President Biden and Vice President Harris have taken historic actions to support Indian Country through executive actions, historic investments, and strengthening government-to-government relationships. The President has issued three historic Executive Orders that reform federal funding to help live up to the promise of Tribal self-determination, improve public safety and criminal justice for Native Americans while targeting the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people, and improve educational outcomes and career opportunities for Native American students by focusing on systemic barriers and increasing access to high-quality education. The President has also taken further executive action through two Presidential Memoranda on Tribal consultation, including his 2021 Memorandum on Tribal Consultation and Strengthening Nation-to-Nation Relationships and his 2022 Memorandum on Uniform Standards for Tribal Consultation.
This executive action builds on the historic investments President Biden has made in Indian Country, including:
$32 billion in the American Rescue Plan, the largest direct federal investment in Tribal Nations in history.
$13 billion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build high-speed internet, roads, bridges, public transit, and clean water sanitation infrastructure in Tribal communities.
$700 million in the Inflation Reduction Act to invest in Native communities for climate resilience and adaptation programs, drought mitigation, home electrification, and clean energy development.
Obligating billions of federal contract dollars—and significant percentages of agencies’ overall procurement dollars—to Native-owned or controlled businesses through the Buy Indian Act, a law that has been re-invigorated under the Biden-Harris Administration.
The Biden-Harris Administration has made honoring Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples central to our conservation agenda, including by restoring and designating multiple new national monuments that honor Tribal Nations by protecting sacred ancestral places and their historically and scientifically important features, designating the first Indigenous-focused national marine sanctuary, directing federal agencies to support First Foods including healthy and abundant native salmon and steelhead, signing over 200 new co-stewardship agreements with Tribes, issuing an updated Sacred Sites MOU and best practices, and implementing a first-of-its kind Indigenous Knowledge guidance.
The President has also sought to have an Administration that reflects the priorities of Indian Country by hiring over 80 Native appointees in historic positions, including the first Native American Cabinet Secretary with Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and the first Native American Treasurer of the United States with Chief Lynn Malerba. In addition, the President followed through with his promise to reinstate the annual White House Tribal Nations Summit and the White House Council on Native American Affairs.
Dr. Biden has been a champion for Native communities. As First Lady, she has visited Native communities ten times, highlighting the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic investments in youth mental health, Native language revitalization, and infrastructure and economic development, and she has worked to improve access to cancer screening and cancer care for Native communities.
The President also believes that to usher in the next era of the Federal-Tribal relationships we need to fully acknowledge the harms of the past. That is why he is issuing a historic Presidential apology for the Federal Indian Boarding School era. For over 150 years, the federal government ran boarding schools that forcibly removed generations of Native children from their homes to boarding schools often far away. Native children at these schools endured physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and, as detailed in the Federal Indian Boarding School Investigative Report by the Department of the Interior (DOI), at least 973 children died in these schools. The federally-run Indian boarding school system was designed to assimilate Native Americans by destroying Native culture, language, and identity through harsh militaristic and assimilationist methods.
In making this apology, the President acknowledges that we as a people who love our country must remember and teach our full history, even when it is painful. And we must learn from that history so that it is never repeated.
The Presidential apology builds on the Biden-Harris Administration’s extraordinary accomplishments working with Tribes and Native Communities:
Strengthening Tribal Self-Determination
Executive Order 14112 on Reforming Federal Funding and Support for Tribal Nations to Better Embrace Our Trust Responsibilities and Promote the Next Era of Tribal Self-Determination (Dec. 2023): EO 14112 directs agencies to reform federal funding programs in a manner that reflects trust in Tribal priorities and deference to Tribal decision-making. The Executive Order directs the White House Council on Native American Affairs, the Office and Management and Budget, and the White House Domestic Policy Council to work across the Federal Government to measure the chronic shortfalls of existing federal funding for Tribes and develop recommendations for what additional funding and programming is necessary.
Addressing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons and Gender-Based Violence in Native Communities
Signing an Executive Order to improve public safety and criminal justice and address the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) by directing agencies to prioritize addressing this crisis and assessing what more they can do.
Signed into law the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization Act of 2022, which expanded special Tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Native perpetrators of sexual violence, child violence, stalking, assaults on Tribal law enforcement officers, and sex trafficking on Tribal lands, in addition to domestic and dating violence.
Awarded $68 million in FY 2023 VAWA grants and more than $85 million in FY 2024 VAWA grants to support Native communities to provide services and promote justice for survivors.
Established the Not Invisible Act Commission to improve the federal government’s efforts to address violent crime and the high rates of people reported missing in Native communities.
Historic Investments in Indian Country
Historic investments in Tribal Nations, including $32 billion in the American Rescue Plan, the largest direct federal investment to Tribal Nations in history; $13 billion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law; and $700 million in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Through the President’s Justice40 Initiative, more than 500 federal programs, including programs funded and created through the President’s Investing in America agenda, are working to deliver benefits to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution. All federally recognized Tribes and Tribal entities are recognized as disadvantaged for purposes of benefitting from the Justice40 Initiative. These investments are resulting in cleaner air and water, more affordable clean energy, good-paying jobs, and other benefits that Tribes are seeing and experiencing today and into the future.
Supporting Native-owned Businesses
The Biden-Harris Administration has spent billions of federal contract dollars with Native-owned or controlled businesses through the Buy Indian Act, a law that authorizes the Department of the Interior and Indian Health Service (IHS) at the Department of Health and Human Services to have contract set-asides for Tribal and Native-owned businesses.
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, Federal spending with Native firms has increased by $8.2B between FY20 and FY23. The Small Business Administration (SBA) has expanded access to capital for Native communities by nearly doubling the total dollar amount lent to Native American small businesses. SBA now has 12 Native-owned banks and CDFIs that lend with SBA backing.
Advance Appropriations for Indian Health Service
For the first time ever, and after many years of Tribal advocacy, the Biden-Harris Administration successfully secured advance appropriations for the Indian Health Service (IHS), and the President has requested mandatory funding for IHS moving forward.
Regulations Supporting Tribes and Native Communities
The Biden-Harris Administration has worked consistently with Tribal Nations throughout the last four years to secure regulatory improvements that reflect long-standing Tribal priorities. Some of this regulatory work includes revising regulations for promoting economic development opportunities across Indian Country, revising regulations for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), increasing transparency for Nation-to-Nation consultation and other changes to support Tribal Self-Governance, updating the federal regulations regarding the Indian Reorganization Act to streamline the process for placing land into trust, proposing updated regulations pertaining to groups petitioning the Department for federal acknowledgment, updating Class III Indian gaming compacts to increase transparency and provide guidance to Tribes and states, updating regulations for modernizing Indian Arts and Crafts Act regulations, revising the Agricultural Leasing regulation to ensure Tribal self-determination is being upheld and proposing a rule that describes Tribally chartered entities as having the same federal tax status as their owning Tribes and clarifying Tribal eligibility for elective pay to access Inflation Reduction Act tax credits.
Tribal Consultation
Signing two Presidential Memorandums directing federal agencies to submit plans of action to implement meaningful consultation with Tribal Nations and establishing uniform standards for Tribal Consultation.
A Whole-of-Government Approach to the Federal Trust Responsibility
Re-launching the Tribal Nations Summit and re-establishing the White House Council on Native American Affairs that serves to foster an all-of-government approach to coordinating and developing Tribal policy.
Protecting Tribal Treaty Rights, Sacred Sites and Tribal Homelands
Restoring and strengthening protections for areas of national importance and of cultural significance to Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples, including Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monuments, as well as the Tongass National Forest.
Designating new National Monuments that honor Tribal Nations by protecting sacred ancestral places and their historically and scientifically important features: Camp Hale – Continental Divide in Colorado; Avi Kwa Ame in Nevada; Castner Range in Texas; and Baaj Nwaajo I’tah Kukveni Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon in Arizona; expansion of Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and San Gabriel Mountains National Monument in California.
Designated the first Indigenous-focused marine sanctuary, the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, following nearly a decade of work by Tribes, Indigenous Peoples, community leaders, and committed to work meaningfully with Indigenous Peoples to help guide sanctuary management.
Took Presidential action and reached a historic agreement to work in partnership with Tribes and states from the Pacific Northwest to restore wild salmon populations in the Columbia River Basin, including the issuance of a Presidential Memorandum on Restoring Healthy and Abundant Salmon, Steelhead, and other Native Fish Populations in the Columbia River Basin.
Signed the Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Interagency Coordination and Collaboration for the Protection of Indigenous Sacred Sites in 2021, which commits the signatory agencies to identifying best practices for the management and protection of sacred sites on federal lands and waters. Fulfilling this commitment, WHCNAA has completed a Best Practices Guide for Tribal and Native Hawaiian Sacred Sites, which provides best practices, procedures, and guidance for the management, treatment, and protection of sacred sites, identifies impediments to federal-level protection of sacred sites, and helps federal agencies address and remedy impediments. The initial draft was based on comments heard at two federal listening sessions, and the final version has been expanded and improved based on comments received through Tribal consultation
Signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Regarding Interagency Coordination and Collaboration for the Protection of Tribal Treaty Rights and Reserved Rights at the 2021 Tribal Nations Summit, where 17 federal agencies, coordinated through WHCNAA committed to integrate Tribal treaty rights into agency decision-making processes. In 2022, the 17 signatories developed and released the Best Practices Guide for Identifying and Protecting Tribal Treaty Rights, Reserved Rights, and Other Similar Rights in Federal Regulatory Actions and Federal Decision-Making. This year, the MOU Workgroup will be issuing government-wide trainings on the protection of Tribal treaty rights.
Signed more than 200 co-stewardship or co-management agreements with Federal agencies, which allow Tribal Nations to collaborate with the agencies to manage the federal lands, waters, and resources that are most important to them. The announcements include the first ever co-stewardship agreement with the Department of Commerce (DOC), more than 70 co-stewardship agreements with the Department of the Interior (DOI), and over 120 new co-stewardship and co-management agreements with the Department of Agriculture (USDA), which also tripled its investment in these agreements to over $68 million.
Protected significant lands and waters: Took action to protect the cultural and historic resources surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park from new oil and gas leasing and mining claims. Rejected the proposed Ambler Road project, which would have traversed 211 miles of significant wildlife habitat and pristine waters that are vital for the subsistence activities of Tribal communities along the iconic Brooks Range in north central Alaska.
Revitalizing Native Languages
Native Languages MOA: At the 2021 Tribal Nations Summit, several agencies and offices—DOI, USDA, HHS, ED, Institute for Museum and Library Sciences, NEA, NEH, DOT, and White House CEQ—signed a Memorandum of Agreement on Native Languages, kickstarting a new interagency initiative to preserve, protect, and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice, and develop Native languages. Since 2021, several other agencies have signed on to the MOA including, ACHP, OPM, SSA, SBA, OMB, DHS, DOC, DOL, DOS, VA, AmeriCorps, and EPA.
Strengthening Education for Native American Students
Executive Order 14049 on Establishing the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Native Americans and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities: EO 14049 seeks to improve educational outcomes and career opportunities for Native American students. It focuses on addressing systemic barriers, increasing access to high-quality education, and fostering economic empowerment.
