Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell will be in the nation’s capital on Tuesday, July 24, to testify before the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources in support of bipartisan legislation to protect the historic tribe’s reservation lands.
The hearing for HR-5244, originally filed by U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-MA in the U.S. House of Representatives, is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m.
“We are extremely grateful to Congressman Keating, the Massachusetts Congressional delegation, the bipartisan group of co-sponsors who have signed onto this legislation -- and the dozens of tribal nations across Indian Country who have come out in support of this bill,” said Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell.
“I am also grateful for the opportunity to testify before the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources where I intend to applaud Congress for moving in the right direction with the Mashpee Reservation Reaffirmation Act, and to highlight why it is imperative that Congress exercise its’ plenary authority to prevent the disestablishment of our reservation land as soon as possible,” Cromwell said. “Re-affirming our right to a reservation for our people is just and honorable, and will ensure that our Tribe is treated equally under the law as other federally recognized tribes.”
The bill, first filed in March, now has 18 bipartisan co-sponsors, including six key Republican representatives. If passed, the legislation would re-affirm the status of the Tribe’s reservation, which ended the Tribe's landlessness when it was established by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2015.