§3114 Postgraduation Recruitment, Education and Training Programs

Summary

The Secretary must create and run programs to hire and train Indian and Alaska Native professional foresters and forestry technicians who already finished college. The hiring program can place them in Bureau of Indian Affairs forestry jobs or in tribal forestry jobs if the tribe agrees. The government may pay off an employee’s student loans in return for their work. How long they must work will depend on how much of the loan the government pays. The Secretary must also run cooperative internships and training. Interior agencies must let BIA and Native forestry employees intern at other Interior agency forestry programs, and let other Interior forestry staff intern at BIA or, with tribal consent, tribal programs. Other federal agencies can send staff who are above their sixth year of Federal service to intern at BIA or tribal programs under interagency agreements. Originating agencies keep paying salary and benefits for their Federal employees; host agencies pay salary and benefits for participating Indian and Alaska Native employees. Interns also get a bonus when the internship ends. The Secretary must keep a BIA forestry training program that gives orientation on tribal‑Federal relations, ongoing technical forestry education, and training for Native staff in forest-based businesses and marketing.