WASHINGTON — As the White House increases pressure on the U.S. Congress to pass another Covid relief bill that would provide funding for new therapeutics, treatments and vaccines later this fall, tribal leaders are not receiving a clear answer from top administration officials on whether they support taking tribally-designated federal monies away to pay for these goals.

Background: This issue gained attention in early April when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) struck a deal with U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) to deliver $10 billion in funding for American Covid needs by repurposing unspent pandemic funds left over from the Democrats’ 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

The agreement ultimately could not pass the full Senate because Republicans tied its passage to anti-immigration pandemic policy that had passed during the Trump administration.

But Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, raised concerns about tribal clawbacks included in the bill — hundreds of millions of dollars worth — and he was the only Senate Democrat to also vote on principle against the package, along with all Republicans.

Wyden has closley watched the inequities of pandemic relief aid to tribes under both the Trump and Biden administrations, and he has been concerned that tribes that have statistically received less — including poor tribes and large, land-based ones — will end up seeing portions of monies removed by Congress before the U.S. Treasury Department even develops a plan for getting the monies out.

Some tribal leaders, at the same time, have felt betrayed by Schumer on this issue, since he says he strongly supports tribal interests on a variety of fronts (“we’re with you all the way”), but he has not carved out pandemic protections for struggling tribes within the new Covid legisaltion he personally negotiated.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren also notably told Indigenous Wire in April that if the tribal Covid cuts pass Congress that lawmakers “must take immediate steps to restore every penny of the funding in future legislation.”

Where we are now: The White House, meanwhile, has felt stymied by the legisaltive inaction, and it is ramping up pressure to get a bill done, but officials there won’t publicly say whether the Biden administration is specifically supportive of tribal clawbacks.

The White House has gone so far as to say that 100 million more Covid infections could happen this fall and winter, and it is using those numbers to indicate a bill must pass now. But experts are not at all clear on the underlying data for those projections, noting that the number could be high, or even low, especially if new variants take root, as they have time and again.

Still, the White House, in announcing yesterday that it was making each U.S. household eligible for 8 more Covid tests, re-emphasized its desire for a bill now.

“Due to Congress's failure to provide additional funding for the nation's Covid-19 response, the Administration cannot continue making the types of federal investments needed to sustain domestic testing manufacturing capacity, and this may jeopardize the federal government's ability to provide free tests moving forward,” a fact sheet released by the White House said.

Echoed Ron Klain, chief of staff at the White House, on Twitter on May 12: “Let’s be clear: if NEW boosters and vaccines and treatments are needed in the fall to deal with new variants, we can either have them in time, or repeat 2020 again. That’s the choice.”

White House staffers have been repeatedly asked by tribes whether their own choice is inclusive of tribal clawbacks.

Crickets so far.

Tribal response: Tribes have already been working Capitol Hill on this matter, because they know that additional Covid funding could pass at any time. Lawmakers and their staff and some adminstration officials have been surprised that the tribes that have the most to lose have been so closely keyed in here.

“We’re poor, we’re not stupid,” Fort Belknap councilman Derek Azure told Indigenous Wire in April. “We’re not going to let this happen without a fight.”

Tribes are now circulating a policy paper to lawmakers, noting that within the American Rescue Plan Act, Congress created a program called the Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund, otherwise known as Section 605. Wyden was a major champion of it.

The fund is made up of $500 million for fiscal years 2022 and 2023 for Indian tribes to use for “any governmental purpose.”

The U.S. Department of the Treasury is responsible for the allocation of the fund, but to date has failed to distribute any of the monies from it.

At the same time, tribal leaders are noting that Congress now wants to offset the cost of the new Covid bill using at least half of the unapportioned Section 605 monies.

• “While some Tribal nations – particularly those with successful casinos – have started to recover from the COVID pandemic, many Tribal nations continue to struggle and have relied on federal assistance to get their communities through the pandemic so far,” according to the policy paper received by some lawmakers. “Those rural Tribal communities who historically suffer from high rates of poverty and unemployment are getting hard hit by inflation right now. These are the same communities that still lack reliable broadband and have not been able to evolve into the virtual workplace or education like some of their wealthier or more urban counterparts.”

• “Cutting the remaining Tribal programs in ARPA to help offset new COVID relief funding will only harm those Native Americans that need the additional assistance the most.”

• “We believe that there are other areas better suited for off-sets than the remaining Tribal funding in ARPA. We urge Congress to look elsewhere for offsets, such as increased enforcement against waste, fraud and abuse of the Paycheck Protection Program administered by the SBA.”

Tribal leaders are instead asking Congress to direct the Treasury Department to allocate the funds within a definite timeframe and to provide more guidance to Treasury on how to allocate the funds.