THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

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For Immediate Release

February 25, 2000

PRESIDENT CLINTON CALLS FOR PASSAGE OF
HIS HISTORIC FY2001 NATIVE AMERICAN INITIATIVE
February 25, 2000

The President today, joined by tribal and congressional leaders, will call for passage of his $9.4 billion Native American FY2001 budget initiative, an increase in funding of $1.2 billion over FY 2000 - the largest increase ever. Prior to the President's statement, tribal leaders will meet at the White House today with senior Administration officials to discuss the Native American initiative. This initiative recognizes that the entire federal government has a trust responsibility for Native American tribes. Accordingly, it provides funding across many agencies, rather than simply at the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Department of Health and Human Service's Indian Health Service (IHS), both of which traditionally have provided the bulk of funding for Native American communities. This initiative makes critical investments in education, health care, law enforcement, infrastructure, and economic development in Indian Country.

SELECTED FY2001 BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CLINTON-GORE NATIVE AMERICAN INITIATIVE

Educational Opportunities, School Construction and Repair
• More than double funding to $300 million for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) School Construction and Repair.
• $10 Million for Training and Recruiting New Native American Teachers.
• $5 Million for the new American Indian Administrator Corps.
• $50 Million in funding from the new School Renovation Loan and Grant Program.
• $77 Million, an Increase of $25 Million, for Tribal Colleges.

Community Empowerment, New Markets and Digital Divide Initiatives
• $10 Million to Address the Digital Divide.
• $5 Million for Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) Expansion.
• $4.5 Million for Business Assistance at the Small Business Administration.
• $1.25 Million to Expand Business LINC to Indian Country.
• $650 Million, an Increase of $30 Million, in Block Grants for Indian Housing.
• $10 Million Increase to $53 Million to Strengthen Tribal Environmental Programs.

Public Safety
• $439 Million, an Increase of $103 Million, to Improve Law Enforcement in Indian Country.

Health Care
• $2.6 Billion, an Increase of $230 Million, for the Indian Health Service.

Building and Repairing Infrastructure
• $349 Million, an Increase of $117 Million, to Build Roads and Bridges in Indian Country.
• $49 Million, an Increase of $46 Million, for Tribal Infrastructure Projects.

Details of the initiative include:

Providing for Educational Opportunities, School Construction and Repair

• Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) School Construction and Repair. The President proposes $300 million, more than double the FY 2000 enacted level of $133 million, to replace and repair BIA-funded schools on reservations. This is the largest investment ever in a single year for BIA school construction and repair.

• Training and Recruiting New Native American Teachers. The budget provides $10 million for the Education Department to continue the second year of the Administration's initiative to begin training and recruiting 1,000 new teachers for areas with high concentrations of American Indian and Alaska Native students.

• New American Indian Administrator Corps. The budget proposes $5 million for a new Department of Education initiative, the American Indian Administrator Corps that will support the recruitment, training, and in-service professional development of 500 American Indians and Alaska Natives to become effective school administrators in schools with high populations of Native American students.

• New School Renovation Loan and Grant Program. This new $1.3 billion initiative leverages nearly $7 billion of (approximately 8,300) renovation projects in high-need school districts with little or no capacity to fund urgent repairs. Within this program, the President has allocated $50 million for grants to public schools with high concentrations of Native American students.

• Increased Funding for Tribal Colleges. The budget proposes a total of $77 million, an increase of $25 million over FY2000, for support to tribal colleges through funding at the National Science Foundation, and the Departments of the Interior, Education, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation.

Empowering Communities, Expanding New Markets Initiatives

• Addressing the Digital Divide. The Administration proposes this new initiative to encourage Native Americans to pursue as a course of study information technology and other science and technology fields as well as to increase the capacity of tribal colleges to offer courses in these areas. The budget provides $10 million, to be administered by the National Science Foundation, for grants to tribal colleges for networking and access; course development; student assistance; and capacity building.

• Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) Expansion. The Administration requested an increase over last year's funding of the CDFI program to continue building a national network of community development banks. In order to increase access to capital in Indian Country, the budget proposes, for the first time, a $5 million set-aside within the CDFI Fund to establish a training and technical assistance program focused on eliminating barriers to capital access.

• Business Assistance at the Small Business Administration. The budget proposes new funding to create Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) in Indian Country to provide business and technical assistance to Native American entrepreneurs. These new tribal SBDCs will work in tandem with the seventeen existing Tribal Business Information Centers. A total of $4.5 million is provided for this initiative.

• Expanding Business LINC to Indian Country. For the first time, the budget proposes $1.25 million to expand the Vice President's successful BusinessLINC program to Indian Country. BusinessLINC establishes mentor-protégé relationships between large and small businesses. The goal of BusinessLINC is to encourage large firms to provide technical assistance, business advice, networking, investment, and joint venturing opportunities for locally owned smaller firms.

• Indian Housing. The budget provides $650 million in block grants for the Indian Housing Block Grant program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, an increase of $30 million over FY 2000. Within BIA, $32 million, a doubling over the 2000 level, will be used to repair or replace dilapidated homes across Indian Country.

• Strengthening Tribal Environmental Programs. The President's budget increases funding for the EPA's General Assistance Program (GAP) by $10 million for a total of $53 million. GAP grants fund tribal institutional capacity building for implementing environmental programs on Indian lands. GAP grants have increased from $8 million in 1993 to the FY2001 proposed level of $53 million.

Promoting Public Safety

• Improving Law Enforcement in Indian Country. The budget includes $439 million, an increase of $103 million over FY 2000, for the Departments of Justice and Interior for the third year of the President's Indian Country Law Enforcement Initiative. This funding will increase the number of law enforcement officers on Indian lands, provide more equipment, expand detention facilities, enhance juvenile crime prevention, and improve the effectiveness of tribal courts.

Providing Health Care

• Indian Health Service. The President's budget proposes $2.6 billion, an increase for the Indian Health Service (IHS) of $230 million or 10 percent over the FY 2000 enacted level. This increase would enable IHS to continue expanding accessible and high-quality health care to its approximately 1.5 million Native American service users.

Helping to Build Infrastructure

• Building Roads and Bridges in Indian Country. The President's budget proposes to give the Indian Reservations Roads program at the Department of Transportation the full authorization amount of $275 million with an additional $74 million from a highway receipts account for a total of $349 million, which is an increase of $117 million over the previous year. This will allow Tribes to address the estimated backlog of $4 billion in needs on these roads and bridges. Within the BIA, $32 million will be used to maintain BIA and tribal roads on reservations.

• Tribal Infrastructure Projects. The President and the Vice President propose $49 million, an increase of $46 million over FY 2000, for the Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration (EDA) to fund infrastructure, planning, and public works projects.

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