Departments of Commerce and Justice, and Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE AND JUSTICE, AND SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008--Continued -- (Senate - October 15, 2007)

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, this appropriations bill, as all appropriations bills, comes down to a matter of priorities. We have a limited amount of resources and we have to figure out where to put those limited resources to the most effective use for the taxpayers.

My amendment is very simple. It takes $20 million from an authorized program that has problems with wasteful spending and it spends that $20 million instead to give Federal prosecutors badly needed additional funding to fight violent crime in Indian country. Violent crime has become a serious problem on reservations in South Dakota and elsewhere, and I am determined to put an end to it. If our tribal communities are to have a chance to be prosperous, they must first have strong public safety.

A few weeks ago I cosponsored an amendment with Senator Dorgan to provide more law enforcement presence in Indian country. I strongly support this effort. The other part of the equation, though, is to ensure that those who have been arrested for violent crimes are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Because the Federal Government has a trust responsibility to the tribes, the task for prosecuting violent crimes in Indian country lies with our U.S. attorneys. However, our U.S. attorneys often cannot prosecute crimes because of a lack of resources. An article published last June in the Wall Street Journal by Gary Fields about crime in Indian country pointed out that Federal prosecutors often do not intervene in cases involving serious crimes due to the long distances involved, lack of resources, and the cost of hauling witnesses and defendants to Federal court. The same article goes on to say that in the past two decades, only 30 percent of tribal land crimes referred to U.S. attorneys were prosecuted, according to Justice Department data compiled by Syracuse University. That compares with 56 percent for all other cases. I ask unanimous consent that the June 12, 2007 Wall Street Journal article headlined ``Tattered Justice on U.S. Indian Reservations, Criminals Slip Through Gaps'' be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

(See exhibit 1.)

Mr. THUNE. I hasten to add that the U.S. attorney in South Dakota is doing a fantastic job prosecuting violent crime and white-collar crime on South Dakota's Indian reservations. However, I am certain he can put more funding to good use in his office, as could every U.S. attorney prosecuting violent crime in Indian country.

The rate of violent crime in Indian country is disproportionately high. The Department of Justice reported that from 1992 to 2001, the average rate of violent crime among American Indians was 2 1/2 times the national rate. According to one report in the Indian Country Today newspaper, Native American women are 7 times more likely to be victims of domestic violence than all other women are, and more than 60 percent of Indian women will be victims of violent assault during their lifetimes. According to the same report, nearly one-third of all Native American women will be raped. This is unacceptable.

The FBI estimates that 40 to 50 percent of Indian country violent crime is now methamphetamine related. In fact, we know that meth traffickers and dealers target Indian country jurisdictions because they believe they will not be prosecuted, even if they are apprehended. According to Chris Chaney, the BIA Deputy Director of the Office of Justice Services, meth distribution on tribal lands often occurs due to the belief that it is easier to get away with such a crime in Indian country. That is why we must dramatically ramp up prosecutions of violent crime, of meth-related violent crime in Indian country.

I offer my amendment today to help provide more resources to U.S. attorneys in Indian country to prosecute more crimes referred to them. Specifically, my amendment would provide an additional $20 million to U.S. attorneys that can only be spent to prosecute crimes under the Major Crimes Act of 1885 and the Indian country Crimes Act of 1834. The amount will be paid for by subtracting $20 million from the amount appropriated under this bill to the Legal Services Corporation.

This bill provides $390 million to the Legal Services Corporation, a program that has not been reauthorized since 1980. This is a 12-percent increase over the amount appropriated to the LSC in fiscal year 2007, and a 30-percent increase above the administration's recommendation. This substantial increase comes at a time when the Legal Services Corporation has faced serious questions about its management and expenditure of taxpayer dollars.

In August, the GAO published a report entitled ``Legal Services Corporation: Governance and Accountability Practices Need to be Modernized and Strengthened.'' In the report, the GAO noted that a dozen officers and employees of the Legal Services Corporation had received compensation in excess of the statutory compensation limitation. According to the GAO, an outside legal counsel issued an opinion last May concluding that the Legal Services Corporation had not complied with the statutory limitation on the rate of compensation. The GAO agreed with that conclusion and went on to state that without a properly designed and implemented process for overseeing compensation, the Legal Services Corporation remains at risk of not complying with related laws and regulations and engaging in imprudent management practices.

The GAO also noted in the report that:

In recent years, LSC management has engaged in practices that may have been prevented through effective implementation of strong ethics policies.

These practices are reported by the LSC's inspector general. The inspector general found that food costs at meetings exceeded per diem allotments by 200 percent and that LSC used funds to pay travel expenses for its president for business related to her positions with outside organizations. The inspector general also found that LSC hired acting special counsels from grant recipient organizations, causing potential conflicts of interest, and could not complete an investigation into this practice because of the failure to provide documentation required by Federal law and LSC grant agreements. The GAO concluded that:

Without the presence of a strong ethics committee providing effective oversight in the development, implementation, updating, and training for the code of ethics, the LSC is at increased risk of fraud or other ethical misconduct.

I ask unanimous consent that the executive summary of the LSC Office of Inspector General ``Report on Certain Fiscal Practices at the Legal Services Corporation,'' dated September 25, 2006 be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks. Also, I commend to my colleagues a GAO report entitled ``Legal Services Corporation Governance and Accountability Practices Need to be Modernized and Strengthened,'' dated August of 2007.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

(See exhibit 2).

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I do not believe an organization that has received such stinging criticism from the GAO about management practices and its handling of taxpayer dollars should be receiving such a substantial increase in funding that is reflected in the underlying bill. My amendment simply reduces a $40 million increase to a $20 million increase for the Legal Services Corporation for fiscal year 2008. That is, the Legal Services Corporation would still receive an increase under my amendment, just not nearly as substantial as originally reflected in the underlying bill.

As I said earlier, we must begin to choose priorities. Should we provide more badly needed funding to fight violent crime in Indian country or should we reward an organization that is engaged in wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars by providing a massive increase over the President's recommendation of $300 million, and a massive increase even compared to the amount of funding it received in the last fiscal year of $348 million?

I urge the Senate to join me in voting for more funding to help reduce violent crime in Indian country and to address what is a very desperate need across Indian reservations in South Dakota, and to do it in a way that is consistent, I believe, with what the priorities in this underlying bill ought to be, by paying for it with a $20 million increase, actually, that is going to be allocated this year to the Legal Services Corporation. In my judgment, in my view, that makes sense. It is an issue that needs to be addressed, and my amendment would take us down that road, coupled with the agreement that was earlier reached on the Dorgan amendment, to provide more of a law enforcement presence on Indian reservations. So I hope we can accomplish both of those objectives through the appropriations process this year, and it starts right here with adopting this amendment.

I urge my colleagues to do that. I again thank the distinguished majority leader for his patience in yielding me time to speak to this amendment.

Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

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