Erik Jensen

In this statement presented to the Senate Committee on Finance, the author makes several points: (1) potential investors in Indian country are deterred by the uncertain tax situation they would face; (2) Congress has it within its power to rationalize the taxing structure in Indian country-to lessen the extreme uncertainty attributable to multiple taxing jurisdictions and the overlay of American Indian law principles that must be applied to resolve jurisdictional disputes; (3) some special tax benefits intended to further investment in Indian country, like accelerated depreciation and the Indian employment credit, have not been fully effective because their status has been redetermined on an annual, or almost annual, basis; and, (4) given the statutory structure that now exists, the Internal Revenue Service has been justified, when deciding whether financing undertaken by American Indian nations will be eligible for tax-exempt status, in interpreting the term "essential governmental function" narrowly.

One way to articulate the promise of interdisciplinary research is in terms of the relationship between knowledge and ignorance. Disciplinary research yields deep knowledge of a circumscribed range of issues, but remains ignorant of those issues that stretch outside its purview. Because complex problems such as climate change do not respect disciplinary boundaries, disciplinary research responses to such problems are limited and partial. Interdisciplinary research responses, by contrast, integrate disciplinary perspectives by combining knowledge about different issues and as a result reduce ignorance about more aspects of the problem. In this paper, we develop this idea and argue that while interdisciplinary research can help remediate damaging ignorance about complex problems, it also creates conditions in which other damaging forms of ignorance can arise. We illustrate this point in detail with three case studies before discussing three implications of our analysis for identifying and managing deleterio...