AUDIO: House hearing on reorganization at Department of the Interior

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

By Acee Agoyo

The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on Tuesday that focused on an ongoing reorganization at the Department of the Interior.

Chairman Harold Frazier of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe was the sole Indian Country witness. He said the Trump administration failed to consult tribes about the controversial initiative, and even left key officials within the Bureau of Indian Affairs out of the loop.

"BIA and Indian offices were not included in planning," Frazier said. "There were a couple of meetings with tribes but no real consultation. We were told if we did not like it, opt out. Interior’s goals."

Chairman Harold Frazier of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe appears before a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on April 30, 2019. Photo courtesy House Committee on Natural Resources Democrats

Former Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt, who is the newly confirmed Secretary of the Interior, has since said that the BIA won't be a part of the reorganization due to tribal opposition. The Bureau of Indian Education and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians won't be included either as Interior moves other agencies, bureaus and offices to a new "unified" system of regions throughout the country.

"We conducted extensive tribal consultation, both formal and informal," Scott Cameron, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget at Interior, testified. He pointed to a series of listening sessions and consultations about the initiative.

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

House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Notice

No Road Map, No Destination, No Justification: The Implementation and Impacts of the Reorganization of the Department of the Interior. (April 30, 2018)