WASHINGTON, D.C. — Indian Country is already suffering from a food shortage crisis and problems will only get worse under a government shutdown, a tribal leader is warning.

At a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, Chairman Darrell G. Seki Sr. of the Red Lake Nation joined tribal leaders in exposing problems with the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP). For months, the most vulnerable in Indian Country have gone without adequate food due to a critical mistake made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“Whether it was delivery delays, missing items, or receiving additional items that we did not order, Red Lake’s ability to feed our people through these programs was jeopardized,” Seki told lawmakers at a packed hearing in the nation’s capital.

But Seki also sounded alarms about an impending shutdown of the federal government. Unless lawmakers approve a slew of appropriations bills, or take action on what is known as a continuing resolution (CR), Indian Country will see a lapse in funding they are owed as part of the trust and treaty responsibilities of the United States.

“Congress must enact fiscal year appropriations or pass a CR,” Seki testified. “A government shutdown would make current crisis worse.”

“I’m here, I’m holding the United States Constitution of America, Article Six, where the treaties are adopted as ‘the supreme Law of the Land,'” Seki said in quoting a key provision of the nation’s governing document.

“The United States government has been a failure for decades,” Seki added.

The ongoing failures were on full display on Capitol Hill, even beyond the problems with the food programs that serve tribal communities. The U.S. House of Representatives was due to approve a CR this week to ensure that federal agencies, including those that carry out the trust and treaty responsibility, can continue to operate while the appropriations bills are being considered.

The House Committee on Rules even met on Monday to prepare H.R.9494, the Continuing Appropriations and Other Matters Act for 2025 for passage. But Republican leaders who control the chamber pulled the measure amid dissension within their own party — some of whom wanted to use the CR to cut government spending even further.

“No vote today, because we’re in the consensus building business here in Congress with small majorities,” Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who serves as Speaker of the House, said at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday — as the hearing on the food shortage crisis in Indian Country was still ongoing.

Yet even without GOP dissent, Republicans were facing major opposition from Democratic lawmakers, as well as the White House, to the continuing resolution due to provisions they said would hinder a slew of government services and programs for the next six months. President Joe Biden was prepared to veto H.R.9494 if it came to his desk, a statement of administration policy issued on Monday read.

“Indian Tribes will lose $100 million,” Democrats on the House Committee on Appropriations said of a spending provision in the Republican CR that affects the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, also known as TANF.

Regardless of the partisan dispute over the government’s spending, Republicans and Democrats are in agreement about the cause of the food shortage crisis in Indian Country. All said the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) made a critical error by consolidating operations for FDPIR and CSFP deliveries into one contractor earlier this year.

“The USDA is charged with providing critical food assistance to tribal members and vulnerable senior citizens. It has failed in this duty,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma), a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation who serves as chair of the House Committee on Appropriations.

“For months, people have been left without the food and resources they rely on,” Cole continued. “Missed and delayed deliveries, empty shelves, and bare warehouses have become commonplace.”

“It’s more than a mistake. It’s gross negligence,” Cole said of the USDA’s actions.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who agreed to appear at the hearing only a day prior, accepted responsibility for the crisis in Indian Country. He said in his opening statement that the USDA was “deeply sorry for the stress, disruption and difficulty this failure has caused” to tribes and the people who rely on food deliveries in their communities.

“We at USDA — and I believe the contractor, in good faith — remain committed to mitigating as quickly as we can the consequences of the non-deliveries, missed deliveries, and incomplete deliveries,” said Vilsack, who has led the USDA under President Joe Biden since February 2021.

The consolidation of FDPIR and CSFP deliveries into one contractor officially began on April 1. But two months prior, during a consultation with USDA in Washington, D.C., tribal leaders raised concerns about the decision to use just one company — instead of two — to provide food to Indian Country.

“Tribes advocated for a regional model because there was insufficient time to make the transition on a national scale,” said Marty Wafford, who serves as Under Secretary of Support and Programs for the Chickasaw Nation.

Despite the warnings, the USDA went ahead with the decision to use Paris Brothers, Inc. of Kansas City, Missouri, as the sole contractor for food deliveries to tribes in 28 states. Previously, the company had been responsible for 16 states, with Americold of Nampa, Idaho, handling the 12 others.

“USDA clearly did not listen to you, nor, based on their decision, did not think tribes know what’s best for their communities,” said Rep. Brad Finstad (R-Iowa), one of the Republican leaders on the House Committee on Agriculture.

By the time of the consultation on February 16, the USDA’s decision was already set in stone, Mary Greene-Trottier, the president of the National Association of Food Distribution Programs on Indian Reservations, pointed out. So there was little tribes could have done, she said at the hearing.

“We were informed the contract had already taken place,” said Greene-Trottier, a citizen of the Spirit Lake Nation who has led her tribe’s food distribution program in North Dakota for nearly 40 years. “So it was past the point of listening at that point. At that time, when we were informed, the contract was already signed and the transition was already in process.”

“And we were not privy to any of the details of the contract,” Greene-Trottier added.

Wafford, a Chickasaw citizen with 23 years of service to her people, said the impacts of using just one contractor for food deliveries in Indian Country were felt immediately in Oklahoma. The tribe typically receives “numerous” orders at several locations on the reservation each month — but since April 1, the entire system has fallen into disarray.

“Currently, orders are delayed or have not arrived at all, contain partial orders, damaged or expired products,” said Wafford, citing an order that arrived on July 12 with products expiring that same day.

Another delivery to the Chickasaw Nation arrived on August 14 — containing the wrong cheese products entirely, Wafford told lawmakers. But that wasn’t the only problem with the order, she said.

“The cheese had expired in December of 2023,” Wafford said.

“Have we forgotten that this program assists some of our most vulnerable First Americans?” said Wafford. “Throughout this period, USDA has not offered viable long term strategy to get us back on track.”

Though tribes spoke up in February and began reporting problems with their deliveries to the USDA in May, Vilsack said he personally was not made aware of the crisis until late July. When asked to explain why the USDA did not address the warnings earlier this year, he appeared to shift some of the responsibility to the contractor.

“I know that there were some tribes who raised some concerns in February, but by then, obviously, we were in the process and we were reassured by the company that they thought they could do it,” Vilsack said.

“And with their track record, I think that was reasonable,” the cabinet secretary said. According to the tribal witnesses, Paris Brothers did not have any major problems with deliveries before the consolidation.

Yesterday, we heard from several tribes affected by the Biden-Harris Administration's egregious decision to use a single contractor for distributing food to tribal communities and low-income seniors.

This decision left these vulnerable populations facing food shortages. pic.twitter.com/SmwswNT6NK

— House Committee on Agriculture (@HouseAgGOP) September 12, 2024

Vilsack further confirmed that USDA’s decision to go with one contractor was made in January — before the tribal consultation.

“The problem was, and frankly, we need to listen better,” Vilsack said.

But when asked whether any government officials or employees were fired or demoted in connection with the crisis, Vilsack said he wasn’t aware of any such reprimands.

“All I can tell you, Mr. Secretary, is that if somebody’s head doesn’t roll over this, the American taxpayer should be furious,” said Rep. Andy Harris (R-Maryland), a Republican leader on the House Committee on Appropriations. “This is tens of millions of dollars, and I’m not even talking about what we did to our tribal nations — delivering outdated food, missing shipments, things like this.”

“But the American taxpayer should be furious. This program has gone and cost us at least twice as much” as expected, Harris added.

According to the USDA, the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations serves more than 53,000 people in tribal communities every month. The Commodity Supplemental Food Program serves another 676,000 people each month, a figure that includes state as well as tribal participants, meaning that a large number of low-income, elderly and other Americans also have been impacted by the crisis.

“It is incomprehensible how deliveries were interrupted for so long because of the use of a single contractor, and we need to understand what went wrong and how we can alleviate the struggling that is occurring while we speak,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut), one of the Democratic ranking members on the House Committee on Appropriations. Democrats are the minority party in the U.S. House of Representatives during the current 118th Congress.

According to the June 2024 Tribal Leaders Consultation Working Group Briefing Paper for FDPIR, the program received $162.1 million in fiscal year 2023. The figure rose slightly to $165 million for fiscal year 2024, once Congress approved H.R.4366, a consolidated appropriations bill that funded almost every government agency, in March — some five months after fiscal year 2024 already began.

Whatever the amount, Greene-Trottier said FDPIR doesn’t receive enough support for the U.S. government to fulfill its trust and treaty responsibilities.

“The FDPIR funding levels adjusted for inflation have been flat since the 1970s,” Greene-Trottier told lawmakers. “Everyone in this room knows that the cost of food has changed substantially since the 1970s. We should all think about that situation long and hard.”

“The average box of food an FDPIR recipient receives is around $70,” she continued. “That’s the equivalent of 35 cans of soup. Nobody can feed their families for that much. It’s impossible. Food inflation is real.”

.@RepAndyHarrisMD: "As is typical for the Biden-Harris Administration when they create a catastrophe that could have been avoided, no one is held accountable, and no one takes ownership for the egregious mistakes.” pic.twitter.com/aetnpEhiPP

— House Committee on Agriculture (@HouseAgGOP) September 11, 2024

After Secretary Vilsack said he became aware of the FDPIR crisis in late July, the USDA began to take additional actions to address the problems with shipments and deliveries. Americold, the company that previously handled western states with large tribal populations, is back on board with an “emergency contract” having been executed on August 26.

“They are ramping up,” Vilsack said. “We are delivering food to their warehousing to ramp up so that we eventually get to a point where all the locations have adequate inventory on hand.”

According to Bruce Summers, the Administrator for the Agricultural Marketing Service at USDA, the Americold contract will cost taxpayers “up to” $25 million over six months.

“It’s a service-based contract, so the payments actually go out, are based on, the services that are provided,” Summers said at the hearing.

When Rep. Harris asked about the cost of the Paris Brothers contract awarded in January, he seemed surprised by the answer. The figures indicate that taxpayers are paying about twice as much, at least in the short term, as a result of the USDA’s decision-making.

“Roughly $35 million — so $177 million over five years,” Vilsack said of the Paris Brothers contract.

On Thursday, the USDA hosted a tribal consultation to discuss the FDPIR issues. The session took place in person in D.C. and virtually.

“The final piece, the longer term, I think does require us to do a lot more listening and a lot more thinking,” Vilsack said at the hearing. “We’re not there yet today, but we will be and we’re committed doing that.”

Fiscal year 2025 begins on October 1 so Congress has less than a month to take action on funding federal programs, like FDPIR, in order to avert a potential showdown. Like the leader from the Red Lake Nation, Vilsack expressed concerns on what that would mean for Indian Country.

“When there’s a government shutdown, there’s obviously an interruption of resources available to the department, which in turn impacts and affects contracts the department has, which in turn makes it harder for the contractor in the FDPIR and the CSFP program to be able to purchase on a timely basis the items that go into the various food programs,” the secretary said.

Vilsack also agreed with the premise that more money is needed to supply food to the most vulnerable in Indian Country — although he said the USDA won’t know just how much more until it conducts a “360 review” of the program.

“I would be surprised if there isn’t an understanding that that would require additional commitments from Congress in terms of funding,” Vilsack told lawmakers.

Beyond Thursday’s tribal consultation, the USDA has committed to another session at NAFDPIR’s upcoming conference in Seattle, Washington, in October. The meetings with the FDPIR Tribal Leaders Consultation Working Group are ongoing, with the next one set to take place in December.

Information about the USDA tribal consultation can be found at usda.gov/tribalrelations/tribal-consultations.

The USDA is also maintaining a page about the food supply disruptions at fns.usda.gov/usda-foods/supply-chain-disruptions.