Memorandum of
Disapproval on a Bill Concerning Southern
I
am withholding my approval of H.R. 3621, which would establish, among other
things, an Indian Development Finance Corporation that would be authorized to
provide development capital to Indian businesses that meet certain criteria.
The bill would have created an expensive and unnecessary new bureaucracy and
duplicated currently existing programs. It would not have addressed the
underlying problems of economic development in Indian country. Finally, the
legislation places the Government at risk of substantial financial loss and
does not provide sufficient authority for governmental oversight of the
financial activities that could result in such loss.
Instead
of creating a new institution to deliver additional capital, I believe that we
need to better utilize existing sources of capital, including such Federal
programs as the Indian Financing Act. In this regard, I recently signed Public
Law 100 - 442, which increased the ceiling on guaranteed loans for Indian
businesses under the Indian Financing Act from $200 million to $500 million,
raised the limitation on loan guarantees to individual Indian and Indian
economic enterprises from $350,000 to $500,000, and provided other means for
reservation economic development. Sufficient authority, therefore, exists to
carry out the activities envisioned in H.R. 3621.
I
would also emphasize that H.R. 3621, with its further proliferation of Federal
credit programs, is contrary to this Administration's long-standing and ongoing
efforts to manage more effectively Federal credit programs.
Because
this legislation takes the wrong approach to Indian economic development, I am
withholding my approval of H.R. 3621. I note that this bill also contains an
unrelated and beneficial provision relating to the transfer of Federal land in
Ronald
Reagan
The
White House,