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Date Posted: 09:29:01 06/27/01 Wed
Author: Anonymous
Subject: NEWS AND ISSUES

Tribes descend on Washington
By Brian Stockes
Today staff
Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Education and advocacy on a number of issues were the focus of a two-day legislative conference sponsored by the National Indian Gaming Association and the National Congress of American Indians. Nearly 200 tribal leaders and their representatives took part.

"We know it's active on the hill this time of year. There's a lot of things going on, so we want tribal leaders in town," said Ernie Stevens Jr., newly elected association chairman and a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. "We're very excited about what we can get done."

There were strategy sessions and meetings with members of Congress and the administration. During the gathering, a variety of priority issues were outlined including: tribal gaming, energy issues, taxation, appropriations, education and welfare reform.

A number of tribal gaming issues were raised within Congress and the administration. Many association-member tribes are focused on proposed regulations drafted by the National Indian Gaming Commission which is charged with oversight and regulation of tribal gaming. The proposed regulations deal with the definition and classification of gaming terms under the law and environmental and safety regulations.

Throughout the draft process tribes expressed concern about how far new regulations many go, especially regarding environmental and safety issues.

In Congress, many gaming tribes also focused on proposed amendments to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act originally passed in 1989 which covers all tribal gaming activities. Proposed amendments include a bill, introduced by Sen Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., which many view as pro-tribal and another, introduced in the House by Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., which most tribes view as anti-tribal.

Campbell's bill, S. 832, would amend the definition of Class II gaming, establish a strategic plan to make the commission more accountable to tribal governments, recognize the authority of the commission to issue regulations on minimum standards, in negotiation with tribes, and outline the allocation of funds from fines imposed by the commission.

Wolf's bill, which has not yet received a number, would expand authority of a state with regard to tribal/state gaming compacts. Under the proposed bill, approval of the state Legislature, in addition to the governor's approval, as outlined under current law, would be required to take land into trust for gaming purposes and for final approval of gaming compacts. It also would set up a commission to report to Congress on the current living and health standards in Indian country.

"This bill could snowball into something more significant, so we'll keep our eye on it," Stevens said. "Right now its just a challenge to the efforts of tribal leadership who could be doing other things. For those legislators to say they are doing this in the interests of tribes is just nonsense."

Other congressional issues discussed at length included: federal appropriations for tribes and the upcoming reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act and national welfare law. Reauthorization of both laws must occur before the end of the year, when they are due to expire.

The Indian Health Care Improvement Act initially was authorized by Congress in 1976 and enables the Indian Health Service to provide a variety of health care services to American Indian people. Tribal representatives have held meetings throughout the country on health care and welfare reform to draft language for the new measures.

The president's new energy policy and the inclusion of tribal governments in the search for solutions to the energy crisis came under scrutiny. Tribal governments and organizations have begun submitting policy documents and statements on the implications of the President Bush's proposed national energy policy and the need for tribal input.

"Our issues are broad, but we have to focus our efforts at the right time,"

Stevens said. "We are working on that and I hope we'll even see some results by the end of the week."



Lack of funding delays memorial to Indians killed
By STEVE YOUNG
Argus Leader

published: 6/26/01

Ten years after Congress agreed to erect a memorial to the natives who died fighting Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer at the Little Bighorn, the promise remains unfunded and unfulfilled.

And that just doesn't seem right to Little Bighorn Battlefield Superintendent Neil Mangum.

"I think it's time to build it," Mangum says as he sits in his office in the visitor's center at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. "It's been way too long. They need to build it, or otherwise it looks like another government promise to a people that will be broken."

Legislation approving construction of a memorial to the 100 tribal men, women and children who died at the battle on June 25 and 26, 1876, was signed by President George Bush in December 1991. At the same time, Congress agreed to rename the battlefield from "Custer" to "Little Bighorn" Battlefield National Monument.

Since then, an advisory committee comprised of representatives from the tribes involved in the battle, as well as historians, artists and landscape architects, have developed a design.

But Congress provided no construction dollars when it approved the memorial, preferring instead that it be built with private money. In 1999, the National Park Foundation --the fund-raising arm for the National Park Service --began going after financial support in earnest. But in two years, it has generated just $70,000 on a project whose price tag now is up to $2.3 million.

It shouldn't take this long, says Leonard Bruguier, a member of the memorial's advisory committee and director of the Institute of American Indian Studies at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion.

"When the design was done and we dedicated the site two, three years ago, I said I'd like to see this built in my lifetime," Bruguier says. "I'm starting to wonder if that will happen."

The battlefield has requested an additional $1 million in the fiscal year 2004 construction budget to help get the memorial built, Mangum says. But some congressmen are trying to push that schedule ahead.

Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., has asked the Senate Interior Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee to approve $1.8 million in 2002 for building the memorial. Thus far, there's been no answer.

"Clearly we are still a ways from what we perceived we were doing 10 years ago, (when he led the move in Congress to authorize the memorial) and that was to get it built," said Sen Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo. He spoke at a ceremony Monday commemorating the 125th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Mangum, for one, is determined to make it happen. He got approval to raise fees to the battlefield from $6 for a seven-day pass to $10 as of last Feb 1. Out of that $10, Mangum says, $5 is available for the memorial.

"We sell $50 passes, too, that will get people into any national park for a year. And of that, we retain $35," Mangum says. "But it's a sad commentary that this little park is trying to come up with the money on its own. I think Congress owes it to the public to build this."

Whether it will or not is another matter. For now, Mangum says he will set aside the dollars he collects in fees until there is enough to build the memorial. How long that will take is anybody's guess, he says.

The memorial would get built sooner, Mangum says, if Congress came up with the money. It also would allow him to use what he collects for other critical needs at the battlefield, such as road repairs and building pullouts for wayside exhibits.

"In 1881, your U.S. tax dollars paid for the Custer Memorial," said Chauncey Whitright, former national advisory committee member at the anniversary program on Monday. "All we're asking is for you to give us the benefit of the doubt, too."

But for now, a grassy stretch of land sits 75 yards northeast of where another memorial -- built in 1881 -- rests over a mass grave of 7th Cavalry soldiers.

Visitors to the battlefield often ask staff where the Indian memorial is located, or when it's going to be built, Mangum says.

"And of course there is a small percentage who say it's un-American to build such a memorial," he says. "They still think Indians are the enemies. But I think most of us realize today that the Indian wars of the post-Civil War era was like the Civil War. ... Americans fighting Americans for control of the land."

A model of the proposed memorial, designed by John R. Collins and Alison J. Towers, is on display at the battlefield monument site.

"People haven't been absorbed into the memorial. They haven't reconciled to it yet," Bruguier says of the design. "I know when I first saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial I did not like it. Now, there's nothing better."

Bruguier thinks the memorial will help draw Indian visitors to the site to share their stories.

"I know when they open this thing, Indians will start coming here. We'll start seeing reconciliation."

Mangum hopes he's right.

"This memorial is not meant to denigrate Custer or the country's military. It's like going to Gettysburg and seeing the monumentation of the Union side and no monumentation of the Confederate side. We need to get this memorial built."

Argus Leader reporter Peter Harriman contributed to this report. Reach reporter Steve Young at syoung@argusleader.com or 331-2306

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