The offices where United States domestic policy is shaped can be far removed from the communities that deal with the impacts of those policies.
Recently, President Joe Biden’s domestic policy advisor took a trip to Alaska to see the on-the-ground impact of federal programs. She focused on issues like housing, education, health care, public safety, and how those issues affect Alaska Native people.
U.S. Domestic Policy Council chair Neera Tanden sat down with KYUK at the end of her time in Bethel on Aug. 30 to talk about what she plans to take back to the president.
This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and flow and may contain transcription errors.
KYUK (Sage Smiley): Thank you so much for joining KYUK today. Can you first of all just introduce yourself? Who are you?
Neera Tanden: I'm Neera Tanden, I'm the chair of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, and I'm the Domestic Policy Advisor to the President. So the Domestic Policy Council oversees the President's work on health care, education, all of his domestic policy issues – crime, housing and Native issues. And so I'm visiting Alaska to focus on both Native Alaskan issues, but also the connection to housing, education, health care, [and] public safety. And that's why I'm here.
KYUK: So yeah, that was going to be my next question is: what brings you to Bethel, specifically, what are you looking at while you're here?
Tanden: So I visited the local hospital, [Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation], and had a great conversation on healthcare with leaders of [Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation], their CEO and others, and also talked to leaders in the local community around housing issues, public safety issues, other issues. And then I just visited Napakiak, which is really fascinating, to get a better understanding of the needs of tribes and local communities, and looked at their infrastructure. And what was really interesting about that community is they're having significant erosion, and I'm proud to say that because of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, they've received $25 million to move their community. Their school is right on the erosion line, and so it was great to see the new school they're building. It really is, you know, we have a lot of conversations about climate change in the entire country, but really seeing the impact of a community that has to be uprooted and move in order to address it was really fascinating. I'm in Washington [D.C.] most of the time. Washington [D.C.] and the White House can feel like a little bit of a bubble. This is really important to see how programs work, where our funding is going, and how, most importantly, how we can be, at the federal level, a better partner. The President wants to ensure that we are serving every community in every state, and so it's helpful to get out and see that.
KYUK: What are you hearing from people here in the [Yukon-Kuskokwim] Delta, about public safety, about housing, about those health issues? What have you heard on your visit so far?
Tanden: Well, it's been really interesting. So I've worked on a range of issues, but have spent a lot of time on health care. And so the local health care system has really grown up to be a relatively sophisticated system. It sort of has a hub and spoke model. There's one tertiary hospital, and then the local hospital, [Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation], in Bethel, and then the clinics. When we went to Napakiak, we saw one of the local clinics there and how they sort of all feed up.
But I've also heard a lot about the challenge of a lack of public safety infrastructure, particularly in villages and communities, and in Napakiak, they were very lucky – they think of themselves as very lucky to have a few tribal police officers, but in many communities, they don't, and that has been identified as a huge need. And I really think that's, you know, from the perspective of the Biden-Harris administration, we are very focused on reducing crime rates around the country. Alaska has unfortunately had an increasing murder rate at a time where other places, much of the country, has had a declining murder rate. So I think that's an issue I will definitely take back and try to think through ways we could build support for for public safety and creating a better public safety system, much like this entire health system has been built up, there should be something like that where there's access to public safety wherever you are, and at least have some officers who can get to an emergency very quickly. And so that has been really interesting.
I've also heard a lot about housing issues and the challenge of housing construction in many parts of the country, one of the big challenges is house land costs. That seems less of an issue here, but the costs of construction are much greater. So those are a few of the issues I've heard about.
KYUK: What does that policy development process look like? So you come out to a place like Bethel, or you go to Napakiak, and you hear these things from people. And how do you go about then thinking about developing policy on a federal level that's actually going to have the intended impact in a tiny community like Napakiak or even in a bigger, but still very small, community like Bethel?
Tanden: You know, the federal government is a very complicated place, but I'd say to try to basically simplify it as much as possible, at the Domestic Policy Council, we work with a variety of agencies, whether it's Health and Human Services or Housing and Urban Development or Education or Department of Justice. So on all of these domestic issues, we engage – I work with the cabinet secretary to address the President's priorities. So in a way, when I hear about a problem in a local community I can bring that information back. I can talk to the cabinet secretary or deputy secretary. And I really think it's important to understand what programs are available. For example, public safety, there's Community Oriented Policing Service grants at the Department of Justice, obviously the Bureau of Indian Affairs has funding for these issues. Even the Department of Homeland Security has funding. So you know, it's just thinking through where you can troubleshoot within the government to try to address those issues. It's hard to create programs from scratch. You often need Congress. You know, obviously there's an incredibly active delegation with both Sens. Murkowski and Sullivan, as well as Congresswoman Peltola. They are strong advocates for Alaska, and they do a great job of connecting with the White House and others to ensure that the government is really delivering. But, you know, it's really understanding the problem and then looking at what programs can be helpful, and then connecting the problem to the solution.
KYUK: So one of the major issues faced by a lot of communities in the [Yukon-Kuskokwim] Delta is climate change. Napakiak is a great example. Erosion is eating away roughly 30 feet of riverbank every year, sometimes more. And the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium last year came out with a report that said that at least 140 communities in the state are at pretty imminent need of relocation, either partially or full, or retreat from erosion and those sorts of things, and that part of the issue facing those communities is a lack of a kind of federal system to help fund community relocations. And I'm wondering if you've heard anything about that, or what the administration is doing to sort of help address those slow moving disaster, climate relocation sort of issues that are faced by so many communities in this region?
Tanden: So there was funding in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that the President passed in the last Congress, and that funding, there's $25 million of that funding that went to Napakiak. We totally understand there's a huge need. I think one of our challenges on these kinds of issues, just frankly, is that climate change is a more polarizing issue, and so it is hard to get funding to ameliorate the effects of climate change if you don't think climate change is happening. We passed a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and there were lots of members. That was a bipartisan bill, but the easiest way to get a stable amount of funding is to have a program that is ongoing. And because obviously climate change is happening, it's happening now into the future, it would be better to have a stable source of funding for that. And unfortunately, we haven't really created new climate programs themselves outside of these big bills that the President passed. So I'm very proud of the fact that you can really see the results of the investment and Napakiak being able to move their school and dozens of homes more inland, but I completely understand how, you know, a lot more resources are needed for this. Because it's not that the community did something that made it, you know, the reason that they're being, in a sense, victimized is this collective problem that we have, and they are really bearing the brunt of it. So I firmly believe that we have a collective responsibility to address this and ameliorate as much as we can, but that takes a lot of bipartisan consensus. So I would also say where you have Republican leaders who are going to be advocates on that, they can be even more influential.
KYUK: What's been most surprising in your visit to Alaska so far?
Tanden: I'd say, I think the most interesting and surprising issue is public safety, and the lack of a kind of public safety infrastructure with a lot of the tribes and in these extremely rural communities where there aren't access to roads. You really do need a system where there's at least a public safety officer relatively close by. And it's really interesting thinking about this at the federal level. The Biden-Harris administration has been focused on increasing the number of Community-Oriented Police, as well as the number of detectives, because we believe really strongly that if you solve crimes quickly, you know you have less recidivism, you actually have less crime overall. So that's been a core strategy. But you can't really clear crimes if you don't have public safety officers. So it is really surprising to me that this is not an area where the state [of Alaska] has kind of partnered up here. But that's something that I will definitely take back to the Department of Justice and others. Because it really shouldn't be the case that in 2024 if a murder happens in a community that it takes days for a police officer to come and really investigate. I heard a story today of somebody who had a family member murdered, and they wanted to get a trooper out to the location. It was a kind of remote village, at night, and the trooper wouldn't leave until the next day. But evidence goes missing. We know, for example, we know as a fact that the more resources you put on a murder within the first 24 hours, the more likely you are to get a conviction. And so that seems to me an area where we really have to ensure that there's a federal, state, local partnership. These are Americans who should be able to have public safety officers, and that seems a bit of responsibility that all of us should come together and try to address.
KYUK: What's next for you on this trip to Alaska?
Tanden: Well, I have to confess that I am leaving tonight. So it has been a relatively short trip. I came in the day before yesterday, and I was in Anchorage yesterday, and in Anchorage I learned about a lot of problems for the state, particularly with Alaska Native communities on, as I talked about, housing and health care, very specific issues like the challenge around a real cutback in the salmon, availability of fishing salmon. And learned about a number of issues. I learned of a number of solutions there that we could take on. And it also, you know, Alaska is just a fascinating government structure, very different from every other state. It's fascinating to go to Alaska because obviously it is a very different state from every other state. I’m definitely factoring in that it is the largest state, and two and a half times the size of Texas, and so I do think it's important for us as policymakers in Washington [D.C.] to come to a state like Alaska. I met with Sen. Murkowski a few years ago, and she asked me if I'd been to Alaska and I had to confess I hadn't. And she really impressed on me the need to come to Alaska because it is such a different experience. And I do think I might be one of the first Domestic Policy Council chairs to actually come to Alaska during my tenure as [Domestic Policy Council] chair. And I think it really does make a big difference to be able to see, like I said, some basic infrastructure needs, like public safety officers and how we should, you know, we need to step up in that direction. It's also important to see how investments we've made, have really charted, made a difference. I was at the hospital today, [Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation], and I talked to the CEO, and he knew I worked on the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, and he said the hospital wouldn't have been able to be built without Obamacare because of the Medicaid expansion. So that was really rewarding as well.
KYUK: So you've mentioned pieces of this, but I want to ask the question directly: what are you leaving with? What are you taking away from this trip to Alaska?
Tanden: You know, I'm really taking away that it's always critical for the federal government to play a very constructive role on particular issues. I mean, I guess I would say I spoke to an Elder who was a leader of one of the Alaska Native communities. And he really said to me that the federal government relationship, the federal government to tribe relationship is so central to their success. And that's just a crucial reminder. And of course, I've been to other tribes in the lower 48 as you call them here. But I do think the number and breadth of tribes that are here, and just the culture and the history is an important reminder of why the Federal Government role is really vital, and that it's important for us to play a constructive, positive role. I will say one other thing that is really instructive is that the President recently signed this [Executive Order]. Well, last year he signed this [Executive Order], Executive Order 14112, that really reordered the relationship between the federal government and tribes by pushing for greater flexibility and really support the autonomy of tribes. And in our minds, it was a [Executive Order] that was to give life to the concept of self determination, or greater life to the concept of self determination. And in every facet of my visit, I've seen how important that is as a principle, and how important the [Executive Order] is a tool for tribes to use with agencies to really create that relationship.
KYUK: Is there anything we haven't touched on that you'd want to say about your trip to Alaska or Bethel specifically?
Tanden: I mean, just about Bethel specifically, I think what's really interesting about Bethel has just been having some perspective from my visit to Napakiak, what a central role it plays as the hub for a very large community of tribes and Alaska Native communities, how central it is. Obviously interesting to see the hospital and learn of the housing issues and education and other issues, but it's always important to see how one community is so vital to so many others.
KYUK: Well, thank you so much for your time, and travel well.
Tanden: Thank you. Thank you so much.
