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

S. 761 would establish the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States along with two advisory committees to document and remedy the effects of 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 serving on the commission and the advisory committees would be compensated and reimbursed for travel expenses. Specifically, the bill would:

• Establish the legislative branch Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States, consisting of five members and authorized for up to six years. The commission would work to locate previously unmarked graves, analyze and preserve records from the Indian boarding schools, hold public hearings, and report its findings to the Congress.
• Create a federal advisory committee within the Department of the Interior as well as a Native American advisory committee and a survivors’ subcommittee for the commission.
• Apply the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to human remains and funerary objects located on federal land or on 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).

The bill would authorize $90 million in funding from existing laws for those activities. Because new activities would be authorized under the bill, CBO treats this change as a new authorization of appropriations. The bill does not specify the amounts to be authorized for each year; thus, for this estimate CBO has assumed that $15 million would be authorized from 2026 through 2031; the Truth and Healing Commission would end in 2031. On that basis and using spending patterns for similar activities, CBO estimates that implementing the bill would cost $70 million over the 2026-2030 period and $20 million after 2030. Any related spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.

S. 761 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 would be negligible over the 2026‑2035 period.

On October 16, 2025, CBO transmitted a revised version of this estimate, which was originally transmitted on October 1, 2025. This revised estimate does not include estimated revenue effects related to subpoenas; the previous estimate incorrectly stated that the commission would have authority to issue subpoenas. The estimated budgetary effects for spending subject to appropriation and direct spending are unchanged.

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.