Lisa Murkowski

We have action items that we need to move forward on.

We need to be able to act on it and we need to be able to act on it now.

It was here in the Aleutians where this Country was invaded by the Japanese.

I want to know actually what we have been doing to get these specific sites cleaned up.

It seems to me that the Department of Interior, that BLM, is probably in the best position to act as coordinating agency.

So in 2014 then, with that Congressional directive specific to BLM, BLM was effectively told, prepare a cleanup plan for each of the contaminated sites that were transferred pursuant to ANCSA.

I would hope that there would be an opportunity for some of the issues that have been raised in both areas, for people to be able to weigh in and to provide greater clarity for the record.

It is always an adventure, coming to Unalaska. Unalaska is in itself an extraordinary and beautiful place, a beautiful land with extraordinary people.

We sincerely thank the Committee for this opportunity to discuss the Corps' environmental cleanup activities on ANCSA contained lands

Thank you, Dr. Waterhouse.

We will continue to work diligently and collaboratively with our Federal, State, and Alaska Native partners, affected communities, and others to chart a coordinated and strategic path forward that is responsive to these concerns.

This is, as I mentioned, an injustice, an environmental injustice.

But it is not without its challenges.

Well, I really hope we're not the party of Trump.

I have never believed that a party, a political party, should be the party of one individual. I just don`t believe that.

Both sovereigns who are party to a treaty have a responsibility to fulfill the terms of the treaty, and also have a right to help determine the treaty and its meaning.

Let me ask yet probably another hard question, and that is a recognition that as sovereign parties to treaties, tribes clearly have an important role in interpreting the meaning of the treaties.

But that can be, I think, the best way to resolve those is within the tribe and through the nation-to-nation relationship.

So what about any administrative authorities within the department to address some of the concerns that we have heard articulated today?

Tribal self-governance is the best path forward to resolving internal tribal conflicts. We encourage other tribes to take similar steps.

It is when we don't expand our table to hear more from those who have been disenfranchised that injustices and systemic inequities are perpetuated.

I want to again thank Senator Schatz for holding this important hearing and working with me on this issue.

It is a complicated history of injustice and of sorrow, for both Indian tribes and African Americans.

This pandemic has made clear that the ongoing discrimination of the Freedmen descendants can literally mean the difference between life and death.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for convening today's very, very important and as you have noted, historic hearing.