Murkowski Presses Acting AG on MMIW Crisis, State and Local Grants

Murkowski Presses Acting AG on MMIW Crisis, State and Local Grants

Washington, DC-U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) today questioned Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche on the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Fiscal Year 2027 budget request, focusing on substantial cuts to grant programs for local and state governments and the consolidation of offices that play a critical role in achieving justice for Alaskans.

Murkowski also pressed the Acting Attorney General on the removal of the Not Invisible Act Commission's final report from the DOJ and Department of the Interior (DOI) websites. Mr. Blanche committed to looking into the report's removal and following up with Murkowski, while also affirming his commitment to Tribal justice initiatives.

Click here to watch the Senator and Blanche's exchange.

Please find a full transcript of the exchange below.

Full Transcript

Senator Murkowski: Acting Attorney General, thank you for being here this morning and responding to our questions. I want to follow on a couple that have been asked with regards to the Department of Justice's state and local law enforcement programs.

(There is) $1.2 billion in proposed cuts. We're looking at it very carefully because many of these grants and programs have a significant impact on our state-small population, large area to deal with. The budget also calls for the consolidation of the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), and the Office of Justice Programs (OJP). Is the Office of Tribal Justice one of the offices that is also intended to be consolidated?

Acting AG Blanche: We're just consolidating the grant component. So, OJP, COPS, and then OVW. And by the way, we're not combining them; we're just making them more efficient. They will still maintain their own independence and brand, for lack of a better word. But what we heard from the field is that there were inappropriate inconsistencies and inefficiencies in having three separate bureaucracies running each of those programs. So, that's where-

Murkowski: I don't disagree with wanting to reduce bureaucracies. My interest is making sure that the fidelity of these grants and the availability to very rural, and oftentimes just very high-cost (areas) because of what we're dealing with out there, that they do not get overlooked. Because when you have cuts to the level that you're proposing, one has to assume that-okay, you can talk about reducing the bureaucracy and just what the program itself might look like. But again, my interest is making sure that this much-needed assistance is still pushed down to the very, very local levels.

Blanche: Senator, I assure you that the rural communities-and I appreciate that they have the most challenges applying for grants because of just the way they're structured-

Murkowski: Lack of capacity.

Blanche: Of course. And there's obviously-I forget the exact percentage, but a large percentage of our grants do go to rural communities, as they should, and rural police departments, as they should. And we are going to continue to do that. I mean, the COPS office is required to distribute half of its grants to rural communities.

And I don't want to take up all of your time, Senator, but that's one of the reasons why we built (this in). We're trying to make it more efficient because the field said-especially rural communities-that big cities don't have issues applying for grants; they have a bunch of people that can do it. And so, yes, we are very focused on that in the Tribal justice space, but also in the grant space.

Murkowski: Well, know that we're watching this one very carefully. I understand that in response to Senator Collins, you acknowledged a 25% cut to the Office on Violence Against Women. I was very involved in that reauthorization, and within that, we provide that OVW may not be subsumed by another grant-making component within DOJ. So, we want to make sure that, again, DOJ is going to maintain OVW's statutory responsibilities and how they move forward with their grant-making, and not losing out on that.

Blanche: We will. And we're aware of that. Yes, ma'am.

Murkowski: Let me ask about the Not Invisible Act. This was legislation that I introduced some years ago; it became law. May 5th is the day that we recognize as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day. We had a big roundtable that Senator Sullivan helped organize just a couple of weeks ago. I had a lot of the folks from your department there, along with Alaska state, local, and Tribal representatives.

One of the things that kept coming up was the commission issued its final report. I thought it was pretty substantive. They issued it on November 1 of 2023 after great testimony and consultation all across Indian Country. But then, the report was removed very early on in the second Trump administration, and the related materials have been removed from the DOJ and the Department of the Interior websites.

So people keep asking me: Where did it go? Why? What is happening? We tried to get further information on that, again, up in Anchorage a couple of weeks ago. So, the question to you is: Why was the report taken down, when will it be restored, and more importantly, what concrete steps is DOJ taking within Department of the Justice and with others to implement the recommendations? We don't want the work of this really important commission to just sit and be ignored.

Blanche: Yes. So, I don't have an answer as to why it was taken down, but I will get back to you promptly. I will tell you-

Murkowski: I would appreciate that, yeah.

Blanche: And to your big-picture question, we are on the same page when it comes to Tribal justice and the work that we have to do with our Native American community, making sure that we're giving them the resources, the law enforcement. I've visited two so far as the Deputy Attorney General, and my staff has gone out to multiple others-to Northern New York, the Dakotas, Oklahoma-and we'll continue to do that. I think that at the end of the day, it is a funding and training issue that is our responsibility, and I recognize that. It's a priority.

Murkowski: Well, and we've seen positive signals. In the first Trump administration, that was when Operation Lady Justice was stood up. I think that that is good. We need to continue on that. You've put good people tasked to this, but this is where it gets confusing. When you have a public-facing website that helps people navigate through some of the reporting and the lack of data, that's where we could use a little help. So, if you can get back to me on that, I would appreciate it.

Blanche: I will, Senator.

Murkowski: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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