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Office of Public Affairs
The Snyder Act of 1921 authorizes Indian Affairs to operate programs for the benefit and assistance of American Indians and Alaska Natives throughout the United States. The Act is one of several legislative reforms that was designed to improve the living conditions for American Indians on reservations and in government boarding schools.
Born out of necessity after significant coordination and communication issues during response and recovery efforts during Hurricane Katrina (2005), the BIA, the Indian Health Service (IHS), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) formed the Tribal Assistance Coordination Group (TAC-G). Its initial focus was to help insure close and consistent coordination and communication between these three critical partners assisting Tribes impacted by emergencies and disasters.
The TAC-G is led and managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs Emergency Management (BIA EM) Program to provide an environment where all appropriate federal department and agencies can fulfill their respective trust responsibilities.
The TAC-G hosts monthly information conference calls the first Thursday of each month at 1:00pm EST with the exception of holidays and/or ongoing real-world incidents. The calls have a pre-determined agenda but also leaves time for participants to share key information. It also conducts an annual workshop that provides a highly collaborative learning environment with no cost for attendance (travel costs are the participants responsibility).
To request a meeting invitation or would like more information, please contact tacginfo@bia.gov.
There are numerous federal, state, and county resources that have federal trust responsibilities to support Tribes when emergencies occur. The following entities are frequently requested resources.
As a coordinating body, the TAC-G reaches out to all appropriate partners for available capabilities for unmet needs that can be provided under a variety of authorities. The TAC-G attempts to locate the geographically closest capabilities and also understands and respects the uniqueness and sovereignty of Tribal Governments.
A Rapid Needs Assessment Team (RNAT) can be requested from the TAC-G to help specifically identify unmet needs and what capabilities are required for the necessary assistance. This can be a single person or small team of three to five subject matter experts to evaluate the entire incident including public health, engineering, environmental natural cultural and historic assessments, or other Tribal emergency needs.
The TAC-G uses a capability-based request for assistance whenever possible. As an example, instead of requesting a specific piece of equipment such as a bulldozer or grader, the request would be to repair 200 feet of a gravel road, acting as a dam. This allows individual partners and agencies to survey their capabilities which may meet the need with different equipment more expeditiously. In extreme situations, the assigned RNAT can assist with the formulation of the emergency capabilities request.
Assistance that has been provided previously includes:
The TAC-G does not operate under a specific authority and therefore does not use a formal process to make requests for support; however, should a Tribe need assistance, an initial request can be sent from the Tribal emergency manager or other designated public safety official (police, fire, EMS, public works, etc.) via phone or email.
OEM will then host a brief scoping call to determine the current situation and unmet needs.
A written request (email, etc.) from Tribal leadership providing a brief overview of the situation and describes the request discussed on the scoping call is then provided to the TAG-C which will then begin to coordinate assistance.
The TAC-G 24/7 emergency contact numbers are 202-297-9817 or 202-577-5918
The Indian Affairs Emergency Management Council provides executive oversight and performance accountability and ensures wide strategies and initiatives are developed collaboratively and implemented consistently across bureaus and programs within Indian Affairs. It is responsible for supporting Bureaus with the resources necessary to prepare for and respond to mission continuity and emergency response activities.
Membership of the Council consists of the following positions:
The Council:
Chair Responsibilities
The IAEMC is chaired by the Director, Office of Emergency Management (OEM). The Chair is responsible for:
Member Responsibilities
All members identified including the Chair, perform the following roles:
The IAEMC is chaired by the Director, Office of Emergency Management (OEM) who is responsible for:
The IAEMC Chair will use the following principles in guiding IAEMC decision making:
Administration
The IAEMC will convene on a quarterly basis to discuss general business and resolve issues. The IAEMC may convene for special topic meetings during incidents, to discuss other time sensitive issues, or as otherwise requested by the Director, OEM.
If further exploration of an issue is required, IAEMC will provide the tasking to OEM for development of a recommendation, product, or solution.
In October 2022, the Department of the Interior announced a series of new law enforcement policies to advance transparent and accountable policing practices as part of the continuing implementation of President Biden’s May 2022 Executive Order on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Strengthen Public Safety. On July 13, 2023, the Department of the Interior instituted a new Department Policy for the Expedited Public Release of Body Worn Camera and Vehicle Mounted Camera Video Footage.
In the coming months, the BIA will consult with Tribes on the development of a bureau policy, consistent with the department’s policy and the president’s executive order. The BIA is committed to transparent policing and strengthening the public‘s trust in its law enforcement program.
May 19, 2023
Schurz, NV - The Sierra-Nevada Mountains along the California/Nevada border received very high snowpacks this winter and is now expecting record-breaking runoff and resulting flood events that only occurs once in five hundred years in the Walker River basin from mid-May to mid-July.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, Office of Emergency Management is located in the Office of the Director, BIA. Its mission is to ensure Tribal communities, local and regional BIA offices, BIA leadership, and external emergency management responders work together to build, sustain, and improve the capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.
BIA OEM program personnel provides emergency response support, incident coordination, and serves as a liaison between Bureau resources and other response entities to support emergency operations for disasters/emergencies on federal trust lands. Regional Coordinators also coordinate the Indian Affairs all hazard response operations and actions and provides assistance to Agency personnel and Tribal emergency management programs, recognizing and respecting the government-to-government relationship.
The OEM is responsible for coordinating BIA emergency management efforts internally, function as a liaison with Tribal communities for all phases of emergency management and collaborate with external resources, increasing the Bureau’s emergency management capacity. This mission requires significant interaction within the BIA, with other federal agencies, state governments, local governments, tribal governments and non-government organizations. This interaction emphasizes the multi-layered approach adopted for emergency management.
Policy
The Bureau of Indian Affairs Emergency Management (BIA EM) is responsible for policy development and program management of Indian Affairs activities concerning continuity of operations, disaster preparedness, planning, response and recovery. OEM represents Indian Affairs in coordinating across organizational elements of IA and interagency emergency management activities relating to Tribal affairs. This includes coordinating with and among federally recognized Tribes, federal agencies, states, and other jurisdictions to enhance preparedness and resilience of Tribal communities for disasters.
The Office of Emergency Management is headquartered in Washington, DC with virtual staff located throughout the nation to provide technical expertise and program support to BIA's 12 Regions. Learn who your regional coordinator is here.
In June 2021, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, a comprehensive effort to recognize the troubled legacy of federal Indian boarding school policies with the goal of addressing their intergenerational impact and to shed light on the traumas of the past.
Under the leadership of Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland, the Department prepared a report detailing the U.S. law and policy framework of the federal Indian boarding school system and available historical records to develop the first official list of federal Indian boarding school sites and identify associated marked and unmarked burial sites. This report lays the groundwork for the continued work of the Interior Department to address the intergenerational trauma created by policies supporting the historical federal Indian boarding school system. It reflects an extensive and first-ever inventory of federally operated Indian boarding schools, including summary profiles of each school and maps of general locations of schools in current states.
Between 1819 through the 1970s, the United States implemented policies establishing and supporting Indian boarding schools across the nation. The purpose of federal Indian boarding schools was to culturally assimilate American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children by forcibly removing them from their families and Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and Native Hawaiian Community. Indian child removal coincided with Indian territorial dispossession. The report details the conditions experienced by attendees including manual labor and discouraging or preventing American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian languages, religions, and cultural beliefs. While children attended federal Indian boarding schools, many endured physical and emotional abuse and, in some cases, died.
The investigation found that from 1819 to 1969, the federal Indian boarding school system consisted of 408 federal schools across 37 states or then territories, including 21 schools in Alaska and 7 schools in Hawaii. The investigation identified marked or unmarked burial sites at approximately 53 different schools across the system. As the investigation continues, the Department expects the number of identified burial sites to increase.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting closures of federal facilities call for further investigation. Assistant Secretary Newland recommends next steps that will be taken in a second volume, aided by a new $7 million investment from Congress through fiscal year 2022.
For more information regarding the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, go to the Department’s priority page.
Delivery of program services to the federally recognized tribes and individual Indians and Alaska Natives, whether directly or through contracts, grants or compacts, is administered by the twelve regional offices and 83 agencies that report to the BIA Deputy Director-Field Operations, located in Washington, D.C.
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