    [House Hearing, 115 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

         EXAMINING FEDERAL PROGRAMS THAT SERVE TRIBES AND THEIR MEMBERS

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                      THE INTERIOR, ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

                                     OF THE

                             COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                             AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               FEBRUARY 15, 2017

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 115-14

                                   __________

    Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

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                  Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

                         Jason Chaffetz, Utah, Chairman
    John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee       Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland,
    Darrell E. Issa, California              Ranking Minority Member
    Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Carolyn B. Maloney, New York
    Mark Sanford, South Carolina         Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
    Justin Amash, Michigan                   Columbia
    Paul A. Gosar, Arizona               Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri
    Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee          Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
    Trey Gowdy, South Carolina           Jim Cooper, Tennessee
    Blake Farenthold, Texas              Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
    Virginia Foxx, North Carolina        Robin L. Kelly, Illinois
    Thomas Massie, Kentucky              Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
    Mark Meadows, North Carolina         Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey
    Ron DeSantis, Florida                Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands
    Dennis A. Ross, Florida              Val Butler Demings, Florida
    Mark Walker, North Carolina          Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
    Rod Blum, Iowa                       Jamie Raskin, Maryland
    Jody B. Hice, Georgia                Peter Welch, Vermont
    Steve Russell, Oklahoma              Matthew Cartwright, Pennsylvania
    Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Mark DeSaulnier, California
    Will Hurd, Texas
    Gary J. Palmer, Alabama
    James Comer, Kentucky
    Paul Mitchell, Michigan

                   Jonathan Skladany, Majority Staff Director
                        William McKenna, General Counsel
                Ryan Hambleton, Senior Professional Staff Member
                        Sharon Casey, Deputy Chief Clerk
                     David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
                                     ------

              Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy and Environment

                       Blake Farenthold, Texas, Chairman
    Paul A. Gosar, Arizona, Vice Chair   Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands
    Dennis A. Ross, Florida              Jamie Raskin, Maryland
    Gary J. Palmer, Alabama              (Vacancy)
    James Comer, Kentucky                (Vacancy)

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page
    Hearing held on February 15, 2017................................     1

                                   WITNESSES

    Mr. Frank Rusco, Director, Natural Resources and Environment,
      Energy and Science Issues, U.S. Government Accountability
      Office
        Oral Statement...............................................     4
        Written Statement............................................     7
    Ms. Mary Kendall, Deputy Inspector General, Office of Inspector
      General, U.S. Department of the Interior
        Oral Statement...............................................    21
        Written Statement............................................    23
    The Hon. Tyson Thompson, Councilman, Southern Ute Indian Tribal
      Council
        Oral Statement...............................................    28
        Written Statement............................................    31

         EXAMINING FEDERAL PROGRAMS THAT SERVE TRIBES AND THEIR MEMBERS

                                  ----------

                          Wednesday, February 15, 2017

                      House of Representatives,
      Subcommittee on the Interior, Energy and
                                    Environment
                  Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
                                                       Washington, D.C.
        The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:07 p.m., in
    Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Blake Farenthold
    [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
        Present: Representatives Farenthold, Gosar, Ross, Palmer,
    Comer, Chaffetz, Issa and Plaskett.
        Mr. Farenthold. The Subcommittee on Interior, Energy, and
    the Environment will come to order.
        Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
    recess at any time.
        We appreciate your interest in this topic and welcome your
    participation today.
        We may be having some members from the full committee here
    today, so I'd like to ask for unanimous consent that all
    members of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform be
    allowed to fully participate in today's hearing.
        Without objection, so ordered.
        And I'll now recognize myself for 5 minutes for an opening
    statement.
        Today, the Subcommittee on Interior, Energy, and the
    Environment will examine obstacles that Native Americans face
    with respect to energy development, education, and health care
    on tribal land.
        The General Accounting Office and the Department of the
    Interior Inspector General have extensively documented the
    serious and troubling problems Native Americans face in these
    areas. Today, we're going to try to do our part to bring
    attention to these issues by shining a little bit of light,
    congressional light and oversight on them.
        When it comes to energy development, tribes face costs and
    regulatory impediments that do not exist for development on
    non-tribal land. Obtaining a permit to drill on Native American
    land is more expensive and time consuming than doing so off
    tribal lands. Tribes must conduct detailed environmental
    assessments, obtain costly permits that not every tribe can
    afford.
        The Department of Interior attempted to address this by
    creating a special service center to streamline the regulatory
    process. However, three of the largest regulatory agencies, the
    Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers,
    and the Fish and Wildlife Service were not included in the
    service center. Omitting agencies that play such a large role
    in regulating the energy development undermines the
    Department's effort to reduce the barriers to energy
    development on tribal land.
        As a result of these unnecessary impediments, valuable
    development opportunities are wasted and revenue is lost. For
    example, the Southern Ute Tribe represented here today in our
    hearing, has foregone almost $90 million in revenue waiting for
    Federal approval of right-of-way agreements. Energy resources
    represent a crucial way for many tribes to meet their budgetary
    obligations and provide needed services to their members.
        As for education, the Bureau of Indian Education, or BIE,
    has struggled to provide adequate school facilities for tribal
    children. Roughly 42,000 students attend schools administered
    by the BIE. Badly outdated schools are in disrepair and pose a
    major health and safety risk for students. Inconsistent
    inspections have contributed to deteriorating physical
    conditions of schools. Problems include asbestos, mold, roofing
    issues, and electrical danger. I think we have some slides here
    of some schools.
        As you can see here, we've got an upstairs room in a 1930s
    building that holds elementary classes at Tuba City Boarding
    School. This school, with this exposed wiring, is listed in
    good condition.
        Let's go to the next slide. Now, I don't know if you can
    make it out, but there's some bleachers in there by that middle
    telephone pole. But they've actually put light posts in the
    middle of the athletic field there. Millions of dollars were
    spent on infrastructure improvements and we come up with this.
        Image three, we see thick walls of asbestos installation
    are left in one dormitory because the cost to move it is
    outrageous.
        Next slide. And we see structural cracks in the stairwell
    ceiling at another school.
        Next slide. Building space is needed for student
    activities. In this school, the building is being kept from
    being demolished despite the fact that snow comes into the
    building. That's a pile of snow there under the door.
        Inadequate staff training contributes not only to
    inaccurate reporting of schools' physical condition but also to
    the independent oversight of school expenditures. GAO has found
    that millions of dollars intended for Native American schools
    have been lost due to waste and misconduct.
        In one instance, over $1 million in Federal funds intended
    for a BIE school ended up improperly in a non-school-related
    offshore account. Despite the fact that BIE schools spend
    almost three times per student more than public schools, we
    have a serious problem.
        Similarly, the Indian Health Service agency, which serves
    the medical needs of roughly 2.2 million Native Americans,
    suffers from inadequate patient care. Patients often experience
    unreasonably long wait times, and high turnover rates of key
    personnel negatively impact the quality of care in services at
    IHS schools.
        Hopefully, today we can make some progress by highlighting
    the issues and discuss it with our panel and come up with some
    solutions. As the new administration takes office, this is a
    good time to hold these hearings.
        With that, I'd like to thank the witnesses for agreeing to
    be here today and provide testimony.
        At this point, I'd like to recognize our ranking member,
    the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands, Ms. Plaskett.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
        And thank the witnesses and all of the individuals who are
    here this afternoon about this very important issue.
        Mr. Chairman, this hearing that we're having is critically
    important, and I want to thank you for holding this this early
    in the term. Tribal concerns are often underrepresented, and
    I'm glad that we're dedicating a hearing to address these
    issues and finding solutions.
        The GAO high-risk report has outlined several problems that
    the tribal communities face in the areas of energy, health
    care, and education, as highlighted by the chairman for the
    education issues as well. The report highlights problems
    ranging from inadequate Federal oversight, limited Federal
    workforce planning, outdated and deteriorated equipment,
    technology, and infrastructure, and incomplete or inaccurate
    data.
        These shortcomings are creating significant difficulties
    for these tribal communities. Many tribal communities are
    heavily reliant on energy resources for their economic well-
    being and dependent upon the Bureau of Indian Affairs to
    conduct thorough but efficient reviews.
        But the GAO found that it took up to 8 years for the BIA to
    process permits, a delay which caused the Tribe to lose an
    estimated $95 million in revenues that it otherwise would have
    earned from tribal permitting fees, oil and gas severance
    taxes, and royalties.
        This represents an unacceptable financial burden on this
    community. And I have to tell you that I especially am very
    sympathetic and empathetic to these issues, coming from the
    Virgin Islands where we also feel the inadequate representation
    of the Federal Government and often feel forgotten, and the
    last person on the checklist of infrastructure and development,
    energy issues for our young people, and especially for our
    children.
        It's absolutely unacceptable that children are expected to
    thrive and to be productive citizens under the conditions that
    they are now in. The fact that they have speaks to their
    resilience and the power and the wherewithal of your community
    to make that happen.
        GAO also found that similar delays plagued the Indian
    Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Education, preventing
    tribal members from receiving timely health care and making
    schools unsafe for children. In order to improve these Federal
    agencies, the Department of the Interior Office of the
    Inspector General must be able to adequately investigate these
    issues.
        However, I am very concerned that in this new
    administration, the hiring ban is going to severely compromise
    the ability of the IG and the IGs throughout the entire
    government to protect taxpayers from the type of mismanagement
    the GAO found.
        I am asking my Republican colleagues to join me in
    requesting that the President immediately lift the hiring ban
    so our IGs can have the resources and staffing they need to
    ensure the proper functioning of government and prevent waste,
    fraud, and abuse.
        I'm very much, Mr. Chairman, looking forward to hearing
    from our witnesses. And I yield back the balance of my time.
        Mr. Farenthold. Thank you very much.
        And I'll hold the record open for 5 legislative days for
    members who would like to submit a written opening statement.
        I'd now like to recognize our panel of witnesses.
        I'm pleased to welcome Mr. Frank Rusco, director of
    national resources for environment--I'm sorry, let me get your
    title right. Director of Natural Resources Environment for
    energy and science issues at the U.S. Government Accountability
    Office.
        He'll be accompanied and supported by Ms. Melissa Emrey-
    Arras, director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security,
    also at the GAO; and Kathleen King, director of Health Care at
    the GAO. Their expertise on this issue will be important for
    the subject matter of this hearing. So when we swear the
    witnesses in, we'll ask that you be sworn in as well.
        Our other witnesses are Ms. Mary Kendall, Deputy Inspector
    General within the Office of Inspector General at the U.S.
    Department of Interior. Welcome.
        And finally, the Honorable Tyson Thompson, councilman with
    the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. Welcome to you all.
        Now, pursuant to committee rules, you will all be sworn in
    before you testify. Would you please rise and raise your right
    hand.
        Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're
    about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
    but the truth, so help you God?
        Let the record reflect all witnesses answered in the
    affirmative. You may be seated.
        In order to allow plenty of time for questions and
    discussion, we do have quite a few members here, we'd
    appreciate it if you'd limit your initial testimony to 5
    minutes. We have copies of your entire written statement, which
    will be made part of the record.
        So Mr. Rusco, we'll start off with you. You're recognized
    for 5 minutes.

                           WITNESS STATEMENTS

                        STATEMENT OF FRANK RUSCO

        Mr. Rusco. Thank you.
        Chairman Farenthold, Ranking Member Plaskett, and members
    of the committee, it's my pleasure to be here today to discuss
    the new area added to GAO's high-risk list: Improving Federal
    management of programs that serve tribes and their members.
    We're adding this high-risk area because we have found
    longstanding problems in the Federal management of Indian
    energy resources as well as the administration of Indian
    education and healthcare programs.
        The Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs has mismanaged
    Indian energy resources and the Federal role in energy
    development, and this has limited and delayed opportunities for
    tribes and their members to use those resources to create
    economic growth and improve the well-being of their
    communities.
        In addition, we have found numerous challenges facing the
    Interior's Bureau of Indian Education and BIA and the
    Department of Health and Human Services, Indian Health
    Services, in administering education and health care to tribes
    and their members. These shortcomings have put the health and
    safety of American Indians served by these programs at risk.
        As you know, the United States has recognized the sovereign
    status of tribes and currently recognizes 567 Indian tribes as
    distinct, independent political communities that possess
    certain powers of sovereignty and self-government.
        In 2016, Congress found in the Indian Trust Asset Reform
    Act that through treaties, statutes, and historical relations
    with Indian tribes, the United States has undertaken a unique
    trust responsibility to protect and support Indian tribes and
    Indians. These fiduciary responsibilities reflect commitments
    made in treaties and agreements under which Indians surrendered
    claims to vast tracks of land to the benefit of the people of
    the United States. This history has established enduring and
    enforceable Federal obligations to which the national honor has
    been committed.
        The remainder of my statement is focused on energy issues,
    but my colleagues, Melissa Emrey-Arras and Kathy King, are here
    to answer questions about education or healthcare issues as
    needed.
        Some tribes hold abundant energy resources, including coal,
    oil and gas, wind, solar, biomass, and hydroelectric resources.
    And some tribes and members have sought to develop these
    resources.
        While tribes and their members can determine how to use
    their energy resources, many of these resources are held in
    trust or a restricted status. In these cases, BIA must review
    and approve leases, permits, and other documents required for
    development. We have found deficiencies in BIA's management of
    Indian energy resources in several areas.
        For example, BIA processes to issue leases, permits,
    rights-of-way, and appraisals often taking a long time to
    perform, and this has led to delays and missed opportunities
    for tribes and their members. As has been mentioned, in one
    case we reported that delays in rights-of-way for pipelines
    cost the Southern Ute Tribe about $95 million in foregone fees,
    severance taxes, and royalties over a period of 8 years. In
    another case, a 3-year review of a lease to develop wind power
    led to uncertainty about the viability of the project because
    the data that were used to support the economic feasibility and
    environmental impact of the project became too old to use.
        We have recommended that BIA develop and document clear
    processes to track review and response times so they can ensure
    that documents are moving in a timely and predictable fashion.
        BIA has also missed opportunities to streamline review and
    approval processes by not communicating and coordinating with
    other Federal agencies that have a role in these processes.
    Further, BIA has not used best practices to identify key staff
    needs to support energy development, and this has contributed
    to a situation where the Bureau does not have the right people
    with the right skills in the right place to enable energy
    development.
        BIA has also not invested comprehensively in GIS mapping
    technology required to easily identify resources available for
    lease as well as places where leases are already in force. In
    places without GIS capabilities, BIA has to rely on paper
    documents, which adds to review and approval times.
        Lastly, in some cases, BIA does not have accurate records
    of Indian land and resource ownership, another piece of
    information essential for reviewing and improving energy leases
    and ensuring tribes and their members get paid their share when
    energy production begins.
        We have made numerous recommendations to Interior and BIA
    to address these deficiencies, and we will be following the
    progress of the agency and Bureau in improving its delivery of
    services to tribes and their members.
        Thank you. This concludes my oral statement. I'll be happy
    to answer any questions you may have.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Rusco follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Farenthold. Thank you very much.
        Ms. Kendall, you're now recognized for 5 minutes.

                       STATEMENT OF MARY KENDALL

        Ms. Kendall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ranking member,
    members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the invitation to
    testify today about the conditions of Indian country as it
    relates to DOI's responsibilities to American Indians.
        As you know, DOI's mission includes fulfilling trust
    responsibilities to American Indians. Fulfilling these
    responsibilities is consistently a top management challenge for
    DOI. Through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of
    Indian Education, the Department provides services to 567
    federally recognized tribes with a population of about 1.9
    million American Indians and Alaska natives, and provides
    education services to about 42,000 Indian students in 183
    schools.
        DOI funds Indian country programs that provide social
    services, law enforcement and detention services, tribal
    justice systems, housing assistance, repair and maintenance of
    schools, roads, and bridges, and economic development programs
    in some of the most isolated and economically depressed areas
    in the United States.
        For many years, the Office of Inspector General has
    reported that BIA and BIE are failing to meet the
    responsibilities to American Indians on many fronts. I will
    focus my comments today on the challenges facing Indian
    schools. Specifically, substantial work is needed to improve
    the Indian education system, particularly in creating
    environments where children are safe and have adequate means to
    learn.
        In May 2015 testimony, BIE leadership acknowledged that
    they faced unique and urgent challenges in providing a high-
    quality education to Indian students attending BIE schools.
    They attributed these challenges in part to difficulty in
    attracting effective teachers, difficulty in adopting research-
    based reforms, ongoing organizational and budgetary
    restructuring efforts, and inconsistent BIE leadership.
        A high-quality education is also hampered by crumbling
    school infrastructure and limited broadband internet access.
    All of these challenges contribute to low graduation rates for
    native students. Nationally, the American Indian Alaska native
    high school graduation rate is 69 percent, below the average
    national of 81 percent.
        BIE's 2014 blueprint for reform recommended a shift in the
    Bureau's role from direct provider of education to one of a
    capacity builder and service provider to the tribes that run
    their own schools. According to the blueprint, greater tribal
    control of schools promotes self-governance and self-
    determination, giving tribes more power to engage children,
    infuse schools with tribal cultural values and native
    languages, and improve educational outcomes. BIE's goal is
    commendable, but this vision probably requires more technical
    and financial assistance for tribes than BIE can presently
    provide.
        To address some of these complex challenges, DOI's fiscal
    year 2027 budget request proposes $1 billion to sport a
    comprehensive redesign and reform of BIE. But to effectively
    use its Federal funding in addressing these challenges, BIE
    needs to improve both its execution and its oversight of school
    expenditures.
        What I fear gets lost in reports such as those issued by
    GAO and the OIG on Indian country is the impact that the
    conditions we report on has on real human lives. The young
    people in Indian country who are dependent upon the schools
    that BIA operates or oversees are profoundly affected by
    attending schools with crumbling infrastructure, schools that
    have wholly inadequate physical safety measures, and schools
    that are not equipped to prevent or respond to violence or
    other emergency situations.
        This concludes my prepared remarks, and I am happy to
    answer any questions that members of the subcommittee may have.
        [Prepared statement of Ms. Kendall follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Farenthold. Thank you. You're all doing very well on
    the clock.
        Mr. Thompson, can you keep up the trend?
        Mr. Thompson. I'll do my best.
        Mr. Farenthold. You need to turn your microphone on and get
    real close to it. These are kind of very not sensitive
    microphones. They want you to be real close.
        Mr. Thompson. Sounds good. Awesome.
        Thank you, Chairman Farenthold, Ranking Member Plaskett,
    and honorable members of the subcommittee. Thanks for having us
    here today.

                      STATEMENT OF TYSON THOMPSON

        My name is Tyson Thompson, councilman for the Southern Ute
    Indian Tribe, and, again, it is an honor to be here. Our
    reservation is located in southwest Colorado, chipped away
    through the years and years of Federal demands to a section
    that's about 15 by 75 miles, just a strip in the bottom.
        We began to develop oil and gas in our reservation in the
    1940s, and since then we have been taking greater and greater
    control of our mineral resources and destiny. Some examples of
    this are collecting nearly $1 billion in revenue since we
    enacted a severance tax in 1982.
        In 1992, our tribe started Red Willow Production Company,
    which operates wells on and off the reservation and is wholly
    owned by the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. In 1994, our tribe
    partnered to create Red Cedar Gathering Company to provide
    gathering and treating services on the reservation.
        Less than 50 years ago, the Tribe could no longer make per
    capita payments to our members, but with strong vision of our
    past leaders, internal expertise, informed decisions, and
    planning for the future, we have come a long way since then.
    Today, we conduct oil and gas activities in ten States, and we
    are the largest employer of the Four Corners region of
    southwest Colorado.
        Our success allows our tribe to provide many services to
    our people, including great health insurance, as well as give a
    college education to any of our members that wish it. We are
    the only tribe in the Nation with a AAA credit rating from
    Standard & Poor's. About 30 percent of the Tribe's income comes
    from energy development on the reservation.
        There is no question that energy development has put the
    Tribe, our membership, as well as the surrounding community on
    a more stable economic footing. We could tell you firsthand
    that Federal oversight often impedes tribal self-determination.
    For example, the BLM issues drilling permits on tribal lands,
    which can take 4 to 6 months and cost $9,500. The State of
    Colorado, though, can issue drilling permits on private lands
    typically within 45 days, and it's free. No wonder oil and gas
    companies would rather drill on private lands.
        And unfortunately, our reservation is checkerboarded. If
    you're not familiar with a checkerboard status of the
    reservation, it's not unlike this table where the brown color
    is the entire reservation. Everything you see on top of this
    table would be trust land. So an operator can go across the
    fence and have a different set of regulations and still be
    within the exterior boundaries of the reservation and be
    utilizing that same resource that's underground.
        Willing and able tribes should be allowed greater authority
    over energy development on tribal lands. We have shown time and
    time again that we can complete major projects quickly and
    effectively. Federal agencies have often hindered or flat out
    refused our efforts to assist in carrying out these functions,
    or their functions, rather.
        In 2014, Office of Trust Review and Audit report was found
    that the BIA mishandled the Tribe's historical records at the
    Southern Ute Agency. The Southern Ute Indian Tribe made
    countless offers to assist the BIA in solving this problem, and
    after many months, our tribe was finally authorized to enter
    into a 638 contract, allowing the Tribe to scan and organize
    our historic files at the agency while using $1 million of our
    own funding as well as our own staff.
        The Tribe has also streamlined the process of approving, in
    a single transaction, all right-of-way renewals that an
    operator has on the reservation. At times, this number is in
    the hundreds. This approach allows the tribes to easily monitor
    expiration dates and negotiate renewals, including holding
    operators accountable to environmental concerns.
        When the Tribe presented one of these rights-of-way
    packages to the Southern Ute Agency for approval, it took the
    Agency nearly 4 years to approve the package. There was no way
    for the Agency to enter this transaction and its information
    into the department's land management system, which they call
    the TAAMS.
        To overcome the problems at the BIA realty function, the
    Tribe created its own GIS system, known as the land information
    management system. Our system allows the Tribe to scan realty
    records into our database where each document is linked to a
    location on a map, very similar to Google Maps. When you're
    looking for a store and you click on the store, it tells you
    the hours and the dates and the times that they're open. And we
    would be happy to give the demonstration of the system to the
    committee at your convenience.
        The BIA does not have the data resources, staffing, or IT
    capabilities to meet the Tribe's needs or the other capable
    tribes' needs for that matter. We have the capability, and more
    importantly, we have the incentive to improve the situation.
        There is not a one-size-fits-all solution for tribes. Some
    solutions aren't expensive, though. Congress needs to approve
    legislation to allow tribes the choice to take on more
    responsibility. Federal positions need to be advertised locally
    so local people who already live in the area can apply for
    them. There needs to be a cost-of-living adjustment for our
    area to entice people to work there. And the BIA needs to stop
    arbitrarily choosing when they'll exercise trust
    responsibility.
        The BIA abandoned the trust responsibility to protect and
    organize the Tribe's priceless records but then cited their
    trust responsibility when they required Southern Ute Agency and
    the Tribe to use Federal funds to require tribal employees to
    drive 160 miles to be fingerprinted, have a photo taken,
    undergo an hour-long interview with the OPM contract
    investigator before being allowed to work in the office. Those
    are simple solutions and not too expensive to take on to change
    that.
        To follow up, the Southern Ute Tribe is well equipped, as
    we said, and to responsibly develop its own energy resources
    safely and effectively. We do appreciate the efforts of this
    subcommittee, as well as GAO's office and OIG's office, to help
    find solutions to the problems that we experience on a day-to-
    day.
        Again, thank you for the invitation to appear before you,
    and I'm happy to answer any questions.
        [Prepared statement of Mr. Thompson follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Farenthold. Thank you very much.
        I'll now--we'll now do some questions. I'll recognize
    myself to begin with.
        So let's go, Mr. Rusco, why has it taken so long to get
    things approved in these agencies?
        Mr. Rusco. Well, I think, you know, it gets to a couple of
    things: One is leadership attention, so they've not paid as
    much attention to sort of making sure that they have a plan to
    get the right staff in the right places to do the job. And so
    if you're some place where you used to have a lot of, for
    example, water projects, irrigation projects or something, and
    you want to move to energy, you'd go to the BIA office, and
    they might have a whole bunch of hydrologists, but they don't
    have anybody that knows anything about oil and gas development
    or wind development or anything like that.
        They need to be forward looking. They need to be creative.
    They have an Indian energy center----
        Mr. Farenthold. But you're saying they may not have the
    expertise. How do we solve this without growing the size of
    government and bringing more bureaucrats into these agencies
    who will probably slow the process down?
        Mr. Rusco. So I think there are some potential ways to do
    that, but under the current law, you have to--you do have to
    deal with these agencies. I think that there is a lot to be
    said for building that capacity in a central location, but you
    have to do it in a smart way. And the Indian energy center that
    they started is probably a good idea, but they have not
    executed it well.
        Mr. Farenthold. Why didn't they put EPA Fish and Wildlife
    in the core? I mean, I'm a Texan. I know these are the guys
    that you've got to mess with whenever you're doing any sort of
    infrastructure or energy product. How come they weren't
    included?
        Mr. Rusco. Absolutely. And absolutely, when they were
    building or creating this office, they did not even ask the
    question: What do we need to perform the task that we say this
    is going to perform? They didn't go to that trouble. And that's
    a leadership problem.
        Mr. Farenthold. Right.
        Ms. Kendall, do you have anything to add along this line of
    questioning?
        Ms. Kendall. I really would just rearticulate what Mr.
    Rusco said. I think it is a leadership issue, and it is a
    forward-thinking kind of issue. To sit back and look at the
    entire picture, BIA has so many responsibilities, but I think
    they try piecemeal solutions without coming together and
    actually solving things.
        Mr. Farenthold. All right. So what about devolving some of
    this to the States? Mr. Thompson testified that in Colorado,
    for no charge and 45 days, you could get a drilling permit for
    oil and gas. In Texas, the Railroad Commission is equally as
    efficient. Obviously, there needs to be some government
    oversight where the Tribe itself is not--doesn't have full
    authority just like no landowner has full authority without
    going to the government. Why couldn't some of this be devolved
    to the States?
        Ms. Kendall. Is that my question?
        Mr. Farenthold. That's your question, then I'm going to ask
    Mr. Thompson the same question.
        Ms. Kendall. All right. Thank you, sir.
        I think, in part, because Interior does have the trust
    responsibility, it would take a change in legislation.
        Mr. Farenthold. Wait, we're Congress. We can do that.
        Ms. Kendall. Yes.
        Mr. Farenthold. Mr. Thompson.
        Mr. Thompson. I think Southern Ute is in a unique position.
    I think there's a lot of tribes that may not be as fortunate or
    as lucky as we have been to get to the point where we are
    today. And I think some of those moneys that are redirected
    towards assisting those tribes versus us, when we can--we can
    handle a lot of these situations that come up to really make
    business attractive on the reservation. I don't think giving up
    or taking these regulations to the State would be in the
    Tribe's best interest, just do the self-determination to
    sovereignty issues as we want to be doing what we need to do to
    survive in the world that we're given.
        Mr. Farenthold. So you're--you would more support reform
    within the existing Federal system?
        Mr. Thompson. I think there's a chance to do things
    differently. It would take a little bit of letting go of that
    parental side of treatment that tribes have suffered through
    the years, and in redirecting those available resources to
    other tribes that may request it if they feel like they want to
    request it, and increase the ability of that internal function
    of BIA to be better than it's ever been. But that's only going
    to take place with good management in place.
        Mr. Farenthold. All right. We were talking about how much
    money you guys lost on the oil and gas. I assume, I mean, been
    saying that some of this permitting process took 8 years. I
    would love to be selling my natural gas and oil at prices 8
    years ago as opposed to today. Do you have any other examples
    of where we can--where we should be focused? Obviously, the
    schools, the permitting process. Is that all we need to be
    looking at?
        Mr. Thompson. I think better consultation for all Indian
    tribes is a great idea. Consultation has always been good for
    some and not good for others. I've seen firsthand what the lack
    of consultation can do. But good proper consultation to make
    the programs that work for specific tribes. Every tribe is
    different. Every tribe's needs are different, and to really
    make something that works for each tribe, I mean, it's a big
    challenge, but it's something that can be accomplished.
        Mr. Farenthold. All right. I see I'm out of time. If we get
    to the end and we still have some time, I'll ask more
    questions, but I do want to give everybody an opportunity to
    get their questions answered.
        So we'll recognize the ranking member now for her
    questions.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Thank you again, testifiers, for your testimony this
    afternoon.
        Mr. Thompson, sir, you brought up some very interesting
    points. And one of the phrases that I thought you utilized,
    which I'd like you to elaborate on, is arbitrary trust
    responsibility, where you stated that in some instances, the
    trust wants to be responsible, and then in the times when you
    want them to be responsible they're not. Can you elaborate on
    that. Do you remember?
        Mr. Thompson. Yes. I'm just thinking how to word it to you.
    But what I believe where the trust responsibility is really
    coming into play is they're taking that trust responsibility
    and applying it to where they would like to, which is maybe the
    easier, better function for those in the agency at the top and
    instead of, you know, it really addressing the trust
    responsibility, we're asking them to achieve at the moment
    with--in regards to realty transactions. If we could just
    really push some of these things for our tribe that benefit us
    now and quickly and in the long run, I mean, it would be a
    great thing to accomplish.
        As far as trust responsibility not being done in other
    fashions, I mean, there's a lot of examples out there. And I'd
    be happy to provide you some certain examples in writing as
    well.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. You also talked, and all of the
    witnesses today mentioned the Tribal Energy Resources
    Agreement, and as a tool intended to promote efficient energy
    and resource development by allowing tribes to enter into
    energy-related business arrangements without further approval
    of the Secretary of Interior.
        Would that be a correct summary, Ms. Kendall, of the
    agreement?
        Ms. Kendall. That's my understanding of that provision. But
    as of today, to the best of my knowledge, no tribe has entered
    into a TERA agreement.
        Ms. Plaskett. That's what I wanted to talk about. Why do
    you think that has been, and what's been the impediment to the
    tribes being able to do that?
        Ms. Kendall. Well, I'd need to defer to Mr. Thompson to a
    certain extent because I know that the Southern Ute Tribe
    thought about that at one point. I think that there are some
    impediments relative to what the trust responsibilities of the
    Department are and what they could and should give up. I know
    that the Tribe has asked the Department for clarification on
    some issues and has not received that, and I think that's one
    of the impediments.
        Ms. Plaskett. Well, I understood that some of the--this
    goes back to the arbitrary discussion that Mr. Thompson talked
    about. But isn't it also because the Interior's regulations may
    not necessarily be very clear to some of the tribes and what
    will be imposed and not be imposed on that?
        Ms. Kendall. That's very possible, yes.
        Ms. Plaskett. And then, Mr. Thompson, is that correct? Did
    you--I understand that your tribe did do an analysis on whether
    or not they should enter into this agreement and decided not
    to.
        Mr. Thompson. Uh-huh, that's true. We've been looking at
    this for a while, and some of the things that keep us from
    this--I mean, one of the biggest points that comes to mind is
    the inherent Federal function part. The Interior has not
    defined that. We've been asking for a definition for some time.
    Once we can figure out what that is and then we can better plan
    to see what functions we'd actually be assuming. And even once
    assuming those functions, one of the things is TERAs are not
    going to provide funding for us to take over these Federal
    functions. So, I mean, our tribe, like other tribes, were just
    reluctant to move into that.
        Ms. Plaskett. Mr. Rusco, would you think that analysis is
    correct from your review?
        Mr. Rusco. Absolutely. I think, you know, as--you know,
    every tribe is different. And the abilities and capabilities to
    take over what have been Federal functions are going to differ,
    and there's going to have to be capacity building. And so
    tribes are, understandably, weary about sort of saying, yes,
    I'll take on this responsibility without knowing what exactly
    that entails, how much will be on them, how much will be--still
    remain Federal function, and then will they have support in
    order to get--build the capacity to take over the functions
    that are part of the TERA.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
        Mr. Chairman, I just want to, as clarification, the
    pictures that you showed, which tribe was that from?
        Mr. Farenthold. They were from various locations. Let me
    take a look.
        Flandreau Indian School was one of them. And where were
    the--all of the pictures are out of the OIG report.
        Ms. Plaskett. Okay. Great.
        Mr. Farenthold. The details are in there. There was a
    boarding school in there as well.
        Ms. Plaskett. Mr. Thompson, is the conditions that were
    evidenced in those photographs, is that some of the issues that
    you're dealing with as well?
        Mr. Thompson. At this point, I believe that there's a lot
    of tribes that utilize that funding for education. We are in a
    bit of a different situation, so I might not be the best person
    to ask. There's other tribes----
        Ms. Plaskett. Right. Because your tribe actually, you know,
    with your AAA rating, you have a little bit more funding for
    education. Is that correct?
        Mr. Thompson. Yes.
        Ms. Plaskett. Mr. Chairman, it would be great if we could,
    in the future, maybe have some tribes as a witness who are
    really facing some of the economic--the challenges in education
    that we've stated today.
        Mr. Farenthold. Absolutely.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
        Mr. Farenthold. Thank you.
        At this point, we'll go to the gentleman from Alabama, Mr.
    Palmer, for 5 minutes of questions.
        Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Thompson--and thank you to all the witnesses for being
    here--I'm particularly interested in the work that you're doing
    in oil exploration and utilizing those resources. I assume, and
    I'm not sure the geography of the--your tribal lands, but does
    that include the Green River Formation?
        Mr. Thompson. I believe Green River Formation might be a
    different--another Ute Tribe. There's three of us.
        Mr. Palmer. It's north of you, I believe. Isn't it? Okay.
    So you talked about over--since 1982, you've generated over $1
    billion in revenue from your activities. Is that correct?
        Mr. Thompson. Yes, through severance tax.
        Mr. Palmer. Severance tax. Are these companies that are
    owned and operated by the Ute Tribe?
        Mr. Thompson. No, these are operators that have leased--or
    through the Tribe have leased trust lands within the exterior
    boundaries of the reservation.
        Mr. Palmer. So--but you're collecting the revenues through
    the leases, and of the royalties you get a part of the
    royalties?
        Mr. Thompson. Yes.
        Mr. Palmer. I'm trying to understand this, because I'm a
    big believer in utilizing the natural resources and doing it in
    the right way. And what little I understand about the Ute
    tribal history, you have a great reverence for the land.
        Mr. Thompson. Uh-huh.
        Mr. Palmer. So you want to take advantage of these
    resources in a way that respects the land that you occupy, that
    you've occupied before anybody else occupied Colorado. Is that
    correct?
        Mr. Thompson. Yes.
        Mr. Palmer. Okay. And you've been able to do that?
        Mr. Thompson. Yes. I mean, we--like I said before in my
    oral statement, we've used that in the past as a way of
    leveraging environmental issues. We had one producer that had
    hundreds of, I guess, rights-of-ways that were coming to time
    to renew them. And at the time, they had grandfathered in a
    compressor system that was from the 1950s and dumping a lot of
    air pollution. We have real strict air regulations on the
    reservation. We work real close with the State on those air
    regulations. And so we used that as an opportunity to tell them
    they need to replace their compressor systems or they're not
    going to be renewed on the reservation.
        Mr. Palmer. Good.
        Let me continue along this line on the permitting process.
    The Bureau of Land Management is responsible for the
    permitting?
        Mr. Thompson. Yes. Well----
        Mr. Palmer. And----
        Mr. Thompson. Sorry. Our department, we have our own
    department of energy, and they take that task on. And the land
    information system is a part of DOE along with our IT folks.
        Mr. Palmer. Maybe I misunderstood. I thought I understood
    you to say that on private land, they can--through Colorado,
    they can get a permit within 45 days.
        Mr. Thompson. Yes.
        Mr. Palmer. And it doesn't cost them anything. But on Ute
    land, how long does it take?
        Mr. Thompson. Oh, it takes 4 to 6 months, usually.
        Mr. Palmer. And why is that?
        Mr. Thompson. Just the time it takes to walk through from
    the moment it leaves our office and goes to the agency office
    and then to the regional office and then to the interior office
    at HQ and then recirculating back to--with all those approvals.
        Mr. Palmer. Does that put you in a--at a disadvantage?
        Mr. Thompson. It does. As we know, the competitive business
    of oil and gas, time is money, so to speak. And if things
    aren't expedited, it takes its toll.
        Mr. Palmer. Especially when most of the companies that are
    doing the type of oil expiration, they're the smaller companies
    and they can't really afford a long lead time after they secure
    a lease.
        Mr. Thompson. Yes.
        Mr. Palmer. Okay. Well, the reason I bring that up is
    because of some of the issues involving the Bureau of Land
    Management Federal lands and big companies being able to buy
    the leases and basically hold the leases to impact the market.
    And I wanted to know if that was the case, but if you're doing
    the leases, you're doing it--you're utilizing the resources for
    the benefit of the Tribe.
        Mr. Thompson. We do a lot of hard work to make business
    attractive on the reservation, and it's a team effort of good
    quality staff that make that happen.
        Mr. Palmer. How does this impact tribal employment?
        Mr. Thompson. Tribal employment, we push real hard for
    tribal employment. We have our growth on employees, quite a few
    tribal members. We'd like to see that increase. And through our
    education program we stress the fact that if we can get some
    engineers or geologists through our education program, they'd
    have a job waiting for them when they leave.
        Mr. Palmer. What's your unemployment rate?
        Mr. Thompson. Unemployment on the reservation, I don't have
    those numbers, but I can definitely provide that to you.
        Mr. Palmer. I would appreciate it if you'd provide that to
    the committee.
        Mr. Thompson. Okay.
        Mr. Palmer. I had something else I wanted to address in the
    context of utilizing these revenues. For years, the United
    States had a ban on exporting crude oil. We have now lifted
    that ban. I think--what was that, Mr. Chairman?--that was in
    December of 2015?
        Mr. Farenthold. Right.
        Mr. Palmer. Have you seen any uptick increase in interest
    in those resources?
        Mr. Thompson. Most of what we've been paying attention on
    since 2015 has been the focus of, you know, the falling oil
    prices. So I don't know if that had any effect on that or how
    that all played a part. But, I mean, just the fall in the oil
    prices----
        Mr. Palmer. How has the regulatory regime, the new
    regulations that have been handed down impacted the
    opportunities for companies to come in and secure a lease and
    actually start production?
        Mr. Thompson. I think that the regulations that come
    through the BLM and onto the reservation, one of the toughest
    parts was BLM trying to place us under the title of public
    lands, and that really concerned us towards the choice of--or
    not towards the choice but the discussion of sovereignty. And
    we took charge in that to try to head that off.
        Mr. Palmer. Mr. Chairman, I think there's something that we
    need to explore a little bit further about how the Bureau of
    Land Management is impacting the ability of----
        Mr. Farenthold. This is our introductory hearing, and we're
    going to figure out where we're going to go from here, so
    absolutely.
        Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Mr. Farenthold. That would be appropriate.
        And the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands, we're going to
    go back over to the Democratic side and let her ask some
    questions and then we'll be back to Mr. Comer.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I'll be Mr. Raskin if you need me to be for this portion.
        Mr. Farenthold. I think you're fine being who you are.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
        Thank you all so much again for this. And I wanted to ask
    some questions to you, Mr. Rusco. In the high-risk report,
    there are some issues related to education of the tribal youth.
    I wanted to talk about that a little bit.
        It appears that not only are the children not being
    properly educated, but they're being placed in harm's way with
    outdated and deteriorating equipment and infrastructure. We saw
    pictures of this earlier. Is that--would you say that that's a
    correct assessment?
        Ms. Emrey-Arras. That is correct. Actually, we found
    instances where boilers had failed inspection because of carbon
    monoxide leaks, natural gas leaks. And those leaks persisted,
    in some cases for as much as 8 months, in student dorms with
    staff and students still there.
        Ms. Plaskett. And that's very disturbing. And I wanted to
    know, has any of that resulted in injuries to the children or
    staff at this point?
        Ms. Emrey-Arras. We know that they did fix it. We don't
    have any information regarding the medical situation for those
    individuals, but it's certainly not a condition that we want
    our schools to be in. And it is not acceptable for students and
    staff to be in those environments.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. And this is an ongoing problem
    that I know the GAO has identified. From previous reports, have
    you seen any improvements in this? Have there been changes that
    are done since the reports that were done previously?
        Ms. Emrey-Arras. There have been some improvements, I
    think, because of our work and because of the work of this
    Congress in terms of shining a light on issues. We did find,
    for example, last year, that about a third of schools had not
    been inspected for many years for health and safety issues. And
    in response to our work, the Department made sure that every
    school was inspected for the first time this past fiscal year.
        However, we're not sure that those inspections were
    complete or accurate. And the reason I say that is that because
    in the past, there were situations where, for example, someone
    did a drive-by where they never left their car. They did the
    inspection from their car, never went into a single building.
    And in one case, there was a school with 34 buildings,
    inspector never went inside and produced an inspection. Not
    surprisingly, there were no deficiencies noted for inside the
    buildings.
        Ms. Plaskett. So with seeing that there--what would be the
    thing that would allow for these, not just the inspections to
    be done and not just us shining a light on them, but actual
    movement in terms of improvement for children and the
    environment in which they're expected to go to school?
        Ms. Emrey-Arras. The bottom line is you need to be able to
    identify these safety hazards and then fix them. The schools
    need to get help in remedying these issues, and we made a
    recommendation that the Department assist schools in doing
    this, and that has yet to be implemented.
        Ms. Plaskett. And when you say the department, which
    department do you mean?
        Ms. Emrey-Arras. Department of Interior, Indian Affairs.
        Ms. Plaskett. Okay. And so then, Ms. Kendall, what have
    been the measures that your department or DOI has implemented
    or have you seen done to address these issues? And for those
    issues that have not been addressed, what would be the impetus
    or the assistance to help you get that done? Because I can't
    believe that the Department of Interior wants children to be in
    these positions of, you know, going to school and in
    environments like this. So what is the help that you need to
    make sure that that's done? What are the things that are
    keeping you from getting that done?
        Ms. Kendall. Well, we've identified issues with the Bureau
    of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education's resource
    levels, but I think much of it is more distribution and using
    those resources effectively. The Office of Inspector General,
    of course, has no programmatic authority to make any of these
    things happen.
        But I think that greater oversight over BIA and BIE by this
    body and other congressional oversight, in addition to the
    oversight that my office and GAO conducts, would go a long way,
    as well as some really serious leadership action by probably
    new leadership in the Office of Indian Affairs, BIA, and BIE.
        Ms. Plaskett. Now, this is the second time that you've
    mentioned a change in leadership or the problems coming from
    leadership, coming from the top down. Why have you said that?
        Ms. Kendall. Well, it hasn't gotten significantly better.
    I've been with the Office of Inspector General for 17 years,
    and frankly, I think we could probably reissue many of the
    reports that we issued 10, 12 years ago and find much the same
    kind of conditions that we find today. Perhaps here and there
    things have gotten better, based usually on recommendations by
    GAO or the OIG. But as a whole, the system is very, very
    problematic.
        Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
        So, Mr. Chairman, I think that sounds like a witness list
    for us for potentially another hearing.
        Mr. Farenthold. We'll work on it. We've got a very busy
    schedule for this committee, as you know.
        Ms. Plaskett. Let's get to work. No problem.
        Mr. Farenthold. All right. So now we'll go to--we're going
    to finish out on the--let everybody get their first round in
    here. So we'll move on to Mr. Comer from Kentucky.
        Mr. Comer. Well, thank you.
        I wanted to focus on development and drilling there.
    Obviously, there's a window of opportunity in Washington to try
    to open back up and redefine our energy policy, and certainly
    your economy, this would be a huge boost to it.
        I have a question, Mr. Thompson, where does the money go
    that BLM charges for the permit fee?
        Mr. Thompson. We don't get a report on that.
        Mr. Comer. I understand. You don't get any of that? It's
    a----
        Mr. Thompson. It's----
        Mr. Comer. Do you know the amount?
        Mr. Thompson. $9,500 is the permit fee, but where that
    goes, I couldn't tell you.
        Mr. Comer. Does anyone know where that money goes?
        Mr. Rusco. It goes into the general fund.
        Mr. Comer. The general fund.
        What prevents BLM from approving the drilling permits for
    tribal land sooner?
        Mr. Rusco. That's a question of concern. We don't know
    exactly why, but there are a number of things we've pointed
    out. And so the first thing is they don't track the times so--
    for permits very well. So we've been down this path. We have
    oil and gas development on Federal lands in general on the
    high-risk list.
        We've found that there's problems of having people in the
    right places at the right times. They often don't have the
    staff they need to do all the jobs that they have to do, and
    they haven't been very creative in getting them there. There
    have been a couple of good pilots to pull people from some
    places to busier--less busy places to busier places, and those
    have worked. They need to be better at that. They need to be
    more nimble and more creative.
        Mr. Comer. Okay. That's all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Farenthold. Thank you very much.
        We will now recognize the gentleman from Utah, Mr.
    Chaffetz.
        Mr. Chaffetz. I thank the chairman.
        A couple things I want to talk about. Do you know--any of
    you know what the percentage of students who are considered to
    have grade-level math skills is? Because my statistics that are
    right here before me say that only 5 percent of students are
    reaching grade-level math skills. Does that sound right?
    Crickets. Nobody? Could you please look at that.
        I'm reading another stat that says--does anybody know what
    the national dropout rate is of the students, Native American
    students, or high schools, grade schools? No?
        This is something, I guess, I would plead with both the GAO
    and the Office of Inspector General to have at the top of their
    minds as they look at this. My understanding is that is 47
    percent. Forty-seven percent, pretty high.
        Part of the issue that we have in Utah, right across, Mr.
    Thompson, across the border there in the Four Corners area--I
    happen to represent Utah's Third Congressional District--we
    have a lot of the Navajo Nation, 3 percent of the Navajo
    Nation, the greater Navajo Nation is in Utah. We have seven
    chapters in my congressional district.
        We have a heavy--or a big problem with roads and the
    ability to get to school and back. Mr. Thompson, I don't know
    what it's like on the Colorado side of the line, but do you
    have these types of problems, school buses, kids, their ability
    to get to school? How far do they travel to get to school?
    What's your personal experience on this issue?
        Mr. Thompson. Again, because of the checkerboard nature of
    the reservation, we also have a municipal city close by to the
    tribal headquarters. So the tribal community surrounds this
    municipality, and it's pretty close. So, I mean, the access
    isn't difficult, and it's an improving school system, happy to
    say.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Good. Good.
        Mr. Thompson. We work pretty close to our education
    department and the school to make sure people are where they
    need to be.
        Mr. Chaffetz. I think if you would look, though--and this
    is my plea also to GAO and the Inspector General's Office--as
    you go out and visit this part of the world, what people don't
    realize is how expansive it is. My county, San Juan County, is
    bigger than New Jersey. We have one stoplight.
        And if you look probably into Mr. Gosar's district, look
    into, you know, in the Four Corners area, one of the big
    problems that we have is the ability of our students to get to
    school, because when it rains or there's snow, there is a big
    problem with--and we've got lots of pictures. The school
    funding levels have not changed to deal with road maintenance.
        San Juan County is doing everything it can. But you have
    students that on average, in many places, miss more than a day
    of school per month just because they can't get to school.
        And I think she would like to say something. Have you been
    sworn in, I hope?
        Ms. Emrey-Arras. I have.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Okay. Good.
        Ms. Emrey-Arras. My name is Melissa Emrey-Arras. I'm with
    the GAO. I think this is very much on point, and I want to let
    you know that GAO is currently investigating this issue of
    tribal roads and school attendance, and we have a forthcoming
    report on this topic.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Very good. Do you have a sense of the timing
    of this?
        Ms. Emrey-Arras. I believe it's late spring.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Very good. That is greatly appreciated. We
    did offer an amendment on an appropriations bill and were able
    to get that through. But because of the CR, I don't know that
    it actually made it all the way to the finish line, but--to the
    level that we'd like to see in the future. But it is a big
    problem and your report would be much, much appreciated.
        The per-pupil spending is much higher than it is actually
    in other parts of the country. Your ability to help us
    understand why the dropout rate is so high, reading and writing
    and certainly the math level is so low, we would very, very
    much appreciate.
        Ms. Emrey-Arras. I could speak to some of that, if that
    would be helpful at this moment.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Sure. Sure.
        Ms. Emrey-Arras. We have done a look at school spending,
    and you're completely right. It's much higher on a per-pupil
    basis for the BIE schools. We found that it was 56 percent
    higher than comparable public schools. A lot of that has to do,
    as you point out, with the remote locations of the schools.
    Also, the schools tend to have lower enrollments than public
    schools. And in addition, quite a few of the students tend to
    be low income and in need of special education services, which
    are more costly. So those are some of the driving factors for
    the difference in cost.
        And in terms of the academics, as you point out, students
    in the BIE school system do perform worse than students
    elsewhere. We found, for example, that students attending BIE
    schools scored 22 points lower for reading tests and 14 points
    lower for math tests in the fourth grade than other Indian
    students attending public schools. So this is, you know, very
    comparable in that way.
        Mr. Chaffetz. Right.
        Ms. Emrey-Arras. And as you all know, the graduation rates
    are also much lower for Indian students attending BIE schools
    than Indian students nationwide.
        Mr. Chaffetz. And so my plea, I guess, for the panel and
    everybody is we can keep doing what we're doing and we'll
    probably get the same results. But if you want a different
    result, we're probably going to have to do something different.
    So suggestions, ideas on what to do different rather than just
    spend more money, because we're already spending more money,
    we've got to be able to figure out how to get a different
    result. And we're open to the ideas and possibilities.
        I've gone over my time. Thank you, Chairman. I yield back.
        Mr. Farenthold. Thank you very much. We'll now recognize
    the vice chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from
    Arizona, Mr. Gosar.
        Mr. Gosar. I thank the chairman. Mr. Thompson, my family is
    from Durango and Bayfield. So thank you very much for all that
    you do.
        Mr. Thompson. Thank you.
        Mr. Gosar. I want to the highlight your tribe. Because
    you've taken advantage of your resources and development.
    Right?
        Mr. Thompson. Yes.
        Mr. Gosar. That's why you're in the position you are today.
    Right?
        Mr. Thompson. Part of the reason, sure.
        Mr. Gosar. Pretty aggressive. Right?
        Mr. Thompson. Oh, yeah. Pretty aggressive.
        Mr. Gosar. So I want to go back to these TERAs. Okay?
    Because they're of high conflict in your opinion. Right?
        Mr. Thompson. Yes.
        Mr. Gosar. Okay. So part of the problem is is that the
    interior has--or BIA has been very poor on their promises.
    Right? In keeping their promises?
        Mr. Thompson. Historically, yes.
        Mr. Gosar. So if you were to write, looking at these TERAs,
    have you had any direct review of these TERAs personally
    yourself?
        Mr. Thompson. Personally, we've gone through a few since my
    time. And it's been a discussion for quite a bit of time,
    actually, within our legal team and other council members of
    the past.
        Mr. Gosar. Have you made proposals to BIA and BLM in regard
    to how those TERAs could be better defined or how their
    interpretations are?
        Mr. Thompson. Yes. We've made suggested changes, requested
    information, especially on the inherent Federal functions.
    We've also asked about how they were measured, travel capacity,
    how they will define the inclusion of public in the discussion
    process, and also the--just what is the assumed Federal
    functions the tribe will take on. That's been some unclear
    answers since the beginning of questioning.
        Mr. Gosar. Did you get any answers?
        Mr. Thompson. Not to this day.
        Mr. Gosar. Would you--would it be possible to get those--
    those letters of inquiry to the committee?
        Mr. Thompson. I'm sure we could provide you with a lot of
    documentation to that effect.
        Mr. Gosar. So in getting back to these TERAs and giving up
    to--because I thought I heard some of the aspects of impugned
    sovereignty. Non-sovereignty. Right?
        Mr. Thompson. Okay.
        Mr. Gosar. Is that what I heard?
        Mr. Thompson. Just----
        Mr. Gosar. Within these TERAs.
        Mr. Thompson. I think it's close to how TERAs will affect
    our sovereignty. And we want to always empower tribes, our
    tribe, other tribes to have more--to have more responsibility
    over what governs themselves and how we govern ourselves, and
    so we try to get to that.
        Mr. Gosar. See, I like where you're going. So I'm going to
    go back to these permitting processes because of the inherent
    bias within--I think is going on within the agency. Do you have
    the same kind of problems for alternative energy?
        Mr. Thompson. No. We actually received a pretty good grant
    to get solar projects started on our reservation----
        Mr. Gosar. Are they fast tracked?
        Mr. Thompson. It should come up on online this spring.
        Mr. Gosar. Wow. What wind of permitting time was that?
        Mr. Thompson. It was started right before I came in. Do we
    know how long that was? It was a few years of permitting
    process, though.
        Mr. Gosar. So it went through a full long line of
    permitting. So something still similar to that application?
        Mr. Thompson. Yes.
        Mr. Gosar. Was there a change in aptitude in regards to
    looking at alternative energy versus oil and gas?
        Mr. Thompson. I'm not sure there was a change in aptitude
    on that.
        Mr. Gosar. So was it easier to find people to come out then
    to review it? I would be just--I would be really intrigued by
    that because I'm a believer in all-the-above energy policy. And
    so, you know, I think that we have got to feign away the
    biases. My--go ahead.
        Mr. Thompson. I'm sorry. I think this would be a great
    opportunity to invite you to our reservation to see what we do
    and maybe----
        Mr. Gosar. I go through there all the time.
        Mr. Thompson. Well, I mean just meet with our staff and
    really talk about these things and get these answers firsthand.
    It would be a great opportunity.
        Mr. Gosar. Well, and it drives me to my point about
    sovereignty is that if you're truly sovereign, really, why is
    it that the BIA or the BLM is truly involved?
        Mr. Thompson. I think it comes down again to what they
    define as tribal trust responsibility and----
        Mr. Gosar. No, but I think they are two different things.
        Mr. Thompson. There is.
        Mr. Gosar. Because in sovereignty, I mean, there shouldn't
    be an inherited trust obligation because you're taking that.
        Mr. Thompson. Yes.
        Mr. Gosar. So I think that conversation should be a very
    innate one. But I'd really like to explore more about the
    TERAs. And in regards to you, because you have been a very
    successful tribe, and I think a lot more tribes need to
    understand how you leverage that. Because it's very similar to
    what western states were promised in regards to royalties and
    shared royalties for the betterment of education and
    government--rural governments stuff like that and
    infrastructure projects.
        So we'll keep this up. I've run out of time. I appreciate
    it, Mr. Thompson.
        Mr. Thompson. Thank you.
        Mr. Issa. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back. I'll now
    recognize myself for a round of questioning.
        This morning at the full committee in this same room we had
    Gene Dodaro. And I asked him basically three questions related
    to this afternoon's hearing. And it went like this: Isn't it
    true that the Federal Government has failed our tribes when it
    comes to their education? Isn't it true that we have been less
    than responsive at helping them build their energy
    requirements? I didn't name oil versus anything else. I just
    said energy, and he said yes. And as I went through that
    process, what I've discovered was we, the Federal Government,
    have failed.
        And when I asked the general what we should do about it, he
    said: Well, I will be meeting with HHS when it comes to the
    health care part, which was the third failure, I'll be meeting
    with the new Secretary. And when I meet with, when confirmed,
    the new Secretary of the Interior, he's got a big job. And he's
    going to have to make fundamental changes.
        Now, I say this just to make sure that you knew what your
    boss had said. Do you see any difference in the fact that our
    Federal Government in the past several years has failed in
    these three areas sufficiently that for the first time that
    I've been looking at it these are on the high risk?
        Mr. Rusco. No, I was at this morning's hearing. And I'd
    never disagree with the Comptroller General. But----
        Mr. Issa. Well, this is one place you're welcome to shed
    some light. We'll give you congressional immunity, of course.
        Mr. Rusco. Thank you. But no, I agree--I agree 100 percent.
    This is a case where in all three areas we all agreed that the
    body of work that had been done in there showed a persistent
    failure to efficiently and appropriately manage Federal
    programs designed to serve tribes and their members.
        Mr. Issa. And I'm particularly concerned about health care.
    It would seem that at a time when we put just in ObamaCare
    subsidies $51 billion into subsidies for less-well-off people,
    it sounds likes Indian health didn't get their share of that.
        Mr. Rusco. Kathy King is here from our healthcare group
    to----
        Mr. Issa. Kathy, good to have an expert.
        Ms. King. A few years ago we did some projections about the
    number of Indians that would be eligible for--or potentially
    eligible for care under the ACA, both under Medicaid and under
    the exchanges. And we found that there were hundreds of
    thousands that could be potentially eligible, depending upon
    whether you live in a State where Medicaid has expanded.
        Mr. Issa. But in most cases, if you live on tribal land,
    such as the Navajo and others, you're very likely to be below
    that 135 percent of the poverty
        Ms. King. Yeah. Yes. We have not gone back and looked to
    see how many of them have actually enrolled in those programs.
    But the enrollment in those programs can be potentially helpful
    in two ways.
        One, if people enroll in Medicaid or the exchanges and they
    seek care at an IHS facility, then they--IHS can bill for those
    services and they can augment their revenues and serve more
    people. Or if they go elsewhere, that frees up more money for
    people at IHS.
        Mr. Issa. Well, and that begs the question of if somebody
    comes in to a Native facility, are they asking: Are you on it,
    and then assisting them in getting on it, which ultimately is a
    self-funding method. Did you find that in your overview?
        Ms. King. We did our work before the ACA actually took
    effect. But one of things that we were concerned about----
        Mr. Issa. But Medicaid was still a question back then.
        Ms. King. Yeah, Medicaid was still a concern. But--were the
    expansions. They do have patient care representatives. But one
    of the things that we would have liked them to do is to expand
    their use of patient care representatives to help with what we
    thought would be an onslaught of enrollment. And they said that
    they were not able to do that.
        Mr. Issa. And as a result, what could have improved life
    for Native Americans didn't happen. And that's why they're on
    the endangered--or the high risk list.
        Ms. King. Some of our work predated that. So we don't know
    for sure. But, you know, there are two ways that people get
    care through the IHS. You can get care at an IHS facility, or
    if the services are not available there, which they frequently
    aren't, then they buy services on the open market. And when
    they do that, there is a priority listing that varies from area
    to area. So in some areas the only people who get care are
    people who are in danger of life or limb.
        Mr. Issa. In other words, we're giving less than the care
    that they were promised because we either--either they can't
    come to a clinic that has the facility or we're crying poor and
    rationing care.
        Ms. King. There is a trust responsibility.
        Mr. Issa. Okay. I'll close quickly because the energy issue
    Mr. Gosar touched on I want to just run one question. And I'm
    not a lawyer. So that means that I may ask a question I don't
    know the answer to. But in a nutshell, the last 8 years, in my
    estimation, there's been a war on carbon, on coal, on oil, and
    natural gas.
        When you look at the difficulty the tribes have getting
    through a bureaucracy even though they pay for something that
    is their asset on their sovereign land, is there any
    possibility that not that they were singled out but they were
    caught up in a war on carbon that occurred that caused them to
    be simply not able to exercise their rights? And I ask that
    because clearly Federal land usage for natural gas, oil, and
    coal dropped over the last 8 years while it rose on non-Federal
    land.
        Mr. Rusco. There is a lot there. So we did find that these
    delays and problems with permitting and development occurred
    across the board for energy on tribal lands. So there are wind
    projects that had been languishing for years, and meanwhile
    State or utility agreements to purchase the power expired and
    they had to renegotiate these things. And we found that kind of
    across the board.
        Mr. Issa. So if I can summarize what you said, you're
    saying the last several years they've been inept at allowing
    Native Americans to utilize the resources. And as a result, it
    has hurt their ability to help themselves?
        Mr. Rusco. Certainly when you miss an opportunity and, you
    know, for example, for oil and gas, development is all about
    the price of the resource and the location of the resource.
    When prices are high, companies are like all over the place.
    And if you can't get a permit through in time and the price
    falls, they're less interested. So there is a--there's an
    inherent disadvantage if you know you're going to go into a
    long permitting process.
        Mr. Issa. Well, since the gentleman from Texas comes from a
    place where they do permits on a State basis and they do them
    quickly, I will let him reassume the chair. And I thank all of
    you and yield back.
        Mr. Farenthold. [Presiding.] Ms. Plaskett, do you have some
    more questions?
        Ms. Plaskett. I do have a couple more questions. Thank you
    for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
        Touching on the question that was just raised by my
    colleague Mr. Issa about the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Rusco, do
    you know, is it possible for GAO to make a determination on how
    many American Indians are currently using--I know that that was
    not part of your last report. But do you or, Ms. Kendall, have
    you looked at ways of determining who is taking advantage of
    that?
        Ms. King. We could examine eligibility rolls.
        Ms. Plaskett. And would that also tell you the other
    question I asked, was his informing tribal members that the
    Affordable Care Act was available for them?
        Ms. King. They did do--in response to our recommendations,
    they did begin doing some outreach. There was a delay because
    of there was some uncertainty about whether the Affordable Care
    Act would go into effect or not. But they did do some outreach.
    But we could now go back and look at eligibility rolls and
    determine whether--determine how many people enrolled.
        Ms. Plaskett. I mean, I just find this, you know,
    heartbreaking because this really correlates to so much of
    what's happening in my own community and in most communities,
    minority communities, underserved communities, where people are
    dying of preventable diseases.
        And a lot of it is treatable health conditions related to
    diabetes and hypertension and some of these other areas that we
    should be taking up the slack in.
        Ms. King. Yes. And we do know that Native Americans have a
    shorter life expectancy and greater comorbidities.
        Ms. Plaskett. Okay. Thank you very much.
        And the other questions that I have are related to Ms.
    Kendall. When there was the creation of the inspector general,
    which you say you've been there now for 17 years, to detect
    waste, fraud, and abuse, you do that by hiring auditors and
    investigators. Correct?
        Ms. Kendall. That's correct.
        Ms. Plaskett. How many do you have on staff now?
        Ms. Kendall. We have roughly 100 auditors and about 95
    investigators.
        Ms. Plaskett. And that's for the Department of Interior?
        Ms. Kendall. For the entire Department.
        Ms. Plaskett. And what are they reviewing? What's the scope
    of their review?
        Ms. Kendall. Well, we have nine bureaus and offices that
    comprise the Department of the Interior. So our oversight
    responsibility is vast.
        Ms. Plaskett. Okay. And ``vast'' meaning how many thousands
    of----
        Ms. Kendall. Seventy thousand employees. About that again
    of grantees and contractors.
        Ms. Plaskett. So that's a good point. So you're not only
    reviewing yourself, but you have contractors and vendors and
    others that you do review for.
        Ms. Kendall. That's correct.
        Ms. Plaskett. So the announcement of a hiring freeze in the
    recent administration has--what has happened in the past when
    you've had hiring freezes in terms of the agency and the
    inspector general being able to complete their operations?
        Ms. Kendall. Well, essentially like all the OIGs, we are
    very personnel driven. And close to 80 percent of our budget
    goes to salaries. We have no programmatic functions or funding.
    And so a hiring freeze, much like budget reductions, hit us in
    a fundamental ability to do our job.
        Ms. Plaskett. And that's important under this committee
    because we rely on you all so much for the reports and the
    timely reports that you give us so that he we can identify
    these areas that are of concern so we can address the Bureau of
    Indian Affairs and their discrepancies, deal with the school
    issues that we have.
        Can you describe for us some of the challenges that your
    office will face now if there's a hiring freeze in the Office
    of Inspector General?
        Ms. Kendall. Well, certainly we do not have a great deal of
    vacancies right now. But if we were to continue to lose people
    to retirement or to other agencies or to the private sector, we
    would be limited considerably in being able to fill those
    positions.
        As I heard Mr. Dodaro this morning talk about hiring
    freezes, I believe he said that historically they have not been
    particularly effective in terms of saving funds. But certainly
    agencies like ours who are really personnel driven, we are
    affected fairly significantly.
        Ms. Plaskett. Okay. Thank you.
        Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Farenthold. Thank you. And I just want to follow up on
    one thing. My inner tech geek is going to come out.
        So I wanted to talk to Mr. Thompson about your scanning
    project. One of the--I also serve on the Technology
    Subcommittee of this committee. And one of things that I've
    noticed is our Federal Government couldn't compute its way out
    of a paper bag sometimes. Could you outline the scanning
    program and the GIS program and how you all took that over and
    how that is helping the Federal Government.
        And do you think there's some ways that, based on what you
    have done, the Federal agencies or other tribes could improve
    the service within the Federal Government by things that you do
    yourselves?
        Mr. Thompson. Awesome. I guess there was--a few years ago
    there was a deadline set on realty records and BIA records all
    being consolidated to a place in Oklahoma. It was concerning to
    us and we needed those documents to do our business on a day-
    to-day.
        So that's when this--there was a rush to try to do
    something to start scanning these records in. At the same time
    we needed a better system of--then TAAMS could ever provide.
    And we needed something more efficient to help us be better
    stewards of our land and our opportunities.
        So we developed the land information--the land information
    management system as a way of making it easier to track all
    realty functions that take place on the reservation, all the
    rights of ways, anything related to energy going into this
    system to give us a point and kind of situation that we can get
    to the documents we need to do what we need to do.
        Mr. Farenthold. And you were able to find a software
    solution, hardware pollution, to do that relatively easily and
    inexpensively?
        Mr. Thompson. No. We created the system ourselves
    internally. It wasn't something that anybody else had to offer
    that would work for us. So it was something that we developed
    on our own with good people and time.
        Mr. Farenthold. Okay. And do you--given the--in hindsight,
    would you do it again?
        Mr. Thompson. Well, I think if we had to go through this
    entire process of having to do it, I wish that that could have
    been different. But, I mean, it did produce an opportunity for
    us to create something that----
        Mr. Farenthold. And is that something you're open to
    sharing with potentially other tribes or, you know, sharing
    your experience in there working together to make things better
    for everybody?
        Mr. Thompson. I think Southern Ute's always willing to help
    other tribes as much as they can, showing them what we have
    done as a success story in any country in energy development.
    And, again, we are throwing out the offer or the invitation to
    see a demonstration.
        Mr. Farenthold. All right. Great. Ms. Plaskett, do you have
    anything else?
        All right. I'd like to thank our witnesses to for taking
    time to appear before us today.
        I'd also like to ask unanimous consent that members have 5
    legislative days to submit questions for the record. Without
    objection, that's so ordered.
        If there's no additional business, without objection, the
    subcommittee stands adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 3:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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