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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, the past 4 years have been historic for the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs by almost any measure. We secured the largest investment in Native communities in American history, totaling more than $45 billion. We had the committee's most productive 4-year period ever, passing more than a dozen bills into law. And, just this month, we passed another 10 bills in the Senate that are waiting for action in the House.
Taken together, these record investments and laws cover a wide range of priorities for native people--securing ancestral lands and waters, building safer communities for children and elders, and turning a new page on the boarding school era by promoting native languages, education, and healing.
But the numbers alone don't tell the story because behind each of these statutes and investments are real, tangible benefits for Native communities everywhere--from the homes they live in to the roads they get around on to the water they drink every day--and I am proud that we have been able to deliver such important investments in Indian Country, on Hawaiian homelands, and in Alaska Native villages, whose needs have been so often overlooked or even sometimes harmed by the Federal Government.
This progress means more people will have homes with working electricity and clean, piped water. Advance appropriations for the Indian Health Service, for the first time ever, means people don't have to worry about whether or not they can get to a doctor or not if the government shuts down. Significant investments in Tribal transportation and infrastructure means that communities are one step closer to making dirt roads and broadband deserts a thing of the past. And thanks to the provisions in the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, Tribes can be in charge of their own safety again with the ability to keep their children and their neighbors safe.
The committee has also enacted three water rights settlements into law and secured $2.5 billion to pay for these and the more than 30 other already enacted settlements. There is more work to do to get other settlements over the line, and we are going to continue to work with our House colleagues to get it done.
Rebuilding Tribal homelands, expanding broadband, building out transportation projects were key priorities for our committee on a bipartisan basis. We were also focused on helping Native communities unlock clean energy and adapt to a changing climate. Elsewhere, we put real resources into the Federal Government's efforts to revitalize Native languages and work to bring healing around the Federal Indian boarding school era.
From day one, our work was guided by the voices of Native leaders and community members--``nothing about me without me'' as the saying goes-- and we couldn't have done this without the incredible leadership of Native people across our great country, telling us what matters and holding us accountable.
The progress, though long overdue, is still in progress. The bills we passed and the investments we have made will materially benefit people's lives--for American Indians, for Native Hawaiians, and Alaska Natives. Now, that doesn't mean we get to call it a day, because to say that this is the most productive period for Native people as it relates to congressional action in American history is to say two things: It is to say we did a lot. It is certainly to say we did a lot. We did it on a bipartisan basis. We did it with extraordinary staff from my Indian Affairs Committee staffers to Lisa Murkowski's staffers, to all of the Members and advocacy organizations. We did a lot. It is also to acknowledge that it was a damned low bar. Most Congresses not only didn't help Native communities much but actively harmed Native communities a lot.
The official position of the United States Federal Government was the extermination of Tribal governments. The official position with the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. military, the Department of the Interior, and other Federal Agencies and their representatives was to essentially dismantle Native cultures--language, access to water, access to land. They cut the children's hair. They punished them physically if they spoke their Native language. They removed these children from their parents and incarcerated them in something that they called boarding schools, but let's be clear. It wasn't a boarding school in the sense of ``my kid is 16. We have some extra money. Maybe they are going to go to a good school on the east coast somewhere.'' They were incarcerated.
So it is true that we have done a lot. It is also true that we have done a lot--that we have harmed Native communities for centuries, and this 4-year period marks a change in the relationship between the U.S. Federal Government and Native communities from Hawaii to Alaska and all across the continent.
And so I am extraordinarily proud of the accomplishments of this committee, but I don't want anyone to mistake this for a victory lap. We have so much more to do to undo, literally, generations of injustice. No amount of work we are going to do in a year or even 4 years is going to suddenly and totally reverse generations of neglect and harm by the Federal Government. Yet this is a moment to recognize the great work we have done. It is broadband; it is water; it is economic opportunity; it is Native culture; it is Native language; it is Native music. It is people being in control of their own intellectual property, in control of their own destinies.
That is what this is about. This is about the right of people--the first peoples of the United States--to self-determination. I am proud to be a small part of that legacy.
(Mr. BROWN assumed the Chair.)
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