Murkowski: ‘We're not going to let tribal programs suffer'
The Trump administration's moves to dramatically cut government spending have left much of Indian Country on edge, with tribal communities dependent on billions of dollars in federal funding and the Republican majorities in Congress largely standing by the president.
Effective voices for tribes in the nation's capital can seem elusive. But don't tell that to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who chairs the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
'We've got to figure out a way to work with the folks in the administration,' she told ICT. 'We're not going to let our tribal programs and our tribal citizens suffer.'
SUPPORT INDIGENOUS JOURNALISM.
Last year, $32.6 billion was approved by Congress to benefit tribal communities for programs including education, health care, law enforcement and more, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office.
Murkowski emerged at the dawn of President Donald Trump's second term in office as a vocal advocate for Native nations when Trump began announcing cuts and executive orders impacting tribal communities. On his first day back in the Oval Office, Trump signed an executive order eliminating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – DEI – programs in federal agencies.
'I worked very, very quickly to make sure that the administration knew that …the DEI executive order should have nothing to do with tribes or tribal programs [because] the relationship that the government has with tribes is based on political status, not on racial status,' Murkowski said.
Another Day One executive order also riled Murkowski, who has been elected to the Senate four times. Trump ordered that the name of the country's tallest mountain, Alaska's Mount Denali, be renamed Mount McKinley after the country's 25th president.
'We feel very strongly in Alaska about the Koyukon-Athabascan name that was given to Denali, generations, centuries ago,' Murkowski said. 'Denali means, 'the Great One.' And if you've ever seen this extraordinary mountain, you would agree that it should be named the Great One. It should be recognized as Denali.'
Murkowski has introduced a bill in the Senate — co-sponsored by Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan — that would officially name the peak Denali. Last month, both chambers of the Alaska State Legislature passed a resolution urging the president, secretary of the interior, and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to maintain the name Denali.
Pondering the current kerfuffle, Murkowski said she found it 'interesting' that the president's order renaming the mountain is titled, Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness.'
'Let's think about 'American greatness,'' she said. 'Why would we not want to honor and recognize the greatness of the Indigenous peoples who have stewarded this area, this region, this land for centuries? … It is important not only to maintain the traditional name that the Athabascan people have given this mountain but also, respect the Native people and the stewardship that they have had in this region.'
Last week, Murkowski's committee unanimously approved and sent to the full Senate 25 bills that are 'very keen priorities' in all or parts of Indian Country, including land and water rights in tribal communities and a bill that would establish a Truth and Healing Commission on Indian boarding school policies.
The bill creating the Truth and Healing Commission would establish a panel to 'formally investigate, document, and report on the histories of Indian Boarding Schools … and the systematic and long-term effects of those schools and policies on Native American peoples.' The bill passed the Senate last year but stalled in the House of Representatives. The push for the commission is now on the agenda for the current 119th Congress.
'As much as anything, we're trying to rebuild some of the trust that has been lost between our federal government and Native communities,' Murkowski said.
It's a fragile trust that is under pressure in the current environment of fast-paced budget cuts, Murkowski said.
'I'm worried that when it comes to our tribal programs and our ability to see them implemented that the cuts [and] staffing in these programs, will jeopardize our ability to do so and cause damage to that very important trust relationship,' she said.
'It's still too early to determine whether or not these cuts are going to stay in place,' she said, adding, 'I'm not backing down on this.'
Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. Sign up for ICT's free newsletter. ICT, formerly Indian Country Today, is a nonprofit news organization that covers the Indigenous world with a daily digital platform and news broadcast with international viewership.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Oil slips as Russia supply concerns ease after Trump-Putin meet
By Florence Tan SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Oil prices slipped in early Asian trade on Monday as the United States did not exert more pressure on Russia to end the Ukraine war by implementing further measures to disrupt Moscow's oil exports after presidents from both countries met on Friday. Brent crude futures dropped 32 cents, or 0.49%, to $65.53 a barrel by 2213 GMT while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $62.57 a barrel, down 23 cents. U.S. President Donald Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday and emerged more aligned with Moscow on seeking a peace deal instead of a ceasefire first. Trump will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and European leaders on Monday to strike a quick peace deal to end Europe's deadliest war in 80 years. "What was primarily in play were the secondary tariffs targeting the key importers of Russian energy, and President Trump has indeed indicated that he will pause pursuing incremental action on this front, at least for China," RBC Capital analyst Helima Croft said in a note. "The status quo remains largely intact for now," she said, adding that Moscow will not walk back on territorial demands while Ukraine and some European leaders will balk at the land-for-peace deal. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CBS News
9 minutes ago
- CBS News
Ukrainians in Boston not optimistic about President Trump's meeting with Zelenskyy; "It makes me mad"
As President Donald Trump prepares for the high stakes meeting on Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, back home in Boston, Ukrainians don't feel optimistic. Since the war started three years ago, Yelena Cannata has been volunteering and employing every resource she has for the children of Ukraine to be introduced to early intervention services. "It makes me mad. I have zero trust in President Trump in regulating this war," said Cannata. She hopes Zelenskyy avoids a repeat of that infamous February meeting he had with the president in the Oval Office. "I do hope that out of tomorrow's meeting that lots of the European leaders will come in, there won't be that bullying like the last meeting in the Oval Office and there will be no nonsense about the suit. It should be concrete, normal adult conversation." On Friday, President Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. The summit ended early and with the two leaders making remarks without taking any questions. Vsevolod Petriv is head of the Boston chapter of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, an organization that looks out for the interest of Ukrainians in America, providing assistance as it relates to community service and politics. He said the president's recent meeting with Putin was disappointing and a peace deal would come at too much of a cost. "I don't see anything good coming out of it, given the current announcements. And it sounds like he's trading what they are saying is land," said Petriv. "The people in the area of Donbas that they haven't been able to take, they've been fighting hard for at least three years and so you are going to say to all those people we are going to give you to the aggressor that you've been fighting for peace that we know is meaningless because Putin will be back." Both Cannata and Petriv said they'll be looking to see what the next steps will be. "If you are going to give up the lands, which were just occupied without any rights, any rights, how would you consider this peace deal?" said Cannata.
Boston Globe
10 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Ukrainians fleeing Russia's attacks say the Alaska summit was an insult
'This is insane,' she said. 'Here there is war, rivers of blood, and they are making some kind of deal.' Advertisement While the much-ballyhooed summit appeared to be more a show of amiable backslapping than tough negotiating, by Saturday it had become clear that Putin and Trump had discussed proposals that would be very hard for Ukraine to swallow. In a post on social media, Trump reversed his support of Ukraine's position that a cease-fire must precede any peace negotiations. And in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, he said that he and Putin had largely agreed to a territorial swap and security guarantees to end the war. European officials said that Putin was demanding all of the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, including land still held by Ukrainian forces. Half a world away, people who had recently fled the fighting in that region for a shelter near the city of Pavlohrad said the whole summit felt like an insult. The fact that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was not invited. That Trump had treated Putin like a friend instead of a man under US sanctions, who is a wanted war criminal in Europe. That the world was now talking about Ukraine permanently giving up land to Russia for peace. Advertisement It was all too much. 'I hate Putin,' said Kateryna Chernenko, 65, who has been bedridden since a stroke about four years ago paralyzed her left side. She had been rescued Thursday, carried down from her second-floor apartment in the city of Dobropillia, which had been battered by the new Russian offensive, and brought to the shelter with her son and family friends. 'How can he do this for so long?' she said. 'Killing civilians while they sleep. This isn't war — it's murder. Trump doesn't understand — it hasn't touched him. If he had lived through this, he wouldn't say what he says.' Any land swap could involve the homes of both Chernenko and Shevchenko, who, like most people at the shelter, had fled from the Donetsk region, which makes up a large part of the Donbas. Russia now occupies almost 20 percent of Ukraine, including about three-quarters of Donetsk, almost all of the adjacent Luhansk region, and the entire Crimean Peninsula. Chernenko moved to Dobropillia when she was about 22. She was given an apartment there under the Soviet regime because of her work at a sparkling-water factory. She learned to do basic home repairs and repeatedly revamped her apartment, which stands in the shadow of a large walnut tree, most recently putting up pink wallpaper dotted with blue flowers. Advertisement She raised three sons there. Her oldest died of a brain tumor. She rarely talks to her youngest son, who moved to Russia to be near her former husband. Her middle son, Serhii Khalturin, 40, came home to care for his mother after her stroke. He bought her a modern stove, a washing machine, a TV, and a refrigerator as tall as the ceiling. Both said they would never give up their land. When asked how it felt to leave home, Khalturin gestured as if tears were rolling down his face. 'That's where my childhood was, that's where my school is. I don't want to leave,' he said. 'Everything's still there — my mother's photos, my brother's photos — old ones from the 1980s, with my mother young and beautiful.' Shevchenko had seen her life whittled away. She used to be an accountant, before moving to a village called Oleksandrivka in Donetsk. She lived in the servants' quarters of a rich professor's weekend home, taking care of the garden and the house and writing children's books. Her boyfriend — he refused to marry her, because he said she was too troublesome — owned his own ramshackle house nearby. Often, they stayed together. The professor died of natural causes. His family moved to France. The main house was bombed. Her boyfriend's house was split in two. The servants' house was destroyed. The couple moved into the summer terrace of the ruined main house, basically a covered porch, patching up holes from shrapnel. A missile hit nearby last fall, setting the forest and a nearby village aflame. The village once had 300 people. After she and her boyfriend fled, Shevchenko said, nine people remained. Advertisement If Putin wanted this land so much, and other regions such as Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, why did he destroy everything in his path, Shevchenko wondered. Maybe for mineral resources. Maybe to prove a point. Regardless, she said, Putin did not want peace. 'This is our land,' Shevchenko said. 'Not an inch of it can be given away. Give him just a slice and he'll say, 'I want Kharkiv, I'll take the Zaporizhzhia region.' He wants all of Ukraine and won't stop. We must not agree. We will fight to the end, because we are Ukrainians. That's the only way. We have no other choice.' This article originally appeared in
