Sponsors (17)
The bill creates a funded federal process to acknowledge, investigate, and recommend remedies for harms from Indian boarding schools—giving tribes formal roles, repatriation tools, and trauma‑informed supports—at the cost of new federal spending, administrative burdens, limited transparency in some advisory processes, and constrained private legal remedies.
Survivors, descendants, and Native communities receive formal federal acknowledgment and a national investigation/report documenting boarding school harms, enabling recognition and informing remedies.
The bill provides up to $90 million and other resources to staff the Commission, fund research, convenings, and implementation of its work, making the study and recommendations actionable.
Tribes and lineal descendants gain clearer repatriation, reburial authority and mechanisms for co-stewardship of cemeteries and school sites, restoring tribal control over ancestral remains and sacred places.
The federal government will incur new costs (including the $90 million appropriation plus administrative expenses), which may raise taxpayer burdens or require budget trade‑offs.
The Act bars private lawsuits to enforce its provisions, leaving tribes and individuals limited legal recourse if agencies fail to comply with reburial, repatriation, or other commitments.
Collecting testimony and records could reopen traumatic experiences for survivors and communities, causing emotional harm despite trauma‑informed safeguards.
Based on analysis of 10 sections of legislative text.
Creates a Truth and Healing Commission to investigate Indian boarding schools, establish advisory committees, guide repatriation/reburial and co-stewardship, and recommend federal policy.
Introduced February 3, 2026 by Tom Cole · Last progress February 3, 2026
Creates a Truth and Healing Commission to investigate the history, policies, and long-term harms of Indian boarding schools in the United States, with the goal of documenting abuses, recommending federal policies, and promoting healing for survivors, descendants, and affected Native communities. The bill defines key terms (including what counts as an Indian boarding school and ‘‘Indian boarding school policies’’), sets up a six-year legislative commission with detailed nomination and appointment rules, establishes two advisory committees (one Native American and one Federal and Religious) to support the work, and clarifies handling of cultural items and cemeteries (including NAGPRA applicability, reburial options, and co-stewardship agreements). The commission and advisory committees have specified membership, nomination deadlines, meeting and reporting timelines, member qualifications, removal and vacancy rules, payment rules for Native advisory members, and certain transparency exemptions (limits on FACA, FOIA, and Privacy Act disclosures for some committee records). The bill does not create a private right of action and does not specify appropriations in the provided text.