Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I rise today to ask the Senate to send H.R. 2930, the Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony Act, to the President's desk for his signature.

The need for this legislation is pretty straightforward.

In 2016, the Governor of the Pueblo of Acoma learned that a sacred ceremonial shield had been stolen and was about to be sold to the highest bidder in Paris. When Governor Riley informed me about this robbery of the Pueblo's cultural patrimony, I called on the State Department to take all possible action to halt the auction. Thankfully, intense public outcry and diplomatic pressure were enough to halt the illegal sale of a Tribe's cultural patrimony.

Finally, in November 2019, more than 3 years after the shield was put on the auction block, it was voluntarily returned to the Pueblo. However, this only happened because of intense public outcry and notoriety. In most cases like this, the item has been sold or simply disappears into a private collection.

Under current Federal law, it is a crime to sell certain protected Native American cultural objects, things like the Acoma shield, here in the United States. But there is still no Federal law prohibiting the export of stolen cultural items and requiring the cooperation of foreign governments in recovering them.

In many cases, Tribes in New Mexico and across our Nation have been forced to effectively pay a ransom to recover their sacred items or had to stand by and watch the sale of their priceless religious and cultural items in international markets.

The lack of an explicit ban on trafficking these items to foreign countries was actually cited by the French Government when they initially declined to stop the auction of the Acoma shield.

Grave robbing is illegal in every single State in the United States, and yet we allow Tribal religious objects, many of which were stolen literally from grave sites, to be exported and sold in foreign auction houses. We cannot let this loophole that allows foreign trade in Native religious heritage to go on for even one more day, and I would urge my colleagues to pass this bill today and end this awful practice.

2930, which was received from the House and is at the desk; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, through the Chair, I just want to take a moment to articulate the same commitment publicly, and we look forward to working with my colleague from Alaska, who has been so helpful in putting the STOP Act to a successful resolution. I look forward to working with her to get the Don Young package moved as well.

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