[Senate Report 118-187]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                  Calendar No. 432

118th Congress}                                           { Report
                                 SENATE
  2d Session  }                                           { 118-187

======================================================================
 
TRUTH AND HEALING COMMISSION ON INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOL POLICIES ACT 
                          OF 2023

                                _______
                                

                  July 8, 2024.--Ordered to be printed

                                _______
                                

           Mr. Schatz, from the Committee on Indian Affairs, 
                        submitted the following

                              R E P O R T

                         [To accompany S. 1723]

      [Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]

    The Committee on Indian Affairs, to which was referred the 
bill (S. 1723) to establish the Truth and Healing Commission on 
Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States, and for 
other purposes, having considered the same, reports favorably 
thereon, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute, and 
recommends that the bill, as amended, do pass.

                                PURPOSE

    To establish a Truth and Healing Commission on Indian 
Boarding School Policies (Commission) in the United States, and 
other advisory committees and subcommittees; formally 
investigate, document, and report on the histories of Indian 
Boarding Schools and their systematic and long-term effects on 
Native American peoples; develop recommendations for federal 
action based on the findings of the Commission; and promote 
healing for survivors, descendants, and communities affected by 
Indian Boarding Schools.

                               BACKGROUND

    Before European contact, Native peoples maintained unique 
educational systems rooted in community and designed to meet 
the needs of their environments and cultures.\1\ The arrival of 
Europeans to North America and the Pacific Islands ushered in 
an era of attempted assimilation of Native peoples into 
European-American ways of life.\2\ Systemic attempts to 
eliminate Native languages, religions, and cultures, and end 
resistance to colonization, began as early as the 17th and 18th 
centuries, with the founding of some of the country's oldest 
educational institutions.34
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    \1\K. Tsianina Lomawaima & Teresa McCarty, To Remain an Indian: 
Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education 
(2006).
    \2\See generally Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law, 
22.03[1][a] (2012 ed. & 2019 Supp.).
    \3\Indian Education: A National Tragedy, A National Challenge, S. 
Comm. on Labor and Public Welfare, Special Subcomm. on Indian Educ., S. 
Rep. No. 91-501 (1969) (highlighting examples such as King James IV of 
Scotland (James I of England) calling for Anglican clergy to fund the 
education of the ``children of these Barbarians in Virginia'' in 1617). 
See also Harvard University Charter of 1650 (1650), https://
guides.library.harvard.edu/c.php?g=880222&p=6323072 (``[for purposes 
of, among other things] the education of the English and Indian youths 
of this country, in knowledge and godliness''); Royal Charter 
establishing the College of William & Mary in Virginia (1693), https://
scrc-kb.libraries.wm.edu/royal-
charter#Transcription+of+the+Royal+Charter (establishing the college so 
that, among other things, ``the Christian faith may be propagated 
amongst the Western Indians'').
    \4\Dartmouth College Charter (1769), https://www.dartmouth.edu/
library/rauner/dartmouth/dartmouth-college-charter.html (establishing 
the ``design of spreading Christin knowledge among the saves of [the] 
American Wilderness'' by means of ``education and instruction of youth 
of the Indian tribes . . . which shall appear necessary and expedient 
for civilizing and christianizing children of pagans''); see Colin 
Calloway, The Indian History of an American Institution: Native 
Americans at Dartmouth (2010); see also Stephen W. Haycox, Alaska: An 
American Colony 146 (2002).
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    Assimilationist practices and policies through compelled 
education were not limited to formal institutions. For example, 
in the 1780s, Russian fur trading companies in Alaska took 
Native boys hostage, sent them to training schools, and forced 
them into servitude as navigators, interpreters, and seamen.\5\ 
In other cases, training schools were founded by religious 
institutions and later funded by the federal government. In 
1878, Presbyterian missionaries established a day school in 
Sitka, Alaska, at a former military barracks. The Sheldon 
Jackson School, so called after its founder, sought to ``house 
and educate . . . `with the intent to encourage Native 
Americans to adopt Euro-American culture.'''\6\ Jackson was 
named the General Agent of Education in Alaska in 1885, and in 
this position, created ``contract schools'' in which the 
federal government contracted with religious missionary 
associations to establish schools in remote villages across 
Alaska.\7\ Whether carried out in formal educational settings 
or in day, industrial, training, contract, or other schools, 
the forced ``education'' of Native children has a long history 
in the United States that implicates a number of institutions, 
including the federal government, all with the same mission: 
``kill the Indian in him, and save the man.''\8\
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    \5\Svetlana G. Fedorova, The Russian Population in Alaska and 
California Late 18th Century--1867 242-243 (Richard A. Pierce et al., 
ed. & trans., 1973). Following admission to statehood, some former 
Russian schools in Alaska continued to operate through church parishes. 
Id. at 266.
    \6\Nat'l Park Serv. National Historic Landmark Nomination, Sheldon 
Jackson School (2001) at 5.
    \7\Stephen W. Haycox, Sheldon Jackson in Historical Perspective: 
Alaska Native Schools and Mission Contracts, 1885-1894, 28 The Pac. 
Hist. 1, 18-28 (1984).
    \8\See Captain R.H. Pratt, The Advantages of Mingling Indians with 
Whites, in Americanizing the American Indians: Writings by the 
``Friends of the Indian,'' 1880-1900 (Francis Paul Prucha ed., 1973).
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Federal Support for Forced Assimilation Through Education of Native 
        Children

    By the early 1800s, the United States began a campaign of 
forced assimilation under the guise of educating Native youth, 
formalizing the practice after the War of 1812. In 1819, 
Congress passed the Indian Civilization Fund Act to provide for 
federal oversight of the education of Native peoples and to 
establish an annual ``civilization fund'' of $10,000 per year 
for the purposes of converting them to European ways of living, 
speaking, and acting.\9\ Most of these funds were provided to 
churches and their mission schools;\10\ in Hawai`i, 
missionaries from the United States established day schools and 
boarding schools primarily aimed at ``civilizing'' and 
converting Native Hawaiians to Christianity.\11\ Over time, the 
federal government centralized administration of Indian 
educational efforts under the Commission of Indian Affairs 
within the Department of the Interior (DOI), the successor in 
jurisdiction to the Department of War.\12\ By 1838, the federal 
government operated 16 manual training schools with 
approximately 800 Native students, and 87 boarding schools with 
approximately 2,900 Native students.\13\ The policies of these 
schools were rooted in a belief that Native peoples were 
``barbarous and heathen . . . [and] `wedded to savage habits, 
customs, and prejudices''' which could be ``cured'' through 
manual training and labor.\14\
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    \9\Act of March 3, 1819, ch. 85, 3 Stat. 516 (codified at 25 U.S.C. 
Sec.  271). Annual appropriations to fund Indian education continued 
under the Indian Civilization Fund Act until repealed in 1873 by the 
Act of Feb. 14, 1873, Ch. 138, 17 Stat. 437, 461. See generally Cohen's 
Handbook of Federal Indian Law, 22.03[1][a] at 1329-30 & n.6.
    \10\See S. Rep. No. 91-501 at 11, 143 (1969).
    \11\See U.S. Dep't of the Interior, Federal Indian Boarding School 
Initiative Investigative Report (2022) (``In 1836 . . . missionaries 
formed the Hilo Boarding School . . . [t]he Charter of the Hilo 
Boarding School . . . required schooling of Native Hawaiian male 
children in . . . Christian living . . . coupled with manual labor to 
promote good citizenship training.'').
    \12\See Letter from John C. Calhoun, U.S. Sec'y of War, to Thomas 
L. McKenney (Mar. 11, 1824), in H.R. Doc. No. 19-146, at 6 (1826); 25 
U.S.C. Sec. 1; Act of July 9, 1832, Ch. 174, 4 Stat. 564.
    \13\S. Rep. No. 91-501, at 11 (1969).
    \14\Id. at 8.
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    Accordingly, in 1879, the federal government opened one of 
the first off-reservation boarding schools, the Carlisle Indian 
Industrial School, in an abandoned U.S. Army barracks in 
Carlisle, Pennsylvania.\15\ Richard Henry Pratt, an Army 
officer and founder of the School, established a ``rapid 
coercive assimilation'' approach that became the model for the 
federal Indian boarding school system, and required ``severe 
[military] discipline . . . to separate a child from his 
reservation and family, strip him of tribal lore and mores, 
force the complete abandonment of his native language, and 
prepare him in such a way that he would never return to his 
people.''\16\ General Pratt's approach at Carlisle was rooted 
in his experience with American Indians held as prisoners of 
war at the Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School,\17\ 
which is regarded as the nation's first residential experiment 
in educating American Indians as a means of preparing them for 
citizenship.\18\ Hampton's founder, General Samuel C. 
Armstrong, was influenced by his parents and other missionaries 
in Hawai`i who were involved in the education of Native 
Hawaiian children. Believing that ``the Polynesian, like the 
Negro, suffered from a `deficiency of character,'''\19\ General 
Armstrong modeled Hampton after the Hilo Boys' Boarding School 
in Hawai`i, a missionary-run boarding school established to 
primarily convert Native Hawaiians to Christianity and, 
ultimately, ``civilize'' them through manual labor and 
training.\20\ Hampton continued as a boarding school for 
American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians until 
1923.\21\
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    \15\Id. at 147.
    \16\Id. at 148.
    \17\Jon L. Brudvig, ``Make Haste Slowly:'' The Experiences of 
American Indian Women at Hampton Institute, 1878-1923 1 (2005), https:/
/www.se.edu/native-american/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/2019/09/
Proceedings-2005-Brudvig.pdf (``Hampton . . . was established in 1868 
to serve the . . . needs of recently emancipated slaves . . . American 
Indian students [formerly prisoners of war] came to Hampton . . . [and] 
their presence . . . spawned the development of off-reservation 
boarding schools'').
    \18\Id.
    \19\Ralph Canevali, Hilo Boarding School: Hawai`i's Experiment in 
Vocational Education 92 (1977), https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/
5014889.pdf.
    \20\C. Kalani Beyer, The Connection of Samuel Chapman Armstrong as 
Both Borrower and Architect of Education in Hawai`i (2007), https://
www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-of-
education-quarterly/article/abs/connection-of-samuel-chapman-armstrong-
as-both-borrower-and-
architect-of-education-in-hawaii/15E99DC33C913D9485CE7773D158C046.
    \21\See generally Ralph Canevali, Hilo Boarding School: Hawai`i's 
Experiment in Vocational Education (1977), https://core.ac.uk/download/
pdf/5014889.pdf.
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    As mission-run boarding schools expanded their reach 
throughout the country and to the Hawai`i territory, Congress 
authorized the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to promulgate 
regulations ``to secure the attendance'' of Indian children at 
such schools in 1891.\22\ These regulations applied to all 
Indian children between the ages of five and eighteen (whether 
living on or off-reservation), permitted the use of law 
enforcement to compel attendance,\23\ and authorized the 
withholding of clothes, rations, and other annuities from non-
compliant parents or guardians.\24\ The overarching federal 
goal of compelled schooling was to reduce the cost of fighting 
with Indian Tribes and, ultimately, dispossess them of their 
homelands through the complete elimination of their languages, 
cultures, and social bonds.\25\
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    \22\Act of March 3, 1891, ch. 543, 26 Stat. 989, 1014.
    \23\U.S. Cong. Serial Set, Vol. 2934, at 158-159 (1891).
    \24\Act of March 3, 1891, Ch. 543, 26 Stat. 989, 1035. See S. Rep. 
No. 91-501 at 151 (1969).
    \25\Legislative Hearing on H.R. 5444, Truth and Healing Commission 
on Indian Boarding Schools Policies Act Before the Subcomm. on 
Indigenous Peoples of the H. Comm. on Nat. Res., 117th Cong. (2022) 
(statement of Deborah Parker, Nat'l Native Boarding School Healing 
Coalition).
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    Once at the schools, Native children were subject to 
systematic violence, including corporal and psychological 
punishment such as shaving heads to remove traditional 
hairstyles; confinement; flogging and whipping for speaking a 
Native language or engaging in other prohibited conduct; 
handcuffing; having older children punish younger ones; sexual 
abuse; neglect; and malnourishment.\26\ In some cases, children 
would be ``lent'' to nearby communities or adjacent states to 
work as servants and farm laborers, in what were commonly known 
as ``outing programs.''\27\ Placement at these schools led to 
disease, death, and the fraying of Native languages, cultural 
practices, and social life;\28\ the physical and psychological 
effects of these experiences created lasting intergenerational 
trauma for survivors and their families.\29\
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    \26\U.S. Dep't of the Interior, Federal Indian Boarding School 
Initiative Investigative Report 7-8 (2022).
    \27\See, e.g., Kevin Whalen, Beyond School Walls: Race, Labor, and 
Indian Education in Southern California, 1902-1940 (2014) (Ph.D. 
dissertation, University of California Riverside); Kevin Whalen, Native 
Students at Work: American Indian Labor and Sherman Institute's Outing 
Program, 1900-1945 (University of Washington Press 2018).
    \28\See supra notes 7 & 25; see also, Juliet Larking-Gilmore, 
Homesick: Disease and Distance in American Indian Boarding Schools, 
Remedia (Nov. 18, 2016), https://remedianetwork.wordpress.com/2016/11/
18/homesick-disease-and-distance-in-american-indian-boarding-schools/; 
Legislative Hearing on H.R. 5444, Truth and Healing Commission on 
Indian Boarding Schools Policies Act Before the Subcomm. on Indigenous 
Peoples of the H. Comm. on Nat. Res., 117th Cong. (2022) (statement of 
James LaBelle Sr., National Native Boarding School Healing Coalition); 
Legislative Hearing on H.R. 5444, Truth and Healing Commission on 
Indian Boarding Schools Policies Act Before the Subcomm. on Indigenous 
Peoples of the H. Comm. on Nat. Res., 117th Cong. (2022) (statement of 
Matthew War Bonnet, boarding school survivor).
    \29\See e.g., Legislative Hearing on H.R. 5444, Truth and Healing 
Commission on Indian Boarding Schools Policies Act Before the Subcomm. 
on Indigenous Peoples of the H. Comm. on Nat. Res., 117th Cong. (2022) 
(statement of James LaBelle Sr., National Native Boarding School 
Healing Coalition); Legislative Hearing on H.R. 5444, Truth and Healing 
Commission on Indian Boarding Schools Policies Act Before the Subcomm. 
on Indigenous Peoples of the H. Comm. on Nat. Res., 117th Cong. (2022) 
(statement of Matthew War Bonnet, boarding school survivor); Amy Bombay 
et al., The Intergenerational Effects of Indian Residential Schools: 
Implications for the Concept of Historical Trauma, 51 Transcultural 
Psychiatry 3 (2014); Hope MacDonald Lonetree, Healing from the Trauma 
of Federal Residential Indian Boarding Schools, Administration for 
Children and Families (Nov. 24, 2021), https://www.acf.hhs.gov/blog/
2021/11/healing-
trauma-federal-residential-indian-boarding-schools.
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    Compounding such cruelty, official school policies (or in 
some cases, simple geography) kept children and their parents 
and families apart. In an 1886 report to the Secretary of the 
Interior, Indian School Superintendent John B. Riley wrote, 
``[i]f it be admitted that education affords the true solution 
to the Indian problem, then it must be admitted that the 
boarding school is the very key to the situation.''\30\ Riley 
went on to say, ``[o]nly by complete isolation of the Indian 
child from his savage antecedents can he be satisfactorily 
educated . . . .''\31\ Such techniques were also used by 
mission-run schools. For example, in 1887, an Alaska Native 
mother sought a writ of habeas corpus to free her child from a 
government-funded Presbyterian Boarding School in Sitka, 
Alaska. While the judge allowed limited visitation, he required 
the child to stay at the school, writing, ``It is the 
experience of those who have been engaged in these Indian 
schools that, to make them effectual as disseminators of 
civilization, Indian children should, at a tender and 
impressionable age, be entirely withdrawn from the camp, and 
placed under the control of these schools. [Allowing parents to 
take their children home] would render all efforts of both the 
government and missions to civilize them abortive.''\32\
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    \30\Annual Report of the Indian School Superintendent to the 
Secretary of the Interior 137 (1886).
    \31\Id.
    \32\In re Can-ah-couqua, 29 F. 687, 690 (D. Alaska 1887).
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    According to DOI's Federal Indian Boarding School 
Initiative Investigative Report, as of May 2022, the federal 
government supported or operated at least 408\33\ Indian 
boarding schools between 1819 and 1969, across 37 states or 
territories.\34\ The total number of Native children who 
attended these schools is unknown, but many did not survive and 
their remains never returned home.
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    \33\The National Native American Boarding School Coalition, Indian 
Boarding Schools in the United States (2023), https://
boardingschoolhealing.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/National-
Native-American-Boarding-School-Healing-Coalition_List-of-Indian-
boarding-schools-in-US_August-2023.pdf (identifying a total of 523 
Indian Boarding Schools operating between 1801 and the present).
    \34\U.S. Dep't of the Interior, Federal Indian Boarding School 
Initiative Investigative Report 83 (2022) (reporting 21 schools in 
Alaska, 7 in Hawai`i, 12 in Kansas, 21 in Minnesota, 16 in Montana, 3 
in Nevada, 43 in New Mexico, 12 in North Dakota, 76 in Oklahoma, 30 in 
South Dakota, and 15 in Washington).
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            FEDERAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO INDIAN EDUCATION\35\
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    \35\See Indian Education: A National Tragedy, A National Challenge, 
S. Comm. on Labor and Public Welfare, Special Subcomm. on Indian Educ., 
S. Rep. No. 91-501 (1969). Although not explicitly focused on Indian 
Boarding Schools, in 1928 and again in 1969, DOI and the United States 
Senate, respectively, conducted investigations into the state of Indian 
education in the United States.
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The Problem of Indian Administration (Meriam Report)--1928

    On June 12, 1926, Secretary of the Interior Huber Work 
commissioned the Institute for Government Research, later 
renamed the Brookings Institute, to conduct a comprehensive 
survey of Indian affairs in the United States.\36\ The survey, 
named the ``Meriam Report'' after its author, focused on a 
number of areas, including industrial, social, and medical 
activities, property rights, economic conditions, and education 
of Indian peoples. The Report compared these activities as 
carried out within the DOI's Office of Indian Services to 
similar programs implemented by other federal agencies.
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    \36\Lewis Meriam, Institute for Government Research, The Problem of 
Indian Administration (1928) [hereinafter Meriam Report].
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    Generally, the Report laid bare Interior's ineffective and 
inadequate oversight of Indian affairs, finding that ``an 
overwhelming majority of the Indians are poor, even extremely 
poor . . .'' and suffer from a ``vicious circle of poverty . . 
. . .''\37\ On Indian education, and boarding schools 
specifically, the Report concluded that ``the provisions for 
the care of the Indian children in boarding schools are grossly 
inadequate,'' and that ``even at the best schools these sources 
do not fully meet the requirements for the health and 
development of the children. At the worst schools, the 
situation is serious in the extreme.''\38\ It specified four 
general deficiencies in Indian education at the time: 
inappropriate pedagogy;\39\ lack of funds;\40\ lack of 
personnel;\41\ and lack of qualified personnel.\42\ These 
findings provided a foundation for the passage of the Johnson 
O'Malley Act\43\ and the Indian Self Determination and 
Education Assistance Act.\44\
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    \37\Id. at 11.
    \38\Meriam Report at 12.
    \39\Id. at 346.
    \40\Id. at 347.
    \41\Id.
    \42\Id.
    \43\25 U.S.C. Sec. 5342 et seq. (1934).
    \44\25 U.S.C. Sec. 5301 et seq. (1975).
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Indian Education: A National Tragedy--A National Challenge (Kennedy 
        Report)--1969

    In 1967, the United States Senate established the Special 
Subcommittee on Indian Education within the Committee on Labor 
and Public Welfare, and specifically authorized it to examine, 
investigate, and make a complete study of all matters 
pertaining to the education of Indian children and related 
issues.\45\ For over two years, the Subcommittee held hearings, 
conducted document-based research, and traveled throughout 
Indian country. Its final report, known as the Kennedy Report, 
contained 60 recommendations and concluded that Indian 
education was a failure and a ``national tragedy.'' The Kennedy 
Report led to enactment of the Indian Education Act of 1972, 
landmark legislation that established the U.S. Department of 
Education's Office of Indian Education and the National 
Advisory Council on Indian Education.\46\
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    \45\S. Res. 165, 90th Cong. (1967).
    \46\Indian Education: A National Tragedy, A National Challenge, S. 
Comm. on Labor and Public Welfare, Special Subcomm. on Indian Educ., S. 
Rep. No. 91-510, at 105-136 (1969).
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           FEDERAL INVESTIGATION INTO INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOLS

Department of the Interior Boarding School Initiative

    On June 22, 2021, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland 
directed DOI, under the supervision of the Assistant 
Secretary--Indian Affairs, to investigate and prepare a report 
detailing the impacts of the federal Indian boarding school 
program that operated between 1819 and 1969.\47\ The first 
volume of the report, released on May 11, 2022, documents and 
affirms that the United States targeted American Indian, Alaska 
Native, and Native Hawaiian children as part of its 
assimilation and territorial dispossession efforts,\48\ and 
presents evidence that the Federal Indian boarding school 
system engaged in systematic, militarized, and identity-
altering practices\49\ to culturally assimilate American 
Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children as a ``cost 
saving'' method to decrease the likelihood of war with Native 
nations and ultimately dispossess them of their lands.\50\ In 
light of such evidence, the Assistant Secretary--Indian Affairs 
recommended inter alia that the DOI ``renounce forced 
assimilation of Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and the 
Native Hawaiian Community as a legitimate policy objective,'' 
as well as produce a second report, with additional 
investigation that includes a full accounting of federal 
support for the federal Indian boarding school system.\51\
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    \47\Memorandum from the Sec'y of the Interior to Assistant Sec'ys, 
Principal Deputy Assistant Sec'ys, Heads of Bureaus, and Offices (Jun. 
22, 2021) (on file with the U.S. Dep't of the Interior), https://
doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/secint-memo-esb46-01914-federal-indian-
boarding-school-truth-initiative-2021-06-22-final508-1.pdf.
    \48\U.S. Dep't of the Interior, Federal Indian Boarding School 
Initiative Investigative Report 5 (2022).
    \49\Id. at 7 (Such practices included renaming children in English, 
cutting their hair, discouraging or preventing the use of Native 
languages and religious and cultural practices, organizing children 
into units to perform military-style drills, and employing various 
forms of corporal and psychological punishment).
    \50\Id. at 37, 38.
    \51\Id. at 95, 97.
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          TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION ACTIVITIES IN NORTH AMERICA

National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

    The National Native American Boarding School Healing 
Coalition (NABS) was formed in 2011 to develop a national 
strategy to raise public awareness of federal Indian Boarding 
School policies and support healing for survivors, their 
families, and communities.\52\ Comprised of over 1,200 Native 
and non-Native members and organizations, NABS conducts 
historic and contemporary research and engages in public 
education and advocacy.
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    \52\See The National Native American Boarding School Healing 
Coalition, https://boardingschoolhealing.org/ (last visited June 20, 
2024).
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    Notably, NABS maintains a first of its kind ``National 
Indian Boarding School Digital Archive'' of digitized records 
and collections documenting information related to Indian 
boarding schools, as well as an interactive map showing the 
locations of each of the 523 Indian boarding schools identified 
to date.\53\ NABS also collaborates with organizations, 
including Canada's National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation 
and the National Indian Education Association, to develop 
culturally-based curriculum for educators, and works with the 
American Indian College Fund to provide scholarships to 
descendants of former Indian boarding school students. And, 
through a grant from the DOI, NABS is building a record of 
survivor testimony through an oral history project to document 
the experiences of boarding school survivors and promote 
healing.\54\
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    \53\Interactive Digital Map of Indian Boarding Schools, The 
National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, https://
boardingschoolhealing.org/digitalmap/ (last visited June 20, 2024).
    \54\Press Release, U.S. Department of the Interior, Interior 
Department Launches Effort to Preserve Federal Indian Boarding School 
Oral History (Sept. 6, 2023) https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/
interior-department-launches-effort-preserve-federal-indian-boarding-
school-oral.
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    As the leading advocacy organization dedicated to 
understanding and addressing the legacy of federal Indian 
Boarding School policies,\55\ NABS has provided extensive 
testimony and subject matter expertise to Congress about the 
need for legislation to create a federal commission to fully 
investigate, document, and acknowledge these policies, and 
promote healing for survivors.\56\
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    \55\See, The National Native American Boarding School Healing 
Coalition, 2023 Annual Report 5 (2023), https://
boardingschoolhealing.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Annual-Report-
NABS-2023_V2.pdf.
    \56\See, e.g., Legislative Hearing on H.R. 5444, Truth and Healing 
Commission on Indian Boarding Schools Policies Act Before the Subcomm. 
on Indigenous Peoples of the H. Comm. on Nat. Res., 117th Cong. (2022); 
Oversight Hearing on ``Volume 1 of the Department of the Interior's 
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report'' and 
Legislative Hearing on S. 2907 Before the S. Comm. on Indian Affs., 
117th Cong. (2022).
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Maine-Wabanaki Truth and Reconciliation Commission

    In 2012, the Wabanaki Confederacy\57\ and Maine Governor 
Paul LePage signed a mandate establishing the first Tribal-
State Truth and Reconciliation Commission: the Maine-Wabanaki 
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (MWTRC).\58\ The MWTRC's 
purpose was to address the high rates at which Indian children 
were being removed from Indian homes and placed in foster care 
following enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 
1978.\59\ Between February 2013 and June 2015, the MWTRC 
engaged in a truth-seeking process by interviewing over 150 
people and traveling to numerous villages and communities to 
receive testimony. In June 2015, the MWTRC published its final 
report, which included sixteen findings and fourteen 
recommendations for future action.\60\
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    \57\Four Directions, https://fourdirectionsmaine.org/about-four-
directions/wabanaki-tribes/ (last visited Mar. 8, 2024) (the Wabanaki 
Confederacy is a confederation of Eastern Algonquin Nations and 
includes the Aroostook Band of Micmacs, the Houlton Band of Maliseet 
Indians, the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Motahkmikuk (Indian Township), the 
Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik (Pleasant Point), and the Penobscot 
Indian Nation).
    \58\Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation 
Commission Mandate (June 29, 2012) (on file with the Senate Committee 
on Indian Affairs) [hereinafter Maine TRC].
    \59\Id. Because of the terms of the Maine Indian Claims Settlement 
Act (P.L. 96-420), the application of the Indian Child Welfare Act to 
Tribes in Maine varies among the Maine Tribes. See Remote Legislative 
Hearing, House Natural Resources Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of 
the United States, 117th Cong. (2022).
    \60\Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation 
Commission, Report, Beyond The Mandate: Continuing The Conversation 
(2015), https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/mainewabanakireach/pages/
17/attachments/original/1468974047/TRC-Report-
Expanded_July2015.pdf?1468974047.
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Alaska Native Heritage Center: Lach'qu Sukdu Research Program

    In 2021, the Alaska Native Heritage Center (ANHC) created 
an Indigenous-led research program, Lach'qu Sukdu (``True 
Story'' in the Dena'ina language), to investigate Federal 
Indian boarding school system, among other goals. Such research 
includes identifying the scope of the system, location of 
schools and burial sites, and identification of children who 
were part of the system. To date, Lach'qu Sukdu has identified 
over 100 sites of former Indian boarding schools or 
institutions in Alaska.
    ANHC's Lach'qu Sukdu provides a place for Alaska Native 
people to share information concerning assimilative boarding 
schools in Alaska, increases access to information and 
education, supports Alaska Native culture and heritage, and 
promotes healing through the recognition of the history and 
impacts of assimilative boarding schools. Lach'qu Sukdu is 
partnering with ecclesial institutions, providing access to 
Alaska Native community members, and leveraging research and 
curatorial staff to catalogue primary source material, conduct 
interviews, and map school locations. Through these inputs and 
activities, Lach'qu Sukdu will promote accurate representations 
of the Alaska Native experience of Federal Indian boarding 
schools, create new models to facilitate healing from 
historical trauma, and over the long-term improve linguistic 
and cultural revitalization and promote reconciliation between 
Alaska Native communities and assimilative institutions.\61\
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    \61\Alaska Native Heritage Center, Cultural Programming, https://
www.alaskanative.net/cultural-programming/ (last visited Mar. 8, 2024) 
(on file with on file with the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs).
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First Alaskans Institute--Alaska Truth, Racial Healing and 
        Transformation Movement

    Starting in 2017, the First Alaskans Institute, in 
partnership with Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation: 
Alaska, developed a relational platform for transformation, 
including a network of accountability partners to support 
efforts related to Indigenous language education, 
transformation of public education, and the advancement of 
policies that center Alaska Native stewardship and protect 
Alaska Native ways of being.\62\
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    \62\W.K Kellogg Foundation, Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation, 
https://healourcommunities.org/ (last visited Mar. 8, 2024).
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    The Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation: Alaska 
movement incorporates the knowledge and vision of Alaska Native 
healers to foster healing and connectedness for thriving 
communities.\63\ In connection with this movement, the First 
Alaskans Institute trained media outlets on racial equity, 
invited them to be accountability partners, and developed a 
``How We Heal Toolkit'' to guide healing and reconciliation 
processes.\64\ The toolkit is based on advice from traditional 
healers about how to prepare for truth telling gatherings, 
including preparation of the gathering place, resources, and 
participants; how to support participants as they go through 
the truth telling process; and how to incorporate ancestral 
wisdom, cultures, and traditions.
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    \63\First Alaskans Institute, How We Heal Toolkit: Communities and 
Collective (2019), https://firstalaskans.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/
01/How-We-Heal-Toolkit-final-1-22-19.pdf.
    \64\Id.
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California Truth & Healing Council

    In 2019, the State of California established the California 
Truth & Healing Council to witness, record, and examine 
existing documentation of, and receive California Native 
American narratives on, the historical relationship between 
California Native Americans and the State, and to clarify the 
historical record of that relationship in the spirit of truth 
and healing.\65\ The Council is led and convened by the 
Governor's Tribal Affairs Secretary--a position currently held 
by an enrolled member of a California Tribe\66\--and is 
governed by a Council of Tribal leaders representing Central, 
Eastern, Northern, and Southern California.\67\
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    \65\Cal. Exec. Order No. N-15-19 (June 18, 2019), https://
www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/6.18.19-Executive-Order.pdf.
    \66\See Governor's Office of Tribal Affairs, Tribal Affairs 
Secretary, https://tribalaffairs.ca.gov/tribal-affairs-secretary/ (last 
visited Mar. 8, 2024).
    \67\California Truth & Healing Council, Charter of the California 
Truth & Healing Council (2020), Ch. II, Art. 3, https://
cthcupdates.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/cthc-charter_final.pdf.
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    By 2025, the Council will submit a final written report of 
findings that will reflect a holistic understanding of the 
historical relationship between California Native Americans and 
the State, may include recommendations aimed at reparation and 
restoration, and may consider how to prevent similar 
depredations and policies in the future.\68\
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    \68\Governor's Office Of Tribal Affairs, About the California Truth 
& Healing Council, https://tribalaffairs.ca.gov/cthc/about/ (last 
visited Mar. 8, 2024).
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Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission of 
        Canada

    Like the United States, Canada has a centuries-long history 
of boarding or ``residential'' schools that were established as 
part of a larger policy of termination and assimilation of 
Native peoples.6970 Between at least the 
1830s and the late 1990s, Canadian residential schools directly 
affected approximately 150,000 children.
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    \69\Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Honouring the 
Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the 
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, (2015), https://
irsi.ubc.ca/sites/default/files/inline-files/
Executive_Summary_English_Web.pdf [hereinafter TRC Canada Summary].
    \70\TRC Canada Summary at 54 (speaking to Canada's overarching 
policy towards First Nations in 1920, Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs 
Duncan Campbell stated, ``our object is to continue until there is not 
a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body 
politic'').
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    Following a series of class action lawsuits filed by 
residential school survivors against the Canadian federal 
government, the Canadian federal government agreed to negotiate 
a settlement.\71\ Indian Residential Schools Settlement 
Agreement included a mandate the Canadian Truth and 
Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which had several goals.\72\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \71\TRC Canada Summary at 129-134.
    \72\Acknowledge residential school experiences, impacts, and 
consequences; provide a holistic, culturally appropriate, and safe 
setting for survivors and their families to provide testimony to the 
TRC; witness, support, and promote national and community-level 
reconciliation events; promote public awareness and education about 
residential schools and their impacts; create as complete a historical 
record as possible; submit a final report describing the history, 
purpose, operation, effect, and consequences of residential schools; 
and support commemoration of former residential school students and 
their families. Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, 
Schedule N, at 1-2 (2006).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Between 2008 to 2015, the TRC received testimony from more 
than 6,500 witnesses, including many survivors of residential 
schools, hosted seven large national events to engage the 
Canadian public in a process of education, conducted 238 days 
of local hearings in 77 communities, and produced a six-volume 
report providing a historical overview of Canadian residential 
schools and their legacy, as well as a path to reconciliation 
with 94 action items.\73\
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    \73\National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, Reports, https://
nctr.ca/records/reports/ (last visited Mar. 8, 2024).
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Federal Reconciliation Efforts With the Native Hawaiian Community

    In 1993, on the 100th anniversary of the overthrow of the 
Kingdom of Hawai`i, United States formally apologized and 
committed to a process of reconciliation with Native Hawaiians 
by acknowledging its actions to usurp their sovereignty over 
land and natural resources and their right to self-
determination through the overthrow and eventual annexation by 
the United States.\74\ A Joint Resolution of Congress\75\ 
recognized that the overthrow resulted in the suppression of 
Native Hawaiians' ``inherent sovereignty'' and deprived them of 
their ``rights to self-determination'' and that ``long-range 
economic and social changes in Hawai`i over the nineteenth and 
early twentieth centuries have been devastating to the 
population and to the health and well-being of the Hawaiian 
people.''\76\ It further recognized that ``the Native Hawaiian 
people are determined to preserve, develop, and transmit to 
future generations their ancestral territory and their cultural 
identity in accordance with their own spiritual and traditional 
beliefs, customs, practices, language, and social 
institutions.''\77\ In light of these findings, Congress 
``express[ed] its commitment to acknowledge the ramifications 
of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai`i, in order to provide 
a proper foundation for reconciliation between the United 
States and the Native Hawaiian people.''\78\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \74\See generally Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law, 
4.07[4][a]-[c] (2012 ed. & 2023 Supp.) (providing overview and 
historical background of Kingdom of Hawai`i and federal relationship 
with Native Hawaiians as a result of the overthrow).
    \75\The Apology Resolution of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-150, 107 Stat. 
1510 (1993).
    \76\Id. at 1512-13.
    \77\Id.
    \78\Id.
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    Accordingly, following a series of hearings and meetings 
with the Native Hawaiian community in 1999, the DOI and 
Department of Justice issued ``From Mauka to Makai: The River 
of Justice Must Flow Freely,'' a report on the reconciliation 
process between the Federal Government and Native Hawaiians. 
The report concluded that ``the past history of the United 
States-Native Hawaiian relations reveals many instances in 
which the United States actions were less than honorable. 
Native Hawaiians continue to suffer the effects of these 
actions, for which our Nation continues to have moral 
responsibility,'' and recommended that, ``[f]or justice to be 
served, past wrongs suffered by the Native Hawaiian people 
should be addressed . . . through . . . efforts to promote the 
welfare of the Native Hawaiian people, respect their rights, 
and address the wrongs that their community has suffered . . . 
to ensure true reconciliation.''\79\ And in 2016, the DOI 
issued regulations to create a pathway for reestablishing a 
formal government-to-government relationship with the Native 
Hawaiian community to more effectively implement the special 
political and trust relationship that Congress established 
between the community and the United States. The rule sets out 
an administrative procedure and criteria that the U.S. 
Secretary of the Interior would use if the Native Hawaiian 
community forms a unified government that determines to seek a 
formal government-to-government relationship with the United 
States.\80\
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    \79\U.S. Dep't of the Interior & Dep't of Justice, From Mauka to 
Makai: The River of Justice Must Flow Freely 4 (2000), https://
www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/mauka-to-makai-report-2.pdf.
    \80\43 C.F.R. part 50 (2016).
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                          NEED FOR LEGISLATION

    Indian Boarding schools and institutions used systematic 
and often violent methods--including physical, psychological, 
and sexual abuse--to assimilate Native children as young as 
three years old, and to eradicate Native languages, cultures, 
and lifeways for federal gain, including reduction of the cost 
of war and acquisition of Native land.\81\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \81\Oversight Hearing on ``Volume 1 of the Department of the 
Interior's Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative 
Report'' and Legislative Hearing on S. 2907 Before the S. Comm. on 
Indian Affs., 117th Cong. (2022); Legislative Hearing on H.R. 5444, 
Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding Schools Policies Act 
Before the Subcomm. on Indigenous Peoples of the H. Comm. on Nat. Res., 
117th Cong. (2022) (statement of Deborah Parker, Nat'l Native Boarding 
School Healing Coalition). See also, Rebecca Nagle, The U.S. has Spent 
More Money Erasing Native Languages than Saving Them, High Country News 
(Nov. 15, 2019), https://www.hcn.org/issues/51-21-22/indigenous-
affairs-the-u-s-has-spent-more-money-erasing-native-languages-than-
saving-them/.
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    The traumatic effects of Indian Boarding School policies 
and practices on Native communities had far-reaching effects 
that are still felt by survivors, their descendants, and their 
communities to the present day.\82\ While the Native American 
Languages Act of 1991 found that the United States initiated 
``acts of suppression and extermination of Native American 
languages and cultures,''\83\ Congress has not fully 
acknowledged past policies that sought to assimilate Native 
peoples of the United States or established a Native-led 
process for Native communities to examine and heal from such 
policies.
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    \82\Legislative Hearing on H.R. 5444, Truth and Healing Commission 
on Indian Boarding Schools Policies Act Before the Subcomm. on 
Indigenous Peoples of the H. Comm. on Nat. Res., 117th Cong. (2022).
    \83\Native American Languages Act, Pub. L. No. 101-477, Sec. 102, 
101 Stat. 1153, 1154 (1990).
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    Further, while some non-profit organizations,\84\ religious 
institutions,\85\ and the DOI have conducted investigations 
into the impacts of Indian Boarding School policies, and other 
religious institutions are beginning to acknowledge their role 
in carrying out these policies and offering actions they can 
take to address those harms,\86\ the federal government has yet 
to take comprehensive, concerted action commensurate with the 
harms inflicted by its own policies. Current public and private 
efforts to address this issue cannot, by themselves, fully 
address the history or consequences of federal Indian Boarding 
School policies without Congressional acknowledgment and 
support.\87\ S. 1723 provides the thorough, nationwide process 
warranted by the breadth and severity of the federal Indian 
Boarding School legacy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \84\See e.g. The National Native American Boarding School Healing 
Coalition, at https://boardingschoolhealing.org/ (last visited Mar. 8, 
2024).
    \85\The Episcopal Church, A127--Resolution for Telling the Truth 
about the Episcopal Church's History with Indigenous Boarding Schools 
(2022), https://www.episcopalarchives.org/sites/default/files/gc--
resolutions/2022-A127.pdf.
    \86\See e.g. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Keeping 
Christ's Sacred Promise: A Pastoral Framework for Indigenous Ministry 
(2024), www.usccb.org/resources/Indigenous%20Pastoral%20Framework%20-
June%202024-Final%20Text.pdf.
    \87\U.S. Dep't of the Interior, Federal Indian Boarding School 
Initiative Investigative Report 6 (2022) (noting the limitation of the 
scope of its investigation).
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                SUMMARY OF THE BILL AS ORDERED REPORTED

    S. 1723 builds on an extensive Congressional record and 
robust bipartisan work that started in the 116th Congress.\88\ 
Over 100 written comments for the record were submitted by 
Indian Tribes, Native communities, organizations and 
individuals, the DOI, and religious organizations after the 
Committee conducted oversight by examining Volume One of the 
DOI's Federal Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report 
and held a legislative hearing on S. 2907 in June 2022.\89\ 
This input and Committee work resulted in the development of 
the amendment in the nature of a substitute adopted to S.1723 
and several additional amendments offered and adopted at the 
Committee's business meeting held on June 7, 2023.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \88\Truth and Healing Commission on Boarding School Policy Act, S. 
4752, 116th Cong. (2020); Truth and Healing Commission on Boarding 
School Policies Act, S. 2907, 117th Cong. (2022).
    \89\Oversight Hearing on ``Volume 1 of the Department of the 
Interior's Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative 
Report'' and Legislative Hearing on S. 2907 Before the S. Comm. on 
Indian Affs., 117th Cong. (2022).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The legislation reflects extensive bipartisan review, 
analysis, and debate of comments in three key areas related to 
the Commission and its advisory bodies: (1) structure, (2) 
establishment, and (3) operation.

Structure

    S. 1723 establishes a five-member Truth and Healing 
Commission, a 19-member Native American Truth and Healing 
Advisory Committee, a 17-member Federal Truth and Healing 
Advisory Committee, and a 15-member Native American Survivors 
Truth and Healing Subcommittee, with certain members of the 
Commission and Survivors Subcommittee cross-appointed to 
leadership positions on the different advisory bodies (Figure 
1).



            Figure 1. Organizational Chart of the Commission and its 
                    advisory bodies, indicating assignments and cross-
                    appointments

    This structure was created in response to testimony from 
Tribal leaders regarding their experiences working with 
existing Tribal advisory committees, as well as advocates and 
federal agencies regarding the range of offices, entities, and 
individuals that would be necessary for the Commission to 
efficiently and successfully exercise its duties and 
responsibilities.\90\
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    \90\U.S. Dep't of the Interior, Federal Indian Boarding School 
Initiative Investigative Report 14-15 (2022) (emphasizing that the 
Indian boarding school system was complex and its records expansive). 
DOI reported finding almost 40,000 boxes and almost 100,000 sheets of 
paper in the American Indian Records Repository (AIRR) related to 
federal Indian boarding schools.
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Establishment

    S. 1723 requires candidates for all positions on the 
Commission, the Native American Advisory Committee, and the 
Survivors Subcommittee to be nominated by Native entities and 
peoples, and establishes a bipartisan and bicameral 
Congressional process for appointing Commissioners based on 
five enumerated categories of expertise: (1) research; (2) 
Tribal courts, restorative justice, and federal agencies; (3) 
trauma informed care; (4) Indigenous human rights; and (5) 
cultural knowledge. The bill also establishes deadlines for 
nominations and appointments, as well as publication of an 
interim and final report to include related agency responses 
(Figure 2).



            Figure 2. Timeline of key milestones for establishment and 
                    operation of the Commission and its advisory 
                    bodies.

Operation

    S. 1723 addresses the operation of the Commission and its 
advisory bodies in four key areas--coordination, costs, 
investigation, and healing.
            Coordination
    The Commission must coordinate with and consider the needs 
of various stakeholders, including boarding school survivors 
and descendants, Native communities, relevant organizations, 
and federal agencies. The legislation facilitates such 
coordination through the appointment of non-voting designees 
from the Advisory Committees and Subcommittee to the 
Commission, and cross-appointment of certain Commissioners and 
members of the Survivors Subcommittee to leadership positions 
in various advisory committees. See Figure 1.
    In addition, the Commission may coordinate with federal 
entities by requesting detailees, contracting with public 
agencies, utilizing the Government Services Administration, 
exercising Buy Indian Act authority, and engaging with various 
federal archiving and curatorial facilities. It may also 
utilize resources provided by Native communities, individuals, 
churches, and other private organizations; and it may accept 
voluntary services from a range of sources, including 
universities and law schools.
            Funding Authorization
    S. 1723 authorizes appropriations of $15,000,000 per fiscal 
year, to remain available until expended, for the Commission to 
carry out its work for six years, and it permits the Commission 
to supplement its funding through fundraising and donations 
from the private sector. The Committee developed this funding 
framework through careful consideration of the costs associated 
with past and contemporary examples of similar commissions, for 
example, the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the 
DOI's Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, and the 
current truth and healing initiative in California, among 
others. The Committee also considered the broad scope of the 
Commission's anticipated duties, including public and private 
meetings with potentially tens of thousands of individuals from 
all 50 states,\91\ directing research activities involving over 
one hundred million pages of documents,\92\ providing trauma 
informed care to participants, and ensuring survivor 
participation through financial support for travel. To balance 
these anticipated costs, the Committee reduced the amount of 
compensation for members of the Commission and its advisory 
bodies, and limited compensation to 14 days per month and 
reimbursement to travel related expenses.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \91\Legislative Hearing on H.R. 5444, Truth and Healing Commission 
on Indian Boarding Schools Policies Act Before the Subcomm. on 
Indigenous Peoples of the H. Comm. on Nat. Res., supra note 25. The 
Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission received over 1,000 hours 
of testimony from over 6,000 individuals to address 139 boarding 
schools. Given the 521 known boarding schools in the United States, the 
Commission is expected to receive approximately four times the amount 
of testimony.
    \92\U.S. Dep't of the Interior, Federal Indian Boarding School 
Initiative Investigative Report (2022). DOI's report cites a total of 
98.4 million pages at the American Indian Records Repository alone, not 
accounting for the additional eight million pages believed to be within 
the current and former boarding schools' possession, custody, or 
control.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Investigation and Information Access
    Obtaining information is core to the Commission's 
investigatory function and its duty to deliver written findings 
and recommendations to Congress. The Committee learned through 
extensive feedback from Tribal stakeholders and religious 
organizations that for the Commission to accomplish the 
purposes of this Act and make accurate recommendations, it must 
have a full suite of information gathering tools, including the 
authority to issue subpoenas.\93\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \93\For example, delayed information resulted in the Canadian Truth 
and Reconciliation Commission's final report inaccurately citing a 
total of 6,000 child deaths at Canadian Residential Schools, when, 
almost 10 years later, and because of untimely obtained information, 
the number is better understood to be between 10,000 and 25,000. 
Additionally, the discovery of 215 children buried in a mass grave in 
Kamloops, Canada was made after the conclusion of the Canadian 
Commission's work. See e.g., Oversight Hearing on ``Volume 1 of the 
Department of the Interior's Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative 
Investigative Report'' and Legislative Hearing on S. 2907 Before the S. 
Comm. on Indian Affs., 117th Cong. (2022) (statement of Sandra White 
Hawk, Nat'l Native Boarding School Healing Coalition).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Congress has recognized the need for subpoena authority to 
assist other Congressional Advisory Commissions with 
information access.\94\ S. 1723 reflects thorough consideration 
and debate by both the House of Representatives\95\ and the 
Senate\96\ on the nature and extent of the Commission's 
subpoena authority in order to ensure that the Commission uses 
this authority responsibly, appropriately, and in a nonpartisan 
manner. Accordingly, the Commission's authority to issue a 
subpoena is limited by the following requirements: (1) all five 
commissioners must vote in favor to issue a subpoena (unanimous 
vote);\97\ (2) a subpoena may only issue to compel written or 
recorded evidence, not to compel oral testimony from 
individuals; and (3) the Commission must give a 10-day 
confidential notice of its intent to issue a subpoena to the 
Attorney General of the United States, who, upon a showing of 
procedural or substantive defect, may prohibit issuance of the 
subpoena. If the Attorney General prohibits the Commission from 
issuing the subpoena, the Attorney General must submit a report 
to Congress outlining its reasons. Additionally, S. 1723 
includes an enforcement requirement that the Commission seek a 
court order directing compliance, and applies the Federal Rules 
of Civil Procedure to the subpoena process. These provisions, 
approved unanimously by the Committee, provide important 
safeguards to protect constitutional due process.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \94\Since the 101st Congress, 12 congressional advisory commissions 
have been identified as having subpoena authority. See U.S. 
Congressional Research Service, Information Access for Congressional 
Advisory Commissions, R47173 (July 7, 2022) by Jacob R. Straus, 
Congressional Research Digital Collection, Accessed June 19, 2024).
    \95\Legislative Hearing on H.R. 5444, Truth and Healing Commission 
on Indian Boarding Schools Policies Act Before the Subcomm. on 
Indigenous Peoples of the H. Comm. on Nat. Res., 117th Cong. (2022) 
(statement of Deborah Parker, Nat'l Native Boarding School Healing 
Coalition).
    \96\Business Meeting to Consider S. 1723 Before the S. Comm. on 
Indian Affs., 118th Cong. (2023).
    \97\The Commission's membership is jointly appointed by the 
majority and minority leadership in the Congress, in consultation with 
the leadership of the relevant committees of jurisdiction in the House 
of Representatives and Senate. Each commissioner must meet certain 
criteria outlined in the S. 1723 and must be nominated to serve. These 
requirements for membership should also prevent misuse of the limited 
subpoena authority extended to the Commission.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Healing
    The Commission fulfills its responsibility to promote 
healing in four primary ways. First, the five-member Commission 
will include at least one Commissioner with experience in 
coordinating and providing trauma-informed care, one 
Commissioner recognized as a traditional cultural leader, and 
one Commissioner with restorative justice and other relevant 
experience. These three Commissioners will work closely with 
the Survivors Subcommittee to ensure that the Commission meets 
its duties with respect to healing and trauma-informed care. 
Second, the Commission will collaborate with the Survivors 
Subcommittee to establish culturally appropriate protocols for 
receiving testimony. Third, the Commission may use its 
contracting authority to provide adequate trauma-informed care 
options to all those involved in its work. Finally, the 
Commission will approach research about--and possible 
repatriation of--students' human remains with diligence and 
care, documenting, preserving, and appropriately sharing 
information regarding the discovery of burials with affected 
parties in accordance with the Native American Graves 
Protection and Repatriation Act and its applicable uniform 
repatriation processes.

                          LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

    On May 18, 2023, Senator Warren (D-MA) along with Senators 
Schatz (D-HI), Murkowski (R-AK) and 24 other original 
cosponsors, introduced S. 1723, the Truth and Healing 
Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act of 2023. The 
bill was referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs. To date, 
S. 1723 has 32 cosponsors.
    On June 7, 2023, the Committee met at a duly convened 
Business Meeting to consider S. 1723. Senators Schatz (D-HI) 
and Murkowski (R-AK) timely filed an amendment in the nature of 
a substitute that was treated as base text for amendment 
purposes. Fourteen amendments were filed; six were adopted en 
bloc by voice vote.\98\ The Committee ordered S. 1723, as 
amended, reported favorably by voice vote.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \98\Senator Daines (R-MT) timely filed eight amendments and 
untimely filed one amendment, Senator Mullin (R-OK) timely filed four 
amendments, and Senator Rounds (R-SD) untimely filed one amendment, 
which was not offered. With the concurrence of the Vice Chairman, the 
Chairman allowed for consideration of all timely and untimely filed 
amendments offered by sponsors.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    On February 5, 2024, Representatives Davids (D-KS) and Cole 
(R-OK) introduced H.R. 7227, the Truth and Healing Commission 
on Indian Boarding School Policies Act of 2024. To date, H.R. 
7227 has 61 additional cosponsors. The bill was referred to the 
Committees on Education and Workforce, Natural Resources, and 
Energy and Commerce. At a markup meeting held on June 13, 2024, 
the Committee on Education and Workforce considered H.R. 7227. 
Representative Kiley (R-CA) offered an amendment in the nature 
of a substitute. No other amendments were offered. The 
Committee ordered H.R. 7227 reported, as amended, by a vote of 
34-4. To date, the House has taken no further action on H.R. 
7227.
    117th Congress. On September 30, 2021, Senator Warren (D-
MA), along with Senator Schatz (D-HI) and 12 other original 
cosponsors, introduced S. 2907, the Truth and Healing 
Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act. The bill was 
referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs. Senator Murkowski 
(R-AK) and 12 other Senators later joined as cosponsors. On 
June 22, 2022, the Committee held a Legislative Hearing on S. 
2907 and an Oversight Hearing on ``Volume 1 of the Department 
of the Interior's Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative 
Investigative Report.''\99\ The Committee took no further 
action on the bill prior to the conclusion of the 117th 
Congress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \99\Oversight Hearing on ``Volume 1 of the Department of the 
Interior's Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative 
Report'' and Legislative Hearing on S. 2907 Before the S. Comm. on 
Indian Affs., 117th Cong. (2022), https://www.congress.gov/117/chrg/
CHRG-117shrg50193/CHRG-117shrg50193.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    On September 30, 2021, Representatives Davids (D-KS) and 
Cole (R-OK), introduced H.R. 5444, the Truth and Healing 
Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act, an identical 
companion bill to S. 2907. Representatives Davids (D-KS) and 
Cole (R-OK) were joined by 86 cosponsors. H.R. 5444 was 
referred to the Committees on Education and Labor and Natural 
Resources.
    On October 3, 2021, the Committee on Natural Resources 
referred H.R. 5444 to the Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples 
of the United States. On May 12, 2022, the Subcommittee held a 
hearing on the bill. On June 15, 2022, the Committee considered 
H.R. 5444 at a markup meeting. Representative Grijalva (D-AZ) 
offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute, which was 
treated as the base text for amendment purposes.\100\ The 
Committee on Natural Resources ordered H.R. 5444, as amended, 
reported favorably by voice vote.\101\ The House of 
Representatives took no further action on the legislation prior 
to the conclusion of the 117th Congress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \100\Representative Westerman (R-AR) offered two amendments, 
Representatives Obernolte (R-CA) and Boebert (R-CO) each offered an 
amendment. One of Representative Westerman's (R-AR) amendments was 
agreed to by unanimous consent. Representatives Obernolte (R-CA) and 
Boebert's (R-CO) amendments were not agreed to by roll call votes.
    \101\U.S. House of Representatives, Committee Repository, Markup of 
H.R. 263, H.R. 5444, H.R. 6063, H.R. 6181, H.R. 6337, H.R. 6427, H.R. 
6707, H.R. 6734, H.R. 7002, H.R. 7025, H.R. 7075, and S. 789, https://
docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=114898.
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    116th Congress. On September 29, 2020, Senators Warren (D-
MA), Merkley (D-OR), and Smith (D-MN) introduced S. 4752, the 
Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policy 
Act. The bill was referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs. 
The Senate took no further action on the legislation prior to 
the conclusion of the 116th Congress.
    On September 29, 2020, Representative Haaland (D-NM), 
introduced H.R. 8420, the Truth and Healing Commission on 
Indian Boarding School Policy Act, an identical companion bill 
to S. 4752. Representative Haaland (D-NM) was joined by 17 co-
sponsors. H.R. 8420 was referred to the Committees on Education 
and Labor and Natural Resources. The House of Representatives 
took no further action on the legislation prior to the 
conclusion of the 116th Congress.

       SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS OF S. 1723 AS ORDERED REPORTED

Section 1--Short title; Table of Contents

    This section sets forth the short title as the ``Truth and 
Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act of 
2023'' and provides a table of contents for the bill.

Section 2--Findings

    This section contains Congress' findings and establishes 
the need for this legislation.

Section 3--Purposes

    This section establishes four purposes of the bill:
           To establish a Truth and Healing Commission 
        and other necessary advisory committees and 
        subcommittees;
           To formally investigate, document, and 
        report on the histories of Indian Boarding School 
        Polices and their systematic and long-term impacts on 
        Native American peoples;
           To develop recommendations for federal 
        action based on the findings of the Commission; and
           To promote healing for survivors of Indian 
        Boarding Schools, their descendants, and their 
        communities.

Section 4--Definitions

    This Section provides definitions for various terms used 
throughout the bill.

                 Title I--Commission and Subcommittees


Subtitle A--Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School 
        Policies in the United States

    Section 101(a) establishes a commission to be known as the 
``Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School 
Polices in the United States.''
    Section 101(b) sets forth criteria for the 5 members of the 
Commission and requirements for nominations, appointments, 
vacancies, removals, termination, and limitations of these 
members.
    Section 101(c) establishes procedures for the first 
business meeting of the Commission and a basic framework for 
subsequent business meetings, including format, rules, quorum, 
and inclusion of Advisory Committee and Subcommittee designees.
    Section 101(d) that a simple majority of Commission members 
constitutes a quorum for a business meeting.
    Section 101(e) authorizes the Commission to establish 
additional rules for Commission business.
    Section 101(f) establishes the rates for Commissioner 
compensation and travel expenses, and authorizes federal 
employees to be detailed to the Commission upon request.
    Section 101(g) establishes the powers of the Commission 
including:
           Holding hearings and receiving testimony and 
        evidence;
           Conducting independent research and securing 
        relevant information;
           Subject to certain limitations, issuing 
        subpoenas to compel the production of evidence 
        necessary to accomplish the purposes of the Act;
           Overseeing, directing, and collaborating 
        with Advisory Committees and Subcommittees;
           Coordinating with federal and non-federal 
        agencies to carry out preservation and archival 
        activities;
           Securing additional personnel and services 
        through contracting, volunteers, and the General 
        Services Administration;
           Using the U.S. Postal Service;
           Accepting gifts, engaging in fundraising, 
        disbursing funds, issuing tax-deductions for gifts; and
           Coordinating with the Library of Congress 
        and the National Museum of the American Indian to 
        archive and preserve relevant gifts and donations.
    Section 101(h) sets forth the framework for the Commission 
to create rules and protocols for public convenings, 
establishes deadlines for announcing convenings, sets the 
minimum number of convenings, and clarifies that testimony 
shall be permitted at the convenings subject to the discretion 
of the Commission's Chairperson.
    Section 101(i) authorizes the Commission to issue subpoenas 
within the United States for written or recorded evidence 
pursuant to a unanimous vote of the Commission and with prior 
notice to the Attorney General; upon showing procedural or 
substantive defect, the Attorney General may prohibit the 
issuance of a subpoena and must supply Congress a report 
detailing reasons for such prohibition; and establishes 
processes for service and enforcement in accordance with the 
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
    Section 101(j) clarifies that the Privacy Act of 1974, the 
Freedom of Information Act, and the Federal Advisory Committee 
Act shall not apply to the Commission.
    Section 101(k) directs the Committee to consult or engage, 
as appropriate, with relevant individuals, Tribes, and Native 
organizations.
    Section 101(l) authorizes appropriations of $15,000,000, to 
remain available until expended, for each fiscal year of the 
Commission.

Subtitle B--Duties of the Commission

    Section 111(a) establishes the investigatory duties of the 
Commission, including:
           Conducting a comprehensive interdisciplinary 
        investigation into Indian Boarding School Policies and 
        their effects on the social, cultural, economic, 
        emotional, and physical health of Native communities, 
        Indian Tribes, survivors of Indian Boarding Schools, 
        and families and descendants of survivors;
           Conducting a comprehensive review of 
        historical and archival materials;
           Collaborating with the Federal Truth and 
        Healing Advisory Committee to obtain relevant 
        information from federal agencies and other relevant 
        institutions, as well as relevant information from 
        Native entities and institutions;
           Conducting a comprehensive review of the 
        impacts of Indian Boarding School Policies on American 
        Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian cultures, 
        traditions, and languages; and
           Authorizing the Commission to enter into a 
        contract or agreement to acquire, hold, curate, or 
        maintain objects, artifacts, or other property from 
        private individuals and entities, provided that federal 
        funds are not used to purchase such items.
    Section 111(b) establishes Commission duties regarding 
meetings and convenings, including:
           Holding safe, trauma-informed, and 
        culturally appropriate public or private meetings or 
        convenings to receive testimony; and
           Providing access to adequate trauma-informed 
        care services during and following such meetings and 
        convenings.
    Section 111(c) establishes Commission duties regarding 
recommendations to Congress, including:
           Considering and evaluating, in light of 
        Tribal, Native Hawaiian, and Tribal customary law, how 
        the federal government can meaningfully acknowledge the 
        federal government's role in supporting Indian Boarding 
        School Policies;
           Determining how modification of existing 
        laws, procedures, regulations, policies, budgets, and 
        practices will address the findings of the Commission 
        and the ongoing effects of Indian Boarding School 
        Policies; and
           Considering how the federal government can 
        promote public awareness and education of Indian 
        Boarding School Polices and their impacts.
    Section 111(d) establishes Commission duties regarding 
burial sites, including:
           Coordinating, as appropriate, with relevant 
        parties to locate and identify, in a culturally 
        appropriate manner, marked and unmarked burials;
           Locating, documenting, analyzing, and 
        coordinating the preservation or continued preservation 
        of records and information relating to the interment of 
        students; and
           Sharing with relevant parties, to the extent 
        practicable, the burial locations and identities of 
        children who attended Indian Boarding Schools.
    Section 111(e) establishes Commission duties regarding 
reporting, including:
           Delivering annual progress reports to 
        Congress;
           Publishing the initial report of the 
        Commission's findings 4 years after appointment of a 
        majority of the Commissioners;
           Publishing the final report of the 
        Commission's findings 6 years after appointment of a 
        majority of the Commissioners;
           Providing the final report to the listed 
        recipients and making the report publicly available on 
        the Commission's website, along with the Departments of 
        the Interior, Education, Defense, and Health and Human 
        Services, which are also required to make the report 
        available on their websites;
           Conducting public education and outreach 
        regarding the initial and final reports; and
           Monitoring responses from the Secretaries of 
        the Interior, Education, Defense, Health and Human 
        Services, who are required to publish a written 
        response to the final report within 120 days after 
        receipt, and to transmit their response to the 
        President, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, the 
        House Committee on Natural Resources, and the 
        Comptroller General of the United States.

Subtitle C--Survivors Truth and Healing Subcommittee

    Section 121(a) establishes a subcommittee to be known as 
the ``Survivors Truth and Healing Subcommittee.''
    Section 121(b) sets forth criteria for the 15 members of 
the Subcommittee and requirements for nominations, 
appointments, vacancies, removals, termination, and 
limitations.
    Section 121(c) establishes procedures for the first meeting 
of the Subcommittee and a basic framework for subsequent 
meetings, including format and quorum.
    Section 121(d) states that a simple majority of 
Subcommittee members constitutes a quorum for a business 
meeting.
    Section 121(e) authorizes the Subcommittee to establish 
additional rules for the conduct of its business.
    Section 121(f) establishes the duties of the Subcommittee, 
including: providing advice to the Commission on criteria and 
protocols for convenings, providing advice and evaluating 
Committee recommendations relating to commemoration and public 
education, and providing such other advice as may be required 
by the Commission.
    Section 121(g) directs the Subcommittee to consult or 
engage, as appropriate, with relevant individuals, Tribes, and 
Native organizations.
    Section 121(h) clarifies that the Privacy Act of 1974, the 
Freedom of Information Act, and the Federal Advisory Committee 
Act shall not apply to the Subcommittee.
    Section 121(i) establishes the compensation and travel 
expense rates for Subcommittee members.

                     Title II--Advisory Committees


Subtitle A--Native American Truth and Healing Advisory Committee

    Section 201(a) establishes an advisory committee to be 
known as the ``Native American Truth and Healing Advisory 
Committee'' (Native Advisory Committee).
    Section 201(b) sets forth criteria for the 19 members of 
the Native Advisory Committee and requirements for nominations, 
appointments, term lengths, vacancies, termination, and 
limitations.
    Section 201(c) states that a simple majority of Native 
Advisory Committee members constitutes a quorum.
    Section 201(d) permits a quorum of the Native Advisory 
Committee to remove a member for neglect of duty or 
malfeasance.
    Section 201(e) establishes procedures for the first 
business meeting of the Native Advisory Committee and a basic 
framework for subsequent meetings, including format and quorum.
    Section 201(f) authorizes the Native Advisory Committee to 
establish additional rules for the conduct of its business.
    Section 201(g) establishes the duties of the Native 
Advisory Committee, including:
           Serving as an advisory body to the 
        Commission;
           Assisting the Commission in organizing and 
        carrying out culturally appropriate convenings;
           Assisting the Commission in determining what 
        documentation from Federal and religious organizations 
        and institutions may be necessary;
           Assisting the Commission in the production 
        of the initial and final report;
           Coordinating with the Federal Truth and 
        Healing Advisory Committee and the Survivors 
        Subcommittee; and
           Providing such other advice or services as 
        the Commission may require.
    Section 201(h) directs the Native Advisory Committee to 
consult or engage, as appropriate, with relevant individuals, 
Tribes, and Native organizations.
    Section 201(i) clarifies that the Privacy Act of 1974, the 
Freedom of Information Act, and the Federal Advisory Committee 
Act shall not apply to the Advisory Committee.
    Section 201(j) establishes the compensation and travel 
expense rates for members of the Advisory Committee.

Subtitle B--Federal Truth and Healing Advisory Committee

    Section 211(a) establishes an advisory committee within the 
Department of the Interior to be known as the ``Federal Truth 
and Healing Advisory Committee'' (Federal Advisory Committee).
    Section 211(b) sets forth criteria for the 17 members of 
the Federal Advisory Committee and requirements for 
appointments, term lengths, vacancies, removals, and 
termination.
    Section 211(c) establishes procedures for the first 
business meeting of the Federal Advisory Committee, and a basic 
framework for subsequent meetings, including format and quorum.
    Section 201(d) states that a simple majority of Federal 
Advisory Committee members constitutes a quorum.
    Section 201(e) authorizes the Federal Advisory Committee to 
establish additional rules for the conduct of its business.
    Section 211(f) establishes the duties of the Federal 
Advisory Committee, including:
           Ensuring effective and timely coordination 
        between Federal agencies;
           Assisting the Commission and the Native 
        American Truth and Healing Advisory Committee in 
        coordinating meetings and convenings, and the 
        collection, organization, and preservation of 
        information; and
           Ensuring the timely submission to the 
        Commission of relevant evidence.
    Section 211(g) directs the Federal Advisory Committee to 
consult or engage, as appropriate, with relevant individuals, 
Tribes, and Native organizations.
    Section 211(h) clarifies that the Privacy Act of 1974, the 
Freedom of Information Act, and the Federal Advisory Committee 
Act shall not apply to the Advisory Committee.

                     Title III--General Provisions

    Section 301 clarifies that the Native American Graves 
Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) applies to human 
remains and funerary objects relating to an Indian Boarding 
School that are located on federal lands, located on lands 
managed by a federal agency, or curated by a federal agency.
    Section 302 authorizes federal agencies to rebury remains 
pursuant to NAGPRA on other federal lands, consistent with 
Tribal practices and subject to the agreement of the relevant 
parties.
    Section 303 authorizes federal agencies to enter into co-
stewardship agreements for the management of a cemetery or 
Indian Boarding School.
    Section 304 clarifies that nothing in the Act creates a 
private right of action to seek administrative or judicial 
relief.

                   COST AND BUDGETARY CONSIDERATIONS



    S. 1723 would establish a commission and advisory 
committees to document and remedy the effects of the federal 
Indian boarding school policies, under which the government 
forcibly removed children from their families and placed them 
in federally run boarding schools. Nonfederal employees would 
be compensated and reimbursed for travel expenses. 
Specifically, the bill would:
           Establish the Truth and Healing Commission 
        on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United 
        States, consisting of five members and lasting up to 
        six years. The commission would work to locate, 
        analyze, preserve records, and identify unmarked graves 
        related to Indian boarding schools; hold public 
        hearings; and report on its findings.
           Create a federal advisory committee, a 
        Native American advisory committee, and a survivors 
        subcommittee.
           Apply the Native American Graves Protection 
        and Repatriation Act to human remains and funerary 
        objects located on federal land or land managed or 
        curated by a federal agency.
    The estimated budgetary effects of S. 1723 are shown in 
Table 1. The costs of the legislation fall within budget 
function 500 (education, training, employment, and social 
services).

                                TABLE 1.--ESTIMATED BUDGETARY EFFECTS OF S. 1723
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                          By fiscal year, millions of dollars--
                                        ------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                           2024      2025      2026      2027      2028      2029     2024-2029
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authorization..........................        15        15        15        15        15        15           90
Estimated Outlays......................         7        15        15        15        15        15           82
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CBO estimates that enacting S. 1723 also would have insignificant effects on direct spending and revenues.

    S. 1723 would authorize the appropriation of $15 million 
annually for the commission. Based on spending patterns for 
similar activities and assuming appropriation of the specified 
amounts from 2024 through 2029, CBO estimates that implementing 
the bill would cost $82 million over the 2024-2029 period and 
$8 million after 2029.
    S. 1723 would authorize the commission to issue subpoenas 
to obtain documents, pending review by the Attorney General. 
The commission may apply to a district court requesting an 
order to comply with a subpoena. Failure to comply with a 
district court order may result in penalties; such penalties 
are recorded as revenues. CBO estimates that any additional 
revenues collected would total less than $500,000 over the 
2024-2034 period because the number of violations would 
probably be small.
    The bill also would authorize the commission to solicit 
donations and other funds from the private sector, which could 
be spent without further appropriation; such receipts are 
recorded as reductions in direct spending. Because donations 
would probably be spent soon after their receipt, CBO estimates 
that the net effect on direct spending over the 2024-2034 
period would be negligible.
    On February 22, 2024, CBO transmitted a revised version of 
this estimate, which was originally transmitted on February 20, 
2024. The revised estimate clarifies that any penalties would 
be assessed by district courts rather than by the commission. 
The estimated budgetary effects of the legislation are 
unchanged.
    The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Garrett 
Quenneville. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, 
Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.
                                         Phillip L. Swagel,
                             Director, Congressional Budget Office.

               REGULATORY AND PAPERWORK IMPACT STATEMENT

    Paragraph 11(b) of rule XXVI of the Standing Rules of the 
Senate requires each report accompanying a bill to evaluate the 
regulatory and paperwork impact that would be incurred in 
carrying out the bill. The Committee believes that S. 1723, as 
reported, will have minimal impact on regulatory or paperwork 
requirements.

                          EXECUTIVE TESTIMONY

    The Department of the Interior provided testimony to the 
Committee at a hearing on S. 2907, similar legislation that was 
introduced during the 117th Congress, on June 22, 2022. That 
testimony is below.

Statement of Deb Haaland, Secretary of the United States Department of 
                      the Interior--June 22, 2022

    Hello and good afternoon, Chairman Schatz, Vice Chairman 
Murkowski, and members of the Committee. My name is Deb 
Haaland, and I serve as the Secretary of the Interior. It is an 
honor and privilege for me to be here with you today to 
represent the Department of the Interior (Department) and our 
tens of thousands of dedicated professionals. It is deeply 
meaningful for me to speak to you from the ancestral homelands 
of the Anacostan and Piscataway people. Thank you for the 
opportunity to present the Department's testimony at this 
important oversight hearing on the Federal Indian Boarding 
School Initiative and S. 2907, a bill to establish the Truth 
and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in 
the United States.
    The Biden-Harris administration is determined to make a 
lasting positive difference in response to the trauma that 
these policies have caused, not just in the past but for 
current generations. I would also like to thank Senator Warren 
and the Co-chairs of the Congressional Native American Caucus, 
Representatives Sharice Davids and Tom Cole, for prioritizing 
legislation to address the federal Indian boarding school 
policies for the first time in United States history and find 
solutions to further shed light on its ongoing impacts on 
Native American and Native Hawaiian people.
    Starting in 1819, and lasting for over a century and a 
half, the federal government, including the Department of the 
Interior, forcibly removed and assimilated tens of thousands of 
American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children 
from tribal communities across the United States. Many children 
who entered the boarding schools were involuntarily removed 
from their communities and never returned home. This 
intentional targeting and removal of American Indian, Alaska 
Native, and Native Hawaiian children to achieve the goal of 
forced assimilation of Native people was both traumatic and 
violent.
    The consequences of federal Indian boarding school 
policies--including the intergenerational trauma caused by 
forced family separation and cultural eradication--were 
inflicted on generations of children as young as 4 years old 
and are heartbreaking and undeniable. As the head of the 
Department of the Interior and as the first Native American 
cabinet secretary, I am in a unique position to address the 
lasting impacts of these policies. I now have direct oversight 
over the very Department that operated and oversaw the 
implementation of the federal Indian boarding school system.
    Like all Native people, I am a product of these horrific 
assimilation era policies, as my grandparents were removed from 
their families to federal Indian boarding schools when they 
were only 8 years old and forced to live away from their 
parents, culture, and Pueblos until they were 13 years old. My 
family's story is similar to many Indigenous families' stories 
in this country, which is why, on June 22, 2021, I announced 
the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, a comprehensive 
effort to address the troubled legacy of federal Indian 
boarding school policies. On that same date, through a 
memorandum, I directed the Assistant Secretary--Indian Affairs 
to lead the first-ever departmental investigation into the 
federal Indian boarding school system.
    I am incredibly proud of the work that Assistant Secretary 
Newland and his entire team did on the first volume of this 
report. I particularly want to acknowledge the staff at the 
Bureau of Trust Funds Administration, which is managing the 
document collection, review, and records management of this 
Initiative. The vast majority of the work being released today 
was done by Indigenous staff in this department who worked 
through their own trauma and pain.
    The Department released Volume 1 of the investigative 
report on May 11, 2022. This report lays the groundwork for the 
continued efforts of the Department to address the 
intergenerational trauma created by historical federal policy. 
It marks the first time in over two hundred years, since the 
Indian boarding school policies were implemented, that the 
United States has formally reviewed or acknowledged the 
extensive scope and breadth of these policies. The Department 
welcomes Congress' and this Committee's engagement in this 
important and continuing effort.
    The Department's investigation focuses on the historical 
Indian boarding school system, which was implemented to further 
cultural assimilation and removal policies. The Department 
fully recognizes that unlike the federal Indian boarding school 
system we are investigating, contemporary Native residential 
schools are vital to advancing modern, culturally sensitive 
education.
    Some key highlights of Volume 1 of the Department's 
investigation of our federal records include evidence that the 
United States targeted American Indian, Alaska Native, and 
Native Hawaiian children through forced removal to Indian 
boarding schools in furtherance of territorial dispossession of 
Indigenous lands in the United States. The initial 
investigation shows that, between 1819 and 1969, the federal 
Indian boarding school system consisted of 408 federal Indian 
boarding schools across 37 states or then-territories, 
including 21 schools in Alaska and 7 schools in Hawai`i.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Some individual federal Indian boarding schools accounted for 
multiple sites. The 408 federal Indian boarding schools includes 431 
separate sites.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Additionally, the Department's initial investigation 
results show that approximately 50 percent of federal Indian 
boarding schools may have received support or involvement from 
a religious institution or organization, including funding,\2\ 
infrastructure, and personnel. Further, the federal government 
at times paid religious institutions and organizations for 
Native children to enter federal Indian boarding schools that 
these institutions and organizations operated.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ As the U.S. Senate has recognized, funds from the 1819 
Civilization Fund ``were apportioned among those societies and 
individuals--usually missionary organizations--that had been prominent 
in the effort to `civilize' the Indians.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Another important finding published in Volume 1 identifies 
approximately 53 different schools that contain marked or 
unmarked burial sites. While this report lays the groundwork 
for the efforts of the Department to address the full scope of 
the federal Indian boarding school policies and the 
intergenerational trauma endured by Indigenous peoples in this 
country, the Department is moving forward to develop Volume 2 
to further expand on these preliminary report findings. As the 
investigation continues, we expect the number of identified 
burial sites to increase, along with the potential expansion or 
more definite numbers of identified Indian boarding school 
sites, children, and operating dates of facilities.
    As we add to the list of burial sites, the Department, 
working with relevant sister federal agencies, will expand our 
collaborative work, including increasing Tribal communities' 
access to mental health resources. These healing actions will 
help strengthen Native communities in a manner that I hope will 
be pursuant to each of the various traditional and religious 
protocols and beliefs. This effort may include disinterment, 
repatriation, documentation, and memorial efforts, where 
appropriate, in consultation with Indian Tribes, Alaska Native 
Villages, and the Native Hawaiian Community.
    The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative constitutes 
the first time the federal government has reviewed the scope of 
these policies. This is an important step for intergenerational 
healing from the ongoing effects these policies caused, and we 
will take an all-of-government approach. I believe that our 
obligations to Native communities mean that federal policies 
should fully support and revitalize Native health care, 
education, Native languages, and cultural practices that prior 
federal Indian policies, like those supporting Indian boarding 
schools, sought to destroy. We can heal from the harm and 
violence caused by Indian assimilation by effecting government-
wide policies of revitalization for the Indigenous people of 
our country.
    I recently announced that we will embark on the ``Road to 
Healing,'' a tour throughout the nation to hear directly from 
survivors of federal Indian boarding schools and their 
descendants about their experiences. A necessary part of this 
journey will be to connect survivors and their families with 
mental health support, and to create a permanent collection of 
oral histories. We know this won't be easy, but it is a history 
that we must learn from if we are to heal from this tragic era 
in our country.
    As part of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, I 
look forward to continuing our work alongside sister federal 
agencies that administer the sites of former Indian boarding 
schools or possess or control records pertaining to the federal 
Indian boarding school system and those that currently provide 
medical and mental health services for Native communities. I am 
confident that, together, we can support the individuals and 
communities that have been shaped by detrimental federal Indian 
boarding school policies.
    I am proud of the work the Department is accomplishing to 
confront its role in these assimilation policies through 
education and am deeply grateful to Congress for its support as 
well. In particular, the Department appreciates the $7 million 
in funding provided for this work in Fiscal Year 2022, and we 
look forward to working with Congress on our Fiscal Year 2023 
request of an additional $7 million. These funds are crucial in 
order for this work to be thorough and effective, in particular 
the labor-intensive work of gathering and examining records and 
identifying and characterizing various sites.
    This funding will enable the Department to help expand 
existing school profiles following Volume 1 of the report, 
including detailing the number of children that attended 
federal Indian boarding schools; identifying marked and 
unmarked burial sites; identifying interred children, where 
possible; and detailing the amount of federal support for the 
system including support to non-federal entities.


s. 2907--a bill to establish the truth and healing commission on indian 
             boarding school policies in the united states


    I am grateful for the Committee's leadership in also 
considering S. 2907 as part of this hearing. This legislation, 
which I led with my colleagues when I served in the U.S. House 
of Representatives, would establish a Truth and Healing 
Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United 
States. The Commission would be required to investigate the 
impacts and ongoing effects of the Indian Boarding School 
Policies where Native children were forcibly removed from their 
homes. The Commission would be directed to develop 
recommendations on: (1) how to protect unmarked graves and 
accompanying land protections; (2) support repatriation and 
identify the Tribal Nations from which children were taken; and 
(3) to prevent the continued removal of American Indian, Alaska 
Native, and Native Hawaiian children from their families and 
Native communities under modern-day assimilation practices 
carried out by State social service departments, foster care 
agencies, and adoption services.
    The Administration strongly supports this legislation, 
especially the development of national survivor resources to 
address intergenerational trauma, and the inclusion of the 
Commission's formal investigation and documentation practices. 
In addition to our support, we would welcome an opportunity to 
work with the Committee, especially on access to records 
pertaining to the federal Indian boarding school system under 
the control of non-federal entities as set forth in the 
legislation to supplement the Department's Initiative.


                               conclusion


    Some of the most influential decisions by the Department on 
the lives of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native 
Hawaiian children involve those related to federal Indian 
boarding schools. That is part of America's story that we must 
tell. While we cannot change that history, I believe that our 
nation will benefit from a full understanding of the truth of 
what took place and a focus on healing the wounds of the past.
    I am grateful for your work to help address the atrocities 
that Indian boarding school survivors and families have endured 
for decades.
    Thank you again for your focus on the Federal Indian 
Boarding School Initiative and consideration of S. 2907. I am 
confident that, together, we can start to help Tribal 
communities to heal and strengthen Indian Country and the 
Native Hawaiian Community now and for future generations.

                        EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS

    The Committee has received no communications from the 
Executive Branch regarding S. 1723, or its reported version.

                        CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW

    On February 9, 2023, the Committee unanimously approved a 
motion to waive subsection 12 of rule XXVI of the Standing 
Rules of the Senate. In the opinion of the Committee, it is 
necessary to dispense with subsection 12 of rule XXVI of the 
Standing Rules of the Senate to expedite the business of the 
Senate.

                                  [all]