On Tuesday, October 8, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. (PDT), the Committee on
Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries will
hold an oversight field
hearing
titled “It All Depends on Water: Examining Efforts to Improve and
Protect Central Oregon’s Water Supply.” The hearing will examine the
importance of collaboration in the Deschutes Basin and its impact on
agriculture and species recovery. This hearing will be held at the
Deschutes County Fairgrounds, 3800 SW Airport Way in Redmond, Oregon.
On Thursday, September 26, 2024, at 2:00 p.m., in room 1324 Longworth
House Office Building, the Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee
on Oversight and Investigations will hold an oversight
hearing
titled “Desecrating Old Glory: Investigating How the Pro-Hamas Protests
Turned National Park Service Land into a Violent Disgrace.”
On Thursday, September 26, 2024, at 10:15 a.m., in room 1334 Longworth
House Office Building, the Subcommittee on Federal Lands will hold a
legislative
hearing
on the following bill:
H.R.
9678
(Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz.), “Federal Lands Amplified Security for
the Homeland (FLASH) Act”.
The FLASH Act
includes provisions to:
Construct roads on federal lands for increased access and patrols by
law enforcement and Border Patrol officers
Ensure access for law enforcement agencies to federal land along the
border
Allow states to place temporary barriers on federal lands to secure
the border
Direct federal lands managers to develop policies and procedures to
reduce the trash buildup caused by illegal immigration
Mitigate wildfires caused by immigration and restart a Trump
administration initiative to manage hazardous fuels along the southern
border
Prohibit the housing of illegal migrants on federal lands
Eliminate cultivation of illegal cannabis on federal lands
On Thursday, September 26, 2024, at 10:00 a.m., in room 1324 Longworth
House Office Building, the Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs
will hold an oversight
hearing
titled “Examining Puerto Rico’s Electrical Grid and the Need for
Reliable and Resilient Energy.”
Witnesses:
Manuel Laboy
Rivera,
Executive Director, Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction, and
Resiliency
The Wilderness Act protects 112 million acres of land across the United
States from the ravages of industrial development. But for the
Indigenous Nations, bands, and tribes that harvested from, cared for, or
otherwise managed these so-called “wilderness areas” before they were
given this designation by the federal government, the Wilderness Act can
feel like yet another instrument of settler-colonial dispossession—a
means of enforcing settler law on stolen land. Not only is the
legislation’s vision for a landscape “untrammeled by man” built on the
racist and genocidal fantasy of terra nullius, but, codified in law, it
outlaws the very practices of cultivation and care that nurtured the
“wilderness” for untold generations before settler-colonialism took
hold.
What’s wrong with the Wilderness Act, and what would it mean to rewrite
it today? How might a revised Wilderness Act serve the movement for land
rematriation? And how might it guard itself against the libertarian
right, which is prepared to exploit any loophole in the law?
Bringing together historians, legal experts, and impacted community
members, this Zoom
roundtable
conversation asks how we should understand the Wilderness Act on its
60th anniversary—a moment both of Indigenous resurgence and a rising far
right.
Speakers
Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet/Métis) is an award winning writer,
ethnobotanist, environmental activist and Professor of History at
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She/they work within
Indigenous communities to revitalize Indigenous & traditional
ecological knowledge (TEK), to address environmental justice & the
climate crisis, and to strengthen public policy for Indigenous
languages. The author of Invisible Reality: Storytellers, Storytakers
and the Supernatural World of the Blackfeet (2017), she/they are a
2023-2025 Red Natural History Fellow. Rosalyn is an enrolled member of
the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis.
Heather Whiteman Runs Him (Apsaalooke/Crow) is the Director of the
Tribal Justice Clinic and Associate Clinical Professor at University
of Arizona Rogers College of Law. Heather served as Council of Record
in Arizona v. Navajo Nation and Herrera v. Wyoming for amici Tribal
Nations in support of Tribal interests before the United States
Supreme Court. She has worked on cases in many venues to protect
Tribal relationships to lands and waters. She teaches courses on
Tribal Water Law and Tribal Courts and Tribal Law.
Christen Falcon (Amskapi Piikani/Blackfeet) is a co-owner of a
Blackfeet ecotourism transportation business ‘Backpacker’s Ferry’
located on the east side of Glacier National Park. She is a community
engagement research specialist working in community wellness
development utilizing Blackfeet methodologies and
TEK traditional ecological knowledge through
the Blackfeet non-profit Piikani Lodge Health Institute.
Karl Jacoby is Allan Nevins Professor of American History at Columbia
University. He has devoted his career to understanding how the making
of the United States intertwined with the unmaking of a variety of
other societies—from Native American nations to the communities of
northern Mexico—and the ecologies upon which they rested. His books
include Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves and the
Hidden History of American Conservation (2003), Shadows at Dawn: A
Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History (2008), and The
Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican
Millionaire (2016).
S.
4444,
Crow Revenue Act, to take certain mineral interests into trust for the
benefit of the Crow Tribe of Montana
S.
4633,
Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act of 2024
S.
4643,
Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act of 2024
S.
4705,
Yavapai Apache Nation Water Rights Settlement Act
S.
4998,
Navajo Nation Rio San José Stream System Water Rights Settlement Act
of 2024
Business meeting to vote on:
S.
465,
BADGES for Native Communities Act, to
require Federal law enforcement agencies to report on cases of missing
or murdered Indians
S.
2908,
Indian Buffalo Management Act, to assist Tribal governments in the
management of buffalo and buffalo habitat and the reestablishment of
buffalo on Indian land
S.
4370,
Tribal Forest Protection Act Amendments Act of 2024
U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chair of the Senate Committee on
Commerce, Science and Transportation, will convene a full committee
hearing
on Wednesday, September 25, 2024, at 10 A.M.
EDT to consider the following Presidential
nominations:
Nominees:
Carl Bentzel to serve another term as a Commissioner on the Federal
Maritime Commission
Thomas Chapman to serve another term as a Member on the National
Transportation Safety Board
Lanhee Chen to be a Director on the Amtrak Board of Directors
Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
H.R.
9671,
Department of Energy Artificial Intelligence Act of 2024. Provides
guidance for and investment in the research and development activities
of artificial intelligence at the Department of Energy.
H.R.
9710,
Small Modular Reactor Demonstration Act of 2024. Amends the Energy
Policy Act of 2005 to support a program to advance the research,
development, demonstration, and commercial application of small
modular reactors and micro-reactors in order to accelerate the
availability of United States-based technologies.
H.R.
9720,
AI Incident Reporting and Security Enhancement Act. Directs the
Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology to
update the national vulnerability database to reflect vulnerabilities
to artificial intelligence systems and study the need for voluntary
reporting related to artificial intelligence security and safety
incidents.
H.R.
9723,
National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program Reauthorization Act
of 2024. Reauthorizes the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program
(NWIRP), providing critical funding for the program to continue its
research into how to mitigate the injuries and property damage caused
by windstorms.
