do our negotiations, primarily in the area of funding and the area of staffing and downsizing.

Senator MCCAIN. Let me put it to you this way.

We have been in business now in self-governance going into the 5th year since the passage of the legislation and 28 tribes have chosen to participate. We have room for two more tribes. There are 510 Federally recognized tribes in America. It seems to me that if it is as good as we are getting from the witnesses that we would have had more tribes line up and request self-determination.

Maybe that is a bit of a philosophical question, but all of you feel free to respond to that, please.

Mr. MANATOWA. I think in time there will be more. I think once we remove the word "demonstration" into permanent legislation, I think you might see more people come into it. Even at that point, you may not see all 500 plus because they are individual tribal governments. They wish to handle their government they way they wish. It ought to be their prerogative. But I think you will see a lot more as we go through and remove that word as though it is a temporary thing and it might be changing back to the other side.

Mr. DELACRUZ. Mr. Chairman, I would like to comment on what we're basically dealing with because I was involved from the inception of the Self-Determination Act in 1974.

Again, the fear of change-people had advised tribes-people within the Federal bureaucracies going through the country as naysayers that self-determination is self-termination. We had to spend a lot of time educating and providing facts that that wasn't the matter.

The same thing is true with the self-governance demonstration project. The things that happen internally-a lot of them are created externally. I want to give an example for the record.

I went to a hearing of the local agency. There are 10 tribes in that agency. There are five self-governance demonstration tribes. The hearing was on the 1994 budget. The superintendent and his staff started out with the flip chart, 1988, saying, "This is all the staff and what I have been diminished because of five self-governance tribes," which was not a fact at all. He has had tribes 638 contracting since 1974. But when you have people telling people like that, the external appearance creates fear in people.

I thank the committee for the education project because we have had to go over and over and over again and diminish these basically lies with the facts. I think we will continue having to do that. That is basically why things don't go very fast.

Senator MCCAIN. Joe, I appreciate that.

My question was about the tenor in Indian country and the temperature in Indian country toward this project. I know that people come to you-and other tribal leaders come to you-because you have been involved in the experiment.

If I were a tribal leader, the first thing I would do is go to people who have embarked on the experiment. I am trying to get an idea as to how it is being received amongst the Indian nations and what we can anticipate. I think that is important in the formulation of the legislation.

Mr. DELACRUZ. In that light, I think with all the things we have done with education on this, and tribes communicating with tribes,

you are going to see a greater amount. In our workshop, there are tribes that want to be in. They are concerned as to whether it is going to be expanded enough when they are ready to move in.

Senator MCCAIN. Let me ask you another one real quick.

If there are people who say, "It is fine for small tribes. Big tribes like Navajo, Tohono O'odham-there is no way they would want to get into this. It is just too difficult."

What is your response to that, recognizing that it is all voluntary?

Mr. DELACRUZ. I know what my response is. I am looking at governance of a territory, of a nation. That means what we have been doing. Our courts, our police force, managing our forests, managing everything within our territories. For me, that is good because I don't think the Government has done a good job in any of those areas. I think the proof is that we have to prove, and we have been sharing with other tribes, that the flexibility of what we're compacting gives us the opportunity to manage the money where it is needed as we are exercising the responsibility of government.

Large tribes are going to have to look at that. Are they willing to take that risk to really take over those things?

Mr. PABLO. In visiting with the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Self-Governance at the conference the other day, there are about 60 to 70 tribes waiting in the wings right now wanting to get in.

I think another reason is that any time there is a change, people are going to be somewhat cautious to make sure that it works, so that as we go through a process we can learn—

Senator MCCAIN. You have to make sure the money is still going to be there.

Mr. PABLO. That is a good point.

I think another concern that comes about is that tribal self-governance, tribal sovereignty, tribal self-determination is however those individual tribes wish to do that. If they don't wish to come into compacts, that is their decision and not anyone else's.

Mr. MANATOWA. I have had some comments from other tribal leaders in Oklahoma. I think one of the things that they are being very cautious of-and I even had one of them say, "That is termination." I think the permanency word in the project may eliminate some of that.

They have also talked about trust responsibility,

The U.S. Government has the trust responsibility for operating and administering a program. I am going to let them get out of that. I don't want to take it over when it is their trust responsibility to do that.

I think that fear still lingers out there today. When there are issues out among the tribes such as taxation, jurisdiction primarily. We will start with that. What are the jurisdictional rights the tribe has in connection with the State? Full faith and credit for the courts-all these things that you say are not being handled. Why don't you go after those and help us do those? The mistrust is still there today, Mr. Chairman.

Senator MCCAIN. Understandable mistrust. It seems to me alsoand I mentioned this to Bill Lavell earlier that if you are going to transfer the responsibilities to the tribe, then the bureaucracy should shrink. So far, in all due respect, I have not seen any reduction in the size of the bureaucracy. One of our goals here in self

determination, quite frankly, was to save taxpayer's money in order to reduce the size of the bureaucracy.

It seems to me that the money that is spent on the bureaucracy could be spent on meaningful programs.

Mr. MANATOWA. When we contracted the Shawnee Agency, of course, there were five tribes in the agency, four fully contracted all of it. It was downsized. Now that there is one left there, they have gone the other way. They have added people.

Senator MCCAIN. Using what rationale?

Mr. MANATOWA. I don't know because I don't have that much contact with the

agency.

The same thing occurred with the area office in which they were directed to downsize. They made some changes and said, “We downsized." But that is going up instead of down. That is why I mentioned earlier that we need to turn that alligator around and put some teeth in there to make sure that these things are happening.

Senator MCCAIN. Any final comments from the panel?

Mr. DELACRUZ. I wanted to make one comment further on downsizing. We prevented some up-sizing years ago by coming to these committees in the areas of fisheries and natural resources. I view it that we are in a true partnership. The tribes out in the Northwest, because of Federal court decisions, developed our committees, commissions, and technical capability. We provide the trustee with the information, again in partnership, to protect our trust. I think we have a better protection in those situations. I am speaking of the Northwest Indian Fish Commission.

We find even the administration-meaning the President-in the crisis on timber looking to the tribes that are involved in those because of the expertise and the things that we have been on the cutting edge on. Tribes are very capable if they are given the opportunity.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator MCCAIN. Any last word?

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, you made one point there that I think is very important regarding this concept. This project is not intended to save the taxpayers money with regard to the transfer of those resources to the tribes. It is intended to transfer them directly so that we can use them more effectively and efficiently. We are trying to hold the line, as we shared earlier.

I would like to also point out that those of us who are actively involved are in constant demand. So the interest is very, very high out there. They want to know more about it so that they can enter into it comfortably and confidently because they understand it.

And last but not least, I think it is important for the Congress to know that we have spent a lot of our own hard-earned dollars to advance this concept, this project, beyond what Congress has been able to provide to advance it.

Thank you.

Senator MCCAIN. Absolutely. I want to be perfectly clear what I

mean.

I am saying that we would be saving the taxpayers money in the respect that we want to transfer the funds to the tribes but we

don't want to have to keep the same size of bureaucracy. I don't mean cutting down on the funds that would otherwise be spent.

My experience has shown that the pie isn't going to get much bigger. So we have to give a bigger slice to the tribes themselves rather than spending it on bureaucracy. I want to make that clear. I am very happy to see all of you.

Senator Murkowski will be back so that we can continue the hearing. I will be back as soon as I finish on the Floor.

I want to thank all of you. If there is a reason to make this program permanent, it is sitting right here at this table. I don't see how my colleagues could be opposed in the face of the evidence you have provided.

Thank you very much.

The hearing will stand in recess for about 10 minutes until Senator Murkowski comes back.

[Recess.]

STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK H. MURKOWSKI, U.S. SENATOR, FROM ALASKA

Senator MURKOWSKI [ASSUMING CHAIR]. I apologize for the inconvenience of those witnesses and those in attendance, but we have a vote. Senator McCain will be back shortly. I have a meeting with Secretary Babbitt at 11:30, so I am going to conduct the hearing and continue it until Senator McCain comes back.

It is my understanding that we are ready to start on panel number three.

Senator MURKOWSKI. Panel three consists of Marge Anderson, chairperson, Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa, accompanied by Karen Ecstrom, assistant commission of administration and Dan Melbridge, commissioner of human services; Henrick Kadake, president, Organized Village of Kake, Kake, AK, accompanied by Gary Williams, executive director; Edward Thomas, president, Central council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes; Harold DeMoss, tribal council member, Cherokee Nation; and Faith Roessel, director of the Navajo Nation.

Before we start, in view of the time sequences, I am going to ask the BIA, who has already testified-but I want this question to be submitted in writing.

It is my understanding that the tribal compacts allow tribes to provide programs and services to tribe members that were previously provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In theory, this would allow the Department of the Interior to eliminate the bureaucratic process, to some degree, at the BIA.

However, in Alaska, the BIA administrative staff has actually increased. I would like to have an explanation as to why.

Second, I was informed that 10 months ago Niles Cesar-who is well known to us in Alaska, the BIA Juneau Area director-sent a reorganization proposal to Washington, DC for approval. Yet as of today, Mr. Cesar has not received a response from the BIA. That was 10 months ago. In view of the effort to streamline the process, I would like an explanation offered by the BIA for the record, whether this is in fact a reality, and what the BIA plans are for

restructuring the Bureau in light of the many programs and services which have been transferred from the Bureau to the tribes.

So if anyone on the witness stand would care to enlighten me either now or later-or anybody in the audience-this is a good opportunity.

Nobody is jumping up to enlighten me, so we will proceed. Hopefully, we will have an opportunity to share with you the response of the BIA to the written questions.

I don't know how you want to proceed, ladies and gentlemen. It says here that we will start with Marge Anderson, but you can flip a coin or whatever.

I think Marge is ready to go, so why don't we start with Marge? We welcome all of you to the committee and ask that you realize that you may condense your entire prepared statement and it will be entered into the record as if read.

Please proceed, Marge.

STATEMENT OF MARGE ANDERSON, CHAIRPERSON, MILLE LACS BAND OF OJIBWE INDIANS, ONAMIA, MN, ACCOMPANIED BY KAREN ECSTROM, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER OF ADMINISTRATION, MILLE LACS BAND OF OJIBWE INDIANS; AND DAN MELBRIDGE, COMMISSIONER OF HUMAN SERVICES, MILLE LACS BAND OF OJIBWE INDIANS

MS. ANDERSON. Good morning. I am honored to testify before this committee today.

I am Marge Anderson, the chief executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. I am here to talk about self-governance. I will keep my remarks brief and let my written testimony take care of the important details.

First some background. We are a first tier self-governance tribe, having signed our first compact with the Interior Department in 1990. This year, we were one of the first tribes to sign a compact with the Indian Health Service. We have a great deal riding on the future of self-governance.

Second, we strongly support a bill that would make self-governance authority permanent as soon as possible. After 4 years with it, we think the experiment is a success and should be made permanent.

We also welcome an increase in the number of tribes allowed to participate. Self-governance participation could be very valuable to many of our sister tribes.

Third, we ask that you enact a permanent bill that would make BIA negotiate line-by-line tribal shares of Central Office funds. We want BIA to negotiate Central Office funds the same way they negotiate area and agency office funds. For the past 4 years, Mille Lacs Band has asked and asked and asked for this, but BIA has refused to do so, even though in report language Congress has said that BIA should do it.

My written testimony gives the disappointing details. It is clear that this won't happen unless you require it by law. In my written testimony, we suggest bill and report language.

Fourth, we very much need a lot of changes here to clarify lines of authority and responsibility within Interior and the Indian