WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) today introduced bills enhancing a tribal job training program and strengthening federal Indian housing law.

Under the Indian Employment, Training And Related Services Demonstration Act of 1992, tribes can consolidate funds they receive for employment training and education services into one streamlined program, enabling them to serve their members while cutting administrative costs and time. Campbell’s bill amends the program by expanding programs that can be consolidated, allowing for more job creation and moving the program’s oversight from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs to its Office of Self-Governance.

At a May 13 hearing, tribes testified that the BIA was standing in the way of effectively implementing the new program. Criticism included paperwork delays resulting in cash flow problems, insufficient staff assigned to the program and little or no commitment to implementing the program.

“This program can help Native communities bridge the gap as people are moved off the welfare rolls and into jobs,” Campbell said. “By reducing paperwork and other administrative burdens, it lets tribes focus time and money where the needs are the greatest: with their members. But tribes -- facing an average unemployment rate of 52 percent --cannot help their members if they are held back by Washington bureaucrats resistant to change.”

Campbell’s other bill amends the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996 (NAHASDA), which replaces Indian housing micro-managed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development with a block grant program. Campbell’s bill clarifies portions of the new law and strengthens the Secretary’s ability to prevent the misuse of funds that occurred under the old program.

“With the implementation of NAHASDA, tribes will be able design their own housing plans and provide better housing for their members. The act, and the amendments I am proposing today, will go a long way in making sure that the management problems that were associated with the old, HUD-dominated housing system will not be part of NAHASDA.”