November 21, 2022

Dear USET/USET SPF Family,

As a reminder, tomorrow, November 22^nd, is the deadline to add your Tribal Nation to the National Indian Health Board’s sign-on letter supporting the enactment of Advance Appropriations for the Indian Health Service (IHS) this year. Please see our previous alert below for more details.

In addition, the Congressional Native American Caucus is sending a "Dear Colleague" letter to leadership of the House Appropriations Committee, similar to this letter sent in June 2022, urging them to support both working toward authorizing a shift to mandatory funding for the IHS, and advance appropriations for FY2024 in the FY2023 appropriations bill. Congress is set to continue negotiations on FY2023 appropriations ahead of December 16^th, when the current Continuing Resolution (CR) expires. We request and strongly encourage USET SPF member Tribal Nations to contact their House delegations and request that they sign onto the Dear Colleague letter.  

The Congressional Native American Caucus is accepting additional co-signers on the letter until close of business on December 2nd, 2022 and will send the final version to House Appropriations Leadership soon after as negotiations on FY2023 appropriations continue. 

For more information, please contact Ashton Martin, USET SPF Health Policy Analyst, at amartin@usetinc.org.

November 11, 2022

Dear USET/USET SPF Family,

USET SPF continues to work in concert with partner organizations to secure advance appropriations for the Indian Health Service (IHS). Advance appropriations is funding that becomes available 1-year or more after appropriations bill in which it is contained. USET SPF continues to support advance appropriations as an important mechanism to provide short-term certainty in funding to Tribal Nations and urges that it be extended to IHS and all federal Indian programs. As part of these efforts, USET SPF has signed onto letters led by the National Indian Health Board to Congressional leadership and the White House urging the codification of advance appropriations for the IHS this year. 

We strongly encourage USET SPF member Tribal Nations to sign onto the letters here. The deadline for signing onto the letters is Tuesday, November 22, 2022. In addition, we urge you to reach out to Congressional leadership, Appropriators, and your own delegations to urge that Advance Appropriations for IHS be included in Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 appropriations. Indian Country has been working nearly a decade to achieve this critical, common sense, and long overdue change in policy. We are committed to seeing to change realized and ask that you join us in these continued efforts.

For additional background on Advance Appropriations, please see recent testimony before the House Natural Resources Committee delivered by USET SPF President Kirk Francis.

For more information, please contact Ashton Martin, USET SPF Health Policy Analyst, at amartin@usetinc.org

Established in 2014, the USET Sovereignty Protection Fund (USET SPF) is a non-profit, inter-Tribal organization advocating on behalf of thirty-three (33) federally recognized Tribal Nations from the Northeastern Woodlands to the Everglades and across the Gulf of Mexico. USET SPF is dedicated to promoting, protecting, and advancing the inherent sovereign rights and authorities of Tribal Nations and in assisting its membership in dealing effectively with public policy issues.