Senate Committee on Indian Affairs focuses on Administration for Native Americans

Wednesday, February 13, 2019  

By Acee Agoyo

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs will be holding an oversight hearing later this month to mark the 45th anniversary of the Native American Programs Act.

The law, enacted in 1974, established the Administration for Native Americans. The agency, housed within the Department of Health and Human Services, has a broad mandate to promote economic and social self-sufficiency for American Indians, Native Americans and Native Hawaiians.

"I believe that solutions must come from you and be carried to Washington, D.C., not the other way around," Jeannie Hovland, a citizen of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe who serves as Commissioner of the Administration for Native Americans, told tribal leaders in the nation's capital on Tuesday.

One of the key areas in ANA's portfolio is Native language revitalization and preservation, Hovland said during her appearance at the winter session of the National Congress of American Indians. That includes funding authorized by the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act, which is named in honor of the late Esther Martinez, a linguist and educator from Ohkay Owingeh who dedicated her life to teaching the Tewa language.

The law promotes language immersion programs, which are seen as one of the proven methods of preserving Native languages. But it expired in 2012 and Congress has failed to reauthorize it, posing a great risk to one of ANA's missions, said Sen. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico).

"Native languages are still, as you all well know very well, under severe threat," Udall, who serves as the vice chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, said at NCAI's meeting on Tuesday.

"it is incumbent on the federal government, as an exercise of its trust responsibility, to do all that it can to secure the survival of Native languages that still exist in our country today," Udall added.

In hopes of achieving that goal, the committee acted in a bipartisan fashion on February 6 to approve S.256, the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Programs Reauthorization Act. The bill is one of several that cleared the Senate but failed to see action in the House during the last legislative session.

Members of the committee are working quickly to ensure that doesn't happen again in the 116th Congress.

"In our first two meetings, already 15 pieces of legislation have moved through the gate," Sen. John Hoeven (R-North Dakota), the chairman of the committee, said at NCAI on Tuesday. S.256, which was advanced on February 6, would provide $15 million a year for Native language programs at ANA.

The hearing on ANA takes place Wednesday, February 27. A witness list hasn't been made public yet but it's likely to include Hovland, whose said her priorities as commissioner include meeting with tribes in their own communities, engaging in true government-to-government consultation and ensuring that the agency's grants reach more Native communities.

"I have always, and I will always, consider it an honor and privilege to be able to meet with you, our tribal leaders, on your land and at your invitation to hear from you your priorities, concerns, ideas and suggestions," Hovland said on Tuesday.

The “45th Anniversary of the Native American Programs Act and the establishment of the Administration for Native Americans.” (February 27, 2019)

Senate Committee on Indian Affairs advances more legislation in troubled climate (February 6, 2019)