Thomas Daschle: “This amendment recognizes two things. It recognizes, first, when it comes to trust responsibility and the very vexing…”

“This amendment recognizes two things. It recognizes, first, when it comes to trust responsibility and the very vexing problems we have had in carrying out trust responsibility with all Indian tribes, that we are a long way from any implementation of that responsibility today. What efforts have been made in trying to establish some mechanism for carrying out those responsibilities in a fair and meaningful way are yet to be found. In fact, if anything, we are mired more than we have been in a long time. There is a need to create a better partnership with all tribal governments, and, as a result of that need for greater partnership, a recognition that until we have meaningful trust responsibility in policy and in law, to put an infrastructure in place which is supposedly designed to implement a policy that doesn't exist is premature. In fact, it sends all the wrong messages about what the intention of the BIA, the Congress, or this administration is with regard to that responsibility in the first place. The National Congress of American Indians has written to Congress asking Congress not to fund the implementation of the policy today because it is premature.”