U.S. State Attorneys General

The President's budget goes the other way.

I am here to share my serious concerns over the decision to exclude Native Hawaiian housing programs in S. 1275.

This body has a rich history of acknowledging that Native issues can rise above beltway party politics.

The health care crisis facing many IHS facilities in the Great Plains and throughout Indian Country is a concern this Committee takes very seriously.

Thank you, Senator Hoeven. Thank you to the witnesses for traveling to be with us today.

We must do all we can to make sure NAHASDA is fully reauthorized for all Native American communities that rely on its housing programs.

I ask this Committee to restore reauthorization for Native Hawaiian housing programs in NAHASDA.

I strongly oppose those suggestions and I believe that dividing Native communities is, frankly, unconscionable.

Restoring accountability in the Indian Health Service is not just the name of the legislation, but also the goal of this Committee.

I would also like to submit a longer statement for the record on behalf of the Hawaiian Congressional Delegation signed by Senators Schatz and myself...

This is about much more than just stripping out Native Hawaiian housing programs from a bill.

As both a doctor and a Senator, I find the level of dysfunction completely unacceptable.

It is a powerful message to bring together bipartisan leadership from two Senate committees in support of one goal, better serving Native veterans.

Serving Native Hawaiians is foundational to my service in the Senate.

I am certainly supportive because when you are talking about intermittent energy, storage is a huge part of how we can actually bring all of that online.

I think that is a rather tactful response because in the area of moving toward clean energy and energy self-sufficiency, tax credits and other kinds of support that governments at both the state and federal levels have been very much…

I think that working with their folks at headquarters--their superintendents, their regional directors--they're the people that are going to have to model the behavior in a very transparent and I would say, upfront and almost an aggressive…

Thank you for the work that you have done in exposing some of the challenges facing our National Park Service.

While I think it is great that your employees are now being able to report various kinds of workplace concerns that they have, sexual harassment and mistreatment, that is a very--how should I say?--very sensitive, underreported, kind of…

I think that in this area prevention is really important so there are any number of things that you can do, but a large part of prevention is that people need to know when their rights are being infringed upon and that there are very clear…

I think that the budgets that are proposed for Fiscal '18 will make it much more difficult for the Park Service to take the right kinds of steps to respond to these issues.

I was very astounded to learn that there is a lot of hiring of relatives, et cetera, and I hope that that is another area that you are going to clean up.

Well clearly this is not something that is going to change overnight, so obviously we are going to continue our oversight inquiries as to how you are doing, what further resources you need.

I think it is going to be a major challenge for you all to provide all the kind of necessary resources that you need to really change the culture.