House Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs meets for oversight hearing

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House Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs: Federal Indian Trust Asset Management: Progress Made But Improvement Needed – February 25, 2025

Monday, February 24, 2025

Indianz.Com

The House Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs is holding its second hearing of the 119th Congress.

The oversight hearing on Tuesday afternoon focuses on the federal government’s management of billions of dollars in Indian trust assets. Such assets can be held in trust for tribes, or for individual Indians.

“The federal government holds more than $8 billion in trust funds for Tribes and Individual Indian Money account holders,” the Government Accountability Office said in an April 2023 report.

The GAO report — titled “Tribal Programs: Actions Needed to Improve Interior’s Management of Trust Services” — was commissioned by Congress following the creation of the Bureau of Trust Funds Administration (BTFA) at the Department of the Interior at 2020. The new agency was assigned most of the duties previously handled by the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST), which itself was established by the American Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act of 1994.

According to the GAO, the BTFA became “operational” in October 2020, toward the end of the first administration of President Donald Trump. The report stated that Interior “did not conduct strategic workforce planning before or during the transfer” of OST’s duties to the new agency.

“Furthermore, according to agency officials, Interior has not completed a full strategic workforce analysis of OST since it first transferred the trust functions from BIA in 1996,” the GAO stated in reference to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Billions of dollars from Tribes and individuals are held in trust funds managed by @Interior. We’ve identified ways DOI could improve its management of trust services, such as workforce planning to ensure adequate staff.

Learn more: https://t.co/tK9RjbQJZS (5/6)
— U.S. GAO (@USGAO) November 6, 2023

Additionally, the report stated that Interior had not yet begun the process to formally terminate the OST, as envisioned by 1994 law. The GAO was told that doing so might lead to a loss of federal funds — and that it could place the U.S. government in legal jeopardy.

“According to Interior’s Office of the Solicitor, once OST is terminated, OST’s appropriation may no longer be available for use by BTFA,” the GAO reported. “Without an appropriation for trust fund management, the United States could potentially be in breach of its trust duties to Tribes and individual Indians, according to Interior’s Office of the Solicitor.”

In 2010, Congress enacted a $3.4 billion settlement to the historic lawsuit filed by the late Elouise Cobell from the Blackfeet Nation. The case only addressed the federal government’s management of Individual Indian Money funds.

Separately, the federal government settled more than trust asset lawsuits filed by tribes for a total of about $3.7 billion, according to Interior. The tribal and Cobell settlements were reached during the Barack Obama administration.

The hearing on Tuesday takes place at 2pm Eastern in Room 1324 of the Longworth House Office Building. A witness list hasn’t been posted on naturalresources.house.gov or on docs.house.gov as of Tuesday afternoon. Neither has a hearing memo.

Rep. Jeff Hurd (R-Colorado) is the new chair of the House Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs for the 119th Congress. Photo: House Committee on Natural Resources Republicans

The subcommittee’s chair for 119th Congress is Rep. Jeff Hurd (R-Colorado). He is a new member of the U.S. House of Representatives, having won election in Colorado’s 3rd congressional district in November 2024.

The subcommittee, which is part of the House Committee on Natural Resources, held its first hearing on February 5. Lawmakers took testimony on four tribal bills.

House Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs Notice

Federal Indian Trust Asset Management: Progress Made But Improvement Needed (February 25, 2025)