Indianz.Com > News > Cronkite News: Tribes share frustrations with infrastructure funding
Hopi leader tells panel that red tape, financial hurdles put aid out of reach
Tuesday, October 31, 2023
Cronkite News
WASHINGTON – The chairman of the Hopi tribe told a Senate panel Wednesday that promises of federal funding remain just that – promises – for smaller tribes for whom the money is inaccessible because of bureaucratic and financial hurdles.
The remarks by Hopi Chairman Timothy Nuvangyaoma were part of a Senate Indian Affairs Committee roundtable on challenges tribes are facing in getting projects approved under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act and others. Other tribal leaders from across the country shared similar frustrations.
Nuvangyaoma discussed how federal officials offered to fund improvements to the tribe’s power system if the Hopi could come up with a $10 million match – more than half the tribe’s annual $16 million general fund budget. He said that would force the tribe to choose between paying the cost match or funding schools and elderly services for that year.
“There’s a lot of impacted tribes just like us that don’t have the financial capability or stability to make these kinds of cost matches, to take advantage of such a great opportunity that’s on the table here for us and it bothers us,” Nuvangyaoma told lawmakers.


Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Notice
Roundtable discussion titled, “Implementing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act in Native Communities” (October 25, 2023)
For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.
Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News. It is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
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