Indianz.Com > News > Gaylord News: Indian Country included in American Jobs Plan
Buttigieg: Indian Country investment a priority of infrastructure plan
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Gaylord News
WASHINGTON – Indian Country infrastructure needs, for everything from water to housing to broadband, are a high priority of the Biden administration’s $2.2 trillion American Jobs Plan, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said last week.
Buttigieg, in a call with reporters last Monday to discuss the plan, said the need to improve 20th-century infrastructure on the lands of nearly 575 tribes has been ignored by the federal government for years.
“A lot of parts of Indian country have been on the short end of … infrastructure investment maintenance, over the years,” Buttigieg said.
The American Jobs Plan is President Joe Biden’s $2.2 trillion plan to transform the nation’s infrastructure. Along with the American Rescue Plan, which aimed to help Native Americans recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the administration intends for the American Jobs Plan to help solve the tribes’ growing infrastructural needs. “When we talk about equity, we’re thinking a lot about racial and economic justice,” Buttigieg said of the plan. “But we’re also thinking about stretches of this country that have too often been left out of the promises of this kind of great infrastructure.” For Native American communities, those needs include critical water infrastructure, internet broadband, housing, transportation, tribal colleges and universities and roads, Buttigieg said. Broadband was among the top priorities for tribes with the American Rescue Plan, which funding to come from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Many families did not have access to the internet throughout the pandemic, making it difficult for their students to attend distance learning classes.The American Jobs Plan invests tens of billions of dollars directly in tribal communities, offering historic opportunities to improve housing, broadband, roads and more in Indian Country.
— indianz.com (@indianz) April 16, 2021
Learn more from the White House. #AmericanJobsPlan #NationToNationhttps://t.co/KNFIMFnPT0
Biden’s infrastructure plan aims to provide 100% broadband coverage across rural and tribal communities. “The lack of access to broadband on tribal lands is particularly severe,” said Bharat Ramamurti, deputy director of the National Economic Council. “There’s going to be a significant tribal component to that.” The American Jobs Plan also aims to inject funding into research and development programs for colleges and universities across the nation, including tribal. But Monte Randall, president of the College of the Muscogee Nation, believes broadband access is still the top concern for his students. “There are definitely challenges with connecting to our students on virtual platforms,” Randall said. Many College of the Muscogee Nation students live in rural areas where internet access is not available. The school received funding from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund in the CARES Act, the first pandemic-relief bill approved last year, to provide students with laptops and internet hotspots, but lack of internet access is still the biggest challenge. The College of the Muscogee Nation is primarily focused on natural resources programs, but Randall said the funding for land grants and research and development programs at tribal universities would help his school “move towards being more research-focused.” Tribes nationwide are already set to receive $651 million for housing from the American Rescue Plan, as well as $450 million in tribal housing assistance. Ramamurti said the American Jobs Plan will fix the lack of affordable housing, as well as upkeep of existing housing on tribal land. “The lack of affordable housing … is a nationwide problem and particularly severe on tribal lands,” he said. “There is also a specific problem with preservation and rehabilitation of existing housing on tribal lands, and so the housing components of the plan are focused on that area.”The American Jobs Plan is going to modernize the way Americans live, starting with the roads we drive on. pic.twitter.com/0mLP5sXvlZ
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) April 20, 2021
Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Cronkite News has partnered with OU to expand coverage of Indigenous communities.
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