
Rodney Butler
57:41 - 58:24
"NFOA supports locating this authority within the Department of Interior, The Interior Department houses the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development, and the full suite of federal trust responsibilities to tribal nations. It has the institutional knowledge and the relationship to make this work."
“NFOA supports locating this authority within the Department of Interior, The Interior Department houses the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development, and the full suite of federal trust responsibilities to tribal nations. It has the institutional knowledge and the relationship to make this work.”
NFOA supports locating this authority within the Department of Interior, The Interior Department houses the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development, and the full suite of federal trust responsibilities to tribal nations. It has the institutional knowledge and the relationship to make this work. Consolidating the function at Interior will reduce interagency fragmentation and give the authority the best possible footing to do its job. We do urge the committee to ensure that the transfer does not sideline Commerce, Treasury, or other economic agencies from the review process. The regulatory barriers facing Indian Country span the entire federal government, and the authority's effectiveness depends on robust interagency engagement.
A House subcommittee took testimony June 9 on legislation that would transfer a dormant 2000 tribal regulatory reform mandate from Commerce to Interior, 25 years after the authority was supposed to convene.

A House subcommittee heard testimony Tuesday on legislation authorizing Indian Health Service to fund veterinary care in rural Alaska communities facing endemic rabies and high dog-bite rates, addressing a public health gap that has left villages without basic animal disease prevention.
