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- By Native News Online Staff
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), a member of the Senate Committee on Indians Affairs and the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, questioned U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on the importance of protecting all public lands and preserving funding to Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools.
The questioning occurred during a Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee hearing to consider President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) budget.
During his questioning, Heinrich also received a recommitment from Burgum to not make any changes to monument designations in New Mexico without first meeting with local leaders and advocates.
Here is the hearing exchange between Heinrich and Burgum:
Heinrich opened his questions by discussing the importance of all public lands, including preserves and monuments: “I want to bring up what is in the skinny budget, and just quote from it real quick. The National Park Service responsibilities include a large number of sites that are not quote, unquote, ‘National parks in the traditionally understood sense, many of which receive small numbers of mostly local visitors and are better categorized and managed as state level parks.’ I just want to strike a note of caution with that sort of approach. I love our big-P national parks. Behind me is a picture of a non-big-P national park. It is a national preserve. It is the Valles Caldera National Preserve. We've been talking in New Mexico for 100 years about this being a national park, and we finally settled on the approach of a preserve – in part because we wanted the natural resource management of a national park with the ability to also have world class hunting and fishing, and the visitors that come with all of those things. So, I would just urge you to look as you develop this list. And many of these units have been created in statute, many of them that are not necessarily a big-P national park are incredibly important parts of our National Park System, our history and our culture, and I just hope you will approach that with caution.”
Burgum answered, “Absolutely. And with consultation.”
Heinrich continued to push, asking Burgum, “Have you discussed with any particular states this approach yet or is it still in the formation stage?”
Burgum answered, “This is completely in the idea formation stage.”
Heinrich then turned to BIE school construction funding, asking: “Now, BIE school construction costs. I'm not going to question your effectiveness at finding ways to reduce overhead and push forward on the ground deployment for better resource management. But this particular account, and I was talking to the Chair about this on the way over, really concerns me. The President's budget calls for a 79%, or $187 million, reduction in the BIE school contract construction account. This is a place where we have a $4 billion construction backlog. It's not overhead. I mean, this is money to actually build schools. It's not money to pay administrators. And so, you and I have talked about the incredibly poor condition of some of these BIE schools. How are you going to move the needle on BIE school construction with this budget line item?"
Burgum answered, “It's interesting that we've got in BIE about 125,000 kids, which is about exactly what we had in North Dakota in our K-12 system. But of course, these are spread across the nation. Not every state's got a BIE school. And we've got a complicated situation that some places you've got a BIE school next to a Tribal school next to a public school. That's a scenario I've seen and I think that part of this is, we've got to take a look at the sort of — the system wide, in terms of dollars in, in states like my own state of North Dakota, we put more dollars into BIE than we do into Tribal and into public. And yet the outcomes are the worst. So there's not, I'm not, you know…I'm not seeing a correlation. I think the school construction and deferred maintenance — I mean, that's an issue across parks, across refuges. I mean, it's across all of government, federal government, we got a deferred maintenance issue. So, the construction thing, I just set aside. But I think, you know where I would start. My focus on BIE is, you know, how do we improve outcomes for those kids? And then, are there opportunities for us, from a school construction standpoint, to look for any opportunities with Tribes or with public schools, to not, you know, to, if we fix the problems, but can we do it? I mean, I know there's a case in our state where they're less than a mile apart.”
Heinrich affirmed, “I think we can both agree that we’ve got to do better for these kids.”
Burgum agreed, “Yes.”
Heinrich then turned to the topic of national monuments, asking: “The President's budget proposes an almost $200 million cut to the Bureau of Land Management conservation programs. In your confirmation hearing, you told me that you would not make any wholesale changes to monument designations in New Mexico without first meeting with local elected leaders and citizen groups in the state. Do I still have your commitment on that?”
Burgum responded, “Yeah, absolutely.”
Heinrich responded, “Appreciate that.”
Burgum added, “I think you do know there, there have been concerns, people have come to me about the buffer zone related to that and how it infringes on, on Tribal allottee rights. So, we're, we're listening to all sides of this thing, but we'll keep in close consultation.”
Heinrich corrected Burgum, saying, “I think you're talking about a particular mineral withdrawal, and my question was related directly to the monuments which is a separate issue, but I'll be happy to engage with you on both.”
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