Enforcing the Ofa

Floor Speech

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Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my deep opposition to circumvention of the merit-based process, and instead, grant Federal recognition to the Lumbee community through political means.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to have the representatives of the Eastern Band with us in the gallery today. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians are the descendants of those that fought to stay in their traditional homelands in the face of forcible Federal removal efforts.

Some Cherokee, including a man named Junaluska, made the forced journey and then walked back to the mountains of western North Carolina to return home.

It must be noted that the Lumbee community has no standing treaties with the Federal Government, no reservation land, and no common language.

As Members of Congress, one of our most sacred duties is making sure that laws are drafted and implemented in an objective and an equal manner.

For over 40 years, the Department of the Interior has carried out a merit-based process, as set out by Congress and administered by the Office of Federal Acknowledgment, the OFA, to make determinations on Federal recognition of Tribes.

If the administration or Congress allows the Lumbee to bypass the OFA, it sends a clear message that other groups with dubious claims for Tribal recognition can also avoid the deliberation and scrutiny that the OFA petition process is designed to provide.

We need the OFA process to protect Indian Country and the public. The process requires verification that the persons who claim to be Tribal members actually have Native American descent.

Believe it or not, the OFA has determined that some petitioning groups are comprised entirely of people that can't demonstrate Native American ancestry; not a single person.

Regarding the Lumbee, in one fell swoop, the Federal Government would recognize a Tribe that would then soon be the largest in the country, and all enrolled members would likely gain full access to all Federal benefits, which will further strain the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Services' already stressed budgets.

As a member of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Subcommittee on House Appropriations, I am proud that we funded the needs of the Indian Health Service and other critical priorities for our Nation's Tribes in fiscal year 2025, the bill that was recently approved in the House.

That said, if the overall Tribal population covered by the services is allowed to swell by tens of thousands of people, many of whom have no native ancestry, I fear that necessary appropriations cannot feasibly keep pace.

That is the crux of the issue. If there was an actual merit-based system behind the Lumbee case for Federal recognition, they would go through the OFA process as set out in the current law.

As they know, it won't hold up under a deliberative process. They have instead sought to seek special treatment through other avenues, all in the face of credible opposition by multiple federally recognized Tribes.

More than 140 established Tribes from across the country have said that the Lumbee and other groups should go through the Federal recognition process at the Department of the Interior to demonstrate the merits of their claim to be a Tribe. I agree.

I urge all my colleagues to take these concerns into account, and I hope that the merit-based process put in place by Congress decades ago on Federal Tribal recognition will be adhered to.

Mr. Speaker, while I have the floor, I would also like to urge you and my colleagues to move H.R. 7227, the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act, to create a commission to get a better understanding of the grievous wrongs done to Native American children in federally run boarding schools.

Our Tribal nations deserve the dignity to understand what happened to their family members at these schools. It is the very least this country can do.

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