Tribal School Federal Insurance Parity Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 895. As my colleague from New Mexico described it, this bill would enable Tribal grant school employees to participate in the Federal Health Benefits Program.

Under current law, the Bureau of Indian Education employees and tribally managed schools operating under a self-determination contract are already eligible for this benefit. It is time that we helped Tribal grant schoolteachers.

This bill will not only provide parity for the benefits that employees receive at other schools serving Native children, but it will help keep essential moneys focused on education itself.

I want to thank the sponsor of this legislation, my colleague Congressman Dusty Johnson, for his thoughtful leadership on this issue.

This stand-alone legislation will go a long way to help Tribal grant schools during the COVID-19 recovery period and beyond.

I am disappointed, however, Mr. Speaker, that the Democrat majority has refused to act on S. 886, the Indian Water Rights Settlement Extension Act. S. 886 includes the text of this bill and would also help Tribes in one of the hardest hit COVID-19 regions of the country, the Navajo Nation, which has cited lack of water as a complication for fending off and defeating this deadly virus.

S. 886 addresses this very issue by ensuring better access to water for the Tribe. Unfortunately, the majority has let this water settlement agreement for the Navajo collect dust. It has been 90 days since the Senate passed this bipartisan bill. Despite repeated requests for its consideration, the Democrats have taken no action to see this critical agreement enacted into law.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from Navajo President Nez asking Speaker Pelosi to schedule a vote on final passage on S. 886. The Navajo Nation, Window Rock, AZ, July 28, 2020. Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Kevin McCarthy, Republican Leader, Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Pelosi and Leader McCarthy: We respectfully request that you schedule a vote on final passage of S. 886, the Navajo Utah Water Rights Settlement Act (NUWRSA), before the House leaves for the August recess. As discussed and explained in our June 22, 2020 letter to the House, nearly 40 percent of the Navajo Nation lacks running water or adequate sanitation in their homes. To make matters worse, the Navajo Nation's COVID-19 infection rate on a per capita basis is one of the highest in the country and the Navajo Nation has more COVID-19 deaths than many states. The House has an opportunity to take immediate action to mitigate future COVID-19 outbreaks and address the drinking water crisis on the Navajo Reservation by passing S. 886. Although the Senate unanimously passed S. 886, the House of Representatives has so not acted on it, further delaying the relief that it will ultimately bring to the Navajo people.

The Navajo Nation has over 300,000 enrolled members and is the largest Indian reservation spanning portions of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The conditions on Navajo are dire and the pandemic only compounds our needs. With so few watering points across the Navajo Nation, families must travel hours to reach these points and must ration their water accordingly. Without access to clean drinking water, the Navajo Nation will continue to struggle, and its members will be more susceptible to deadly illnesses such as COVID-19.

S. 886 would provide the means to begin to address these critical needs. Through NUWRSA, the Navajo Nation would receive approximately $220 million in federal and state funding for desperately needed drinking water infrastructure on the Reservation in exchange for the Nation waiving its water-related claims against the United States and State of Utah. In 2016, Congress first introduced the settlement legislation and on June 4, 2020, the Senate unanimously passed S. 886, demonstrating the broad bi-partisan support for the legislation.

The Navajo Nation recognizes that there is more to be done for Indian Country and we stand ready to assist you on this work, but S. 886 is ready for final passage. The House's inaction on S. 886 or sending it back to the Senate for further consideration will only delay addressing the basic human needs of the Navajo people. Therefore, we respectfully request that you schedule a vote on final passage of S. 886 before the House recesses in August. Sincerely, Jonathan Nez, President. Myron Lizer, Vice President.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. CHENEY. Again, Mr. Speaker, we support the passage of Congressman Johnson's bill, H.R. 895, and would also prefer to enact this provision into law along with measures that will help the Navajo Nation with their broader water shortages.

Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Mr. Speaker, I will begin by thanking Ranking Member Cheney and Congresswoman Haaland for their support and for their warm words of support for this measure.

They are right. H.R. 895 is about fairness; it is about equity; and it is about improving Tribal school outcomes across this country.

Now, I don't know that it matters where you live in this country, and I don't know that it matters where you are in the political spectrum, it seems like one of the things you should be able to recognize is that one of our most difficult and most important challenges in this country is ensuring quality education for our Native students.

Unintentionally, a few years ago, Congress complicated those efforts. We passed the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act. As a part of that act, we made it clear that section 638 Tribal schools could access the Federal employee health insurance benefits. But we denied that same treatment--again, unintentionally--for the section 297 schools. In the decade since we have done that, millions of dollars have flown out of the classroom and, instead, toward these health insurance benefits.

Our bill, my bill, the Tribal School Federal Insurance Parity Act, fixes that oversight, closes that loophole, and addresses this problem without costing our Federal Government a nickel.

I have visited Tribal grant schools, most recently just a few weeks ago. I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, Superintendent Whirlwind Horse and her team work hard every single day. They are at Wounded Knee School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. They work hard to provide these educational opportunities even with incredibly scarce resources.

My friend, Cecilia Fire Thunder, the president of the Oglala Lakota Nation Education Consortium, understands those challenges, which is why she has been focused on this issue for a long time.

If we pass this bill, we will make their jobs just a little bit easier as they work to shift those dollars into the classroom to focus them on student education, to focus them on student outcomes, and to focus them on improving the lives of young people in Indian Country.

So, I ask my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, for a ``yes'' vote, and I ask us all to work with the Senate to pass H.R. 895 before the end of the 116th Congress.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source