Free Response to Motion [Dispositive] - District Court of Federal Claims - federal

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S.

HRG. 105-374

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1998

HEARINGS
BEFORE A

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE m R E D FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION

H.R. 2107
AN ACT MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 1998. AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

Department of Agriculture Department of Energy Department of the Interior National Endowment for the Arts National Endowment for the Humanities Nondepartmental witnesses

Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations

Available via the World Wide Web: http~/www.access.gpo.gov/~~ngress/senate
U S W V E R N M E N T PRINTING OFFICE ..
39-858a
WASHINGTON : 1998
For rak by the U.S Covemment Rinting Office Superintendent d Documents. Congressions1 Seles Ofc. Washington. fie ISBN C-164582558

DC 20402

EXHIBIT 26
In Support of Plaintiff's Opposition to Motion to Dismiss on TPA & IHS Samish v. U . S . , N o . 02-1 383L

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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATE~ m ~ ~ ~ ~ F ~ -~ -~ ~ CAL YEAR 1998
TRURSDAY, APRIL 10, 1997

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U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMIT~EETHE COMMITTEE APPROPFUATIONS, OF ON Washington, DC. The subcommittee met a t 9 a.m., in room SD-124, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Slade Gorton (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Gorton, Cochran, Domenici, and Bennett. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
OF AFFAIRS BUREAU INDIAN

STATEMENT OF HON. ADA E. DEER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR IND M AFFAIRS ACCOMPANIED BY: HILDA A. MANUEL,DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS JOANN SEBASTIAN MORRIS, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF INDIAN EDUCATION PROGRAMS DEBORAFI J. MADWX, DlREXTOR, OFFICE: OF TRIBAL SERVICES TERRY VIRDEN, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF TRUST RESPONSIBILITIES JAMES H. McDZVPIT, ACTING DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND ADMXNISTRATION LINDA RICHARDSON, DIRECTOR OF AUDIT AND EVALUATION JERRY SCHWEIGERT, FACILITIES TRANSITION PROGRAM STAFF ROSS MOONEY, DAM SAFEXY OFFICER, BIA
BUDGET REQUEST

Senator GORTON. Good morning. The subcommittee meets today for the second of its hearings on 1998 budget requests for agencies funded by the Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies. This morning we will hear testimony regarding the 1998 budget request for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the National Indian Gaming Commission. Testimony on the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians will be heard in conjunction with the Secretary of the Interior's hearing. We will begin with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and then proceed to the National Indian Gaming Commission [NIGC]. Because members of the subcommittee may have questions on both programs, we ask that all of the witnesses remain a t the table for the duration of the hearing. Ada Deer, who has announced her departure from the BIA but who has not yet been replaced, will present testimony on the BIA
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CONCWSION

health and well-being of tribal communities, trizal governments, and the tribal resource base. This funding will allow the Government as trustee to fulfill trust obligations and reduce the liability for failure to meet le ally defined trust obligations. This concludes my opening comments. My staff I would be happy to respond to your questions. S :n c B O KE " ri IT " ': G E.Gz rB .i & b ~?V-fia;Y7nE~"T

The funds requested in the President's fiscal ear 1998 budget are critical to the

ant!

Senator GORTON. Thank you, and let me say before I begin my questions that, a t least for myself, I am quite favorably impressed with the changes that you have made, not only in your administration, but with respect to tribal shares, over the period of your time here. You have a right to be proud of a great deal of what you have done, because much of i t is not just purely administrative, b u t based on a set of theories. I would like you to go over once again those sets of figures of the sources of money for tribal governments and exactly what services i t is that they cover. Would you read that for me? Ms. DEER. Level of tribal investment in various tribal government operations? Senator GORTON. Yes, yes. n Ms. DEER. L com arison to the Federal contribution? Fes; t h a t is what I a m after. Senator GORTON Ms. DEER [reading]:
While there are some differences between the accounting methodologies used by Federal and tribal governments respective1 we were able to produce a reasonably single audit reports filed by the tribal reliable snapshot baaed on information in governments. We reviewed the expenditures documented by 192 tribes in these reports. The total came to $1.3 billion You may be surprised to learn that 45 cent of the total, or $593 million, came from the tribes' unrestricted general funfie Department of the Interior eontnb uted slightly less than 25 percent, or $324 million. The remain~ng30 percent, or $399 million, came fmm other Federal and State sources.

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Senator GORTON. OK, that is what I would like to pursue. Those figures relate to the moneys expended by tribal governments on their governmental activities, am I correct in that understanding? Mr. McDM-~T. Yes; that is correct. Senator GORTON.That does not include their expenditures on other activities, even though some of them may have been funded by the BIA? Or does t h a t include all the distributions of moneys from the BIA to the tribes? Ms. RICHARDSON. Mr. Chairman, it includes all expenditures from the BIA and Federal agencies to the tribes, the general fund expenditures of tribes' unrestricted funds. Then tribes have a special revenue fund and in the special revenue fund all of the Federal funds are accounted for, and State funds as well. Senator GORTON.Now, how, Ms. Deer--or any of your staff can answer this question if they wish-how do you determine a t this point how much each tribe receives out of t h a t fund? L . Out of the s ~ e c i a lrevenue fund or the wneral Ms. " fund? Senator GORTON. The general fund. Ms. MANUEL. We do not have any control over the general fund. These are typically funds that are generated from tribal enterprises.

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TRIBAL FUND DISTRIBUTION Senator GORMN.No; I do not mean what the tribes are spending. I mean how do you d e t e r m i n e 4 have got the wrong question. How do you determine, of the money that we appropriate to BIA and that you distribute to the tribes, how do you determine how much each tribe gets? =ye ~ ~ P - ~ G YH i g t ~ r i - l y , L . the &&zg thgt h~ bee;: %:iocaeed &j tribes has been based on an old system that the Department and the Bureau had in place for several years called the Indian priority system, where the tribes in each location and each area establish what they felt was their need for funding on the basis of population, land base, forestry dollars. They looked a t the number of forestry acres. There was a process that actually was followed which to this day when we look a t funding for new tribes we take the same factors into consideration. So the funding was established years ago and it has been pretty constant. Tribes pretty much know what their base funding has been for the past several years. Senator GORTON. And is it affected a t all by your individual agreements with individual tribes on tribal shares? Do those agreements guarantee a certain share? Ms. MANUEL.They should not, but we are finding in some locations where, especially where you have multitribe agency situations where the tribes all share an agency and one of the tribes or two of the tribes may want their shares, there is a process that the superintendent and the area director have to undertake to ensure that, if they provide a share to the requesting tribe and it is a share of a program or an activity that is funded to benefit all the tribes in that agency, if they take their share there has to be a determination that the reduction in funding and resources will not impact or harm the remaining tribes who do not take their shares. Senator GOWN. Now, in making these determinations do you take into consideration the relative prosperity or poverty of the individual tribes, the income that the tribes are receiving from other sources? Ms. MANUEL. NO. Senator GORTON. do not? You Ms. MANUEX.Not in determination of tribal shares. It is based strictly on what has traditionally been available to that tribe through the budget formulation process. Well, that leads me to a policy question for Ms. Senator GORTON. Deer. Through my State news clippings the other day I learned of a story about the Colville Tribe in north-central Washington. The thrust of the story is that the members of the tribes were goin to meet on the following Saturday to determine how to distribute $10 million in gambling profits. They had four proposals that were going to be before them, I think all of which included distributions--or most of which included per capita distributions to the members. Is it appropriate, Ms. Deer, for us to consider the profits that tribes are making from gambling over and above the salaries they pay, in determining how much money the taxpayers of the United
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