[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 48 (Tuesday, March 19, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2426-S2427]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



     Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development Appropriations

  Mr. President, in a place where bipartisanship is harder to find than 
it is to talk about, there is a glimmer of hope this week. In the 
appropriations package that passed 2 weeks ago, there was a rare 
product of quiet, good-faith, bipartisan efforts: a record amount of 
funding for housing for Native communities across the country.
  Working together, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and the 
House included $1.3 billion for Native housing as part of the 
Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development appropriations bill. 
That is an increase of a little more than $300 million.
  Tribal communities, as a direct consequence of perennial underfunding 
and neglect by the Federal Government, experience some of the highest 
poverty rates and worst living conditions in the Nation. They are 5 
times as likely to live in homes without plumbing, 4 times more likely 
to not have basic appliances, such as sink or stove or a refrigerator, 
and 1,200 times likelier to experience issues with heating--1,200 times 
likelier to experience issues with heating.
  So for them, the historic funding is a very, very big deal. It means 
that they can build more affordable housing, provide rental assistance, 
and get electricity and plumbing into their homes.
  The bill also includes a significant increase for funding for Tribal 
transportation, which will help to repair roads on Tribal lands that 
are in dire shape and improve transit across reservation land for 
people trying to get to work or to school or to the grocery store. This 
funding builds on the historic investments we have made in Tribal 
transportation infrastructure

[[Page S2427]]

over the past few years with the infrastructure law and the Inflation 
Reduction Act. It is about 175 million new dollars for Tribal 
transportations.
  All of this funding came to be because colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle, in both Chambers, said: Whatever other differences we may 
have, we agree that this is important and urgent and worth fighting 
for.
  We got to work, and we actually did it.
  Bipartisan victories do not grab the headlines in this town. They 
don't lead cable news or get tons of engagement on Twitter because 
there isn't a villain to ridicule or a controversy to editorialize 
about.
  But the Federal Government has a trust responsibility to American 
Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians, which we have long 
fallen short of. For generations, Native communities were considered an 
afterthought, especially in the spending process.
  Today, through steps like these, bit by bit, we are saying: No more.
  So I want to thank everyone who worked for months quietly behind the 
scenes to get this done. That includes Members and staff of the 
Appropriations Subcommittee on Housing, as well as the Committee on 
Indian Affairs, both of which I chair.
  I especially want to thank my ranking member, Cindy Hyde-Smith, and 
my vice chair, Lisa Murkowski, for their continued partnership on this 
and other Native issues. I want to thank the many committee members who 
advocated for this funding on behalf of Native communities in their 
home States.
  I am also grateful to our counterparts in the House: Representative 
Cole, the chairman of the Rules Committee and the chairman of the T-HUD 
Subcommittee; and Representative Quigley, who fought to include this 
funding, despite difficult fiscal constraints.
  As always, none of that is ever possible without the incredible staff 
on these committees who patiently and painstakingly turned commitments 
and deals made at the member level into real dollars and cents 
enshrined in Federal law.
  Over the past few years, as a nation, we have begun to reckon with 
and address historic injustices against marginalized communities. It is 
important, it is necessary, and it is long overdue. But, somehow, a lot 
of that work has glossed over America's first injustice--the injustice 
toward Native people.
  It is a brutal history spanning centuries and generations--forcibly 
removing Native people from their homelands, pushing children into 
boarding schools, robbing ancestral remains and cultural items. The 
impacts of the colonization and forced assimilation are being felt to 
this day.
  We are not going to reverse hundreds of years of injustice in one 
legislative session, but it can't be that remedying these injuries and 
those injustices--and finally doing right by Native people--takes 
another few centuries. It needs to start happening now. That requires 
all of us learning and really understanding the long and painful 
history. It means addressing the many ways that Native culture has been 
repeatedly robbed and harmed, which is something that the Committee on 
Indian Affairs, Federal Agencies, and others are working on with things 
like the repatriation of cultural remains and language revitalization.
  Above all, it means supporting the everyday material needs of Native 
people. They need electricity. They need running water. They need 
reliable heating in their homes. They need safe roads and accessible 
transit. All of this work has to happen together.
  The good news is this: Here in Congress, people in both parties 
recognize the urgency of issues affecting Native communities and are 
committed to prioritizing them. Even if that doesn't make for a splashy 
headline, it is no small thing for the millions of Native people across 
the country who are depending on us.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nebraska.