Senate Confirmations

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes while we have an interlude here with the farm bill to speak along with my colleague Senator Sullivan about the nomination of, in my view, an extraordinary Alaskan--Tara MacLean Sweeney, who has been nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of Interior.

It is certainly my very strong hope that Ms. Sweeney can be confirmed to this position before we leave for the Fourth of July recess. I see no reason why this body should delay confirmation.

I want to give just a little bit of background and share, along with my colleague Senator Sullivan, some of the attributes we are talking about here.

Ms. Sweeney is truly a noncontroversial nominee. She has support across the political spectrum. She was reported out of the Committee on Indian Affairs by a voice vote. There was no dissent. She is endorsed by the National Congress of American Indians, and she enjoys strong support across Indian Country--not only from Alaska Natives up in our State but truly across Indian Country. She is Inupiaq. She is a very distinguished leader, respected among indigenous peoples not only here in the United States but abroad. She is truly eminently qualified for the position.

So I want to share briefly the history of how we got here. It has been many months--many, many months--and I think it is important to know the process she has gone through. The President announced his intent to nominate Ms. Sweeney on October 16, 2017. We received it in the Senate about a week later, and from there she entered into this frustrating bureaucratic purgatory is probably the best way to describe it.

So I mentioned that Ms. Sweeney is an Inupiaq from the North Slope, and like every other Alaska Native who was born before December 18, 1971, she is a beneficiary of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Under that legislation, Ms. Sweeney received 100 shares of stock in the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. This is one of the 13 corporations that has been created by Congress. Ms. Sweeney also inherited some additional shares from her mother who died in 1996.

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act prohibits Ms. Sweeney from disposing of those shares. Why is that? These are not shares that are like shares in IBM or General Electric. These shares are her birthright as an Alaskan Native. The Department of Interior has concluded that Ms. Sweeney's continued ownership of those shares creates no ethical impediments to the discharge of her duties--none whatsoever. She has also entered into an ethics agreement under which she will recuse herself from matters involving the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, where she served as a corporate officer prior to her nomination.

Really, there is no conceptual difference between Ms. Sweeney's service with her Native corporation and the service of her predecessor Assistant Secretaries for Indian Affairs who all came to the office after serving as elected Tribal leaders. In those instances, none of the predecessors to Ms. Sweeney were disqualified for confirmation for Tribal service, and she certainly should not be either.

Ms. Sweeney's corporation manages lands set aside for Native people; so do nearly all of the federally recognized Tribes. Her corporation engages in a variety of successful business activities that parallel those engaged in by federally recognized Tribes in the lower 48. Voting membership in Ms. Sweeney's corporation is constituted entirely of Native people, just like membership in the lower 48 Tribes, and the governing body in Ms. Sweeney's corporation is constituted entirely of Native people, just as the governing bodies of the lower 48 Tribes. There is no valid reason--certainly no valid reason to delay the confirmation of Tara Sweeney to the post of Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs.

This is an agency that I think those of us who have been involved on the Indian Affairs Committee, as I have for my entire tenure in the Senate, know that leadership in this critical agency for our first peoples is absolutely a priority.

There is so much that needs to be done within the Agency. The Bureau of Indian Education, which Ms. Sweeney will oversee as an Assistant Secretary, has earned a place on the Government Accountability Office's list of high-risk programs for the 115th Congress. One of her challenges will be to improve the Bureau of Indian Education.

When you think about the responsibilities you have as Assistant Secretary with NBIA to address not only the education issues, the health and safety issues, and the life and well-being of our Native people, she has a lot of work to do. So leadership at the top is going to require a handful of things. The first is steady leadership and a strong commitment to lead. You just can't get to leading the agency until you have been confirmed to the position. The second thing that has to happen is to ensure that the agency is staffed and has the resources to care for our Native children. The third is to have an action plan in place that identifies the root causes of the agency's problems and to identify real solutions. The fourth is the formulation of corrective measures and to validate the work. The final one is to demonstrate progress that the agency has overcome some of these issues.

I can tell you for a fact that Tara Sweeney is ready. She is beyond ready. She has been teed up to do this, in my view, literally, her whole life. She has gone through a very rigorous process. She has been overwhelmingly endorsed by Native peoples across the country, those whom she would serve in this capacity. She knows there are significant issues and problems within the BIA that need to be addressed that are going to be difficult, and she has said in front of us and to those of us who know her well: I am not afraid to kick down doors. I am not afraid to stand up and speak out loud for the people whom I will serve.

I know she takes these responsibilities very seriously. I know her leadership skills. I know her managerial skills. I have no doubt that she will do everything in her power to overcome these deficiencies that the GAO has identified, but I also should be clear that there will be no progress within the agency until one of the single most important positions to Indian Country is permanently filled with an Assistant Secretary.

I know we are having challenges moving through nominees on this floor right now, but I would urge my colleagues to look at Tara Sweeney's credentials. Look at her background. Look at how she has come to this place. She is not a controversial nominee. She is well-qualified. She did extremely well at her hearing before the Indian Affairs Committee. She has answered every question that has been asked of her. Indian Country is united in support of her.

I just ask that, for the good of the first peoples in this country, they have that leadership at the top to come in and address so many of these serious issues that face them today. Let us come together with this nominee and move her through the process in a prompt and expedient way.

I will close with one last comment before turning to my colleague, and that is that of the 12 previous Assistant Secretaries at the BIA over the years, 11 of those 12 have moved through confirmation here in the Senate unanimously, without even a vote. Only one was required to have a vote. As I recall, the outcome in support of that individual was 87 votes in favor. This is not a controversial position. This is not partisan in any way.

This has to be an individual that is willing to bring together people--our first peoples and those of us at government levels--to work together to address the very real, serious, and significant concerns that we have.

Tara Sweeney is just that person. I would urge colleagues: Please, please, let's advance her quickly and expeditiously across the floor of the Senate.

I would turn to my colleague who has worked very hard and also knows Ms. Sweeney to be an extraordinarily capable Alaskan.

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