[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 24, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5337-S5341]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of 
Margaret L. Taylor, of Maryland, to be Legal Adviser of the Department 
of State.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hassan). The Senator from Massachusetts.


  Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act

  Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I rise today in support of my bill, the 
Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act. If 
voted into law, this bill would begin the process of delivering long 
overdue justice to stolen Native children and to their communities.
  The Indian Boarding School system was one of the most devastating 
Federal creations in American history. The scale was truly staggering. 
For over a century, the United States forced hundreds of thousands of 
children out of their homes and into over 500 ``boarding schools.'' 
These boarding schools were not unlike prisons.
  At least 408 schools were federally funded. They were scattered 
across 37 States, including Alaska and Hawaii. By the 1920s, 83 percent 
of school-age indigenous children were in boarding schools--imagine, 
four out of every five Native children taken from their families, some 
never to be seen again.
  The process was a waking nightmare. Armed officers were sent onto 
reservations to rip children as young as 4 from their families. Mothers 
and fathers who resisted could be severely punished.
  Once at boarding school, kids were stripped of their heritage. Their 
hair was cut off, their clothing was burned, and they were given new 
names. Children who tried to practice even remnants of their Native 
cultures could be starved, whipped, and put in solitary confinement. 
Many children were farmed out to nearby properties for forced labor. 
Some were deployed to fight in war. Some were sexually abused.
  Conditions at the boarding schools were deadly. Dormitories were 
overcrowded so that diseases spread easily. Documentation shows that 
hundreds of children died in these schools. It is estimated that the 
actual number of deaths was in the thousands or possibly even the tens 
of thousands. So far, 53 mass graves have been uncovered. Some are 
unmarked. Many children's remains were never returned to their 
families.
  The boarding schools' motto was ``Kill the Indian, and save the 
man.'' This approach was part of a larger effort. By isolating children 
from their families and their cultures, it was possible to break down 
the fabric of Tribal nations and take land more easily. Decision makers 
calculated that it was ``cheaper to educate our wards than to make war 
on them.''
  Congress funded the majority of these schools, often using funds held 
in trust accounts that were legally designated for the benefit of 
Tribal nations. Congress paid for the schools and then authorized law 
enforcement to take Indian children from their homes and their Tribes. 
It now comes to this Congress to do everything we can to begin to heal 
the damage that this body inflicted.
  Make no mistake, the harms of the Indian boarding schools live on 
today. In my time working on this bill, I have heard countless 
harrowing stories from survivors and from their families. There isn't 
an indigenous community in this country that hasn't been affected. 
Survivors have faced chronic medical issues and psychological trauma. 
They have struggled to reconnect with their loved ones, their language, 
and their cultures. We cannot rectify that past until we face it head-
on.
  There is still so much that we don't know about these boarding 
schools. We don't know how many children died in boarding school 
custody. We don't know the full spectrum of the violence that occurred. 
We don't know all of the ways the schools affect survivors and

[[Page S5338]]

descendants to this day. My bill would establish a Truth and Healing 
Commission to find those answers.
  The Commission would formally investigate the Indian boarding schools 
to determine what happened and the lasting impact these schools have on 
survivors, their families, and their Tribal communities.
  The Commission would hold hearings and convenings for victims to 
speak about their experiences, some for the very first time.
  The Commission would have the authority to use subpoena power to 
gather witness testimony and to review documentation.
  The Commission would be charged with making recommendations about how 
the history of the Indian boarding schools should inform Federal policy 
today.
  It would address how the Federal Government should acknowledge its 
role in this systematic attempt to eradicate indigenous cultures and 
how to take that history into account when developing new Federal 
policies and budgets.
  One last note. The boarding school policy ended just before 1970. 
Most of those affected have passed away, but there are remaining 
survivors in their sixties, seventies, and beyond. Every day that goes 
by, these survivors grow older, and their chance to tell their stories 
moves further away. These people have been harmed enough. Their wounds 
go deep, and they deserve a chance to stand before the U.S. Government 
and tell their stories in their lifetimes.
  I urge my colleagues not to delay adoption of this bill. Our actions 
cannot make up for the harms that Congress inflicted, but by moving 
now, we can at least offer some token of care to those survivors who 
offered themselves up as living witnesses of a cruel chapter in 
American history.
  Make no mistake, this work will be painful, but it will make us a 
stronger Nation. By telling the truth, we can give communities a better 
chance to heal, and we can begin to repair the U.S. Government's 
relationship with Tribal nations.
  This bill has broad support. It is bipartisan. It is supported by 
boarding school survivors, and 32 Members of Congress have cosponsored 
the bill.
  I urge my colleagues now to pass this bill. We should delay no 
longer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I am here today to follow my 
colleague Senator Warren to discuss the legislation that we have been 
working on together, S. 1723. This is the Truth and Healing Commission 
on Indian Boarding School Policies Act.
  As Senator Warren has just noted, this is legislation that will allow 
the Nation to address a chapter of American history that I think has 
been overlooked for far too long. This is a dark history, a dark legacy 
of the Indian boarding school era.
  From 1819 to 1969--1969, not too terribly long ago--throughout that 
period, the U.S. Government forcibly removed Native children from their 
families and their Tribes, placing them in boarding schools. These 
Indian boarding schools, as they came to be called, were not just 
education institutions, but many were tools to eradicate Native 
cultures, languages, and traditions to ``civilize'' Native American 
children.
  The traumatic effects of these boarding schools are still being felt 
by their survivors--not only by their survivors but by their children 
and really by their communities as well.
  I heard from some of those survivors who are still with us that the 
act of sharing, being able to tell the truth about their experiences, 
can help contribute to healing. But it takes courage, it takes 
extraordinary courage, and I have heard that.
  Fred John, Jr., who is the son of Katie John and Fred John, Sr., 
attended the Wrangell Institute in Alaska. He was assigned the number 
77. He was not referred to as Fred John, Jr.; he was No. 77.
  In 2018, he wrote that following his time at the boarding school, he 
still carried the pain and scars from his time at the institute. He 
never talked about it until his children gave him the strength and the 
encouragement to do so.
  General Pratt, who opened the Carlisle Industrial School, established 
what he called a ``rapid coercive assimilation'' process in these 
schools. The goal there was to separate Native children from their 
Tribes, from their language, and from their ways so that they might 
never want to return home. The stated purpose of the policy at that 
time was to ``Kill the Indian, and save the man''--again, a dark, dark 
legacy.
  Our committee report details this history. To hear just some memories 
of how these policies were implemented really is devastating.
  Fred John, Jr., describes seeing a group of kids arriving from 
Anaktuvuk Pass. This is a small Native community at the gates of the 
Arctic, very far into the interior of the State, very far--1,000 miles 
away from the Wrangell Institute down in southeastern Alaska. Fred 
John, Jr., remembered the fur parkas that they were wearing. He 
remembered their caribou pants. These were kids who came from a part of 
the State where caribou was their primary food source. He remembered 
how beautiful they all were. But when they came in, the school staff 
stripped them down, taking all their clothes, all the food, including 
the dry caribou and the salmon that they had been given to tide them 
over. The staff showered them, shaved them, and gave them a number.
  But the most painful in his retelling was how all of their clothes--
the beautiful fur parkas, the caribou pants--all their clothes--
everything--were taken and burned up in a furnace to completely wipe 
away their connection not just to the clothing but to the culture.
  In this time period, students were punished and endured violence. 
Some survived and are pursuing healing, but unfortunately, many others 
did not.
  This photo--there are two of them, actually, here on the same chart, 
and it may be difficult to see from a distance, but the photo on top is 
of a child laying on the floor. It is part of the Sheldon Jackson 
collection at the Presbyterian Historical Society. This shows an 
Alaskan Native child aboard a ship--it is called the Revenue Cutter 
Bear--to be taken to the boarding schools by Sheldon Jackson. According 
to Alaskan Native Heritage Center research, most of the children who 
were taken aboard never returned to their homes. It was a long and 
lengthy journey. Many went to school and never returned to their homes, 
passing away at the various boarding schools they were sent to, 
including the Sitka and Carlisle Industrial Indian Schools.
  This photo on the bottom here--you can see how young these children 
are. This comes from the National Library of Congress, and it shows a 
group of children who were sent to Catholic Holy Cross Mission--again, 
in the interior part of the State. Here, they are wearing essentially 
military uniforms--everything from the boots to the uniforms 
themselves.
  Benjamin Jacuk-Dolchok was one of the experts we worked with on this 
topic, and he shared his research, including these photos.
  According to testimony from elders who attended the Holy Cross 
school, every child received a haircut upon entrance, but if they 
disobeyed, if they angered any of the matrons or the priests, their 
heads would be completely shaved as punishment.
  And these are just a handful of the stories from survivors from 
Alaska, but Alaska was not the exception. Over the 19th and the 20th 
century, stories like these from survivors are, unfortunately, not too 
uncommon across the country.
  One of the most profound reasons for Congress to establish this 
Commission is that it is time. It is time the Federal Government take 
responsibility for the legacy of its harmful policies. So our 
Commission will provide a Native-led process for communities to share 
the stories, share the truth, and pursue healing with the goal of 
breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma.
  And like other congressional advisory Commissions that this body has 
established, it will be an independent, bipartisan, formal forum with 
expertise to examine the Federal Indian boarding schools' legacy but 
also to document it and to provide recommendations for action.
  Our legislation builds on an extensive congressional record that was 
developed through strong bipartisan work that started several 
Congresses ago. We

[[Page S5339]]

have had multiple hearings throughout our committees, listening 
sessions, and meetings and research by the relevant Senate and House 
committees. Over 100 written comments for the record from Indian 
Tribes, from Native communities and organizations, individuals, and 
religious institutions helped shape this legislation that we have 
reported to the floor of the Senate.
  And I think it is worth taking a moment here to talk about that 
process that we had in the Indian Affairs Committee. We had a pretty 
robust markup that began with a strong bipartisan effort by our staffs 
to put together a substitute amendment to the bill for the committee to 
consider, and that substitute amendment was then further amended by our 
down-dais members on the committee, who offered some really good 
amendments to address the hot-button issues, including extending 
subpoena authority to the Commission. These amendments were adopted, 
and the bill, as amended, was reported from the committee by voice 
vote.
  And through these additional amendments that we adopted at the 
business meeting, we now have a Commission that will have to meet 
higher standards than any other congressionally established Federal 
Commission in order to exercise that subpoena authority. And that is 
OK. That is OK here because subpoena authority should be a tool of last 
resort, but I do think that it is important for the Commission to have 
the tool to ensure that it can meet its investigatory function and 
deliver complete findings and recommendations to Congress.
  So I want to thank all those, the many, who have shared their 
stories--Fred John, Jr., and so many who have shared their stories--and 
for offering ways to pursue healing. Again, I want to acknowledge and 
thank Senator Warren for her leadership on this issue and for the 
leadership of Chairman Schatz from the Indian Affairs Committee for 
being a great partner as we have worked to develop this legislation 
through the committee process.
  So I am looking forward to building even more bipartisan support for 
this and would urge my colleagues to support this very important and 
very timely matter.
  With that, Madam President, I yield the floor, and I see my friend 
and colleague from Colorado is here.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Madam President, standing here listening to my 
distinguished colleague from Alaska, it is hard not to be angry at what 
we as a country did, and we are here today to reckon with this 
disgraceful part of our past. The Truth and Healing Commission on 
Indian Boarding School Policies Act is the first attempt by the Federal 
Government to formally investigate and address this horrific period in 
U.S. history. This legislation and the truth that it will unearth is an 
essential step toward healing.
  Now, from the early 19th to the mid-20th century, the U.S. Government 
established 408 Federal boarding schools across the United States. Now, 
these schools were created for the purpose of stripping Native American 
children of their language, their religion, and their cultural 
identity. In the over 100 years that these schools were in operation, 
our government took an estimated 100,000 Native American children from 
their homes and from their families. An estimated 40,000 of these 
children died alone, without their family, at government-sanctioned 
schools.
  And this is the story of one of those schools.
  Now, in 2022, I visited Colorado's Fort Lewis College. It is a 
wonderful, remarkable college. It has one of the highest, if not the 
highest, proportion of Native American students of any college in the 
country. But it traces its origin back to the Fort Lewis Indian 
Boarding School, and I went there to discuss the boarding school's 
history with students at Fort Lewis and with the Tribal Council of the 
Southern Ute and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribes.
  It is because of the hard work of Fort Lewis College and the hard 
work of the Tribes that we can bring many of the details of this dark 
history to light.
  Now, Fort Lewis was established in 1892 in Hesperus, CO. To call Fort 
Lewis a school really is--that is a bald-faced lie. Native American 
children were not given an education in reading or writing or math. The 
education model, instead, was based on assimilation into a White and 
Western way of life, and it came at a truly devastating cost.
  From 1892 to 1909, an estimated 1,100 children attended this boarding 
school in southern Colorado. These children were forcibly taken from 
their families of the Southern Ute, Navajo, Apache, and other numerous 
Tribes.
  Desperate to save their children, many Southern Ute families refused 
to turn their children over. As punishment, the school's superintendent 
Dr. Thomas Breen cut off the Tribe's food rations to try to force the 
children's attendance.
  Breen's tactics failed. The Southern Ute Tribe was steadfast in their 
resistance and their refusal to give up their children.
  Upon arrival at Fort Lewis, students were stripped of their clothing, 
their names, and, as Senator Murkowski said, their hair. Each day, the 
children were required to perform manual labor, like digging ditches 
and planting crops, oftentimes in the hot midafternoon sun. Combined 
with the poor sanitation and lack of food, many students quickly became 
ill. Disaster struck in the school's first year. A tuberculosis 
epidemic hit, followed by trachoma, known at that time as ``sore 
eyes.'' Two children died. Four others became blind. All were under the 
age of 12.
  Now, punishment of children at Fort Lewis was often severe. One 
father reported that his sons were forced to sleep outside in a coal 
shed in the middle of winter without adequate blankets. Superintendent 
Breen himself was known for sexually abusing his young female students 
and teachers. When the girls became pregnant, school officials made 
sure that they ``disappeared,'' transporting them to other schools to 
avoid suspicion.
  Our Federal Government never held Breen accountable. School reports 
show that 31 children died during the 16 years that the Fort Lewis 
school was in operation. I can guarantee you that the actual number is 
probably higher.
  This is the story of just one of these schools. There were four 
others in Colorado. There were 403 more across the country. That is 407 
other Superintendent Breens, tens of thousands of children who died in 
unmarked graves and who never saw their families again.
  It is hard to imagine why our government was preying on our own 
children. Why would our government sanction such conduct? Our 
government understood that erasing Native people's identity was a 
necessary condition to erase their claim to their land, to assimilate 
them right out of existence, and to ignore the lands guaranteed by 
treaty to the Tribes.
  Don't take my word for it. In less than 50 years, from 1887 to 1934, 
Native Americans lost two-thirds of their Tribal lands, of their treaty 
lands.
  And the legacies of this deep trauma remain embedded in Tribal 
communities today. In Colorado, we see it in the high rates of poverty, 
the high rates of addiction, the high rates of suicide among our Native 
American communities. We see it in children who don't know their 
parents' indigenous names or who have lost their own language, families 
who don't know what happened to their relatives, to their ancestors, 
many of whom just never returned home.
  The Truth and Healing Act is not going to erase this dark past, but 
it does acknowledge our responsibility to unearth the stories of 
suffering and injustice that we have buried for generations.
  In 2022, I joined Secretary Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior, 
at a dedication ceremony for the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic 
Site. In front of Tribal leaders and elected officials, Secretary 
Haaland told the crowd:

       Stories like the Sand Creek massacre are not easy to tell 
     but it is . . . our duty to ensure that they are told. This 
     story is part of America's story.

  The Fort Lewis Indian Boarding School, along with the 407 others, is 
a part of our story. When we pass the Truth and Healing Act, we make a 
choice to tell the whole story, and we make a choice never to repeat 
it.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise in support of S.1723, the 
Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act. I 
thank Senator Warren for her leadership on

[[Page S5340]]

this issue and her efforts, along with those of Chairman Schatz, Vice 
Chairman Murkowski, and the Indian Affairs Committee, to pass this 
bill. I also want to thank the National Native American Boarding School 
Healing Coalition based in Minnesota for its work to raise awareness of 
Indian boarding school policies and the experiences of those harmed by 
them.
  We know that between 1819 and 1969, Native American youth were forced 
against their will to attend Indian boarding schools across the 
country, including 21 in Minnesota. We know that these schools, of 
which there were hundreds, sought to strip these children of their 
Native identities, beliefs, and languages. And we know these schools 
subjected Native children to abuse and neglect. What we do not know is 
how many children were taken from their homes and families. And far too 
many families do not know what came of their children. For 150 years, 
countless voices have been silenced; countless stories have gone 
untold.
  This bipartisan legislation is about telling those stories. It is 
about addressing and investigating the lasting harms these boarding 
schools caused for generation after generation of Native Americans. And 
it is about beginning the healing process for the descendants of the 
victims of the Indian boarding school policies.
  Our Nation's strength comes from the diversity of our people, 
including our more than 10 million American Indians, Alaska Natives, 
and Native Hawaiians in our country. Their cultures and traditions 
should be celebrated, not suppressed as the Indian boarding school 
policies sought to do.
  The United States has a unique and sacred government-to-government 
relationship with Tribal nations that is deeply rooted in treaties, the 
law, and the Constitution. This relationship demands an unwavering 
Federal commitment to supporting the well-being of Native Americans. 
This legislation and the commission it would establish are critical 
steps toward fulfilling that commitment.
  One of the Native philosophies that has always resonated with me is 
the belief that decisions are not made just for today, but for seven 
generations from now.
  That is what this bill is: an investment in future generations. By 
putting us on a path to healing today, this legislation paves the way 
to a better tomorrow for Native families.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I rise today in support of the Truth and 
Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act and in 
remembrance of the thousands of Native children who died and suffered 
in these schools.
  Thousands of children were ripped from their families in the name of 
assimilation. Thousands of children were the victims of physical and 
sexual abuse. And thousands of children were forbidden from practicing 
their culture and speaking their Native languages.
  The operation of Federal Indian boarding schools by the U.S. 
Department of the Interior is one of the darkest chapters of American 
history, a chapter whose consequences are still being felt deeply by 
boarding school survivors, their families, and Tribal communities.
  The Federal Government funded more than 400 Indian boarding schools 
over the course of 150 years, one of the earliest being the Carlisle 
Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where Wampanoag children from 
my own home State of Massachusetts were stolen from their families, 
sent hundreds of miles away, and subjected to cruel and inhumane 
assimilation practices.
  When Captain Richard Henry Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian School 
in 1879, he imbued it with this model:

       Kill the Indian, save the man.

  But we know all too well that these boarding schools did only the 
former. They acted as a violent means of assimilation and an essential 
tool in the U.S. Government's dispossession of Native people's 
aboriginal rights, land, and culture. Children as young as 4 years old 
were subjected to systemic, violent abuse.
  The Department of the Interior's recent investigation found that 
children were renamed from Native names to English names; had their 
hair cut off; were discouraged or prevented from using their languages, 
religion, and cultural practices; and organized into units to perform 
military drills.
  The Department of the Interior has since identified marked and 
unmarked burial sites at 53 schools. This is just the tip of the 
tragic, horrifying, unacceptable iceberg of our history.
  In a confidential message to Congress, Thomas Jefferson said about 
Native people that ``when they withdraw themselves to the culture of a 
small piece of land, they will perceive how useless to them are their 
extensive forests, and will be willing to pare them off from time to 
time.''
  He directed Congress--Thomas Jefferson--to ``encourage them to 
abandon hunting'' so that ``the extensive forests necessary in the 
hunting life, will then become useless.''
  What was once a plot to take Native land also became the foundation 
of our Nation's century-long legacy of forced assimilation, 
displacement, and, ultimately, attempted eradication of Native 
language, culture, and the people themselves.
  We have not simply a moral responsibility but a legal obligation to 
the welfare of Tribes across the country to uphold treaty rights and to 
recognize the dark history of our own country. And this obligation 
cannot be met without securing truth, justice, and healing for every 
Native person, family, and Tribe affected by these genocidal policies.
  In Massachusetts, we have seen the healing process in action. After 
centuries of forced assimilation led to the extinction of the Wopanaak 
language, members of the Mashpee, Aquinnah, Assonet, and Herring Pond 
Wampanoag communities came together to widely reintroduce and reengage 
with their ancestral language.
  Today, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's school serves as a shining 
example of how Native students can thrive when they are surrounded by 
their language and their culture and not stripped of it.
  But Tribes should not be left to fight alone to recover what was 
stolen from them by the American government. Passing the Truth and 
Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act would be an 
essential step to turn the American government from an historic enemy 
to a future ally in righting these wrongs.
  So I thank Senator Schatz. I thank him for his great leadership on 
these issues and for his excellent staff. I thank Senator Murkowski for 
organizing this floor time for us to bring attention to this part of 
American history that we must never forget; and Senator Warren for 
introducing this important legislation that begins to put us on a path 
of truth and healing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, I want to thank everybody for being part 
of this series of very compelling speeches about the atrocities that 
the U.S. Government perpetrated against the first peoples of the United 
States.
  For over 150 years, the U.S. Government stole hundreds of thousands 
of Native children from their families and communities and forced them 
into federally run and supported ``boarding schools,'' often far away 
from their homes. These institutions, by design, worked with efficient, 
brutal, and systematic diligence to force Native children to abandon 
their culture, abandon their language, and abandon their very identity 
through unspeakably cruel punishment, abuse, and neglect. As one school 
superintendent noted: ``Only by complete isolation of the Indian child 
from his savage antecedents can he be satisfactorily educated.''
  These inhumane policies were part of the government's longstanding 
colonial project to rob Native people's land through assimilation. The 
goal was to ``civilize'' Native children by killing the Indian in him 
and saving the man. That was the motto at the time: Killing the Indian 
and saving the man.
  These were not faraway bad guys. These were employees and agents of 
the U.S. Federal Government. To hear this history today is appalling, 
it is infuriating, it is heartbreaking, because as the late Senator Ted 
Kennedy put it, it ``challenges the most precious assumptions about 
what this country stands for--cultural pluralism, equity and justice, 
the integrity of the individual, freedom of conscience and action, and 
the pursuit of happiness.''

[[Page S5341]]

  But it is not just the history that demands a reckoning. It is also 
the lasting legacy of these immoral policies, which continue to this 
day. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, which I chair, has heard 
devastating testimony from survivors, descendants, communities, and 
leaders about the impact of these schools decades later--a legacy of 
enduring trauma passed down from parent to child to grandchild to 
great-grandchild, fracturing families and communities over and over 
again.
  I want you to imagine a Native community with no kids left, just the 
parents and grandparents. Imagine, not just the trauma for that group 
of children who were abducted, but what kind of community is left 
there. As a parent, I would be absolutely catatonic for the rest of my 
life--across Indian reservations and Hawaiian homelands and Alaska 
Native communities, from coast to coast in cities and in rural 
communities. And we see it manifest in so many ways with Native 
communities, whether it is higher rates of mental health challenges or 
substance abuse or suicide.
  So it is not enough to just face up to the wrongs of the past; 
although, that is essential. It is equally important to provide justice 
and support for survivors and descendants. The Truth and Healing 
Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act does both of these 
things. The bill establishes a Truth and Healing Commission as well as 
several advisory bodies tasked with uncovering the full scope of what 
took place at these schools. The Commission will provide a platform for 
survivors to share their experience, for the Nation to hear and 
acknowledge their pain. Doing so ensures that these stories are 
preserved and that the atrocities are never forgotten.
  Importantly, this bill is sensitive to the trauma experienced by 
survivors and descendants and requires the Commission to provide them 
with trauma-informed care.
  Ultimately, the Commission's final report will provide a 
comprehensive account of the boarding school era and recommendations to 
Congress for future action.
  Madam President, before I close, I want to take a moment to directly 
acknowledge the survivors, the descendants, the families, and the 
communities that have been devastated by these policies. Some of them 
are here with us today in the Gallery. Their advocacy and courage have 
been the driving force behind this bill. And the fact that we have 
reached this point--having passed the bill unanimously out of Committee 
and ready to consider it before the full U.S. Senate--is testament to 
their unwavering commitment to truth and justice.
  Their stories will not be forgotten. This bill is not just a 
legislative act; it is a moral imperative. It is our duty to 
unflinchingly confront the full scope of this shameful history and help 
to heal the deep pains this very body helped create.
  We can't change the past, but we can and we must shape a better 
future--a future where the mistakes of the past are never again 
repeated, where every child can grow up with pride in their heritage 
and their identity.
  I urge my colleagues to join me and Senator Murkowski and all of the 
previous speakers and the author of this bill, Senator Warren, in 
supporting this important legislation. Too many have waited too long 
for truth, for closure, and for justice. By passing this bill, we can 
finally begin the work.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

                          ____________________