FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

It is a privilege for me to meet with leaders of the Indian nations of the South and East today to discuss how Treasury can assist in the work you are doing to promote greater prosperity and economic opportunity for the people of your Tribes. I am well aware of the services USET provides to each of you in discharging your responsibilities of tribal leadership, by representing you before government bodies and in speaking out publicly and proudly about the contributions your Tribes make to the United States. On behalf of Secretary Summers, I especially want to thank you for the assistance you are giving to Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund in preparing the Native American Lending Study requested by the Congress, to our Office of Thrift Supervision in helping organize the Native American Conference to be held in Connecticut in July, and to the IRS in modernizing its programs of tax administration and taxpayer education in Indian communities.

I see by your program that I am the last of thirty speakers you have heard over the past four days. I will not try to summarize all that has been said before. I would only say that there is a strong commitment throughout our government to work with you on issues of your concern. And, as you have seen, there are a large number of dedicated and talented people engaged with these issues at a policy level, who respect your institutions and believe that working with you for the benefit of your people is the work they want to do in public life.

In his State of the Union speech last week, President Clinton described the extraordinary progress the American economy has made in recent years. He said that to keep our expansion going into the 21^st century, we would need to open new markets, start new businesses and hire new workers in places that have not shared that prosperity. At the top of his list in that regard were Indian reservations. He described an expanded program to "honor", as he put it, "our historic responsibility to empower the first Americans."

In this Administration we take that responsibility seriously. The Administration's Fiscal Year 2000 Budget increases funding for programs assisting Native Americans and Indian reservations by $1.2 billion. You have been briefed over the last three days on a series of programs in the fields of health, housing, education and economic development. All have common elements of respect for your sovereignty, a desire for your input, and a belief that real progress can be made on what for so long have seemed intractable problems.

Until quite recently, Treasury played little role in the economic affairs of Indian country. A few years ago, however, our then Comptroller of the Currency, Eugene Ludwig, began to address the inadequacy of banking services on reservations, which had very few branch banks and almost no ATM machines. The Comptroller's Office sponsored a banking and economic development conference in 1998 and, in conjunction with the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC has been engaged in a series of actions to educate banks and thrifts to the needs of reservations and bring tribes into partnership with nearby financial institutions to stimulate more lending and investment. Those activities began a process where, for the first time in its history, the Treasury reached out to find new and imaginative ways to make its resources available to Native American community. Our Department has learned much from these experiences. In this regard, we are indebted to many patient and understanding tribal leaders, several of whom are in this room. We are, I believe, beginning to make some concrete contributions to Native American communities.

OTS has co-sponsored conferences on Indian housing and economic development issues in each of the past two years. This year's conference, in Connecticut in July, will be tailored to the needs of the Eastern and Southern tribes. Representatives of federal agencies and Indian leaders will participate in practical workshops covering such subjects as private financing, government loans and operating a business.

Since 1996, $7.7 million in awards have been given to ten Community Development Financial Institutions that are serving Native American communities throughout the country. These awards are used to assist new small business start-ups, consumer loans, home mortgages, and technical assistance. During this past year, the CDFI Fund has been conducting a comprehensive study on barriers to capital access and credit for Native American communities. In the course of this study, on which you were briefed yesterday, the Fund has held 13 regional workshops with Tribal leaders, economists, public officials and representatives of private sector financial institutions. They identified existing barriers and their impact on Native American access to capital and credit, described their impact, and developed strategies and actions for improvement. The final study report should come out this fall. I am sure it will recommend practical and beneficial ways to increase capital access and investment to your communities and help establish more self-sustaining reservation economies.

Another part of Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, has established a new office devoted exclusively to working with Indian tribes on a government-to-government basis. This office, whose new director Christie Jacobs was introduced to you on Tuesday, will offer "one stop" service to tribes and their members to help them in understanding and complying with the tax laws.

Our Office of Community Development Policy, in cooperation with HUD's Office of Native American Programs, is participating in the One-Stop Mortgage initiative, to identify and eliminate public and private sector barriers to homeownership in Indian Country and encourage grass-roots intermediaries to help prepare households for home ownership. In addition, we are working with the Business Roundtable to extend its BusinessLINC initiative, which tries to foster successful business relationships between tribes, their members and outside investors and firms

Through all of Treasury's activities in Indian country runs the common belief that the promise of sovereignty and the substantial reduction of poverty and dependency rests on the ability of Indian communities to plan and implement their own economic future. Some tribes have made impressive strides in economic development. Others are just beginning to deal with the opportunities and the struggles of fuller participation in the nation's economy.

We stand ready to work with you on a government-to-government basis to facilitate this objective. We can help build bridges of understanding and cooperation between tribal communities and outside investors and financial institutions. We can help develop the array of public and private institutions necessary for expanding access to capital and financing business on. We can provide technical assistance to tribal enterprises, businesses and community development financial institutions.

We need your continued advice and assistance as we try to enrich Treasury's activities in Native American communities over the next several years. So I hope that you will welcome the Department of the Treasury onto your communities as a friend, and make full use of the resources and people we have available to help you. I hope you will continue to give us the benefit of your views and your experience, so that we can be more effective in the exciting new ventures we have undertaken.

We look forward to a very constructive relationship with USET members, and with the other tribes across the country, so that you can play an active part in the great adventure of developing the American economy for all our people in the 21^st century.

Thank you.