Western Oregon Indian Tribal Lands Act

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

Mr. Speaker, this is the last in the series of bills from the Resources Committee and, perhaps, the last time that I will be on the floor as ranking member and Chairman Hastings will be on the floor as chairman.

I just want to thank my colleague from Washington State for all of the work we have done together. We obviously don't always agree on issues, but I think the Resources Committee has reported out more bills and passed more bills in the House than any other committee in this Congress. We have been very active. We are hoping that the Senate will go along with a few that we have pending, and we will get some of those bills enacted into law.

In particular, I want to thank the chairman for his partnership on an issue absolutely critical to the Pacific Northwest, which is the management of the Columbia River system and the Bonneville Power Administration, in the phenomenal gift of that clean and inexpensive power to our region and to the Western U.S. generally.

We have some major issues looming, in particular, the negotiation or renegotiation or termination of the treaty with Canada regarding the Columbia River Treaty. A session that the chairman held in his district in Washington State on a cold day in February was, I think, very critical in helping move that discussion and debate in a productive direction for all the stakeholders and was particularly critical for a position of our region in this negotiation.

I am only hopeful that we will soon get the attention of the State Department and whomever else they have seen fit to involve in this process and have a recommendation from the State Department regarding modification or termination of that treaty so we can enter into meaningful negotiations with the Canadians. The gentleman played a particularly key role in that, and I want to thank him for that and, obviously, a lot of other work on forestry and other issues.

I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, for too long, Federal policies have unfairly disadvantaged Indian tribes in western Oregon and, obviously, elsewhere around the country. After signing many treaties with the western Oregon tribes, the United States removed them from their original homelands throughout the western part of the State and put them on only two reservations, which were established at the time to house potentially people from more than 60 tribal governments.

Many of the tribes confederated on these reservations far from their ancestral homes. Other tribes refused to leave their ancestral homes and were basically forgotten by the United States, despite its promises that it had made in treaty agreements with them.

Later, in 1954, one of the darkest chapters was when all but one of the

Oregon tribes west of the Cascade Mountains lost their Federal recognition in the Western Oregon Termination Act.

The termination era, as scholars call it, was terrible Federal Indian policy. It was so bad that it was only 30 years later that it was formally rebuked by Congress.

Starting in the seventies, Congress began the process of restoring the western Oregon tribes to Federal recognition and of cleaning up the mess that the United States Government made in western Oregon. In fact, I began my congressional career as an original sponsor of the Coquille Restoration Act, legislation to restore one of Oregon's terminated tribes. I partnered with then-Senator Mark Hatfield on that legislation, which was later enacted into law.

While six Oregon tribes are now federally recognized, it remains difficult for these tribes to function as the sovereign nations they are and to govern themselves as effectively as they could.

Shifts in Federal Indian policy have made it time-consuming and expensive for western Oregon tribes--and other tribes around the country--and the Department of the Interior to work together on land- into-trust issues. These policy shifts have also deprived two of the tribes of sufficient land bases, and it has created a legal anomaly with regard to the Coquille Indian Tribe's forest.

H.R. 5701, the Western Oregon Indian Tribal Lands Act, is a long overdue, no-cost, commonsense bill that will go a long way to helping resolve some of the problems the Federal Government and its policy shifts over more than a century have created for the western Oregon tribes.

This legislation clarifies on-reservation land-into-trust procedures for the Grand Ronde and Siletz tribes, so the tribes don't have to face outrageous delays in dealing with the Department of the Interior. The bill also makes good on decades-old promises to restore land bases for the Coos and Cow Creek tribes, and it puts the Coquille Indian Tribe's forest on an equal footing with those of other Indian tribes nationwide.

H.R. 5701 deals only with Oregon issues, Oregon tribes, and Oregon constituents. All of the provisions in this Oregon tribal bill have received some form of consideration by both the House and the Senate. This package also enjoys bipartisan, bicameral support, the rarest of rare things, I would say, in Washington, D.C., these days.

I strongly encourage my colleagues here in the House to join with me in passing this legislation swiftly, so we can get it over to the Senate and hopefully get the Senate to act before the hopefully soon- looming adjournment of the 113th Congress.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

You forgot I reserved, Doc, so I do get to respond.

I have to say we were looking for a logical reason for what I would say is your recalcitrance to further create wilderness so that areas may remain undisturbed for future generations. I thought that was potentially a plausible reason.

In fact, it was so plausible that the next day in the gym a Republican Member who was there that didn't know either me or you that well asked if that indeed was a true story. I played him along for just a brief period of time and said, ``No.'' I appreciate that you have corrected the record.

In the NDAA bill, we also did do a wilderness package as it relates to your State and some other wilderness bills that I think were very bipartisan and reasonable. I appreciate the fact you supported that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5701) to require that certain Federal lands be held in trust by the United States for the benefit of federally recognized tribes in the State of Oregon, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to acknowledge the gentlemen from Oregon, Mr. DeFazio and Mr. Walden, for their hard work on this piece of legislation, which will benefit several Indian tribes in the State of Oregon.

H.R. 5701 is a compilation of several stand-alone bills, most of which have been reported out of the Natural Resources Committee and passed by the full House.

Title I of H.R. 5701 would ease the process for the Grand Ronde Tribe to apply for trust land within the original boundaries of its 1857 reservation, which encompassed 60,000-plus-acre acres in Polk and Yamhill Counties in Oregon.

Further, the bill deems property placed in trust for the tribe after 1988 to be part of the tribe's reservation.

Finally, specific tracts of land totaling 288 acres would be placed in trust for the tribe in its former reservation.

Mr. Speaker, title I is identical to H.R. 841, which previously passed the House.

Title II and title III are similar to provisions found in H.R. 1526, the Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act, which passed the House in September of 2014.

Title IV would make it easier for the Siletz Indian Tribe to apply for trust land within the original boundaries of the 1855 Siletz Coast Reservation, which encompassed a large part of the coast of Oregon. Gaming on this land to be held in trust would be prohibited. This is identical to the Natural Resources Committee-reported version of H.R. 931.

Finally, title V would correct a situation with respect to the management of the Coquille Tribal Forest in Oregon. This forest has been regulated as part of the Northwest Forest Plan, which is inconsistent with the management of other tribally-managed forests in the United States. Under this title, the Coquille Tribe would be able to manage its forest under the National Indian Forest Resources Management Act. This will provide the tribe with the ability to better manage their timber resources.

Mr. Speaker, this is a good piece of legislation, as I mentioned, encompassing three other pieces of legislation that the House and/or the committee has already acted on.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I commended two of my colleagues from Oregon for their work on this, Mr. Walden and Mr. DeFazio. I failed to mention Mr. Schrader, who was the author of H.R. 931, which is title IV of this bill. I want to correct that oversight that I made.

I want to thank my two colleagues for their very kind words. This will, I think, be the last time that I have the opportunity to manage a bill on the floor. I will just say that both gentlemen made the observation that while we don't always agree on things, at least we can understand when somebody comes from a particular position, you can deal with that.

I want to take this time then to correct an assertion that my friend from Oregon made when I had my portrait unveiled. I say that because I think most of my colleagues know my position on wilderness areas is probably contrary to what their vision is.

I want to correct the record because Mr. DeFazio asserted that my position on wilderness areas was because, as a child, I was lost in the wilderness when we were camping. I thought that was very clever, but it is not the truth, and so while what he said is not on the record, I get the last word here and will say on the record that I was not lost in the wilderness and that is not how I derived my position on wilderness areas.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to yield back if the gentleman from Oregon is prepared to yield back, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I will just simply say it has been a pleasure for me to have worked with you in your position as ranking member, and I wish you the best as you move over to be the ranking member of T&I in the next Congress.

This is a good piece of legislation. As the gentleman from Oregon mentioned several times, tribal issues, particularly in Oregon, are somewhat contentious. I am somewhat familiar with that because I do go to the Oregon coast at least every other year.

I congratulate my colleagues from Oregon for this legislation, urge its passage, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Since you opened up commending Doc Hastings for his career in the Congress, I want to join you in that. We were both discussing yesterday that we started our careers battling over California water when he came to the Congress and when I came to the Congress, and on the last days of our legislative action we will, once again, be discussing California water. Those are the twists and the turns that this place takes with legislation.

But I want to thank him for his service and leadership of the Resources Committee. He knows how dear those issues are to me in many years of service on that committee. Thank you for your fairness in dealing with a lot of the issues. As Mr. DeFazio pointed out, it wasn't about whether we always agreed, but it was about whether or not you could work with one another with some respect and figure out where you could get together on particular issues.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 5701, which is at the desk; that the bill be read three times and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, this objection is very unfortunate. The Oregon congressional delegation has teamed up in a bipartisan way to provide, among other things, trust land for the two remaining Native American tribes in our State that have no land base. These tribes have been waiting for over 100 years, and Senator Merkley and I, with the whole Oregon congressional delegation, intend to be back early next year working to pass these bills and stay at it until justice is done.

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Sessions, I object.