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SAFEGUARD TRIBAL OBJECTS OF PATRIMONY ACT OF 2021
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I rise today to ask the Senate to send H.R. 2930, the Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony Act, to the President's desk for his signature.
The need for this legislation is pretty straightforward.
In 2016, the Governor of the Pueblo of Acoma learned that a sacred ceremonial shield had been stolen and was about to be sold to the highest bidder in Paris. When Governor Riley informed me about this robbery of the Pueblo's cultural patrimony, I called on the State Department to take all possible action to halt the auction. Thankfully, intense public outcry and diplomatic pressure were enough to halt the illegal sale of a Tribe's cultural patrimony.
Finally, in November 2019, more than 3 years after the shield was put on the auction block, it was voluntarily returned to the Pueblo. However, this only happened because of intense public outcry and notoriety. In most cases like this, the item has been sold or simply disappears into a private collection.
Under current Federal law, it is a crime to sell certain protected Native American cultural objects, things like the Acoma shield, here in the United States. But there is still no Federal law prohibiting the export of stolen cultural items and requiring the cooperation of foreign governments in recovering them.
In many cases, Tribes in New Mexico and across our Nation have been forced to effectively pay a ransom to recover their sacred items or had to stand by and watch the sale of their priceless religious and cultural items in international markets.
The lack of an explicit ban on trafficking these items to foreign countries was actually cited by the French Government when they initially declined to stop the auction of the Acoma shield.
Grave robbing is illegal in every single State in the United States, and yet we allow Tribal religious objects, many of which were stolen literally from grave sites, to be exported and sold in foreign auction houses. We cannot let this loophole that allows foreign trade in Native religious heritage to go on for even one more day, and I would urge my colleagues to pass this bill today and end this awful practice.
Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 2930, which was received from the House and is at the desk; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Reserving the right to object, I would like to begin my brief comments here this evening by acknowledging the Senator from New Mexico and agreeing so much with him on this very, very important issue as we seek to protect objects of patrimony, whether in New Mexico or in my State of Alaska or in the home State of the chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. It has been a travesty and it has been a crime that we have seen many of these objects that have been taken as art collections, that have been taken with no appreciation of the heritage, of the richness, of the tradition, and the respect to the Native people to whom they belong.
And so the STOP Act, or the Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony Act of 2021, is significant. I am proud to be the lead Republican cosponsor, along with Senator Heinrich, on this. It is an issue that many in my State have been urging action on.
So I do not rise this evening to object to passage of the STOP Act, but at the same time I am acknowledging the significance of this, I also want to raise another bill that is also very important to my State, H.R. 441. We call it the Don Young Alaska Native Health Care Land Transfers Act.
This is something that I have been working on for several Congresses now, with my friend the late Congressman Young. We took three land transfer bills. We consolidated them into one. We thought it was a pretty simple effort. All we are asking to do is to convey IHS land to two of our Alaska Native Tribal health consortia, as well as the Tanana Tribe in the interior part of the State.
We passed stand-alone legislation on these three IHS bills earlier this Congress, but instead of passing that legislation, the House did what the House often does. They amended it with technical amendments. They sent it back here as one consolidated bill. That is H.R. 441.
But, again, it is about public health, delivery of healthcare to Alaska Native people in rural and underserved villages, many of which are off the road system. But these simple land transfers would enable construction projects to move forward, to reconstruct and to construct, in some cases, new healthcare facilities to provide care to Alaska Native people, and to also ramp up the delivery of clean, safe drinking water and sanitation facilities in rural villages, which are so key to improving public health.
I think we all would agree that basic services such as water sanitation are pretty important--so everything we can do to help facilitate that. I have pushed the urgent button on these land conveyance issues because time is running out. Construction seasons are very, very limited in Alaska, and so I have been trying to help facilitate that.
I have good commitments from my colleagues who are here on the floor this evening to help us move through this process on our side, or certainly on the House side as well, so that we can see final resolution on the Don Young Alaska Native Health Care Land Transfers Act, and I look forward to working with them on that. And so having said this, I will not object to unanimous consent to advance the STOP Act this evening.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. SCHATZ. With your permission, through the Chair, far be it from me to delay the passage of this law, which I know has been worked on by Native people and staffers for many, many years, but I just wanted to make my private commitment to the Senator from Alaska, the vice chair of the Indian Affairs Committee, public.
We are absolutely committed, one way or another, to passing the Don Young lands act, and I just wanted to make that clear on the Senate floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, through the Chair, I just want to take a moment to articulate the same commitment publicly, and we look forward to working with my colleague from Alaska, who has been so helpful in putting the STOP Act to a successful resolution. I look forward to working with her to get the Don Young package moved as well.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The bill (H.R. 2930) was ordered to a third reading, was read the third time, and passed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hassan). The Senator from Hawaii.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 183
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