Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Reauthorization Act of 2014

Floor Speech

Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, this day is a culmination of a lot of time, a lot of work, and a lot of conversations back and forth, but, again, it is the best work that we have been able to produce in a bipartisan manner. It is not perfect, but I do want to thank all of our partners in this process. Representatives Cole, Hanabusa, Heck, Kildee, Pearce, and Young have really been just outstanding partners. I really want to thank Ranking Member Waters. She has been supportive, constructive, and, not to mention, exceedingly patient.

I also want to thank the Native American community. The National Congress of American Indians, the National American Indian Housing Council, and many individual tribes from across the country have provided their expertise, their comments, their education, and their energy every single step of the way. My very first meeting in the 112th Congress was with one of my Wisconsin tribes, and I assured them that I would keep fighting to get NAHASDA to the floor, this reauthorization that honors the unique needs and sovereignty of the Nations of the First People, and H.R. 4329 keeps that promise.

It is a model for how Congress can work. Of course, again, there is not 100 percent agreement on every provision. I am waiting for the perfect bill. But we cannot let the perfect stand in the way of the possible. We must do what is the best for our tribal communities at this time.

NAHASDA provides tribal governments the ability to provide safe and affordable housing to tribal communities consistent with their status as sovereign. And it is no small task. Some of the poorest and most remote communities in this country are Native American. In fact, the three poorest communities in the United States are Native American.

Improvements that this bill accomplishes include expediting certain Federal approvals, providing rental assistance for Native American veterans, and providing that all Native people are eligible for NAHASDA. Expediting approval ends costly administrative duplication and delays, which is important due to unique timing and building challenges on reservations.

I am hopeful that when I yield time to another one of my colleagues, Mr. Heck, that he will expand on the provisions that we are proud of in this bill regarding Native American veterans. We are going to have several speakers, Mr. Speaker, who are going to comment on how we, after much back and forth, have included all Native people in this bill.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Wisconsin has 5 1/2 minutes remaining. The gentleman from New Mexico has 10 minutes remaining.

Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me thank again all of the partners in getting this legislation to the floor.

I do want to make mention of someone who is not a part of this debate, the gentlewoman from Minnesota, Representative Betty McCollum, who is the cochair of the Native American Caucus. She wanted to make sure that she weighed in during this discussion about the extraordinary need to deal with Native American housing.

So many of us believe that Native Americans often are involved in gaming and that they are wealthy and rich, but as the ranking member mentioned, they are subjected to some of the poorest housing conditions in our country. Although we are reauthorizing NAHASDA, none of us should be fooled at all that this will in any way deal with the tremendous need for affordable housing within Native American communities.

I, again, am very, very empathetic with the issues, particularly that the ranking member has raised, and I am really hopeful that many of these issues, particularly the issue of the Cherokee Freedmen, will be dealt with. It seems promising to me because of some of the decisions that have been made in courts so far.

We do seem to have a Cherokee chairman who is more open, it would seem, to providing membership and retaining membership of the Cherokee Freedmen.

I, again, am happy that the Native Hawaiians are in this bill. I think that as we move forward, we should be ever mindful to make sure that nothing that we have done here will preempt the Native Americans' sovereignty or sovereignty status.

Again, I want to thank all of my partners.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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