Mike Rounds Asks Secretary Doug Burgum On Increasing Cooperation With Tribal Police To Combat Violent Crime

Forbes Breaking News

During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) spoke to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about the creation of a joint force between federal enforcement and tribal authorities.

Transcript

00:00that I see some of their names. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Murray. We'll turn to

00:04Senator Rounds. And Mr. Secretary, just so you know, our votes have started, so

00:08you're going to see us popping in and out here. Don't take that as lack of interest.

00:13Thank you. Thank you, Secretary Burgum. I want to follow up a little bit on the

00:18Native American tribes as well. And I just, first of all, I've appreciated the

00:25working relationship that you've had with tribes in the North and South Dakota

00:28region. And one area in particular that they have expressed concern, and you've

00:32heard about it before, and that is is that most Great Plains tribal law

00:37enforcement agencies are understaffed, and with as few as two officers

00:41responsible for patrolling millions of acres during a single shift, that

00:44they've come up with a recommendation. They'd like to be able to hire more

00:48law enforcement officers, but part of the challenge is that in order to get them

00:51set up, they've literally got to travel to New Mexico to get trained. And tribal

00:56law enforcement leaders often point to that as being one reason why

00:58there's a shortage because most of these young people coming into that

01:02profession don't want to go that far away for six months at a time. So one of

01:06the suggestions was is could we also put in or work with, they have the option of

01:11doing work with local law enforcement as well and being trained such as the South

01:15Dakota Law Enforcement Training Center and so forth, but we'd like to have more

01:20room for them perhaps locally. Would, and they may have talked to you about this

01:24already, but would you consider working with them in a cooperative effort to

01:27perhaps find a way to fund some additional of the, some additional spots in the

01:32Northern Great Plains for those law enforcement officers so they wouldn't

01:35have to travel for six months down to New Mexico? Yeah, this is a idea I know that

01:40you and Senator Hoven and others have worked on. We've had great collaboration

01:43on advanced training at the Camp Grafton in North Dakota, adding basic training there I

01:48think would be helpful for recruiting for Northern Plains tribes and would be fully

01:52supportive of that. And I think it would save some money as well just in terms of travel costs. Let me also just

01:57suggest it the relationship with our tribal leaders is critical and and they

02:03really appreciate the consultation that and sometimes it's lacking and and we'd

02:08like to rebuild that again. Over the last several years some Great Plains tribes

02:12have experienced violent crime rates of up to five times higher than the

02:16national average. Tribal leaders have indicated that despite their efforts these

02:20rates remain alarmingly high. Several have proposed establishing a cross

02:24jurisdictional commission to directly address violent crime. This proposed body

02:29could include relevant officials from the Department of the Interior and the

02:33Department of Justice. So not just the such as you as and another secretary but to

02:39have a built-in program where your folks could meet with their folks on a

02:44regular basis. As the tribal nations continue to deal with threats of public

02:50safety would you consider working with the tribal leaders on this initiative?

02:54Yeah absolutely. I think it would really add a lot and I think we'd get a lot of

02:59stuff done in a short period of time with that type of a of a joint commission type

03:03approach. Thank you. And then finally I want to hit an item with regard to minor

03:09fence line disputes. We just went through this with the Department of Agriculture and

03:14the Forest Service. So the Department of the Interior land management agencies

03:20oversee hundreds of millions of acres of land throughout the United States. Laws

03:24such as the Federal Land Policy and Management Act authorize a multiple use

03:29approach for public lands allowing producers to utilize federal grazing leases.

03:34Concerned landowners in western South Dakota have approached my office

03:38regarding minor fence line disputes between producers and federal officials

03:43specifically after we had that type of situation come up with the Department of

03:47Ag or the Department of Forestry. My understanding is that such

03:53disagreements are relatively common in areas with a high concentration of federal

03:57land and just curious do agencies within the Department of the Interior follow a

04:01standard mediation process for resolving these issues or is this something that we

04:06need to look at? I'm not aware but I'd be happy to look at it. You know I'm familiar we've

04:11got lots of U.S. grasslands from the U.S. Forest Service in western North Dakota. I

04:15own ranch land there and I know that when you've got topography in the Badlands that

04:19sometimes the fence line it's impossible to put the fence line on the property line.

04:24And so you know having these be mediated locally versus escalating into legal action

04:29would just be common sense. And I think that's the approach we'd like to take.

04:33These farmers and ranchers have been on that for years it's been back and forth

04:38and most recently with the ability to do fence lines more accurately now we're

04:41finding pros and cons in terms of acres that may be on one side of a fence or on

04:45the other side of the fence either way and rather than ending up in court it

04:49seems to me that a mediation process would be a lot better way to approach

04:53these and I would just appreciate your your assistance if we can put that

04:57together for the Department of the Interior if it does not already exist.

05:00That'd be great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you Senator.

05:06Senator Van Halen you're next. Thank you. Thank you Senator. Welcome Mr.

05:10Secretary. I do want to associate myself with

Category

Transcript

Recommended