ings will be very valuable because from this will spring decisions made by the Congress in the future which will inure substantially to your benefit, so I personally want to use this opportunity to thank Senator Abourezk for taking up his time and coming forward and thanking John Borbridge and Ted Stevens in this regard.

Senator, it's all yours.

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES ABOUREZK, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA-Resumed

Senator ABOUREZK. Thank you very much, Senator Gravel. We will be joined by Senator Stevens and John Borbridge of the American Indian Policy Review Commission. I might say at the outset thatam I able to be heard by everybody in the room? Can you hear me? It is in a sense a joint set of hearings between the American Indian Policy Review Commission and the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs of the Senate Interior Committee, and John Borbridge will be sitting in his capacity as a Commissioner of the American Indian Policy Review Commission.

The policy of Congress is to allow for the full participation of Indian tribes in programs and services conducted by the Federal Government for Indians and to encourage the development of human resources of the Indian people. The prolonged Federal domination of Indian service programs has served to retard rather than to enhance the progress of Indian people and their communities by depriving Indians of the full opportunity to develop leadership skills crucial to the realization of self-government. It has denied to the Indian people an effective voice in the planning and implementation of programs for the benefit of Indians which are responsive to the true needs of Indian communities. The Congress has recognized the obligation of the United States to respond to the strong expressions of Indian people for self-determination. The Congress has committed itself to the maintenance of the Federal Government's unique and continuing relationship with and responsibility to the Indian people, including the Indian people here in Alaska, through the establishment of a meaningful Indian self-determination policy which permits an orderly transition from Federal domination of programs which serve Indians to effective and meaningful participation by the Indian people for the planning, conduct, and administration of those programs and

services.

The Congress has become aware of an acute problem that has come about because of the many and varied statutory definitions of what a tribe is, as they may or may not apply here in Alaska. The result of those differing definitions of an Indian tribe is great confusion on the part of the administrators of those Federal programs which are designed to benefit Indians and Alaskan Natives. It appears that of the approximate 225 villages and 24 regional organizations that there are about 465 legal entities that may be defined as "tribe."

The purpose of these oversight hearings is to review those problems caused by the ambiguous definitions of tribe, and to review other problems relating to contracting for Federal programs and services. Aside

the specific purposes that I have just mentioned, the hearings

which we will conduct will review other problems that the American Indian Policy Review Commission can address itself to in its recommendations to the Congress.

The first witness we will have this afternoon will be the president of the Tlingit and Haida Central Council, Mr. Raymond Paddock. Ray, do you want to come forward, and if you have other people you have with you that you want to accompany you, if you would like to bring those up. And before you get underway, Ray, I want to introduce the senior Senator, Senator Stevens, from Alaska, and ask if he has any statement he would like to make.

Senator STEVENS. No. I am very delighted that you have accepted the request that Senator Gravel and Congressman Young and I made to conduct these hearings throughout Alaska, and that you have taken your time to come with us, and I am looking forward to developing a good record on these subjects, Senator Abourezk, but I have no

statement.

Senator ABOUREZK. Thank you very much. These hearings are being held at the request of Senator Stevens and Senator Gravel, at the urging of the Indian community throughout Alaska for clarification of these points.

Also with us is John Borbridge. John, do you have anything you would like to say?

Mr. BORBRIDGE. I do want to acknowledge and join with Senator Stevens and Senator Gravel in both welcoming you to Alaska and as we had the occasion to discuss formally and informally, Senator Abourezk, I feel that this meeting is going to represent just one step and one phase in your active participation in the affairs affecting not only Alaska Natives but Alaska in general, to the extent that having you here today in view of all of us is a foundation for meaningful and very much more involved activity in Alaska in the future, and it is a pleasure to have you here and to welcome you to our home. Thank you.

Senator ABOUREZK. Thank you very much.

Now, I hope all the witnesses will try to abide by the time restraints that we have, and the first witness, as I said, is Ray Paddock, an old friend of mine. I'm very glad to see him and would like to welcome him to the subcommittee hearings as you have welcomed me to Alaska. Mr. PADDOCK. Thank you, Senator.

STATEMENT OF RAYMOND E. PADDOCK, JR., PRESIDENT, CENTRAL COUNCIL, TLINGIT AND HAIDA INDIANS OF ALASKA

Mr. PADDOCK. First I would like to introduce beside me Mr. Eli Reyes, who is the deputy director of our Southeast Agency Contract. I am also expecting Mr. Joe Wilson, who is the director, to join us, and they are the entity that has been dealing primarily with Public Law 93-638, the Indian Self Determination Act.

You have been all given a packet that we prepared which is our formal testimony. I am going to submit that without reading it and just briefly go around it to a number of problem areas that we have. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before this committee, and I would like to acknowledge the presence of my predecessor, Mr. Bor

bridge, who understands very clearly the problems that we are faced with and also the presence of, for the benefit of those here, of your staff assistant, Mr. Tony Strong, who was on my staff and worked for the central council last summer. I appreciate your wisdom in hiring a Tlingit to handle your Indian affairs.

Senator ABOUREZK. I just want to say that I always in my office have two people, Indian people, handling Indian affairs for me. One deals specifically with South Dakota Indian problems, and the other one deals with national Indian problems, because as chairman of the subcommittee I have found that people from all over the country, Indian people, come in to see me about legislation and projects and so on, and when I got Tony Strong of Klukwan on my staff, all of a sudden legislation that kept winding up in my file for me to take action on was Alaskan legislation, and there was no more Navajo, no more Pueblo, no more anything except Alaska, and mostly Klukwan.

Mr. PADDOCK. Senator, one of the reasons that there is Public Law 93-638 which I summarized in my opening statement is the fact that in 1970 President Nixon came out with his statement on Indian selfdetermination without termination. At that time, John Borbridge was president of the central council, and with the help of our congressional staff or congressional delegation, assisted the central council in getting the first contract to contract programs of the Bureau of Indian Affairs agency in the Nation, I believe, and I think Zuni was also along with us.

The experience that we have gained over the years since 1970 and 1971 when we were attempting to get this contract let, our testimony and the experience we received, led to the implementation and finally the passage by Congress of Public Law 93-638. The act itself departs somewhat from the original contract we received, which was under the Buy Indian Act, and we now have to adjust ourselves to rules and regulations of Public Law 93-638, and this has caused us a number of problems which I would like to relate.

The first one is a problem of identity, which you mentioned in your opening remarks. It was never clear, it was never made clear by the Bureau of Indian Affairs that they regarded us as a tribal governing body, and only this last week we received a letter from the area director, the area office, that confirmed the fact that we were indeed a tribal governing body.

In addition, it also named, and we have a letter to that effect which we will support this with, the following entities as tribal governing bodies: The Sealaska Corp., the village corporations established under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and the IRA councils.

Since we do have in hand now the document that will assist us in gaining Federal contracts as a tribal governing body, we still have to work out the problem administratively of where this is leading us, and hopefully the Congress can deal with it.

We are primarily interested in the delivery of human resourcestype programs, and the definition of what our status is leads not only to problems within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but to all other contracts that we have with Federal agencies. When we contract with CETA, for instance, the Department of Labor, they in turn want to know who we are and are we in fact an Indian tribe. When we

contract with HEW for public health or Indian education programs, the status and the definition again come up, so this is a problem that must be resolved, and we feel that we are in the best position to address these human resource problems.

There are a number of reasons why we feel this way, and I would like to relate that informally to the committee. Sealaska and the village corporations are named as coequal in the definition of tribal status, but both-well, Sealaska is made up, first of all, of shareholders, and there is a deterioration beginning in Alaska of who a shareholder is. It is not necessarily an Alaska Native or a TlingitHaida.

Now, the same is true in village corporations. In the definition in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act they don't determine what a village corporation is, so it's up now to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, hopefully through our assistance and with the help of the communities, to decide which entity in the community is the village corporation. Now, there are corporations for profit in the villages and there are nonprofit corporations existing in villages. There are also municipal communities set up under Alaska State statutes. Some are made up of all-Native mayors and city councilmen; some are not made up of Native mayors and city councilmen, and yet they are recognized as Native villages under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The IRA councils are even more remote in Alaska or in southeast Alaska, with the exception of the community of Klukwan, which has a very active IRA council. We have IRA councils in Alaska that have not met in 25 years, and I was hoping that Mr. Frank See of Hoonah would be here, who is the president of the IRA Council and has been for 25 years. They have not met in at least 10, that I know of. Is that correct?-they have not even met. We have a number of IRA councils throughout Alaska that are essentially defunct but have outstanding loans through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and continue to get bills and statements from the BIA credit office.

So in the long run what I am saying is that I think it is established through precedent, through legal precedent, in a number of ways that we are the tribal governing body and it has been acknowledged now by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, at least in this area office. There is still a long way to go.

Senator ABOUREZK. Ray, does that mean that for the purposes of 638, the Indian Self-Determination Act, that you are then determined the tribal governing body, or is that just

Mr. PADDOCK. Well, the Self-Determination Act muddied up the situation even more than it was before. Previously we had contracted under the Buy Indian Act. The Self-Determination Act, along with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, gave equal status to the villages and regional corporations, as mentioned in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The problem, then, is one of definition, of who we are and how we go about contracting.

I would like to give a little historical background as to how this came about, and which our congressional delegation has dealt with, particularly Senator Gravel, very early after his election dealt with in Congress. Back in 1912 the Alaska Native Brotherhood was the pri

mary political organization that represented Alaska Natives. The manner in which they were organized led to some questions in Congress and in the Bureau of Indian Affairs as to who they really represented.

It was not until 1935 that this issue was addressed in the Congress, and on June 19, 1935 the Tlingit-Haida Jurisdictional Act was passed establishing a central council, but there was never any procedures for setting up the central council, so it was not until August 19, 1965 that that act was amended creating a representative tribal governing body.

This amendatory legislation was sponsored, cosponsored by Senators Gravel and Stevens, and was passed, and with that we had the blessings of Congress, that we were a tribal governing body, and we proceeded to do business under the leadership of President John Borbridge.

In 1970 there was a relatively small judgment fund which was passed as a settlement for our claims against the U.S. Government. That settlement was for $72 million to represent some 14,000-plus people. The requirement of Congress was that that money not be disbursed among the people but be used for the social and economic development of our people. With those funds, we have been able to begin a number of Federal programs and if you were able to get out into our villages now you would see in the villages a number of things happening based on Federal programs.

It's been an uphill fight all the way in order to get these various programs that we have, simply because of the definitional program that we have regarding tribal governing body. We feel that we have resolved this to a point now, but it must be resolved once and for all so that we may deal with other Federal agencies.

To give you an example in contracting, for instance, we have a grant under CETA, title III, Department of Labor. That title was passed after a great deal of testimony in Congress by Indian people and by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A definition was established under title III that recognized the central council as an Indian tribe; however, it was overlooked in titles II and VI of that act and they went back to the same old definition of "Indians living on or near reservations," so we found that we were receiving about 50 percent of the funds that other Indians were receiving in the Lower FortyEight for comprehensive employment training programs.

We again went back to the Congress and we are attempting now to have that revised through the Public Works Committee and the Labor Committee, but the point remains that the problem of definition is where it all really began, and if we could resolve that once and for all, for all of us, that would never have cropped up in the first place.

I would like to talk now about the Indian Financing Act and the kind of problems we have had with that. The Indian Financing Act, Public Law 93-262, was passed on April 13, 1974, to provide for financing the economic development of Indians and Indian organizations. Once again we get back to the problem of definitions. There was a mistake I think it was an unintentional mistake-in the bill, requiring that those Indian tribes that have loan funds are not eligible to receive loans and grants under the Indian Financing Act. This has