I am so excited to welcome Secretary Deb Haaland to her first hearing since being confirmed as the 54th Secretary of the Interior and the first ever Native American to serve as a Cabinet Secretary.

Our current commitment to infrastructure has more in common with Belarus at 2.1 percent than it does with China at 5.6 percent.

It has been 58 years since the enactment of the Equal Pay Act, yet still women don't earn equal pay for equal work. In my district, women only earn 78 cents for every dollar a man earns. The wage gap is even wider for Latina, Black, and…

I am hopeful that we can be absolutely transparent in this process, look at the data, and then hopefully get this very efficacious vaccine back into the places where it is appropriate.

Thank you, Chair Schatz, and Vice Chair Murkowski, for holding this hearing on the Response of Native Health Systems to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As we witnessed on January 6, the most serious threat to our democracy sometimes comes from within.

We are going to be reintroducing that bill soon. It did not pass last year.

Yesterday alone COVID claimed 987 lives in the United States, 9 of those in my home State of New Mexico.

It is absolutely essential that the CDC and the FDA behave in a way that is transparent, honest, above-board.

I was glad to see President Biden's Fiscal Year 2022 budget include an advance appropriation for IHS in 2023.

Native Americans have faced significant challenges during this pandemic.

I would like, Mr. Chair, for us to work together to find out why, and what is needed to do that.

I am proud to note that the Navajo Area and Albuquerque Area IHS regions have distributed over 315,000 vaccines as of last week.

I applaud and appreciate the work you are doing to ensure that there is more acceptance and support on college campuses as well.

This is another area I hope we can have some success to identify the challenges that IHS faces to provide more granular vaccine data to States.

I think those are some great suggestions that I hope we can all think about as we look at how to make sure that we have enough flexibility.

I am glad to report that now IAIA is among those tribal colleges and universities that have been able to vaccinate on campus.

Your testimony highlights the importance of budget certainty and advance appropriations for IHS to advance health outcomes for Native communities.