating almost 200 stream
gauges in 31 States, and that has provided about 70 years'
worth of data in some of these areas.
Last but not least is the Earthquake Hazard Reduction
Program. ASCE is concerned that the President's request in
fiscal year 2009 for the program is at $53 million, which is a
$5 million cut from 2008 and it is about $2 million below the
fiscal year 2007 level. This component at USGS was authorized
in the bill at $88.9 million. I know you know about
earthquakes.
[The statement of Brian T. Pallasch follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Yes, in the Northwest we have our share. Thank
you.
Mr. Tiahrt. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Tiahrt.
Mr. Tiahrt. I am a little curious why when we have a loan
fund that always costs us money, but when the banks loan money
it does not cost us money. It seems like to administer the
loans, we pay a lot of money and it seems like with the
interest they ought to pay for themselves. So I am a little
curious how that works. I also note that Brian has been very
active in raising money for a lot of good charities through a
basketball game they play once a year, and I played in that
basketball game and I think he has actually blocked my shots
and I want to register a formal complaint.
Mr. Pallasch. I may have. And I believe, Mr. Chairman, we
actually won this year, which one out of nine is not so bad.
Mr. Tiahrt. You did win, and it was fair and square.
Mr. Dicks. Thanks for coming in.
Debrah Marriott, executive director, Lower Columbia River
Estuary Partnership, Association of National Estuary Programs.
Hi, Debrah. How are you?
Ms. Marriott. Well, thank you. How are you, sir?
Mr. Dicks. I am holding up, all this bad news.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
ASSOCIATION OF NATIONAL ESTUARY PROGRAMS
WITNESS
DEBRAH MARRIOTT
Ms. Marriott. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Dicks,
Ranking Member Tiahrt and members of the subcommittee. My name
is Debrah Marriott. I am the executive director of the Lower
Columbia River Estuary Partnership in Oregon and Washington,
and I am here today representing the Association of National
Estuary Programs. I thank you very much for the opportunity to
speak with you this morning. I do have to say, my 11-year-old
was giving me speaking prep last night and he suggested I
smile, look you in the eye but not smile so hard I made you
giggle, so I will try really hard not to make you giggle,
although you might need it.
We appreciate very much your continued support of the
National Estuary Program. Last year you invested $600,000 in
each of the 28 programs, helping to restore and protect some of
our most threatened and economically vital bays and estuaries.
We include 42 percent of the Nation's shoreline and over 50
percent of the Nation's population lives in our coastal areas.
These areas are huge recreation and cultural draws. They are
transportation hubs and sources of major commerce. Their
fishing industry alone equals about $1.9 billion nationwide.
In 1987, you took a very bold step creating the National
Estuary Program to protect and restore these estuaries and
their economic, environmental and cultural importance. You
asked at that time that there be no federal cookie cutter
approach, no exhaustive planning. You wanted us to be locally
driven, to cross political boundaries, to work with diverse
parties, use science and to get actions on the ground. You
asked us to empower citizens in our local communities to take
responsibility and to be accountable to you and to future
generations. We each developed action plans with very specific
environmental targets and we are now implementing them.
Twenty-one years later, you only have to look around the
Nation's coast to see that you did the right thing. Every NEP
is giving you environmental results from Casco Bay, Maine, who
has reduced bacteria levels and opened thousands of acres of
shellfish beds, to Sarasota Bay, Florida, which has reduced
nitrogen loading inputs by 50 percent, to our home base in the
Columbia River where we have restored over 4,000 acres of
habitat for threatened and endangered species. We have engaged
14,000 citizens planting and restoring at 18 sites. We have
engaged 81,000 children in our applied learning programs,
helping Oregon and Washington teachers meet their benchmark
requirements. Nationally, the 28 programs have restored over 1
million acres of habitat.
Something else has happened also along the way. All those
partners, all that collaboration has brought you a great deal
more money for your investment. For every dollar you have given
us as National Estuary Programs, we have given you 16 back. We
have raised 16 additional dollars----
Mr. Dicks. For every dollar?
Ms. Marriott. For every dollar, showing a very real
commitment at the local level by citizens from the public
sector, the private sector, corporations and even some kids
donating their bottle-return money to us a few years ago. In
the Columbia River, we have raised $20 million new cash to
communities, thanks to your NEP funds. We give 90 percent of
that back to our local communities for them to do restoration
projects, toxics reduction projects and the outdoor education
for kids. We are aiding resolution of public health issues,
environmental health issues and economic issues.
The per-program minimum you set for each NEP is critical.
It guarantees that the funds go to the local 28 programs, the
local districts, getting you the results and leveraging our
funds. In the Columbia River, we are using the additional funds
you gave us this year to host more pesticide take-back programs
to get thousands of pounds of DDT out of barns and garages. One
site was held upriver above Bonneville Dam recently. It cost
$30,000 to host the site. They took 17,000 pounds of DDT out of
garages, so it is still out there, fortunately not in the
water.
Would we like more? Well, absolutely. After listening
today, you have some amazingly difficult decisions ahead of
you. But there is a lot more to do. In the Columbia River, we
have lost 300,000 acres of habitat since 1880. There is no
monitoring of toxic contaminants. We know they are in the
sediment, the fish tissue and the water but we do not know
where they are coming from or where they are moving. We know
some of these contaminants are actually altering the
chromosomal makeup of fish within their lifetime, changing
males to females within their own lifetime. And of the children
we do reach, it is only 6 percent of the kids in our school
districts, and one of our school districts has dropped science
from its curriculum to focus on math and reading scores.
The urgency has never been greater.
Mr. Dicks. No Child Left Behind.
Ms. Marriott. Something like that.
The Joint Oceans Commission has said that the oceans and
marine resources of the Nation are in serious trouble. In the
Columbia River, we have 12 threatened and endangered species of
salmon. Our Native American populations consume those fish at
nine times the rate of other populations. And as I said, the
toxics in the system are increasing and moving and changing.
We appreciate very much your efforts. We know that the
decisions in front of you are monumental. We can promise you
that we will continue to work your money as hard as we have. We
will continue to leverage them. You have 21 years of evidence,
28 great examples around the country, assuring you that your
investment is in fact cleaning our Nation's waters and
restoring our habitat. In the Columbia River, we like to say
that the stewardship we build lasts a lifetime.
We thank you for the opportunity----
[The statement of Debrah Marriott follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, we appreciate what you are doing, and I
must say, Puget Sound, you know, the second largest body of
water in the United States, was only getting $600,000. I mean,
I cannot imagine how much good you do with so little money. I
just hope you can continue to fix this until we can hopefully
get back into a financial situation where we can do more for
these programs. I really think this is one of the best programs
we have and it is just woefully underfunded. I mean, you have
the Tampa Bay, you have got the Narragansett. You can just go
down the line of all these estuaries. They are huge bodies of
water with all kinds of local support for this and we are doing
$600,000.
Ms. Marriott. Well, we appreciate that. We obviously hope
there is more but that $600,000 is sort of the----
Mr. Dicks. It is critical.
Ms. Marriott. Bottom of the pyramid that teeters, so thank
you for that.
Mr. Tiahrt. In your district in southwest Washington and
northwest Oregon, what is the farthest east you go?
Ms. Marriott. Mr. Chairman, Representative Tiahrt, we work
from Bonneville Dam, which is about river mile 146 on the
Columbia out to the Pacific Ocean. We cover 31 communities in
Oregon and Washington. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. We are also trying to do a lot of the Mitchell
Act hatcheries and trying to reform the hatcheries and I know
you are getting some help probably from the Salmon Recovery
Fund.
Ms. Marriott. A little bit.
Mr. Dicks. Well, they cut that in half too so we have to
try to get that restored.
Ms. Marriott. Thank you very much, sir.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you for your good work.
Sue Gunn, Washington State representative on behalf of the
Washington Watershed Restoration. How are you, Sue?
Dr. Gunn. I am doing pretty good, Mr. Dicks.
Mr. Dicks. Welcome.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
WASHINGTON WATERSHED RESTORATION INITIATIVE
WITNESS
SUE GUNN
Dr. Gunn. Good morning, Mr. Tiahrt. Good morning, Mr.
Hinchey. It is nice seeing you all again.
I would like to thank you for continuing this lovely
opportunity for the public to testify. It is noble of you to do
this for two days. I am testifying today as a Washington state
representative for Wild Lands CPR. It is an organization that
works to revitalize wild lands and we are based out of
Missoula, Montana.
But I am also speaking today as a coalition director for
the Washington Watershed Restoration Initiative and we are here
to thank you for two things, one, for your leadership over the
last decade in watershed restoration and salmon recovery, and
also for the $40 million that was provided last year for the
Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative. That funding is
incredible for our problems in Washington State and also it
complements the work that is being done with Puget Sound
Restoration Initiative because this way we can clean up the
water quality at the upper end of the watershed and complement
the work being done at the base of the watershed. It is also
important nationally to bring down the backlog in Forest
Service road maintenance.
So this year we would like to repeat our request from last
year for $30 million for Washington State and also ask for $75
million for the Nation because for Washington State to get a
portion, the Nation needs to get their share. Washington has
22,000 miles of roads, and in 2000 there was a MOA created with
the State and the Forest Service because of violation of the
Clean Water Act. In 2005, they said that the cost would be $300
million to address the roads problems and at the rate of
funding it would take 100 years to do this. We are hoping that
maybe it will only take a decade at $30 million annually.
We also have an annual maintenance problem for which we are
appropriated $3 million but our need is about $11 million, so
as you can see, each year we go further and further into the
hole, and with the powerful storms that are coming through
every winter, in 2006 and 2007 we saw $40 million worth of
additional damage so our backlog for roads maintenance just
increases annually, and this reflects that is happening at a
national level. There are 380,000 miles of roads in the Forest
Service and estimates range between $4.5 billion and $8.3
billion to address the backlog, depending which administration
did those numbers.
So we would like to suggest that addressing this backlog
and the recommendation that the Forest Service has made to
decommission nearly half of their roads is important for water
quality, improved habitat, connecting fragment to the
ecosystems. And I have to tell you, this funding has struck a
chord across the Nation and you are going to see organizations
from many western states make requests of their delegation to
continue this funding this year and in the future because----
Mr. Dicks. You also have to make a request of the
Administration and the people who are not putting the money in
the budget so that we can deal with these problems. That is the
big problem. If the money was in the budget, we could do
something but the President cut this whole budget by $1 billion
below last year's level, and we should have gotten a $600
million increase to stay at the current services baseline. So
that is a $1.6 billion gap right there. And the Forest Service
has been cut by 35 percent without Fire. If you put Fire in,
Fire has gone from 1991 at 13 percent to 48 percent of the
budget. And in the Forest Service, you do not go to FEMA when
you have one of these great big fires like everybody else does
in disasters. They borrow the money from all these accounts. So
what is bad even gets worse because sometimes that money does
not get paid back. So it is an unbelievable problem. We had $40
million in there for the whole country under this Legacy Roads
Program and Washington State got a small amount of that. I
mean, the Forest Service, what can they do? They do not have
the money.
Dr. Gunn. I know.
Mr. Dicks. I hate to say it, but maybe you guys are going
to have to sue the Forest Service, and maybe you will have to
take them to Court.
Dr. Gunn. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. And get a legal decision on this. I do not know
how else we are going to get the money.
Dr. Gunn. I would certainly----
Mr. Dicks. The next Administration is going to be a lot
more generous than the one we have.
Dr. Gunn. Yes, I would agree, and you know, the tribes just
won a case against the state on culvert repairs so maybe the
tribes would join us in a suit against the feds.
Mr. Dicks. I, you know, I do not know how else we are going
to get there.
Dr. Gunn. Yes. Well----
Voice. Next year.
Dr. Gunn. Next year.
Mr. Dicks. We hope so.
Dr. Gunn. New leadership and maybe your bill will pass with
Mr. Rahall.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. Yes. That is right. We are working on that.
Dr. Gunn. Yes. I understand that.
Well, I would like to just close by saying that this
funding is needed. It has the potential to birth the
restoration economy.
[The statement of Sue Gunn follows:]
Mr. Dicks. The other thing we have to do is next year where
we go, in 2009, we are going to have reauthorization of
SAFETEA-LU or whatever we call that thing.
Dr. Gunn. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. The Highway Trust Fund.
Dr. Gunn. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. And the Forest Service has never been in that
pot, and I am talking to Mr. Oberstar about that. That would
get us a significant amount of money, you know, the Park
Service gets what, 250----
Dr. Gunn. Two hundred and forty.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. 240 million. The Forest Service
gets zero, I think, or very little.
Dr. Gunn. I just found out yesterday I was talking to the
Chief of Staff of Resources, and when they reauthorize that,
they amended it to allow 20 million for forest highways
maintenance, but I do not know the details, and I am going to
research that more, and I do not----
Mr. Dicks. One billion?
Dr. Gunn. Twenty million.
Mr. Dicks. Twenty million.
Dr. Gunn. Yes. It is not much, but it is in there, and all
we could find was a press release from 2005. I did not find the
language in the bill, but I am researching that.
Mr. Dicks. Shocking isn't it?
Dr. Gunn. Yes. Yes. But we could use your help.
Mr. Dicks. Well, we are going to work on it.
Dr. Gunn. Yes. So I would just like to say----
Mr. Dicks. Those are some of the things----
Dr. Gunn [continuing]. We are going to work on it.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. We can work on together.
Dr. Gunn. And thank you for your leadership.
Mr. Dicks. Right. We will keep it up. We will keep
fighting, you know.
Dr. Gunn. All right.
Mr. Dicks. Bill Imbergamo, Director of Forest Policy,
American Forest and Paper Association. How are you, Bill?
Mr. Imbergamo. Very good, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. We will put your statement in the record, and
you have five minutes to summarize.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
AMERICAN FOREST & PAPER ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
BILL IMBERGAMO
Mr. Imbergamo. Thank you very much. Mr. Tiahrt, Mr.
Hinchey, thank you for the opportunity to present the views of
the American Forest and Paper Association. We represent the
Nation's forest, paper, and wood products industry,
collectively represent over a million employees and 6 percent
of U.S. manufacturing output.
First I would like to thank the Committee for the
leadership you have shown in support for active forest
management and the Forest Products Program, particularly in
these difficult budget times. We have five main points that we
hit in our written statement, and I will summarize briefly
here.
Our top priority is fixing the way the Forest Service
budgets and pays for fire suppression costs. As you were just
discussing, Mr. Chairman, fire suppression is paid for largely
out of borrowed funds from other land management accounts after
suppression funds are exhausted, and these transfers are
rarely, or at least not always repaid.
The FLAME Act, H.R. 5541, is an important step towards
addressing this problem, and we thank you for your leadership
as an original cosponsor of that legislation which seeks to
create a clear break between fire suppression costs for large
fires and land management programs.
Clearly, the agency's cost containment efforts have not
been sufficient to address this problem. Budgetary reforms are
needed.
Second, adequate funding for active forest management is
vital to our forests and to my industry. The Forest Service
continues to harvest far less timber than dies annually from
fires, insects, and other natural causes on national forests,
and stocking levels remain unsustainably high in many areas.
Accounts such as K-V and the Salvage Sale Fund, which directly
fund reforestation habitat and forest management activities,
have been depleted by fire transfers over the last several
years.
Funding the forest products line item at 338 million, a 5
percent increase, and repaying the 159 million transferred from
K-V in fiscal 2006, is vital to prevent erosion in the program
this fiscal year.
We appreciated language included in the fiscal 2008,
Omnibus that placed a high priority on regional capability and
the distribution of forest products funding and would encourage
similar language in this year's bill.
We strongly encourage you to hold the agency accountable
for claimed savings in administrative costs which would make
substantial resources available for land management. The agency
claims it can save 30 million from administrative efficiencies.
They should be directed to report to Congress on how these
savings were directed to the field for actual land management
projects.
Third, we strongly support efforts to reduce hazardous
fuels on the national forest. Reducing fuel loads helps protect
watersheds, communities, and adjacent non-federal timberlands.
The forest products industry can play a constructive role in
this regard.
The cost of treating hazardous fuels is much lower in areas
that still have a strong forest products industry presence. We
support an increase of 15 percent above the enacted level with
a strong emphasis on mechanical treatment of forest and acres.
We continue to be concerned about the Forest Service's use
of acres treated as the sole measure of success in this
program. Congress should provide guidance directing them to
treat higher priority forest condition class three acres using
mechanical methods and to more fully utilize all of their legal
authorities such as the Health Forest Restoration Act to
achieve these goals.
Fourth, we are concerned about proposed cuts to programs
such as Cooperative Forest Health----
Mr. Dicks. When you say mechanical, what does that mean?
Mr. Imbergamo. It can mean harvest, it can mean thinning,
it can mean brush hogging, and harvest is definitely a
component of it.
Mr. Dicks. Just clearing out the under story so that when
the fire occurs, it is not as intense and----
Mr. Imbergamo. Yes.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. Severe.
Mr. Imbergamo. And it is not just under story. It stems per
acre and a lot of forest types of stems per acre, too high.
Mr. Dicks. Well, and that is the thinning. In other words,
you should----
Mr. Imbergamo. Right.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. Thin the forest and get the
separation, the fires are less intense.
Mr. Imbergamo. Correct.
Mr. Dicks. Okay.
Mr. Imbergamo. As I was saying, we are concerned about the
proposed cuts to Cooperative Forest Health, Cooperative Fire,
Forest Legacy, and Forest Legacy Roads. These programs help
protect valuable private timberlands from fires, insects, and
hazards, and poor-maintained road systems and upper watersheds.
There programs should be funded at continuing levels to ensure
that these hazards are adequately addressed.
Threats such as these do not respect property lines, and
individual landowners cannot effectively combat them on their
own.
Fifth, research programs including Forest Inventory, the
Agenda 2020 Technology Alliance, and the Forest Products
Laboratory are critical to the long-term health of our forests
and a competitiveness of our forest products industry.
Continued funding for FIA at $65 million is vital to our
understanding of long-term trends in our forests and is one of
the most widely-supported programs run by the agency.
Agenda 2020 supports development of sustainable bioenergy
supplies at existing wood and paper facilities, and the Forest
Products Lab supports cutting-edge research including
nanotechnology that helps ensure efficient use of wood fiber
and helps develop uses for small diameter trees. These programs
are run in a cooperative fashion with states, universities, and
the forest industry, giving the opportunity to leverage scarce
federal dollars.
Thank you, again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to
testimony, and we appreciate the support of this Committee.
[Statement of Bill Imbergamo follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Very good and I appreciate your good work.
Mr. Tiahrt.
Mr. Tiahrt. Mr. Hinchey.
Mr. Hinchey. I thank you very much for the points that you
have made, and I think that they are very good. And I also want
to thank the two women who preceded you for a number of things,
including the assertion on the fact that an investment of a
small amount of money produces a large comeback, which I think
is very significant. So thank you very much for all the work
that you are doing.
Mr. Dicks. Okay. Thank you. And now we will have Deborah
Gangloff, Executive Director of the American Forests.
Dr. Gangloff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. How are you today?
Mr. Dicks. Good, Deborah. How are you? Welcome.
Dr. Gangloff. I am doing good.
Mr. Dicks. We will put your entire statement in the record,
and you have five minutes to summarize.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
AMERICAN FORESTS
WITNESS
DEBORAH GANGLOFF
Dr. Gangloff. I appreciate the opportunity, Mr. Tiahrt, Mr.
Hinchey, to be here today.
You know, the members and supporters of American Forests
are somewhat amazed by this Forest Service budget. We represent
people from individuals to non-profit groups to major
corporations that support good tree conservation.
Mr. Dicks. We thought we were the only ones.
Dr. Gangloff. And I think you clearly outlined what the
external pressures are, let us say, on the Forest Service
budget, and what I really want to talk about are the way they
have sorted through the funds internally.
We believe that the Forest Service has a responsibility to
help all Americans enjoy the benefits of healthy forests both
in the national forest and elsewhere. And the services we get
from forests; clean air, clean water, and assistance with the
global warming issue as well, are going to be significantly
reduced with this President's budget.
The Forest Service has a broad mission but a very narrow
and misguided budget we think, especially this year. Even their
own strategic plan and the initiatives of the Chief are not
being met under this budget.
As mentioned earlier by other folks, the introduction of
the FLAME Act we think is going to go a long way in dealing
with the suppression problems and budgetary problems coming
from the small amount of emergency wildfires that eat up the
great amount of the land and the budget.
But we cannot cut the hazardous fuels reduction part of
this budget either. That is what lets us get ahead of the fire
risk, and cutting that down, we need to have that back and
restored at the $310 million level.
Similarly, in the BLM, those projects cannot be cut,
because they help us get ahead of the fire risk. Burned area
rehab and plant conservations are also important for the BLM.
We also call for 50 million for state assistance in fire.
This President's cut of 27 percent is unacceptable there and
also state and private forestry needs to have at least $40
million to deal with hazardous fuels reduction.
We are puzzled by the elimination of rehabilitation and
restoration dollars. The agency consistently cuts this out, and
the President cuts it out. This is where American Forests and
our members and supporters interact greatly with the national
forests. Every year we raise private sector dollars to plant
millions of trees on national forests. We leverage that small
amount of funding in that budget line item many times over to
plant trees, and the need is greater and greater every year for
replanting our national forest. So that needs the $10 million
restored.
Finally, I want to talk about state and private forestry.
This is where the expertise of our Nation's foresters is made
available to the benefit of all Americans everywhere. The
President's budget cuts state and private forestry by nearly 60
percent and coop forestry programs by 81 percent. The agency
can no longer help keep forests as forests with that kind of
budget slashing.
Economic Action Programs provides rural communities with
the opportunities to develop economies that actually make the
forest healthier. We talked about thinning earlier and fuels
reduction. There are products that can come out of those
forests where an economy can be built on it, justify the cost
of taking those trees out individually one by one, and have a
healthy economy that is interdependent with the forest. So
Economic Action Programs, we ask for the $40 million
appropriation there.
Forest stewardship, again, helps private forestland owners
keep their forests in forests. That was slashed under the
President's budget 83 percent. We would like to see that
restored to the $35 million level.
And, again, the Forest Legacy Program has been mentioned by
others, cannot be sustained with a 76 percent cut in the
budget, and it should be maintained at that $75 million level.
International Programs, too, where we share our expertise
around the world, what we know about forests and the benefit to
humans, should be funded at the 7 million and not cut 73
percent as proposed in this budget.
And finally, a topic very near and dear to me is Urban and
Community Forestry. I believe the House of Representatives
knows better than anyone the value of that program out in the
states and in the local communities. It is cut 82 percent in
this budget down to $5 million, which is outrageous. Last year
you were successful in getting that restored back to about $27,
$28 million. We are asking for at least $50 million for this
program. Urban forests provide essential clean air and clean
water benefits, can help be a part of the answer to the global
warming issue. Trees planted around homes and buildings can cut
energy use significantly, and that means less pollution in the
air, less CO2 in the atmosphere.
I know the Chairman is familiar with our work on the Puget
Sound and in Tacoma----
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Dr. Gangloff [continuing]. The value of trees for water
quality in the Puget Sound. That happens all across the
country, that kind of work, through this small Urban and
Community Forestry budget. We have planted trees in many of the
cities in upstate New York, Binghamton, actually happens to
have a pretty good tree canopy compared to Buffalo or
Rochester, but those are important programs, and that expertise
goes right down into the communities. Kansas, of course, was an
early developer and adaptor of urban forestry science and
practice. This program cannot be cut. It is too important for
Americans.
And I----
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Dr. Gangloff [continuing]. Thank you very much.
[The statement of Deborah Gangloff follows:]
Mr. Dicks. You did an excellent job, covered a lot of
territory.
Dr. Gangloff. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much.
Martin A. Bartels, Outdoor Alliance.
Mr. Bartels. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. We will put your statement in the record,
five minutes to summarize.
Mr. Bartels. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
OUTDOOR ALLIANCE
WITNESS
MARTIN A. BARTELS
Mr. Bartels. I am Martin Bartels, Executive Director of the
American Canoe Association. I am testifying today on behalf of
the Outdoor Alliance, a coalition of six national membership-
based organizations devoted to conservation and stewardship of
our Nation's public lands and waters through sustainable human-
powered outdoor recreation.
Our collective direct membership is over 100,000, and we
have a network of almost 1,400 clubs covering every state in
the union. We are, in other words, the Nation's paddlers,
climbers, back country skiers, hikers, and mountain bikers. The
aim of the Outdoor Alliance is much more than to maintain
federal lands and waters for recreation. We believe firmly that
responsible use of these lands engrains responsible care for
our environment.
Further, businesses associated with the enjoyment of
America's great places contribute billions to the national
economy. With that in mind, we are offering a few budget
recommendations under understandably challenging circumstances.
The Forest Service has come up a lot today. We are
proposing a $285 million expenditure for recreation management,
heritage, and wilderness. Importantly, I think it is important
to note that Outdoor Alliance figure will help leverage
partnerships and passionate volunteers from the human-powered
community. In my former job I was Director of Communications
for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. I think many of you are
familiar with that. I saw firsthand how more than 5,000
volunteers contributed almost 200,000 hours of service each
year. If nothing else, this relative microcosm of the massive
forest and park system is a resounding endorsement by Americans
that our outdoor spaces matter deeply.
We are also recommending a 12 percent increase for capital
improvement in trails maintenance and $75 million for the
Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Program.
Having spent a good deal of my youth at 9,800 feet above
sea level in Colorado, I gained a great respect for the work of
the BLM. Outdoor Alliance has suggested $70 million will pay
for additional rangers and field staff, finance monitoring and
restoration programs, and support BLM's volunteer core.
We also favor creating specific budget subactivities for
all the specially designated places in the Conservation System,
including Wild and Scenic Rivers and the National Scenic and
Historic Trails.
We are happy about the increased funding proposed in fiscal
year 2009, for the Park Service, but I think we all know that
key National Park Service programs are too often overlooked,
including the Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance
Program.
RTCA contributes greatly to the quality of life for
millions of Americans who do not live near iconic parks. An
appropriation of $12 million in '09, would end a decade of
neglect and would enable the program to serve the growing needs
of communities throughout the country.
Also, through the Land and Water Conservation Fund more
than 40,000 local and state park recreation and conservation
projects have been completed in almost every county across the
U.S. Outdoor Alliance supports increased funding for LWCF and
categorically opposed the Administration's recommendation to
terminate stateside LWCFs, a program critical to ensuring and
enhancing close-to-home recreation opportunities for all
Americans.
Lastly, the National Wildlife Refuge System protects myriad
species and critical habitat, provides recreational
opportunities on approximately 2,500 miles of land and water
trails for nearly 40 million visitors annually.
Mr. Dicks. This Subcommittee last year added 39 million----
Mr. Bartels. Yes, sir.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. To the Refuge System because we
recognized that it was on a disastrous downward course, and we
have a refuge caucus in the House led by Ron Kind, and he
testified, and it was a great group of people and just saying,
we have to stop this. And I actually took it to the Secretary
and told him, you know, we are very supportive of your Parks
Initiative, but we also think refuges are very important.
And fortunately, that money stayed in the budget. A lot of
these things we tried to fix were dropped back to----
Mr. Bartels. Sure.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. Last year's levels. But that was
one we are pleased about. But you have to still add $15 million
to stay even.
Mr. Bartels. Just to keep it at no net loss.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Bartels. Exactly. And I should point out, the work of
this Subcommittee in particular has been exemplary. We really
appreciate the work you have done and have a great respect for
you.
Mr. Dicks. We are trying to do the best with what we have
got, and it is tough. It is a tough time.
Mr. Bartels. Thank you very much, sir.
[The statement of Martin Bartels follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you. Appreciate you being here.
George Lea, President, Public Lands Foundation.
Mr. Lea. Mr. Chairman, good to see you again.
Mr. Dicks. We will put your statement in the record, and
you have five minutes to summarize.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
PUBLIC LANDS FOUNDATION
WITNESS
GEORGE LEA
Mr. Lea. Thank you. Yes. I am George Lea. I am the
President of the Public Lands Foundation. The foundation is an
organization of basically retired BLM people, and as such we
represent a vast knowledge of, and experience in public land
management.
It is important that the Committee understand that while we
support the Bureau's programs, we are independent in our views.
We do not have to feed our children any longer, and we often
disagree with some of the policies and programs that are
undertaken.
It is also significant that the Committee understand that
the Bureau of Land Management will return $6.2 billion in
receipts in 2009.
Mr. Dicks. Billion.
Mr. Lea. Billion. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Lea. That is not a mistake. That is billion.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Lea. With 44 percent of the receipts being returned to
the states and counties to support roads, schools, and other
community needs. We are unaware of any other agency that
returns those kind of receipts.
We basically support the budget before you, however, we
have identified certain short fallings, shortcomings, and the
need for additional funding.
The Healthy Lands Initiative is a very important program,
Mr. Chairman. There is a lot of real good work being done on
the ground for this program. And as you know, it is directed at
compensating for the, some of the damage done by energy
development and fire, particularly in the sagebrush zone area,
and there the target is basically trying to prevent the
sagebrush grouse from being listed. So that is a very important
program, and we certainly suggest that it be increased.
I would like to turn next to selling of public lands. The
budget before this Committee, again, proposes that the Federal
Land Transportation Facilitation Act be amended to allow BLM to
sell all lands identified suitable for disposable in all
updated management plans. FLPMA, of course, the Federal Land
Policy Management Act, already provides this authority to the
Bureau.
However, the budget proposal would direct that the, that a
portion of the proceeds from the selling of BLM lands be made
available for other agencies to acquire in-holdings such as the
Forest Service, Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service. We
object to using the Bureau of Land Management lands as a cash
cow. BLM lands have the same integrity and importance as the
Forest Service and the Park Service lands. And they should be
treated as such.
As a matter of fact, each agency has the need to dispose of
lands that they can no longer manage; the Forest Service, Park
Service, and they need their own authority to sell lands and to
use some of their proceeds to acquire in-holdings.
Next I would like to return, to turn to renewable energy.
With increase in the cost of energy and the need for
alternative energy sources, the number of applications for wind
and solar facilities of the public lands has mushroomed.
Currently BLM has the backlog of 137 solar and 173 wind
applications waiting BLM actions. The BLM needs funding to
process these applications, and we suggest that the BLM be
given the authority to retain the receipts from, the fee
receipts from renewable energy application as it has in the
case of some of the other energy activities such as oil and gas
and geothermal.
Mr. Chairman, you discussed here on a couple of cases this
morning the need to make some changes in the Firefighting
Arrangements Funds.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. Lea. And, again, I want to impress upon the Committee
the need to do that. BLM fortunately has been able to borrow
from carryover funds so that they are able to use those funds
and to be reimbursed later by Congress. Forest Service, the
poor devils, they do not have carryover funds, and they have to
shut down their field operations or their----
Mr. Dicks. Right. Right.
Mr. Lea [continuing]. Other forest managers to pay the fire
funds. So you are just shutting down the agency during the
field season, and they have no ability to use borrowed funds.
So, again, we suggest that----
Mr. Dicks. We are trying to get that fixed.
Mr. Lea. We would appreciate that.
Mr. Dicks. Chairman Rahall and I are working together on
that.
Mr. Lea. That is my summary, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate
the opportunity and want you to know that we are sincere in our
efforts to see that the public lands are well managed.
[The statement of George Lea follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, thank you. We appreciate the good work you
do and your independent look at the budget, and we will take a
look at all your other comments you had to make.
Mr. Lea. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Gregory Miller, President, American Hiking Society.
Dr. Miller. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. We will put your statement in the record.
Dr. Miller. Hello, Mr. Hinchey.
Mr. Dicks. You have five minutes to proceed.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
AMERICAN HIKING SOCIETY
WITNESS
GREGORY MILLER
Dr. Miller. Well, I thank you for this opportunity to
testify and applaud your resilience in going without a break.
As noted, I am Gregory Miller, President of American Hiking
Society. We are a national organization that promotes and
protects foot trails and the hiking experience across the
country. We represent thousands of members and speak for the 75
million Americans who hike. We are also a member, as noted by
Mr. Bartels, a member of the Outdoor Alliance, as he testified
a moment ago.
We greatly appreciate the Subcommittee's past support for
trails and recreation and urge you to support strong trails and
recreation funding in fiscal year '09.
I would like to ask the Committee, and frankly, everyone in
the room to take a moment and imagine your favorite trail and
how it shaped your outdoor experience. Now, take that trail and
picture that it is gone or that it is so poorly maintained that
you no longer have access to it, you and your family and
friends.
Hiking our Nation's trails offers a lifelong and enjoyable
way to deepen one's connections to nature, people, and places
and can also motivate people to protect those places, places
that they love, places that they wish to preserve for future
generations.
Now, I am here on behalf of hikers, and I want to highlight
just briefly five key funding priorities from our written
testimony that we believe are critical investments towards the
health and well-being of American society.
First area is around the National Forest Service, and we do
believe, in fact, that the forest system is threatened.
American hiking is deeply concerned about the Administration's
proposed cuts to the Forest Service Recreation and Trails
Programs. These cuts are unacceptable and would result in
devastating program and staff reductions, adversely impact
recreation opportunities, and compound maintenance backlogs.
For example, in Olympic National Forest estimates that only
17 percent of the 308-mile trail system is today in passable
condition. So we seek minimum appropriations of 285 million for
the Forest Service recreation and 85 million for Forest Service
capital improvement and maintenance for trails to enable the
Forest Service to provide safe, high-quality recreational
experience for millions of America's hikers.
As we know, the Bureau of Land Management stewards more
than 13 percent of America's surface area and manages trails in
the fastest-growing states in America, whether it is the
soaring heights of the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon or the
depths of the Paria River Canyon in Utah. Frankly, these lands
are in demand.
Recreation use is increasing dramatically, and the fact is
more than 23 million people live within 25 miles of BLM lands.
The President's fiscal year '09 budget would, however, deal a
crippling blow to the BLM's mandate to respond to massive
public demand for safe, diverse recreational opportunities.
However, Congress can help in three ways. First, insist
that the BLM create a budget subactivity for national scenic
and historic trails. Second, provide adequate funding for the
National Landscape Conservation----
Mr. Dicks. Well, we would have to get the authorizers to
help us on that, would we not?
Dr. Miller. Absolutely.
Mr. Dicks. I mean, are you----
Dr. Miller. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. I hope you are going to take that
over to Mr. Rahall, because I think that is a great idea.
Dr. Miller. We are busy doing that on several other fronts.
Thank you for recognizing that.
We really want to see adequate funding for the National
Landscape System.
Mr. Dicks. Cap says we can do that.
Dr. Miller. We can do that.
Mr. Dicks. Yeah.
Dr. Miller. And let us work together to get that done.
Absolutely.
Mr. Dicks. I stand corrected.
Dr. Miller. And they are, they are working on it.
Finally, the BLM's recreation management subactivity must
be adequately funded. I just give you a brief example in, near
Phoenix, Arizona, at the Agua Fria National Monument, where
there is only one developed hiking trail despite the fact that
it is next to the second-fastest growing city in America. We
cannot continue to have Americans disconnected from our
national patrimony.
We applaud the Administration's proposed increase for
National Park Service operations and request 12 million for the
Rivers and Trails Conservation Assistance Program. This is
willfully unfunded and has extraordinary high leverage.
In addition, as hikers we strongly oppose the
Administration's recommendation to zero out the Land and Water
Conservation Fund, Stateside Program, and request 125 million
for Stateside, 220 million for the federal program, including
land acquisition.
As you know, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the
National Trails System Act, and we endorse the funding request
submitted by the Partnership for National Trails System, of
which American Hiking is a member. Our organization coordinates
volunteer vacations and National Trails Day, nationally
recognized programs that engage hundreds of thousands of
volunteers are citizen stewards and trail advocates. We
leverage hundreds of thousands of hours of sweat equity that
are literally worth millions of dollars to the public lands.
While volunteerism is essential to trails and recreation,
volunteers on public lands must not be perceived as a panacea
to declining agency budgets. Congress must invest in trails as
they are the gateway to our nature, our Nation's rich natural
heritage.
Again, we appreciate very much the tremendous work that you
all are doing on the Subcommittee, for your past support for
trails and recreation, and we look forward to working side by
side with you all to continue this strong support.
Thank you very much for your time.
[The statement of Gregory Miller follows:]
Mr. Dicks. All right. The Committee is going to stand in
adjournment for a few minutes here while we go vote. We are
going to come back, and we are going to finish this.
[Recess.]
Mr. Dicks. Yes. Brian Moore, the National Audubon Society.
Mr. Moore. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Okay. We will put your statement in the record,
and you have five minutes to summarize.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY
WITNESS
BRIAN MOORE
Mr. Moore. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Tiahrt. I
will be brief.
First, on behalf of the million supporters of Audubon,
thank you for the opportunity to express to your Committee our
recommendations for the fiscal year 2009, funding for the
Interior and the EPA.
Audubon has been protecting birds and other wildlife and
habitat that supports them for over 100 years. Our national
network of community-based nature centers and chapters,
scientific and educational programs, and advocacy on behalf of
areas sustaining important bird population engages millions of
people of all ages and backgrounds in positive conservation
experiences. The purpose of our testimony today is to recommend
levels of funding for specific programs that are vital to our
mission.
But first let me express to you Audubon's gratitude, not
only to the members of this Committee, but also to the staff.
We believe that the bill produced by this Committee for fiscal
year 2008, represented a significant and positive change in the
funding of the important conservation efforts of the Federal
government, and Audubon looks forward to working with the
Committee to continue this trend in 2009, and the subsequent
years to come.
In June of 2007, Audubon issued a report called, Common
Birds in Decline. This report indicated a severe drop in the
populations of 20 common species of birds over the last 4
decades, and on average populations of common birds have
declined about 70 percent in 40 years since 1967.
The overwhelming factor in this alarming trend is a loss of
habitat, including wetlands, forests, and native grasslands
which support common birds and other wildlife.
The Administration's budget request for fiscal year 2009,
includes an initiative called Birds Forever. Birds Forever
proposes a combined $8 million, $8 million in needed increases
to the Fish and Wildlife Services Migratory Bird Management
Program, as well as a Joint Ventures Program.
Audubon is encouraged by the Birds Forever proposal, but at
the same time we are troubled to see the Administration's
request for other proven programs that protect birds and
habitat, like the Neotropical Migratory Bird Act, which the
Administration requests a $.5 million less than the 2008,
appropriated amount, and $1.5 million less than the authorized
amount.
Even more concerning is the Administration's request for a
70 percent reduction in the Land Acquisition Funds. Adding and
adequately managing habitat for birds and wildlife is critical
in reversing the current trends. In this aspect the Birds
Forever Program is, in our view, inadequate. We hope to work
with this Committee and the Administration to improve this
proposal, but we are concerned that the focus has been to move
some money around to a few programs and ignore the larger issue
of habitat loss for birds and wildlife with the drastic cuts in
the Land Acquisition Funds.
Mr. Dicks. Well, we have seen this as a pattern of adding
two or three or four initiatives from each of the departments
but then cutting everything else in the world in order to make
room for these things. And I think you point out the
contradiction there very nicely.
Mr. Moore. Yeah. We support $403 million for the Land and
Water Conservation Fund, with $125 million of it going to the
Stateside Program. We think this program is imperative to
combat the rapid, rabid rates of habitat loss threatening
America's native birds and wildlife.
In particular, Audubon supports land acquisition projects,
including but not limited to additional acquisition in the
Silvio County National Wildlife Refuge, and we appreciate the
Committee funding an acquisition last year. The same with the
Stewart McKinney National Wildlife Refuge in Connecticut, and
we also appreciate the funding last year.
We also support acquisitions in the Rachel Carson National
Wildlife Refuge, the Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge, the
Cash River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas, and a larger,
multi-tiered acquisition of the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife
Refuge in Northern California. So we see the Land and Water
Conservation Fund as instrumental in adding land back to the
land mass for birds and habitat as instrumental for us.
The State Wildlife Grants is also a valuable program that
provides matching grants that design and implement habitat and
wildlife conservation plans and allows states to conserve and
restore declining native species to, so it is no longer
necessary to list them as threatened or endangered. The
Administration's request of $74 million for State Wildlife
Grants is welcome, giving the severe budget constraints facing
the Congress, but it still shortchanges what we think are
important conservation goals served by this program. And we
support funding this program at $85 million for 2009.
The National Wildlife Refuge for us is also key for habitat
and recreation. America's National Wildlife Refuge System faces
a massive multi-billion dollar backlog of operations and
maintenance needs that is widely recognized as a handicap to
the Fish and Wildlife Services' efforts to conserve and protect
the systems' more than 94 million acres of prime habitat for
more than 2,000 bird and wildlife species. Increasing funding
is needed to provide adequate services for the millions of
birdwatchers, sportsmen, and others who enjoy the outdoors of
their local wildlife refuges.
So we call on the Committee to once again increase funding
just as you did last year for the National Wildlife Refuge.
This year we think a number of $514 million, which is about an
$80 million increase over the fiscal year 2008, enacted level,
but we think this Committee last year in your bump up of that
account was the best work we had seen on the Wildlife Refuge
System in a long time, and we certainly----
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Mr. Moore [continuing]. Appreciate it.
A couple more projects that Audubon supports and works on
are ecosystem based. One is the Long Island Sound Restoration
Act and the Long Island Sound Stewardship Act. These acts
strive to protect and restore the environmentally and
economically vital resources of the Sound. In 1985, the Sound
was one of the first three estuaries recognized under the
National Estuary Program because of its, because it provides
feeding, breeding, nesting, and nursery areas for a diversity
of plant and animal life and contributes an estimated $5.5
billion per year to the regional economy from commercial
fishing, sports fishing, and recreation activities. More than 8
million people live in the Long Island Sound watershed, and the
resultant development has led to increasingly poor ecosystem
health.
So we thank the Committee for funding the Long Island Sound
Restoration Act for the first time last year in fiscal year
2008, and encourage additional funding to the authorized
amounts for both the Long Island Sound Restoration Act of the
$40 million, and the Long Island Sound Stewardship Act of $25
million for fiscal year 2009.
Audubon has also a long history of working on the National,
on the Everglades National Park, and we are grateful to this
Committee for its longstanding support of the Everglades
restoration through the appropriations process.
Mr. Dicks. I think your time has expired.
Mr. Moore. Okay.
[The statement of Brian Moore follows:]
Mr. Dicks. You have got it pretty well covered here.
Mr. Moore. Okay. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Except you forgot the Puget Sound----
Mr. Moore. Well----
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. Restoration activity.
Mr. Moore [continuing]. No, that was implied.
Mr. Dicks. Well, you thought I would take care of that.
Right? All right.
Mr. Moore. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. Tom Cassidy, Director of Federal Programs, The
Nature Conservancy. Tom, good to see you.
Mr. Cassidy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. We will put your statement in the record. You
have five minutes to summarize.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
THE NATURE CONSERVANCY
WITNESS
TOM CASSIDY
Mr. Cassidy. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Tiahrt, I appreciate this
opportunity to present The Nature Conservancy's funding
recommendations. My name is Tom Cassidy. I am director of
Federal Programs at the Conservancy.
And the Puget Sound is in our written testimony, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Good. Well, we appreciate that.
Mr. Cassidy. The Conservancy is a large international, non-
profit conservation organization working around the world to
protect econologically important lands and water for nature and
people. My oral testimony will highlight six program areas
described more fully in my written testimony.
First, on climate change. Mr. Chairman, we appreciate your
leadership in highlighting the need for increased investments
in climate change science through the National Global Warming
and Wildlife Science Center. We support a robust increase in
funding for this and other programs that will guide science-
based investments necessary to meet the critical needs of fish
and wildlife adaptation in a world whose climate is changing.
We look forward to working with the Subcommittee as it
addresses this increasingly vital conservation challenge.
Second, the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Thank you for
your action last year to reverse the decline in funding for key
conservation programs, including LWCF. We look forward to the
Subcommittee providing far greater support for this program
than is proposed in the President's budget, which was one of
the lowest requests for federal land acquisition funding in
decades.
We recommend a funding level of $278 million for the
federal side of LWCF. This year we are proposing 17
biologically rich projects. Priorities include completing the
BLM's component of a large multi-year project in Montana's
Blackfoot Watershed and continuing large-scale projects in the
Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, and
Montana's Rocky Mountain Front Conservation Area.
We are also pleased to be working on a new project in
Willapa National Wildlife Refuge in the Evergreen State.
Mr. Dicks. Wonderful.
Mr. Cassidy. The third program is forest legacy. This year
states submitted 87 projects to the Forest Service with a total
funding request of $200 million to protect nearly 400,000
acres, yet the Administration has proposed only three projects.
We strongly support $120 million for this program and are
proposing 16 projects, including the Northern Cumberlands
Project, which is the largest conservation deal in Tennessee
since the creation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The
state has provided $82 million towards this partnership
project, while private equity investors and philanthropy have
leveraged an additional 45 million.
The fourth area is wildland fire management. Chairman
Dicks, you have observed that existing fiscal trends threaten
to transform the Forest Service into the Fire Service. Wildfire
costs continue to rise with continued residential growth and
forested and fire-prone areas, coupled with a lengthening fire
season in a warmer climate. The Conservancy recommends focused
investments of 10 percent over last year's enacted in four
Forest Service and DOI fire programs, including Hazardous Fuel
Reduction, State Fire Assistance, and the Rehabilitation and
Restoration Program.
Fifth, endangered species. The Conservancy supports an
increase for the Cooperative Endangered Species Fund to at
least $96 million. Our request reflects the unmet funding needs
of the program and recognizes the important role the states,
municipalities, and non-federal partners have in conserving
threatened, endangered, and at-risk species on non-federal
lands.
For example, program funds have been used to provide
permanent habitat protection for Washington's Tieton River
Canyon, ensuring intact habitats remain in place for numerous
listed species.
Finally, the Conservancy as part of an alliance of
conservation groups, supports the International Conservation
Budget, which calls for $12 million to the Fish and Wildlife
Service Multinational Species Conservation Fund, and increased
funding for both the Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest
Service International Programs.
Thank you for the opportunity to present our
recommendations for the Interior, Environment and Related
Agencies Appropriations Bill.
[The statement of Tom Cassidy follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, thank you, and we appreciate the great
work you do all over the country and actually the world. And we
deeply appreciate your good work, and we want to work with you,
and we are very concerned about the cuts that you have
mentioned in this particular budget.
Mr. Cassidy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure
working with you.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you. Okay.
We are going to skip ahead here. I have Congressman Brad
Miller from North Carolina here, and he wants to introduce Jay
Vogt, President of the National Conference of State Historic
Preservation Officers. We are going to move to that.
Brad, glad to have you here, and why don't you introduce
your constituent or friend or whatever.
Mr. Miller of North Carolina. Friend, I think.
Mr. Dicks. Okay.
Mr. Miller of North Carolina. The State Historic
Preservation Offices, of course, their first preference was to
send the Historic Preservation Officer for Puget Sound.
Mr. Dicks. No. She is here.
Mr. Miller of North Carolina. She did want me to say that
she hopes you would be especially nice to her colleague today.
Mr. Dicks. Well, I will. I will do my best.
Mr. Miller of North Carolina. And I do appreciate this
opportunity to come before the Committee.
I am co-Chair of the House Historic Preservation Caucus.
Mike Turner from Ohio is the other co-Chair, and I want to
thank you, Chairman Dicks, and all the Committee members for
your commitment to historic preservation and your efforts to
save and increase appropriations for our Nation's core historic
preservation programs.
Key to the success of those programs is the work at the
State Historic Preservation Offices. I have heard the acronym
for that pronounced both SHPO and SHPO. But it is my pleasure
to introduce Jay Vogt----
Mr. Dicks. You better be careful how you say that, too.
Okay?
Mr. Miller of North Carolina. Well, I think if you got even
a slight lisp by saying SHPO----
Mr. Dicks. You would be in trouble.
Mr. Miller of North Carolina [continuing]. It is kind of
hard. Mr. Vogt is the current President of the National
Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers in the state
and the South Dakota State Historic Preservation and South
Dakota State Preservation, Historic Preservation Officer. He
has dedicated his career to the preservation of our Nation's
historic heritage and has served as the South Dakota State
Historic Preservation Officer since 1996, and been Directorof
the South Dakota State Historic Preservation Society since 2003.
He is currently a member of the Advisory Council of
Historic Preservation and recently co-chaired the Preserve
America Expert Panel on improving the preservation program
infrastructure. He has authored many publications, including
Picturing the Past, South Dakota's Historic Places.
Mr. Chairman, I am sure that Mr. Vogt will discuss the
National Academy of Public Administration's recently-released
report on our historic preservation programs and found that
they were a very successful federal, state partnership. They
were very effective, and they needed additional resources.
So I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, and
the members of your Committee, as well as with Mr. Vogt and
others from the historic preservation community to secure
funding for the foundation of our Nation's historic
preservation programs.
So thank you, again, Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. Miller of North Carolina [continuing]. For this
opportunity to introduce Mr. Vogt.
Mr. Dicks. And thanks for being here, and thanks for being
co-Chair of the Caucus. Jay, you are up. Five minutes and we
are not even going to count Miller's time.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICERS
WITNESS
JAY VOGT
Mr. Vogt. Thank you for the introduction, Congressman, and
as Representative Miller said, I am Jay Vogt, President of the
National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers,
and on behalf of my 57 state historic preservation officers,
and we will say SHPO for short----
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Vogt [continuing]. From across the country, including
the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories, I would like
to thank you, Chairman Dicks and Ranking Member Tiahrt and the
members of the Subcommittee for championing the increased
funding for the State Historic Preservation Officers and the
opportunity to testify today.
Oftentimes when we think about history, we think about
people. But because human life is short, in part of what we
understand about the past comes from what people made and what
they left behind, such as historic buildings and structures.
Now, thanks to a National Historic Preservation Program
people from rural communities to large metropolitan cities can
walk down a street and point to a particular house or building
and recognize that those structures are more than just bricks
and mortar. Rather they are icons to our past.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I realize
Congress has been operating out of fiscal constraints, and the
SHPOs are most grateful for having experienced recent modest
increases in our funding. However, we are still trying to get
back and preferably beyond the amount of funding we received in
1979, which was a little over 47 million.
Last year because of your efforts we came close. This
Subcommittee and the House of Representatives agreed to fund
the SHPOs at $45 million, but after conference and an across-
the-board cut, our amount was reduced to just over $37 million.
For fiscal year 2009, we are requesting $50 million from the
state, for the State Historic Preservation Officers.
The National Historic Preservation Program is an
outstanding example of federalism, with the National Historic
Preservation Act setting the policy and the states through the
SHPOs administering the program, which has flourished for the
past 42 years. To strengthen my case, I am pleased to share
with the Committee that in December the National Academy of
Public Administration or NAPA, released an independent
evaluation of our program which stated that the National
Historic Preservation Program, ``Stands as a successful example
of effective federal, state partnership and is working to
realize Congress's original vision to a great extent. And while
the Program's basic structure is sound, it continues to face a
number of notable challenges.''
Mr. Chairman, NAPA confirmed that the SHPOs have been
performing admirably while experiencing funding constraints,
workload increases, and changes in the field that are straining
the capacity and limiting our effectiveness. Since 1980,
inflation has outpaced funding for SHPOs, and meanwhile, steady
increases in the number of Section 106 cases and tax credit
reviews have intensified the funding squeeze.
For example, the number of rehabilitation tax credit
application reviews is on the rise. This is a double-edged good
news, because many communities use this program to, as a
primary economic development driver. They are using it to
revitalize downtowns, generate jobs, create affordable housing,
and build local property tax bases.
In 2007, the Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit stimulated
$4.35 billion in private investment, produced over 6,500 low
and moderate income housing units, which is a 17 percent
increase over 2006, and created an estimated 40,755 jobs. That
is historic preservation at work.
However, NAPA agrees that the sheer success of the program
and the amount of the federal reviews have left many SHPOs
operating in a reactive mode unless able to forge creative
partnerships with other agencies and the private sector to keep
the preservation field vibrant. NAPA identified eight
recommendations to insure the continued success of the program,
and we are working in concert with the National Parks Service
to strategize on implementing the recommendations in the most
cost-effective ways.
However, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, without
additional funding these recommendations are not achievable.
Again, thank you for your commitment to historic
preservation, and I ask your consideration of $50 million for
the states. Through our partnership with the Federal
Government, State Historic Preservation Officers will be able
to continue to identify, protect, and nurture what Congress
declared in 1966, that, ``The spirit and direction of the
Nation are founded upon and reflected in its heritage, historic
heritage.''
And thank you very much.
[Statement of Jay Vogt follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate your
testimony. We will do the best we can.
Mr. Vogt. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Mary Beth Beetham, Director of Legislative
Affairs, Defenders of Wildlife.
Ms. Beetham. Mr. Dicks.
Mr. Dicks. Hi, Mary Beth. How are you?
Ms. Beetham. Fine.
Mr. Dicks. Good to see you.
Ms. Beetham. Thank you, Mr. Tiahrt. Thank you for----
Mr. Dicks. We will put your statement in the record, and
you have five minutes to summarize.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE
WITNESS
MARY BETH BEETHAM
Ms. Beetham. Okay. Thank you for the opportunity. I am Mary
Beth Beetham, Director of Legislative Affairs with Defenders of
Wildlife. With over 1 million supporters across the Nation,
Defenders is dedicated to the protection and restoration of
wild animals and plants in their natural communities.
I would like to begin by expressing our deep appreciation
for the outstanding fiscal year 2008 House bill with its
historic increase for the National Wildlife Refuge System and
for the successful effort to include important increases in the
final negotiated Omnibus bill, including funding to establish
the National Global Warming and Wildlife Science Center.
Unfortunately, the President's budget again cuts funding
for lands and wildlife. Bright spots such as safe borderlands
and wildlife and Birds Forever are paid for by cuts in other
programs, with the result a net conservation loss. While
funding provided in the fiscal year 2007, and fiscal year 2008,
bills has begun to stabilize our land and wildlife programs, we
continue to be greatly concerned that budgets under this
Administration have left the Fish and Wildlife Service and the
wildlife-related programs and the other natural resource
agencies without the capability to carry out their mission.
Significant additional amounts and careful oversight will
be needed in coming years to continue to reverse the damage to
make the agencies once again whole and to equip them to deal
with the growing crisis of climate change.
We urge the Subcommittee to continue to rebuild the Fish
and Wildlife Service career workforce, which has suffered
substantial losses. Just a few examples here. The Endangered
Species Program staff is down 30 percent, the National Wildlife
Refuge System has lost 300 staff, as you know. The all-
important Office of Law Enforcement is down to 191 special
agents, down from a high of 238 in 2002.
Similarly, we ask continuation of your good efforts to
address fixed costs. The Refuge System, as you know, has been a
poster child for this need. The increase provided in the fiscal
year 2008 bill has provided the Service with the breathing room
to put on hold massive staff downsizing, but without continued
increases the Refuge System will slide backward once again.
Yet even the inflation-adjusted fiscal year 2004 level of
466 million would still not make the Refuge System whole.
Defenders supports the recommendation by the Cooperative
Alliance for Refuge Enhancement for a yearly level of 765
million by 2013. To make progress toward that goal we recommend
514 million in fiscal year 2009.
Likewise, we ask the Subcommittee to turn its attention to
rebuilding the Endangered Species Program. Currently, 280
candidates await proposal for Endangered Species Act
protection, and the loss of staff has left the Service without
the needed biological capability to oversee recovery of listed
species and meet other obligations.
We ask continued restoration of the Land and Water
Conservation Fund. The Administration has proposed just 50
million in its fiscal year 2009 budget, a 67 percent cut.
Protection of habitat will be one of the most important things
we can do to help in the battle to help wildlife adapt to
global warming. Important wildlife-related programs in the
other land management agencies also are at the breaking point.
We thank you for efforts to limit appropriated dollars
devoted to energy development on BLM lands and to address the
diversion of resources from wildlife to support energy and
other programs. We ask you to continue this strong oversight
and effort to refocus BLM on multiple use.
We further urge the Subcommittee to reject the
Administration's proposed $14 million cut to Forest Service
Wildlife and Fish Habitat Management and to restore the
integrity of the USGS Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research
Unit.
We thank the Subcommittee for direction and funding in the
fiscal year 2008 bill to address impacts of illegal immigration
and related enforcement on sensitive land and wildlife
resources along the southwest border, and we urge continued
oversight and increases. In particular, we ask the Subcommittee
to work with the DHS Appropriations Subcommittee to insure that
a devastating wall planned through the lower Rio Grande Valley
National Wildlife Refuge is not allowed to proceed before
completion of a thorough assessment and full mitigation plan.
Last but certainly not least, we thank the Subcommittee for
its leadership on climate change and, in particular, for
establishment of the National Global Warming and Wildlife
Science Center. We ask for $10 million to fund the center in
2009. We also ask the Subcommittee to include funding and
specific direction for the development of a national strategy
to insure a coordinated interagency framework to address impact
of climate change on wildlife and habitat.
Mr. Dicks, Mr. Tiahrt, thank you very much for the
opportunity, and we look forward to continuing to work with you
this year and in the coming years.
[Statement of Mary Beth Beetham follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, thank you for a very comprehensive
statement, and we have enjoyed working with you and your staff,
and again, I just wish we could do more on these programs. And
it is just we are at a very difficult budgetary situation.
Ms. Beetham. And we understand that, and we have been----
Mr. Dicks. Yeah.
Ms. Beetham [continuing]. Working to try to get the numbers
up in the----
Mr. Dicks. And you did a good job over there.
Ms. Beetham [continuing]. Budget resolution and----
Mr. Dicks. Spratt keeps coming up to me and saying, can you
get those environmentalists off my back. So you did good.
Ms. Beetham. So we will continue to try to do that and help
you out.
Mr. Dicks. John can handle it. Okay.
Ms. Beetham. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Don Barry, Executive Vice President, the Wilderness
Society, and a former senior official in the Clinton Interior
Department.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY
WITNESS
DON BARRY
Mr. Barry. Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Dicks. Good friend.
Mr. Barry [continuing]. And I have to say that I have
waited a long time to be able to formally say that to you.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Barry. Last year when I showed up at the Subcommittee's
hearing, I brought my kneepads, and I did not bother to put
them on, but if you think it will enhance my chances of getting
what I am asking for, I am more than willing to do that.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. Those look pretty nice, too. Blue and gold.
My high school colors.
Mr. Barry. When I came last year, what I did was I wanted
to use as a comparison the budget that I last testified on
behalf of, in the year 2000, the last year that I came up as
the Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. And I was
using it as a measuring stick to compare last year's
President's budget, and as bad as the numbers were last year,
the numbers are much, much, much worse this year.
Let me just use a couple of examples. When I appeared in
front of this Subcommittee in April of 2000, I was able to
request for the Land and Water Conservation Fund $413 million
for the Administration. This year it is one-tenth of that,
about $43 million.
On behalf of the National Park Service and Fish and
Wildlife Service, I was able to come up here and testify on
behalf of Land and Water Conservation Fund appropriation
request of $240 million. This year it is down to $32 million
for those two agencies, one-eighth of what I was asking for 8
years ago.
In terms of what the Appropriations Committee was able to
do in terms of actual appropriations for the Park Service and
Fish and Wildlife Service in the year 2000, you appropriated
$150 million for those two agencies. Again, by comparison what
this Administration is asking for is one-fifth of that amount
for those two agencies, and that does not even include the
operational, I mean, the operational costs of running that
program are rolled inside that number. So the actual amount of
land acquired is going to be much, much, much, much less.
Forest legacy, the same thing. Two-fifths of what the
Administration, we were asking for something much, much higher.
The Administration is asking for two-fifths of what we asked
for, and when you take a look at the way the Land and Water
Conservation Fund numbers have been slashed from last year's
appropriated amounts, it is stunning. The only way I can
describe this----
Mr. Dicks. This was one of the big things he touted in his,
we are going to have full funding of the Land and Water
Conservation Fund.
Mr. Barry. Absolutely, and he was going to take care of the
park backlog on maintenance, too, and that never happened.
The only way I can describe what has happened with the Land
and Water Conservation Fund appropriations process is that this
is a bread and water starvation diet for those agencies. And,
you know, the Forest Service's amount has been slashed by 85
percent, the Fish and Wildlife Service by 71 percent, Park
Service by 51 percent, BLM by 50 percent.
Let me show you a chart. This shows the history of
appropriations in the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the
last 30 years, but more importantly is this chart. This shows
the more recent history, and you can see that the diagonal line
is heading down in the wrong direction. If this trend
continues, this line is going to punch through the crust of the
earth and pop out in Beijing in time for the Olympics.
And you get to a point really where you have to sit there
and say to yourself, what is the point of having the program
anymore if that is the trend line that we are going to be
facing for all these different agencies.
Along with the dramatic slash in appropriated funds, what I
am equally worried about is what is happening with the staffs
of these agencies. The Fish and Wildlife Service stands to lose
half of their reality officers with this budget. We have
already heard a number of people mention the cuts that would
happen in the Refuge System. I find the----
Mr. Dicks. What do the realty officers do?
Mr. Barry. They are the ones who actually go out and
acquire the lands for the Fish and Wildlife Service or the Park
Service. So they are key to the Land Acquisition Programs.
But the thing that I find probably most distressing of all
is what the Administration has proposed to do with the National
Wildlife Refuge System. The reason I find this really
distressing is just 2 years ago the Administration had a big
celebration for the 100th anniversary of the National Wildlife
Refuge System, 2 years ago, had a big commission set up.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Barry. The current number of unstaffed wildlife refuges
today is 188. Under the President's budget that has been put to
this Subcommittee, that is projected to go up to 221 national
wildlife refuges without a single staff person, almost half. We
are starting to approach half of the entire Wildlife Refuge
System without a single staff person to man them. Two years
after the big celebration for the 100th anniversary. So I find
that just an amazing way to celebrate the creation of such a
fabulous system.
Mr. Dicks. Do you remember back when you were the Secretary
how many of them were unstaffed?
Mr. Barry. Well, I could get you that----
Mr. Dicks. Just to give you a baseline.
Mr. Barry [continuing]. Number, but it was not even
approaching that remotely. I mean, I just know that Jamie Clark
and I worked extremely hard to get the numbers done. I know
that there was a period there where the very first wildlife
refuge in the country had no refuge manager, had nobody on the
ground. And over time we were able to----
Mr. Dicks. That is down in Florida. Right?
Mr. Barry. Yes. Yes. We were able to take care of that. So
I can get you that number, Norm, but I cannot----
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Barry [continuing]. Give it to you right off the top of
my head.
Mr. Tiahrt. Was it all of them?
Mr. Barry. No. No. No. I would not be trying to say that.
There have always been staffing problems on refuges, but it has
just been magnified to a level that I have never seen before.
You know, I think when you take a look at----
Mr. Dicks. You are talking about some of these just have
one person. I mean, it is not like there----
Mr. Barry. Or one person managing multiple units, too.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Barry. And, you know, there is one other thing I notice
on this big chart here on the history of the Land and Water
Conservation Funding, if you go back to 1981, which was when
Jim Watt was Secretary of the Interior, 28 years ago, he got
155 million acres, excuse me, $155 million for Land and Water
Conservation Fund 28 years ago.
Mr. Dicks. And that was a lot more money when you figure
out inflation.
Mr. Barry. Yes. And despite your best efforts you had to
eventually settle for 156 last year.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. Barry. You know, and we appreciated that.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Barry. But in effect, you were able to provide way less
than Jim Watt had 28 years ago.
Mr. Dicks. Now you really make me feel bad.
Mr. Barry. Yes. I just wanted to put it into historical
perspective.
Mr. Dicks. You know, one time James Watt attacked me
because I did something in the Committee, I cannot remember
what it was, and he said, I am going to go out there and debate
Norm Dicks, and so I put out a press release saying, I will
send he and his wife first class tickets to Seattle, because I
want to go, I want to have this debate. Well, he never showed
up.
Mr. Barry. He never showed up.
Mr. Dicks. Never showed up.
Mr. Barry. Let me just close by saying that there was a
time when I first arrived in this town 34 years ago when
conservation was considered to be a conservative virtue.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Mr. Barry. Conservation was considered to be a conservative
virtue. I think we have lost those times. When the Wilderness
Act was going through Congress in 1964, the chief proponent of
that Act in the House of Representatives was a conservative
Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania, John Saylor. He
believed that we ought to conserve and save things, and so he
was a strong proponent of the Wilderness Act. I would just urge
this Committee on a bipartisan way to support our public lands
because these are resources that are truly of tremendous value
to all Americans. There is not such a thing as a Republican
park or a Democratic wildlife refuge.
Thank you very much.
[Statement of Don Barry follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much, and we appreciate your good
work and your lifetime of commitment to these issues. And we
will continue to work with you and do the best we can.
Laura M. Bies.
Ms. Bies. Bies.
Mr. Dicks. Bies. Sorry.
Ms. Bies. That is all right.
Mr. Dicks. The Wildlife Society. And you are Associate
Director of Government Affairs. We will put your statement in
the record, and you may proceed for five minutes.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
THE WILDLIFE SOCIETY
WITNESS
LAURA M. BIES
Ms. Bies. Okay. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
My name is Laura Bies, the Associate Director of Government
Affairs for the Wildlife Society.
The Wildlife Society represents nearly 8,000 professional
and wildlife biologists and managers who are dedicated to
excellence in wildlife stewardship through science and
education.
I will just talk briefly about some of our priorities for
the fiscal year 2009 budget now.
I will start with the Fish and Wildlife Service. Funding
assistance for state wildlife agencies is one of the highest
priority needs for wildlife, and State Wildlife Grants Program
meets this need. With the completion of the Congressionally-
Mandated Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Plans, it is
critical this program receive adequate funding to assist the
states with implementation of on-the-ground actions associated
with the plans.
As part of the team with Wildlife Coalition, we recommend
that $85 million be appropriated for the State Wildlife Grants
Program in '09.
Equally essential for Wildlife Action Plan implementation
is a Landowner Incentive Program, which acts in a unique way to
bring a source of funds to landowners. Funds invested in this
program today mean potential savings of millions in the future
by preventing species from declining to a point that it
requires listing under the Endangered Species Act.
We urge you to restore this program to $23.7 million, which
was the fiscal year 2007, enacted level.
Another key program for the Society is the National
Wildlife Refuge System. We are part of the Cooperative Alliance
for Refuge Enhancement or CARE.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Ms. Bies. A diverse coalition of 22 organizations
representing over 14 million members and supporters. CARE has
determined that the National Wildlife Refuge System needs $765
million in annual appropriations by 2013, to properly
administer its nearly 100 million acres. Years of stagnant
budgets have increased the operations and maintenance backlog
to $3.5 billion and forced plans for a dramatic 20 percent
downsizing of the workforce.
Refuge visitors often show up to find roads and visitor
centers closed, observation platforms and hiking trails in
disrepair, and habitat restoration and education programs
eliminated.
As part of CARE we respectfully request that you provide
$514 million for the Refuge System in '09, and I do want to say
that we truly appreciate the budget increase that we saw in
'08, and really hope we can try and build upon that again this
year, because as we all know, the Refuge System really needs
that funding.
Next I would like to address the Bureau of Land Management.
BLM manages more public land than any other federal agency.
However, its programs to manage fish and wildlife are
chronically understaffed. The BLM has only one biologist per
591,000 acres.
Given the significant underfunding of BLM's wildlife
programs, combined with the tremendous expansion of energy
across the BLM landscape, an increase to $52 million for the
BLM Wildlife Management Program is warranted.
Also within BLM, their Threatened and Endangered Species
Management Program would suffer a significant cut over, under
the Administration's request. The current budget is already
woefully inadequate for BLM to meet its current
responsibilities in Endangered Species Recovery Plans.
In addition, the budget request ignores the agency's March,
2001, report to Congress which called for a doubling of the
current budget in that program to $48 million and an increase
of 70 staff positions over 5 years.
In view of this gross inequity between the resource needs
of the agency and the current funding levels, we strongly
encourage that funding for this program be increased to $33.5
million.
Finally, I would like to touch on a few key programs within
the U.S. Geological Survey. As a member of the USGS Coalition
we support overall funding of $1.3 billion for USGS in fiscal
year 2009. This would enable them to meet new challenges which
continuing to provide essential data for land use management,
sustainable natural resource development, and enhanced security
from natural and manmade hazards.
We are concerned that the proposed budget includes only 82
percent of uncontrollables for the biological resources
discipline. We strongly recommend that to the best of your
ability to fully fund these uncontrollables to prevent further
erosion to essential programs and services within the BRD.
We also support increased funding for the Cooperative Fish
and Wildlife Research Units. Fiscal year 2001, was the last
time Congress could fully fund those Co-op Units, and that
allowed the unit productivity to rise to record levels.
However, since then budget shortfalls have caused an
erosion of available fiscal resources, resulting in a current
staffing vacancy of 23 researcher positions, which is nearly
one quarter of the professional workforce of the units.
The fiscal year 2009 budget for the Co-op Unit should be
increased to $19.1 million to help stop this funding shortfall.
Finally, I want to say that Wildlife Society really
supports the funding provided last year for the National Global
Warming and Wildlife Science Center. This is a huge issue for
the Society and really we appreciate the recognition of the
need to address this as soon as possible.
However, we feel additional funding is needed in fiscal
year 2009, to continue establishment of the center, begin to
fund key research priorities that have been identified, and
enable USGS and its partners to develop a comprehensive plan
for moving forward to address the impacts of climate change on
wildlife.
Therefore, we recommend that the National Global Warming
and Wildlife Science Center be funded at $10 million in fiscal
year 2009.
Thank you very much for considering----
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Ms. Bies [continuing]. The views of wildlife professionals,
and we look forward to working with you.
[Statement of Laura Bies follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Very nice.
Ms. Bies. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Appreciate your good work.
Yes. Tom Kiernan, President of the National Parks
Conservation Association. Hi, Tom. How are you?
Mr. Kiernan. Doing well, sir.
Mr. Dicks. Sorry for the delay, but we were all stuck in
the same, the staff schedules. It is a torture drill for the
members. But we love it. We are glad you are here.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
THOMAS KIERNAN
Mr. Kiernan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Tiahrt,
for the opportunity to speak today on behalf of NPCA's 340,000
members. Before talking about '09, I would like to take a
moment and thank you deeply, sincerely for the extraordinary
leadership in the '08, budget. The $122 million increase in the
operating budget for the Park Service, as well as the $25
million increase in the Centennial Challenge, was an
extraordinary catalyzing budget as we enter this 10-year window
leading up to the Centennial of the National Park Service. The
opportunity that we have to reach an extraordinary potential
for the National Parks at their 100th, you have been able to
get going with this budget. And we thank you.
Before talking about '09----
Mr. Dicks. Appreciate that.
Mr. Kiernan Appreciate your leadership. I do want to say
upfront that we very much recognize and acknowledge the
extraordinary budget challenges that you do have in this coming
year. We, along with many others, have been talking to Mr.
Spratt, and others on the Budget Committee, as well as the Full
Appropriations Committee to increase the allocation to this, to
your Committee.
In '09, we do want to add our strong support to the
Administration's $161 million proposed increase in the
operating budget. NPCA launched an effort many years ago with
our Endangered Rangers Report, Mr. Chairman, that you know
well, and we have built on that report, showing and analyzing,
articulating the decline well over a decade, the decline in
seasonal rangers, the decline in the number of programs, the
ability of the Park Service to keep its toilets clean, its
visitor centers staffed.
So the increase we hope will continue what you did in '08,
that began reversing the over-a-decade-long trend. The recent
challenges we have had on the park police we think are just one
more indication or example of the problem in the fundamental
operating needs of the parks.
While we strongly support that operation increase of $161
million, it did come at the cost of other important Park
accounts that we do think need to be----
Mr. Dicks. Construction in particular.
Mr. Kiernan. Exactly. Construction account, the propose a
drop of $46 million, down to about $170 million. That is, that
would end up being about one-half of what the construction
account was 5 years ago, and there is no way we can make
progress against the $6, the $12 billion backlog if we are at
those levels.
I will point out, though, that we do support the $10
million Tamiani Trail----
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Kiernan [continuing]. Increase, as well as the $20
million increase for the Oha River; two extraordinary,
important projects.
Another account that took a huge hit is the Land
Acquisition Account. Park Service currently has a $1.9 billion
backlog of priority land purchases. The Park Service portion of
this, the Administration is proposing be cut from $44 million
last year to $21 million this year. That is a dramatic cut. We
strongly oppose. In fact, we think the $44 million increase
needs to be increased up to--or $44 million from last year
needs to be bumped up to $94 million this coming year to begin
to address that significant backlog of in-holdings.
I would also like to say a word about the Great Lakes.
There are a number of national parks up there, and I have the
honor of being co-Chair of the Great Lakes Heliar Waters
Coalition and would hope the Committee would consider
increasing both the Great Lakes Legacy Act Accounts as well as
the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Accounts.
Lastly, because we know this Committee cares deeply about
the Centennial Challenge, did want to let you know that we are
continuing our work with the Authorizing Committee----
Mr. Dicks. Yes. This is critical. We have got to get the
authorizers to come up with something. Now, somebody was
talking about maybe a stamp. Have you heard about this?
Mr. Kiernan. Yes. As----
Mr. Dicks. A stamp that would go, instead of, what is it,
38? What is that? Forty-one. Would go up to 50 cents. They do
this, I think, on some health issues.
Mr. Kiernan. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. And maybe we could look at that. That might be
a, might not be a bad idea.
Mr. Kiernan. We think that is a good idea and one of a
couple of ideas that if you package them together----
Mr. Dicks. Might get us there.
Mr. Kiernan [continuing]. Exactly. Could get the entire 100
million there. We believe----
Mr. Dicks. Take awhile to get the stamp revved up, but I
mean, I mean, you could have a great stamp. You could have, you
know, pictures of various parks and that. I think it would be--
--
Mr. Kiernan. And it is clear that the----
Mr. Dicks. Would be a huge audience for that, I think.
Mr. Kiernan. Very much so. And the private sector is
stepping forward in their potential support for these projects.
So we would have private sector----
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Kiernan [continuing]. Funding and----
Mr. Dicks. We have a great amount of money available. We
just do not have the 100 million that we were supposed to have
in mandatory spending.
Mr. Kiernan. Right. And I think----
Mr. Dicks. And we put the 25 million in just to kick start
the thing.
Mr. Kiernan. And I think we will see this spring and summer
the results of that kick starting, because we are already
seeing some of the projects. Hopefully the Park Service will
announce in the next week or so is our understanding that list,
and we will see the benefits this next year.
So in close, national parks are not just about our past.
They are about our future, and we have got the Centennial
coming up.
Mr. Dicks. Well, it is one of the most important things to
the American people, and you have done a great job.
``Endangered Ranger'' really caught my attention and many
others up here, and you know, this is the one really positive
thing in the entire budget and then as you said, they made cuts
in other areas within the Park Service budget to plus up
operations. But we have to have operations or you are not going
to have a decent experience.
Mr. Kiernan. Absolutely. And now is the time to continue
the increase that you launched in '08, to continue successive
increases as we head towards the Centennial so at the
Centennial we have got a national park system the entire
country can be proud of.
Thank you.
[Statement of Thomas Kiernan follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you for your good work.
Evan Hirsche, President of the National Wildlife Refuge
Association. Evan, how are you?
Mr. Hirsche. I am very well.
Mr. Dicks. Good to see you.
Mr. Hirsche. How are you? Thank you, Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Dicks. We are holding up.
Mr. Hirsche [continuing]. And Mr. Tiahrt.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
EVAN M. HIRSCHE
Mr. Hirsche. Thanks so much for the opportunity to testify
on National Wildlife Refuge System priority funding. Like
others before me I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
the rest of the Subcommittee for tremendous work on the fiscal
year 2008 budget to increase funding for the National Wildlife
Refuge System. Your proposed budget of 56 million was truly
phenomenal, and while we were certainly disappointed with the
number that came out of conference, the enacted 39 million was
greatly needed, and your support truly meant all the
difference.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Mr. Hirsche. I did want to take a moment to convey the
special appreciation of National Wildlife Refuge Friends Groups
across the country. The National Wildlife Refuge Association is
comprised of a membership of current and former refuge
professionals but also more than 150 refuge friends
organizations who serve as affiliates and work locally to
support the refuges through volunteer and community outreach
and other activities. And you really do a tremendous amount of
lifting for the Refuge System. And we have heard from all
across the country, from Refuge Friends, how appreciative we
are of the Committee for these increases.
As you probably know 20 percent of the work conducted on
the National Wildlife Refuge System is done by friends and
volunteers, and I think that is fairly----
Mr. Dicks. That is good.
Mr. Hirsche [continuing]. That is probably unprecedented.
Mr. Dicks. Congratulations to your group for doing that.
Mr. Hirsche. So----
Mr. Dicks. That is vitally important.
Mr. Hirsche. Thank you. I mean, they are doing a phenomenal
job, and so it is important to recognize and support these
efforts through continued and consistent funding increases.
All right. To that end, the NWRA Friends Groups across the
country and the CARE Group respectfully request operation and
maintenance allocation of $514 million for fiscal year 2009.
Now, you have heard from previous speakers about some of the
needs, and your comments earlier were certainly appreciated,
but let me put it in context.
Even with the increase that was received in fiscal year
2008 we are seeing tremendous challenges throughout the system.
For example, in Washington State alone you have got 360 high-
priority refuge projects that amount to $48.9 million alone. At
Kirwin National Wildlife Refuge, which is in Kansas, they used
to have eight full-time staff and three seasonal workers. They
are now down to three staff.
We were talking earlier, I think, with Don Barry about
unstaffed refuges. Well, if you look at the Shawangunk National
Wildlife Refuge in New York State, they have no staff. They are
complexed under the Wallkill River Refuge, which straddles
between New Jersey and New York State. And in fact, Wallkill is
scheduled to lose their refuge manager as well. So not only are
we losing staff at complexed refuges, we are actually losing
staff at the lead refuges for those complexes.
Now, while we certainly have challenges in managing the
National Wildlife Refuge System, in interesting perspective
looking at refuges, particularly in the lower 48 states, is
that they are small in scale. And fundamentally, if you look at
land use patterns over the last 20, 30 years, refuges that
formerly were rural are now urban or suburban. In 2005, we
released a report called, Beyond the Boundaries, which sounded
a clarion call to the need to conserve refuge buffer zones and
corridors.
Indeed, Dr. Michael Scott of the University of Idaho, has
talked about how the vast majority of refuges in the lower 48
are unable to meet their core conservation mission, unless we
are working to protect buffer zones and corridors.
To that end, the National Wildlife Refuge Association
requests that the Subcommittee allocate $55.1 million for the
partner Fish and Wildlife Service, Partners for Fish and
Wildlife Program, of which $2 million be allocated specifically
to conduct strategic habitat conservation around national
wildlife refuges that involves refuge friends and other
national, regional, and local interests, that work with states,
countries, and municipalities to identify, prioritize, and
implement land and water conservation opportunities.
Mr. Dicks. Do they get some money, some mandatory spending?
Is there a mandatory account that they get for land
acquisition? Fish and Wildlife Service?
Mr. Hirsche. Duck Stamp dollars do go to acquiring refuge
habitat.
Mr. Dicks. How much is it? Just refuge habitat. But they
cannot do----
Mr. Hirsche. That is correct. Yeah.
Mr. Dicks. Thirty-four million.
Mr. Hirsche. Thirty-four million----
Mr. Dicks. So, yes.
Mr. Hirsche [continuing]. In the fiscal year 2008. That is
correct.
Mr. Dicks. Thank God we have that.
Mr. Hirsche. That is a good thing.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Mr. Hirsche. Absolutely. And these strategies using the
partners' money are really vital to conserving buffer habitats
and wildlife corridors, and it is really a strategic approach
to conserving habitat that engages communities and results in
communities that are both economically and environmentally
sustainable.
We also thank the Committee for its tremendous support of
volunteers and invasives on refuges, and once again, request
that the Committee support a $1 million allocation to this
effect. Just looking at some of the numbers, since the
Committee and Congress allocated its first round of funding in
fiscal year 2003 the program has enabled 2,750 volunteers to
contribute more than 49,000 hours to the treatment, inventory,
and restoration of over 211,000 acres of refuge lands. In
fiscal year 2006 a total of 917 volunteers contributed 22,000
hours for the restoration and inventory of 73,909 refuge acres.
So truly phenomenal commitment and a great leverage of federal
resources.
Talking----
Mr. Dicks. That is really outstanding.
Mr. Hirsche. It is wonderful.
Mr. Dicks. It is amazing.
Mr. Hirsche. It is incredibly inspiring.
Mr. Dicks. Leveraging of, for funds. I mean, that is
fantastic.
Mr. Hirsche. Absolutely. And we thank the Committee for
that support. It has made all the difference.
Refuge system land acquisition backlog is estimated to be
more than $4 billion. We have got over 15 million acres
remaining to be acquired just within approved refuge
boundaries. And to that end, the Refuge Association supports
$100 million allocation for land acquisition for refuges. I
realize it is a large request, but there is an enormous need
out there as we have discussed.
I would also encourage the Subcommittee to resist zeroing
out the President's, the Refuge System's construction budget in
the President's budget, and instead allocate $25 million to
that end. The Fish and Wildlife Services identified over $1
billion in construction projects, and in many cases these are
going to replace quickly-deteriorating structures. And that is
adding up costs to that end.
Mr. Dicks. Your time has expired. We will look at the rest
of your statement, and we appreciate your good work.
Mr. Hirsche. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Statement of Evan Hirsche follows:]
Mr. Dicks. LuAnne Kozma, Michigan Director, Defense of
Place.
Ms. Kozma. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. Welcome.
Ms. Kozma. Thank you very much.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
DEFENSE OF PLACE
WITNESS
LUANNE KOZMA
Ms. Kozma. Yes. I am the Michigan Director of an
organization called Defense of Place, which works to assure
that parks remain protected in perpetuity.
I have been advocating for the protection of Michigan's
public parks for nearly a decade and have been working with
grassroots community groups and individuals doing the same as a
citizen advocate myself. I appreciate this opportunity to
testify today about the Land and Water Conservation Fund
administered by the National Park Service.
I urge you to restore and expand funding for this program,
and in particular that you absolutely require the
administrative oversight of the stateside part of the program.
We must vigorously enforce the protection this Act provides for
the approximately 40,000 local and state parks around the
Nation.
I support the funding level of $125 million for the
statewide LWCF, and I believe that this is actually a modest
amount for what is really needed, and it is only, of course, a
fraction of what is authorized.
I am greatly troubled by the request in the President's
budget that calls for stripping away the oversight function of
this program. What oversight provides is the main purpose, the
accountability and the legacy of the Act to ensure that these
parks in their entirety are still here for our future
generations.
This is more critical than ever before, because our parks
are, have become the targets of increasing attacks by private
interests and governmental attempts to take public parkland out
of public use and essentially rob the fund. The funding is
needed for the Department to ascertain if a proposed conversion
is a legitimate one and to fend off those that are not.
I have two Michigan examples that I would like to share
with you about this disturbing trend and that show why we must
continue funding this program.
One is Jean Klock Park in Benton Harbor, Michigan. It was
gifted as a public park over 90 years ago for the community and
children of Benton Harbor. The Land and Water Fund contributed
to the park's amenities. The state spent $1.7 million in
addition, and there were, of course, 90 years of local support.
This park is priceless. It is on Lake Michigan, has a half-mile
of Lake Michigan lakefront and dunes that provide a beautiful
view of the lake.
A few years ago residents sued to save part of the park
from a luxury home development, and in exchange for allowing
some of the homes to go in, settled on an agreement, thinking
that they had, once again, achieved permanent protection for
the rest of the park. But little did the residents and city
leaders know that the park was Land and Water protected, and
that this was actually the beginning of a long-time plan,
private development plan, to take over most of the park for
three holes of a high-end, privately owned golf course,
combined with 700 homes, a hotel, and a water park.
This plan is being driven by private entities created by
Whirlpool Corporation and its chief executives, but the park
belongs to the people of Benton Harbor.
NPS has already once rejected this profoundly flawed
proposal and when it does deny a conversion such as this, it
goes up against powerful developers with millions of dollars to
spend. And in fact, these same developers are continuing the
attack on Jean Klock Park, putting this, essentially with the
same well-funded proposal, and they are putting the park in
grave danger of, you know, forever being stolen from the
community.
The staff of the Park Service, of course, as you know, is
professional and committed to protecting public parks, but they
have few resources with which to doublecheck and verify the
claims made in these very elaborate plans, which are assembled
by those who have an interest in the theft of the public
assets.
Just by way of illustration, a total of $126 million of
Land and Water money has gone to Michigan parks, about 2,000
parks over the past 40 years. If one private entity is allowed
to liquidate a park like Jean Klock Park, even at conservative
estimates valued at about $15 million, and we believe that is
probably off by an order of magnitude, then it essentially is
robbing the Federal government of a huge portion of the
investment of all of Michigan's parks through this program.
And Proud Lake State Recreation Area is my second example.
For the past 4 years a citizens' group in Michigan has been
waging a grassroots campaign against the State of Michigan's
decision to sell about 560 acres of Proud Lake State Park. By
the time the state made an offer to sell this parkland to a
local township for $13 million plus a $1.4 million transaction
fee, the Michigan DNR had already, behind the public's back,
gone to the Park Service to administratively change the
boundaries of the park to exclude the acreage so that it could
be sold.
The park had at least six Land and Water grants in it, and
each time the state pledged to encumber the entire park, the
state has now violated that agreement by claiming that this
acreage was never inside the boundaries.
To summarize, the fund, to fund the Land and Water Program
at meager amounts, at $30 million even, is a disservice to the
mission of this program and to the Nation. What is most at
stake is not the few dollars that we put in now to developing
and acquiring new parks, but what is really at stake is how it
fails to protect the existing parks----
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
Ms. Kozma [continuing]. The vast majority. It is like kind
of putting water into a bucket--am I done?
Voice. You are done.
Ms. Kozma. Okay.
Mr. Dicks. But you did a good job.
Ms. Kozma. Okay.
[Statement of LuAnne Kozma follows:]
Mr. Dicks. And make sure you talk to your members of your
Congressional delegation from Michigan about these things.
Ms. Kozma. We do. Yeah.
Mr. Dicks. Good.
Ms. Kozma. They certainly know about it.
Mr. Dicks. Good.
Ms. Kozma. Okay.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much.
Ms. Kozma. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. Right.
Joe Kessler, President on behalf of the Friends of the
Virgin Islands National Park. Joe, how are you? Welcome.
Mr. Kessler. Nice to see you again.
Mr. Dicks. Yes.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008
FRIENDS OF VIRGIN ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK
WITNESS
JOE KESSLER
Mr. Kessler. And I would like to thank you before we get
started for your visit to study the problems and the issues
facing the park in the Island.
Mr. Dicks. And Donna got her bill passed, which is good.
Mr. Kessler. She did.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. Well, we are glad to have you here.
Mr. Kessler. Well, thank you very much, sir, and----
Mr. Dicks. Put your statement in the record, and you have
five minutes to summarize.
Mr. Kessler. Great. We appreciate the opportunity to
provide testimony on behalf of an important land acquisition
funding need for the Virgin Islands National Park, an
appropriation of $4.5 million from the Land and Water
Conservation Fund as requested in fiscal year '09, to begin
Park Service acquisition of the unique Maho Bay property.
I represent the Friends of Virgin Islands National Park, a
501C3 non-profit organization, whose members are bound by our
dedication to the protection and preservation of the natural
and cultural resources of Virgin Islands National Park, and it
is promoting the responsible enjoyment of this unique national
treasure.
While we have considerable participation of Virgin
Islanders, we are not just a local organization. Our members
come from every state in the Union and several foreign
countries. In fact, 40 percent of our members come from the
home states of the members of this Committee.
Virgin Islands National Park is a Caribbean jewel and the
crown of the National Park Service. Those of you who had the
opportunity of visiting the park, such as yourself, sir, can
attest to the incomparable beauty of the Virgin Islands
National Park.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for
visiting firsthand and studying those problems. As you can also
attest----
Mr. Dicks. Excuse me.
Mr. Kessler. No problem.
Mr. Dicks. I thought I had it off. Go ahead.
Mr. Kessler. As you can also attest, the Maho Bay area is
one of the most beautiful parts of the park, stretching inland
from the Maho Bay and its white powdery sand beach to the
surrounding thousand foot ridge line. There is a virgin green
watershed, extremely rich in botanic wonders and historic
treasures.
I am sure this Committee has heard about the many technical
details concerning this appropriation. I hope you have heard
about how this property divides the park in two and hampers
effective management and protection of the park's resources,
about the flora and fauna, both terrestrial and marine, which
are threatened by development, and about the remarkable
historic structures on the property that do not enjoy
protection from the park and already many important artifacts
have been looted.
What I would like to talk about today is what Maho Bay
means to the people who live on St. John, both native St.
Johnians and those who have chosen to make St. John their home,
as well as the millions of visitors a year who come annually to
experience and enjoy this remarkable place.
Most residents, visitors, and even some MPS staff go to
Estate Maho Bay was part of the park. It looks like a park,
smells like a park, and feels like a park, but it is not. It is
a private in-holding within the park, which until recently was
owned in common by 11 heirs. Family disagreements over the
future of the land prevented any development to this area, and
we were all navely able to enjoy the peace and serenity of this
remarkable place.
Maho Beach is the most accessible beach on the Island and
one of the most popular. Due to its close proximity to the
road, the nearly flat beach and the shallow water, it is
particularly popular with families with small children, people
with mobility concerns, non-swimmers, and of course, those who
just love a beautiful beach.
This beauty and serenity was shattered in 2005, with the
news that the land was being purchased by a stateside
developer. Despite his statements that part of the land would
be preserved, the full threat became clear with his plans to
build a dock 120 feet out into the bay, drain the wetlands
behind the beach, and divert the road inland.
This threat galvanized the community and those who love
Maho Bay. The Friends played an important role of informing and
motivating the community about the issues related to the
preservation of Estate Maho Bay and the threat this development
portended. But motivation was hardly needed. The preservation
of Estate Maho Bay and ensuring unimpeded access to the
spectacular area draws near unanimous support among native St.
Johnians' residents and visitors alike. No easy feat for a
community that prides itself on its diversity of opinions.
Eventually the letters to the editor and pieces appeared in
local papers, and more than 1,000 E-mails and letters were
received by the National Park Service, urging the director to
stand fast in opposition to this development. The will of the
people prevailed, and the developer backed away from his plans
that would have destroyed this wonderful place.
This lauded land preservation organization with whom we
work in partnership to step in and acquire the land with the
aim of conveying it to the Park Service. It is only by
conveyance to the Park Service that this land can be truly
preserved and the threats averted.
And now we have the unique opportunity to preserve this
spectacular place and make Virgin Islands National Park whole.
This property is being made available to the National Park
Service for a total of $9 million over 2 years, about half of
its appraised value, with the balance to be provided through
private donations of cash and land value.
This year an appropriation of $4.5 million is needed from
the Land and Water Conservation Fund towards the purchase of
the first phase. This preservation effort has been the result
of the dedication and hard work of many parties. We are
grateful to the expertise and persistence of the Trusts for
Public Land in shepherding this project through its many
hurdles, to the owners of the land for their commitment to the
preservation of their heritage, and to our delegate to
Congress, the Honorable Donna Christensen, Donna Christensen
for her tireless support.
Mr. Chairman and distinguished Committee members, the fate
of Estate Maho now rests with you. I want to thank you for this
opportunity to testify on behalf of this important land
preservation effort, and on behalf of the residents of St. John
and over the 1 million visitors to the park each year, I
appreciate your consideration of this funding.
[The statement of Joe Kessler follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, we enjoyed our visit down there, and we
will work with Donna on this. She is a valued colleague and she
is very committed to this. So we will do our best.
You know, the Administration only has $5 million in land
acquisition for Park Service projects, four projects. So we are
going to have to----
Mr. Kessler. Well, it is the number one priority in the
region and number three priority nationally. So----
Mr. Dicks. Yes. Good. Thank you.
Mr. Kessler. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Dicks. Karen Munro. Karen, you have been here a long
time. Now you know all the things, all the problems I face.
Ms. Munro. That is right. It has been interesting.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. It certainly, it has been interesting.
Well, you are welcome--
Ms. Munro. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. And we will put your statement in
the record, and you have five minutes to summarize.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
FEDERATION OF STATE HUMANITIES COUNCIL
WITNESS
KAREN MUNRO
Ms. Munro. Thank you, Chairman Dicks, and I appreciate the
opportunity to testify on behalf of the State Humanities
Council, the state affiliates of the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
I am here to support the Humanities Commission's request or
Communities' request of $177 million for the NEH and to request
an increase in federal funding for the NEH federal state
partnership of $15 million to $47 million for fiscal year 2009.
Because of the Council's excellent record of raising matching
funds from state governments and private sources, we can
confidently state that these funds will at least be doubled.
The National Endowment for the Humanities was founded in
1965, in part because ``Democracy demands vision and wisdom of
its citizens.'' The State's Humanities Councils enable people
throughout the Nation to expand their vision, learning from
human experience across time and around the world. Individuals
gain wisdom through Council programs, coming together for
informed civic discourse on public issues.
We greatly appreciate the support Congress and especially
this Subcommittee has provided to State Councils over the
years, allowing us to work in partnership with NEH and provide
responsive, innovative programs at the local level. State
Councils have become the neighborhood face for important
national initiatives such as We the People, which is
revitalizing the understanding of American history.
Last year through a We the People grant in our state, seven
ethnic and tribal organizations created a traveling exhibit
documenting their unique histories. One of the sponsors, the
Black Historical Society of Kitsap County, showed the
experiences of the black shipyard workers who came to Bremerton
from other parts of the country during World War II and who,
incidentally, worked with your father and my husband's father
there.
Often those who have taken part in our programs write to
say how an experience enriched their lives. A Marysville woman
reacting to the Inquiring Mind presentation, I am no Hero,
Journeys of a Holocaust Survivor, said, ``He is an excellent
speaker, and he inspired our family to visit Dachau in Germany
to learn more.''
The diversity and reach of Council programs tailored to the
needs of each state and territory can be seen in the California
Stories Initiative, through which citizens learn about the rich
culture of their communities. And the Justice Talking Program,
through which Illinois young people use readings to consider
questions underlying civic service.
But today's needs far outdistance the funding available.
The Federation of State Humanities Councils has identified
unmet needs in community humanities programs of more than $50
million. To address those needs the State Humanities Council is
requesting an increase of $30 million in federal funds over the
next 2 years, which will enable them to leverage additional
matching funds in their states.
Increased funding will be critical to meet important needs
such as these. Opportunities to build community through civic
conversations, generated through dynamic speakers, exhibits,
films, books, dramatic presentations, and other formats. New
media and technology resources that offer millions of Americans
access to historical and cultural knowledge through documentary
films, radio programs, and electronic state encyclopedias.
Expanded reading and literacy programs that bring community
members together to discuss books and ideas and create lifelong
readers. Such programs often blend reading training with
participation in the vital civic experience of community
discussion.
An instructor in our Mother Read, Father Read Literacy
Program for low income parents of young children told us,
``Thanks to this program our culturally-diverse group was given
an opportunity to learn so much by sharing children's
literature, as well as family values, traditions, and
legends.'' Our common goal is to enhance reading and
communication skills within the family unit.
And finally, a child of a class participant, whose family
probably did not have children's books in their home until the
mother received a paperback book at each session, wrote to us.
``Thank you for giving my mom books. I read all the books that
you gave to her. I like the books so much. My brother reads and
likes the books, too. Today, is my birthday. I am ten.''
On behalf of this child and the millions of other citizens
whose horizons have been expanded through programs of the State
Humanities Councils, I thank the members of Congress and
respectfully ask for your continuing support of our work.
Thank you very much.
[The statement of Karen Munro follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, I just want to say I very much have
appreciated over the years your willingness to come back and
help our office understand the importance of these programs,
and we want to do more on these things. It is just a question
of the budget. I mean----
Ms. Munro. I know.
Mr. Dicks. And as you heard, we got a budget $1 billion
below last year's level. I do not know how you do this. I mean,
we should have gotten a $600 million adjustment to the
baseline.
So we will do the best we can.
Ms. Munro. Well, you and your community have----
Mr. Dicks. I mean, it is just----
Ms. Munro [continuing]. Been wonderful supporters for us.
Mr. Dicks. And then you heard all these tribal leaders
here. I mean, the situation out in Indian country, which you
are very sensitive----
Ms. Munro. Sure.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. To, is dire. And you have
healthcare issues. I mean, it is a very difficult thing.
But we are going to do our best. We tried to help last year
and----
Ms. Munro. You certainly did.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. If we could get the other body----
Ms. Munro. And we appreciate your support.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. To go along with this a little bit,
we----
Ms. Munro. I know.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. Could do fine. But, and, again, I
want you to know how much I appreciate you, both you and Ralph
and the great friendship we have had over the years----
Ms. Munro. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks [continuing]. And the great meetings we have had
at your house near Olympia, and it has meant a lot to us.
Ms. Munro. Well, thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Ms. Munro. Appreciate your support so much.
Mr. Dicks. I am sorry about your dog, too. That was----
Ms. Munro. We have a new dog now.
Mr. Dicks. Oh, good.
Timothy Regan, President, Emissions Control Technology
Association.
----------
Thursday, March 13, 2008.
EMISSIONS CONTROL TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
TIMOTHY REGAN
Mr. Regan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate the
opportunity, but I feel that I am bringing coals to New Castle.
I am here to talk about the Diesel Emission Reduction Act, and
you have been fabulous and your staff has been fabulous, Mike,
Peter, Delia. Everybody has done, I know, everything you can to
help out with the program.
It all started here back in fiscal '03, when this
Committee, Subcommittee funded the Clean School Bus USA
Program, an enormously successful----
Mr. Dicks. Great program.
Mr. Regan [continuing]. Fabulous program. And in fact, what
it has done is cleaned up 40,000 school buses and now 1.5
million kids get cleaner air as a result. So it has been a
great success.
Mr. Dicks. Cannot beat that.
Mr. Regan. Cannot beat it. It is a great success, and in
fact, what happened is because of that success the Diesel
Emission Reduction Act was passed as part of the 2005, Energy
Bill, and you were the first one to actually fund the program.
Mr. Dicks. Good.
Mr. Regan. So we appreciated very much last year the
President asked for 35. You increased it by 40 percent to 50,
and the program is being launched this year, and we are excited
about it.
We are here to ask you to do the same thing you did last
year, if you can. We know that you are really under a lot of
financial stress in this Subcommittee, and there are a lot of
difficult choices to make. But we would appreciate if you would
consider the possibility of giving us another increase to $70
million this year. Makes a lot of sense, I think, from an
economic perspective, because this technology has proven itself
to be very cost effective, the most cost-effective technology
that is out there today for cleaning up the transportation
sector.
And, you know, this kind of pollution is, you know,
currently now the biggest threat to human health that is out
there from the transportation sector, so we appreciate what you
have done, and if you can----
Mr. Dicks. We will just try----
Mr. Regan [continuing]. Give a little more this year, we
would appreciate it. Thanks.
[The statement of Timothy Regan follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Good. Well, thank you very much, and we
appreciate your patience here. And you are our last witness, I
think, for today.
Mr. Regan. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. Yes. So the Committee will stand adjourned until
the call of the Chair.
Thursday, April 3, 2008.
TESTIMONY OF INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS
----------
PUBLIC WITNESSES
Mr. Dicks. The committee will come to order.
I want to welcome everybody here today. We will have two
hearings this morning. The first half-hour will be devoted to
testimony of five public witnesses that were unable to be
scheduled on the previous public witness day. I ask you to be
brief and follow the five-minute rule so that we may proceed to
the second hearing, the Budget for the Bureau of Indian Affairs
and the Office of Special Trustee for American Indians, which
will immediately follow the testimony of the public witnesses.
Mr. Dicks. I ask our first witness to come to the table,
John Churchill, president, the National Humanities Alliance.
John, good to see you again.
Mr. Churchill. Good morning, sir.
Mr. Dicks. I enjoyed our event there the other day.
Mr. Churchill. We appreciate your coming.
Mr. Dicks. It was a wonderful evening. What was the
gentleman's name from the University of Washington? Do you
remember?
Mr. Churchill. The University of Washington?
Mr. Dicks. Yes, who----
Mr. Churchill. Raymond Jonas.
Mr. Dicks. John, you have five minutes, and we are glad to
have you here and we appreciate what the National Humanities
Alliance does and we are proud of the work of the endowment
too.
----------
Thursday, April 3, 2008.
NATIONAL HUMANITIES ALLIANCE
WITNESS
JOHN CHURCHILL
Mr. Churchill. Thank you, sir, very much. On behalf of the
National Humanities Alliance, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee, and also on behalf of the Alliance's 93 member
organizations, I am pleased to testify in support of the
National Endowment for the Humanities and I request that our
previously submitted written testimony be entered into the
record.
Mr. Dicks. Without objection, we will do that, place the
entire statement in the record.
Mr. Churchill. I also want to express my gratitude for the
goodwill shown toward the humanities by this subcommittee and
especially for the willingness last year to support a
significant increase. This year the President's 2009 budget
requests $144.4 million for the NEH, essentially flat funding,
but within it, our increases for overhead and administration
are offset by nearly $7 million in cuts to two core programs,
Preservation and Access, and Challenge Grants. We strongly
oppose those cuts and urge increased funding for all core
programs including the Federal-State Humanities Partnership and
the two major initiatives, the We the People Initiative and its
new program, Picturing America, and the Digital Humanities
Initiative as provided for in the President's 2009 budget.
Over the years, inflation and budget cuts have eroded NEH's
ability to carry out its Congressional mandate. The humanities
community appreciates last year's increase of $3.6 million and
urges a restoration to the peak nominal funding level of $177.5
million reached in 1994. The core programs of NEH have eroded
disproportionately and appropriations for the divisions of
Research, Education, Preservation and Access, public programs
and Challenge Grants have dropped by 43 percent since 1994, not
adjusted for inflation. We urge the reversal of that
deteriorating trend.
Here are some program specifics of the President's 2009
budget. The Preservation and Access program is a decrease of
almost 25 percent, that is $4.5 million, from the 2008 level,
and we are extremely concerned about the proposed elimination
of a program called Stabilizing Humanities Collections, funded
at $3.6 million in 2007. We ask for Congress's assistance in
restoring those funds to the Preservation and Access Division.
Challenge Grants in the 2009 proposal see a decrease of
almost 24 percent, that is $2.2 million, from the current
level, and we strongly disagree with the Administration's
assessment that endowment-building grants are not cost-
effective. I would mention, Mr. Chair, that two Challenge
Grants, one to the University of Puget Sound and one to the
Washington State History Museum, are still doing good, even a
decade after their having been made.
Other divisions essentially receive flat funding in the
proposal, but we oppose the cuts that I have just described and
support proportionately increased funding for NEH's competitive
peer review grant programs through each of the agency's
national core programs.
Turning to State programs and the Federal-State
Partnership, the proposal in the President's budget is flat
funding at $31.7 million, but we support significantly
increased funding for the State Humanities Councils.
Turning to the Digital Humanities Initiative, it is
proposed in the President's budget for flat funding of $2
million. We support the agency's request for this high-priority
initiative and encourage further investment in Digital
Humanities throughout all areas of the endowment.
Turning to We the People, the President's 2009 budget
requests an additional $5 million, including the Picturing
America Initiative. We support this requested increase, urging
that new funds be found to support it.
We appreciate the subcommittee's request last year for an
evaluation by the National Endowment for Humanities of its
international programs and perspectives. We look forward to the
release of the agency's report and working with Congress and
the NEH on the future enhancement of the agency's international
education programs.
So in conclusion, among Congress's difficult choices, we
are asking for a significant funding increase for the National
Endowment for the Humanities of $32 million, again to bring it
to its nominal peak of $177.5 million, which is represented in
1994. We think this is a wise and a necessary investment in the
Nation's education and research infrastructure. We appreciate
the subcommittee's outstanding support for the arts and
humanities in this country and thank you for your
consideration.
[Statement of John Churchill follows:]
Mr. Dicks. We appreciate your statement. I am going to say
this once today. The President's budget request cuts our bill
by $1 billion and we should have gone up $660 million to stay
with current services, so we have a $1.6 billion gap, and that
is going to make it extremely difficult for us to do what we
would like to do if we had a reasonable budget. Mr. Tiahrt and
I and the members of the subcommittee are going to do the very
best we can, but we are in a very difficult situation. Since
2001, Interior has been cut by 16 percent, EPA by 29 percent,
the Forest Service by 35 percent if you take Fire out, and Fire
has gone from 13 percent to 48 percent. So we have a very
difficult situation, and until we get a request from the
Administration that does justice to this area, we are going to
be struggling, and this does not reflect what I would like to
do as Chairman but we are just going to have to try to patch
this together and get through this year and then hope for
better times.
Mr. Churchill. Mr. Dicks, I understand that, and we
appreciate your support and your goodwill toward the
humanities, and we stand to bolster that support as best we
can.
Mr. Dicks. I appreciate that.
Mr. Churchill. We would love to be called on to do that
further.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Mr. Churchill. I would like to leave with the committee
some letters from our constituents supporting particularly the
Preservation and Access issue.
Mr. Dicks. We will put those in the committee files. Thank
you.
Mr. Churchill. Thank you, John.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Mr. John Akridge, chairman of the Trust for the National
Mall. Good to see you. Welcome.
Mr. Akridge. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. We will put your entire statement in the record,
and you have five minutes to summarize your position.
Mr. Akridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
----------
Thursday, April 3, 2008.
TRUST FOR THE NATIONAL MALL
WITNESS
JOHN E. ``CHIP'' AKRIDGE, III
Mr. Akridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the
Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, I
am Chip Akridge, Chairman of Akridge, which is a local
commercial real estate development and management firm.
But I am here today as Chairman of the Trust for the
National Mall. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak
here today. We did submit written testimony, which I hope will
be put in the record.
Mr. Dicks. It will be.
Mr. Akridge. Thank you very much. I do not know if any of
you have been down to the Mall in recent days or years but I am
here to report to you that as one American, I am unhappy with
the way it looks. We have passed out to you a folder of
information. In that folder, there is a picture book which
tells the story much better than I could do with millions of
words as to the sorry state of repair of the National Mall. It
is in desperate need of repair. It has a $350 million backlog
of unfunded repair and maintenance projects.
Mr. Dicks. How many?
Mr. Akridge. Three hundred and fifty million. That does not
include any funds which are necessary to improve the
infrastructure down there to handle the increased people load
on the Mall. There are over 25 million visitors a year on the
Mall, more than Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon
combined, that visit the park. The park is simply loved to
death by the number of people that visit.
Mr. Dicks. Especially when the cherry blossoms are out.
Mr. Akridge. Especially when the cherry blossoms----
Mr. Dicks. I try to drive through there on the way, and it
is not easy.
Mr. Akridge. It is not easy, and it is not easy to walk
around the Tidal Basin because the walks are too narrow for the
people load. Again, the people load has increased to such an
extent that it is just overpowered by the people. I think the
Park Service though has done a good job with the money that
they have had. It is just that the budget that they have is
woefully inadequate to properly maintain America's front yard.
So I became dissatisfied with this a few years ago. I tried to
figure out what we could do about it. I looked around the
country to find a model that had been successful and I found in
New York City the Central Park Conservancy which took Central
Park about 25 years ago which was half closed and completely
run down and over the last 25 years it has raised almost $500
million, and today Central Park is one of the truly world-class
spaces in the world. It is something we can look to to try to
duplicate.
In November, Secretary Kempthorne announced that the Trust
for the National Mall had been designated as the private
funding partner for the National Park Service for the Mall. Our
mission is simple. It is to help the Park Service accomplish
their mission, which is to preserve unimpaired the natural and
cultural resources and values of the Mall for the enjoyment,
education and inspiration of this and future generations.
Now, in carrying out these efforts, the Park Service is in
the process of producing the National Mall Plan, which will
serve as the blueprint for how these improvements will be made
over the next 15 or 20 years.
Mr. Dicks. Who is doing that?
Mr. Akridge. The National Park Service. They solicited
input from the public, and to date over 23,000 Americans have
responded to that call in pointing out things that would make
the park experience more meaningful to them. The plan is in its
final draft form. The Park Service is working with over 20
cooperating agencies and over 30 consulting parties to review
this plan. Some of the agencies including the National Capitol
Planning Commission, the Architect of the Capitol, D.C. Office
of Planning and the Commission on Fine Arts. In all, over 500
professionals in this area will have reviewed and commented on
this plan before it is approved late this year. We are looking
to get that approved in 2008.
Mr. Dicks. Are you worried at all about the kind of
bureaucracy that any kind of plan would have to go through to
be approved? Things are not easily done in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Akridge. No, sir, they have 20 cooperating agencies
that they have to go through.
Mr. Dicks. So this is a difficult challenge.
Mr. Akridge. It is. It is a difficult challenge.
Mr. Dicks. Someone has to be the lead entity, and that is
going to be the Park Service, right?
Mr. Akridge. That is the Park Service.
Mr. Dicks. But you are going to be with them shoulder to
shoulder trying to----
Mr. Akridge. Absolutely, yes, sir. And as I say, they have
done a good job. The draft plan was first put out last year for
additional public comment. The final draft plan will be coming
out momentarily with the final plan being approved, as I said,
by the end of this calendar year. And the Park Service has
taken very seriously the guidance and the comments of the
American people and they have expressed certain areas of
particular concern. One is the preservation of the First
Amendment rights and freedom of expression that the Mall offers
but also they are looking for an increase in the restroom
facilities, the catering facilities and the fact that the park
just does not look good. They want to improve the appearance
and the quality of urban space.
Our project is unique. It is to restore and preserve one of
the greatest American icons for all visitors, both domestic and
foreign. We believe, and we are hopeful that you will agree
that the National Mall is one of the Nation's chief cultural
assets. There is no other place in the United States that
celebrates our democracy, freedom of speech, leadership and
heritage like the National Mall. It is America's front yard. It
needs our help, all our help, and it needs it now. Thank you.
[Statement of John E. ``Chip'' Akridge III follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you for your testimony. Let me just ask
this. Up in New York, how much money did they raise in the
private sector? Did they get private sector contributions?
Mr. Akridge. Yes, they did. Over 25 years they raised $500
million.
Mr. Dicks. And did the State and the city put up some money
too, I would assume?
Mr. Akridge. Yes, I think just about a like amount.
Mr. Dicks. About a 50/50 deal?
Mr. Akridge. Right.
Mr. Dicks. What is your outlook for this, for the private
sector?
Mr. Akridge. We are hopeful that the private sector will
pick up half the tab and that the government will pick up the
other half. We are hopeful.
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Tiahrt.
Mr. Tiahrt. Chip, thanks for bringing this to our
attention. It is hard to understand how we open it up for, as
you say, First Amendment opportunities, and when it gets wet
down there, it turns into mud. I run the Mall like you do, and
it is very disappointing to see, but I am not sure exactly how
we handle the crowds and keep the grass.
Mr. Akridge. May I respond to that?
Mr. Tiahrt. Please.
Mr. Akridge. There are a number of things that are being
looked at, best practices from around the world. The Mall has
not been looked at in really a technical point of view or
horticultural point of view in over 30 years. Many improvements
have been made in the area of turf, turf management, turf
maintenance, and also circulation and crowd control that we are
looking to put some of these systems to work on the Mall, which
will help the problems that we are talking about. To begin
with, the irrigation system that is down there, because of all
the tin pegs and everything that have been driven into the
ground, it is inoperative so trying to keep turf alone is
impossible. You can see from the book, it is mostly mud, which
if it rains, it turns immediately to mud. So if you have a good
base of turf to start with, it is not nearly as likely to
become a mud bath as it is now. So there are lots of measures
that are being looked at and that will be involved in solving
that problem.
Mr. Tiahrt. I think you have some good ideas. We ought to
look at how we can put this together.
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Moran, do you want to make a comment?
Mr. Moran. Yes, I do, and the first thing I want to say is
that Chip Akridge is one of the real leaders in the Washington
area and your time is very valuable. The fact that you have
chosen to take this on gives it the kind of credibility as a
priority that is going to involve the other folks who are
absolutely essential if we are going to get up to $500 million.
So I thank you very much for doing that. I appreciate the fact
that you run early in the morning. Well, 10 years ago I used to
run along the Mall, five years ago I would jog and now I just
kind of plod at noontime. I do not do it at the crack of dawn
like you do, but it is a beautiful place and you cannot help
but observe the things that you have observed. It is a national
icon and we have got to preserve it. I appreciate the fact that
the Park Service is taking the lead. I do not know that it is
fair to say that raising funds should be a 50/50 public/private
matching arrangement. I mean, this is clearly something that
the Federal Government should take the principal responsibility
for. There are a number of questions I want to ask you about in
terms of your priorities because I have questioned some of the
decisions that have been made but I think as long as you are
going to take a role that goes beyond raising funds and writing
checks, that is a source of real encouragement, so I appreciate
this. Do you want to say something?
Mr. Dicks. I just wanted to say, has there been a hearing
on this before the authorizing committee?
Mr. Akridge. No, sir, not to my knowledge, no.
Mr. Dicks. Which committee would have jurisdiction?
Mr. Moran. It is Nick Rahall's. It is Natural Resources.
Mr. Dicks. Maybe we ought to encourage that. I think this
deserves some more attention. I have had some people come in to
talk to me about this. I think it is a tremendously high
priority and we want to get it started and we want to help it.
But maybe getting the authorizing committee to look at this
would be helpful.
Mr. Moran. You know, we could do a joint hearing.
Mr. Dicks. We could do a joint hearing, or if we cannot get
them to do it, we will do it ourselves.
Mr. Moran. Good.
Mr. Akridge. I am happy and available to participate in any
way I can.
Mr. Moran. Now is not the time to belabor this because we
have a lot of other witnesses, but the fact that we are cutting
this short, all you need to know is----
Mr. Dicks. We are serious. We want to help you.
Mr. Akridge. We are too.
Mr. Dicks. And we appreciate your leadership on this.
Mr. Moran. And Norm is going to be at the fundraiser as
well and Susie is going to make him write a check, and he does
not do that a lot.
Mr. Dicks. Mr. Olver.
Mr. Olver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Akridge, I have only a short comment to make here. All
of us have witnessed massive historic gatherings on the mall.
It happens to be tomorrow we are not in session but tomorrow is
the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther
King, which we are going to be a commemoration of in the
Rotunda today at some point in time later this morning, and I
am particularly interested in your effort at enhancement of the
use for free speech purposes, for First Amendment purposes.
That is extremely important in your plan. That is all I want to
say. I will not question you further about that because things
are tight here.
Mr. Akridge. Very good. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Dicks. We thank you again, and we appreciate your
leadership on this issue.
Mr. Akridge. Thank you very much.
Alan Front, senior vice president, the Trust for Public
Land. Alan, how are you?
Mr. Front. Mr. Chairman, I am going to try to keep my
microbes on this side of the table.
Mr. Dicks. Good.
----------
Thursday, April 3, 2008.
TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND
WITNESS
ALAN FRONT
Mr. Front. I do appreciate, germs notwithstanding, the
opportunity to appear before the subcommittee today and very
much appreciate the chance to talk about the need for
investments in land conservation programs, the Land and Water
Conservation Fund, the Forest Legacy Program, the grant
programs at the Fish and Wildlife Service, and I am also
pleased to share with you some of the non-Federal action that
the work that you are doing here is catalyzing around the
country and maybe give you just a flavor of the good, the bad
and the ugly of what we are seeing in the conservation real
estate market as we do our work.
Sitting at your table, Mr. Chairman, and among this good
company, it is impossible not to well up with a degree of
gratitude for the commitment that all of you have already made
to these programs and to the specific places that you have
protected through these programs, the wildlife refuges in
Washington State, the Bogasheel, which I know a picture of
which hangs on your wall.
Mr. Dicks. It does.
Mr. Front. The Quinault lands, the wildlife refuges in
Virginia and the views of Mount Vernon which, as Mr. Moran
knows, we have just completed another acquisition and are about
to cut a ribbon, the wildlife lands along the Connecticut River
in Massachusetts. I am not sure why I am thinking of those
three particular places as I look across the table.
Mr. Dicks. There has to be something in Kansas. I mean,
come on.
Mr. Front. Mr. Tiahrt, our testimony next year hopefully
will include you as well.
But those achievements are particularly significant, given
the context of fiscal constraint and competing priorities and
candidly of woefully inadequate Administration budgets of the
last few years. So what you have been able to do is truly
phenomenal. Those dynamics, those limitations, as wonderful as
the successes have been, they have also led to a similar number
of conservation losses, of incompatible developments that
should not have happened in our national parks but have
happened, of lost opportunities for recreational access or for
habitat consolidation. What ends up happening is, those
projects are either deferred or they are lost. The ones that
are lost leave an irreparable scar on our public landscapes.
The ones that are deferred have their own set of costs because
land is not getting any cheaper and so year by year we end up
paying more for what we do not do in years past, and there are
also a host of issues that are raised, management issues that
are raised by those holdings, issues involving wildfire risk,
issues involving incompatible uses and obstacles to access.
So organizations like the Trust for Public Land and many of
our private partners around the country are certainly doing
what we can but candidly, we are not only hoping but we are
desperate for more Federal support for these Federal
activities, especially on Federal lands and in areas where the
Federal government has staked its flag for State and local
activity. The needs are particularly acute for the Land and
Water Conservation Fund, and those opportunities to leverage
Federal funds are particularly in evidence this year. Rachel
Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Maine, for instance, as the
100th anniversary of Rachel Carson herself has come and gone,
there is an opportunity this year for $3.5 million to buy 110
acres of spectacular wildlife habitat, coastal habitat, that is
worth more than $10 million because of a generous landowner and
an aggressive philanthropic campaign. In Montana, the New World
Mine Site that this subcommittee struggled through in the last
Administration, there are still remaining private interests
that the landowners have just stepped forward and offered to
sell if there is money this year. If there is not money this
year, that opportunity will be lost.
Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Tiahrt, I think both of you
have recently had an opportunity to see the work that we are
doing at Maho Bay in the Virgin Islands where the Trust for
Public Land, not cavalierly but with a great deal of
consternation and nail biting, spent over $30 million to buy
that connector between the two disparate halves of the national
park there and we will be able, if there is Federal funding
available, to turn it over to the Park Service at a fraction of
what we paid for it, again through private philanthropy.
There are lots and lots of examples, at Congaree Swamp
where we are trying to consolidate habitat and recreation land,
working with Mr. Clyburn and other members of the delegation,
and maybe protecting the last habitat of the ivory-billed
woodpecker. The examples go on and on, in the Cascade
Checkerboard in Washington State, in the Carbon River Gateway
to Mount Rainier. We have a willing seller who has been willing
for years and may be less willing as the years pass.
Mr. Dicks. I think we are going to get to that one this
year.
Mr. Front. I am hoping, and I am appreciating your
commitment to it and you helped in past years. So this is
really just a recognition that there is more need, there is an
ocean of need and understanding the struggle, the financial
struggle, Mr. Chairman, that you mentioned, there is just a
small puddle of money, and we are not expecting huge increases
but there are meaningful increases that are really necessary in
Land and Water.
Similarly, the needs in the Forest Legacy Program are no
less present or pressing, from the Katahdin Forest in Maine to
the Eden Forest in Vermont to lands in the Catskill Park that
Mr. Hinchey is concerned about, to lands in Moore River in New
Mexico that Mr. Udall is attentive to, and the needs are again
no less severe in those grant programs in the Fish and Wildlife
Service.
So we do recognize that there are a host of competing
demands and that there will always be a need for us to try to
stretch the capacity of the Federal government but what I am
here to tell you is that working in the real estate
marketplace, there are landowners who just are not going to
wait anymore. There are opportunities in national parks and in
national wildlife refuges. There are opportunities in federally
supposed State and local areas that are going to disappear off
the plate this year, and when they do, we will be left with
scars that just will not heal. So we are appreciating what you
do on the Subcommittee and the commitment you have made, what
Robert Frost called work for heavens in the future sake. That
is what these programs do, and to the extent that we can, we
will absolutely help out, but to the extent that you can, we
are hoping that you can come up with some meaningful increases
for those programs this year.
[Statement of Alan Front follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Thank you for your very eloquent statement. I am
not going to go through what I said earlier. We are in a very
difficult spot and we are going to do the best we can. Anyone
else? Thank you very much.
Mr. Front. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Jeff Trandahl, executive director of the
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
----------
Thursday, April 3, 2008.
NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION
WITNESS
JEFF TRANDAHL
Mr. Trandahl. You know after I retired from here a couple
years ago, I went down to take over National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation, a foundation created by Congress actually in 1984.
The idea of that foundation was to leverage with Federal
agencies private dollars to do a lot of the conservation work
that currently is the goals and the objectives of the agencies.
So traditionally we get Federal seed monies that are directly
appropriated monies that we collect no administrative monies on
and we turn around and leverage private dollars alongside those
and then turn around and put those monies on the ground. We do
no lobbying, no litigation, just projects. We are currently
involved with over 20 agencies. Today I am here to talk about
three particular agencies, which is Fish and Wildlife Service,
Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, and I am proud to
tell you later this month we will have a board meeting and at
that point we will have approved with $13.9 million of fiscal
year 2007 appropriated monies from these three agencies, we
will leverage in more than $65 million in addition to it.
Mr. Dicks. Congratulations.
Mr. Trandahl. Yes, it is very, very good. It is a good way
to get Federal priorities done with both Federal dollars and
private partnerships. The fiscal year 2009 request that is
before the committee is for $25 million out of those three
agencies, $10 million from Fish and Wildlife Service, $3
million for our Washington salmon program, $4 million from the
Forest Service and $4 million from BLM. Some of those dollars
are included in the President's budget request. We obviously
had worked with the agencies to try to get the proposals all
the way through their process. Probably the saddest one from
our side and the one that we are working with the most is the
Bureau of Land Management. There we have had more than a 10-
year partnership. We were zeroed out in the President's budget.
That is the first time that has happened in more than eight
years. So we are trying to work with the agency and hopefully
with you to restore some of those monies because that has been
a very, very important partnership and the Bureau of Land
Management, as we all know, has been under significant pressure
to do better conservation on the ground and we have been
delivering some very good results for them.
Mr. Dicks. What did you get last year for the BLM?
Mr. Trandahl. BLM last year was $2.855 million.
Mr. Dicks. With across the board.
Mr. Trandahl. Yes. It has traditionally been three. We have
been trying to move up to four. There as well, I think there is
great potential in terms of bringing in private dollars to
leverage up against any monies we are able to bring on in BLM.
And just separate of those three agencies, know that we do
affect everything including Kansas. You know, we run a very
significant Chesapeake Bay program. We are very involved up
there in Massachusetts as well. The Northwest has been a
significant focus and we have run a very successful Chesapeake
Bay program with EPA and NRCS for years. We have been trying to
replicate that into the Great Lakes, into Puget Sound, into the
San Francisco Bay, which are going to be big priorities in the
next few years for us.
Any questions I can answer?
[Statement of Jeff Trandahl follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, no. I just want to say, I have been very
impressed. I was somewhat skeptical 10 years ago but since the
work that has been done out there, your people are just
outstanding. Bill Ruckleshouse, who is head of the shared
strategy for recovery of salmon and also now is the chairman of
the Puget Sound Partnership Leadership Group and did the Salmon
Recovery Fund for the governor, in every context, he has come
to me and said, you know, the foundation's work is just first
rate and your people do a great job and they are always up
there helping on various projects that are important, and they
fit a niche that the bigger program simply is unable to
address, and the best part of course is the leveraging of
private funds. I just think it is a very winning combination
and I am glad Congress created the program, and I hope we can
recover from these budgets that have been pretty devastating.
We can do a better job in support of this because I think it is
a good combination and works successfully.
Mr. Trandahl. Thank you.
Mr. Tiahrt. Mr. Chairman, I just want to add that I think
you said very well how the leveraging is so important, and Jeff
has provided great leadership and I hope we can give him some
support here. Because of the leveraging, it helps us get more
done than we would normally do in other areas. So I am very
pleased for his testimony and hope we can help.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Chairman, may I just----
Mr. Dicks. Yes, Mr. Olver.
Mr. Olver. You had said you had $13 million last year and
with leveraging you were able to do $65 million in work.
Mr. Trandahl. I am not sure whether that was $65 million
leveraged to add to it. It sounded like it might be a four-to-
one match. Is that formally part of the----
Mr. Trandahl. Actually, we were able to generate $65
million of private money.
Mr. Olver. Of private money, so it is actually five to one,
virtually five to one, but there is no formal statement of that
in these appropriations.
Mr. Trandahl. Well, actually, by law when the foundation
was first created, there were two provisions that were
required. One, for every Federal dollar that we were directly
appropriated, we had to raise at least one private dollar in
match, and the second was, we do this with no administrative
costs. So I also have to raise separately all the
administrative expenses to put that money on the ground as
well. So every year when I start my fiscal year, I start with a
deficit of roughly $2 million to $2.5 million in the red to
just pay for putting the Federal money on the ground and then I
have to raise the private monies on top of that. It is a very
significant challenge but it is a good goal. It is a hard goal,
it is a very good goal. And then the other side of it is, we
were to work with the agencies and understand what their
priorities were, go out and try to identify private sources
that would help fund those initiatives, create those
partnerships together. We started just as the Fish and Wildlife
Service and then we have grown with all the other agencies, and
literally now today we are involved with 23 different Federal
agencies, and the whole goal there again is to reduce the cost
on the Federal side, bring in the private monies that are out
there but also realize that only 2 to 5 percent of all
philanthropic money, depending on which survey you look at,
goes to environmental work. So it is hard to identify people,
and a lot of that goes towards advocacy, not necessarily
projects. So just like TPL, we really have to struggle and work
hard to get that money.
Mr. Olver. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dicks. All right. Thank you. Good job, and we
appreciate the fact that you are there working on these things.
Terry Dillon, National Utility Contractors Association,
welcome.
Mr. Dillon. I also would like to submit for the record, you
have our written testimony, and I want to add some pictures
that are State by State that will kind of emphasize a little
more my verbal testimony today. Pictures speak a thousand
words, especially in a business where everything is underground
and you guys walk over it every day and do not really think
about it.
Mr. Dicks. Go ahead. We are going to give you five minutes,
and we will put your statement in the record and you can
summarize as you wish.
----------
Thursday, April 3, 2008.
NATIONAL UTILITY CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION
WITNESS
TERRY DILLON
Mr. Dillon. Chairman Dicks, Ranking Member Tiahrt and
honorable members of the subcommittee, my name is Terry Dillon.
I am the owner of Atlas Excavating in West Lafayette, Indiana.
We have 150 employees who work on sewer and water construction
and highway and road reconstruction projects throughout the
State. I am also president of the National Utility Contractors
Association, or better known as NUCA. NUCA represents more than
1,750 companies across the Nation that build, repair and
maintain underground water, wastewater, gas, electric and
telecommunications systems. NUCA also serves as chair of the
Clean Water Council, a coalition of 34 national organizations
representing underground construction, contractors, design
professionals, manufacturers, suppliers, labor representation
and others committed to a high quality of life through sound
infrastructure.
Utility contractors build and repair America's unglamorous
but vital water and wastewater infrastructure, something we
depend on, that is walked on and over every day but is out of
sight and out of mind until it does not work. It is not a happy
day in an American home when the indoor plumbing fails or
sewage backs up into their house. When a turn of a knob does
not produce water to a faucet or water to the morning shower,
living in America does not become so great. I believe one of
the greatest assets the United States has is its infrastructure
system. It is as important or more important than oil. Dumping
of untreated and raw sewage happens over 325 times per day in
the United States, which can lead to disease, sickness or even
death. It is unsightly, dangerous and it just plain smells bad.
Americans have also become accustomed to drinking clean water
that does not smell, tastes bad or has debris floating in it.
It is just a plain fact that without clean water to drink, you
will not live more than a few days.
I am here today with vast knowledge and real-time awareness
of how poor shape our infrastructure system is in. Designed and
built over 60 years ago with a life expectancy of 50 years,
much of our infrastructure is worn out and it is failing. On
Monday of this week, I received an early morning call from the
city of Columbus, Indiana, which is 60 miles south of
Indianapolis. They requested an emergency sewer crew to repair
two different sewer breaks at different locations in the city.
An old and rotted 24-inch sewer main had broken, causing severe
backup. Upon arrival, I found city crews trying to keep up with
raw sewage backing up into their lines. The broken sewer line
was 20 foot deep and manholes had surcharge and had 18 feet of
sewage in them. Sewer crews were barely keeping up with bypass
pumping to avoid further sewage spills. However, prior to the
bypass pumping, sewage was reported to be 3 feet deep over
about an acre area of ground. It was crossing over a local
road, filling a local drainage ditch, then was running down
through the front yards of people's homes and then it dumped
into the local creek. There were millions of gallons of raw
sewage on the ground that eventually discharged into that
creek. How happy do you suppose the Americans with sewage
backed up in their houses and sewage in their yards and running
down the creek were for several days? Had this been an oil
spill, the media coverage would have made national news. We
would have had helicopters flying overhead. We would have been
on Fox News, MSNBC. It would have been a very big deal. As of
today, it has not even made it to the local papers.
Yet this type of spill happens 118,000 times a year,
118,000 times. This results in 950 billion gallons of raw
sewage dumped in our lakes, rivers and streams every year,
which supports the contractor's motto, the answer to pollution
is delusion. Somebody needs to care. I know that I care, and we
need Congress to care also.
Last year the House passed Water Quality Financing Act,
H.R. 720, which would authorize $14 billion for the Clean Water
SRF over four years. While the Senate has yet to act on its
version of a reauthorization bill, immediate resources in
fiscal year 2009 appropriations are needed to begin to address
what is becoming a crisis situation.
NUCA supports $1.35 billion for EPA Clean Water State
Revolving Fund. Not only with these appropriations supply much
needed funding sources for infrastructure needs, it also has a
direct and indirect impact on our poor economy. One billion
dollars invested in infrastructure creates more than 40,000
jobs. These jobs are American jobs who pay taxes and spend
their money on goods and products in the United States. Funding
construction projects stimulates our growth and the development
for the Americans. Americans expect and deserve a high quality
of life. You and I are the gatekeepers of our infrastructure
system. It is time to take the responsibility head on.
[Statement of Terry Dillon follows:]
Mr. Dicks. Well, let me ask you this. The Administration
says that we do not need any more money, that there is enough
money out to the State Revolving Funds so that they can revolve
and they get the money back and it goes back into the fund. I
mean, they have testified up here repeatedly that they do not
need additional funds. What is the answer to that?
Mr. Dillon. Well, my best example would be the city of
Indianapolis is mandated to spend $2 billion to bring their
system up to snuff over the next 20 years. When I was in the
city of Columbus this week, the complaint within the city was
that all the SRF money allotted for Indiana, which is only $20
million to cover a $2 billion project, the city of Columbus has
no money that they can go get to help with their sewer needs
within their own city.
Mr. Dicks. They cannot borrow from the State. The State has
the revolving fund.
Mr. Dillon. Right, but the money is gone. Indianapolis has
taken almost all of it and Indianapolis does not have near
enough money to even do what they are planning on doing. Even
if you took the $20 million that we get and you multiplied that
out over the 20 years to do $2 billion worth of work, it is
only $400 million of money, and that is just the city of
Indianapolis. So in the case of Columbus, they have $5 million
in a reserve fund in their sewer infrastructure system that
they cannot spend, but my understanding is that they are going
to go leverage that somehow and get the money to get some
upgrading on some of the sewer breaks and decaying system that
they have.
Mr. Dicks. Well, we are very sympathetic about what you are
talking about. It is just that the Administration has cut these
budgets and put us in a very difficult spot. Where do we get
the money when the budget for this year is $1 billion below
last year's level? And then the President threatens us with a
veto if we put a nickel more than he requested and he has
support up here on that position, which I think is not good
either. But we are in a tough spot.
Mr. Dillon. I would agree, you are in a tough spot, but I
heard you guys talking earlier about how great it is to run
through the park and how pretty it is, and the only thing I can
tell you is, I guess when the President runs through there one
day and there is raw sewage running across the grounds and he
has to tramp through it, maybe he is going to wake up. This
country is absolutely falling apart.
Mr. Dicks. It may be a little too late for this round, but
maybe the next one.
Mr. Dillon. Okay, maybe the next one. I will be more than
happy to drive him around and show him exactly what he needs to
see.
Mr. Tiahrt. You know, we have been talking about larger
communities but small communities are facing challenges just
like this as well, and part of the problem is that we keep
presenting new standards that are more and more difficult to
achieve, and we cannot meet our basic infrastructure needs. I
know in some cases in Kansas, we just complete a waste
treatment facility and new EPA standards are released that
already put it out of date. So we have to have I think a little
more commonsense approach in some of the things on our new
construction so we can take care of the old infrastructure that
is failing, and it is startling to have raw sewage pumping. It
is not acceptable.
Mr. Dillon. I would agree. You know, when I first got into
this business, I am just a guy trying to make a living and
survive, and 28 years later, I mean, I am sitting here today
because I truly believe that I am one of the gatekeepers of
this infrastructure in this country. It is the greatest asset
we have. It is why this country is so great. And I every day
see sewage. I will tell you right now, when it rains, sewage is
going down a river somewhere, every time it rains.
Mr. Dicks. Right, storm water in the Puget Sound or in the
Chesapeake Bay or in the Great Lakes.
Mr. Dillon. Absolutely, and you know, it washes down the
banks and usually where a sewage overflow is, it is hidden by
trees and nobody can see it but I am telling you, you go take a
boat when you walk down that bank and you see sewage debris
between toilet paper and condoms and the things we do not
really talk about that are just laying there on the bank. It
scares you to death, much less to think about the disease and
hazardous things that are in the water anyway.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much.
Mr. Olver.
Mr. Olver. In your example, the one that you went through
in some detail, you spoke about rotting pipe.
Mr. Dillon. Yes.
Mr. Olver. Did you mean you were using wooden pipes?
Mr. Dillon. No, this was concrete pipe.
Mr. Olver. In my area, I have older communities that still
have either oak or chestnut. Do you know how long the chestnut
has been there?
Mr. Dillon. And I dig on plenty of the wooden water lines
and sewers up like that.
Mr. Dicks. We have them out in the State of Washington too.
Mr. Dillon. And, you know, while I gave you an example of
950 billion gallons of raw sewage that is dumped into rivers,
there is no account. Nobody can guess how much is just going
into the ground because of bad old wood pipes. I mean,
basically if you think about it, you got a sewage system that
was designed 60 years ago and there was never a program to keep
it maintenanced so it is time to pay the piper because it is
absolutely falling apart. My most scary one of these has been a
sewer break that happened through a playground, and when I got
to the sewage spill, there were two kids 100 feet away playing
on a swing set and it was over a 42-inch concrete pipe that was
running 15 million gallons of sewage down it. I mean, it was so
fast, if one of those kids would have slipped in there, his
next stop in about 15 minutes at about 5 miles would have been
the grinder pumps at the treatment plant. I mean, we have a
serious, serious problem and a lot of it is from the old,
decaying systems that have just not been repaired.
Mr. Dicks. Well, thank you for your testimony. Again, the
EPA comes up here and swears up and down that they do not need
any more money, that there is enough money out there to go into
the State revolving funds and they will revolve, the money will
come back in, there is money for everybody. I mean, you might
want to take some time and go over there and explain to them
the realities.
Mr. Dillon. My next stop, Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Tracey Hunter, assistant executive director of Evergreen
Rural Water of Washington State. Welcome, Tracey.
----------
Thursday, April 3, 2008.
EVERGREEN RURAL WATER OF WASHINGTON
WITNESS
TRACEY HUNTER
Ms. Hunter. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to
testify before you and your committee today. I am here
representing the more than 700 small and rural water systems in
our association and the more than 4,000 water systems in
Washington State. I am here to speak to you about the training
and technical assistance available to the over 50,000 small and
rural water systems in the United States through the EPA
training and technical assistance source water and groundwater
protection programs administered by the National Rural Water
Association.
Thirty years ago, the Congress determined that compliance
with the Safe Drinking Water Act would be almost impossible in
our rural areas without on-site hands-on assistance to guide
the many part-time operators, local water system board members
and local elected officials and the increasingly difficult
regulatory requirements set forth in the new law. The Congress
set-aside specific funding within the EPA budget to assure that
this in-the-field help would be there consistently every year
and has funded the program in this same manner each year since.
This need continues with over 31,000 in-the-field visits being
made last year, resulting in a compliance rate for small
systems that is comparable to that of the more sophisticated
larger systems.
This program works because it is operated by the water
systems themselves in each State. The Dear Colleague letters in
support of this funding received each year by this committee
show the broad-based support of these programs. These letters,
with the support of your colleagues, indicate the depth and
breadth of the effectiveness of the program throughout this
country. The groundwater/source water protection program is
often the only specific watershed protection effort going on in
your communities. In our report to Congress, we provide the
specific systems visited, over 27,000 last year, and water
protection plans completed in every State in the country. There
is no other program funded by the government, much less the
EPA, that can provide you this type of public health and
environmental protection success and accountability.
These programs often create unique partnerships between
State agencies and State rural water associations, providing
each with the expertise they would otherwise be without. A
recent example of that in my home State of Washington came
during devastating floods that we experienced last December. At
a recently completed annual conference, the opening session
speaker, Washington State Drinking Water Director Denise
Clifford, talked about how important partnerships are and how
effective they can be during a crisis. She went on to thank
Evergreen Rural Water of Washington for the on-the-ground
assistance provided by our Circuit Riders in reestablishing
potable drinking water to systems that had been affected by the
floods.
Mr. Chairman, our request is straightforward and simple. We
are asking that you continue the program as a specific
Congressional set-aside in the EPA budget and at a level of
$16.8 million. That will allow for at least three full-time
field people working onsite in systems in your Congressional
districts and each State. Without the assurance of the
Congressionally directed funding for this program, the small
system technical assistance and training programs will sink
into the bureaucracy with little or no guidance from the small
and rural water systems themselves.
There are no other programs within EPA or funded by EPA
that have the support of the overwhelming number or rural and
small systems in your States that this program receives. We
urge you to keep the existing program in place as our rural
areas go through the increasing pressure to meet new and
expanding Federal drinking water standards.
[Statement of Tracey Hunter follows:]
Mr. Dicks. What was in the budget for 2008?
Ms. Hunter. I think we got seven.
Mr. Dicks. See, I want to make a point here to my
colleagues and the people here. This is a Congressional
directed funding project and these are being criticized by a
lot of people, but as suggested here, there are no EPA programs
to fund this, and if it was not for this particular amendment
that has been added by Members of Congress for many years,
these rural systems simply would not be funded except by the
local level. Is that not correct?
Ms. Hunter. Correct.
Mr. Dicks. And try as we have, and we have had meetings,
brought the people over from EPA again and asked them to put
money in the budget for this, it just does not happen. So we
appreciate your being here today and your testimony, and the
support you have in the House is--I hear from a lot of Members
about this and they are concerned. They care about this
particular program.
Mr. Tiahrt.
Mr. Tiahrt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think that a lot of us care about this program because we
see the need in rural areas, and again I want to emphasize that
we keep releasing higher and higher standards out of EPA with
no funding for these new mandated goals we have to achieve as
far as water quality, and I do not know about the science
behind it but I do know it puts pressure on communities to
upgrade their systems with no apparent benefit to the people
that receive the water. It is very costly, and the only way we
can try and keep up is through member-directed funding because
local communities cannot fund it. We have a lot of requests in
Kansas. I met with our folks that supply rural water to their
rural water districts and it is a real challenge. So I think if
we look at the total cost of these infrastructure costs in the
United States, it is very expensive and we cannot rely solely
on member-directed initiatives. We are going to have to have
some additional help somewhere, and I think----
Mr. Dicks. Has there ever been an attempt to try to get a
program authorized by Congress for this particular----
Ms. Hunter. It is authorized.
Mr. Tiahrt. It was just never funded adequately.
Mr. Dicks. Can you show us the authorization? We would like
to see the authorization.
Ms. Hunter. We will get that for you.
Mr. Tiahrt. I think the point I would like to make is that
we inflict some of this cost on ourselves because EPA continues
to press standards that I do not think are justified by science
as far as the cost that is incurred to the benefits received.
Mr. Dicks. Well, that may be debated in other forums.
Mr. Olver, do you have anything?
Mr. Olver. No.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you.
Ms. Hunter. Thank you. Thank you for your support.
Mr. Dicks. We appreciate you coming in.
Kyle Hoagland, President, Nebraska Water Resources Center.
Thursday, April 3, 2008.
NEBRASKA WATER RESOURCES CENTER
WITNESS
KYLE HOAGLAND
Mr. Hoagland. I would like to start on a personal note, if
I could. I was diagnosed about 18 months ago with Parkinson's
disease. I bring that up for two reasons. Number one, National
Parkinson's Awareness Month is April, and secondly, because it
may affect my ability to speak, so bear with me.
Mr. Dicks. No, we will. We appreciate that, and we hope
that your medical treatments are successful.
Mr. Hoagland. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity
to testify in support of funding for programs authorized under
provisions of the Water Resources Research Act. The Act
authorizes a program of grants to States for water resources
research institutes and for research focused on water problems
of a regional or interstate nature through fiscal year 2011.
Through your ongoing support, you have recognized the
importance of university cooperation with local, State and
Federal government agencies to produce new knowledge and to
ensure the education and training of professionals who design
and manage our water systems, both now and in the future.
The National Institutes for Water Resources respectfully
recommends an appropriation of $8.8 million in the fiscal year
2009 USGS budget for the Water Resources Research Act Program.
In 2001 and 2004, two seminal National Research Council
Reports thoroughly examined the urgency and complexity of water
resource issues facing the United States, and many of these
have been talked about today already. Among others, several
water resources challenges were cited as motivation for these
studies. First, there is abundant evidence that the condition
of water resources in many parts of the United States is
deteriorating, both quality and quantity. In some regions of
the country, the availability of sufficient water to service
growing domestic uses is in doubt, as is the future sufficiency
of water for agriculture and domestic uses is increasingly
depleted. The frequency and magnitude of damages attributable
to droughts and floods are increasing, providing evidence of
increasing vulnerability to extreme climate and weather events.
There are many critical areas where knowledge and
information need improvement for better water resource
management. Cited NRC reports developed a comprehensive list of
43 areas needing further scientific inquiry. A few of these
examples are improving existing supply enhancing technologies
such as wastewater treatment, desalinization and groundwater
banking, understand the impact of land use changes and best
management practices on pollutant loading to waters, ecosystem
services and biodiversity, understand and predict the frequency
and cause of severe weather--floods and droughts--and in
particular, understand global change and the associated
hydrologic impacts, and finally, develop adaptive management as
a better approach to water resources management.
Why should the Federal government lay the funding
cornerstone for water research? In the first place, water
resources are defined by physical geography and not by State
boundaries. The vast majority of water problems are of regional
or national character. Even those of limited scope are usually
very similar in most States. Hence, research funding at the
Federal level, with results transferred nationwide, is the only
truly comprehensive and effective approach in dealing with
these water resources issues. Second, water research epitomizes
the economic concept of a public good. As such, State and local
governments and private entities cannot produce as much of it
as is justified by the overall value of the results.
The 54 water institutes are particularly well situated to
contribute to the priority setting and research coordination
processes. Institutes are based in land grant institutions like
the University of Nebraska and have direct access to expertise
in many disciplines of water resources. As part of their
legislative charge, they provide independent, objective and
scientifically credible communication of research needs and
results from States and localities to Federal agencies and to
stakeholders. So we are that link between the Federal
government, State government and local stakeholders.
The water research institutes are uniquely positioned to
address the interdisciplinary challenges and sustaining the
reliability of water supplies in the face of new challenges and
uncertainties. For more than 40 years, the institutes have
conducted applied research that links science to innovative and
cost-effective policies to increase the preparedness of water
supply systems to withstand hazards.
The grants that support this water research as well as
information transfer and training of research scientists and
engineers must be matched by legislative mandate with non-
Federal dollars two to one. Thus, the Federal appropriation
results in a larger pool of research funding. In Nebraska, for
example, the Federal dollars are matched with State dollars
allocated to the university. The combination of State and
Federal dollars further generates additional funding. This
Federal/State/university effort would most likely not exist
without the modest seed funding from the Water Resources
Research Act. Indeed, approximately one-third of all water
institutes would disappear within a year if this funding is not
restored.
A second component of the Act provides competitive Federal
grants focusing on regional and interstate water resources
problems beyond those affecting a single State and must be
matched on a dollar-for-dollar basis.
We believe the activities authorized under provision of the
Water Resources Research Act are relevant to today's need, are
of high quality, are efficiently managed and meet the needs of
the Nation.
In 2007, the Institutes supported more than 1,000 student
researchers at an average cost of less than $10,000 each. By
comparison, student stipends funded by the National Science
Foundation average more than $20,000 per student.
The President's budget recommends the water institution
program for elimination in fiscal year 2009 as has typically
been the case in the past. This would seem to contradict the
objectives of the water initiatives set forth in the
President's budget request and the objectives outlined in the
OSTP publication, ``A Strategy for Federal Science and
Technology to Support Water Availability and Quality in the
United States.''
Mr. Dicks. Well, you know, they take this out every year
and we put it back in.
Mr. Hoagland. One final thing. The investments the
subcommittee makes in the USGS and its programs underpin
responsible natural resource stewardship and contribute to the
long-term health, security and prosperity of the Nation.
Together, the Survey and the water resources institutes meet
important public needs and are a reasonable priority within a
reasonable appropriations bill.
[Statement of Kyle Hoagland follows:]
Mr. Dicks. We appreciate you coming in, we agree with you,
and we will do the best we can with the budgetary
circumstances.
Mr. Tiahrt. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dicks. Yes, Mr. Tiahrt.
Mr. Tiahrt. With the research that similar funding has
provided, we were able to move forward with new ideas in
recharging Equus Beds in Kansas, and one of the problems we are
having is that there is saltwater down there in the aquifer,
and by knowing where the saltwater is, we can force water down,
hold it back and keep freshwater available for our cities and
municipalities, so I think your research has been very helpful,
at least in Kansas.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much.
Mr. Olver.
Mr. Olver. A quick comment. If you look at this budget
closely, there are hundreds of places where the public/private
partnerships would bring in a substantial amount of money in
match for what is relatively small Federal involvement. The
Administration has proposed to cut those down or eliminate
them. That happens time and time and time again. That is one of
the features in this year's budget.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you very much.
Mr. Hoagland. Thank you.
Mr. Dicks. This part of the hearing will be adjourned.
INDEX
----------
Page
American Indian Programs
1854 Treaty Authority............................................ 213
Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Association Inc........................ 199
American Indian Higher Education Consortium...................... 219
Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation.............................. 202
California Rural Indian Health Board, Inc........................ 143
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe....................................... 250
Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma....................................... 70
Chugach Regional Resources Commission............................ 181
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission...................... 173
Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.................. 52
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation........... 165
Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon.... 169
Council of Energy Resource Tribes................................ 227
Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community Grant School...................... 76
Enewetak/Ujelang Local Government................................ 596
Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa....................... 185
Friends of Indian Health......................................... 206
Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.................. 38
Independent Review Team on Tribal Courts......................... 260
Intertribal Bison Cooperative.................................... 63
InterTribal Timber Council....................................... 243
Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe........................................ 57
Jicarilla Apache Nation.......................................... 195
Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians........... 31
Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe........................................ 2
Lummi Nation..................................................... 189
Makah Tribal Council (Neah Bay, Washington)...................... 120
Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin..................................... 7
Muckleshoot Tribal Council....................................... 193
National American Indian Court Judges Association, Inc........... 177
National Council of Urban Indian Health.......................... 230
National Indian Health Board..................................... 153
National Johnson-O'Malley Association............................ 235
Navajo-Hopi Land Commission Office............................... 272
Navajo Nation.................................................... 196
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission............................ 19
Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board...................... 127
Oglala Sioux Tribe--Department of Public Safety.................. 114
Pueblo of Acoma.................................................. 109
Puyallup Tribe of Washington..................................... 14
Quinault Indian Nation........................................... 95
Ramah Navajo School Board, Inc................................... 102
Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians................................ 215
Rock Point Community School...................................... 223
Seattle Indian Health Board...................................... 136
Skokomish Tribe of Washington.................................... 25
Southern Ute Indian Tribe........................................ 197
Southwest Oklahoma Intertribal Health Board...................... 234
Squaxin Island Tribe............................................. 89
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe........................................ 45
United Sioux Tribes Development Corporation...................... 266
United Tribes Technical College.................................. 83
Ute Mountain Ute Tribe........................................... 198
Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center.................................. 210
Arts, Humanities, and Other Related Agencies
American Arts Alliance........................................... 495
Association of Research Libraries................................ 511
Close Up Foundation.............................................. 630
Council on Library and Information Resources..................... 511
Dance/USA........................................................ 499
Federation of State Humanities Council........................... 424
League of American Orchestras.................................... 503
National Humanities Alliance..................................... 437
OPERA America.................................................... 507
Prior Service Trust Fund......................................... 807
Theatre Communications Group..................................... 491
Environment Programs
Alliance to Save Energy.......................................... 514
American Chemical Society........................................ 516
American Dental Association...................................... 518
American Lung Association........................................ 278
American Society for Microbiology................................ 522
American Thoracic Society........................................ 278
Association of Minority Health Professions Schools............... 298
Association of State Drinking Water Administrators............... 526
Clean Air Task Force............................................. 530
Emissions Control Technology Association......................... 430
Environmental Council of the States.............................. 536
Evergreen Rural Water of Washington.............................. 475
Hanover County, Virginia Board of Supervisors.................... 534
National Association for Clean Air Agencies...................... 291
National Association of State Energy Officials................... 540
National Environmental Services Center........................... 547
National Utility Contractors Association......................... 465
Polyisocyanurate Insulation Manufacturers Association............ 543
United States Clean Heat & Power Association..................... 5518
Natural Resource Programs
Alliance for Community Trees..................................... 769
American Forest & Paper Association.............................. 324
American Forest Foundation....................................... 769
American Forests...............................................331, 769
American Geological Institute.................................... 677
American Hiking Society.......................................... 350
American Institute of Biological Science......................... 777
American Museum of Natural History............................... 602
American Nursery & Landscape Association......................... 769
American Rivers.................................................. 842
American Society of Agronomy..................................... 612
American Society of Civil Engineers.............................. 304
Animal Welfare Institute......................................... 702
APA--The Engineered Wood Association............................. 766
Appalachian Mountain Club........................................ 645
Appalachian Trail Conservancy.................................... 799
APS Four Corners Power Plant..................................... 889
Association of National Estuary Programs......................... 311
Association to Preserve Cape Cod................................. 598
Audubon Connecticut.............................................. 593
Audubon Society of New Hampshire................................. 633
Aurora Water..................................................... 883
Big Oaks Conservation Society.................................... 728
Biomass Energy Research Association.............................. 626
Blue Goose Alliance.............................................. 793
Board of Water Works of Pueblo, Colorado......................... 891
Cascade Land Conservancy.......................................809, 811
Central Great Lakes Geologic Mapping Coalition................... 780
City of Aurora, Colorado......................................... 883
Coastal Wildlife Refuge Society.................................. 865
Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum...................... 831
Colorado River Board of California............................... 736
Colorado River Commission of Nevada.............................. 732
Colorado River District.......................................... 890
Colorado Water Congress.......................................... 881
Conservation System Alliance..................................... 622
Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement...................... 733
Corps Network.................................................... 824
Council of Western State Foresters............................... 652
Crop Science Society of America.................................. 612
Defenders of Wildlife............................................ 377
Defense of Place................................................. 412
Delaware Highlands Conservancy................................... 774
Denver Water..................................................... 888
Ding Darling Wildlife Society.................................... 828
Dolores Water Conservancy District............................... 879
Doris Day Animal League.......................................... 616
Ducks Unlimited.................................................. 608
Endangered Species Coalition..................................... 857
Forest Issues Group.............................................. 750
Fort River Partnership........................................... 649
Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges...................... 553
Friends of Back Bay.............................................. 557
Friends of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge Association, Inc.. 559
Friends of Congaree Swamp........................................ 567
Friends of Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge.................... 571
Friends of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park................ 759
Friends of Hyde Farm............................................. 600
Friends of Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge................ 578
Friends of Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge................... 581
Friends of Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge..... 583
Friends of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge........ 561
Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness........................ 564
Friends of the Lower Suwannee and Cedar Keys National Wildlife
Refuges........................................................ 573
Friends of the Potomac River Refuges............................. 575
Friends of the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge.................. 587
Friends of Virgin Islands National Park.......................... 418
Friends of Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge..................... 591
Gathering Waters Conservancy..................................... 835
Georgia River Network............................................ 620
Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce............................ 667
Green Mountain Club.............................................. 753
Highlands Coalition.............................................. 714
Humane Society Legislative Fund.................................. 616
Humane Society of the United States.............................. 616
Interstate Mining Compact Commission............................. 755
Izaak Walton League of America................................... 803
Kern County Valley Floor Habitat Conservation Plan Industry and
Government Coalition........................................... 641
Lamoille County Natural Resources Conservation District & Nature
Center......................................................... 846
Michigan United Conservation Clubs............................... 769
National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs............. 691
National Association of Forest Service Retirees.................. 869
National Association of State Foresters........................637, 769
National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant
Colleges....................................................... 861
National Audubon Society......................................... 357
National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers...... 371
National Cooperators' Coalition for USGS Cooperative Fish and
Wildlife Research Units........................................ 837
National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program Coalition.......... 659
National Federation of Federal Employees......................... 687
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation..........................459, 819
National Mining Association...................................... 742
National Parks Conservation Association.......................... 398
National Plant Board............................................. 769
National Recreation and Park Association......................... 849
National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association........................ 746
National Wildlife Federation..................................... 670
National Wildlife Refuge Association............................. 405
Natural Resources Defense Council................................ 284
Natural Science Collections Alliance............................. 784
NatureServe...................................................... 604
Nebraska Water Resources Center.................................. 482
New Jersey Audubon Society....................................... 706
New Jersey Conservation Foundation............................... 718
New Mexico Department of Game and Fish........................... 816
New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission.......................... 839
New Mexico Wildlife Federation................................... 681
Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District..................... 882
Office of the Governor, State of Colorado........................ 875
Office of the Governor, State of New Mexico...................... 877
Office of the Governor, State of Wyoming......................... 873
Outdoor Alliance................................................. 338
Outdoor Industry Association..................................... 853
Partnership for the National Trails System...................... 663
Pelican Island Preservation Society.............................. 814
PNM/San Juan Generating Station.................................. 892
Public Lands Foundation.......................................... 344
Purdue University, Department of Entomology...................... 769
Red River Refuge Alliance, Inc................................... 710
San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society............................... 740
San Juan Water Commission........................................ 893
Sierra Club, Mother Lode Chapter................................. 772
Society of American Foresters..................................683, 769
Soil Science Society of America.................................. 612
Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy....................... 787
Southwestern Water Conservation District......................... 880
Swan Ecosystem Center............................................ 797
Tamarac Interpretive Association................................. 587
Teaming with Wildlife............................................ 674
The Hardwood Federation.......................................... 769
The Nature Conservancy.........................................364, 769
The Ohio State University, Department of Entomology.............. 769
The Wilderness Society........................................... 383
The Wildlife Society............................................. 391
Town of Millinocket, Maine....................................... 790
Town of Ophir, Colorado.......................................... 730
Tri-County Water Conservancy District............................ 884
Trust for Public Land............................................ 452
Trust for the National Mall...................................... 444
U.S. Soccer Foundation........................................... 762
Union of Concerned Scientists.................................... 769
University of Georgia, Center for Invasive Species & Ecosystem
Health......................................................... 769
USGS Coalition................................................... 698
Utah Water Users Association..................................... 885
Washington Watershed Restoration Initiative...................... 318
World Wildlife Fund.............................................. 724
Wyoming State Engineer's Office.................................. 695
Wyoming Water Association........................................ 886
Yavapai County, Arizona.......................................... 822