Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Tara Sweeney is seen with Charles Addington, the deputy director for the Office of Justice Services at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, at the Indian Law Enforcement Officer’s Memorial in Artesia, New Mexico. Sweeney spoke at the 28th Annual Indian Country Law Enforcement Officer’s Memorial service on May 2, 2019, honoring those who list their lives while providing public safety services in Indian Country. Photo: Office of Public Affairs - Indian Affairs
Assistant Secretary Sweeney slated for another hearing on Indian Country budget
Monday, May 6, 2019
By Acee Agoyo
Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Tara Sweeney is heading back to Capitol Hill this week to talk about the Trump administration's fiscal year 2020 budget request for tribal programs.
Sweeney will testify before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on Wednesday. It's her second appearance before the panel since being confirmed to her post at the Department of the Interior and her second hearing overall on the FY2020 budget, which seeks nearly $300 million in cuts to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education.
"This FY2020 budget supports the administration’s commitment to empower tribal communities, improve quality of life, create economic opportunities, promote efficient and effective governance, preserve and foster cultural heritage, and steward natural resources," Sweeney said during her first hearing on the budget last week. "Interior’s programs maintain strong and productive government-to-government relationships with tribes, helping to promote tribal nation-building and self-determination."
In that hearing, which took place before the House Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies on April 30, Sweeney refused to say whether the Trump administration supports advance appropriations. A growing number of lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats alike, are seeking to provide funding for the BIA, the BIE and the Indian Health Service ahead of time in order to provide greater certainty for tribes and their communities.
“It’s really clear that we need to move in this direction and pass the Indian
Programs Advance Appropriations Act,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico), the vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, said with respect to his bill, S.229. He gave his remarks last week after the highest-ranking official at the IHS confirmed that the agency doesn't have a position on advance appropriations either.
Other advance appropriations bills for Indian programs include:
• H.R.195,
the Pay our Doctors Act.
• H.R.1128,
the Indian Programs Advanced Appropriations Act.
• H.R.1135,
the Indian Health Service Advance Appropriations Act of 2019.
The hearing on Wednesday comes a day after Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt makes his first appearance on Capitol Hill since being confirmed to the Cabinet-level post. He will testify about the FY2020 budget before the House Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, the same one Sweeney went before last week.
Both hearings will be webcast.
