tribal governments should not take a back seat to State governments.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is no secret that a reliable supply of electricity is important to us on many levels, from human health, and, of course, to commercial productivity. As a former public service commissioner, I can tell…

We urge the prompt passage of the STOP Act and thank the Committee for its attention to this important matter.

Chairman Hoeven recently introduced a bill (S. 2012) with Senators Murkowski and Heitkamp that would make permanent the Indian Employment Tax Credit.

Additionally, Chairman Hoeven recently introduced a bill (S. 2012) with Senators Murkowski and Heitkamp that would provide priority status for NMTC allocations for tribal enterprises and reservation investments.

We hope your leadership on this issue will lead to tribal tax priorities being included in tax reform.

We need to make sure this consultation process works and that we understand what might be an essential government function for a tribal entity is different perhaps than what would be an essential government function for a State government.

I do want to point out when you look at the budget, which was passed, which foretells what is going to happen in tax reform, there are some pretty serious cuts in that budget that will have a pretty dramatic effect on the ability of people…

I believe that every time the words 'State and local government' appear in the Code, we should also read 'tribal government.'

That is ridiculous. If you have a government pension plan and you are running a pension plan at a tribal-owned business, you have to maintain a separate pension plan.

It is, of course, critical to get accurate counts there, but we have to make sure that the Census is prepared to meet the needs of rural America.

I do not want to be the head of the Census Bureau, but I want to offer a couple suggestions.

For too long, we have given Indian Country the leftovers. Members of these communities deserve to be counted where they reside, just like any other person.

The illicit trade in Native American tangible cultural heritage poses a threat to Native American cultural survival.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, thank you to my colleague from New Hampshire for letting me go first.

Nothing like a State disaster the caliber of this to realign all of our thinking.

You cannot look at this and then understand this continues and think that we do not have a huge challenge where we need to look at all hands on deck.

I think this is a mistake and risks the success of the 2020 Census in States, especially in the western United States.