[Senate Hearing 117-539]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                                                        S. Hrg. 117-539
 
                  CONTAMINATED LAND CONVEYANCES: THE 
    ALASKA NATIVE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT ACT, THE DETRIMENTAL IMPACTS OF 
      CONTAMINATION ON NATIVE COMMUNITIES AND THE NEXT STEPS FOR 
                         ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

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

                             FIELD HEARING

                               before the

                      COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                            AUGUST 23, 2022

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on Indian Affairs
         
         
         
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]         




                           ______
 
              U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
50-235 PDF             WASHINGTON : 2023

         


                      0COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

                     BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii, Chairman
                 LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Vice Chairman
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington           JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
JON TESTER, Montana                  JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       STEVE DAINES, Montana
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            JERRY MORAN, Kansas
       Jennifer Romero, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
        Lucy Murfitt, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
        
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Field hearing held on August 23, 2022............................     1
Statement of Senator Murkowski...................................     1

                               Witnesses

Beasley, Lara Chief, Environmental Division, U.S. Army Corps 
  Engineers; accompanied by, Colonel Damon A. Delarosa, Commander    13
    Prepared statement...........................................    15
Bissett, Hallie, Executive Director, Alaska Native Village 
  Corporation Association........................................    24
    Prepared statement...........................................    28
Brune, Hon. Jason, Commissioner, Alaska Department of 
  Environmental Conservation.....................................    18
    Prepared statement...........................................    20
Cohn, Steven M., Alaska State Director, Bureau of Land 
  Management, U.S. Department of the Interior; accompanied by, 
  Erika Reed, Acting Associate State Director, Bureau of Land 
  Management.....................................................     5
    Prepared statement...........................................     7
Tutiakoff, Hon. Vincent, Mayor, City of Unalaska; Chairman of the 
  Board, Unalaska Corporation; Traditional Chief, Qawalangin 
  Tribe..........................................................    21
    Prepared statement...........................................    22
Waterhouse, Carlton J.D., Ph.D., Deputy Assistant Administrator, 
  Office of Land and Emergency Management, U.S. Environmental 
  Protection Agency..............................................     9
    Prepared statement...........................................    11

                                Appendix

Anderson, Michelle, President, Ahtna, Incorporated, prepared 
  statement......................................................    60
Contreras, Elise, Environmental Remediation Manager, Qawalangin 
  Tribe of Unalaska, prepared statement..........................    59
Philemonof, Dimitri, President/CEO, Aleutian Pribilof Islands 
  Association, Inc., prepared statement..........................    64


CONTAMINATED LAND CONVEYANCES: THE ALASKA NATIVE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT ACT, 
                      THE DETRIMENTAL IMPACTS OF 
      CONTAMINATION ON NATIVE COMMUNITIES AND THE NEXT STEPS FOR 
                         ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

                              ----------                              


                        TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022


                                       U.S. Senate,
                               Committee on Indian Affairs,
                                                      Unalaska, AK.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:00 p.m. AKT in 
the City Council Chambers of Unalaska City Hall, 43 Raven Way, 
Unalaska, Alaska, Hon. Lisa Murkowski, Vice Chairman of the 
Committee, presiding.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA

    Senator Murkowski. Good afternoon, everyone. I am calling 
to order this hearing of the Committee on Indian Affairs.
    Thank you for the opportunity to gather here in Unalaska. 
It is always an adventure, coming to Unalaska. Unalaska is in 
itself an extraordinary and beautiful place, a beautiful land 
with extraordinary people. So we are pleased to be with the 
people.
    But it is not without its challenges. I think part of that 
challenge is just the traveling. Many of us at the dais here 
today experienced a little bit of that challenge. Many of you 
in the audience today either experienced that today or you do 
on other occasions as well.
    We recognize that travel here is a little bit different 
than anywhere else in the Country. Many of our communities are 
remote and some of them are extremely remote. We are not 
connected by roads; we are not connected by much of anything 
else. So it is planes and boats that bring us together, and it 
is not without cost. The cost of an airplane ticket to get out 
here is attention-getting, when it is close to $1,000 one way 
to move you and your family. That is a problem. When you have 
multiple cancellations and the airport packed with people 
trying to come and trying to go, that is a problem.
    So when it comes to planning a hearing like this, it 
requires a fair amount of flexibility. We thank those who have 
been flexible with us.
    I hope that for those who have traveled here you have 
gained some small sense of what the people who live here 
experience every day, all throughout the year. Thank you to our 
Federal witnesses in particular for sticking with this trip. I 
hope that now you are in Unalaska, you can see that it is worth 
it. It is not only worth it to be on the ground and to see for 
yourself, but it is good to connect and understand a little bit 
more what the people who live here and call this amazing place 
home, what they accept as the day-to-day challenge of living in 
a place like Unalaska.
    Before we start, I want to pause and acknowledge that we 
are present on the traditional homelands of the Native Unangan 
people who have lived on the island of Unalaska for thousands 
of years. It is these lands, it is these lands that the Federal 
Government forced the Unangan to relinquish, in many cases 
allowed the military to use them and then in later settlement 
of aboriginal land claims, they conveyed them, and they 
conveyed them many times with contamination to the Alaska 
Native Corporations that Congress had created.
    It is that injustice and the decades-long breach of the 
Federal Government's trust responsibility that really brings us 
here today.
    A few housekeeping matters this afternoon. This is an 
official United States Senate hearing. As such, the format will 
be the same format that we use for our hearings in Washington, 
D.C. I will take testimony from our six invited witnesses, and 
then I will proceed to ask them questions.
    After the hearing is over, anyone is welcome to submit 
their own written testimony. I include those of you here. You 
can submit that testimony to the Committee, and it will be made 
part of that hearing record. That record will be kept open for 
two weeks. Anyone who wants to send testimony should send it to 
[email protected]. I will repeat that at the end of 
the hearing.
    I want to extend a special thank you to the community of 
Unalaska for hosting us, I want to thank the city, the tribe, 
the village corporation staff for working with all of my team 
to pull together both this hearing as well as the field site 
tour.
    This hearing is entitled Contaminated Land Conveyances: The 
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the Detrimental Impacts of 
Contamination on Native Communities and Next Steps for 
Environmental Justice. It is an opportunity for us to examine 
the unique history and legacy of ANCSA, including the 
conveyance of contaminated lands. It will allow us to reflect 
on the progress made to inventory and to clean up a few of 
those sites along with understanding the progress that have not 
been made.
    It is also a moment to determine what comes next, what all 
of us from Alaska Native tribes, ANCs and tribal consortia, the 
State of Alaska and our Federal agencies, all of us working 
together to remedy this urgent problem. I will underscore what 
we will hear from one of our witnesses later, another report is 
not a remedy to this ongoing injustice. People are looking for 
an actionable plan.
    To me, what we are discussing today is really environmental 
injustice, true environmental injustice. We are talking about 
lands that the Federal Government conveyed to Alaska Native 
Corporations to settle aboriginal land claims that were often 
horribly contaminated, even in some areas that many would 
consider or expect to be pristine when you simply look at the 
place.
    There are hundreds of known sites with contamination across 
Alaska. More than 500 of them are classified as formerly used 
defense sites. That means that their contamination was caused 
by past military activity, and the Department of Defense is 
responsible for cleaning them up. Many of these sites are on 
Alaska Native lands, including those transferred under ANCSA. 
Some of them are here on Unalaska Island, where we are today. 
We will hear testimony from the Mayor, there are 51 areas of 
concern impacting approximately 80,000 acres here on Unalaska 
Island.
    We will have a chance to see a FUDS site later today. At 
that point we will learn more about the trilateral agreement 
between Unalaska Corporation, the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska, 
the City of Unalaska, but also the work of the local resource 
advisory board and the collaboration between the Federal 
Government, led by the Army Corps, and the State of Alaska.
    This is, as I mentioned, an injustice, an environmental 
injustice. I think it is also a crisis. The contamination on 
Native lands across Alaska is contributing to very real and in 
many instances truly awful health impacts, including clusters 
of cancer and Parkinson's from activities as simple as 
harvesting and eating berries. Traditional hunting and fishing 
grounds have been affected, threatening food safety, food 
security in Native culture, which is tied to the land and the 
waters.
    The impacts are only getting worse as erosion exposes 
chemicals and waste that have been buried for decades. Yet 
there doesn't seem to be the sense of urgency that I think is 
the imperative here. This is the responsibility, this is an 
obligation of the Federal Government to basically clean up its 
own mess, and there is no urgency that we are seeing. If these 
had been private entities that had left this level of 
contamination, believe me, the attitude and the urgency to 
address it would be entirely different.
    To me, that is shameful. It is the type of thing that makes 
Alaskans lose faith in our government, and continues to harm 
innocent lives, families and communities. As the indigenous 
people here know that this is not the first time the Federal 
Government's lack of coordination and poor decisions have led 
to human tragedy in this region. During World War II, the 
United States government interned the Unangan people to squalid 
relocation camps in southeast Alaska while their non-Native 
neighbors were allowed to stay. Nearly 10 percent of internees 
died at the camp, and those who were allowed to return found 
their homes compromised by contamination.
    We also cannot forget the especially tragic wartime 
experience of the residents of the Village of Attu who were 
taken by the Japanese and held as prisoners in Japan until the 
end of the war. About half of them died. The survivors were 
never allowed back to Attu. The entire village was lost. More 
than half a century later, these World War II impacts are still 
very real for the people who live there.
    I have tried to make headway at the Federal level in 
working on this matter, have been working on this matter for 
years, working with many of you that are sitting around this 
dais here. Progress has been slow; it has been difficult.
    We now have inventories of ANCSA contaminated sites and 
reports full of recommendations, including funding and land 
exchanges. We also had to change the law to address liability 
concerns, because up until 2018, ANCs were considered 
potentially responsible parties for the contamination on the 
lands that the Bureau of Land Management had conveyed to them. 
These were lands that were contaminated by the government, BLM 
conveys them and then says that the liability is to the ANCs. 
You just can't make this stuff up.
    So we are here today to shine a spotlight on these issues 
yet again. We are asking for help, we are asking for leadership 
from the Executive Branch. Yet it seems we still have more 
people interested in avoiding blame than taking responsibility. 
So we have to acknowledge a few of the recent bright spots, 
including EPA's grant program focused on ANCSA contaminated 
lands.
    Even with that progress, the cold hard facts still remain. 
That is that at the current rate of funding, the remediation 
and cleanup of these lands will take decades, if not centuries. 
That will mean needless human suffering and environmental 
devastation in the meantime. That can't be acceptable for any 
of us. The time to act is now, and this hearing is designed to 
move us further along that path.
    I have taken more time with an opening statement than I 
usually care to do. It is important to set the table for the 
dialogue.
    We have a great panel of witnesses who have traveled with 
us to be here today. We are going to lead off today's panel 
with Mr. Steve Cohn. Steve is the Alaska State Director for the 
Bureau of Land Management with the Department of the Interior. 
He is based in Anchorage. He is accompanied by Erika Reed, who 
is the Acting Associate State Director for BLM at the 
Department of the Interior.
    Next to Ms. Reed is Mr. Carlton Waterhouse. Mr. Waterhouse 
is the Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Land 
and Emergency Management at the EPA, based in Washington, D.C. 
We welcome you.
    We have Lara Beasley, who is with the Chief, Environmental 
Division at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, also in 
Washington, D.C. Thank you for traveling so far. She is 
accompanied by Colonel Damon Delarosa. Colonel Delarosa is 
known to many of us around the State. He is the Commander, U.S. 
Army Corps of Engineers for the Alaska District, and has been 
working on many, many projects around the State. We know you 
are a busy man, so thank you for being here.
    The Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental 
Conservation, the Honorable Jason Brune, is with us here this 
afternoon. Jason bases in Juneau and Anchorage, and usually on 
Alaska Airlines, where we see one another quite frequently. 
Thank you for making the trip.
    Of course, our local leader, the Honorable Vincent 
Tutiakoff, who is the Mayor here of the City of Unalaska. He is 
also the Chairman of the Board of the Unalaska Corporation. He 
is the traditional Chief of the Qawalangin Tribe. As Mayor, I 
also call him my friend, Vince. I appreciate your leadership 
over the years.
    To round out our panel today is a woman who has been 
leading on these issues of environmental contamination on ANCSA 
lands for years now. Hallie Bissett is the Executive Director 
of the Alaska Native Village Corporation Association. She has 
just been a dynamo on these issues. Hallie, we are very, very 
grateful that you are able to be with us today.
    Each of our witnesses has been told that they have about 
five minutes to deliver their testimony orally. We would ask 
that you try to summarize, if you will. Your full written 
testimony will be made part of the official hearing record. 
Know that that will be fully incorporated, but we do hope that 
we have an opportunity for more questions at the end. So if you 
can keep your statements much shorter than mine, we are going 
to do just fine.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Murkowski. So with that, I will turn to you, Mr. 
Cohn, with the Bureau of Land Management, if you would like to 
start the discussion. Thank you.

 STATEMENT OF STEVEN M. COHN, ALASKA STATE DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF 
 LAND MANAGEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; ACCOMPANIED 
                    BY, ERIKA REED, ACTING 
           ASSOCIATE STATE DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF LAND 
                           MANAGEMENT

    Mr. Cohn. Vice Chairman Murkowski, I am Steven Cohn. I am 
the Alaska State Director with the Bureau of Land Management. I 
am also accompanied by Erika Reed, Acting Associate State 
Director for BLM Alaska.
    We are pleased to be here to provide testimony regarding 
contaminated sites conveyed out of Federal ownership to Alaska 
Native Corporations through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement 
Act of 1971, or ANCSA. Indigenous communities, communities of 
color, rural communities, low-income families, and people in 
the U.S. territories have long suffered disproportionate and 
cumulative harm from the climate crisis and air and water 
pollution.
    Alaska Natives have been especially burdened with 
contaminated sites on former Federal lands and facilities 
conveyed through ANCSA. The Department of the Interior and the 
BLM understand the health, safety, and environmental concerns 
associated with these actions. We are committed to working with 
our agency colleagues to chart a productive path forward.
    The passage of ANCSA entitled Alaska Native communities to 
select and receive title to 46 million acres of Federal land. 
Since its enactment, over 44 million acres have been conveyed.
    As the Secretary of the Interior's designated survey and 
land and transfer agent, the BLM is responsible for 
adjudicating land claims, conducting and finalizing cadastral 
land surveys, and transferring legal title of Federal lands. 
Under ANCSA, the BLM does not have discretion about whether to 
transfer the lands once they are selected.
    Over time, it has become clear that some of the land 
conveyed under ANCSA included contaminated sites from former 
Federal facilities. Initial recognition of the growing issue 
led to the chartering of a Statement of Cooperation Group in 
the 1990s by various Federal and State agencies which began the 
first collaborative efforts to address contaminated sites.
    To further understand the scope and scale of the issue, in 
2016 the BLM provided Congress with a report which summarized 
progress made through a collaborative effort to develop an 
inventory of potentially contaminated sites conveyed known as 
the Contaminated Lands Inventory, or CLI. The CLI represented 
the first and only comprehensive geospatial inventory of 
potentially contaminated sites.
    Earlier this year, the BLM began to incorporate a new data 
base provided by the Alaska Department of Environmental 
Conservation into the CLI. Once the BLM completes assessment of 
the State's data base, the BLM expects more detailed 
information will be available to facilitate future action on 
these sites.
    The 2016 report to Congress further recommended the 
establishment of a formal working group, which resulted in the 
creation of the ANCSA Contaminated Sites Working Group. This 
group includes the Department, the Alaska Department of 
Environmental Conservation, and the EPA. Additionally, the 
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium's Contamination Support 
Program helped established and continues to facilitate the 
ANCSA Contaminated Lands Partnership Group.
    The efforts provide an ongoing forum to share information 
and create a strategic plan for cleaning up and restoring 
contaminated sites using the combined resources and capacities 
of the member agencies and organizations.
    The Administration recently initiated the Arctic Executive 
Steering Committee to focus on an action-based approach to 
prioritizing the ANCSA contaminated sites issue. This 
interagency group has a strengthened commitment to establish a 
strategy that leverages Federal agency authorities through four 
primary goals.
    These goals include strengthening communication and 
effective collaboration between Federal agencies, the State of 
Alaska, Alaska Native Tribes, and Alaska Native Corporations 
and determining what additional assessment and verification is 
needed to determine the scope of contamination at sites. It 
also includes identifying eligibility and prioritization 
requirements for cleanup at contaminated sites, and most 
importantly, initiating cleanup.
    The Arctic Executive Steering Committee will complement the 
existing Statement of Cooperation interagency collaboration by 
establishing a Federal strategy that will successfully complete 
critical milestones resulting in the cleanup of sites 
statewide.
    While the BLM's authorities under ANCSA are limited to 
processing those actions involved in transferring land 
ownership, the BLM has adapted its adjudication procedures for 
future conveyances of land to Alaska Native Corporations to add 
steps for providing notice of contamination identified through 
existing data base review.
    The Department of the Interior and the BLM support the 
President's call to action to address current and historic 
environmental injustices and ensure accountability. We are 
committed to doing our part to address this important issue 
here in Alaska.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to be here today. We 
look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Cohn follows:]

Prepared Statement of Steven M. Cohn, Alaska State Director, Bureau of 
            Land Management, U.S. Department of the Interior
    Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony regarding sites 
conveyed out of Federal ownership to Alaska Native Corporations through 
the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). The Department of the 
Interior (Department) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) 
understand the health, safety, and environmental concerns associated 
with contaminated Federal lands conveyed under ANCSA. We are committed 
to doing our part to address this important issue by working with our 
agency colleagues to chart a productive path forward.
    Indigenous communities, communities of color, rural and low-income 
families, and people in the U.S. territories have long suffered 
disproportionate and cumulative harm from the climate crisis and air 
and water pollution. Alaska Natives have been especially burdened with 
contaminated sites on former Federal lands and facilities conveyed 
through ANCSA. As we acknowledge that reality, the Biden-Harris 
Administration has mobilized an all-of-government approach to advance 
environmental justice. As directed in Executive Order 14008, Tackling 
the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, the Department has partnered 
with agencies across the Federal government to develop a strategy to 
address current and historic environmental injustices and ensure 
accountability. This high-level, action-oriented initiative is being 
conducted by the Arctic Executive Steering Committee (AESC) a White 
House-led program to enhance coordination of national efforts in the 
Arctic.
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
    In 1971, Congress passed ANCSA, which settled aboriginal land 
claims in Alaska and entitled Alaska Native communities to select and 
receive title to 46 million acres of Federal land. ANCSA also 
established a corporate structure for Native land ownership in Alaska 
under which Alaska Natives would become shareholders in one of more 
than 200 private, land-owning Alaska Native village, group, urban, and 
reserve corporations and/or one of 12 private, for-profit, landowning 
regional corporations. For Alaska Natives who were non-residents of the 
State at the time the law was enacted, ANCSA authorized a non-
landowning 13th regional corporation. Today, most Alaska Natives are 
enrolled in two corporations: the corporation representing the 
community where they lived in 1970 and a regional corporation. Each 
regional corporation encompasses a specific geographic area and is 
associated with Alaska Natives who had traditionally lived in the area. 
For each corporation, whether village or regional, ANCSA provided at 
least two potential acreage entitlements through which it could select 
and receive ownership of Federal lands.
    As the Secretary of the Interior's designated survey and land 
transfer agent, the BLM is the Federal agency responsible for 
adjudicating land claims, conducting and finalizing cadastral land 
surveys, and transferring legal title of Federal lands. These Federal 
lands may be managed by any Federal agency. The BLM's Alaska Land 
Transfer Program administers the implementation of the approximately 
46-million-acre transfer of land to Alaska Native Corporations under 
ANCSA. When the survey and conveyance work under ANCSA and similar laws 
directing the transfer of Federal land (i.e., the Alaska Native 
Allotment Act and the Alaska Statehood Act) is completed, over 150 
million acres will have been transferred from Federal to State and 
private ownership. This is equivalent to approximately 42 percent of 
the land area in Alaska.
Contaminated Lands/Inventory
    The Alaska Native community has expressed concerns over health, 
safety, and economic issues relating to the presence of hazardous 
materials or other forms of contamination on Federal lands conveyed to 
them under ANCSA. The Department and the BLM share these concerns and 
have redoubled our efforts to work with our Federal and State partners 
to address them. While the BLM is responsible for processing land 
conveyances pursuant to ANCSA, the BLM does not have discretion about 
whether to transfer the lands once they are selected by Native 
Corporations.
    Some of the conveyed land contained facilities previously developed 
and managed for handling large quantities of fuel, generating power, 
disposing of solid waste, or discharging wastewater by various Federal 
and nonfederal entities. In some instances, the presence of such 
facilities and infrastructure created the potential for contaminants to 
be released into the environment, and historical releases have been 
documented at many such locations throughout Alaska. An unintended 
consequence of ANCSA was that lands selected by corporations were 
conveyed regardless of whether they were contaminated because the law 
prioritizes speed of title transfer and completion of boundary surveys 
and does not have a requirement for physical inspection of lands.
    The explanatory statement accompanying the Consolidated and Further 
Continuing Appropriations Act of 2015 (Public Law 113-235) directed the 
BLM to develop a report regarding contaminated sites on lands conveyed 
to ANCSA corporations. In 2016, the BLM provided Congress with its 
report, Hazardous Substance Contamination of Alaska Native Claims 
Settlement Act Lands in Alaska (Report), which summarized progress made 
through a collaborative effort to develop an inventory of potentially 
contaminated sites conveyed to ANCSA corporations. The Report provided 
recommendations to fully address cleanup of contaminated sites conveyed 
through ANCSA.
    During development of the Report, the BLM created the Contaminated 
Lands Inventory (CLI) database and map by consolidating information 
from four databases held by the Alaska Department of Environmental 
Conservation (ADEC), U.S. Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration, 
and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The BLM worked closely with 
Federal, State of Alaska, and Alaska Native stakeholders to obtain 
additional spatial, location, and conveyance information for 
incorporation in the Report and CLI database and map. The CLI 
represents the first and only comprehensive geospatial inventory of 
potentially contaminated sites conveyed through ANCSA. The database and 
map contain information about each site's land and regulatory status, 
including the entity to whom the property was conveyed, or is in the 
process of being conveyed; coordinates, if known, for where the site is 
located; the general understanding of the site's contamination, if 
known; and potential data gaps. The CLI database also includes the 
Orphan Site Database, which contains information on sites that do not 
appear to be in a clean-up program. The CLI also tracks sites that are 
identified as ``open,'' or being worked on, and sites that are 
considered orphans and require further site assessment.
    Earlier this year, the BLM began to incorporate a new database 
provided by ADEC and to review new sites and site locations. Once the 
BLM completes assessment of the ADEC database, the BLM expects more 
detailed information will be available to facilitate future action on 
these sites.
Working Groups
    The 2016 Report to Congress further recommended the establishment 
of a formal working group to address inventory and cleanup efforts. In 
the early 1990s, a Statement of Cooperation (SOC) group was chartered 
by various Federal and State agencies to work cooperatively to address 
and resolve environmental issues in the State of Alaska. The SOC 
established an Executive Steering Committee and working groups to 
collaborate on addressing important contaminated site issues. The ANCSA 
Contaminated Sites Working Group was established soon after the Report 
was submitted. The Group is led by the Department, ADEC, and the U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and continues to engage on 
contaminated site issues.
    Additionally, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium's 
Contamination Support Program helped establish and continues to 
facilitate the ANCSA Contaminated Lands Partnership Group (Partnership 
Group), which also includes Alaska Native Corporations and Tribes. The 
Department, EPA, ADEC, the Department of Defense (DOD) agencies, and 
other SOC agencies have participated extensively in both working 
groups. These efforts continue to provide an ongoing forum to share 
information and create a strategic plan for cleaning up and restoring 
contaminated sites using the combined resources and capacities of the 
member agencies and organizations.
    Further, the Administration recently initiated the Arctic Executive 
Steering Committee (AESC), through the White House Office of Science 
and Technology Policy, to focus on an action-based approach to 
prioritize the ANCSA contaminated site issue. This interagency group 
has a strengthened commitment to establish a strategy that leverages 
EPA, DOD, and Department authorities. In its March 30, 2022, meeting, 
the AESC identified four primary goals: strengthening communication and 
effective collaboration between Federal agencies, the State of Alaska, 
Alaska Native Tribes, and Alaska Native Corporations; determining what 
additional assessment and verification is needed to determine the scope 
of contamination at sites; identifying eligibility and prioritization 
requirements for cleanup at contaminated sites; and initiating cleanup. 
Each agency will perform the parts of the strategy that align with 
their legal authorities. The group will complement the existing SOC 
interagency collaboration by establishing a Federal strategy that will 
successfully complete critical milestones resulting in the cleanup of 
sites, statewide.
BLM's Role
    The BLM's role in surveying and patenting lands under ANCSA has 
been administrative and the BLM's authorities are limited to processing 
those actions involved in transferring land ownership. As such, the BLM 
is not a Potentially Responsible Party pursuant to CERCLA purely by 
nature of its role in administering the transfer of lands under ANCSA. 
Nor are there any provisions in ANCSA that address responsibility for 
the past release of contaminants to the environment on lands that are 
subsequently conveyed under the Act. As a result, the BLM has no 
continuing obligation for documenting or remediating contaminated sites 
conveyed under ANCSA unless future documentation shows contamination 
occurred while the BLM managed or controlled a particular parcel. Work 
completed by the SOC's ANCSA Contaminated Sites Working Group has not 
identified any such parcels to-date, and the BLM is unaware of any 
parcels that would fall into this category. The BLM has adapted its 
procedures for future conveyances of land to ANCSA corporations to add 
steps for providing notice of contamination through existing database 
review as part of the adjudication process. Whether the lands are 
ultimately conveyed after BLM provides notice of potential 
contamination is a decision that continues to rest with the Native 
Corporation receiving the conveyance.
    The Department is aware of and appreciates the concerns of the 
Alaska Native community regarding the risks to health, safety, and the 
environment due to contamination found on former Federal lands conveyed 
to them under ANCSA. The BLM is committed to working with Alaska Native 
partners in identifying priority sites for cleanup, with Federal 
colleagues through the AESC interagency initiative, and with State 
agencies directly to address this issue expeditiously.
Conclusion
    The Department believes that a collaborative approach involving 
Federal, State, Tribal, and local governments, as well as Alaska Native 
Corporations and stakeholders, can successfully work to address these 
important issues. The Department is hopeful that we can assist our 
agency partners in effectively deploying their cleanup resources 
through the AESC initiative. We will continue to work diligently and 
collaboratively with our Federal, State, and Alaska Native partners, 
affected communities, and others to chart a coordinated and strategic 
path forward that is responsive to these concerns.

    Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Cohn.
    Let's next turn to Dr. Waterhouse.

STATEMENT OF CARLTON WATERHOUSE, J.D., Ph.D., DEPUTY ASSISTANT 
               ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF LAND AND 
           EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL 
                       PROTECTION AGENCY

    Dr. Waterhouse. Thank you so much. Good morning, Senator 
Murkowski. I am Carlton Waterhouse, Deputy Assistant 
Administrator for the United States Environmental Protection 
Agency's Office of Land and Emergency Management. I want to 
thank you for the opportunity to testify today. Cleaning up 
ANCSA sites is important, and I am grateful to be here with my 
Federal colleagues to discuss how we can collaborate to produce 
greater results for the people of Alaska.
    As a former resident, Alaska and its people are near and 
dear to my heart. The issues here are unique, and require 
creative and thoughtful solutions. I recognize that ANCSA lands 
present unique locations, remote locations, limited 
transportation, equipment availability, climate change, climate 
and the vastness of the State make cleanup more challenging.
    I am excited to discuss how EPA is working to lead an 
effort to bring the Federal family together to take on those 
challenges and move forward with greater urgency to address the 
legacy contamination on ANCSA lands. We are actively working 
with our Federal and State partners to develop a robust 
framework to achieve faster cleanups, informed decision making, 
effective coordination, accountability, and commitment to using 
a whole-of-government approach are critical to our success.
    Today I join my colleagues across the Biden-Harris 
Administration in a partnership to prioritize addressing the 
contaminated threats that overburden Native villages and 
tribes, and to achieve our goal of a cleaner, healthier, and 
more equitable Nation for all people. Alaska Natives have long 
been impacted by contamination where they eat, work and play. 
Here in Unalaska, we know that Federal operations in the last 
century left a legacy of contamination, including PCBs, heavy 
metals, and asbestos. The independent approaches used in the 
past have not been effective enough.
    In partnership with ADEC, EPA is currently using our 
available authorities, including our Superfund, Brownfields and 
Underground Storage Tank program to address contaminated ANCSA 
lands. We will continue to evaluate our authorities to expand 
our efforts. While EPA's authorities under CERCLA might be most 
useful as a tool for orphan sites, EPA has additional 
authorities for land-related cleanups and can also provide 
technical expertise and leadership.
    Recently, EPA Region 10 expanded its existing CERCLA 
cooperative agreement with ADEC with a specific focus on ANCSA 
work, including site inventory and preliminary assessments. 
This builds on EPA's previous work to evaluate sites for CERCLA 
cleanup.
    In June 2022, I joined senior Federal officials with the 
White House Arctic Executive Steering Committee to launch a 
collaborative initiative across the Federal family to leverage 
collective resources and expedite progress to clean up 
contaminated sites in service to this Administration's 
commitment to addressing environmental justice. I am co-leading 
the ANCSA Contaminated Lands Initiative in partnership with DOI 
and DOD with the support of DOE, NOAA, and others. The 
initiative strengthens collaboration between the Federal 
Government, our State, tribal, and local partners to improve 
the process to clean up those contaminated sites that have not 
been addressed. We are working together to identify how best to 
leverage our agency's available authorities and tools to 
enhance this effort.
    The initiative has four main components: enhanced 
collaboration between Federal, State, Alaska Native tribes, and 
Alaska Native Corporations. Two, a focus on data assessment and 
verification to develop inventory and identify scope of 
contamination. Three, identification of eligibility and 
prioritization of cleanup sites. And four, an effort to move 
forward with assessments and cleanup activities based on the 
information gathered.
    EPA stands ready to assist ADEC in developing and managing 
an enhanced site inventory which is a critical first step under 
a pending memorandum of understanding. Further, EPA appreciates 
proposals that will support any activities that further the 
work to address ANCSA sites and ensure that our tribal partners 
are engaged and involved.
    In the coming months, EPA will continue working on this 
effort to improve the quality and pace of addressing ANCA 
contaminated lands. We look forward to engaging directly with 
our Alaska Native partners most affected by the legacy 
contamination to advance cleanup efforts and produce faster and 
greater results.
    EPA recognizes that Alaska Natives have waited too long for 
a solution, and it is now time for us to act.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look 
forward to our discussion.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Waterhouse follows:]

Prepared Statement of Carlton Waterhouse, J.D., Ph.D., Deputy Assistant 
     Administrator, Office of Land and Emergency Management, U.S. 
                    Environmental Protection Agency
    Good morning, Vice Chairman Murkowski. I am Carlton Waterhouse, 
Deputy Assistant Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency's Office of Land and Emergency Management, or OLEM. I want to 
thank you and Chairman Schatz for the opportunity to testify today on 
addressing legacy contamination on lands conveyed under the Alaska 
Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). This is an important issue to the 
federal family, and I am grateful that my colleagues from the 
Department of Defense and Department of the Interior have joined us 
today to discuss how best to collaborate and proceed with a coordinated 
approach to produce greater results for the people of Alaska.
    The issues here in Alaska are unique and require creative and 
thoughtful solutions. As a former resident of Alaska, the people and 
the land are near and dear to my heart. Today's hearing allows me the 
opportunity to discuss how EPA is leading an effort to move the federal 
family forward in addressing legacy contamination of ANCSA lands by 
using a new approach which brings people together to address a problem 
that has taken too long to solve. We are actively working with our 
federal partners to find common ground and to identify joint equities 
to bring our collective resources and expertise to bear on this issue 
along with our state partners. Accordingly, we at EPA commit our 
eligible resources to support accelerated assessment and cleanup 
efforts. We recognize that informed decisionmaking and effective 
coordination at all levels of government is critical to the cleanup 
progress, and we are committed to using a whole of government approach 
to move this issue forward. Today, I join my colleagues at EPA and 
across the Biden-Harris Administration in a commitment to prioritize 
addressing the continued threats to human health and the environment 
from contaminated lands that overburden native villages and tribes. 
Through our partnerships, we can achieve our goal of a cleaner, 
healthier, and more equitable Nation where all people have equal access 
to safe and clean communities.
Background and Challenges
    EPA recognizes that the conveyance of contaminated lands to the 
Alaska Native Corporations under ANCSA is a significant concern to the 
Alaska Native Corporations and Alaska Natives interested in using these 
lands for beneficial use. EPA further acknowledges the significant 
concerns raised by federally recognized tribes, corporations, 
communities, and stakeholders regarding the slow pace of progress to 
reach resolution on this important issue.
    Alaska Natives have long been impacted by contamination where they 
eat, work, and play. Here in Unalaska for example, we know that federal 
operations in the last century left a legacy of contamination such as: 
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) leaks from transformers, contaminated 
soils in underground tank farms, and heavy metal and asbestos in 
abandoned structures.
    Further, we recognize that ANCSA lands present unique challenges 
that must be considered as we develop a coordinated approach to address 
contamination. The remote locations, limited transportation options, 
equipment availability and movement, and the sheer vastness of the 
state make site assessment and cleanup more challenging than other 
parts of the country. The approaches used in the past by federal and 
state agencies to track these lands have also made it difficult to 
develop a collective understanding of the universe of sites, to 
prioritize them, and to communicate effectively across stakeholders. 
EPA is committed to building a framework with our partners to address 
this legacy contamination as we recognize it is more important than 
ever to address the needs of a region with increased vulnerability to 
the impacts of climate change. Assessment and cleanup of contamination 
on ANCSA lands is critical to increasing the resiliency of these 
communities and the region.
EPA's Ongoing Efforts
    EPA is currently using our available authorities, including our 
Brownfields program, to support Alaska Native communities in addressing 
contaminated ANCSA lands. The state of Alaska receives a sizable 
allocation of the funding under our CERCLA 128(a) authority to maintain 
their State Response Program and provide site-specific assessments and 
cleanups. Our partners at the Alaska Department of Environmental 
Conservation (ADEC) are working to establish and update the database of 
contaminated sites and to conduct Phase I and Phase II Environmental 
Site Assessments to support data gathering efforts across the State.
    Targeted Brownfields Assessments, for example, are a unique and 
flexible tool for communities to begin the process of addressing 
contaminated lands. These assessments are non-competitive, EPA-led 
opportunities provided at no charge to communities. To date, 21 tribes 
and tribal consortia in Alaska receive direct funding under CERCLA 
128(a) for building Tribal Response Programs and their capacity to 
address ANCSA sites. Alaskan communities have successfully applied for 
Brownfields competitive grants for assessment and cleanup with recent 
grants to the City of Unalaska, Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed 
Council, Kawerak, Inc., and the Municipality of Anchorage. Alaskan 
villages may also benefit from our Brownfields technical assistance to 
communities, planning and redevelopment opportunities, and the 
Brownfields Job Training Program.
    Also operating under CERCLA authority, EPA's Pacific Northwest 
Regional office recently expanded its existing Cooperative Agreement 
with the state of Alaska with a specific focus on ANCSA work, including 
work on the site inventory and other preliminary assessments under 
Superfund. This builds on EPA's previous work to evaluate sites for 
CERCLA cleanups by the Region's Superfund Site Assessment program.
Participation on the Arctic Executive Steering Committee (AESC)
    In June 2022, I joined senior federal officials with the White 
House Arctic Executive Steering Committee (AESC) in Alaska to launch an 
initiative on ANCSA contaminated lands. This effort utilizes a 
collaborative approach across the federal family to leverage collective 
resources and expedite progress to clean up contaminated sites in 
service to the Biden-Harris administration's commitment to addressing 
environmental justice. In my role at EPA, I am co-leading the ANCSA 
Contaminated Lands Initiative in partnership with the Department of the 
Interior and Department of Defense with the support of the Department 
of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and 
others. The initiative strengthens collaboration between the federal 
government, the state of Alaska, Alaska Native Corporations, tribes, 
and Alaska Native Organizations to improve data and transparency and 
initiate and prioritize cleanup of those contaminated sites that have 
not been addressed. EPA, along with our federal partners, is working to 
identify how best to leverage our Agency's available authorities and 
tools to enhance this effort.
    The ANCSA Contaminated Lands Initiative under AESC leadership has 
four main components: (1) enhanced collaboration between federal, 
state, Alaska Native tribes and Alaska Native Corporations; (2) a focus 
on data assessment and verification to develop inventory and identify 
scope of contamination; (3) identification of eligibility and 
prioritization of cleanup; and (4) an effort to move forward with 
assessments and cleanup activities based on the information gathered.
    The critical first step is consolidating the information from 
different databases. EPA stands ready to assist ADEC in developing and 
managing an enhanced site inventory, or ``the Dashboard,'' under a 
pending Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between federal and state 
partners. Further, EPA acknowledges that the Congressionally Directed 
Projects in the Explanatory Statement of the Senate FY 2023 
Appropriations Bill sites could also support this effort and those that 
will ensure that Alaska Native tribes and tribal organizations, 
including the ANCSA Regional Corporations, are involved both in 
assuring the accuracy of the inventory and in taking action to assess 
and cleanup listed sites.
EPA's Authorities and Programs
    EPA continues to evaluate how our existing authorities and 
resources can be used to expand our efforts to address ANCSA 
contaminated lands. Evaluation of eligibility and funding options under 
CERCLA's Superfund and Brownfields programs is a top priority. EPA 
could leverage additional resources and programs. For instance, the 
Congressionally Directed Projects in the Explanatory Statement of the 
Senate FY 2023 Appropriations Bill are to directly support the capacity 
of Alaskan Native Villages and Alaskan Native Corporations to 
meaningfully engage and collaborate with ADEC and other partners 
through use of our environmental justice collaborative problem-solving 
cooperative agreements. These collaborative efforts would further the 
work EPA is currently undertaking and enhance future clean-up efforts 
as well as potentially identify community-driven methods of more 
immediately addressing the public health threats of concern to the 
communities.
    While EPA's authorities under CERCLA might be the most useful tool 
for orphan sites in the ANCSA inventory, it is important to note that 
EPA has additional authorities for land-related cleanups. Under CERCLA, 
EPA oversees cleanup efforts undertaken by our federal partners at 
ANCSA sites where they are the lead agency and the site is on the 
National Priorities List. Further, for sites that meet the eligibility 
requirements for leaking underground storage tanks, EPA stands ready to 
provide assistance, in coordination with ADEC. Sites on ANCSA lands may 
also be eligible for closure and post-closure care, as well as 
enforcement actions, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. 
In addition to work eligible under EPA's authorities, we are poised to 
provide critical technical expertise and leadership for our partners in 
their site assessment and cleanup efforts.
    It is worth noting that the Agency's existing authorities have 
inherent limitations for work in this space. Grants under EPA's 
Brownfields Program must be awarded to communities, local governments, 
and non-profits on a competitive basis; EPA recognizes that not all 
ANCSA sites will meet the definition and eligibility requirements under 
this program. Further, CERCLA also has a petroleum exemption.
Next Steps
    In the coming months, in addition to co-signing the MOU for the 
public facing dashboard, EPA will continue to lead through our role on 
the AESC to improve the quality and pace of addressing ANCSA 
contaminated lands. Additional EPA support, including the addition of a 
new ANCSA Contaminated Sites Program Manager, is expected to be 
available beginning this fall.
    EPA looks forward to engaging directly with Alaska Native partners 
and communities most affected by the legacy contamination. Leveraging 
EPA's relationships with existing groups, like the Alaskan Native 
Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC): Tribal Lands Partnership Group, is 
key to progress. Further, EPA intends to participate in the meeting of 
Alaska Federation of Natives in October of this year to report on the 
work that we are doing. Through frequent and effective communication 
with these and other established networks, EPA will continue to 
coordinate policy proposals and whole of government strategies to 
advance cleanup efforts and produce faster and greater results.
Conclusion
    EPA recognizes that Native Villages and tribes have waited decades 
for cleanup to occur and seek immediate action to address the failures 
of the past. I am here today to acknowledge that the time is now to 
demonstrate our commitment to progress. While EPA is already engaged on 
these critical issues, we know that additional opportunities exist to 
lend our expertise and to enhance our relationships with the Alaska 
Native partners, the state, and within the federal family to prioritize 
and expedite progress in resolving this decades-long issue. Thank you 
for the opportunity to testify today, and I look forward to our 
discussion on this important topic.

    Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Dr. Waterhouse.
    Next, let's turn to Lara Beasley.

        STATEMENT OF LARA BEASLEY, CHIEF, ENVIRONMENTAL 
 DIVISION, U.S. ARMY CORPS ENGINEERS; ACCOMPANIED BY, COLONEL 
  DAMON A. DELAROSA, COMMANDER, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS, 
                        ALASKA DISTRICT

    Ms. Beasley. Vice Chairman Murkowski, I am Lara Beasley, 
Environmental Division Chief for the U.S. Army Corps of 
Engineers. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you 
today to address the Corps' activities on behalf of the 
Department of Defense in cleaning up contaminated lands that 
were transferred under ANCSA.
    The Corps supports the DOD's commitment to protecting our 
environment and preserving resources for future generations. 
Throughout our Nation's history, the DOD has used lands across 
the United States. When this land was no longer needed for 
these activities, the DOD cleaned up the land using the best 
available practices and returned the land to private or public 
use.
    Today, the DOD continues the environmental cleanup of its 
current and former lands. The Corps executes two programs on 
behalf of the DOD to clean up hazardous substances, pollutants, 
contaminants, including military munitions and debris that were 
the result of DOD activities on Alaska Native lands. These 
programs are the Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation 
Program, referred to as NALEMP, and the Formerly Used Defense 
Sites, or FUDS program.
    In recognition of the Federal-tribal trust responsibility, 
NALEMP specifically focuses on the effects of past DOD 
activities on traditional ways of life. This includes the 
ability of tribes to safely conduct activities for subsistence 
or to access sites for cultural or religious purposes. Under 
NALEMP, funds are provided to participating federally-
recognized tribes under cooperative agreements to carry out 
environmental mitigation projects that are proposed and 
prioritized by the tribes.
    Since 1993, the DOD has invested over $100 million in 
cooperative agreements with Alaska Native tribes, including $30 
million in the last five years, the highest funding commitment 
to a single State. The scope and magnitude of the FUDS program 
in Alaska is significant. FUDS are properties that were 
formerly owned by, leased to, or otherwise possessed by the 
United States under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of 
Defense.
    Alaska has the greatest number of eligible FUDS in the 
Country, with more than 500 properties. Many of these 
properties are on Alaska Native lands, including lands 
transferred under ANCSA. Since 1984, the DOD has invested over 
$1 billion in cleanup of FUDS in Alaska. This includes over 
$200 million over the last five years, more funding than any 
other State in the Country. In Fiscal Year 2022, the Corps 
plans to execute approximately 15 percent of the FUDS 
appropriation on sites in Alaska.
    Senator Murkowski, Colonel Damon Delarosa, Commander and 
District Engineer for our Alaska District, has prepared oral 
testimony as well to share local examples of how the Corps is 
supporting DOD's commitment to protecting our environment and 
restoring sites contaminated by past military activities on 
ANCSA lands.
    Senator Murkowski. Colonel Delarosa.
    Colonel Delarosa. Thank you, ma'am. Good afternoon, Senator 
Murkowski and distinguished members of the Committee. I am 
Colonel Damon Delarosa.
    The Alaska District is very busy right now, largely in part 
due to your efforts, ma'am, so thank you. I would also like to 
say thank you to the Unangan people who we respectfully 
acknowledge you as the original people of this land. We are 
grateful to be specifically discussing your ancestral homeland 
and are thankful that you have welcomed us among you today.
    Thank you, Senator, for an opportunity to discuss 
contaminated ANCSA lands. The Alaska District provides critical 
support, executing a significant amount of work for the FUDS 
and NALEMP programs within the State of Alaska, as you heard 
Ms. Beasley say. The success of the FUDS and NALEMP programs is 
a credit to the extraordinary individuals at the staff level 
and interagency cooperation in Alaska. The Corps values these 
partnerships that improve consultation, communication, 
coordination, and cooperation.
    Through a chartered partnership of the State and Federal 
agencies in Alaska known as the Statement of Cooperation, and 
through the Arctic Executive Steering Committee, the Corps is 
working side by side with numerous Federal and State agencies 
with the tribes, Alaska Native Corporations and others to 
foster a collaborative approach and leverage our collective 
resources to expedite the process to clean up ANCSA 
contaminated lands. These partnerships include EPA, DOI, DOE, 
NOAA, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, 
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, and others.
    I have an Unalaska cleanup example to share with you at the 
site known as the Amaknak FUDS Unalaska Valley. The Department 
of Defense's use of Amaknak Island and Unalaska Island was 
expansive. After the June 1942 Japanese bombing of Amaknak, the 
Army moved to disperse its housing on Unalaska Island to areas 
such as Unalaska Valley.
    Following the passage of ANCSA, the Aleut Corporation 
obtained subsurface rights and the Unalaska Corporation 
obtained surface ownership in this area. The Corps has already 
conducted extensive cleanup of Unalaska over the last 40 years. 
However, in 2019, the community expressed overwhelming support 
to form a restoration advisory board, or RAB. The RAB, 
consisting of many of Unalaska's community leaders, has helped 
develop the priorities for continued cleanup. Several cleanup 
efforts are underway by the Unalaska Corporation Environmental 
Services.
    Senator Murkowski, in closing, we sincerely thank the 
Committee for this opportunity to discuss the Corps' 
environmental cleanup activities on ANCSA contained lands and 
our support for collaboration. The Department of Defense has 
made significant progress cleaning up ANCSA lands, and we will 
continue to advance these efforts.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Beasley and Colonel Delarosa 
follows:]

       Prepared Statement of Lara Beasley, Chief, Environmental 
  Division, U.S. Army Corps Engineers and Colonel Damon A. Delarosa, 
                               Commander
    Vice Chairman Murkowski and distinguished Members of the Committee, 
we appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to address the 
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' activities on behalf of the Department of 
Defense (DoD) in cleaning up Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act 
(ANCSA) Contaminated Lands.
Overview
    The Army Corps of Engineers supports DoD's commitment to protect 
the environment; ensure military readiness; protect the health of 
military and civilian personnel and their families; ensure operations 
do not affect the health or environment of surrounding communities; and 
preserve resources for future generations. Throughout the Nation's 
history, DoD has used land across the United States to train Soldiers, 
Airmen, Sailors and Marines. When this land was no longer needed for 
DoD activities, the Department cleaned up the land using the best 
practices available at that time and returned it to private or public 
uses. Today, DoD is continuing the environmental restoration (or 
cleanup) of its current and former lands.
    The Army Corps of Engineers executes two programs on behalf of the 
DoD to address DoD contamination on Alaska Native lands.
    First, as part of the Defense Environmental Restoration Program, 
DoD through the Army delegated execution responsibility to the Army 
Corps of Engineers for the Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) Program. 
FUDS are properties that were formerly owned by, leased to, or 
otherwise possessed by the United States and under the jurisdiction of 
the Secretary of Defense prior to October 1986. The goal of the FUDS 
Program is to conduct necessary cleanup of contamination on former DoD 
lands resulting from past DoD activities to ensure protection of human 
health and the environment.
    Second, the Army Corps of Engineers executes the Native American 
Lands Environmental Mitigation Program (NALEMP) on behalf of the Deputy 
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment & Energy Resilience. The 
purpose of NALEMP is to mitigate environmental effects of past DoD 
activities on Indian lands and on other locations where the DoD, an 
Indian tribe, and the current land owner agree that such mitigation is 
appropriate.
FUDS Program
    The Army Corps of Engineers and DoD are dedicated to protecting 
human health and the environment by investigating and, if required, 
cleaning up contamination and munitions hazards that may remain on 
these properties. Environmental cleanup at FUDS sites is conducted in 
accordance with the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation 
and Liability Act and includes identifying eligible properties, 
investigating releases on the properties, and addressing releases of 
hazardous substances, pollutants and contaminants, including military 
munitions, that were the result of DoD activities.
    The scope and magnitude of the FUDS Program in Alaska is 
significant, with more than 500 properties, of which many are on Alaska 
Native lands, including those transferred under ANCSA.
    The work performed on FUDS properties in Alaska represents a large 
percentage of the FUDS Program. Since 1984, the DoD has invested over 
$1.0 billion in cleanup of FUDS in Alaska, including over $200 million 
on FUDS in the last five years, the highest funding commitment to a 
single state. In fiscal year (FY) 2022, the Army Corps of Engineers 
plans to execute approximately 15 percent of the FUDS appropriation on 
sites in Alaska.
    The Army Corps of Engineers is committed to achieving the cleanup 
program goals established by DoD and the Army. Coordination with and 
input from our state, local, Tribal, and federal partners is an 
important component of successful attainment of cleanup program goals. 
Teams from Army Corps of Engineers district offices coordinate with 
state environmental offices and the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency (EPA) and provide for meaningful involvement by federally-
recognized Tribes, landowners (including ANCSA corporations), local 
officials, and the public in performing its work. The focus remains on 
continuous improvement in cleanup programs.
NALEMP
    The NALEMP annual appropriation was first drafted in 1993 by 
Senator Ted Stevens (Alaska) and Senator Daniel Inouye (Hawaii). It 
funded a unique and successful partnership between participating 
federally-recognized Tribes and the federal government. After years of 
work under the appropriations process, the program was formally 
codified in Section 2713, Chapter 160 of title 10, United States Code 
in FY 2021.
    The NALEMP has a specific focus on past DoD activities that may 
have had adverse environmental effects on Tribal lands. Congress has 
provided funds annually to mitigate environmental effects to Native 
American lands including those transferred under ANCSA.
    DoD screens sites identified by the Tribes for NALEMP eligibility. 
A unique aspect of NALEMP is that it considers environmental effects to 
life-ways, including the ability of Tribes to safely conduct 
subsistence activities or access sites for cultural or religious 
purposes. Under NALEMP, funds are provided to the Tribes under 
cooperative agreements to carry out environmental mitigation projects 
proposed and prioritized by the Tribes. In addition to completing the 
projects, funding provides for training and technical assistance from 
the Army Corps of Engineers, which helps build capabilities in the 
Tribes to effectively complete the projects.
    The work performed to date in Alaska under NALEMP is also 
significant. Since 1993, DoD has invested over $100 million into 
cooperative agreements with Alaska Native Tribes, including 
approximately $30 million in the last five years, the highest funding 
commitment in a single state.
Cleanup on Alaska Native Lands
    The success of the FUDS Program and NALEMP is a credit to the 
extraordinary individuals at the staff level and the interagency 
cooperation in Alaska. The Army Corps of Engineers partners with 
federal agencies, state agencies, local entities, ANCSA corporations, 
and the Tribes. These partnerships improve consultation, communication, 
coordination, and cooperation resulting in the protection of human 
health and the environment through environmental restoration and 
ensuring compliance with applicable state and federal laws and 
regulations. To assist our partnership with the Alaska Department of 
Environmental Conservation (ADEC), the State of Alaska receives an 
average of over $400,000 per year under the Defense and State 
Memorandum of Agreement (DSMOA) Program. The DSMOA Program provides 
funding to the State of Alaska for requested services such as the 
expedited review of technical documents, site visits, and public 
participation support.
    The Army Corps of Engineers values local community input and 
recognizes the importance of public involvement at FUDS that require 
environmental restoration. Restoration Advisory Boards (RABs) have been 
formed in multiple communities to discuss cleanup issues or concerns 
collaboratively with the Army Corps of Engineers and the state and 
federal regulators. RABs include members from the Tribes, ANCSA 
corporations, and local communities and reflect the diverse interests 
in the communities that are impacted by the cleanup activities.
Arctic Executive Steering Committee ANCSA Contaminated Lands 
        Initiative
    The Department, EPA, and the Department of the Interior (DOI) co-
lead this effort with the support of the Department of Energy, the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and others, to foster a 
collaborative approach across the federal family to leverage collective 
resources and expedite progress to clean up contaminated sites. The 
goals of this initiative are to strengthen collaboration between the 
federal government, the State of Alaska, Alaska Native Corporations, 
Tribes, and Alaska Native Organizations; improve data and transparency 
through the creation of a joint lands inventory; prioritize cleanup of 
contaminated sites; and initiate cleanup of sites that have not yet 
been addressed.
Statement of Cooperation Executive Steering Committee
    The Army Corps of Engineers has been working cooperatively with the 
EPA, ADEC, Alaska Native Corporations, the DOI and other federal 
agencies for years to address contamination on ANCSA-conveyed lands. 
The Army Corps of Engineers is a member of the ``Statement of 
Cooperation Working Group,'' a chartered partnership of state and 
federal agencies in Alaska to evaluate pollution impacts and prevention 
and cleanup of contamination. The charter now includes 13 agencies, and 
a committee for Contaminated ANCSA Lands.
    The Army Corps of Engineers is supporting efforts to refine the DOI 
joint lands inventory, share information on cleanup efforts, develop 
approaches for managing complicated sites, research and categorize 
sites, and identifying ways to better share this information with 
stakeholders. The Army Corps of Engineers also provided FUDS data for 
the Contaminated Site Inventory map, created by the Bureau of Land 
Management (BLM).
Amaknak Island Cleanup Example
    A great example of a cleanup success story is a site in Unalaska 
called ``Amaknak FUDS Unalaska Valley.'' DoD's use of Amaknak Island 
began with the Navy's acquisition of land for a radio station and other 
naval facilities in the 1930s. The Navy constructed a Naval Operating 
Base on Amaknak Island. The Army was ordered to defend the base and 
collocated its facilities on the island. After the June 1942 Japanese 
bombing of Amaknak, the Army moved to disperse its housing on Unalaska 
Island to areas such as Unalaska Valley. In 1947, the last of the posts 
were closed and the land transferred to the BLM. Following the passage 
of ANCSA, the Aleut Corporation obtained subsurface rights and 
Ounalashka Corporation obtained surface ownership of the Unalaska 
Valley in 1974.
    Buildings and debris at the site were removed by the Army Corps of 
Engineers beginning in 1985 and continued into the 1990s. Historical 
information, records, and maps of the area indicated that a number of 
buildings potentially had underground storage tanks (USTs) associated 
with them. From 1997 to 2016, extensive USTs and associated petroleum-
contaminated soil removal actions occurred throughout the Amaknak FUDS 
including the removal of approximately 52,000 cubic yards of 
contaminated soil, over 200 fuel storage tanks, and over 10,000 feet of 
pipeline.
    In the summer of 2019, the Army Corps of Engineers reassessed the 
community's support for the formation of a RAB. This inquiry was met 
with overwhelming support from the community in part due to the tri-
lateral agreement between Ounalashka Corporation, Qawalangin Tribe of 
Unalaska, and the City of Unalaska. The RAB was formed in 2020. Board 
members include many Unalaska community leaders and residents. Between 
2020 and 2022, the RAB has expressed community cleanup priorities; top 
among those priorities is the cleanup of Unalaska Valley. Cleanup of 
seven individual UST sites in Unalaska Valley is underway by Ounalashka 
Corporation Environmental Services, LLC.
    Recently, the ninth Amaknak RAB meeting was held on August 3, 2022. 
The Army Corps of Engineers will build on the success of the Unalaska 
Valley cleanup by next addressing the RAB-identified areas of Little 
South America and Summer Bay-Humpy Cove. Approximately $3.4 million 
over six years is projected to be expended to address these community 
priorities.
Challenges
    Cleanup work in Alaska is logistically challenging. Many Alaska 
FUDS and NALEMP sites are isolated from the Alaskan road system. 
Equipment and workers are often flown and/or barged to the project 
locations with limited infrastructure available to support cleanup 
operations. Additionally, due to the arctic climate, the field season 
is limited. To maximize the field season and minimize mobilization 
costs, investigation work is often done concurrently with removal 
actions. Additionally, large sites under investigation are broken into 
smaller projects with achievable remediation solutions.
Conclusion
    In closing, we sincerely thank the Committee for this opportunity 
to discuss the Army Corps of Engineers environmental cleanup activities 
on ANCSA contaminated lands. We are committed to addressing this 
contamination resulting from past DoD activities in collaboration with 
Alaska Native Tribes and ANCSA corporations, the State of Alaska, and 
other federal agencies.

    Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Colonel.
    Let's go to Commissioner Brune, please.

STATEMENT OF HON. JASON BRUNE, COMMISSIONER, ALASKA DEPARTMENT 
                 OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION

    Mr. Brune. Thank you, Senator Murkowski. I so appreciate 
the champion you have been for this issue over the years. You 
have long acknowledged that this is an issue that needs to be 
dealt with. I am very grateful for your leadership on that.
    We have heard a lot of talk today; we have heard a lot of 
talk over the last few years. Actions speak louder than words. 
In 1990, again in 1995, and once more in 2014, Congress 
instructed the BLM to address this issue. Congress recognized 
that Alaska Natives did in fact receive contaminated lands. 
Again, Congress instructed the BLM to investigate these sites, 
prepare cleanup plans for every contaminated site with express 
timelines to do so. Then, they were to ultimately clean them 
up.
    In the 2016 report to Congress, they passed the buck onto 
DEC with no funding to do this. As Senator Murkowski said in 
her opening comments, if this was any other responsible party, 
they would be the ones on the hook for doing this. The State of 
Alaska has repeatedly requested the bureau of Land Management 
to follow through with Congress' directions. To date, the BLM 
has ignored these directives. They have prepared skeletal 
reports, attempted to foist its duties onto the State, and 
ultimately, they have ignored the plights of the indigenous 
people, the Alaska Native people.
    When I worked for an Alaska Native Corporation, I was the 
chair of the ANCSA resource managers, which was the land 
managers for all of the regional corporations. The number one 
issue that we identified that needed to be addressed was ANCSA 
contaminated sites. We wrote letters to then-President Obama. 
We followed it with letters to President Trump. I left in the 
middle of the Trump Administration to take this position; I am 
honored to work for Governor Dunleavy on this, and Governor 
Dunleavy was adamant that this was an issue we needed to 
address. He wrote a letter to President Biden himself. I wrote 
letters, along with our AG, to the Department of Interior, to 
the Department of Defense and others.
    We actually were really excited that Secretary Haaland, a 
Native American woman, who grew up on the reservations in New 
Mexico, in close proximity to contaminated lands, who 
recognized environmental justice issues need to be dealt with, 
we were so excited thinking that the Department would finally 
do something. Instead, what we got was a letter in response to 
the Governor's letter saying they are merely a real estate 
agent for the Federal Government, and that they have ``no 
authority'' to do any of the things Congress has repeatedly 
directly BLM to do.
    We had an opportunity in Secretary Haaland to practice what 
she was preaching, and this is what we received. It was very 
disappointing.
    So at the end of the day, ultimately the State of Alaska 
had no choice. We had to bring litigation against the 
Department of the Interior, against the Bureau of Land 
Management. We did not want to bring litigation. We have been 
hoping and we have been trying to resolve this. We all 
recognize this is an issue. Ultimately, the force of litigation 
has ultimately brought us together.
    I want to point out something that, Senator, I will make 
sure I include in the record. Forty years ago or so, Tyonek 
Village Corporation received a letter from the U.S. Government. 
It wasn't from the Department of Interior or the Bureau of Land 
Management. It was from the U.S. Government. So if not the BLM, 
who denies responsibility, if not the Department of Interior, 
then who? It is the U.S. Government.
    The Village Corporations don't know the difference, nor 
should they. These contaminated lands from a joint and several 
liability perspective were contaminated when they were owned by 
the Federal Government. The Federal Government, from an 
environmental justice perspective alone, not to mention a legal 
perspective, has a responsibility to clean those lands up and 
clean them up expeditiously.
    What I have heard today is that things were put in place 
like the State of Cooperation. When Carlton Waterhouse was up 
here a few months ago, and I want to give huge kudos to the 
EPA, they have taken the leadership role on this, and I am 
proud to work with them on this. They are trying to address 
this issue. But they are not the landowners. But they are 
trying to convene, through the Arctic Executive Steering 
Committee, an effort to make this issue right. So thank you, 
Carlton, for doing that.
    However, when we talked about the SOC, no one from the 
Department of Interior had ever attended an SOC meeting, no one 
of them knew what had been discussed at the last meeting. Yet 
this is what we are relying on for the effort to try to clean 
these lands up. Actions speak louder than words, and we need 
action, not talk.
    I am excited and I have to give credit also to the 
Department of Defense, they have been a good actor. But at 
current levels of spending, it is going to take upwards of 200 
to 250 years to get these lands cleaned up. That is not 
environmental justice. These things need to get cleaned up and 
now.
    We do not need yet another broken promise to the indigenous 
people of our Country. With that, I look forward to your 
questions, and again, I appreciate your leadership on this, 
Senator.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Brune follows:]

Prepared Statement of Hon. Jason Brune, Commissioner, Alaska Department 
                     of Environmental Conservation
    Congress is very familiar with the problem of contaminated sites on 
Alaska Native lands. It has, on no less than three occasions, 
instructed BLM to investigate the extent of contamination on ANC lands 
and prepare plans to remediate those sites. BLM says it can't. The 
State insists it must. Congress has the ability to end the dispute.
    In 1971, Congress passed the Alaska Native Settlement ACT (ANCSA) 
to create a ``fair and just'' settlement of aboriginal land claims to 
more than 360 million acres of land. Alaska Natives were to receive 44 
million acres as consideration for the rights taken. What Congress did 
not intend in 1971 was to compensate Alaska Natives with dirty land--
that is neither ``fair nor just'' in any sense of the word.
    In 1990, again in 1995, and once more in 2014, Congress recognized 
that Alaska Natives did in fact receive contaminated lands. And it 
instructed BLM to investigate these sites and prepare a clean-up plan 
for every contaminated site with express timelines to do so.
    The State of Alaska has repeatedly requested the BLM to follow 
through. To date, the BLM has ignored Congress' directives. It has 
prepared skeletal reports, attempted to foist its duties onto the 
State, ignored the plights of Alaska Natives, and most recently through 
counsel stated that ``it is merely a real estate agent'' and ``has no 
authority'' to do any of the things Congress has repeatedly directed 
BLM to do.
    Congress should do more than tell the BLM what it has already told 
them. Congress should amend ANCSA to identify clear duties and include 
express remedies to the State and Alaska Native corporations. To this 
end, the State of Alaska has developed conceptual legislative proposals 
that could avoid costly litigation, and put money and resources on the 
ground.
    Specifically, ANCSA should be amended to:

   Expressly recognize that there are contaminated and 
        potentially contaminated sites on ANCSA lands that were 
        contaminated while owned by the United States.

   Identify the Department of the Interior as the agency tasked 
        with characterization and cleanup of federally contaminated 
        sites on ANCSA lands.

   Identify date-certain benchmarks for progress which, if not 
        met, trigger additional exchanges of land to Alaska Natives.

   Identify the trigger for remedial action at any site is a 
        risk factor of 1 x 10-5, including at the site investigation 
        stage.

   Require DOI, or any other federal agency involved, to pay 
        ADEC costs for oversight work.

    The following amendments to CERCLA and RCRA would also provide 
helpful clarification:

   Amend CERCLA to expressly allow state claims against 
        formerly owned or operated federal facilities.

   Amend RCRA to expressly allow citizen suits against formerly 
        owned or operated federal facilities.

   Amend Section 113 to allow suit after a federal delay in 
        performing substantive response actions at a site of more than 
        three years.

    For additional detail on this issue, a record of recent 
correspondence between the State of Alaska and the federal government 
is available at https://dec.alaska.gov/spar/csp/federal/formal-
correspondence/.

    Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Commissioner.
    Mayor Tutiakoff.

 STATEMENT OF HON. VINCENT TUTIAKOFF, MAYOR, CITY OF UNALASKA; 
                CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, UNALASKA 
        CORPORATION; TRADITIONAL CHIEF, QAWALANGIN TRIBE

    Mr. Tutiakoff. Good afternoon, Senator Murkowski, agency 
leaders, and participants. Thank you for the opportunity to 
speak on such an important topic.
    My name is Vincent M. Tutiakoff, Sr., the Mayor of the City 
of Unalaska. I am also Chairman of the Board of the Unalaska 
Corporation, the village corporation, formed under ANCSA. Also, 
I am the Traditional Chief for the Qawalangin Tribe.
    OC received 128,000 acres of land under ANCSA on Unalaska, 
Amaknak, Umnak, and Sedanka Islands. I have lived in Unalaska 
for almost 75 years and have been to several of these areas in 
Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, and also have seen the 
contamination in such villages as Nikolski, Atka, Attu, Shemya, 
Adak, St. Paul, Chernofski, and Fort Glenn on Umnak Island.
    Areas of concern that I have personally encountered, 
growing up in Unalaska, we utilized building materials such as 
windows, doors, siding, plumbing parts, et cetera. While 
retrieving necessary material to keep our homes weatherized, 
many of which were damaged by the military, many of the people 
responded to the area of concern, such as asbestos, lead-based 
paint covered material, PCBs in the ground and in the storage 
buildings left by the military.
    This has been the cause for many of our people getting 
cancer, skin burns, loss of hair, and other sicknesses. Many of 
our people died because of the contaminated watersheds. Fish 
have disappeared from most streams for years after the war. 
Within the last 25 years, some of those fish have returned. 
Birds have starved and been found on beaches across Unalaska 
and Amaknak Island from eating contaminated food. Clam beds 
have been lost to contamination and in some cases are the cause 
of death to the Aleut people.
    When OC is constructing a project and contamination is 
found, then the construction must stop. Remediation must be 
completed before construction can again commence. 
Alternatively, if we clean our lands first, OC risks not being 
reimbursed. We are going through this now with APIA and the 
Head Start Building.
    The OC board, the tribal council and the City of Unalaska 
have formed a trilateral group. The purpose is to bring 
personal concerns and plans for remediation of our lands on 
Amaknak and Unalaska that we as a group identified as World War 
II contamination. We looked for the contamination on property 
owned by these entities. Recently, OC, the Qawalangin Tribe and 
the city have been working together to not only identify and 
prioritize the contaminated sites, but also to move forward 
with the cleanup.
    Mitigation is important in order to address the physical 
and chemical impacts from past military activities to protect 
the health and safety and of the entire community and allow for 
the safe practice of traditional cultural lifestyle.
    The U.S. Department of Defense created the first military 
outpost on Amaknak Island in 1912, and in 1940, the U.S. Navy 
constructed the Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base. During the 
peak military activities in 1942 and 1943, the Navy, Army, and 
Marines had 65,000 personnel in the area, including all 
necessary infrastructure for the troops, such as housing, 
support buildings, power plants, defensive structures that were 
spread all across the island.
    By the late 1950s, the military largely abandoned Unalaska/
Dutch Harbor, leaving behind a great deal of history, along 
with over 100 contaminated sites and millions of dollars in 
remediation costs. Even more than 70 years after the military 
withdrew, OC and the tribe and the community continued to be 
negatively impacted. We were impacted by hazardous materials 
like lead-based paint, asbestos-containing materials, 
munitions, unexploded ordnance, unsafe buildings and 
structures, abandoned equipment, petroleum hydrocarbons from 
underground and aboveground storage tanks, Rommel stakes in the 
thousands, only some have been removed over the past years, 
persistent organic pollutants, such as PCBs.
    Currently, we have a known 51 areas of concern that range 
in size of impacts from single underground storage tanks to 
full military bases. The city recently received a Brownfield 
Assessment grant and OC is in the process of applying for one 
as well. There is no doubt this number will increase 
significantly. These impacted areas represent approximately 
80,000 acres. The Formerly Used Defense Sites program under the 
Army Corps has been working on the island for over 30 years, 
and the Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation program 
for 20 years.
    As we look to the future, we have estimated that at the 
present rate of mitigation, it will take more than 100 years to 
complete the necessary cleanup. The city, the tribe, and 
Ounalashka Corporation have been collaborating to address the 
highest priority sites that have impacted and threatened 
community safety, health, and the environment based on what 
limited available funding we have been able to procure.
    Each impacted area has adversely affected tribal and 
community economic, social, and cultural welfare and limited 
full use of tribal lands and resources. The City, Tribe and the 
Ounalashka Corporation are dedicated to mitigating these 
impacts to restore safe access to tribal lands and create a 
healthier and safer environment for the people, community, and 
future generations. But the Federal Government needs to help 
us. We did not ask for our lands to be contaminated, and we did 
ask them to clean them up. We received the land from the 
Government already contaminated.
    We the Unangan People of Unalaska and other Alaska Native 
groups want to ensure that our native corporations and tribal 
governments be involved in the cleanup our own land. We also 
want to prevent ancient burial sites and artifacts that have 
been disturbed or removed from our communities. Tribal 
sovereignty commands that the tribe and OC dictate such 
actions.
    Qagaasakung to Senator Murkowski and the other participants 
for coming to Unalaska to hear our concerns. Thank you very 
much.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Tutiakoff follows:]

Prepared Statement of Hon. Vincent Tutiakoff, Mayor, City of Unalaska; 
    Chairman of the Board, Unalaska Corporation; Traditional Chief, 
                            Qawalangin Tribe
    Good afternoon, Senator Murkowski, Agency Leads and participants.
    Thank you for this opportunity to speak about such an important 
topic.
    I am Vincent M. Tutiakoff, Mayor of the City of Unalaska, Chairman 
of the Qunalashka Corporation, an Alaska Native Village Corporation 
formed under ANSCA, and Traditional Chief for the Qawalangin Tribe.
    QC received 128,000 acres of land under ANCSA on Unalaska, Amaknak, 
Umnak and Sedanka Islands.
    I have lived in Unalaska for almost 75 years and have been to 
several other areas of Alaska that are also contaminated, including 
Nikolski, Atka, Attu, Shemya, and Adak.
    Areas of concern that I personally have encountered include:

   Growing up in Unalaska we utilized building material, such 
        as windows, doors, siding, plumbing parts, etc. But while 
        retrieving necessary material to keep our homes weatherized, 
        many of the people reported areas of concern--asbestos--lead 
        paint covered material--and PCBs in the ground and in storage 
        buildings left by the military. This has been the cause for 
        many of our people getting cancer, skin burns and loss of hair. 
        Many of our people died because of contaminated water sheds, 
        fish have disappeared from most streams for years after the 
        war. Within the last 25 years some of the fish have returned. 
        Birds have starved and been found on beaches across Unalaska 
        and Amaknak Islands from eating contaminated food. Clam beds 
        have been lost to contamination and in some cases are the cause 
        of death to the Aleut people.

   When QC is constructing a project and contamination is found 
        all construction must stop and remediation must be complete 
        before construction can again commence. Alternatively, if we 
        clean our lands first, QC risks not being reimbursed. We are 
        going through this now with APIA and the Head Start Building.

    The QC Board, Tribal Council, and the City of Unalaska have formed 
a Tri-lateral Group. The purpose is to bring personal concerns and 
plans for remediation of our lands on Amaknak and Unalaska, that we as 
a group identified as WWII contamination. Recently OC, the Qawalangin 
Tribe and the City have been working together to not only identify and 
prioritize the contaminated sites, but also to move forward with the 
clean-up.
    Mitigation is important in order to address the physical and 
chemical impacts from past military activities to protect the health 
and safety of the entire community and allow for the safe practice of 
traditional cultural lifeways.
    The U.S. Department of Defense created the first military outpost 
on Amaknak Island in 1911 and in 1940 the U.S. Navy constructed the 
Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base.
    During the peak military activities in 1942 and 1943, the Navy, 
Army, and Marines had 65,000 personnel in the area, including all 
necessary infrastructure for the troops such as housing, support 
buildings, power plants, and defensive structures that were spread all 
across the island.
    By 1950 the military largely abandoned Unalaska/Dutch Harbor 
leaving behind a great deal of history, along with over 100 
contaminated sites and millions of dollars in remediation costs.
    Even more than 70 years after the military withdraw, OC, the Tribe 
and community continue to be negatively impacted by:

   Hazardous materials like Lead-based paint and asbestos-
        containing materials

   Munitions

   Unexploded ordnances

   Unsafe buildings and structures

   Abandoned equipment

   Petroleum hydrocarbons from underground and aboveground 
        storage tanks

   Rommel stakes--is in the thousands and only some have been 
        removed over the years Persistent organic pollutants such as 
        PCBs

    Currently, we have a known 51 areas of concern (that range in size 
from impacts from single underground storage tanks to full military 
bases). The City recently received a Brownfield Assessment grant and QC 
is in the process of applying for one as well. There is no doubt this 
number will increase significantly These impacted areas represent 
approximately 80,000 acres. The Formerly Used Defense Site program 
under the Army Corp has been working on the island for the past 30 
years and the Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation Program 
for 20 years.
    As we look to the future, we have estimated at the present rate of 
mitigation it will take more than 100 years to complete the necessary 
clean up.
    The City, Tribe and Ounalashka Corporation have been collaborating 
to address the highest priority sites that have impacts that threaten 
community safety, health, and the environment based on what limited 
available funding we have been able to procure.
    Each impacted area has adversely affected Tribal and community 
economic, social, or cultural welfare and limited full use of Tribal 
lands and resources.
    The City, Tribe and the Ounalashka Corporation are dedicated to 
mitigating these impacts to restore safe access to Tribal lands and 
create a healthier and safer environment for its people, community, and 
future generations.
    But the Federal Government needs to help.
    We did not ask for our lands to be contaminated nor did we 
contaminate them ourselves. We received the land from the Government 
already contaminated.
    We the Unangan People of Unalaska and other Alaska Native Groups 
want to ensure that our native corporations be involved in the clean up 
our own land. We also want to prevent ancient burial sites and 
artifacts from being disturbed or removed from our communities. Tribal 
Sovereignty commands that the Tribe and QC dictate such actions.
    Qagaasakung to Senator Murkowski and the other participants for 
coming to Unalaska to hear our concerns.

    Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Vince.
    Hallie Bissett.

STATEMENT OF HALLIE BISSETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALASKA NATIVE 
                VILLAGE CORPORATION ASSOCIATION

    Ms. Bissett. Ent'e Chin'an GoOneenYoo Na'eda. Hello, thank 
you for being here our friends, and especially the Honorable 
Senator Murkowski, for your leadership on this issue. We 
appreciate the opportunity to testify today in one of the most 
affected villages in our State.
    I want to point out, starting with the pledge of 
allegiance, and it just reminded me that Alaska Native people 
historically have been some of the most patriotic in our whole 
entire Country. In fact, we sign up for the Armed Services at a 
higher rate than any other ethnicity in the State, including 
non-Native people.
    Why is that? We fought right alongside our fellow citizens. 
The majority of the people I talk to were just the most proud 
we could have ever been to become part of this great Country 
that we call the United States. We were the last people in the 
United States to be allowed to vote. We at the time the Alaska 
Native Claims Settlement Act passed had been fighting for 100 
years, which was way less time than anybody else in the 
indigenous community had had to fight for their land.
    By the time that we signed the Alaska Native Claims 
Settlement Act in 1971, the Federal Government was no longer 
signing treaties with indigenous people. Instead, we had to 
settle for this kind of negotiated agreement. We did have the 
opportunity to have hindsight, though, we knew that we did not 
want a paternalistic relationship with what we lovingly 
referred to as the Boss Indians Around Department. We wanted to 
own our land, fee simple title.
    So that was kind of the idea behind owning our land and 
being the managers of our own destiny. Self-determination, that 
is what that is called. It is important to realize that from 
1867 to around the 1960s, we were in a terrible era called the 
Termination Era, which is an era that is referred to as Kill 
the Indian, Save the Man. That is the type of thing that was 
going on. Unfortunately, ANCSA contains a little bit of both 
the self-determination and the termination era in that 
document.
    We consider it a living document. We don't consider this 
issue resolved in any way, shape, or form. I am going to 
quickly tell you a little bit about the Alaska Native Claims 
Settlement Act, what is in it, and then we were going to jump 
into contaminated lands and where we need to go.
    We ended up retaining right around 10 percent of what was 
100 percent ours, private land for 10,000 plus years by the 
Alaska Native people in various locations around the States, 
the Country. That is 44 million acres. In fact, we were 
probably arguably the largest landowners in the entire world, 
collectively, because we had 44 million acres of land as a 
people. Which is a big deal, right?
    It is important to point out that we only had five years to 
select those lands. Meanwhile, the State of Alaska continues to 
have as long as they want to select whatever lands they want. 
The gentleman started out by saying, over 44 million acres has 
been transferred. But I want to point out that we have not 
received 100 percent of the ANCSA lands. That has not happened, 
and it has been over 50 years.
    The timeline of contaminated lands, you start in the late 
1980s, early 1990s, Alaska Native people started noticing that 
we were getting, handed over contaminated sites. So the Alaska 
Federation of Natives, AFN, led the issue to Congress and they 
got this 1998 report. In that report, they identified over 600 
sites that needed to be cleaned up. They came up with these six 
really great recommendations, forming a working group, 
cooperative agency agreements, and then plans to clean up the 
lands. There were about six different and really good 
suggestions on what ought to be done on this.
    ANVCA became involved in 2012, when one of our members 
said, whatever happened with this 1998 report? So we started 
asking. In 2014, through the great work of the Senators and our 
Alaska delegation, we were able to get Congress to direct the 
BLM and the DOI to do another report. So that culminated in the 
2016 report that you heard about today. In that report, they 
identified over 1,100 sites that had contaminations on them 
that were ANCSA lands. What it also basically said was that 
1998 report was great, but we didn't do any of those things.
    So yes, there has been some cleanup, there has been some 
sites that have been closed out. But let me talk about those 
really quick. Many of the sites in those reports, as you read 
through the reports, the 2016 report, are referred to as orphan 
sites. My understanding is they are changing that term now. But 
at the time of the 2016 report, an orphan site meant that that 
site was not currently in and had no plan to be in any type of 
cleanup program. Ninety percent of those sites were within two 
miles of a village, poisoning our drinking water and the food 
that we eat.
    In 2018, the Senator mentioned that the legal liabilities 
were lifted. I want to point out really quickly, 1,100 sites, 
we estimate the cleanup cost of those sites to be $60 billion 
and $100 billion, that is with a B. Up until 2018, we were 
actually legally liable to clean those up. Excuse my language, 
but it was like, here is your crap sandwich, and now you are 
going to eat that.
    So we are very grateful that the government was able to 
lift the legal liability. But since that time, since 2018, 
since 2016, have we seen an enormous amount of cleanup? Have we 
had any land swaps? Sir, you mentioned that ANTHC continues to 
have a working group that is meeting. To my knowledge, that 
group has only met twice in 2018 and has had no meetings since 
then.
    We have heard stories of glow in the dark fish, of lakes 
that are--up in in Utqiagvik, there is a lake that was the only 
source of drinking water, completely contaminated. They cannot 
drink out of it. But they had been. They had been for decades, 
before the United States Government came out and started 
putting signs up there that say, ``don't drink this water.''
    In that village and in Unalakleet, same thing. There was an 
Air Force base that was seeping jet fuel down into the water 
that everybody in the village was drinking. High rates of 
Parkinson's. If Unalakleet was here with us, they would tell 
you their entire family has died of that disease. This man was 
tested for a relationship between PCB consumption and 
Parkinson's, because the health officials testing him knew or 
thought. I looked it up, there is no sign of the study I am 
mentioning, he was never told if that was actually the case or 
not, that they were testing him because I thought there was.
    What I can tell you is we didn't have Parkinson's in Alaska 
Native villages before the last 100 years. So we know that 
there is a direct link between these things.
    We have heard stories of the military piling up tanks of 
whatever, barrels of whatever on frozen lakes and then when 
they melt, they will be gone, that problem will be gone. That 
is not to point fingers; we didn't have the same kind of rules 
that we do now around waste disposal that we had back then. In 
this very village, the tribe wants to redo their subsistence. 
There is a stream that leads up to a lake here, and that very 
lake is exactly what I am talking about. The barrels of stuff 
that were piled up on the ice, and then, you can't eat this 
fish, you can't walk your dog up there. There is asbestos. 
Teeny little signs that say ``don't go in there,'' which is 
referred to as institutional controls, which is a high 
percentage of a lot of these closed out sites. Institutional 
controls means, we are just going to watch that area and make 
sure nobody goes in there, put a sign up there and hopefully 
nobody goes in there and drinks the water or eats the food.
    So I just want to point out too that we are proud members 
and citizens of the United States. Under the United States 
Constitution, the Fifth Amendment says that you cannot take 
private property for the public without just compensation. 
Well, I just explained to you, people ask me all the time, what 
is the percentage? According to a recent lawsuit filed by the 
State of Alaska, 17.6 million acres were transferred at least 
partially contaminated to our people.
    Now, some of the village corporations might recognize that 
number, because that is about the size of the land that we have 
received so far, 17 million acres. That is 40 percent of the 
land that we retained, which was less than 10 percent of our 
State. I would like to know what percentage of the Federal 
Government's land is contaminated or Alaska's land is 
contaminated.
    We have heard time and again when we ask for different land 
or for cleanups, the solution has always been, you know what we 
should do, we will do an inventory of the land that is out 
there and we are going to make a plan, and we are going to do 
this interagency cooperative thing. It is frustrating. It is 
not that we don't appreciate it. We do. We appreciate the 
action around this.
    But putting another report out there for us to say, yes, we 
did it, isn't good enough. We need actions. We need actual 
cleanups. You cannot give in exchange, for, let's just talk 
about the money for a minute. We are really proud of ANCSA. We 
were able to hang onto what we could. In the past 50 years, we 
have shared about $3 billion of resource revenue. The Alaska 
Native Corporations are the highest-generating--we are a 
quarter of the GDP right now. We bring in about $16 billion a 
year into the State of Alaska. We have reversed the economic 
model. We go outside the State, we bring the money back home.
    But in that same period of time, the State of Alaska and 
the Federal Government, I would imagine, have collected over 
$200 billion in mineral and resource extraction monies. We got 
a $60 billion to $100 billion contamination liability. Does 
that sound like a good deal?
    I know that none of you were here when this happened. What 
I am asking you, because now that we are aware that this 
happened, I would just ask you that we do something more 
meaningful than putting fences around it and saying don't go in 
there. We were promised self-determination, to get lands that 
were of economic value. Let's talk about that really quickly 
and then I will stop.
    In the past 50 years, if we haven't been able to develop or 
have these lands, or if we were having to remediate everything 
that we dig up for a day care or whatever it is that we are 
trying to do, that is a cost to us. How many economic losses do 
you think there have been over the last 50 years? Buskin Beach, 
where you are going in Kodiak, that site was specifically 
selected so that the village could have a port or a harbor. 
Fifty years of no harbor fees or dock fees to collect. What 
does that look like?
    Again, thank you for inviting us here. I know I am 
passionate about this issue; I am grateful for the increase in 
NALEMP funding which they mentioned was up to $30 million. 
Thirty million dollars, though, for the entire United States, 
this Administration in particular, Commissioner Brune mentioned 
that they have completely kind of, well, we are not responsible 
at all, which is a very different thing when they are trying to 
lead environmental justice. This is easily the largest 
environmental justice in our State. We still have not seen 
anything but some more reports and we are grateful that there 
is currently some money being set aside in the Appropriations 
Bill. We hope we can hang onto that.
    But $30 million split 500 ways in Indian Country is not 
going to get us there. The recent ESHA [phonetically] bill 
established a tribal superfund that completely left Alaska out. 
We can work with tribe or village corporations, no matter how 
it is written. But this particular tribal superfund was written 
with a definition of tribal land that said, under trust 
responsibility of the United States.
    And there are some of those, that is basically Metlakatla, 
in Alaska, there is one place that has that responsibility. 
Like I said, we chose this model, because you will never meet a 
more hard-working person, you guys, even if you are not Native, 
you have been here five, six generations know that you can't 
survive out here without being a hard-working individual.
    So we didn't want to be wards of the State. We wanted to 
work on our own economy. We are legally required to and we 
proudly do provide for the social, economic, and culture of our 
people in perpetuity. We can't do that on contaminated lands. 
So I would ask you to consider the land swaps that we have 
continuously brought to you. We need to have something that is 
actually meaningful, just compensation for the lands we gave 
up, which is 90 percent of our home.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Bissett follows:]

Prepared Statement of Hallie Bissett, Executive Director, Alaska Native 
                    Village Corporation Association
    Honorable Senators and visiting Agency leaders,
    Ent'e Chin'an GooneenYoo Na'eda (Hello, thank you for being here 
our friends) my name is Hallie Bissett, I am Upper Cook Inlet Dena'ina 
Athabascan, Granddaughter of Nick Nicolai, last Traditional Chief of 
Sunshine Village or what is now called Talkeetna and Daughter of Ron 
and Debra Bissett, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to our 
beautiful Country here in Alaska. We are grateful to have the Honorable 
members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, their staff, and the 
many agency representatives who have traveled so far to hear from the 
traditional stewards of these lands and our State leadership.
    Often referred to as ``The Last Frontier'' as it relates to our 
membership in the United States, Alaska was one of the last areas of 
the World to experience Western colonization. We are here today to 
discuss what has happened since that time, and we are seeking your 
support for a long-awaited remedy to easily the greatest perpetual 
environmental injustice in our State.
    I will be speaking today of the issue of Alaska Native Claims 
Settlement Act (ANCSA) Contaminated Lands. Lands that were transferred 
as part of a settlement to the indigenous people of Alaska as 
compensation for giving up title to nearly 90 percent of our homelands. 
While my oral testimony will be limited, I am providing this written 
statement to supplement.
Introduction
    I am Dena'ina Athabascan, a shareholder and former board members of 
Cook Inlet Regional Inc. (CIRI) the regional corporation that was 
created in the most populated area of the State at the time ANCSA 
passed. I am a current member of the Knik tribe, though my heritage is 
closely tied to both Montana Creek and Chickaloon Tribes in the 
beautiful Interior of Alaska. My ancestors and those of my fellow 
Alaska Natives have called this place Home for tens of thousands of 
years.
    I am here before your committee as the Executive Director of the 
Alaska Native Village Corporation Association (ANVCA). ANVCA is a 
State-wide organization that represents the 177 Village Corporations 
that were created by Congress over 50 years ago. Each of these entites 
represent over 250 Alaska Native Villages and a shareholder base of 
over 140,000 individuals and their families.
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
    A departure from status quo, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement 
Act (ANCSA) served as the modern day Indian Treaty between Alaska 
Native People and The United States. It is important first to 
understand the moment in time that ANCSA was passed in 1971 was long 
after Congress had discontinued signing Treaties with Native Nations in 
1867. At that time the United States entered the unfortunate ``Indian 
Termination Era'' marked by forced adoptions as well as indigenous 
children being forcibly removed from their homes and sent to boarding 
schools, all in an attempt to ``Kill the Indian and Save the Man''. 
Beginning in the 1960s, United States made a positive turn towards a 
new era referred to as the ``Indian Self Determination Era''. It is 
important to remember this because ANCSA straddles both markedly 
different Indian policy approaches ANCSA includes elements of both. The 
Act was supposed to settle long standing land claims that dated back 
over one hundred years, beginning with the sale of Alaska to the United 
States from Russia and accelerating with the passage of the Alaska 
Statehood Act (1958) and a significant discovery of Oil deposits on 
Alaska's North Slope.
    In the late 1960s Aboriginal title was still left unsettled, as the 
State and Federal Government began selecting lands during this 
timeframe, Alaska Native people united and filed claims to 100 percent 
of Alaska, working together through a newly established Native News 
outlet the Tundra Times, our people were informed of the movement to 
advocate for our lands.
    Then Secretary of Department of Interior Stewart Udall responded by 
instituting a ``Land Freeze'' and halted State and Federal selections 
until an agreement was reached with Alaska Natives. As the State and 
Federal Government were attempting to build a pipeline over 1000 miles 
to transport crude oil they were incentivized to settle as quickly as 
possible.
    While negotiations were tense at times, they did reach a final 
agreement that was signed on December 18, 1971. The Act created 12 in-
State Regional Corporations, and over 250 Village Corporations each 
charge with providing for their people's economic social and cultural 
wellbeing in perpetuity. This agreement provided Alaska Native people 
with 44 million acres of land split Regional and village Corporations 
the main difference being Regional Corporations has title to subsurface 
estate and villages surface estate. In addition, a one-time cash 
payment of $962.5 million. We owned our land fee simple title, a very 
different model than the reservation system that we had by then learned 
do much about.
    Alaska Native people were able to retain close to 10 percent of 
their lands, selected in what many feel was a rushed 5-year period. 
These lands were selected from areas that the Federal Government 
provided to us, that were not yet selected by the State and Federal 
Government. It is important to point out that the State has an 
indefinite timeline to select their lands, and that over 50 year later, 
we still have not received full title to the lands in our agreement.
Contaminated Lands
    There are over 1,100 known contaminated sites on land conveyed to 
Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) and additional sites on land pending 
conveyance. These sites were contaminated under ownership and/or 
responsibility of the federal government and then transferred to Native 
ownership. In the 1980s Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental 
Response Compensations and Liability Act (CERCLA) and in that Act, 
transferred he liability of that contamination to our people.
    The Alaska Federation of Native immediately began advocating to 
Congress that we were being given contaminated lands, which prompted an 
investigation and report out from Congress. In 1998 the Department of 
the Interior issued a report to Congress, entitled Report to Congress 
Hazardous Substance Contamination 1998.
    ANVCA became involved when this report was brought to our attention 
in 2012 by one of our member Alaska Native Village Corporations. Since 
2012, ANVCA has worked to educate Alaska's Federal delegation, the 
State Legislature, members of Congress, and others to keep the issue in 
the forefront. In 2014, Congress asked for an update to the 1998 
report, to identify the status of each site, for example, if any 
remediation had been done, and recommendations going forward. In June 
of 2016 the update was released, 2016 Update Report to Congress--
Hazardous Substance Contamination of Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act 
Lands in Alaska.
    The 2016 report identified over 1100 sites that were transferred 
contaminated and listed them in various stage of ``clean-up'' and again 
recommended action items to remedy the problem and begin clean-up but 
also brought to light that very little action had been taken since 
1998.Many of these sites were in a status identified as ``orphan 
sites'' and ``Institutional control'' the first meaning that there was 
no plan or program identifies to clean them up the second meaning they 
had decided it could not be cleaned and would essentially be off-
limits. 90 percent of these abandoned waste sites are within two miles 
of a village, contaminating our drinking water and subsistence foods.
    According to a recent legal filing from the State of Alaska, 17.6 
million acres of land was transferred at least partially contaminated. 
This equals 40 percent of the lands that Alaska Native received. The 
estimated clean-up costs range from between $60-$100 billion. In 
addition, our people have been held back from possible revenue 
generating opportunities because of this contamination, in one instance 
a valuable property was selected for a possible harbor port, and after 
decade of clean-up came to learn it was not possible to clean.
    Contaminated sites contain a variety of toxic materials including:

   Arsenic
   Solvents
   PCBs
   Asbestos
   Mining Waste
   Chemicals
   Mercury
   Toxic Metals
   Unexploded Ordinances
   Petroleum & Oil waste

    Few studies have been conducted on the health and safety impacts of 
the contamination on human health, however anecdotally villages report 
higher rates of cancer and other illnesses linked to hazardous 
substances like Parkinson's disease. Many of the rural contaminated 
sites are Villages which practice subsistence lifestyles there has been 
only limited research on the contaminants impacts to fish, berries, and 
wildlife in these areas.
    We have heard stories of fish that glow in the dark, or salmon that 
appear to have grey squishy material that our Elder bury and hope not 
to see again. One Elder reported that he had been part of a study to 
determine if PCB exposure had caused his Parkinson's, but he was never 
provided with the results.
    In 2017, CERCLA was amended by Congress to lift the legal liability 
for contamination that was caused by the Federal Government for ANCSA 
lands specifically, but we have seen little action to clean these sites 
since that time. While this was a huge step in the right direction, the 
result has left agencies and others pointing fingers at each other for 
liability and clean-up.
    In 2022, the Biden Administration came to visit our State to hear 
from our people about the issue. The remedy provided was to fund 
another effort to gather data on the lands status and provide a plan 
for remediation and clean-up. While we are grateful for the opportunity 
to identify the remaining lands that perhaps were left unaccounted for 
prior to liability being lifted, we are wondering how a report of the 
issue with no follow-up action can be offered again as a remedy to the 
situation. Currently there is money appropriated for Alaska Clean-ups 
of $11 million, when the sites require billions to remediate. While we 
were left out of recent legislation that created a Tribal Superfund for 
clean-up funds that utilized a definition that left Alaska tribes and 
ANCSA corporations Ineligible.
    The United States Constitution under the 5th amendment provides 
that private property cannot be taken for public use without just 
compensation. While our people signed our rights away, they did so with 
the promise of economic prosperity and self-determination. Instead, we 
have been largely unable to develop even simple projects and that 
equates to losses over a 50-year period that far outweigh the money and 
lands received. We have watched as EPA and other agencies have 
rewritten policies absolve themselves of responsibility to Alaska 
Native Corporation lands that were contaminated by the Federal 
Government.
    To be clear, we do not view the receipt of contaminated lands as 
just compensation, likewise we do not believe continuing to write 
reports will result in the situation being resolved. Below are some of 
ANVCA membership developed solutions that we respectfully submit for 
your consideration to remedy the situation:

   Swap undesirable ANCSA lands with unencumbered federal 
        property. See sample language. See language in appendix

   Prioritize the clean-up of ANCSA contaminated lands in 
        existing FUDS program

   Complete ANCSA Contaminated site database--provide ANVCA, 
        Alaska DEC, and ANTHC with needed resources

   Include ANC lands in EPA Tribal clean up superfund--or 
        create $1billion in Alaska specific clean-up

   Provide adequate funding for Brownfields program, NALEMP, 
        FUDS, etc.

   Adopt mitigation clean-up credits and tax credits for clean-
        up activities on ANCSA lands. See sample language in appendix.

   Require a minimum of bi-annual agency reporting on the 
        status of clean-up on ANCSA lands.

   Provide Native contractor preference for clean-up on Native 
        land.

    Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this committee on 
this issue, we are hopeful that a real remedy, and not just another 
report to put on the shelf can be developed by working together to 
correct this injustice. None of us at the table were part of the 
problem, it is not your fault, but we are asking you to be a part of 
the solution, surely the intent was not to provide contaminated sites 
that result in a negative value.

    APPENDIX

    OTHER MATERIALS WITH WEB LINKS

   Report to Congress Hazardous Substance Contamination 1998

   2016 Update Report to Congress-- Hazardous Substance 
        Contamination of Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act Lands in 
        Alaska .

   WATCH testimony from Afognak Board member Sarah Lukin to 
        Senate Environment and Public Works Committee HERE

    LAND SWAP LANGUAGE

    (a) Title 43, United States Code, is amended to insert section 
1601(a), as follows:

    `` 1601(a) Further Congressional findings and purpose

    ``(a) FINDINGS.--The Congress finds that--

    ``(1) Access to a healthy environment free from contaminants is 
critical for the economic, social, and cultural self-determination of 
Alaska Native communities.

    ``(2) Alaska Natives face continued obstacles in their access to 
healthy environments, resulting in ongoing economic, social, and 
cultural instability.

    ``(3) In 1998, the U.S. Department of the Interior reported to 
Congress that the United States conveyed numerous contaminated lands to 
Alaska Native Corporations pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims 
Settlement Act for the settlement of aboriginal land claims. The 
findings of the Department of the Interior's 1998 Report to Congress: 
Hazardous Substance Contamination of Alaska Native Claims Settlement 
Act Lands in Alaska are hereby recognized.

    ``(4) In 2016, the U.S. Department of the Interior reported to 
Congress that 920 contaminated land sites were conveyed to Alaska 
Native Corporations under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. At 
least 338 of those land sites required additional cleanup. The full 
number of currently contaminated lands conveyed pursuant to Alaska 
Native Claims Settlement Act is unknown. The findings of the Department 
of the Interior's 2016 Updated Report to Congress: Hazardous Substance 
Contamination of Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Lands in Alaska 
are hereby recognized.

    ``(5) It is not, and was never, the intent of Congress to convey 
contaminated lands, or lands with the risk of contamination, to Alaska 
Native Corporations for the settlement of aboriginal land claims.

    ``(6) There is an immediate need to address the environmental and 
health risks to Alaska Natives presented by the United States' 
conveyance of contaminated lands, and lands at risk for contamination, 
to Alaska Native Corporations. This should be done rapidly, with 
certainty, without litigation, and in conformity with the real 
economic, social, and cultural needs of Alaska Natives.

    ``(7) Permitting Alaska Native Corporations to exchange lands 
conveyed pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, 
regardless of existing proof of contamination, for other, non-
contaminated federal lands for lands will promote the welfare Alaska 
Natives and their communities.

    ``(8) Alaskan Native Corporations have successfully assisted Alaska 
Natives by supporting the preservation of traditional Alaskan Native 
lifestyles, while providing for the economic needs of Alaskan Natives. 
In support of Alaska Native self-determination, Alaska Native 
Corporations must be full partners in the implementation of this 
Chapter and in the exchange of lands conveyed pursuant to the Alaska 
Native Claims Settlement Act.''

    Report and Recommendations for Identification of Land Swaps

    (a) Title 43, United States Code, is amended to insert section 
1629(i), as follows:

    `` 1629(i) Federal Land Swap Reports and Recommendations

    ``(a) As used in this section the term ``contaminant'' means a 
hazardous substance harmful to public health or the environment, 
including friable asbestos.

    ``(b) Within 6 months of January 1, 2019, and after consultation 
with the Secretary of Agriculture, State of Alaska, and appropriate 
Alaska Native Corporations and organizations, the Secretary shall 
submit to the Committee on Resources of the House of Representatives 
and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate, a 
report addressing issues presented by the presence of contaminants on 
lands conveyed or prioritized for conveyance to such corporations 
pursuant to this chapter. Such report shall consist of--

    ``(1) existing information concerning the nature and types of 
contaminants present on such lands prior to conveyance to Alaska Native 
Corporations.

    ``(2) existing information identifying to the extent practicable 
the existence and availability of potentially responsible parties for 
the removal or remediation of the effects of such contaminants.

    ``(3) identification of existing remedies.

    ``(4) recommendations for any additional legislation that the 
Secretary concludes is necessary to remedy the problem of contaminants 
on the lands; and

    ``(5) in addition to the identification of contaminants, 
identification of structures known to have asbestos present and 
recommendations to inform Native landowners on the containment of 
asbestos.

    ``(b) Within 6 months of January 1, 2019, and after consultation 
with the Secretary of Agriculture, State of Alaska, and appropriate 
Alaska Native Corporations and organizations, the Secretary shall 
submit to the Committee on Resources of the House of Representatives 
and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate, a 
report recommending options for implementing an exchange of lands 
conveyed to Alaska Native Corporations pursuant to the Alaska Native 
Claims Settlement Act, for available federal lands of equivalent fair 
market value. Such report shall consist of--

    ``(1) identification of existing non-contaminated federal lands 
available for conveyance to Alaska Native Corporations;

    ``(2) identification of lands conveyed to Alaska Native 
Corporations pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and 
that the Alaska Native Corporation desires to exchange for available 
federal lands of equivalent fair market value;

    ``(3) recommendations for legislation that the Secretary concludes 
will facilitate the exchange of lands conveyed pursuant to the Alaska 
Native Claims Settlement Act for available, non-contaminated federal 
lands.''

    MITIGATION BANKING FOR NATIVE ALASKAN BROWNFIELD SITES.

    Section 104(k)(1) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, 
Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (42 U.S.C. 9604(k)(1)) (as 
amended by sections 8 and 9) is amended by inserting after paragraph 
(12) the following:

    ``(13) AUTHORIZATION OF MITIGATION BANKING FOR NATIVE ALASKAN 
BROWNFIELD SITES.--

    ``(A) PURPOSE.--

    ``The purpose of this subpart is to establish standards and 
criteria for the use of all types of compensatory mitigation, including 
on-site and off-site permittee-responsible mitigation, mitigation 
banks, and in-lieu fee mitigation, for the remediation of Native 
Alaskan brownfield sites, and to provide credits for such remediation 
that may be used for the issuance of permits by the U.S. Army Corps of 
Engineers (Corps) pursuant to section 404 of the Clean Water Act (33 
U.S.C. 1344).''

    (B) DEFINITIONS.--

    ``For the purposes of this subpart only, the following terms are 
defined:

    Compensatory mitigation means the restoration (re-establishment or 
rehabilitation), establishment (creation), enhancement, and/or in 
certain circumstances preservation of Native Alaskan brownfield sites 
for the purposes of offsetting unavoidable adverse impacts which remain 
after all appropriate and practicable avoidance and minimization has 
been achieved.
    Mitigation bank means a Native Alaskan brownfield site, or suite of 
Native Alaskan brownfield sites, where resources are remediated 
compensatory mitigation for impacts authorized by Department of the 
Army permits. In general, a mitigation bank sells compensatory 
mitigation credits to permittees whose obligation to provide 
compensatory mitigation is then transferred to the mitigation bank 
sponsor. The operation and use of a mitigation bank are governed by a 
mitigation banking instrument.
    Native Alaskan brownfield site shall mean a brownfield site, as 
defined in this subchapter, owned or operated by Native Alaskan 
Regional Corporations and Native Alaskan Village Corporations, as those 
terms are defined in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (43 U.S.C. 
1601 and following) and the Metlakalta Indian community.
    Credit means a unit of measure (e.g., a functional or areal measure 
or other suitable metric) representing the accrual or attainment of 
remedial functions at a compensatory mitigation site. The measure of 
remedial functions is based on the resources restored, established, 
enhanced, or preserved.

    (C) MITIGATION AND MITIGATION BANKING REGULATIONS.-

    ``(1) To ensure opportunities for participation in Native Alaskan 
brownfield site mitigation banking, the Secretary of the Army, acting 
through the Chief of Engineers, shall issue regulations establishing 
performance standards and criteria for the use, consistent with section 
404 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1344), of on-
site, off-site, and in-lieu fee mitigation and mitigation banking of 
Native Alaskan brownfield sites as compensation for lost wetlands 
functions in permits issued by the Secretary of the Army under such 
section. To the maximum extent practicable, the regulatory standards 
and criteria shall maximize available credits and opportunities for 
mitigation, provide flexibility for regional variations in conditions, 
functions and values, and apply equivalent standards and criteria to 
each type of compensatory mitigation.

    ``(2) Final regulations shall be issued not later than two years 
after the date of the enactment of this Act.

    ``(3) Applicability. This subpart does not alter the circumstances 
under which compensatory mitigation is required.''

    TAX CREDIT FOR NATIVE ALASKAN ENVIRONMENTAL REMEDIATION.

    Subsection (h) of Section 198 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 
is amended--

    (1) by striking the period and inserting a comma followed by:

    ``except as to expenditures paid or incurred in connection with 
qualified contaminated sites owned or operated by Native Alaskan 
Regional Corporations and Native Alaskan Village Corporations, as those 
terms are defined in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (43 U.S.C. 
1601 and following) and the Metlakalta Indian community.''

    Senator Murkowski. Hallie, thank you. We so appreciate that 
and the passion with which you come today.
    In listening, it seems almost obvious that we have a 
Federal view to my left over here, and the State and tribal and 
local view to my right. It wasn't intended to be that way, but 
perhaps for levels of questions back and forth and the back and 
forth, and I would hope that there would be an opportunity for 
some of the issues that have been raised in both areas, for 
people to be able to weigh in and to provide greater clarity 
for the record.
    Let's begin with the questions. I think it is important to 
recognize that we are all talking about matters of 
environmental justice here. I would hope that if there is any 
agreement up here, it is with a recognition that when our 
Native peoples, our indigenous peoples, are provided or given a 
promise by the Federal Government that the very basic promise 
will be kept and that it will be fair. I think we should be 
able to stipulate that it is not fair that the lands that were 
provided to many of our Alaska Native people through the 
conveyance of ANCSA, it is not a fair deal when the lands are 
tainted, when the lands are contaminated, when you cannot 
derive economic value as was promised.
    I want to start with you, Mr. Cohn. There has been a fair 
amount of back and forth here about the role of the Department 
of Interior and the reports that we have seen. I think you can 
fully appreciate that when a report is asked for in 1998, and 
then 20 years later you are still dealing with the fact that 
you just have a report and now we have asked for yet another 
updated report, and then we resolve the issue of liability in 
2018, and then five years later we are here at a field hearing 
to discuss collaboration, that from the perspective of those on 
the ground another report is not the place where anybody wants 
to be.
    In 1998, with that report, the Department of Interior did 
seem to recognize the environmental justice, that when you are 
conveying contaminated lands to settle land claims through 
ANCSA, that this needs to be reconciled. At that time in that 
report, there was a commitment to take a leadership role to 
coordinate the implementation of the report's recommendations 
back then. So that was back in 1998.
    Then in 2016, in the updated report, the BLL takes a 
different view, to the point that the Commissioner raised 
effectively, saying BLM doesn't have a responsibility for any 
aspect of the contaminated lands problem. You reiterated that 
here in your testimony saying that basically your role is the 
transfer of lands, and you have characterized the agency as the 
Federal Government's real estate agent, and basically placing 
any coordinating role with the State of Alaska as well as EPA. 
That has been pointed out, EPA is not the landholder here.
    So I would ask if you would provide to me what you believe 
the responsibility is that the Department and BLM specifically 
have to Alaska Native peoples with regard to the contaminated 
lands. Do you feel that you have no obligation other than what 
you have mentioned? Going forward, you will provide notice that 
these lands are contaminated? Is there no obligation 
effectively with the agency itself as it relates to 
contaminated lands that were conveyed?
    Mr. Cohn. Thank you, Senator, for that question. Speaking 
for myself, I do hear everything that is being said. I really 
do appreciate and understand the injustice that has happened, 
and want to recognize that. I do think it is a situation that 
has developed literally over decades. So I understand the 
frustration and the length of time that this issue continues to 
be a problem for communities, for Alaska Native tribes and for 
the State as a whole.
    When ANCSA was passed in 1971, it was prior to really the 
sort of modern environmental laws that really govern so much of 
what we are talking about today. The role of the BLM in that 
Act was fairly straightforward. It was really to act as the 
agent that would adjudicate land claims, survey those claims, 
and eventually transfer title. We have been doing that, both 
with Alaska Native claims through ANCSA as well as with the 
State of Alaska through the Statehood Act, diligently for the 
last decades.
    At that time, the statute was very clear that it is not a 
discretionary action for the BLM. Our role is to convey those 
lands pursuant to the Act. At the time that the Act was passed, 
it did not contain a measure regarding evaluating those lands 
for contamination. As we know, many of those lands were 
selected in the 1970s. They were done prior to any 
acknowledgement or recognition of the scope of the problem.
    Senator Murkowski. So in 2014 then, with that Congressional 
directive specific to BLM, BLM was effectively told, prepare a 
cleanup plan for each of the contaminated sites that were 
transferred pursuant to ANCSA. So I get what you are saying 
about that period in between 1979, in 1971 with the passage of 
ANCSA, and prior to this directive. But it seems to me that the 
language in 2014 was pretty clear.
    Now, that was not done. That was not included in the 2018 
report. So you have a clear directive, it seems to me, to the 
agency to do this. We haven't seen that. Are you working to do 
that now?
    Mr. Cohn. We have been working through following the 
recommendations and the report, the 2016 report, with the 
primary initial step of really, for the first time, trying to 
have sort of a consolidation of all the information we have 
from various sources through the State, through the other 
Federal agencies, and putting that information into a 
geospatial data base. So actually not only having sort of 
written records or contemporaneous notes about these sites, but 
actually beginning to map them, so that we have some sense of 
what we are dealing with.
    Some of these different data bases and different data 
sources, they don't all agree. They have approached the 
problems differently. So we might have one data base that 
describes one site and another data base that might describe 
the same area with ten sites. So we are trying to reconcile all 
that. Our intention is to finalize that with the most current 
data that we are receiving from the State, then to transfer all 
of that information to the State as a central clearinghouse for 
getting that information out.
    Senator Murkowski. So your plan is to bring together a more 
coherent inventory, and then give that to the State to fix? It 
seems to me that the directive to the BLM was to prepare a 
cleanup plan for each of the contaminated sites. So just 
transferring it to the State, then, doesn't seem to be a very 
fair plan for cleanup.
    Mr. Cohn. I appreciate the question. I think our intention 
here is to provide this information to the State given that the 
State has the authority to basically identify the responsible 
parties and to then work with those----
    Senator Murkowski. We have already identified the 
responsible parties. We have done that. That is what we began 
to do in 1998. That is what we saw with that second report in 
2014 and in 2016. We are not still identifying responsible 
parties.
    Mr. Cohn. I would defer to the State on that issue.
    Senator Murkowski. Are we still identifying responsible 
parties, or are we pointing fingers?
    Mr. Brune. Senator Murkowski, through joint and several 
liability, the Federal Government is a responsible party, full 
stop. There are definitely other responsible parties, but the 
Federal Government, who was a landowner during the time that 
contamination occurred, is a responsible party. I don't know if 
that is Department of Defense, if it is the Bureau of Land 
Management, if it is the FAA or who it is, Senator, but it is 
the U.S. Government.
    And it is the responsibility, I would hope, of someone in 
the Federal Government, to stop pointing fingers, to stop 
saying it is the responsibility of a different Federal agency 
other than themselves, and to put a plan together as instructed 
by Congress to clean up these lands. The responsibility, full 
stop, is the Federal Government, and the indigenous people, the 
Alaska Native people have an expectation that the Federal 
Government will work out who the responsible party is amongst 
themselves, or who may have contaminated the lands when they 
were in the ownership of the Federal Government, then they can 
go after them.
    But through joint and several liability, Senator, the 
United States Government is the responsible party.
    Senator Murkowski. So what we have been asking for, for 
some period of time, is really to have that entity, that 
Federal entity that is the coordinating agency, and I know 
nobody wants it, everybody wants somebody else to take this on. 
But it seems to me that the Department of Interior, that BLM, 
is probably in the best position to act as coordinating agency 
to help to coordinate all of this, to speed this up, to do 
exactly what the Commissioner has just outlined. If there is an 
issue about whether the contamination was caused by military or 
by another Federal agency, to figure out how we prioritize 
additional funding to pay for the cleanups, to provide land 
exchanges as Hallie has suggested, to take back the damaged 
lands, to allow the corporations to gain different lands, 
useful lands, that will again address this longstanding issue.
    It seems to me that that should be one of the outcomes from 
what happens today, is that at a bare minimum here, we get some 
commitment. I would hope the Department of Interior and you as 
the new BLM State director would be willing to make that 
commitment, step up and take on the coordinating agency role 
here with respect to ANCSA contaminated lands.
    We have got to stop saying that we are going to come 
together, we are going to collaborate, we are going to create 
these task forces, interagency working groups. I am all over 
the Arctic Executive Steering Committee. But again, this is not 
an issue that we need to study and study and study. What we 
need to do is we need to have an actionable plan.
    So I would ask if you can commit to me today that the 
Department of Interior, through BLM here in the State, can take 
on this coordinating role.
    Mr. Cohn. Senator, I can certainly take that request back 
to the Department.
    Senator Murkowski. Ms. Reed, can you speak to that?
    Ms. Reed. I think I would have to echo Steve's comment that 
we will take that request back to the Department. But we are 
committed to working with our Federal partners to correct this 
injustice.
    Senator Murkowski. Well, know that I have already asked 
Secretary Haaland on this specific issue, have raised this 
issue with her when she was before the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee, I don't believe that I have raised it at 
an Indian Affairs Committee. But I have suggested that is 
Interior, the Department of Interior, that would play a very 
key and a very important role in terms of a coordinating 
agency.
    So I would like to know that by the end of this week, we 
can get some kind of a determination from Interior as to a 
commitment as a coordinating agency. Because for too long, we 
have had lots of eyes on things. But when nobody is really 
exercising the oversight, it is just too easy to not make 
forward progress. I think that is where we have been with this 
issue. Everyone recognizes there is environmental injustice 
that has been done. Everybody recognizes that this has not been 
just. Everyone recognizes that this is expensive. Nobody wants 
to take it out of their budgets.
    This is where I am going to turn to the EPA and bring you 
into the conversation, Dr. Waterhouse. I want to echo what the 
Commissioner has said. I think EPA has been willing to be a 
partner working with us, certainly through the appropriations 
process, to figure out what more we can do to actually start 
the cleanup. The cleanup is where we want to be.
    I don't want to be sitting here in another hearing to just 
talk about what more we need to be doing on an inventory side. 
I want to know actually what we have been doing to get these 
specific sites cleaned up.
    Let me ask you, Dr. Waterhouse, what does it mean to treat 
the ANCSA contaminated lands issue as an environmental justice 
issue? Is this something where, when you view it through this 
lens and a recognition that there are opportunities, I think, 
for resources, if we viewed these contaminated lands sites 
through the lens of environmental justice and being able to tap 
into different resources there? Talk to me a little bit about 
that.
    Dr. Waterhouse. Thank you so much for the question, 
Senator. One, it means that we need to have an all hands on 
deck approach. It means that we not only as a Federal family 
need to reach across and beyond the silos that we have operated 
in in the past, to be creative, to work with our State 
partners, to work with the tribal corporations, to work with 
the Native villages, to work on this problem.
    It also means we need to have an all-of-EPA approach. What 
we have done is look at the authorities that we have within our 
agency to bring together different funding streams that we can 
put together toward this problem. So it means that we are 
working within our Superfund program to make additional 
resources available for site assessment work.
    We are working within our Brownfields program to make 
additional resources available, to get Brownfields funding and 
grants out to community members. We also are making more 
persons within the Office of Land and Emergency Management 
available to help oversee this work. It means that we are 
working to prioritize this as something that we are dedicated 
and committed to seeing done and seeing it through.
    So, for us, because environmental justice is a priority 
within the Administration, we have prioritized this work. That 
is why we have already made past visits here and have other 
visits planned. We have our staff in Region 10 who are working 
very diligently with us to help oversee this work.
    We are committed, Senator, to work with whatever resources 
Congress provides that support the inventory, assessment, and 
cleanup of contaminated lands. We plan on moving forward as 
quickly as we can. We agree with you that there is an urgency. 
And the urgency is part of our attention to the environmental 
injustice which has been much too long going on.
    Senator Murkowski. So when you talk about a whole-of-
government approach, I agree. I would just ask that through 
BLM, through Interior, that they play a role as the 
coordinating lead. Do you think that is important to how we are 
able to execute a whole-of-government approach?
    Dr. Waterhouse. I think we absolutely have to have 
coordination to move forward. I think the problem of the past, 
Senator, is the fact that we have had multiple agencies 
working, but they are all working on their own tracks. We need 
to work together to be effective to get this done.
    With looking at cleanup work across the Country, I am going 
to very candid with you, Senator, whether we are dealing with 
issues in New Mexico and in Arizona and Colorado and Utah, with 
the Navajo Nation, or whether we are dealing with cleanup 
issues that are taking place in Alabama or in Michigan, I see 
similar problems when we have Federal agencies that aren't 
really working together, and they are working at cross 
purposes. Even if DOI takes the lead as coordinating agency, 
unless everybody is moving in the same direction, we still are 
struggling with the same problem.
    That is why I believe that the Arctic Executive Steering 
Committee work moves beyond just saying, let's get a report 
out. But it means working together to get a unified data base 
and dashboard that is shared between all the Federal agencies 
and our partners on the ground and Native corporations and 
villages that is a public-facing tool that we all can use.
    It is not an end, but it is a necessary step forward. Right 
now, we have different data bases across different agencies. 
Sitting right here at this dais, we don't all agree on exactly 
where all the problems are.
    So until we get that, it is going to be hard for us to get 
solutions.
    Senator Murkowski. So let me ask on that, I think you have 
outlined the importance of making sure that you are 
consolidating the information, that everybody is not using 
different sources there. It kind of goes to what you were 
saying, Steve, about additional inventory.
    Yet, you have an imperative on this end of the table. You 
have people out here that probably had important things to do 
today but they really care about the fact that their drinking 
water could be contaminated, that the berries, the salmon 
berries that are ripe now, or the blueberries that they are 
waiting for might be contaminated.
    Nobody wants to hear that, well, we are doing additional 
consolidation of information and additional inventory, that we 
are not going to be able to see action on the ground. As we do 
this, as we work to build out this coordinated dashboard, does 
this mean that cleanup work is put on hold while we do all 
this?
    Dr. Waterhouse. I think it absolutely can't mean the 
cleanup work. I think we have to, as my boss is fond of saying, 
we have to learn how to fly and kind of build a plane at the 
same time. That is why we are really excited about the 
additional Brownfields funding that is available. We are 
excited about the additional appropriations that have been kind 
of set up for work on the ground. That is why we are excited 
about using additional site assessment work to address orphan 
sites and moving forward as urgently as we can while still 
moving this data base that will be necessary for us to have 
prioritization.
    One of the things is, when you have a big problem, you have 
to figure out exactly what has to be done first. Having the 
data base allows us to then have a prioritization to say, this 
is posing the greatest risk, we need to go there next. This 
site is posing a lower risk, but it is greater than the rest, 
we go there next. Those are essential steps that we have to 
move forward to be successful.
    Senator Murkowski. So let me ask you on the prioritization, 
because it is something that we hear a lot about, I think we 
recognize the longer the FUDS are contaminated, the more we see 
the PCB pollution remain in the food chain, the more we see 
associated health problems, we are seeing increased instances 
of breast cancer amongst Alaska Native women attributed to the 
PCBs from FUDS that we are seeing out in St. Lawrence Island. 
They think that other chronic illnesses could be attributed to 
them as well.
    I understand there is no direct research to support the 
claims that we are hearing out there. But again, we are hearing 
too many of these health-related concerns to not be paying 
attention to them. What active research programs do you have to 
better understand the health effects of the contamination that 
we know exists? How then is that information being used to help 
prioritize the different sites for cleanup? How does that 
factor in?
    Dr. Waterhouse. Right now, because we have literally the 
DOD, it has its important FUDS work that is going forward, its 
cleanup work, we have BLM, which also has its footprint and 
approach to this within DOI, we have work that we are doing for 
assessment and work that we are doing for Brownfields. To be 
honest, as of right now, we all have different work that is 
going on. We don't have a unified approach. So we are directing 
Brownfields and other resources based on what we are hearing 
from people on the ground.
    So when people on the ground are telling us, this is where 
there is a problem, this is where we are trying to say, well, 
let's see what we can do to try and assess that.
    Senator Murkowski. You listen to the stories and the 
anecdotes, you don't necessarily wait and say, well, we want to 
have a study on that?
    Dr. Waterhouse. I don't think so, but we do, under our 
resources, we have to get scientists and engineers out there to 
do sampling and to do investigation. That is what we are doing 
in the Superfund program by making additional site assessment 
resources available. We can inform the use of those resources 
by talking with our partners on the ground, the consortia, 
Native villages and others.
    Senator Murkowski. And you are doing that in many of these 
visits that you are doing in the State, aren't you?
    Dr. Waterhouse. We are having a lot of public engagement, 
and we are trying to meet. Yesterday I was meeting with the 
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. These meetings are 
essential for us to know where we need to direct our resources.
    Senator Murkowski. This is a question for anyone over here, 
Interior, Corps, or EPA. Does the Federal Government have an 
estimate on the cost to investigate and remediate the ANCSA 
contaminated sites? Hallie has suggested in her testimony that 
it is somewhere between $60 billion and $100 billion is what is 
estimated. Can any of you speak to that estimated number and 
give me a gauge here?
    Colonel Delarosa. In looking at the DOD-specific areas, 
obviously there are more contaminated ANCSA lands than just 
what the DOD is looking at, we estimate it to be about $1.65 
billion for the whole State of Alaska, for the DOD FUDS 
program, yes, ma'am.
    Senator Murkowski. What about other lands that we have 
identified that are non-DOD?
    Mr. Cohn. Senator, I will speak a little bit for what BLM 
has been doing. We have mostly in terms of our cleanup work on 
the ground been focused on sites that you could characterize 
mostly as abandoned mines. They were mined previously by 
private entities. Those entities no longer exist or went 
bankrupt and left the State. So we are working to clean up 
sites of that nature.
    It is a limited number of them, and we have cleaned up 
several sites already around the State. Probably the largest 
single site that we are working on right now is the Red Devil 
Mine in the Kuskokwim, which is, it depends upon the final 
cleanup in terms of the final remediation. But the cost could 
range anywhere between $30 million and $200 million for that 
one site. That is probably the longest single site that we are 
trying to address in the State.
    Senator Murkowski. But BLM has not more broadly identified 
cost of remediation throughout the State?
    Mr. Cohn. No, we haven't. We have only been focused 
primarily on the sites where we know the responsible party for 
those sites, or potential responsible party. Again, mostly 
abandoned mine sites.
    Senator Murkowski. Commissioner, do you have a handle on 
what you believe remediation costs may be?
    Mr. Brune. I think it is important to understand the extent 
of the problem. Many of these sites, as you outlined in your 
opening comments, are rural. Getting logistic support to rural 
Alaska is extremely expensive, Senator. To get some drill rigs 
out there, to actually understand, as BLM was instructed to do 
by Congress in 2014 and 2016, to actually understand the extend 
of the problem, we have to get boots on the ground.
    So to make an estimate, Interior needs to do what they were 
instructed to do by Congress already. What Colonel Delarosa was 
saying, the $1.65 billion, that is what we know, prior to the 
liability being removed. I was with the regional corporation at 
the time. Folks were scared to say what they knew was 
contaminated because they might be responsible for it. So I 
think there are a lot more contaminated sites out there than we 
even know about.
    So Hallie's leadership on this effort has been amazing, and 
she deserves huge credit. I think the number is significant. I 
can't tell you what it is, but let me use Red Devil as an 
example. That $30 million to $50 million cost, we had a mine 
project proponent in Donlin ready to clean that area up for 
mitigation. The Corps of Engineers said no and instructed them 
to lock up lands. I was responsible for some of those 
agreements when I was at SERI [phonetically] to lock up lands 
for conservation for mitigation for what Donlin was going to 
do. instead of cleaning up Red Devil and using their expertise.
    That is the part of thing that we should be considering as 
a win-win-win for the environment, for the watershed, and for 
project proponents who want to help areas. That is an 
opportunity where, if the Federal Government is going to be not 
giving the money, you have the private sector willing to do it 
for mitigation. That is an opportunity.
    I think as we are talking about, we can't let a geospatial 
data base or all that discussion get in the way of actually 
getting boots on the ground for doing site delineation, finding 
out the extent of the contamination, and actually doing the 
cleanup. They need to be parallel approaches. We are not seeing 
that. The scale of the funding that we are seeing today is so 
minuscule, it is going to be decades.
    I will conclude with an answer to that: we don't know the 
number. But if, truly, Interior felt that this was a priority, 
they would do what they have done for Ambler Road. They would 
do a brand-new EIS on it even though they don't need to. 
Because that EIS and that ROD was already done. They would 
dedicate money that is being focused on fighting the State to 
navigability cases, when we are trying to get rivers extended 
to us. They would use that money.
    Nope. They are not finding that extra money because it is 
not a priority for them, Senator. I guarantee you if they 
wanted to make it a priority, they would.
    Senator Murkowski. Yes. I don't disagree with you, my 
friend.
    I want to get into this issue of, all right, we recognize 
that it is going to be costly to clean up, so what are some of 
the other proposals. There have been some suggestions here that 
I want to follow up with.
    But before I do that, I want to go over to the Corps for 
just a moment. I asked Dr. Waterhouse a little bit about the 
prioritization, when you have health and safety issues. Can you 
explain to me the prioritization that DOD uses for FUDS 
cleanup? We have over 530 FUDS sites in the States, 196 are on 
Alaska Native lands, and 35 projects here on Unalaska and 20 on 
Amaknak alone. Through DOD, how do you prioritize for FUDS 
cleanup?
    Ms. Beasley. Thank you, Senator, for the opportunity to 
explain that. As I have said, we have a significant problem, a 
significant issue with FUDS in Alaska as well as in the United 
States. So when we prioritize a site for investigation and 
cleanup, we follow a risk-based process. We address sites with 
the highest risk to human health and the environment first. We 
have two different ways of doing that, depending on the type of 
site.
    For sites that are contaminated with hazardous, toxic, and/
or radioactive waste, we use the relative risk site evaluation 
score. Every single site that, HTRW site in the FUDS program 
has a relative risk site evaluation score. For sites that have 
contamination from military munitions, we use the military 
munitions response site prioritization protocol, or MRSPP. 
Every single site in the FUDS inventory that has military 
munitions has been scored for the MRSPP. Those are not only 
scores that we do within the Corps of Engineers and the 
Department of Defense, but we work collaboratively on the data 
that generates that information with our stakeholders, property 
owners, and our regulators.
    The Corps also develops a statewide management action plan 
on a yearly basis with the State of Alaska. Our teams 
coordinate cleanup activities with the State, EPA, and have 
meaningful involvement by our tribes, landowners, including 
ANCSA, corporations, local officials, and the public. Then at 
the very local level, ma'am, we have the restoration advisory 
boards. We are really proud of the very active restoration 
advisory board here on Unalaska that meets quarterly.
    Senator Murkowski. You mentioned the word coordination with 
other agencies. I will urge you to be really focused on that as 
you are working through the various cleanup sites. As most of 
you know, I have been very aggressive over the years in trying 
to get these legacy wells cleaned up on the North Slope. I 
think we have made some progress, and that is good. But it is 
in the category of about damned time we have made some 
progress.
    I have heard different stories about how we are not being 
as efficient as we should be across our Federal agencies. It is 
expensive to mobilize equipment to get up to the North Slope 
for one season. The equipment is relatively specialized. What I 
hear is, we will send it up, it will be up there for the period 
of time that it needs to be, and then it is sent back down, 
goes right back, right across the area where the Department of 
Defense is working on another cleanup that needs the same 
equipment.
    But because one job is related to the legacy well and 
another one is a FUDS site, we are not partnering as we might 
want to, even within our own Federal agencies. The specifics I 
am talking about was a cleanup on Point Lay, this was some 
years ago. But it was just a reminder to me that we could be a 
lot smarter with how we are moving things around and how we are 
saving dollars on some of these cleanup projects.
    Are there issues with regard to permitting that can be 
approved? We are always talking about what we may want to do 
with NEPA exemptions to just facilitate more readily some of 
these projects. Is that something that would be important as 
you try to advance some of these projects on a more expedited 
timeline?
    Colonel Delarosa. The challenges of having two people from 
the same organization over here. Ma'am, obviously when we talk 
about regulatory permitting, it is certainly a big topic. We 
have had a lot of conversations with both yourself and 
Commissioner Brune on this topic itself. The permitting of the 
NEPA piece with regard to getting into the FUDS cleanup, they 
are separate and distinct. So it is not impacting, changes to 
the NEPA process doesn't impact how we go about doing our FUDS 
cleanup.
    Senator Murkowski. Okay.
    Colonel Delarosa. So maybe I don't understand your 
question.
    Senator Murkowski. As we look at those things that we put 
in our way, those barriers to getting the job done, I want to 
know what the barriers are and if we can take some of those 
down. It sounds to me like you are saying at least when it 
comes to NEPA, that is not an issue for you. Maybe there are 
other permitting issues?
    Ms. Beasley. No, ma'am. I really am proud of the work that 
we have done in the State of Alaska. We are a continually 
improving organization. But we are getting work done, and we 
are committed to continuing to clean up these sites. We have 
spent more here than in any other State in the Country.
    Senator Murkowski. Which we appreciate. But again, I think 
we recognize that when you are talking about $30 million over 
the last five years, I appreciate that it is the most for any 
other State. But we know, we can go through $30 million awful 
quick moving stuff around this State.
    So, I don't know, when you were walking me through the 
prioritization, if there is any way that you can prioritize 
ANCSA lands within the FUDS selection process.
    Ms. Beasley. We certainly take all of our environmental 
justice requirements seriously when we do all of this, whether 
it is a relative risk site evaluation or MRSPP, and in our 
discussions with the State of Alaska and the statewide 
management action plan where we do our prioritization.
    Senator Murkowski. So then if we are recognizing that ANCSA 
contaminated lands is an environmental justice issue, we are 
going to try to encourage the Administration to commit to 
utilizing environmental justice funds. So if that is the case, 
can that not be incorporated as yet one of the considerations 
for prioritization when you are looking at FUDS?
    Ms. Beasley. I think that is a great question, and I think 
it deserves a detailed response. But I would say I would like 
to take that question back to the Department of Defense as 
those prioritization protocols, those site evaluations are 
policy from the Department of Defense. I think you deserve a 
detailed response on that, Senator.
    Senator Murkowski. I will await that response, and I would 
encourage you to look at that critically. Again, when I think 
about the matters that we are referring to as environmental 
justice in the political world of Washington, D.C. today, I 
can't think of any example where there has been greater 
injustice done to our indigenous peoples than when it comes to 
our own government's failure to respond to our matters of 
contamination. So I would ask you to take that back.
    I want to raise one very local issue here. This came to my 
attention through the Mayor. This is a site that the Qawalangin 
Tribe razed its Building 551, it is a former Navy mess hall at 
the Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base. It is located within the 
Amaknak and the Unalaska Islands FUDS. It is a World War II era 
building, was a former mess hall. The building and apparently 
the lands are just full of PCB contamination.
    This site was bombed by the Japanese. The site is not 
eligible for remediation under the FUDS program based on the 
high level of PCBs. It was not eligible for work under the 
NALEMP program. But the tribe was actually told that this 
building can't be cleaned up under NALEMP because the impact at 
the site was caused by the Japanese bombing. It superseded the 
DOD being there.
    Now, to me this is one of those things that is like, wow, 
it is hard to fathom why the DOD would not be willing to work 
to address that. So as I understand it, and I am looking to 
you, Mayor, for correction of this, but the burden, both 
financial and health related, is now falling to the tribe and 
to Ounalashka Corporation. So you are undertaking that.
    It just seems to me that this is something that the 
Department of Defense should be willing to work with the tribe 
and the native corporation to address and fix this. I want to 
make sure that I am detailing this correctly, Vince. So it is 
my understanding that you are moving forward to address this, 
because the Department of Defense will not. Is that correct?
    Mr. Tutiakoff. Yes. And this is one of the issues that I 
just don't understand. I worked for BLM early on in the program 
in 1972 when we were doing the land selections for the village 
of Unalaska. One of the concerns we had then was contamination. 
This is one of the points that this specific building was hit 
by machine gun fire from a Japanese plane at the time they 
bombed. They were trying to bomb the building, missed it and 
hit a contractor based vessel that is now sitting in Captain's 
Bay, the Northwestern. That was part of the damage that was 
done.
    I just don't understand, because I worked for Standard Oil 
for 20 years during that period. Of course, they came back, 
said, well, Standard Oil, you are responsible because you were 
using that building for storage. But that was 30 years later. 
Yet the contamination was there.
    It is proven, the City of Unalaska, I will speak to it 
here, when they took over the power plant which we are using 
now, we had to sue the Federal Government to clean it up. PCB 
tunnels that ran from that building, 552, to the transformer to 
the power plant, were all traced to the military. We didn't put 
them in there. We don't have concrete vats plants, we don't 
have equipment.
    In fact, we weren't allowed on Amaknak Island until the 
late 1950s as residents of Unalaska. If they caught us over 
there or chased us down, we were arrested by shore patrol, and 
the marshal would be called coming out of Cold Bay. You can't 
make this stuff up.
    And I am hearing some of these issues. My concern is that I 
would like to see the Federal agencies get together and work, 
talk about it. It is like you have your own little, you do, 
most of you, have your own building and you are afraid to go 
out and talk to the other one across the street. That has to 
stop. Because this is a very important issue, and has been.
    I appreciate the comments being made about trying to get it 
done. But for me, and for probably many of the others that have 
been on the OC board for many years, we are tired of it. Every 
time we get a letter back, oh, we are going to confirm this, 
then we are going to start a study.
    Well, we have been studied enough. It is time to get the 
funding, ask the Senator for more help there. Let's get these 
programs, take all these studies and put them up on the shelf. 
They have been studied enough. Come out here, send people out 
here. When you send out people to do work in the Aleutian 
Islands, you have to be ready and prepared to do it in a short 
season, four to five months.
    And it is going to cost. So we need to get it done. Thank 
you.
    Senator Murkowski. Thank you for that.
    I would ask you, Colonel Delarosa, if you will commit to 
work with me and with the tribe and the ANC to see if we can 
address this.
    Colonel Delarosa. Yes, ma'am. One thing I will say, I am 
very, very proud of the RAB here in Unalaska. I think the 
corporation is a leader, the community leaders that are 
participating with that, my team from the Alaska District, they 
know them very well. They know them on a first-name basis. They 
see them regularly. I look out here and I see faces that know 
me, and I know them.
    So I do, hope you do understand that we do take this very 
seriously, we do get on the ground and we do talk to these 
folks. We do talk about the priorities. I am very familiar with 
this building. I know it is a contentious issue. Sometimes 
there are unfortunately things that get in the way. I think we 
owe you a detailed response on this one.
    Acts of war, unfortunately, don't get covered under the 
FUDS. It creates problems with regard to CERCLA, which is what 
we have to clean the FUDS projects up to. So there are 
challenges within that.
    I recognize that there are contaminants underneath this 
building, which in and of itself creates a problem. How do you 
clean up underneath a building? You demolish a building; you 
clean everything underneath it. But we don't build the building 
back.
    So there are competing challenges with this particular 
building. I feel for that community, and we have this 
conversation, ma'am, and we commit to giving you a more 
detailed response on this particular one. This is not one that 
weighs lightly on us. We know this is one of the biggest issues 
here. So we owe you a better response.
    Senator Murkowski. It is just kind of tough here, you 
recognize that it was here, it was here in the Aleutians where 
this Country was invaded by the Japanese. Everybody else in the 
lower 48, when they think of World War II and how America was 
hit, it was Pearl Harbor. It was here. It was here. You had a 
whole village that was completely removed from their homeland. 
You had Alaska Native people, to Hallie's point, who were 
standing watch, the Eskimo Scouts.
    This needs to be addressed. It just needs to be addressed.
    I will accept your offer to have further background to it, 
but we owe it to these people here, not just Building 151, but 
so many of these other issues in terms of prioritization and 
what we can be doing to prioritize the cleanup on our Native 
lands that have been transferred.
    Some of you have suggested, all of you, but BLM and EPA in 
particular, indicate that you have existing statutory 
authorities that have some inherent limitations for work on 
ANCSA contaminated lands. If you have limitations, part of what 
I can do as a lawmaker is we can work to change those. We can 
change the law. We can work to address some of these barriers.
    Do any of you have for me right now a list of the 
limitations that are kind of holding you back, or some proposed 
changes to the law that would help you better facilitate what 
we are trying to do here when it comes to remedying the 
situation with our ANCSA contaminated lands? If you have that 
quick list, I am happy to take it now. But know that I would 
ask for more details on the specifics to this from the DOD, 
from the EPA, from the DOI.
    Would anyone care to comment on that at this point in time? 
Or you can all get back to me.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Murkowski. All right. I do see that as our EPA 
representative down there, you are nodding your head. I am 
going to look for a list of proposed changes from you. 
Commissioner, were you going to weigh in on that?
    Mr. Brune. I was just going to say, Senator, in the 
testimony that I submitted, there is a list of recommendations 
for potential statutory changes to ANCSA as well as to CERCLA 
and RCRA that will help resolve many of the issues that we 
have.
    Senator Murkowski. Thank you for making the job easier for 
those of our Federal partners. Hallie?
    Ms. Bissett. Thank you, Senator. I just want to address one 
thing, first, thank you so much for your service, and all the 
hard work you do here in Alaska. I know you guys are working 
hard, all of you, to address this issue. You are limited to 
your constraints.
    But $1.65 billion to clean up the entire State, if I just 
took the example you used, $30 million to $200 million, well, 
we will just use $30 million for one site times 1,100. I am not 
super good at math, but I think that is like $30 billion. So I 
don't know how you get from there to one. It is a matter of 
putting those fences up and saying, well, these will never be 
cleaned, so let's just put that under institutional controls, 
or those are orphaned, we are just going to abandon those.
    I think the number is closer to what I--well, we don't know 
until we have this study. I just wanted to clarify that number 
perhaps.
    Senator Murkowski. So, I would like to turn to you because 
you have raised the issue of exchange mitigation, both you and 
Commissioner Brune. I think we recognize that when it comes to 
land conveyances in this State, none of this is easy. I have 
worked the Sealaska Lands Conveyance for how many years, we are 
working the landless now, our Alaska Native veterans 
allotments, these continue to remain challenges.
    But I think we recognize that there are other ways to 
address the issue. You have noted some in your written 
testimony. I think those are appreciated. But as we look to 
what will come out of this hearing, this dashboard and this 
inventory that is perhaps better defined, but a plan for 
remediation and cleanup isn't enough unless we actually act on 
it.
    What additional follow-on would you specifically recommend?
    Ms. Bissett. Thank you, Senator, for that question. I think 
first and foremost, when you take into consideration just the 
size and scale of what needs to be done to clean up these lands 
and then this one village, that will take 150 years to get 
there, just in this one. And the 50 years past of lost economic 
opportunity, I mean, is it reparations? I don't know. I think 
it is land that is valuable, like I said. So this land swap, we 
want the lands cleaned up, too.
    Commissioner Brune actually was the first one to say, we 
think we ought to get 100 acres of land for every one acre we 
received contaminated. Sounds like a good plan to me. And 
people in Congress will tell you it is really hard to get lands 
in Alaska given over to private individuals. That might be 
true, but it shouldn't be for Alaska Naive people who are in 
this situation. Maybe for a private industrial development 
company that is hard. But it shouldn't be hard for the people 
who gave up 90 percent of their country for $60 billion or $30 
billion, if we are going to be nice about it, worth of 
contaminated liability.
    There are also some creative solutions, Senator, that 
again, Commissioner Brune was the first to bring to us. This is 
around mitigation and cleanup. I know it is hard to get 
government funds to do stuff, but right now, if you are going 
to develop a project in Alaska, and I think it is everywhere in 
the Country, but there is a 404 permit. You have to purchase 
two acres of wetlands for every one acre that you impact. Well, 
that is expensive, right? But we have to do what we have to do.
    However, what if instead of having to buy two acres of 
mitigation wetlands credits, you were able to buy a cleanup 
credit, or you were able to actively clean up a site and get 
credit for that, and to restore the mine or whatever it was 
that was there to what it used to be, and you are still in kind 
of a net zero in terms of impacts to the environment. I think 
that is a beautiful idea. Private industry, Donlin Mine is a 
great example, and Red Devil was brought up. They would have 
loved to clean Red Devil up and have that be their mitigation 
project.
    But that kind of law just doesn't exist. We were nice and 
provided you some suggested language in our written testimony 
for you to consider. I think that is a really creative 
solution. We understand that you don't have billions and 
billions of dollars to give out for cleanup. But we cannot sit 
around for the next 100 years continuing to lose on the lands 
we did receive and continue to think that we got a fair shot at 
this deal.
    Senator Murkowski. And Mayor, that was one of the things 
that you had mentioned in your comments as well, is that the 
Ounalashka Corporation would like to be more included in 
cleanup aspects of it, and recognizing that this builds 
capacity and provides for economic opportunity. Cleaning up 
somebody else's mess, but you are able to provide for jobs here 
for your shareholders as well.
    Mr. Tutiakoff. Yes, Senator. That was a point that we saw 
early on in the formation of the corporation, that we had 
contaminated lands. When we asked BLM or Department of 
Interior, BIA, whomever, they would tell us, hey, you selected 
it, it is your problem.
    Well, it took us back to the point to, well, how are we 
going to do that without an economic base, which was not 
necessarily here then at the time. We didn't have fishing as we 
have seen for the last 40 years at the time. Yet we continued 
to move forward, work with the companies such as the cities, 
other partners in industry, recognizing the fact that there 
maybe, that they do not dig, you build from the ground up, 
cover it, build from the ground up.
    I know as far as a company like Unalaska Environmental, 
which is an 8(a) company we formed because of necessity, we 
wanted to be able to clean our own lands, identify when we do 
run into soil movement, that we find sites where Unangan people 
have lived for thousands of years, these midden sites, that we 
be the ones to take care of that and bring these people to 
where we can understand the life that they had before we put 
them back into the ground again, which we do.
    But yes, we would like to, and that is one of the reasons 
we formed the 8(a), was to be the person, be the company. Now 
in the past we have had companies come in and not only 
companies but museums, in the late 1940s and 1950s through the 
1950s, came in and dug up our lands and we didn't know what 
they were doing, why they were here. They would tell us, well, 
we are trying to find your culture and we will get back to you.
    That didn't happen. A lot of that stuff was never returned. 
It is a big part of our history that is now sitting in some 
vault somewhere that nobody even knows about. So we want to 
prevent that for any future Aleuts that are interested in their 
culture.
    But yes, we want to be the companies that do the work on 
our land.
    Senator Murkowski. And you have also mentioned that you 
have to take the initiative to resolve some of these lands. 
Otherwise, you can't make things happen within your own 
communities. I think you mentioned a Head Start building here 
in Unalaska. Walk me through exactly what you are dealing with 
there. You obviously need to provide for your children in the 
community. I suppose you could wait until somebody prioritizes 
this as a cleanup project. But you haven't done that; you have 
attempted to move forward and address these issues yourself.
    But you are doing that at the city's own expense, is that 
correct?
    Mr. Tutiakoff. Yes, it is more of a working in partnership 
with the tribe and APIA, which is a regional non-profit that 
has put up this facility on behalf of the community. As we 
identified early on, if you don't have a day care center or a 
place to take their children, a lot of workers cannot work. So 
that is one of the reasons. What happened was, after they did a 
soil remediation, a test in the area of the building, where the 
building was going to get built, while they were finishing the 
foundation they were putting in their access road, secondary 
access road. They went down into the gravel and dirt and found 
fuel, it was an underground tank site.
    Immediately stopped all work and rather than letting this 
building sit all summer without getting built, APIA and the 
corporation and the city also, to get the thing going, did the 
remediation. Now APIA is seeking additional funding to get that 
paid for.
    But we are working with APIA, the tribe, to try and 
remediate this property. It is a small area, I don't think it 
is more than half an acre, quarter acre, if that, 200 by 100 
feet or something like that. It is a stretch that it was an 
underground tank, identified alter that there was a building 
there. Just unfortunately that nobody knew it was there, wasn't 
on our radar, nobody ever had been up there before.
    But there are more sites like that on this island that we 
don't even know about. They have been identified, 5,000, 6,000 
buildings, but where are the tank? You have to dig to find 
them, drill to find them. It is unfortunate, but that is what 
we are dealing with here.
    Senator Murkowski. Let me ask you one more question, 
Commissioner. The State is in a position where we get to a 
point where the level of cooperation and discussion is not 
yielding the action. So the State has moved forward with 
litigation that won't proceed. That is clearly a tool that the 
State has.
    As a member of the Federal delegation, and as somebody on 
the Appropriations Committee, one of the tools that I have been 
working in my tool box is trying to figure out, all right, can 
we work with the folks in EPA to stand up a separate program? 
We have funding in this next fiscal year, we are starting out 
pretty skinny, but the fact that we have a new program in is 
something that I am encouraged by and think that we have some 
opportunities there. But I think we are all trying to figure 
out, all right, how do we move this in different ways and 
whether it is at the tribal level with the village corporations 
doing what the State is doing, what we are doing, and the 
agencies.
    So this is kind of a general question. Do you feel that the 
State has a fair working relationship with the Federal agencies 
on this issue of contaminated lands? If not, what more can we 
do to figure out how we are going to use this whole-of-
government approach? Because when I think of whole-of-
government, it can't just be the whole Federal Government. It 
has to be all of government, at the State, the tribal, the 
Federal. What more do we need to be doing?
    Mr. Brune. If we thought the Federal Government was doing 
enough, we wouldn't have brought the lawsuit, Senator. I have 
talked with some folks off the record from the Federal 
Government that have said, there is no way they are going to 
settle this case that we have brought, which is disturbing to 
me.
    What we need are commitments. We need legally defensible 
commitments from the Federal Government, a compliance order by 
consent that will make commitments that they are going to 
advocate for funding and they are going to put a timeline for 
the cleanup of these sites.
    We also want to ensure that, and again I need to give big 
credit to Carlton for the efforts with the Arctic Executive 
Steering Committee, but those groups come and go with 
Administrations. We saw that group do nothing for the preceding 
four years.
    So those efforts need to be codified. We also need to 
ensure that the plans that they are putting together, and when 
Carlton was up with folks a couple of months ago, we told them, 
it is imperative that it is not just the Federal Government 
talking to themselves. They need to consult with the tribes. 
They need to consult with the regional corporations and the 
village corporations. They need to consult with the State. They 
need to use, as the Mayor said, the regional and village 
corporations to do this work, the 8(a)s. It would be a shame if 
they did not utilize those efforts.
    But we don't want to be told what they are going to be 
doing. They need to be consulting with us, with them, in 
developing the plans.
    But consultation cannot get in the way of cleanup. We could 
talk this one to death, we have for 50 years, Senator. We need 
to see action, concurrently with consultation for these 
efforts. And trust me, like I said, Senator, we did not want to 
bring this litigation, but we had to. The only way we won't go 
forward with this is if we see an agreement that will be 
followed, that will be adhered to. We have already seen broken 
promises or Federal law ignored. In 2016, you, Senator, along 
with the rest of your colleagues, got at least the 51 votes and 
whatever number in the House, you passed law that said the 
Department of Interior, BLM, shall develop plans, and they 
ignored it.
    So I don't know what else you could do. There has to be 
something that is enforceable to ensure that the Federal 
Government just doesn't put this energy today for the next two 
years, and then in two years a new Administration comes into 
play and ignores it again. We need commitment that is 
enforceable from the Federal Government to make this. And 
again, we need to make sure that the folks who are impacted are 
part of that process in developing the cleanup plans as well as 
the State.
    Senator Murkowski. I have in my notes that I have taken 
here, I have various actionable items that I have kind of 
jotted down. But rather than me sharing with you what I think 
they are, I would like to hear each of our witnesses today give 
me what your takeaway from this hearing is, and your actionable 
items as a follow-on, so we all can hear where the Department 
of Interior, the EPA, the Department of Defense, the State, the 
tribe and our village corporations feel like, okay, this is 
what I am doing, my agency is doing as we leave from here.
    I don't want to have people who live here feel that that 
was a nice two and a half hours where people came together and 
talked about a really important issue and it is just going to 
be more of the same. We cannot continue with more of the same. 
Because more of the same is an injustice to these people and to 
Alaska Natives and people really all over our State and in our 
Country. We have an obligation on the Federal side to clean up 
messes that have been created by our own government.
    How we keep that commitment for all the right reasons, 
environmental justice, health, safety, just doing the right 
thing, we need to do more than talk about it. We need to be 
able to act on it and we need to be able to act on it now.
    So I am going to begin with you, Steve, and we will just go 
down the list as you were introduced in terms of your key 
takeaway and what you plan to report back to me, the Committee, 
the Congress, and to one another.
    Mr. Cohn. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today.
    There are two takeaways that I have in my notes. One is 
very specific to the Department. It is your preference that the 
Department play a key role in coordinating these Federal 
agencies that are here today.
    Senator Murkowski. I think it was beyond more than just a 
key role. I think I asked you to be the coordinating agency.
    Mr. Cohn. The key role. The coordinating agency. It is a 
question that I will take back to the Department, and you are 
looking for a response very soon, if not by the end of the 
week.
    The second was a general question for all of the Federal 
agencies represented here today: what is holding us back, and 
what, from a statutory perspective, what are the limitations 
that we face, and do we have any thoughts or suggestions on 
things that might help better facilitate our ability to make 
more rapid progress on this very serious problem that is facing 
all of us.
    So those are the two that I wrote down. I will ask Erika if 
she has any additional takeaways that we would like to bring 
back with us.
    Ms. Reed. I would just add a commitment to consulting with 
the tribes, the ANCs, other Alaska Native entities, and with 
the Alaska Department of Conservation in our efforts moving 
forward.
    Senator Murkowski. And with the State.
    Ms. Reed. I think I said the Alaska Department of 
Conservation, yes. That is what I meant.
    Senator Murkowski. Good. Thank you.
    Dr. Waterhouse. Thank you, Senator. For us, I see that we 
want to go back and find out what are the restrictions that we 
have and limitations and barriers that we can get your help 
with, and the help of your fellow Senators and others to remove 
that would keep us from being even more effective in helping to 
address contaminated lands. That is the key takeaway.
    But I should say that additionally, I am energized by the 
conservation that we have had and hearing from our partners 
across this dais, and looking for ways that we can lean in 
further and more effectively in getting cleanups done 
expeditiously while we continue to work toward building and 
developing this data base.
    Senator Murkowski. On the DOD side.
    Ms. Beasley. Senator, again, thank you for having us here 
today. In addition to our robust execution of the Formerly Used 
Defense Sites program in Fiscal Year 2022, we are going to 
spend about $45 million in the State of Alaska alone as well as 
our execution of the NALEMP program. We have taken back that we 
are going to research a more thorough answer to you on the 
restrictions for cleanup of act of war sites specific to this 
community but more broadly throughout our Alaska Native lands.
    Then specific considerations, potentially, for ANCSA 
considerations and our prioritization protocols. Then anything 
else that may be holding us back from a statutory limitation.
    Colonel Delarosa, did I miss anything?
    Colonel Delarosa. No, ma'am, I think you got everything. I 
guess what I would take away, obviously, if the Army doesn't 
show up for participation [indiscernible], I am very proud of 
the fact that we have cleaned up 65 percent of the known FUDS 
sites here in the State of Alaska with the past billion 
dollars. And as we said before, looking at about $1.65 billion 
to clean up the remainder of it.
    So I am very, very proud of this team that is here in the 
communities. I take your point on consultation very seriously. 
I spend probably about 200 days of my year out in the 
communities here of Alaska. I am very proud of the teams that I 
have with me that know these folks on a by-name basis. We take 
that back with us as well.
    Senator Murkowski. I know you can't necessarily speak to 
it, but I believe if I ask you the question, do you think that 
we appropriately or adequately fund the Native American Lands 
Environmental Mitigation Program? Does that line item get 
sufficient funds given the need?
    Ms. Beasley. I believe that the President's budget 
accurately reflects the requirements of the NALEMP program, 
Senator.
    Senator Murkowski. Colonel Delarosa, do you think you have 
enough here in Alaska for the projects that you have?
    Colonel Delarosa. Ma'am, I think we do. I think what the 
challenge is, the challenge is we know there is a lot of work 
to be done. We also have to be realistic in terms of how much, 
what is the capacity of industry to accomplish what we are 
trying to do. So what we are being funded annually, which is as 
Ms. Beasley has said, is more than any other State in the 
United States, we are executing it. We are pushing industry to 
its extent.
    So I think we are currently funded adequately annually at 
this point.
    Senator Murkowski. Okay. And maybe I framed it wrong. Maybe 
it is not, is the budget adequate. Do we have the resources? We 
have not only Ounalashka Corporation that has its own 
environmental team, I know that many of our 8(a)s are forming 
these. We are trying to build the capacity to do the projects 
that are required.
    So maybe we haven't built sufficient capacity. In other 
words, we could be cleaning up more if we had greater ability 
to do so. Are those some limitations that nobody has really 
talked about today?
    Colonel Delarosa. I think the answer is yes, ma'am. Having 
more capacity obviously means the ability to do more work. At 
the same time, it would also then feed my need for a larger 
staff to maintain. So they do go together to get up to what you 
are asking for.
    We do have a very competitive, we do follow competitive 
contracting rules, and we do a lot of work with our 8(a)s, 
whether through 8(a) set-asides or sole source. As I stated 
earlier, Ounalashka Environmental Services is already doing 
seven projects actively right now for underground storage tank 
removal here in Unalaska.
    So there is room for growth if industry grows with it. We 
are on the ragged edge of probably pushing what industry can 
do, given our current funding.
    Senator Murkowski. Thank you. Commissioner Brune, takeaways 
for the State.
    Mr. Brune. Thank you, Senator. My takeaway from this 
hearing is that we need to continue to hold the Department of 
Interior's feet to the fire. We need to continue our 
litigation. The fact that they could not make a commitment on 
the spot, knowing today that that question would have been 
asked is kind of a face palm, it was amazing to me.
    With that said, Senator, I am committed to working with our 
Federal partners. Again, I am excited that Carlton has made 
this a priority. Administrations change, so we need to ensure 
though that whatever ends up coming as a settlement is 
enforceable.
    I am committed to working with our Federal partners on data 
bases, on understanding orphan sites. Orphan sites is such a 
misnomer. They are not orphan sites, the Federal Government is 
the responsible party. Orphan site, that title normally is 
given to when you don't know who the responsible party is. 
Federal Government owned the lands when they were contaminated. 
They are not orphan sites.
    But we are committed to working with them to give them 
suggestions for what work needs to be done on these sites. I 
have worked with your team, Senator, and the Appropriations 
Committee to give recommendations for earmarks or 
Congressionally directed funding for what needs to be done to 
delineate the extent of the contamination. But these should not 
be Congressionally directed funds. These should be in the base 
budgets of these agencies, because it is their responsibility.
    Another takeaway, I am committed to providing you and with 
our Federal partners legislative ideas that will help resolve 
this issue so they can't point to reasons and statutes why they 
can't do things. I am committed to working with the Corps of 
Engineers, as I have said previously. Three years ago, I met 
with the Corps in D.C. with my suggestions for mitigation 
options.
    I have given that suggestion as well to Dave Hagge 
[phonetically] and to Sarah and to Colonel Delarosa. Alaska has 
175 million acres of wetlands, more wetlands than the lower 48 
combined. Yet when projects happen in the State, they want us 
to create more. We also have more conservation system units 
than the lower 48 does, 175 million acres of CSUs. More 
wilderness than the lower 48 combined.
    It is a no-brainer that we should be providing alternative 
and working with the Corps of Engineers for mitigation 
opportunities, to clean up watersheds, to use the private 
sector, their funding and their desires from an ESG perspective 
as well as from a doing what is right for the watershed to 
change the law so that 404 mitigation opportunities to clean up 
ANCSA contaminated lands, as Hallie brought up, is an option.
    The final takeaway is I am committed to working with ANVCA 
and the affected folks to identify the sites that I know have 
not yet been put on one of these lists. There are sites, 
because the fear was there, Senator, that they would be 
responsible. We need to get an education campaign out there to 
make sure the village corporations, the regional corporations, 
know that the contamination that occurred before they owned 
these lands is not their responsibility.
    In conclusion, I am committed to working, but I am not 
committed to being the lead entity. That entity, that 
responsibility falls on the U.S. Government.
    Senator Murkowski. Very good. Mayor? Actionable items.
    Mr. Tutiakoff. I want to thank everyone who attended this 
hearing from different Federal agencies. I know it sounds easy 
for me to say, work together, get it done. I know you have a 
process, every department has different goals, different maybe 
even different agendas sometimes.
    But you are affecting a community, small community, of our 
people. The big picture of that whole thing is a community that 
is 5,000, 6,000, and sometimes 9,000 to 12,000. We have gone 
through, so many times, this process. This kind of hearing is a 
first for me, but I have testified on behalf of the Unangan 
people in regard to repatriation, when our people were taken 
from six other communities besides Unalaska, from their homes.
    So I understand there is a lot of issues. But we have to 
clean this up, and our people are getting sick. A lot of them 
have died in the last 45, 50 years, some my age I grew up with. 
I know at least three of them died of cancer, from various 
degrees of cancer. That is kind of alarming, that that is 
happening. I think a lot of it has to do with the contamination 
that was left here by the military, by the U.S. Government.
    Some of these sites I mentioned are in other villages, they 
were not necessarily done by the military. But they were done 
by the U.S. Government, like the FAA, White Owl stations that 
were put up many years ago after the war. Some of that has been 
cleaned up, but a lot of it hasn't been only because they 
didn't have enough funding.
    The cost to put people out on these sites is four to five 
times more than if you were doing it in downtown Anchorage or 
Juneau or these other places where tens of thousands of people 
live. We need to understand that it is costly. We know that.
    But at least try and clean up the lands that are 
economically viable for putting back into the community. We are 
afraid to do that without being accused of giving up property 
for homes and schools and things like that down the future and 
then being told it is contaminated and not having the resources 
to work to get it done, get it cleaned up.
    So work with the corporations, work with the city and work 
with the village. Find the areas that have priorities for this 
community and work from there out. If we go way out there, 20, 
30 miles out there and start cleaning up, I think it would be 
good for OC but nobody else is going to be there to enjoy it. 
In other words, downtown to Amaknak or the island of Amaknak, 
downtown Unalaska is still contaminated. Some of these houses 
are sitting on lands that were never cleaned.
    Every time the city or GCI, who has been here for almost 
six to eight months now, they are finding stuff. And they have 
to stop and go to another location until it has been cleaned or 
remediated or report, follow the process. It is costing them 
another millions of dollars just to put that cable in. This is 
the cost that I don't know who is going to pay to that company.
    So work with us, and we will do all we can to support you 
as industry, similar to what the companies that we have in this 
community. Thank you, Senator, for what you do.
    Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mayor.
    Hallie, you get the last word.
    Ms. Bissett. All right. I just want to reiterate that the 
leaders of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Mayor 
Tutiakoff being one of them, very much alive today, signed that 
document with the promise of economic prosperity and self-
determination. Sadly, we have been largely unable to develop 
these simple projects, and that equates to losses over a 50-
year period that far outweigh the money on lands that we 
received. To be clear, we do not view receipt of contaminated 
lands as just compensation. Likewise, we do not believe 
continuing to write reports will result in the situation being 
resolved.
    So we have come up with, we have already talked about 
swapping undesirable ANCSA lands with unencumbered Federal 
property, prioritizing the cleanup of ANCSA contaminated lands 
and existing FUDS program.
    Just one comment on this that I want to highlight, I heard 
you say the relative risk analyzing that you do in terms of 
which sites to prioritize first. I used to do risk analysis at 
BP when I worked there. One of the top things that goes into 
the risk analysis is the number of people impacted by the 
contamination. When you are looking at little tiny communities, 
a larger picture of the United States in general, all that 
money is going to be funneled into population centers that 
don't include villages.
    That is where we are hugely disconnected, right there we 
get kicked out. We just have to have some kind of a rural plus-
up or something in the risk analysis of how you are doing that. 
How many years have gone by that this site has been sitting 
there? We have technology out there that can analyze how the 
contamination is going to spread. We would like to see some of 
that being done.
    We need to complete the ANCSA contaminated site data base. 
We agree with you. We look forward to working with you and we 
are excited about getting some funding to do that, to finally 
get a data base that talks to each other, that is 
comprehensive, that talks about which various stages of cleanup 
and which ones have been qualified as done when we don't 
consider them done. Institutional controls is not good enough.
    And if that is what it is, if we can't clean it up, we need 
new land. We need to include ANCSA lands in EPA tribal cleanup 
superfund, or create a $1 billion Alaska-specific cleanup fund. 
And if you are right, sir, we will be done in one year.
    Adopt mitigation credits, like we have talked about 
already. Require minimum reports, let's do that biannually. 
Let's just automatically write that report every other year to 
give an update on where these cleanups are. SO then we don't 
have to come for five years just to result in this other thing 
that we have already done.
    We need to provide the contractor preference that these 
folks have talked about. A lot of times folks are showing up 
the villages and they start doing cleanup projects and the city 
and the village corporation are, what is going on? They have 
been given no opportunity to participate in the sole source or 
whatever. Even if it is a competitive bid, these guys know the 
logistics. I am sure they would be competitive if they were 
able to bid on the projects to do the cleanups.
    So I think the biggest takeaway I have is after listening 
to everything that has been said, we are clearly not on the 
same page in terms of the cost. Getting that data base done, 
getting the analysis done will get us to that point. I am 
looking forward to working on tweaking anything and providing 
some more suggestions to you on changes to the actual law that 
are holding us back.
    We have watched the tribal superfund cleanup as a great 
example where the United States has said, oh, we only do 
reservation cleanups. Well, that just means you are only going 
to do your stuff, and oh, we are not responsible for private 
lands. This was Congress' design to make it private, so that we 
could be the owners of our own destiny. That is what self-
determination is. Now it is, no, that is not our problem, that 
is your problem.
    Again, that is just not good enough. So I think those are 
all the comments I have. I want to say thank you one more time 
for allowing us to be here today and talk about such an 
important issue to our people.
    Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Hallie. Thank you all. I 
appreciate your contributions to the discussions. I think there 
have been some very good and constructive takeaways that can be 
done at the department, the agency level. Certainly at the 
legislative level, whether it is appropriations, we will be 
looking critically at some of these accounts.
    Also, do we need to give more specific directive in 
statute? So to your point, Commissioner, the enthusiasm doesn't 
wane or the commitment to doing something doesn't disappear, 
that we actually have statutory enforcement. But then if it is 
statutory enforcement, then we need the Department to do what 
the law says that it does. That is where I think BLM has 
specifically failed in that.
    But I do think there are some positive things that can be 
done now. I want to encourage all of us that while greater 
information gathering is coming together, whether it is 
identifying those areas that have not yet been identified for a 
host of different reasons, identifying costs, determining this 
more fulsome inventory that does cross all of departments and 
agencies here, that we make sure that we are not halting the 
cleanup that is moving forward already.
    I appreciate what the Department of Defense has shared in 
terms of ensuring that Alaska is seeing significant resources 
that are coming for that. We want to encourage that, but we 
want to see more of that. I think how that all works 
concurrently rather than kind of chronologically is going to be 
important.
    I am reminded that it was just a matter of weeks ago that 
in the Congress, we passed pretty substantial legislation to 
recognize the reality that our government actions sometimes 
have consequences that are costly. All you need to do is look 
to our national security, what we ask of our men and women who 
will don the uniform, volunteer to serve and then who go 
overseas to other areas and they are exposed to toxic 
chemicals. We see the consequence of being in that environment. 
It may or not be in a war environment.
    But whether it is exposure to things like Agent Orange or 
the burn pits that you see in Afghanistan Iraq, it is 
expensive. It is expensive to make sure that those veterans who 
come back and then test positive for cancer or disease or just 
the health consequences that they bear, we look at that and 
say, well, that is expensive. That is expensive.
    But you know what? We should have thought about that before 
we exposed them to these situations where their health is 
compromised for perhaps the rest of their life. They may die 
because of this exposure.
    So we can talk about how much this is going to cost. But I 
think we need to recognize that that cost to the environment, 
we have to fix it. The cost that comes to human life and people 
that pass of cancer, those who have been exposed again 
unwittingly, you think that you can eat from the land and from 
the ocean only to find out that you have been exposed to toxins 
that have been sitting there for decades, through no fault of 
your own. It is not like you needed to go out and research 
this. You are living in a land that you thought was pretty 
special, and it is pretty special.
    We have an obligation to clean up the messes that we 
create. Sometimes we just have to acknowledge that it is going 
to cost money. But we don't walk away from it, particularly 
when it is our government that has caused the problem, the 
environmental degradation, just the devastation, and then the 
human consequence and the loss of life.
    So we have some work to do. We can't let this be another 
hearing where we check back in later and we get another report. 
We have action items that we need to move forward on. We have a 
lot of different ways we can be working together. But we 
cannot, we cannot continue to say it is somebody else's 
responsibility.
    So let's figure this out. Know that I am going to be 
looking for some feedback very shortly from some of you. I 
think we will figure out a way that we can reconvene to get 
status reports, because I think we have some deliverables to 
the people of Alaska.
    With that, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee record is 
going to be held open for another two weeks. Two weeks, 
whatever that voice just said, we will just believe her.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Murkowski. For those who are interested, a 
recording of this hearing today is going to be posted on the 
Committee's website, for your information. To those who were 
either listening or who are here, know that you too are welcome 
to submit your comments. We appreciate that.
    Now we are officially adjourned. Thank you all.
    [Whereupon, at 2:42 AKT, the hearing was adjourned.]

                            A P P E N D I X

   Prepared Statement of Elise Contreras, Environmental Remediation 
                 Manager, Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska
    The Ounalashka Corporation (OC) received 128,000 acres of land 
under ANCSA on Unalaska, Amaknak, Umnak and Sedanka Islands. Unalaska 
is located 800 miles from Anchorage, Alaska.
    The U.S. Department of Defense created the first military outpost 
on Amaknak Island in 1911 and in 1940 the U.S. Navy constructed the 
Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base. After the Japanese attacked Dutch 
Harbor in 1942, the military added to, and upgraded its facilities, 
eventually constructing over 1000 structures to support the U.S. 
Soldiers.
    During the peak military activities in 1942 and 1943, the Navy, 
Army, and Marines had 65,000 personnel in the area, including all 
necessary infrastructure for the troops such as housing, support 
buildings, power plants, and defensive structures that were spread all 
across the island.
    Even more than 70 years after the military withdraw, the Tribe and 
community continue to be negatively impacted by:

   Hazardous materials like Lead-based paint and asbestos-
        containing materials
   Munitions
   Unexploded ordnance
   Unsafe buildings and structures
   Abandoned equipment
   Petroleum hydrocarbons from underground and aboveground 
        storage tanks
   Screw pickets
   Persistent organic pollutants such as PCBs

    By 1950 the military largely abandoned the Unalaska/Dutch Harbor 
area leaving behind a great deal of history, along with over 100 
contaminated sites. Currently, we have 37 areas of concern (that range 
in size from impacts from single underground storage tanks to full 
military bases).
    These impacted areas represent approximately 80,000 acres. The 
Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) program under the U.S. Army Corp of 
Engineers (USACE) has been working on the island for the past 30 years 
and the Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation Program (NALEMP) 
for 20 years. However, as we look to the future we have estimated at 
the current rate of mitigation, it will take more than 100 years to 
complete the necessary cleanup.
    Mitigation is important in order to address the physical and 
chemical impacts from past military activities to protect the health 
and safety of the Tribal community and allow for the safe practice of 
traditional cultural lifestyles. The Qawalangin Tribe and Ounalashka 
Corporation work in collaboration to address the highest priority sites 
that impact community safety, health, and the environment based on what 
limited funding we are able to obtain through NALEMP or the minimal 
remediation that is done through the FUDS program.
    The process in which remediation can be addressed under these 
programs often requires years of lead time, assuming that all necessary 
programmatic red tape and approvals are taken care of in advance. If 
the Ounalashka Corporation is pursuing a development project and 
contamination is found, all construction must stop and remediation must 
be completed before construction can continue. If the Qawalangin Tribe 
or the Ounalashka Corporation decide to tackle the cleanup work before 
it is addressed under another program, both entities run the risk of 
not being reimbursed for the associated cleanup costs.
    The Qawalangin Tribe and Ounalashka Corporation have seen a larger 
push from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to implement institutional 
controls, or to approve ``alternative cleanup levels'' on FUDS, where 
some level of contamination is left in place, and cleanup levels are 
less stringent than state or other cleanup regulations respectively. 
Unfortunately, by implementing institutional controls or alternative 
cleanup levels, the future development of the land is limited.
    Additional burden is caused by federal agencies arguing over 
responsibility for cleanup, playing a game of ``hot potato'' that 
ultimately prevents action and perpetuates harm to the community. A 
clear example of this is the Building 551 site, which remains 
unmitigated due to interpretation of laws and ``eligibility.'' The 
Building 551 site, a former Navy Mess Hall at the Dutch Harbor Naval 
Operating Base which is located within the Amaknak and Unalaska Islands 
FUDS (FUDS Property No. F10AK0841). The Building 551 site is a parcel 
containing a World War II-era building and the surrounding land 
adjacent to East Point Road.
    Building 551 was built as a mess hall for the Cantonment Area of 
the Dutch Harbor Naval Base and the facilities consisted of a building 
with a basement, access to a utilidor, and utility services. Under 
military operations, transformers containing dielectric fluid with 
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were put into use, operated and 
maintained for electrical services to Building 551. These transformers 
were located on the northeast side of the building. In addition to 
installation, maintenance, and operations of the PCB-containing 
devices, PCBs were likely distributed in the area due to the military 
practice of dumping of waste oil along roadways for dust suppression. 
Incidental to these long-term activities, the area was also bombed by 
the Japanese during World War II on June 3 and 4 of 1942.
    The Tribe has found high levels (greater than 1 part per million 
[ppm]) of PCBs in both soil and mussel tissue in and adjacent to the 
site. The release of PCBs from former World War II-era transformers and 
the use of waste oil on adjacent roadways is believed to be the primary 
source of contamination.
    Based on PCB concentrations found, this site is not eligible for 
PCB remediation under the FUDS program and more recently was found not 
eligible to be considered for work under NALEMP even though previous 
work at this site, including a hazardous materials survey, has been 
allowed under NALEMP. Regarding the eligibility of Act of War sites, 
the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD) General Counsel (GC), Margy 
Carlson, and
    USACE GC, Ann Wright, specifically the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska 
Building 551 recently determined that, ``the codified NALEMP language 
still precludes this PCB project at Building 551. The NALEMP statute 
only allows for environmental effects (10 USC Sec. 2713 (a)(1)) 
``attributable to past actions of the Department of Defense (DOD)'' and 
the impact at this site was caused by the Japanese bombing. The 
Japanese superseded any DOD action and are responsible for the release 
of PCBs at this site. The DOD's presence in the area and being a target 
for the Japanese is not an action that can be attributable to DOD under 
the statutory language. Since NALEMP is included in Title 10 under 
``Environmental Restoration'', all the existing law and policy 
regarding the ``Act of War'' defense to cleanup in CERCLA and DERP 
still applies to NALEMP.''
    This kind of determination and subjective interpretation is 
frustrating regarding cleanup progress when the DOD is responsible for 
the base, troops and infrastructure brought to Unalaska in the first 
place. Regardless of whether the release of contaminants was 
intentional, unintentional or a combination of the two the financial 
and health related burden should not fall on the Qawalangin Tribe and 
the Ounalashka Corporation.
    This PCB impact at Building 551 is also identified in the Alaska 
Department of Conservation (ADEC) contaminated sites database, since 
levels exceed the ADEC criteria of 1 mg/kg of total PCBs (18 Alaska 
Administrative Code 75 Article 3). Elsewhere on this site, there are 
other military impacts (petroleum releases) being addressed under the 
FUDS program. Although these impacts are nearly 80 years old, free 
product still remains at the site with no remediation time-frame 
estimated.
    Each impacted area has adversely affected Tribal and community 
economic, social, or cultural welfare and limited full use of Tribal 
lands and resources. The Qawalangin Tribe and the Ounalashka 
Corporation are dedicated to mitigating these impacts to restore safe 
access to Tribal lands and create a healthier and safer environment for 
its people, community, and future generations.
                                 ______
                                 
Prepared Statement of Michelle Anderson, President, Ahtna, Incorporated
    My name is Michelle Anderson, and I am the President of Ahtna, 
Incorporated. Ahtna is an Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) 
regional corporation. I would like to provide testimony on behalf of 
Ahtna and its shareholders. I was raised in the Copper River region and 
am a tribal member of the Native Village of Gulkana and a member of the 
Udzisyu (Caribou) clan of the Ahtna Athabascan people. I am an original 
Ahtna shareholder.
    Ahtna is one of the 13 regional corporations organized under ANCSA. 
Each region is comprised of Native people who had aboriginal ownership 
of their lands. Ahtna represents more than 2,000 shareholders who are 
of Ahtna Athabascan descent. Ahtna has 8 villages, but we are unique 
because 7 of the village corporations merged with Ahtna in 1980. We now 
speak for the 7 merged villages on land issues and customary and 
traditional subsistence issues.
    Ahtna's land entitlement under ANCSA is approximately 1.7 million 
acres. The historic Ahtna aboriginal territory is over 24 million acres 
and larger than 12 of the states. We are adjacent to and own inholdings 
in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the largest in the nation, and 
adjacent to the Denali National Park, the third largest in the nation. 
The Wrangell-St. Elias National Park was established under the Alaska 
National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980. Much of the 
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is comprised of Ahtna's historic 
lands. We have had historic and cultural claims to use these public 
lands since time immemorial.
    The Ahtna people's customary and traditional (C&T) way of life 
remains the cornerstone of everything that Ahtna does. For us, C&T does 
not just refer to cultural activities like hunting, fishing, trapping 
and the like; it is actually the successful continuation of a lifestyle 
that has existed for thousands of years--a lifestyle that is the 
foundation of Ahtna's culture, values and vision. Ahtna, unlike many of 
the other ANCSA corporations, made its land selections based on C&T 
values, not for minerals or economic exploitation.
    Although the Ahtna region is highway-accessible and fairly 
modernized, our people still practice a C&T lifestyle whenever 
possible. Our region's fish and game resources and proximity to major 
urban centers make it a popular location for hunting, fishing and other 
recreational activities, which makes maintaining our lifestyle 
challenging. As a result of this constant influx of outside parties, 
our people have to compete more and more for the resources (game, fish 
and plant life) located on traditional Ahtna lands.
    These resources and the cultural practices surrounding them play a 
significant role in maintaining our C&T way of life and, because of 
this, we are constantly seeking ways to continue or further that way of 
life through cultural education programs aimed at future generations of 
Ahtna; partnerships with local, state and federal agencies; 
consultation with our region's tribes, villages and local 
organizations; and continuous dialogue with our most important 
constituents--our Elders and shareholders. The protection of these 
resources is paramount to the Ahtna people's very existence.
    One of the principal risks to the Ahtna people's way of life is the 
contamination of the land. The Ahtna region has been significantly 
impacted by exploration and development. Starting in the mid-19th 
century, gold and copper miners flooded the copper river valley and the 
Valdez creek area near Cantwell. The mining activity left scars in the 
land, abandoned equipment, railroads, towns, telegraph lines, camps and 
waste scattered along our precious rivers. The world's largest Copper 
Mine, leaching plant and processing mill operated from 1911 to 1938 in 
the Ahtna region and was abandoned along with a railroad, maintenance 
camps and towns. Many of these sites have been transferred to Ahtna 
with no assessment for contamination done. During the period following 
the 1889 gold rush through 1945, the United States Army brought 
significant equipment into the region to build telegraph lines, roads, 
bases, airports, and other infrastructure to support exploration, 
mining operations, WWI and WWII. As the war efforts wound down, the 
military transported materials using the road system and the Gulkana 
Airport to dispose of surplus equipment, fuel drums and hazardous 
materials. These materials were abandoned or buried.
    During the 1950s through the 1970s, the military used the Ahtna 
region for training and recreation sites to support the cold war 
efforts. Many roads, trails and camps were developed and then abandoned 
leaving waste materials, unexploded ordnance and equipment scattered 
throughout the region. From 1905 to 1956 the Alaska Road Commission 
constructed roads and developed material sites, construction camps and 
maintenance camps. The Alaska Road Commission was originally part of 
the War Department and was transferred to the US Department of the 
Interior in 1932. \1\ These sites were contaminated by disposal of 
solid waste, buried equipment, used oil, antifreeze and lubricants. 
From 1974 to present, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which has 
supplied up to 20 percent of our nation's oil, was built and operates 
across Ahtna lands, introducing more abandoned materials, equipment, 
and contamination.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Alaska Road Commission Historical Narrative, 1983 Report Number 
1983-06-01, found at: https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/40615.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Faye Ewan, an Ahtna shareholder, and member of the Native Village 
of Kluti-Kaah, spoke to the issue in the Copper River Record:

         Ewan also spoke of hazardous waste dumping in the area during 
        World War II and subsequent military exercises. ``That has a 
        lot to do with what is happening here today,'' she said. 
        ``There was no protection of our land. It was a free-for-all. 
        All of that contaminated waste was dumped right in Dry Creek 
        and now the community is cleaning that up,'' she said. Ewan 
        wonders whether some cases of cancer among the community could 
        be attributed to inappropriate waste disposal. \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Excerpt taken from the Copper River Record, Powerful Public 
Testimony at CRNA Climate Change Plan Meeting, found at: https://
www.copperriverrecord.net/tributaries/powerful-public-testimony-at-
crna-climate-change-plan-meeting.

    Our land is the most important thing to the Ahtna people, and we 
know that the contamination left behind by the invasion of western 
society has impacted our people and will continue to do so until it is 
cleaned up. While not evidenced by any formal medical studies, we are 
seeing high rates of cancers and other illnesses in our villages. We 
attribute this to contamination in our water and our food. \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ There have been some studies of contamination buildup in moose 
populations. More needs to be done to determine the impact of that 
contamination on the consumer. See, e.g., Arnold et al. 2006 Public 
health evaluation of cadmium concentrations in liver and kidney of 
moose; Larter and Kandola 2010 Levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead, 
mercury, selenium, and zinc in various tissues of moose harvested in 
the Dehcho, Northwest Territories; Danielsson and Frank 2009 Cadmium in 
moose kidney and liver--age and gender dependency, and standardization 
for environmental monitoring.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Federal Material Sites
    Ahtna has received title to 98 former Federal Material Sites. These 
sites were established under the Federal Highway Act of November 9, 
1921, to help develop the highway system in Alaska. In the Ahtna 
region, there is a long history of use of these sites by the Alaska 
Road Commission starting back in at least the 1920s, during the 
upgrades to the Richardson Highway, through WWII with the construction 
of the Glenn Highway. During this time, it was common practice to 
dispose of waste associated with road construction by burying it at 
these material sites. After statehood, the United States Bureau of Land 
Management granted the State of Alaska rights-of-way to these sites for 
the continued construction and maintenance of the highway. Prior to 
modern environmental laws, and perhaps for some time after, it is very 
likely that the State also used these sites to dump waste.
    After ANCSA, the United States conveyed the surface and subsurface 
estates encompassing the material sites to Ahtna ``subject to'' the 
``[r]ights-of-way for Federal Aid material sites.'' Ahtna now 
administers these sites with little to no authority to dictate the 
State's activities or uses.
    We do not have a good inventory of the contamination buried at 
these sites. Over the years, our staff, shareholders, and tribal 
members have discovered buried barrels, equipment, road-building 
material, and hazardous substances buried in and around our villages. 
The United States Government did not conduct any hazardous material 
studies or surveys prior to conveying these sites to Ahtna.
Brownfields Funding
    On December 1, 2021, Ahtna, Inc. requested funding for the FY 2022 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Community Wide Assessment Grants 
for States and Tribes (Funding Opportunity Number: EPA-OLEM-OBLR-21-04) 
to assess 15 of the higher priority material sites. This proposal was 
not funded with the agency stating that the proposal did not score high 
enough. Ahtna received a debrief on this proposal and is working to 
resubmit it during the next funding cycle. There are some items that 
the SCIA should be aware of to make this program more beneficial to 
Alaska Natives. Since its inception, the Brownfield grant program has 
allocated more than $250,000,000 annually. \4\ Of this, only three 
grants in the amount of $1,096,533 have been awarded to Alaska Native 
Tribes or Tribal Consortiums, and no grants have been awarded to an 
Alaska Native Corporation. This is far less than 1 percent of the 
funding. Alaska has 40 percent of the tribes on the Federally 
Recognized tribes list and 100 percent of the Alaska Native 
Corporations. This distribution percentage is far from equitable. The 
eligibility in Alaska is limited to ANCSA Corporations, yet no grant 
has been awarded to an ANCSA Corporation. It would be helpful to have a 
priority made for assessments on lands transferred to ANCSA 
Corporations that did not have assessments done in the past. 
Consideration should be given to lands transferred that have known 
military and federal agency use prior to transfer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ The EPA Brownfield Grant Fact Sheet, found at: https://
cfpub.epa.gov/bf_factsheets/index.cfm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ahtna Tribes
    Of the eight tribes in the Ahtna region, at least three of them 
have applied for funding under the Native American Lands Environmental 
Mitigation Program (NALEMP). One of our significant frustrations is the 
limited availability of funds for the landowner, the corporation, to 
clean up its own lands. To date, the clean-up of Ahtna lands has either 
been funded by Ahtna, Incorporated (private) or in conjunction with our 
tribes using federal grant funds. To date, there is simply not enough 
money available to even determine the extent of the problem, let alone, 
clean it up.
Gulkana
    The Native Village of Gulkana has had an active NALEMP since 2003. 
Notably, in 2008 a Tier I Reconnaissance Report prepared for the 
Gulkana Village Council identified five areas impacted by former 
Department of Defense activities during the construction of the 
``Alaska Highway.'' The five areas identified in the report were found 
to have buried hazardous materials including, oil and diesel fuel, and 
a ``tar-like preservative'' coating buried structures. Based upon field 
observations and analytical results, the report indicated that soil and 
groundwater are impacted in the village. \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Further details about this project can be found at: https://
dec.alaska.gov/Applications/SPAR/PublicMVC/CSP/SiteReport/26750.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tazlina
    The Native Village of Tazlina has several significant NALEMP 
projects identified to locate hazardous materials and clean up the 
lands around the village. One significant project to clean up hazardous 
material at the former Gulkana Prepositioning Area & Army Site began in 
2017. The project includes the removal of an abandoned 315,000-gallon 
aboveground storage tank and debris, including tires, food service 
unit, stove, water cooler, vehicle batteries, propane tanks, 5-gallon 
paint buckets, and several 55-gallon drums. \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ Further details about this project can be found at: https://
dec.alaska.gov/Applications/SPAR/PublicMVC/CSP/SiteReport/26751.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Tazlina Village NALEMP Program Coordinator Rick Young described the 
project and the history of contamination:

         When the military came in 1944 or `43 the village was there. 
        The military came in and they told the people in the village, 
        ``OK, we're going to build a military base here. You guys have 
        to leave.'' It was pretty short notice. And the homes--
        particularly the one that comes to mind is the Stickwan home 
        that was in the village--they burned their homes.
         The site was used after the war for maneuvers for the army. 
        They dug foxholes and did all kinds of things, just staying 
        prepared for war. I graduated from high school in 1970 and 
        there were still maneuvers going on. At that time [the 
        military] had huge fuel supplies and some stored ammunition.
         It was sometime in the `70s that the military quit. A lot of 
        the debris they just dumped in the woods, the way the military 
        did things in those days. There were big debris piles. They 
        would drive things off into Dry Creek into the creek bed and 
        just leave them. Some was buried. I understand there are still 
        caterpillars and all kinds of equipment that was just buried.
         There's an old--it looks like a tank and had a gun turret on 
        top--used for transporting military personnel. They unhooked 
        the tracks and drove it off the tracks and let it sink in the 
        moss. Over across the road in the state park there's huge slabs 
        of cement out in the woods. They had military hospitals, it 
        goes further over in that direction to the northwest of there. 
        There's some Native allotments that were contaminated.
         It's too much for a small village to do. Most of our work is 
        contracted out. It's going to be going on for years.
         We've spent quite a bit of money on tests and we've found 
        contaminated ground with fuel. We've found lead. There's 
        contamination like you would expect from batteries. This summer 
        we're going to be doing more soil sampling. We expect there's 
        more contaminated soil. We know there's contamination that we 
        found and we don't know how much we haven't found. It is 
        something that can be dangerous to one's health. I've told 
        people not to pick berries or mushrooms [in certain places]. 
        \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ Excerpt taken from the Copper River Record, Tazlina Village 
Cleans Up After World War II, found at: https://
www.copperriverrecord.net/tributaries/tazlina-village-cleans-up-after-
world-war-ii.

Gakona
    The Native Village of Gakona (NVG) became a partner in the NALEMP 
in FY 2008 with the signing of their first Cooperative Agreement (CA). 
The NVG has a land base of 61.3 square miles and is located 175 miles 
northeast of Anchorage, Alaska at the convergence of the Copper and 
Gakona Rivers. The United States Air Force operated the Aurora Radio 
Relay Site (RRS) from 1960 until 1983 and the communications station 
was a part of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System of the White 
Alice Communication System. The Aurora RRS is located by the Copper 
River near the NVG and has a total land surface area of 73.71 square 
miles. The Aurora RRS was bought by AT&T Alascom, Inc., in 1983; AT&T 
Alascom, Inc. remains the owner of the surface and subsurface lands to 
the site. Ahtna holds the title to affected surface and subsurface 
lands next to and surrounding the Aurora RRS.
    One project in 2010 funded the cleanup of 28, 55-gallon drum tops, 
5 grounding posts, 100 pieces of metal strapping, one Army truck 
tailgate, and one rusted metal stove, among other debris from 5.62 
acres of Ahtna land adjacent to the RRS site. In addition, analysis of 
samples collected and tested confirmed earlier findings that neither 
soil nor groundwater on affected Ahtna land was contaminated by 
petroleum products. There is still much work to be done to determine 
the extent of contamination in and around NVG.
Conclusion
    The sad conclusion to this story is that even 50 years after the 
passage of ANCSA, the Ahtna people still do not know how much 
contamination they received in their land entitlement. The little 
investigation and clean-up work that has been done so far is limited by 
Ahtna's own money and the paltry funds made available to Alaska tribes 
to clean up ANCSA lands. Further, the federal funds that are available 
under many clean-up programs are not equitably distributed to Alaska 
Natives. We are in desperate need of more, specifically targeted 
federal dollars, to investigate and clean-up ANCSA lands.
                                 ______
                                 
   Prepared Statement of Dimitri Philemonof, President/CEO, Aleutian 
                   Pribilof Islands Association, Inc.
    Dear Vice-Chairman Murkowski,
    Please accept our deep appreciation for the Senate Field Hearing in 
Unalaska on AN CSA Contaminated Sites and the ongoing impacts. I share 
my regrets missing it as I attend to our previously-scheduled Board of 
Directors Meeting.
    The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Inc. (APIA) is an Alaska 
Native non-profit consortium of the thirteen federally-recognized 
Unangax (Aleut) Tribes of the Aleutian Chain, Pribilof Islands, and 
lower Alaska Peninsula. APIA provides primary and behavioral health 
care, public safety and family protection, cultural and language 
revitalization, and environmental advocacy and technical support. By 
continually inhabiting our lands, and thriving on the riches from our 
waters for over 10,000 years, we demonstrate our unity as a people and 
our stewardship of the region's bountiful resources. We want to share 
information on two areas of Board priority: environmental advocacy and 
economic development.
Our Region
    From ancient village sites on every island throughout the region, 
the currently-inhabited Unangax region consists of 12 communities: 
thirteen federally-recognized Tribes in ten regional Tribal communities 
and two regional non-Tribal communities. These are the most remote 
communities with some of the highest costs of living in the state. 2020 
Census data counts 8,652 residents, with seasonal commercial fishing 
and processing increasing local populations substantially. Stretching 
over 1,500 miles west to east, the Unangax traditional lands cover over 
7,000 square miles and almost 100,000 square miles of the Bering Sea 
and North Pacific Ocean. The Aleutian Chain, as the most southern 
extent of the U.S. Arctic, makes the Unangax people Arctic Council 
Permanent Participants through the Aleut International Association. 
This and our location as the heart of the North Pacific Great Circle 
marine transportation route and with the Bering Sea as the primary 
gateway to the Arctic, cement our international role and interests 
beyond our vast region.
Environmental Impacts
    APIA keenly understands the scope and scale of impacts previous 
military and federal activities have brought to the region. From the 
direct losses of Unangax lives and communities in World War II, 
permanently displacing many families and scarring the individuals 
subjected to internment, to the legacy of contamination and land-use 
restrictions, these impacts are still felt today. While we have worked 
to address many of these losses, significant work remains to be done. 
Our work has shown us the long-term successes that can be achieved when 
our Tribes and their authorized representatives prioritize and lead 
these efforts in partnership with the responsible agencies. We 
collaborate with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) on the 
important cultural and historic considerations as we address the 
impacts of Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS). APIA and Tribal 
partnerships with Native American Lands Environmental Mitigation 
Program (NALEMP) allow for local prioritization and execution to 
appropriately address FUDS issues impacting our communities. 
Unfortunately, the largest projects are frequently left to outside 
contractors and remote project management of these responses. Seventy-
seven (J7) years after WWII's impacts on our lands, (40) FUDS sites 
still remain awaiting clean-up. Around (30) sites have been addressed 
since the 1990's, but because many of those site closures were 
accomplished without full remediation, but by requiring perpetual 
institution control. Many of these (30) sites retain caveats excluding 
or limiting future development, highlighting one of the most evident 
regional environmental justice concerns.
    One of the most important, longstanding and successful ways that 
APIA serves the environmental justice needs in our region is through 
the capacity that we develop and maintain with EPA IGAP Program 
support. Staff turnover, changing EPA administrative requirements, and 
evolving technical needs perpetuate our Tribal Environmental Programs 
requests for the customized regional support provided by APIA's IGAP 
Tribal Consortia funding, the future of which has been made uncertain 
by recent AIEO policy discussions. Our work ensures the capacity to 
address our region's environmental justice efforts as we also directly 
care for our environmental issues in partnership with the responsible 
agencies.
    IGAP allows our Tribal governments to have the support for trained 
personnel to staff and build their local Environmental Programs. The 
community benefits from IGAP funding are visually evident in improved 
solid waste management and the community's environment, with direct 
economic impacts of year-round local employment, and climate 
considerations found in mandatory environmental planning. EP A's 
Brownfields Program, particularly the Tribal Response Program (fRP) are 
important opportunities to grow beyond the capacity-only IGAP funds, 
but higher TRP ceilings and removing matching requirements for Tribes 
and small communities from other Brownfields funding would improve 
regional participation, where the best outcomes can be found. Our 
region cannot address environmental justice without mentioning Amchitka 
Island and the nuclear testing that has left a perpetual threat in our 
midst. After an unsatisfactory partnership with DOE Office of Legacy 
Management was ended abruptly at the end of 2021, APIA is working 
closely with DOE's Arctic Energy Office to address this environmental 
justice issue that impacts all our regional organizations and interest, 
including the Aleut Corporation and our village ANCSA corporations.
Economic Impacts: An Unalaska Example
    In Unalaska, suitable buildable lands are limited by more than the 
mountains meeting the ocean. Primarily owned by the Ounalashka 
Corporation of Unalaska, these lands are likely to be impacted by 
previous WWII military and other historic, mostly federal, activities, 
creating cleanup costs and substantially increasing construction costs. 
APIA provides Head Start Early Learning delivery to the community of 
Unalaska, including investing in our long-term service provision by 
planning and constructing a purpose-built Head Start beginning in 2021. 
Despite having a Phase 1 Site Assessment completed, contamination was 
found during construction. The limited contamination was common low-
level fuels, but the delays until reporting, sampling, analysis, 
remediation and contaminant transportation were completed, added months 
and thousands of dollars to the project. As climate change impacts our 
region and the fisheries we are almost entirely reliant on, our 
longterm economic opportunities rely on improving basic societal 
services and infrastructure. Delayed infrastructure investments are 
hampering the settlement of very populations that this infrastructure 
would serve. Resilient communities are built on sustainable economics 
and the support brought by economies of scale. Air transportation 
routes allow for (6) of the (13) regional Tribes' members to access 
Unalaska as a sub-regional hub for medical care, regional conferences, 
essential trainings, and other goods and services.
    Dutch Harbor is America's largest fishing port by volume and the 
nation's largest fisheries are executed annually in the Bering Sea. 
Protecting our invaluable renewable resources makes economic sense, 
most simply in the nearly billion dollars of annual revenue. 
Environmental protections for the millions of seabirds and thousands 
marine mammals, many of them endangered or threatened, are also 
benefited by well patrolled waters.
    The specific needs for greater environmental protection and 
enforcement capacity in the region have been outlined in the Aleutian 
Islands Risk Assessment, driven by foreign-majority innocent passage 
vessel traffic. Whether these ships are accessing the Bering Sea as the 
primary gateway to the Arctic, or using the North Pacific Great Circle 
marine transportation route, our regional spill and grounding risks are 
large, and poised to grow substantially with Northern Sea Route traffic 
development. Whether in Unalaska or Adak, greater environmental 
response capacity requires appropriate lands to site infrastructure. In 
the current context of our very limited response assets, greater 
enforcement capacity is key.
    Improving in-region search and rescue capacity saves lives. 
Increasing storminess and shifting fisheries distributions add to the 
inherent danger of making one's living at sea. Growing regional and 
Arctic eco-tourism places the relatively inexperienced in some of the 
world's harshest and most remote locations. As local subsistence users 
venture farther in our vast region for traditional foods, every hour 
counts should they require the same response resources that are taken 
for granted in the lower 48. Increased US Coast Guard presence in the 
region through re-stationing permanent assets requires usable and 
uncontaminated land.
    The Unangax have been the sentinels of our lands and waters for 
over 10,000 years. As many of your initiatives have demonstrated, we 
are also committed to ensuring the continued security of our people and 
resources. Strategic investments building towards our future that 
address shared economic, environmental and security concerns can 
literally be built on the solid ground reclaimed from the errors of the 
past, securing us all far greater rewards than matching short-sighted 
provocations. While military reuse is priority, widespread 
remilitarization of our region could result in reiterations of the many 
WWII impacts we continue to suffer, including those seemingly 
irrecoverable losses like the Village of Attu and all those western 
dialect speakers. We work to revitalize our language and cultural 
practices and train the next generation oflanguage teachers. With the 
loss of the Village of Attu, Atka is the last remaining community 
speaking our western dialect of U nangam Tunuu. We work closely with 
the Aleut Corporation to support the community of Adak, its 
infrastructure and public safety for the residents. We are working with 
the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska to rebuild the health care services 
that were lost when the BIA Alaska Native Service Hospital was 
destroyed in WWII.
    Please let us know if we can host you or any of your team at our 
main office in Anchorage on your way out to on upon your return from 
our beautiful region.
    Thank you very much for your interest in our storied lands and our 
resilient people. Your efforts on our behalf and continued leadership 
for all of Alaska is greatly appreciated.