Departments of Commerce and Justice, and Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE AND JUSTICE, AND SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008--Continued -- (Senate - October 16, 2007)

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, amendment No. 3317 I submitted last night. I spoke to it at that point, but I wish to again make some comments with regard to the amendment and the need that exists in the Indian country for this additional funding.

I appreciate the passion of my friend from Iowa for Legal Services Corporation and support of that organization. But I would simply say that once again, these appropriations bills are forcing us to make decisions about what our priorities need to be.

This debate is about choosing priorities. I also say to my friend from Iowa that we are not talking about cutting Legal Services Corporation over the level they were at last year. They were at $348 million in fiscal year 2007. My amendment would still allow a $22 million increase over last year's level. It would fund them at $370 million instead of the $390 million that is included in the base bill. So you are still talking about a 6.3-percent increase in funding for the Legal Services Corporation, so they can continue to do the work they need to do to fulfill their obligations to the American public and the American taxpayers. But what this simply does is say we have a very desperate need in Indian country, and this $20 million could go to very good use in helping us combat violent crime on our reservations.

I guess the question we come down to in these debates on appropriations--and particularly with regard to this amendment--is: Should we provide more badly needed funding to fight violent crime in Indian country or should we put additional funds into an organization that has engaged, according to the GAO and the inspector general, in wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars by providing what would be a substantial increase above the President's recommendation of $311 million and, as I said before, an increase of $42 million over the $348 million that Legal Services Corporation received in last year's appropriations bill?

This bill, the underlying base bill, provides $390 million to Legal Services Corporation. It is a program that has not been reauthorized since 1980. That is a 12-percent increase over the amount appropriated for the Legal Services Corporation in fiscal year 2007, and a 20-percent increase over the recommendations that were made earlier this year in the administration's budget. That substantial increase comes at a time when the Legal Services Corporation has faced very serious questions about its management and expenditure of taxpayer dollars.

The GAO and the Office of Inspector General within the Legal Services Corporation clearly lay out the management and waste that has been going on in the LSC. As I said, my amendment is a modest decrease in the amount of spending that is reflected in the underlying bill. Instead of a $40 million increase, the Legal Services Corporation would still receive a substantial increase of $20 million under my amendment.

Again, I would say that if you look at the GAO report, it is not some dated thing. This is August of 2007. The GAO in their report, entitled ``Legal Services Corporation: Governance and Accountability Practices Need to be Modernized and Strengthened,'' noted a dozen officers and employees of the Legal Services Corporation have received compensation in excess of the statutory compensation limitation. According to the GAO and outside legal counsel, they issued an opinion last May concluding that LSC had not complied with the statutory limitation on the rate of compensation. The GAO agreed with that conclusion, and went on to state that: Without a properly designed and implemented end process for overseeing compensation, LSC remains at risk of not complying with related laws and regulations and engaging in imprudent management practices.

Now, as my friend from Iowa has noted, they are responding, as rightly they should, to address those things. But I think the question is, do you want to reward, with a 12-percent increase, a significant increase over fiscal year 2007, that kind of behavior?

We have an opportunity here again to set priorities. In my view, we have a very serious priority that needs to be dealt with on our Indian reservations in this country, which has been pointed out in any number of different stories and articles.

I have lots of personal examples I can offer from people who actually live on reservations who work in the education system. I have a letter from a superintendent from a reservation school who says: We have one school resource officer in our school system who is certified as a law enforcement officer. However, on this particular reservation, we have a total of seven BIA policemen to patrol 2.2 million acres of reservation. The response time by the BIA police department can be hours for our residents on the reservation or typically result in no response at all.

If you look at the way these cases are prosecuted on the reservation, I have another letter from a constituent who lives out there who says:

In some of these situations the people committing the criminal activities have been caught. They have been sent to jail, released and [are] back on the street committing more crimes, sometimes within 24 hours of the last crime.

This principal in his letter talked about what is becoming a very deep endemic problem on reservations; that is, the increased presence of organized gangs, violence, and drugs.

There are lots of anecdotal examples I could share of the need for additional law enforcement presence. I cosponsored, along with Senator Dorgan, an amendment earlier on this bill that would increase the number of law enforcement personnel who would be on the reservations to address what is the issue of actually apprehending people when they commit crimes. What my amendment does is couples with that the other aspect, and that is making sure that when people are apprehended for committing these types of crimes, they go on to get prosecuted.

What is amazing is, if you look at the rate of prosecution on Indian reservations and how it compares with prosecutions elsewhere--there was an article recently in the Wall Street Journal that said that based on Justice Department data, only 30 percent of tribal land crimes referred to U.S. attorneys were prosecuted. That compares with 56 percent for all other cases. It goes on to say that one of the reasons those cases don't get prosecuted in Indian country is because Federal prosecutors have long distances involved, a lack of resources, and the cost of hauling witnesses and defendants to Federal court. As a consequence, a lot of cases are not being dealt with.

The U.S. attorney who deals with this in a very admirable way in my State of South Dakota suffers from a lack of resources to do the work that is necessary to make sure that crimes that are committed on the reservation are dealt with, and dealt with in an expeditious way.

If you look at the data--this is Justice Department data from 1992 to 2001--the average rate of violent crime among American Indians was 2 1/2 times the national rate. In fact, according to one report in the Indian Country Today newspaper, Native American women are seven times more likely to be the victim of domestic violence than are other women, and more than 60 percent of Indian women will be victims of violent assault during their lifetime.

Senator Dorgan was on the Senate floor yesterday discussing this issue. He noted that one-third of Indian women will be raped or sexually assaulted during their lifetime. This is unacceptable. This has to stop.

What we are simply saying with this amendment is, here is a way to address the issue. Again, we need more law enforcement personnel on the reservations, which this bill will attempt to address, as will an amendment that was offered earlier by Senator Dorgan. I cosponsored an amendment offered by Senator Bingaman, the meth hot spots legislation, that would allow the cops made available under that legislation to be used by Indian reservations. But it is important that we get at the issue of making sure our U.S. attorneys are in a position to be able to prosecute when violent crimes are committed in Indian country. These statistics are stunning, when you look at the number of Native American women who are subject to these types of violent crimes--in many cases, sexual assault--that go unprosecuted because of a lack of resources to the Justice Department so U.S. attorneys can bring those cases in court.

I again come back to the basic premise of the amendment. It does increase funding for the Legal Services Corporation, the underlying bill does. The base bill increases it to $390 million from the $348 million level in fiscal year 2007. The administration budget actually recommended $311 million. So $311 to $390 million is about a 20-percent increase. That was over the administration's budget. It is about 12 percent in the base bill over the fiscal year 2007 level from $348 million to $390 million. What my amendment does is pares back the size of that increase by $20 million. So it will now go from $348 million in fiscal year 2007 to $370 million in fiscal year 2008. That is a better than 6-percent increase. So we are not taking away anything from Legal Services Corporation or their ability to do their job. We are simply saying a part of that substantial increase, coming at a time when the Legal Services Corporation is under tremendous scrutiny and criticism from the Government/Accountabiilty Office, as well as from their own inspector general, it makes sense, in my view, to take those resources, those $20 million out of that particular account, apply that to giving the U.S. attorneys the resources they need to combat violent crime on our Indian reservations.

There isn't anything that works if you don't have a secure, safe environment. Public safety is the most important responsibility we have. Our Indian reservations today are suffering from a tremendous lack of enforcement of laws, a failure on the part of our Government to respond to providing security. I have talked with school superintendents and principals whose children cannot learn when they don't have a safe learning environment. That is what we are dealing with today because of a lack of law enforcement personnel and a lack of capability on behalf of the U.S. attorneys to prosecute crimes committed in Indian country so that those who perpetrate those crimes are not released and back out on the street to commit further crimes.

It is a straightforward amendment: $20 million out of the Legal Services Corporation increase, a substantial increase still over what they received last year, and take that $20 million and apply it to a very desperate need that we have on our reservations to make sure we are doing our best to provide public safety so our young children in Indian country have the ability to learn, to get educated, to conduct their lives, and to create an opportunity where the economy in Indian country can grow and prosper as well. You can't do that absent public safety and security.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, in response to my colleague from Iowa, this amendment doesn't take anything away from Legal Services Corporation. They received $348 million in fiscal year 2007. This base bill proposes to increase that by $42 million, or about 12 percent, to $390 million in 2008. This isn't taking away anything they currently have. In fact, under my amendment the Legal Services Corporation gets a 6.3-percent increase over fiscal year 2007. There is nothing being taken away from anybody. There is nothing they have today that is going to be taken away. They will see a 6.3-percent increase. What this does is shift money to what, in my view, is a higher priority, and that is the need we have in Indian country for making sure that we are doing a better job of prosecuting cases and enforcing the law. We have a serious problem.

This is from the Justice Department: American Indians annually experience 7 sexual assaults per 1,000 residents compared with 3 per 1,000 among African Americans and 2 per 1,000 among whites. The statistics are in front of us. We cannot afford to allow these conditions to continue to exist at a time when we have a lot of young people coming up on Indian reservations who need access to good education, need an opportunity to achieve their dreams. You just can't do that absent public safety. What we have today in Indian country is a very serious situation. For everybody who comes into my office, this is the issue that continues to recur that they share with me. We have to address it. I believe we have a responsibility to do that.

This amendment does it in a responsible way, not by cutting anything for an organization from where it is today, but it simply reduces the increase that the Legal Services Corporation would get, from a 12-percent increase over last year's level to a 6.3-percent increase over last year's level, which seems a fair way of going about this.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment and to do something about law enforcement and the crime problem that exists today on America's Indian reservations. In so doing, we will improve the quality of life for our citizens who live on America's reservations and hopefully provide a safer future for their children.

With that, I yield back the remainder of my time and ask for the yeas and nays.

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, last year the Legal Services Corporation was funded at $348 million. This year the administration's budget proposed a funding level of $311 million. The base bill under consideration today funds the Legal Services Corporation at $390 million, which would be a 12-percent increase over the appropriated level in fiscal year 2007. What my amendment does is simply takes $20 million out of that increase. It still increases the Legal Services Corporation by 6.3 percent over fiscal year 2007 but takes $20 million of that proposed increase for the Legal Services Corporation and applies it to fighting violent crime on America's Indian reservations by increasing funding for our U.S. attorneys so they can prosecute crimes committed on Indian reservations.

Around the country, 56 percent of crimes that are brought to U.S. Attorney's Offices end up being prosecuted. On Indian reservations that number is 30 percent. People on Indian reservations should not have to live in fear. Public safety is something for which we have responsibility. It is important we do something to address that. This amendment will move money toward fighting crime on Indian reservations to make it safer for people who live there.

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