S. 761, Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act of 2025

S. 761 would establish a commission and advisory committees to document and remedy the effects of the federal Indian boarding school policies, under which the government forcibly removed children from their families and placed them in federally run boarding schools. Nonfederal employees would be compensated and reimbursed for travel expenses. Specifically, the bill would:

• Establish the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States, consisting of five members and lasting up to six years. The commission would work to locate, analyze, and preserve records, and identify unmarked graves related to Indian boarding schools; hold public hearings; and report on its findings.
• Create a federal advisory committee, a Native American advisory committee, and a survivors subcommittee.
• Apply the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to human remains and funerary objects located on federal land or land managed or curated by a federal agency.

The estimated budgetary effects of S. 761 are shown in Table 1. The costs of the legislation fall within budget function 500 (education, training, employment, and social services).

S. 761 would authorize the appropriation of $15 million annually from 2026 through 2031 for the commission. Based on spending patterns for similar activities and assuming appropriation of the specified amounts, CBO estimates that implementing the bill would cost $70 million over the 2026-2030 period and $20 million after 2030.

The bill also would authorize the commission to solicit donations and other funds from the private sector, which could be spent without further appropriation; such receipts are recorded as reductions in direct spending. Because donations would probably be spent soon after their receipt, CBO estimates that the net effect of this provision on direct spending over the 2026‑2035 period would be negligible.

In addition, the bill would authorize the commission to issue subpoenas to obtain documents, pending review by the Attorney General. The commission may apply to a district court requesting an order to comply with a subpoena. Failure to comply with a district court order may result in penalties; such penalties are recorded as revenues. CBO estimates that any additional revenues collected would total less than $500,000 over the 2026-2035 period because the number of violations would probably be small.

The bill contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.

The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Garrett Quenneville. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.