Simpson Remarks At American Indian and Alaska Native Public Witness Day (As Prepared)

The Committee will come to order.

Good morning and welcome to the first of our public witness hearings dedicated to American Indian and Alaska Native programs.

I believe that these hearings are very important, and I thank each of you for being here today. Indian Country has been and will continue to be a bipartisan priority for this subcommittee.

I look forward to working with Ranking Member Pingree to continue to strengthen this Committee’s longstanding efforts to increase the federal commitment to honor our treaty and trust responsibilities with American Indians and Alaska Natives.

I would like to welcome all the distinguished Tribal elders and leaders here today. Thank you to all our witnesses for appearing before the Committee and sharing your concerns and personal perspectives on these important topics.

In terms of hearing logistics, I will call each panel of witnesses to the table one panel at a time.

Each witness will have five minutes to present testimony. Your full written testimony will be included in the record, so please don’t feel pressured to cover everything in five minutes.

We will be using a timer to track the progress of each witness; when the light turns “orange,” the witness will have one-minute remaining to conclude their remarks. When the light turns red, I will have to ask the witness to stop to remain on schedule.

We’ll hear from every witness on each panel before Members will be provided an opportunity to ask questions. Because we have a full day ahead, I request that we try to keep things moving so we can stay on schedule and respect each other’s time.

I also want to note that Committee rules prohibit the use of outside cameras and audio equipment during these hearings. The hearing can be viewed in its entirety on the Committee’s website, and an official hearing transcript will be available at GPO.gov.

With that, I thank you all for being here today and I’m happy to yield now to our distinguished ranking member for any remarks she may wish to make.