I have long sought to provide equity and investment for our Nation's Native communities and rural infrastructure needs.

Today, 95 percent of Tribes carry out Federal transportation and road maintenance programs.

With too few Federal appropriations, Tribes are falling behind the rest of the Nation, and transportation barriers hinder economic growth.

Let me begin by thanking the committee and Chairman DeFazio for including section 1121 in the FAST Act to extend Tribal self-governance to the Department of Transportation.

The transportation needs of Indian country, like rural America, are great.

We need more public investment.

I am encouraged by Committee Chairman DeFazio's announcement last week of a transformational five-year, $760 billion investment in infrastructure.

I look forward to working with the members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to ensure that Federal transportation policies...honor the Nation's treaty and trust responsibilities to Tribes.

That is the binding contract the United States entered into with Tribes, and from those treaties and other laws has arisen the United States' sacred trust responsibility to the Indian Nations and our peoples.

I stand ready to work with the chairman, full chairman, subcommittee chairman, and all the ranking members to try to achieve that goal.

Native Americans have been handled, yeah, very badly in this country, treated very badly since 1607.