CONGRESS SENDS CAMPBELL'S TRIBAL DEVELOPMENT BILL TO THE PRESIDENT
March 1, 2000

WASHINGTON, D.C- - The House of Representatives last night gave final passage to a bill introduced by Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman Ben Nighthorse Campbell to improve reservation economics by helping Indian tribes attract private sector investment.

Currently all contracts between tribes and outside companies must be approved by the Interior Department, a process that can take many months. Campbell's “Indian Tribal Economic Development and Contract Encouragement Act of 1999” streamlines tribal business development efforts by exempting contracts that last for seven years or less from approval process.

The bill also heads off legal disputes between tribes and their business partners by requiring tribes to disclose their sovereign immunity when negotiating contracts.

“While tribes need to build schools and roads, bureaucrats shuffle paper,” Campbell said. “The lesson learned in places like Eastern Europe over the last decade is that economies flourish when the government gets out of the way. That is a lesson we should apply to the reservations. For over a century Indian Country has been micro-managed by Washington bureaucrats. The effect is all too obvious. Tribes have 50 percent unemployment, stagnant economics and lead the nation in social problems.”

The House voted 406 to 2 in favor of the bill. The Senate passed it unanimously last September.

“There is no reason tribes and contractors should wait up to a year for Washington's approval to do what states, counties and cities do every day. Because of the great need on reservations for roads and schools, I am working to increase the federal budget for those programs. Without this bill, that money would just sit idle.”