Tribal Exchange Network Involvement Robert Holden, National Congress of American Indians

2 Outside Looking In Perspective Tribes repeating the states’ initially cautious approach Historical Use of One-Stop grants => EN grants –FRS data and node development Challenges: –562 tribes – all with different needs and capacities –Linking tribal business drivers to EN offerings –Non-tribal EN governance understanding of tribal issues Non-tribal EN governance education –Tribal representation at all EN governance levels –Non-tribal EN governance attendance/participation at tribal events –NCAI bridge to the EN (meeting & caucus hosting/sponsorship)

3 New Initiatives Tribal Strategy Development Other tribal-initiated projects –Open Dump Inventory –Model RFP template –others

4 Draft Exchange Network Tribal Strategy Development EPA OEI - American Indian Environmental Office (AIEO) developed initial draft strategy 11/2006 meeting (OEI-NCAI) to revise, refine & update strategy 3/2007 meeting with tribes, etc. for comments –Goal: Make strategy representative of tribal thought and experience for meaningful relationship with EN Develop viable strategy to increase EN tribal participation

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6 Why develop a strategy? EN has the potential to assist tribes in improving their capacity and exchanging information with many partners Exceptional opportunity for tribes to participate in EN governance and influence its development Same technology can support data exchange with multiple agencies, tribes and other trusted partners

7 Why develop a strategy? Support ongoing work of tribes with grants and continuing support for tribal funding Same technology can support the exchange of data with multiple agencies, tribes and other trusted partners –land management focus –Supernode concept

8 Proposed Goal Tribal Target - By 2010, grant recipients that have received 2007 or prior year Exchange Network grant money to build a node or exchange data electronically*, will be participating in the Exchange Network. "Participating" is defined as any of the following: 1) node-to-node data sharing, 2) node client-to-node data sharing, or 3) electronic transfer of data to CDX (i.e. web-based) and subsequent publishing of the data by EPA's CDX node to authorized Exchange Network partners as appropriate. *Some of the 2002 and 2003 tribal grants funded activities such as building web pages and databases, but not node development or data transfer. These grant recipients are encouraged to fully participate in the Exchange Network as defined above.

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