![](https://www.indianz.com/News/2015/05/13/bugschool.jpg)
The Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School on the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota is in need of replacement. Photo from NMAI
The White House is objecting to an appropriations measure that reduces funding for Indian programs and includes some questionable Indian policy riders. Shaun Donovan, a Cabinet member who serves as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, questioned the "misplaced priorities" in the bill, which is being brought up for markup this morning. He said lawmakers are putting lives in danger by not embracing the increases that President Barack Obama requested for the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. "The bill cuts funding for Native American health care programs and facilities of the Indian Health Service by more than $300 million, or 6 percent, below the President's Budget," Donovan told the leaders of the House Appropriations Committee in a letter on Monday. "This would result in inadequate funding for the provision of health care to a population that faces greater sickness and poverty, on average, than the national population." "In addition, the bill cuts funding for the Bureau of Indian Affairs funding by 5 percent compared to the President's Budget, which would limit DOI's ability to support priorities in Indian Country, such as programs for Native youth," Donovan added.
The Kasaan Health Center
in Kasaan, Alaska, a clinic that's part of the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health
Consortium. The consortium settled its contract support cost claim for $53 million in 2014. Photo from Facebook
Donovan didn't outright say whether Obama would veto the measure as written. But he raised alarms about a series of "ideological" policy riders that affect the IHS, the BIA and other agencies at the Department of the Interior.
FY 2016 Interior and Environment Bill - Full Committee Draft | FY 2016 Interior and Environment Bill - Draft Committee Report Committee Notice:
Full Committee Markup - FY 2016 Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill (June 16, 2015) FY2016 Budget Documents:
Indian Affairs | Strengthening Tribal Nations and Insular Communities | Fact Sheet | Budget In Brief Supreme Court Decisions:
Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter (June 18, 2012)
Cherokee Nation v. Leavitt:
Cherokee Nation v. Leavitt (March 1, 2005)
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