Hillary Clinton Campaign Press Release - Hillary Clinton's American Indian Agenda for Montana

Today, Hillary Clinton reaffirmed her support for tribal sovereignty and her respect for the government to government relationship between the tribes of Montana and the federal government. Hillary announced she will partner with the Montana Tribes to expand economic opportunity and improve health care, education and housing on all seven Montana Reservations.

In Montana, there are 56,068 American Indians and they make up 6.2 percent of the state's population. Sixty-five percent of American Indians in Montana live on one of the seven reservations in Montana. As President, Hillary is committed to providing health care to all American Indians and providing better housing for the seven tribes in Montana, which include the Blackfeet Nation, the Chippewa Cree Tribe, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the Crow Nation, the Fort Belknap Indian Community, the Fort Peck Tribe, and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.

Unfortunately, our government has not always acknowledged its commitment to American Indians. Hillary has pledged to re-open the doors of the White House to tribes in Montana. "I will stand with you and help you get more affordable housing, a better economy and access to quality health care and good schools," she said.

Work to Improve Health Care for American Indians: Thousands of American Indians in Montana continue to live without health coverage despite the attempts of the Indian Health Service to make health care services available to everyone. The average life expectancy for American Indians is 71 years of age-- nearly five years less than the rest of the population. In Montana, 38 percent of American Indians under the age of 65 years are without health coverage, compared with 19 percent of the general population in Montana. [i] American Indians experience troubling rates of diabetes, mental health disorders, cardiovascular disease, pneumonia, and influenza. They are 650 percent more likely to die from tuberculosis, 420 percent more likely to die from diabetes and 52 percent more likely to die from pneumonia or influenza than the United States average, including white and minority populations.

In the Senate, Hillary has taken steps to improve the access and quality of health care for American Indians. She co-sponsored the Indian Health Care Improvement Act Amendment of 2007, a comprehensive piece of legislation that passed the Senate in February and help expand quality, affordable health care for American Indians in Montana and throughout the country.

As President, Hillary is committed to significant increases to the Indian Health Service (IHS) budget to provide all American Indians access to meaningful, quality health care. She will elevate the director of the Indian Health Service to the Assistant Secretary level in order to address the troubling health disparities American Indians experience and to place more emphasis on the health care needs of American Indians in the Department of Health and Human Services. The IHS is severely underfunded, and because of a limited Contract Heath Services (CHS) budget Montana Tribes must ration care. The CHS is a federally funded program under the IHS that assists eligible patients with specialized care. With an appropriate level of CHS funding, Tribes would be able to fulfill the specialty care needs of their eligible users and not have to utilize the medical priority rating.

Declare a War on Diabetes for American Indian Youth: From 1994 to 2004, the rate of diabetes diagnoses in American Indians fifteen years old and younger nearly doubled from 1.3 percent to 2.2 percent of the population. American Indian youth with diabetes are usually diagnosed with type 2, which is associated with risk factors such as obesity and inactivity. In Montana, four of every 1,000 American Indians under the age of 20 are diagnosed with diabetes. [ii] Hillary not only supports significant, meaningful increases to the Indian Health Care budget but will also support the Tribal Leaders Diabetes Committee in gaining four more years beyond FY 2009 at a proposed 200 million per year for the reauthorization of the Special Diabetes Programs for Indians. A well-funded SDPI will provide preventive tools and better services to those affected by diabetes at any stage in life.

Strengthen the Economy for American Indians: Depending on the reservation, 34 to 50 percent of the people on reservations in Montana live in poverty. 36 to 76 percent of the labor force is unemployed, and of those employed 12 to 40 percent live below the poverty line. [iii] Over the last seven years, income levels for American Indians have remained stagnant. Hillary has a comprehensive and aggressive agenda to revive this nation's economy and to create good, high wage jobs across American, including in Indian Country. As part of this agenda, she will invest $2.5 billion per year, including investments in tribes, in order to strengthen the nation's work force development efforts. Hillary has also made a commitment to increase the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011, and link it to congressional salaries after that. She has also proposed expanding the earned income tax credit, tripling the current benefit for single workers and making the benefit more generous for larger families. Her economic agenda also involves restoring funding for the New Market Tax Credit and Empowerment Zones programs, which help attract private capital and businesses to low-income areas, such as those in Montana.

Encourage Energy Efficient Development: Heating is the biggest user of gas in typical Montana homes, where families can spend up to $1150 per year. [iv] Hillary supports the rights of tribal governments to adopt and implement their own environmental policies, but she also understands the important role the federal government plays in catalyzing energy efficiency in Indian Country. Her $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund will invest in renewables and clean energy technologies that will help create at least 5 million green collar jobs. As president, Hillary will create and expand federal-tribal partnerships to promote the use of solar and wind power in Indian Country. In addition to creating new jobs, the weatherization of Native American homes will curb rising costs and improve energy efficiency. As part of a major nationwide weatherization initiative, Hillary will work to fund the weatherization of all low-income homes in Indian Country. In addition to creating new jobs, the weatherization of Indian homes will curb rising costs and improve energy efficiency.

Improve American Indian Housing: American Indian families live in overcrowded homes and lack plumbing, telephone service and kitchen facilities at rates far exceeding the general public. In 2003, 13.5 percent of individuals and 22.6% of families in Indian Country were homeless. [v] Many drift between the homes of friends and family without ever establishing a place of their own. Hillary supports efforts to improve the acquisition, rehabilitation, and construction of affordable housing on Indian lands in Montana. Specifically, Hillary would increase funding for the Native American Housing Block Grant and modernize the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act. These increases will make more housing options available to low-income American Indians.

Increase Funding for the Indian Head Start Program: A September 2007 study from National Geographic revealed that tribal languages are the most vulnerable to extinction in the world. There are 11 tribal languages spoken in Montana. Hillary will encourage the teaching of these languages in Tribal Head Start in Montana. Consistent with all Head Start programs, the American Indian Head Start Program supports the rich and diverse culture and heritage of the children they serve, and encourages teachers to incorporate language and culture into their curriculum and program goals. Hillary's national pre-K initiative will extend access to high-quality pre-K in Montana that can either be partnered with existing Indian Head Start programs or be used to establish other tribally sponsored pre-K programs. She will ensure that tribally-sponsored pre-K programs in Montana receive federal matching dollars just as state programs do. Her proposal is designed so that children from low-income families and children from limited English households can enroll in pre-K programs at no cost.

Increase Support for Tribal Colleges and Institutions Serving Native Americans: Since the late 1960s, tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) have played a critical role in promoting tribally-determined higher education. Currently, there are seven TCUs in Montana providing culturally-relevant teaching, community outreach, and research services to tribal communities throughout the country. Hillary supports increased funding for tribal colleges. She voted for the recently signed College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which includes $10 million to help create a program for Native American Serving Institutions. In addition, American Indians in Montana graduate from public schools at a rate of 56 percent. As president, Hillary will work to lower the drop out rate by recruiting and retaining excellent teachers and principles in low-income, hard to serve areas. And she will develop initiatives to identify at-risk youth early on and provide intensive interventions to get them back on track.

Law Enforcement for Indian Country: American Indians experience violence at rates more than twice the rate for the country as a whole. There are only about 2,500 Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal uniformed police officers serving an estimated 1.4 million Indians covering more than 56 million acres of tribal lands in the lower 48 states. On tribal lands, 1.3 officers must serve every 1,000 citizens, compared to 2.9 officers per 1,000 citizens in non-Indian communities with populations under 10,000. [vi]These staffing levels are simply insufficient to meet the law enforcement challenges facing Indian Country. Amnesty International recently released a report that concluded that one in three Native American women will be raped in her lifetime. And, in recent years methamphetamine has disproportionately devastated Native American tribal communities- Native Americans are more than four times as likely as whites to use crystal methamphetamine. [vii] Montana has one of the highest abuses rates of methamphetamine use in the country with a rate of about three percent of the population between the ages of 18 and 25 reported using. [viii] An informal survey of the seven FBI offices located primarily in Indian Country estimated that approximately 40-50% of violent crime cases investigated in Indian Country involve meth.[ix] Hillary supports providing resources for law enforcement in Indian Country, promoting state-tribal cooperative agreements where appropriate to reduce crime, and improving the collection of data on Indian Country crime and how those crimes are handled by authorities.

[i] http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-131969/The-uninsured-Montana-s-h...

[ii] http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/291/5/555.pdf

[iii] "Homeless in Montana." Montana Department of Public Health & Human Services.

[iv] http://www.deq.state.mt.us/energy/MTEnergySaversGuideHiRes.pdf

[v] Homeless in Montana." Montana Department of Public Health & Human Services, 2003.

[vi] See http://www.ncai.org/Law_Enforcement_and_Tribal_Cou.34.0.html .

[vii] National Institutes of Health (June 15, 2007), at http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/jun2007/nida-15/htm

[viii] The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, Issue 37 http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k6/stateMeth/stateMeth.htm

[ix] FBI Indian Country Unit Presentation, The Federal/Tribal Meth Summit sponsored by the Department of Justice, Attorney General's Advisory Committee, Native American Issues Subcommittee of United States Attorneys (Oct. 13, 2005).