[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 100 (Wednesday, July 27, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 27, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
  INTRODUCTION OF THE INDIAN SELF-DETERMINATION ACT AMENDMENTS OF 1994

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                          HON. BILL RICHARDSON

                             of new mexico

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 27, 1994

  Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, Representative Thomas and I are pleased 
to introduce the Indian Self-Determination Act Amendments of 1994, 
which would amend the Indian Self-Determination and Education 
Assistance Act by making key provisions of the act self-implementing 
and by establishing a model contract. The model contract would govern 
the terms under which Indian tribes and tribal organizations could 
assume the operation and management of Federal programs and functions 
benefiting Indians that are operated within the Department of the 
Interior and the Department of Health and Human Services, including 
programs and functions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian 
Health Service.
  Mr. Speaker, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance 
Act was signed into law in 1975 in order to maximize tribal 
participation in the planning and administration of Federal services 
and programs, as well as to reduce the Federal bureaucracy within those 
Indian programs. Despite passage of the act, tribal attempts to assume 
the operation of Federal programs were hindered by an increased Federal 
bureaucracy as well as restrictive and unnecessary contracting 
regulations. The 1988 amendments to the Indian Self-Determination Act 
were intended to remove these barriers to contracting. The 1988 
amendments required the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health 
Service to develop regulations with the participation of Indian tribes 
by October 1989.
  Six years after passage of the 1988 amendments, the agencies have yet 
to promulgate regulations. Despite the preparation of negotiated 
tribal-Federal draft regulations, the agencies rejected the negotiated 
regulations. In January 1994, when the agencies finally published their 
proposed set of regulations, the proposal bore little resemblance to 
the negotiated draft but rather contained nearly all of the agencies' 
positions from their earliest drafts. The regulatory process has cost 
the tribes hundreds of thousands of dollars, and has led to great 
confusion within Indian country and among the Federal agencies. Rather 
than simplifying the contracting process, the proposed regulations 
would actually complicate the process and raise even greater barriers 
to Self-Determination Act contracting by tribes.

  The bill would prevent the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian 
Health Service from further frustrating tribal attempts to exercise 
their right to administer and operate Federal programs which serve 
their members. The bill would greatly simplify the contracting process, 
as the 1988 amendments were originally intended to do, and would reduce 
the Federal bureaucracy that is so pervasive in Federal Indian 
programs.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill comports with the administration's stated goal 
of reducing regulations. Rather than subjecting the agencies and the 
Indian tribes to 500 pages of regulations, Mr. Thomas and I are 
proposing a 40-page bill to solve the same problems. To quote Henry 
David Thoreau, ``Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, 
simplify.'' Today we seek to simplify a system that should make it 
easier, rather than more difficult, for the Indian nations to manage 
their own affairs.
  Mr. Speaker, this legislation is very similar to the bill which the 
Senate introduced earlier this year and which received the enthusiastic 
and overwhelming support of Indian tribes across the Nation. This bill 
reflects the recommendations of Indian country. I urge my colleagues to 
support it.

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