Jon Tester

Thank you Lieutenant Governor.

Absolutely, which got to the point that I thought you were going to get to so thank you.

The hope that I get out of this is that we can all sit down and understand where our challenges are and help one another meet those challenges.

The starting salary of a tribal police officer is about $3.00 less per hour than a person with the same qualifications working across the border at a Wal-Mart in Williston.

So we need to change those incomes.

What can we do? What could the county commissioner do, what could the mayor do, what can I do, what can the Governor's office do to help those businesses?

I don't want to drown here, and I don't want my community to drown here.

If the BLM hires an engineer they can make twice as much going into the oil patch.

The Governor wants to expand Medicaid. We think that access is critical for 70,000 working Montanans who do not have healthcare.

I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 17, 2014, in room SD-628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a legislative hearing…

The Act provided no further role for Congress in this process. I think most of the members of the Committee would agree that is a good thing.

Swift enactment of this overwhelmingly bipartisan legislation is critical to protecting the existing system of tribal gaming in Arizona.

The bill would address an issue specific to Arizona, but one that could have broader implications for this Committee.

We must work together to find solutions that benefit all parties involved.

I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 10, 2014, in room SD-628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct an oversight hearing…

I think you addressed this in your testimony, but I want you to make it clear, what advice do you have for us lawmakers as far as considering laws that would improve tribal access to water and coupling maintenance with water settlements?

We highly recommend that future Indian water settlements strive to include mandatory funding.

We cannot emphasize enough the importance of the mandatory funding that was included in our Settlement.

Middle management has been a problem, not only with this Administration, but the previous one.

I think you have to protect employee's rights, but we also need to be able to terminate people when they deserve to be terminated.

Just as a sidebar, I would love to have you incorporate Montana into your travel plans.

How can you make a determination that you need 28,000 medical staff?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think that in particularly rural areas, that is going to be critically important.

I can tell you, in Montana facilities, I do not know if they are as big of a problem, but they are certainly pretty damn close to as big a problem as not having enough staff.