U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs

The United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is responsible for dealing with matters related to the American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native peoples. A Committee on Indian Affairs existed from 1820 to 1947, but in the latter year it was folded into the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. A new Indian Affairs Committee was created in 1977, initially as a Select Committee, as a result of the detachment of indigenous affairs from the new Committee on Energy and National Resources, which had succeeded the old Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. The committee was initially intended to be temporary, but was made permanent in 1984.