NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 1

NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC

Moderator: Elizabeth Appel December 13, 2017 12:00 pm CT

Coordinator: Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time participants are in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session. To ask a question please press Star then 1 and state your name when prompted. Today’s conference is also being recorded. If you have any objections you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host Jerry Gidner. Thank you, you may begin.

Jerry Gidner: Thank you very much. Good afternoon everybody or good morning -- depending on where you all are. I am Jerry Gidner. I’m the Principal Deputy Special Trustee for the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians and currently the Acting Special Trustee. And today’s consultation is a follow up to a series of consultations that the Department held through the fall of 2016 regarding several issues required by the Indian Trust Asset Reform Act (ITARA). So today we’d like to talk about our proposal to transition OST from the Office of the Secretary of Interior to be under the jurisdiction of the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs.

So at the consultations last year we heard a number of options: leave OST intact where it is; break it up and move the functions to different parts of

the NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 2

Department; move it intact into BIA proper; move it under the Assistant Secretary’s Office. There are a few others. One was to put it under the Undersecretary of Indian Affairs, which is allowed by ITARA but that has not been decided to make an undersecretary a position.

So after looking at the comments and the transcripts, we have decided to propose moving OST under the Assistant Secretary of the Indian Affairs. I want to clarify that. It is not to put it within BIA proper. It would be a third organization reporting to the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs. So there would be the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Education, and the Office of the Special Trustee.

We would envision that it would become a permanent organization. Probably most of you know the 1994 Trust Reform Act included a termination or sunset provision for the Office of the Special Trustee as it was envisioned - working on trust reform and oversight. In the intervening years, however, operational functions of accounting management and records, etc., have been added to OST, and those functions need to continue on a daily basis. So our proposal is to move OST almost intact, and I’ll explain that in a second, to underneath the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs. And at some point it will become a permanent organization.

The “almost intact” part is what we have also proposed and were required by ITARA to have the appraisal functions within a single entity that we have proposed, and it’s moving on a different tract to combine OST’s Office of Appraisal Services with the Office of Valuation Services and the Department of Interior and that would create a new office, the Appraisal and Valuation Services Office (AVSO). But other than appraisals moving out, the remainder of OST under our proposal would move under the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs as it is right now. NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 3

So rather than say any more about that, that’s the gist of the plan. I would at this time propose to hear your comments or questions. I guess I should talk about the process going forward. We’ll be having another consultation session tomorrow morning. It will be identical to this one. We will maintain a comment period until January 15 I believe it is. After that point we’ll review the comments that come in, any comments made on the consultations today and tomorrow, and decide based on that if we need to amend the plan.

But at that point the ITARA plan, the draft of which we’re consulting on today, we will send to both the authorizing side of Congress as well as a reprogramming letter if needed to the appropriations side and let them review those documents and hopefully improve them at that point. Following that congressional review period, whatever we finally implement would be done via a secretarial order signed by Secretary Zinke.

So with that we’ll open the lines to comments.

Coordinator: Thank you. If you’d like to comment at this time please press Star 1 and state your name when prompted. If you wish to withdraw from the queue you may press Star 2. Again if you would like to make a comment please press Star 1.

One moment. (Damon Knight) your line is open.

(Damon Knight): Hello this is (Damon Knight). I’m calling from . I’m a lineal descendant of a rule that the Secretary of Interior prepared in 1972 as they call it - the lineal descendants of the Wahpekute, also descendants of some Lake Pepin land relinquishment in the 1800s. So I’m just curious we’ve never had our judgment funds’ awards fully paid out. We’ve got two docket payments recently just this year - a Docket 363 and interest payment in 1981. NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 4

Just curious how we as a people can, you know, create economic opportunity for ourselves, for our state and for our country for these judgment funds, you

know, to be distributed throughout the lineal descendants.

And I also would like to know about titles of land and compensation for titles of land that were seeded at a time open for settlement. My grandmother had 400 acres and I would look for compensation for those lands. So that’s my

comment for today. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Jerry Gidner: Thank you.

Coordinator: The next comment comes from (Brian Gunn). Your line is open.

(Janet Nicholson): Good morning this is (Janet Nicholson). I wanted to provide comments on behalf of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. I see based on the ITARA report and what’s been presented is it’s proposed that the OST be moved from the Office of the Secretary to AS-IA as an office equal to BIA and BIA education. I believe the Colville Tribe and the tribes in the northwest across the country would be more agreeable to the Office of Special Trustee be moved under the Office of the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs.

And that the duplicate services that are provided within the Office of Special Trustee could then be transitioned out and under the services already provided within the Bureau of Indian Affairs. That would make funds available where they were originally taken from, such as our real property offices, our forestry departments, our range departments. We think that would be a better use of the money of actual FTEs. I believe that the superintendent authority, the regional director authority, they are all delegated with approving all the NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 5 transactions that generate the money and they actually do the approval of all the financial documents for OST to process.

I believe the Office of Trust Fund’s Management should remain intact with one exception that the Fiduciary Trust Officers that were developed to be the front line in answering questions related to the management of natural resources that is not done at a great majority and they basically do follow up of what the financial trust accountants do. It’s the superintendent that is the frontline officer that responds to all questions in relation to the management of natural resources or all the financial transactions.

I believe the Office of Special Trustee provides the backup but they do not have the final authority. So I believe that we could sunset the fiduciary officers at the GS-14 level, approximately 50 positions that would be transitioned over to realty specialists, foresters, range cons.

Also at the same time, the GS-14 deputy superintendents also were created during the evolution of the Office of Special Trustee. I believe there are more of those in BIA but that would be a separate discussion. I believe that the actual review and processing of the trust transaction at the field level is done by the financial accounts’ managers and the accounting techs and the Trust Beneficiary Call Center. So the Fiduciary Trust Officer basically is a moot position. That would be the position of I believe the tribes would take.

And I also believe that the Regional Trust Administrators are a duplicate of the services provided by the Regional Directors. So that would be the comments that we would make. We would also provide more explicit written comments of the duplicate services that could be sunsetted within the Office of Special Trustee. Thank you. NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 6

Jerry Gidner: Thank you and we’ll look forward to seeing those written comments.

Coordinator: The next comment comes from (Daniel Jordan). Your line is open.

(Daniel Jordan): Thank you. I’m from the Hoopa Valley Tribe in Northern California. We also work with the Colville as the comments were just made and other Northwest tribes to develop ITARA. The Department of Interior is taking - cherry picking ITARA apart and it can’t be done that way. And that’s one of the reasons why OST has not accomplished what it was expecting to be accomplished because it did cherry pick things as was just explained by the Colville representative.

Now the Office of Special Trustee was never intended in the original authorization to run trust programs. They were supposed to provide oversight. By it becoming a trust manager, it became in conflict with the very law that created it. And like wise when we developed ITARA the Title 1, Title 2, Title 3 are all part of a package.

What we’re doing here is cherry picking just OST part out of Title 3. There are other agencies involved with Title 3 as well. But there’s also the part of Title 2, which are the demonstration projects which are intended to get to what the previous commenter was talking about. We need to reform not just trust asset management. But we also need to reform and update the relationship between Indian tribes and the United States. That’s what ITARA is designed to do.

So with this case we will be submitting written comments as well. Our comments are four parts. One is the Office of Special Trustee, OST, which we believe needs to be kept intact. The second part will be on the Office of

Special Trustee’s trust asset management which they have never had expertise NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 7 to carry out. And that’s where a lot of OST’s failures are and really those programs that they assumed control over but never had the expertise to manage.

The third part of our comments are going to be on the other agencies, the other trust relationships that are in Title 3, Bureau of Reclamation for example. And the fourth part is the demonstration projects themselves. We are really disappointed that the Department has not seen an interest in anything other than that really cherry picked part of OST of the ITARA law. There’s a tremendous opportunity for tribes and the federal government to work out long-standing differences if we were to work together. But we can’t just simply isolate and protect one part of the federal interest, which is OST.

The comment about OST itself, the Office of Special Trustee and trust asset management has been the subject of Inspector General ethics violations, 96 of them, which is an average of one per month for over eight years. And it demonstrates that OST doesn’t have the internal expertise to even oversee the trust asset functions. When Office of Special Trustee assumed the responsibilities of the Office of American Indian Trust which was an agency set up to oversee trust management conflicts between federal agencies and Indian trusts.

Office of Special Trustee just basically gutted that whole function. So we are now sitting here in Indian Country with things, like, direct conflicts with ESA, direct conflicts with water issues, direct conflicts with trespass issues, of course the probate issues. We ought to talk about that moving to a partnership with tribes on how to deal with probates, fractionated heirships. But again OST has set aside too much of the trust asset management functions and simply stopped working on them. NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 8

So we need to not just cherry pick and figure out how to protect the OST structure but look at how it is actually working with the Department and with the tribes on figuring out how to make trust improvements. That has just never been, OST has never accepted that level of responsibility sort of but that’s exactly what the self-determination act and self-governance laws are about, is creating partnerships.

OST has simply been unwilling to work with tribes in developing those kinds of things. And in fact has stopped a lot of the work that we were working on to make those partnership connections between the United States and Indian

tribes so that’s my comment.

Jerry Gidner: Thank you very much.

Coordinator: The next comment comes from (Lisa Coop). Your line is open.

(Lisa Coop): Hi as stated my name’s (Lisa Coop) and I’m with the Tulalip Tribe. You know just sort of piggyback on some of the comments that have already been made. You know, Tulalip has great concerns with leaving OST intact or almost intact. The intent of the applicable provision in ITARA was to improve efficiency and cut the costs of OST and to reduce the duplicative function. And moving OST as it is, even with the exception of the appraisal function being removed, does not do this. So Tulalip Tribe does not support the current plan as proposed and we will be submitting detailed comments by the deadline.

Jerry Gidner: Thank you very much.

Coordinator: Currently there are no callers in queue to comment. Please press Star 1. The

next comment comes from (Tara Branson). NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 9

(Tara Branson): Hi Mr. (Gidner). This is (Tara Branson) from Muskogee Creek Nation. How

are you?

Jerry Gidner: I’m great thank you. We had it on mute.

(Tara Branson): I actually just had a series of questions. Muskogee Creek Nation supports many of the comments that have already been made. We’re very concerned that the proposal that the Department put forward doesn’t actually reflect the consensus of tribes and in reviewing the written comments and some of the transcripts from tribal consultation it doesn’t appear to really reflect those comments either. So we’re a little concerned that the proposal put forward doesn’t really reflect the national consensus.

But in the spirit of consultation I have some questions. You talked a little bit about moving the Office of Valuation Services and how that’s on a different tract. Do you have an idea of when those services will be transferred to the

new entity within DOI that’s going to be performing those functions?

Jerry Gidner: No I don’t actually. We just met yesterday with staff from the Appropriations Subcommittee and they have to approve a reprogramming letter. And they had some questions for us and some concerns about whether we should do additional consultation on that particular issue. So there is a statutory

deadline of December 22 but pretty sure we’re not going to meet that.

(Tara Branson): Okay.

Jerry Gidner: So we’re having discussions with the Appropriations Committee. The next step is for them to approve our reprogramming then they’re be a Secretarial Order. So I think even if they approved it right away we’re still talking a couple months NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 10

I think and maybe longer than that.

(Tara Branson): Okay that kind of leads me to my next question. I was curious if you had talked with Congress about the proposal that you’re putting forward for consultation and if you’ve received any initial feedback and how it might actually align with the requirements of the 1994 Act that that position that the Special Trustee be an appointee who reports directly to the Secretary under 25 UST 4042A and B. So I was just wondering if you all have considered that given the proposal that you put forward?

Jerry Gidner: Well we have considered that. I guess a better word is we’re trying to negotiate between two statutes. So we have not formally shared our plan with Congress yet because we wanted to do this consultation first and be able to tell them that whatever plan we’re proposing has had this consultation process. So we’re doing this first and then after the comment period we’ll regroup and see if we need to make any amendments based on the comments and then we’ll be submitting the ITARA plan to them.

(Tara Branson): Okay that’s great. And just one last question. I guess in reviewing the proposal we had a number of thoughts that we’ll kind of put down in writing. But one that kind of stuck out was the Executive Order 13781. Obviously ITARA, you know, predates the existing Executive Order but I think it’s important for OST and the Department to consider how this move will sort of be impacted later on if there are changes within the department. I know it’s a priority of Secretary Zinke’s to reorganize the Department to provide other efficiencies. NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 11

So I would just be curious if you know of any other discussions about how this particular proposal would support or correlate with other proposals that

are being made internally under that executive order.

Jerry Gidner: I have not seen that discussion particularly. The Secretary is inviting a group of senior executives to D.C. in January to talk more specifically about his larger reorganization plans. Some of us from the Office of Special Trustee have been invited to that. So we’ll participate in whatever that is. But I have not been part of any discussions talking about how that larger reorganization proposal would affect this.

(Tara Branson): Okay.

Jerry Gidner: So I really have nothing I can say about that at the moment because I

just don’t know.

(Tara Branson): Okay thank you for answering my questions. I appreciate your patience,

very helpful.

Jerry Gidner: Oh no it’s my pleasure.

Coordinator: The next question comes from (Tyrell Stephenson). Your line is open.

(Tyrell Stephenson): Thank you. I am (Tyrell Stephenson). I’m the Legislative Director for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and I bring greetings and apologies from Vice Chair (Ernie Stensgar). Unfortunately he is very ill this morning and is unable to join the call. But I’m prepared to offer a couple of comments on his behalf

and on behalf of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 12

First as the proposed changes we would echo many of the comments that have been made both on the call today and previously to the effect that the changes do not reflect the letter or the intent of ITARA and our view. And they do not

benefit any efficiencies that we can see.

Moving OST as an intact agency under the Assistant Secretary seems as Mr. (Jordan) mentioned to, you know, cherry pick from the law and then try to seek to avoid it. We will be submitting further written comments along those

lines.

And secondly on the topic of consultation, in the tribe’s view and I think the view of many tribes, that the Department should not only consult but consult meaningfully. And meaningful consultation involves actually considering what the tribes are saying. And I haven’t heard a comment from a tribe that supports this change. I think that simply moving the entire operation underneath the Assistant Secretary seeks to sidestep the letter and the force of ITARA.

Again we will be submitting comments in written form and I appreciate

your time.

Jerry Gidner: Thank you.

Coordinator: The next question comes from (Mary Pavel). Your line is open.

(Mary Pavel): Hi thank you. Jerry this is (Mary Pavel) on behalf of the Fort Peck Tribes. I wanted to echo the comments that I’ve heard so far. I did dial in a little late but was able to hear (Tara’s) and Coeur d’Alene’s comments. And, you know, kind of as a, you know, when I was - it appears to me what I always feared ITARA might be is that the agency is presuming that this is just a NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 13

moving of the deck chairs around. And that certainly I know from numerous conversations with people, like, (Ernie Stensgar) and others that’s not the

objective.

The objective was really to restore accountability back certainly into offices and to create seamless access to both capacity and workload within the Department. I’m trying to understand how that’s going to be accomplished here as I, you know, worked really hard to try to understand the intent of ITARA and that was really to achieve meaningful action and representation I think by tribal programs on the ground and those who work the hardest to protect tribal trust assets. So I don’t know if you guys - how is this just not moving the chairs around I guess is my question?

Jerry Gidner: Well thanks (Mary). Well we think that having our feet under the Assistant Secretary, under the other Indian programs, makes it easier for us to coordinate with them. That is not to say we don’t. Obviously we’re on a daily basis coordinating with BIA and other parts of the Assistant Secretary’s office. But still as opposed to us being in the Secretary’s office, having this under AS-IA makes that a little bit easier.

And I did not mention this before but I guess one of the major reasons for not having it back in BIA is just the internal control functions. And I felt this when I was the Director of the BIA and I feel this now as the Principal Deputy Special Trustee that you ought to have a different organization managing the land than the organization that manages the money coming from the land. I think that lack of internal control that led to some of the problems that led to the Cobell lawsuit and I think having those being a different organization gives a great independence that lets us manage the money independent from decisions that might affect the land. NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 14

(Mary Pavel): I mean what measure - I mean I appreciate, you know, and I think that if it worked as well as you kind of talk about how you guys communicate that we might not have needed ITARA. It was articulated to me because I asked this a lot when I was up on the Hill, like, what do we need to do this for? What are we doing? Why, you know, what kind of controls are going to be put in place so there is this kind of seamlessness, I don’t know, removal of some barriers because obviously when people have their sandbox they don’t want other people playing in their sandbox.

And that was creating enormous conflicts whether it was in kind of the appraisal and valuation sandbox I think is what I heard a lot about when I was up on the Hill from people who are advocating for this legislation and that those weren’t happening and those were a different sandbox. And so how are we going to - how was this process going to achieve the objective of ITARA of, kind of, breaking some of those barriers to people playing in one another’s sandboxes I guess for the lack of a better word? A lot of analogies there but…

Jerry Gidner: Well I’m not sure that that was how we read ITARA necessarily. Obviously the issue of sunsetting OST has been hanging out there for a long time. So that’s something both the Trust Reform Act of 1994 and ITARA talked about. The function has to continue. We have to continue managing the money on a daily basis. I’m not quite sure how else to answer that (Mary). We have to do these operational functions, which granted were added to OST after it was created, but they still have to continue. So it’s this battle between where do you put those functions in the Department while still maintaining a separation between the land management and the money management. So our thought was, let’s put it under the Assistant Secretary so it’s really part of – more closely aligned with the Indian Bureaus yet still separate organizationally from the land managers.

X-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 15

(Mary Pavel): Thank you guys.

Coordinator: (Damon Knight) your line is open.

(Damon Knight): Hi yes this is (Damon Knight). I am Mdewakanton , like, I was listening to the Northern Californian tribe member. He was talking a little bit about something similar I didn’t throw in with my first comment because when Indian Claims Commission for where I’m from in Minnesota, at the time it was the Secretary of Interior who had the authority to carry out any provision of, you know, paying any judgment docket fund and with the tribal governing body’s recommendation.

So, you know, as we’re trying to, you know, the SOT just recently, like, I said paid another interest payment. So obviously this is the Department that tribal funds come from because we got a payment in 1981 and just recently in 2017. And I’m referring to Docket 359 through 363. Are docket funds controlled by the Office of SOT? That’s my question, like, how are tribes’ members from these census roles; how are we supposed to get the money (if) we’re not federal recognized. And when I speak on the phone with the OST they said we need to be federally recognized to be able to utilize the judgment fund award accounts.

So my question is with the Assistant Secretary underneath Ryan Zinke is he going to carry out the provision for such things or is that still OST’s

jurisdiction and authority?

Jerry Gidner: Thank you (Damon). OST manages the money for income generated from lands owned by federally recognized tribes and individual Indian money account holders or money landholders, and judgment funds at various times,

like water settlements that Congress says OST should manage. So we manage NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 16

things that are within our jurisdiction and if there’s other things outside of

that that’s up to Congress to tell us to manage them or not.

(Damon Knight): Okay just from hearing that for Congress to what I believe Congress gave, you know, the Secretary of Interior made a plan for Congress and Congress threw the authority back to the Department of Interior for this distribution of judgment funds for Mississippi Sioux Tribes, 1972 Distribution Authority. With that being said this is from treaty land. It’s, like, the Royce areas.

So if we wanted to utilize these unpaid dockets, these judgment fund awards and spend the money back into the United States economy I’m just curious the consultation I’m not sure if they’ll be able to tell me how to be able to do that because we just get two interest payments and there’s these accounts that are here that the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux community attempted to distribute in 1991, Island as well, Indian community and Lower Sioux Indian community.

They were never able to distribute those funds based on them not being on the 1972 list. So the judgment fund awards I’m just curious does one still have to go through these tribal governing bodies or can I go through the

Office of SOT and how to do that?

Jerry Gidner: I will have to admit I don’t know the details of that settlement or how it was or is being distributed or managed. I’ll have to find out the answer to

that question.

(Damon Knight): Thank you and I’ve also written in my response maybe I sent it a week and a half ago with these acts of Congress and everything attached. So, you know, just to make that clear. And I know that what struck this curiosity is that

when we got this check recently it was the SOT on it. So that made tribal NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 17

lineal descendants figure out that the Secretary of Interior is not

distributing the money it is this department.

So this is why I’m here today. And I appreciate your concern of looking into this issue. This is a lot of money in an account that was in 1967 Indian Claims Commission said it was a little over $6 million. So with interest then, investment and so forth we don’t even know what is there but we know it’s there. So thank you for your time and appreciate to be here.

Jerry Gidner: Thank you and we did receive your written comments so we have those

in hand.

(Damon Knight): Thank you.

Coordinator: The next caller is (Daniel Jordan). Your line is open.

(Daniel Jordan): I just called in because I didn’t know how long this call was going to last. I made comments before. My comment is, one, I question the transparency of OST receiving comments and developing recommendations on tribal comments that are intended to reorganize itself, reorganize OST. I don’t think OST is the proper agency to conduct these consultations about itself or even to make recommendations about itself. You can make recommendations but you should not be running this consultation.

Second issue is as typical with OST I think your understanding about what caused Cobell is really way too superficial. And OST has designed itself to where it is a liability protector to the United States against Indian tribes and Indian people. You need to change that attitude because the United States has trust obligations to Indian tribes and in many ways OST’s attitude toward Indian Country or tribes and even Indian people in the design of fractionated heirship NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 18 plans and those kinds of things or solutions to them are really in almost direct conflict for self-determination, self-governance and in fact Title 2 of ITARA because that’s what we were reaching for is to get to your questions about how does the United States pull the trust responsibility for financial management and also hold the trust responsibility for asset management under the same or similar standards. That’s what this law is all about.

And my real question is when are we going to get to the point where the Department of Interior is going to consult with Indian tribes on ITARA, not just OST, because the other parts of ITARA are critically important to designing this trust relationship that you actually look at Indian Country and how that has evolved over the last 20 years?

There have been many, many trust improvements made but they weren’t because of the BIA, they weren’t certainly because of OST, but in fact they were developed because tribes developed expertise and defined those management plans and helped partner with the United States because both self-determination and self-governance say responsibility is still kept with the United States, so we help define that.

And by doing that actually we reduce the liability. But OST is sitting in its own independent vacuum world saying that everything about tribes is a liability so therefore we must restrict them or we must control them or we must put some kind of rules on them. That is not going to work this way and even if this plan is put forward we’re still going to be talking to Congress. We’re still going to be talking to the Secretary about one of the comments that were made about streamlining.

The President’s Executive Order on streamlining, those are important issues to Indian Country. And if they are not - if OST is not looking at their future NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 19

plans in light of where we are going in Indian Country with partnerships with Indian tribes and with federal streamlining then the OST plan is really short-lived because it would never be in sync with what tribes are expecting, what Indian people are expecting or what Congress and the administration is expecting.

I want to make sure that at one point we’ve got to deal with probation of fractionated heirships. We’ve made many proposals to the Department and to OST about how to deal with fractionated heirship probates, but we never get anything back. And Title 2 is an important part of the future of Indian Country. It would help OST to spend some time looking at how to create partnerships instead of thinking that tribes are simply liabilities that the United States must be protected from.

I encourage you to have real consultation with Indian Country about ITARA, not just the OST part, because you’re not talking about anything big enough to deal with what we’re dealing with Indian Country, or how we restructure BIA, or how we deal with the Presidential Executive Order on streamlining. We’re doing all that stuff. You guys are just not working with us on it. So I encourage you to really go out in the Indian Country and talk to tribal people and Indian people about the ways to improve the trust asset management as opposed to creating barriers against U.S. liabilities. That’s my comment.

Jerry Gidner: Thank you and I would like to say I understand that BIA is expecting to

(unintelligible) Title 2 of ITARA next year and I would very much like your

ideas on plan fractionation in IIM accounts that we manage and I think

they’re just going to grow into the future and it is a very big issue for us. So I

would love to have that discussion with you at some point. Thank you.

Coordinator: The next comment comes from (Brian Gunn). Your line is open. NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 20

(Brian Gunn): Thanks Jerry and thanks for the other folks on the call. My name’s (Brian Gunn). I worked with a number of the tribes that have commented on the call already drafting Title 3 of the law and then the rest of the ITARA law. I just have a few comments to make as folks move forward. I guess first with respect to the intent of the law, Title 3 was really intended to lay a groundwork for what a transition

of OST into the rest of the Department would look like.

The law required the Department to submit a transition plan to Congress that provided for the termination of OST within two years. And that plan was supposed to be advisory only but I guess I would note that the Department has never done that. They’ve never submitted such a plan which is really intended to give a roadmap to Indian Country about what these functions would look like in other parts of the Department.

So, you know, in terms of the intent that’s something that just hasn’t been done yet that was required by the law. With respect to some of the other comments that have been made, I don’t think anyone on the call will really argue that the core OST functions of accounting, investment reconciliation and such should not remain intact, you know, they’re valuable functions and they’re needed functions.

But as others on the call have mentioned there are a number of other OST functions that don’t fit into that category that at least on paper would seem duplicative if they’re moved over to the Office of the Assistant Secretary. You know OST has an external affairs, a congressional affairs division, base management. They handle travel. A lot of administrative overhead that, you know, may have made sense when it was a completely separate entity reporting to the Secretary but I wonder how those would be defensible when they’re moved under AS-IA. NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 21

I can’t imagine an office that reports to AS-IA having their own external affairs division to confer with Congress. So, you know, the Affiliate Tribes, the Northwest Indians, the National Congress of American Indians submitted some very detailed comments last year that I know you all and Mr. (Cason) has seen that identified those programmatic functions of OST and makes recommendations on where they should go, you know, that broad brush I think there was about $50 million of their FY 2017 appropriated funds that were recommended to go to other areas of the Department, most notably to BIA trust services. So I would really direct the folks on the call to look at those comments and looking at how to potentially amend this proposal and reissue it.

I guess I would also caution folks about the timing, you know, the deadline for written comments for this proposal is next month. I have to think that that is intended to coincide with some kind of internal deadline for submitting material to OMB for the FY2019 budget request. I guess what I’d caution is that I mean if the written comments play out, like, the comments on this call have been, I think the consensus is going to be that Indian Country doesn’t want to see OST moved to AS-IA fully intact. But there’s going to be some areas of OST that should go other places.

So, you know, under Section 306 of the law as, you know, any cost savings that would result from a function of OST no longer being carried out would need to be identified and provided to TBIC so that TBIC can make recommendations on how those funds should be reallocated. So I guess I would just caution folks on the timing, you know, there may be a rush to try and get this consultation done so that you can get detailed stuff into the budget request for 2019 but I think that would be a mistake. NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 22

I think there needs to be more time here because we don’t want an imperfect transition or a duplicative one or one that doesn’t really encapsulate Indian Country, one with ITARA. We don’t want them memorialized into this

budget request and into future budget requests. Thank you.

Jerry Gidner: Thank you and I did just want to point out since there’s been a number of comments on budgets that, you know, in the past the budget was I think in the $229-$220 million range with the FY2018 proposed budget. Our budget is $119 million and it’s a roughly $20 million, $19 million cut from the FY2017 budget. So we are definitely a reduced budget environment in OST and really trying to figure out what is it that we are not going to be doing going forward and how many people we are not going to have on our payroll say by the end of 2019 to get to these budget numbers.

So I’ll just leave it at that. Our budget is drastically reduced from where it was and that’s a struggle for us going forward to figure out how we do what

we do with the amount of money that we have.

(Brian Gunn): Well Jerry this is (Brian) again. I think that’s why it’s important to make sure that this reorg proposal with respect to OST is done right, you know, I appreciate that the budget is not at its peak as it was more than a decade ago but, you know, realistically with the exception of the Trust Beneficiary Call Center, you know, I think most tribal leaders don’t really know what OST does or don’t see them on a day-to-day basis. So, you know, again I would just direct you to those joint comments and say in 2018 I’ve provided that the Department officials all have and look at those recommendations going forward and, you know, we look forward to submitting comments and to working with you all on this. NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 23

Jerry Gidner: Thanks (Brian). For those on the call who don’t know, the comments we received from the ITARA consultations in 2016 are all up on the OST website and any comments that come in from this process will be as well.

So everything is up there for everybody to take a look at.

Coordinator: Currently there are no callers in the queue. As a reminder to ask a

question or make a comment please press Star 1.

Jerry Gidner: So this is Jerry Gidner again. We did set the time for this consultation from 1:00 to 4:00 Eastern Time. We will keep the line open and monitor it in case any latecomers call in we can have the discussion with them unless there’s any other comments that people want to make, we would welcome them. But otherwise we’ll just be concluding this at 2:00, in a minute or so.

And you’re welcome to stay on and see if somebody else calls in and listen to that discussion. But otherwise we have nothing else to say at this point and we thank you for your comments and participating, and we look forward to your comments and working with you going forward on this proposal. So other than that, in about a minute here, we’ll conclude and we’ll stay on the line in case other folks from Indian Country join us, but otherwise we’ll be done and thank you.

This is Jerry Gidner again. I think we’re going to be ending the call here in just a minute. There will be another identical session tomorrow at 9am ET. I believe the same call in information and of course we await your written comments. So thank you everybody for participating and we’ll talk to you all

another time.

Coordinator: This does conclude today’s conference. Thank you for your participation.

You may disconnect. NWX-DEPT OF INTERIOR-NBC Moderator: Elizabeth Appel 12-13-17/12:00 pm CT Confirmation # 5862740 Page 24

END