NCAI seeks aid for tribes
LEDYARD KING • Argus Leader Washington Bureau • January 30, 2010
WASHINGTON – The head of the country’s largest Native American advocacy group Friday called on the federal government to give tribes more aid for impoverished reservations and greater authority to use their lands as they see fit.
In a speech to tribal leaders at the National Press Club, National Congress of American Indians President Jefferson Keel cited a White House tribal summit in November and last month’s decision by federal officials to settle the long-standing Cobell lawsuit about the mismanagement of mineral and grazing proceeds on Indian land.
But Keel said he’s concerned about President Obama’s proposal to freeze funding for programs to prevent the federal deficit from increasing. And he said the Interior Department must do a better job eliminating “bureaucratic hurdles” that keep tribes from using land in ways to boost ravaged economies on reservations, where unemployment can run as high as 80 percent.
“Approvals on tribal lands drag on literally for years, placing tribal economic initiatives at severe, if not fatal, competitive disadvantages,” he said. “No one can run a business that way.”
Among other issues Keel wants the administration and Congress to address: increased aid for law enforcement on reservations; greater collaboration among federal agencies for infrastructure projects on tribal land; and a legislative “fix” to the Supreme Court “Carcieri decision” that makes it difficult for tribes recognized after 1934 to develop land.
Lillian Sparks, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota who serves as executive director of the National Indian Education Association, agrees with the concerns. In Obama’s first month in office last year, she visited the White House more than she had during the entire Bush administration.
“It’s been great to be able to dialogue with some of the key decision-makers,” said Sparks, who was nominated by Obama to lead the Administration for Native Americans at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “It’s just been a good experience this past year.”
Contact Ledyard King at lking@gannett.com
http://www.argusleader.com/article/20100130/NEWS/1300316/1001/news
