00:00Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here.
00:02I read your resume, and it's really spectacular.
00:05We've never met before, but from your time as governor, starting in 2016, you did some remarkable things.
00:11You've both supported fossil fuels, but you've also supported carbon neutral,
00:15which generated $25 billion in private sector investment in your state alone.
00:19So anybody who's protesting your pro-fossil fuel stance needs to look at your background
00:25and understand that it's far more nuanced and more well-rounded than that.
00:29You're also a China hawk, which I greatly appreciate.
00:32And the need to mine and process critical minerals in the United States determines whether or not the Chinese surpass us
00:43in many sectors, including military, or not.
00:46So I'm glad that you're in charge of where the energies are as well as minings are.
00:52And, of course, I want to thank you for sending the National Guard from North Dakota
00:55down to the warm weathers of Texas to help us reinforce the border.
01:01But one of the things that we've seen in this committee is when we have tribal days,
01:06and this year we had a record number of tribes come because Chairman Simpson has made it such a big priority.
01:13They have all been worried about cuts to interior and whether or not it's going to affect them or not
01:20based on our treaty obligations, which is the law to them.
01:23The thing that affects me most in my questions about cuts is historically is their law enforcement capability
01:32based on cultural issues being able to hire folks,
01:36but also monetary issues being able to afford people that they train to come stick around
01:41instead of going to other law enforcement agencies,
01:43but as well as the massive amounts of land that they have to cover.
01:48They have no air cover.
01:49And I'm a naval aviator, and so my question to you is this.
01:54How are we going to help them beat the .6 and get to where they need to be with 2.4 per thousand?
01:59But also is there a way that we can get some of our retired aircraft to them
02:04to help them in both emergency response as well as law enforcement?
02:10Well, Representative, law enforcement in the country is a grave concern that I have,
02:16and during my time as governor I was well aware of this issue,
02:20and it's compounding because I think that the bad guys know that we're,
02:28we've got gaps in law enforcement on tribal lands,
02:33and so as we saw a period of time when we had all the economics of human trafficking,
02:42drug trafficking, and fentanyl in our country,
02:45one of the places that was easier for organized crime organizations to work and operate
02:54was in tribal areas.
02:55We conducted a joint effort in North Dakota across three of our five tribes
03:03with the federal government, FBI, State of North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation,
03:10the State Highway Patrol, local tribal police.
03:13A couple years ago we arrested 55 people in one day across three tribes.
03:18They were all 55 affiliated with a gang out of Detroit that was connected to a cartel in Mexico.
03:25And it ties back to not only the drug trafficking, but this horrible issue of there's over 6,000 unsolved cases
03:33for missing and murdered indigenous persons, most of those persons being indigenous women.
03:37And we had our secretary's tribal advisory committee a couple weeks ago here.
03:46There's 12 regions, two representatives from each.
03:50We held that in the, actually in, literally in my office, moved everything out, brought everybody in.
03:56We're set up in there.
03:57And on all 12 regions, everybody brought up law enforcement as an issue.
04:03Ahead of that meeting, we had the family of Emily Pike come in.
04:07And this is this case in Arizona that is not well understood or well.
04:12I think I've always said, if you have a co-ed that goes missing at spring break,
04:15it's going to be a 10-part Netflix series.
04:18And we have 6,000 missing and murdered indigenous women, and you don't even know about it.
04:24Emily Pike is one that is as tragic as it becomes because she was, ended up in a, after having been assaulted,
04:39law enforcement had identified an assailant.
04:43He was released after three days.
04:45She was considered the victim.
04:46She was, you know, 13 or 14 years old, sent to a foster home, ran away from the foster home.
04:53The foster home didn't tell her parents until she'd been reported her missing five days later.
04:58And then, you know, search begins, as it often does, and then ends tragically.
05:02And they found her dismembered in garbage bags, you know, along the side of a road
05:06as she must have been trying to make her way back from the foster home,
05:0980 miles back to the reservation where her family was.
05:12And so this is, it doesn't get more tragic.
05:14But we brought Cash Patel over to Interior.
05:19He sat with me with the Emily Pike family.
05:22And then he stayed and met with the Secretary's Committee.
05:29And I was told by virtually every tribal leader there that that was the first time that they had a meeting with the head of the FBI.
05:35He is, he has dedicated 60 FBI already.
05:39He's announced that 60 FBI personnel are going to be deployed on Indian country cases.
05:44I talked to him yesterday at the White House, and he said that he hopes that he can get more resources, you know, placed to get it.
05:51So this is, this isn't just about, yes, we need BIA law enforcement.
05:55We need upgraded retention facilities.
05:57We need a bunch of things on the local level.
05:59But it is a federal responsibility.
06:02This is, you know, again, as a governor, I can tell you, very frustrating when these things would happen,
06:07that we could not legally, in many cases, deploy state resources to help the tribes.
06:12We did.
06:13We volunteered.
06:14We said we'll be out.
06:14We'll help on searches, all of that.
06:17But from a jurisdictional standpoint, this is, this is federal ground and federal law enforcement.
06:22And we've got to bring all federal law enforcement.
06:24And I would say it's your acknowledgement on the border and down in your state, but 41% of the southwestern border is interior land, 41%.
06:35And so, you know, so this touches law enforcement across not just, you know, BIA, BOM, national parks, touches, touches everybody.
06:44And so law enforcement is something we're spending a lot of time focused on right now.
06:50And I'd just like to ask, let's get them some, let's get them some air support.
06:54Mr. Chairman, I'll be back.
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