TO: Indian Gaming Association Member Tribes & Partners

FROM: Ernest L. Stevens Jr., Chairman
Jason Giles, Executive Director

RE: Current Issues Update

Date: May 5, 2025

To our Member Tribes and Partners,  I have heard from many of you about concerns with significant changes to the federal government, and the programs and policies that are vital to Indian Country. To address these challenges, the Indian Gaming Association is working with all of Indian Country and our Tribal Organizations to to educate Members of Congress and the Administration on the need to protect Tribal sovereignty and the political status of Tribal Governments under our federal system.  Our message is simple: Indian Tribes are governments, and that fact is engrained in the text of the United States Constitution. Upon its formation, the United States acknowledged the sovereign authority of Indian tribes and entered into hundreds of treaties to establish commerce and trade agreements, form alliances, and preserve the peace. Through these treaties, Indian tribes ceded hundreds of millions of acres of tribal homelands to help build this great Nation. In return, the United States promised to provide for the education, health, public safety and general welfare of Indian people. The U.S. Constitution specifically acknowledges these treaties and the sovereign authority of Indian tribes as separate governments. The Commerce Clause provides that “Congress shall have power to … regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.” By its very text, the Constitution establishes the framework for the federal government-to-government relationship with Indian tribes. We understand that the zone has been flooded with information, challenges, and changes at the federal level. We also know what we can accomplish when we stand together with one voice. The Indian Gaming Association is proud to stand with the Coalition for Tribal Sovereignty. The Coalition unites the voices of twenty-six national and regional organizations committed to protecting tribal sovereignty and improving the lives of Indian Country’s residents. To highlight your concerns, the Indian Gaming Association, with our sister organizations, has convened a Tribal Leaders Summit that will take place at the IGA Townhouse in Washington, D.C. on May 13-14. I urge you to join us. Below are some of the issues that will be the focus of our Summit.  Core Operations of the National Indian Gaming Commission IGA’s mission is to protect tribal sovereignty and to preserve Tribal government self-reliance through Indian gaming. The Indian gaming industry remains the most successful tool for economic development in Indian Country. In 2024, Indian gaming generated a total of $49.1 Billion in direct and ancillary revenue. Our industry delivered nearly 700,000 jobs for rural American families last year. These jobs provide many in Indian Country with their first opportunity to work at home on the reservation. Indian gaming revenues continue to rebuild our communities, serving as the anchor for our economies.  In recent months several challenges have emerged to our industry. Actions of the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) have stressed the core operating functions of the National Indian Gaming Commission (“NIGC”). While Tribal governments and Indian gaming oversee the day-to-day regulation of Indian gaming, Congress established the NIGC to serve as an independent federal regulatory authority for Indian gaming.  The NIGC serves several key functions set forth by statute in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (“IGRA”), including reviewing gaming ordinances and management contracts, providing training and technical assistance to tribal regulators – which has been critical in recent years with growing cyber-security threats, processing fingerprints for candidates to serve as key employees and primary management officials, and issuing declination letters – which are relied on by Tribal governments, banks, and financial institutions to ensure that financial arrangements comply with IGRA, among other key functions. The importance of these services cannot be overstated. The degradation of these services poses a direct threat to the Indian gaming industry.  The NIGC is fully funded by fees collected directly from the tribal governments it regulates; it receives no other federal funding. However, we understand that the Commission has been subjected to the administrative hiring freeze, employee buyouts, and administrative cuts. While DOGE claims to have saved American taxpayers $260,000 through these and other cuts at the NIGC, the truth is that the deferred resignation program means paying approximately $1,300,000 to employees who are for all purposes are separated from the Commission and no longer performing work on its behalf. The true results of these actions are a twenty-percent (20%) reduction in overall staffing overall at the NIGC. Staff levels at the Office of General Counsel are down forty-four percent (40%), leaving only nine attorneys to complete the agency’s compliance work for more than 500 Tribal government gaming operations.  Finally, it is our understanding that the Administration may plan to close NIGC offices in Rapid City, South Dakota, which would significantly impair the Commission’s ability to serve tribes in the region. The closure of this office would be counterproductive given the concentration of tribal gaming operations in that area. Tribal regulators working together with the NIGC are key to the continued health and integrity of the tribal gaming industry. Accordingly, we strongly oppose closing this, or any, NIGC regional office, particularly given that the NIGC’s services come at no cost to American taxpayers and again are fully funded by Tribal government gaming revenues. CFTC Sports Betting Futures Contracts Another threat to Indian gaming has emerged in the form of sports betting contracts and the failure of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) to clarify that these futures contracts are prohibited from being listed or made available for clearing or trading.  Permitting sports betting contracts to be treated as futures contracts directly interferes with the sovereign right of Tribal and state governments to exercise their authority to regulate gaming within their respective territories. Trading of Sports Contracts is gaming, violates state and federal law, and is contrary to public policy. Additionally, federally approved listing and trading sports futures contracts directly violates various provisions of Tribal-state gaming compacts. The CFTC historically has rejected sports futures contracts because they directly violate the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”).  Such a sudden reverse of policy (with zero commercial, public and Congressional input) is contrary to the plain language of the CTFC’s implementing regulations and violate Tribal, state and federal laws, while raising serious risks to public policy.  Budget Reconciliation Package The obligation to provide health care to Tribal governments is the most fundamental of the federal government’s treaty and trust obligations to Indian tribes. “The provision of federal health services to American Indians and Alaska Natives is based on a special relationship between Indian Tribes and the United States. The Indian Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, as well as numerous treaties and court decisions, have affirmed this special relationship.” (HHS FY’2025 Budget Justification). President Trump has directed Congress to enact a single package to accomplish his top legislative priorities in 2025. First among these goals is extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, eliminating taxes on tips, and other tax measures. The President has directed Congress to add other policy priorities to the reconciliation package, including mandatory increases in funding for immigration and border enforcement, defense, and energy policy.  To accomplish these goals, Congress is working on a budget reconciliation package, which requires only a simple majority of both chambers. In April, the House and Senate adopted a budget reconciliation resolution. In the coming days however, Congress must make critical decisions of how it will offset the costs of these priorities. One critical target under consideration is cuts or reforms to Medicaid. Congress must preserve full federal funding for Medicaid services provided to Native Americans by exempting these services as it did in the American Health Care Act of 2017, and through various CMS-approved Medicaid work requirements. Failure to exempt critical Indian health care resources would clearly violate the government’s treaty and trust obligations and will have devastating impacts for our citizens.  Preserving access to the Medicaid program for Indian health care providers will not have any material impact on the overall goals of cost cutting set forth in the budget framework. The IHS projects billing Medicaid $1.3 billion in FY’25 for Indian health care. This represents 0.213% of overall federal medical assistance payments forecasted in FY’25. At the same time, this funding is essential to preserving access to needed care throughout Indian Country.  Medicaid funding represents 30 – 60 % of the annual budget for many individual tribal health care systems. Cuts to Medicaid will cripple health services throughout Indian Country. Indian Country is calling on Congress to protect the fragile financing of the Indian health care system. While we are closely focused on limiting adverse impacts in the reconciliation bill, we are also working on opportunities for policy gains in the form of tax parity for Tribal governments. As noted above, tax reform will be a major piece of the reconciliation package. We are working with our champions in Congress to include positive provisions for Indian Country in the reconciliation package that will bring parity to the Tax Code for purposes of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, the New Markets Tax Credit, Tax Exempt Bonds and other measures that are afforded to state and local governments and territories, but which exclude tribal governments.  FY’2026 Budget and Appropriations As noted above, the Administration through DOGE has taken actions to make the federal government more efficient and accountable. Indian Country shares the goal of reducing unnecessary federal regulations and streamlining programs and services. However, these goals must adhere to the government’s solemn treaty and trust obligations to Tribal governments, and no changes can go forward without full and meaningful consultation with Indian tribes.  In May and June, the Interior Department will hold a series of Tribal leader consultations to consider DOGE’s “Workforce Optimization Initiative”. Similar restructuring is taking place at other agencies. At the same time, it will be on Congress and congressional appropriators to consider codifying DOGE’s actions and the Administration’s pending FY’26 Budget proposal through the annual appropriations process.  Congress has only five months remaining to set funding levels for FY’26. On May 2, 2025, the President released a blueprint of his FY’2026 budget proposal to Congress. A more detailed proposal will be delivered later this month, but the blueprint seeks to increase defense spending by 13% and slash non-defense discretionary funding by $163 billion – a 22.6% cut. The budget blueprint also seeks to cut Interior Department spending by 30% overall, including significant proposed cuts to BIA and BIE programs.  The President’s budget proposal is not law. It represents the administration’s funding priorities, and Congress, through its constitutionally designated power of the purse, will make the final decisions on funding levels for federal programs and services for the coming fiscal year. President Trump in his first term proposed similar significant cuts that were ultimately rejected by Congress. To ensure that these proposed cuts are again rejected, we must voice our concerns with this proposal and list Indian Country’s funding priorities, as many Tribal leaders have already done.  Despite the delay in the appropriations process this year, congressional appropriators have held hearings to receive funding priorities from various stakeholders, including Indian Country. From February 25 – 27, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies held a series of hearings to receive testimony from 100 tribal leaders and tribal organizations who shared their funding priorities for FY’26 and ongoing concerns with executive actions on federal programs and services.  The Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee sets annual funding levels for the BIA, BIE, IHS and other agencies and programs critical to meeting the government’s solemn treaty and trust obligations to Indian Country. However, Tribal governments as well as state and local governments rely on funding throughout executive agencies, which rely on funding levels established by 11 other appropriations subcommittees, including Agriculture, Justice, Transportation, HUD, Health and Human Services and others.  The coming months will be critical to protecting and preserving key programs and services relied on by Tribal governments and the residents of Indian Country. To accomplish our mission, as we have done with every incoming administration and new Congress – and as our ancestors have done before us – we must tell our story and history, educate decision makers, and hold them to account.  Sincerely, Ernest L. Stevens, Jr Chairman