"President Obama meets with hundreds of Native American leaders Dec. 16 in Washington D.C., for the second Tribal Nations conference.

Kim Vele, president of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, will be attending again this year. She gives the Obama Administration a grade of “B -” for handling issues like health care and energy since last year’s conference. Vele says services at her tribe’s health clinic will be greatly improved with funding provided by the new health care law.

But Vele adds Congressional revisions, and compromises with insurance companies on eligibility and coverage made it weaker than it was when the President first proposed it. She also says there needs to be a change on “the national paradigm” renewable energy.

“There’s been some effort on that, but the commitment just isn’t at the level I’d like to see it,” says Vele. “That is going to be what takes the United States – not just Native American communities – into the next century.”

Vele says green technology and mass transit are issues she wants to talk about when she visits with President Obama again."

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Tribal Nations conference planned for next month in Washington DC (Wisconsin Public Radio 11/22)
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AUDIO: Tribal Nations conference planned for next month in Washington DC (Wisconsin Public Radio 11/22)

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