AUDIO: Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing on community development

Wednesday, April 10, 2019  

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs took testimony on Wednesday afternoon on community development on tribal lands.

A panel of federal officials and one tribal leader discussed barriers to economic development and financial investment in Indian Country. The chair and vice chair of the committee endorsed the loan guarantee program at the Bureau of Indian Affairs as one of the few avenues for accessing capital yet the Trump administration is seeking to eliminate it in the fiscal year 2020 budget.

“The president’s budget is the president’s budget and we support that,” Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Tara Sweeney said when asked about the request. Sweeney oversees the BIA in her role at the Department of the Interior.

The entire hearing lasted about 90 minutes. The audio can be found on the Indianz.Com SoundCloud.

Building out Indian Country: Tools for Community Development (April 10, 2018)

Twitter Recap: Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing with Trump administration (April 10, 2019)
Trump administration's face of Indian policy heads to Capitol Hill for first hearing (April 8, 2019)