can move forward and work collectively together, but we need the kind of spirit and attitude and cooperation that is necessary for us to accomplish that.

The funding and assistance that we get through the Federal Government's obligation to the tribes through statutory or Executive Orders or statutory laws or treaties is critical to making that happen, and we feel that's what the Self-Determination Act was trying to accomplish-to give us strength and be on our feet. The CHAIRMAN. I just want to know: are you sovereign?

Mr. ALLEN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. John, do you consider Indians to be sovereign?

Mr. JOHN. Yes; I do. I look at it a little further back, in a sense, in that the Indian tribes have always been sovereign tribal governments in this country. Even though Indian tribes were defeated and conquered by the U.S. Army back in the formation of this Government, Indian governments and Indian tribes have never been dispossessed of their right of government.

What we talked about today in a lot of these discussions surrounding Public Law 93-638 amendments and so forth is really the provision of services. Because Indian people are poor, they need help, they need redevelopment—just like a foreign country might. The U.S. Government has been generous and has sought to help the Indian tribes, and that's a separate issue than the tribes' own ability to self-govern and continue to govern. They have never been dispossessed of that, and they still hold it intact as they always did. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Dean, as a lawyer do you consider Indians to be sovereign?

Mr. DEAN. Yes; I do.

The CHAIRMAN. I consider Indians to be sovereign. The Constitution so says as do laws that support that proposition. And the treaties that we have entered into with Indian nations are the usual requirements of a sovereign relationship.

Now, on the nature of our relationship-and this may sound facetious, and I am not being facetious-is that relationship one of a master and subject, with the master being the United States and the Indians being subjects? Or patron and peasants? Or ruler and subject? Is that the relationship that should exist?

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I feel the answer is no.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Is it a sovereign to sovereign relationship?

Mr. ALLEN. I didn't hear the question. Did you say "sovereign versus sovereign"?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. ALLEN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. We have heard many speakers describe this relationship as a trustee relationship. As the lawyer will tell you, a trustee generally is one who is entrusted with the resources or title to goods held in behalf of a beneficiary, and oftentimes the beneficiary is young, immature, or incompetent or non compos mentis. Is that the relationship we have? Is it the United States as trustee with a non compos mentis or incompetent beneficiary?

Mr. JOHN. Sir, that seems to be the way it is perceived and, in may respects, I look at it a little differently in terms of the experi

ence this country has had, for example, in its world war experi

ence.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that the way it should be?

Mr. JOHN. There was the Marshall Plan, you know. When the United States won the war in Europe there was a Marshall Plan that went to help restore those countries, to give them assistance and development. We often look at the relationship between the U.S. Government and tribal governments in that fashion.

Mr. DEAN. Mr. Chairman, I think that the changing concept of the trust responsibility is part of what the problem is with implementing Indian self-determination. The agencies that have worked with Indian tribes for many years perhaps too much retain the concept that the role of the Federal Government is there because Indian tribes are basically not capable of making decisions for themselves.

It seems to me that the Congress has made very clear that it does not view the relationship in that way.

The CHAIRMAN. Before the Congress amended Public Law 93-638, the language that we are considering states as follows: "The Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall each, to the extent practicable, consult with national and regional Indian organizations to consider and formulate appropriate rules and regulations to implement the provisions of the title.' That was what the language used to be under the old law.

The amendments we passed say the following: "The Secretary shall consider and formulate appropriate regulations to implement the provisions of this act with the participation of Indian tribes." With every intent and deliberately this Congress crossed out the four words "to the extent practicable" and replaced it with the word "shall." We crossed out the word "consult" and we used the word "participation." And, in our committee report, we made it clear, and these are the words of the Congress of the United States: "The new regulations shall be prepared with the active participation of Indian tribal governments and organizations.'

Do you believe that the intent of Congress has been carried out by the agencies involved in the government of the United States? Mr. ALLEN. In my opinion, no.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. John.

Mr. JOHN. I believe it is in its fledgling state. There has been movement, but it is a new experience. It is only starting to blos

som.

Mr. DEAN. Mr. Chairman, I believe that there has been a partial compliance and that the two workshops in Nashville and Albuquerque which resulted in this draft of April 3 clearly involved the active participation. Some Federal representatives told us you can't have a room full of 300 people drafting regulations, and I think those two meetings proved that that's not correct. The Indian people, with the assistance of the Federal people and lawyers and others, have, in fact, done that. And the work has really been largely done.

There remain some items that we mentioned here and some that we haven't mentioned that still need to be resolved, but there is a set of regulations for both agencies that is in existence and simply needs to be refined.

The CHAIRMAN. Chairman Allen, you have suggested that the time be extended?

Mr. ALLEN. At this point, no. The current schedule says that the regulations should be completed by next August-1990. We feel that that can be shortened. It could happen a little bit quicker. But we do not want the schedule to be shortened to not allow the active participation of the tribes in development of these regulations.

The CHAIRMAN. You said that you do not believe that the intent of Congress has been carried out. Are you telling us that you have not been given the opportunity to participate in the promulgation of regulations?

Mr. ALLEN. I need to concur with Mr. John and Mr. Dean in that there has been some participation. The frustration is in the nonacceptance of the active participation relationship with the Bureau. That is what we need. We need assistance to get both the Bureau and IHS to work together with us to conclude this process.

The way it is currently set up, they will promulgate these regulations and we will have to try to modify them through the consultation process. We feel that the need for the tribe to sit at the same table with the Federal Departments to resolve the details is critical to assure that they come out consistent with the tribes.

The Federals have said that these regulations are for them as much as for us, and we don't disagree with that. But our problem is that it is for us primarily, and if we are not at the table working out the details-and details can mean a big difference in the way this is implemented-that's going to be critical to the end result. After the conclusion of this process it is very difficult to modify it, so that's why we're very concerned about this process.

The CHAIRMAN. On several occasions I have made public statements suggesting that for too long the relationships that exist between the Congress and the Bureau and the Service have been adversarial in nature. I have also noted that the relationships, for the most part, existing between Indian tribes and organizations and the Bureau and the Indian Health Service have been adversarial in nature as well. I think this has gone on too long. I think the time has come when we should improve upon this.

It has been said by many of my colleagues in many debates that one cannot legislate friendship and amity and love. We cannot legislate an amicable relationship. And I believe to some extent that is true.

We can tighten up the language, but I would hope that that would not be necessary.

I call upon our new assistant secretary, who will be appearing before us shortly, to get together and begin a new era, because you can have all the laws and all the amendments, and if both sides decide to bring out their knives, nothing is going to happen.

Unfortunately, there is very little understanding and concurrence on what the relationship should be like. I am sorry to say that, the way I look at it, it is an adversarial relationship that exists today. It is not one of a trustee with a competent beneficiary, nor is it one of a sovereign and a sovereign, and that's the way it should be.

I thank you very much, sir.

Our next panel consists of: The Honorable Edward Thomas, president of the Tlingit and Haida Central Council of Juneau, AK; the Honorable Laurence Kenmille, councilman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Council of the Flathead Reservation of Montana, who will be accompanied by Mr. Thomas Acevedo, Esquire, tribal attorney; and Ms. Dorothy Dupree, finance officer of the Pasqua Yaqui Tribal Council of Tucson, AZ.

President Thomas.

STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD THOMAS, PRESIDENT, TLINGIT AND HAIDA CENTRAL COUNCIL, JUNEAU, AK

Mr. THOMAS. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Edward Thomas. I am the elected president of the Tlingit and Haida Central Council of Juneau, AK. Greetings from Alaska.

I wanted to take a few minutes to again thank you and the members of this distinguished committee for providing for us Public Law 100-472, of which title III is a part.

I think this particular act provides many opportunities to streamline the bureaucratic process, to improve the relationships with the tribes in the area of contracting, and for Indians to realize a higher degree of self-determination, and for that we thank you. Before I begin my comments directly related to the demonstration project, I wanted to echo some of the earlier comments, particularly in the area of regulation development.

I did attend the meeting in Nashville. I did not attend the meeting in Albuquerque. I, for one, appreciated the efforts of the government agencies in trying to be more accommodating in the development of the policy; however, I do have some concerns about the changing of the time frames that were originally established in the act, itself.

I, for one, have resisted throughout, regulation development process that we needed, to be so complicated in carrying out the letter of the law. I think that we have demonstrated under title III that we can function. We can carry out the intents of Congress without many of these regulations being promulgated.

I realize that there are parts that need higher scrutiny. I realize there are things that need to be done in consultation and working together. But I think where the law is very clear on what needs to be done, particularly in the area of funding, including the change in the fiscal year, the title III demonstration projects, the indirect costs, I think all of those things can be implemented immediately. I don't think we need to wait and wait and wait until everybody can somehow agree. Any time you recommend change, as this law is recommending, there is going to be conflict and there are going to be adversarial feelings for a while until the dominating body takes charge, and that, of course, I hope is the Congress.

Now, I realize that they're recommending that we wait until September 29 to have the notice of proposed rule making begin their review process. I think that's far too long. I think it should start now. The draft regulations, for the most part, are out. I think we can analyze them pretty quickly and get on with the business of

implementing the law. If we don't have complete concurrence, we can work on those later.

I think that in these final moments of promulgation of these regulations I would like to see a little bit more involvement of Congress in making sure that timeframe consultation is adhered to in line with the intent of Congress.

Also, I think that it is important that the Government gets much more receptive to receiving the recommendations of the various task forces on the Indian priority systems, or IPS system. These recommendations, from what I have reviewed of them and from my participation in the Alaska area workshops, are very good recommendations and could be very helpful in dealing with the concerns that many tribes have over the funding.

Title III, or the demonstration project, is a very important tool to many of those demonstration tribes to investigate efficient methods of contracting for Federal programs by tribal governments.

I think that one of the benefits of going through a demonstration program is that you can go and try out something without having to change the law of the land and accomplish much more by looking at something through a demonstration mode.

In my project, for example, I proposed that we get rid of the Southeast Agency and convert those administrative dollars into program dollars that would help the needy people of my tribe and other tribes of my agency.

This proposal creates conflict because when you are recommending those changes, you are talking about displacing career people in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. For many of the people in my agency, those are our tribal members, also. So we're talking about conflict that is not comfortable, but yet we must go through because many of the people in my area that need these services do not get the degree of services necessary to make changes in their lives that are going to be positive for the future.

Now, some of the things that have happened-and I won't dwell on some of the negatives because I think there are a lot of positives, but the negative would be as a result of this conflict if the Bureau got quite defensive. We have had delays upon delays of getting the base funding for both phase I and phase II of our projects. This has created problems more related to the reporting to Congress as prescribed by the law, and I don't put this forth as an excuse, only as reality. Last year we didn't get the funding until the middle of May, and our first report was due April 1. You can see that it is pretty hard to meet the reporting requirement on your project when you get funding after you are supposed to have submitted your first quarterly report.

The Government has been very slow in reaction to the requests of nearly all of the demonstration tribes-particularly in the area of finance. I struggle with being overzealous and saying I don't see how the Government can function when it doesn't even know its own financial status, or an agency can function, or an area, or even central office. It seems to me, from my experience, that it would have to have that information readily available at all times, and therefore to pass it on to somebody else should be a very simple process. But it has taken us just about a year and three months to