National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026
Floor Speech
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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, now I hope we can move to the next bill that, to be honest, should be even easier because the bill I am going to try to pass right now passed the U.S. Senate in December, unanimously. It already passed, so this should be a no-brainer. I hope my Senate colleague from California is on the floor here ready to give this bill his full endorsement and not object to it.
Let me just talk about this bill, briefly. Again, it already passed. It passed the House in July, so if we pass it right now, it is going to go to the President of the United States' desk for a signing. And this is a really big deal for my constituents.
Here is what it is: I talked about what I called the special patriotism of Alaska Natives. They serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country.
They had a situation when so many--and I mean thousands and thousands--of Alaskan Natives were serving in Vietnam. When a whole host of Americans didn't want to serve in Vietnam, Alaska Natives answered the call. So we have tens of thousands of Vietnam vets.
And when they came home, like a lot of Vietnam vets, they were not treated well. That was horrible. Our country should apologize for the horrible treatment our Vietnam vets got. Let's face it, as Alaska Natives, a lot of people still discriminated against Alaska Natives back then. They weren't treated well in that regard either. And, finally, a law had changed when they were overseas.
Alaska Native people used to have a right, starting in 1906, for a Native allotment; that is, 160 acres of land that if they can prove this is where their family raised them and hunted and fished, they could get that allotment--160 acres.
Well, when they were overseas fighting in Vietnam, that law changed. So here they were serving their country--when a lot of American males were avoiding service--and they got home, and they were told: By the way, your allotment that you are supposed to be able to get, that you wanted your whole life, that allotment changed, and you can't do it anymore. Huge injustice.
So during the first Trump administration, I introduced legislation called the Alaska Native Vietnam Veterans Land Allotment Act. And it said: Hey, if you were overseas serving in the military and you came home and the ability to get your allotment extinguished, you shouldn't be penalized for fighting for your country. You get the extended time to get your allotment. So that bill passed.
I was in the Oval Office when President Trump signed it. It was a great day for Alaska Natives, Vietnam veterans, very patriotic. It was a 5-year program. Unfortunately, we had Secretary Haaland implement it. Secretary Haaland did not implement it. Secretary Haaland, when she went through her confirmation hearing, committed to me twice: Senator, I will make this a priority of mine to implement this bill. You know what she did? She didn't do anything.
Shamefully, because radical leftwing environmental groups told her: We don't want anyone else getting land in Alaska, she did 40 allotments out of well over almost 3,000 available. She dragged her feet. She delayed it for 2 years.
So the 5-year program has almost run out of time because Secretary of the Interior Haaland was more interested in appeasing radical leftwing environmental groups than she was getting Alaska Natives their allotment, which is what the law demanded.
So this bill is very simple. Because of that delay, it changes two words in the already passed law. It says ``5 years'' to ``10 years.'' It is just a 5-year extension to a bill that everybody agrees with.
These patriotic Alaska Native Vietnam vets deserve their allotments, and they shouldn't have to suffer because of Secretary Haaland's delay tactics.
So this bill has already passed the House. This bill passed the Senate unanimously in December, and I am really hoping that my Democratic colleagues--respecting the indigenous Native people of my State and their valiant Vietnam service--will join with me in just passing it, like we did in December, and it will go right to the President's desk, and they will have 5 more years to really implement this really important piece of legislation.
410 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; 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. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague from California's cooperation on the first bill, the ARTIST Act.
I am a little disappointed here on this one because, you know, it is a little bit of a delay tactic, but he certainly has my commitment to work with him, if they need to try to pair this. But I will say this: The 5 years of this bill expires at the end of this year, and we cannot--regardless if there is pairing or not pairing--we cannot let this bill expire. These great American patriots served their country and deserve their allotment that they were unable to get during Vietnam. And then, when we passed the bill, Secretary of Interior Haaland purposefully dragged her feet to make sure that no Alaska Native--or very few--got their allotment. That was a disgrace.
And so, Mr. President, to my colleague from California, you have my commitment to work with you, but we have got to get this done by the end of the year--before the end of the year--and get it on the President's desk. These great patriotic Americans deserve nothing less, and we can't delay much longer.
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