Congress and Indians spar over lost money
by Daniel Kraker
McCain proposes a settlement on trust accounts, but Cobell is wary
In the nine-year
legal battle over missing Indian Trust royalties, U.S. District
Court Judge Royce Lamberth has repeatedly decided in favor of the
American Indian plaintiffs (HCN, 5/12/03: Missing Interior money:
Piles or pennies?). In July, Lamberth issued his most scathing
opinion to date: He ordered the U.S Department of the Interior to
notify American Indian account holders that the federal
government’s information on trust accounts may not be
reliable.
"This case serves as an appalling reminder," he
wrote, "of the evils that result when large numbers of the
politically powerless are placed at the mercy of institutions
engendered and controlled by a politically powerful few."
While the Bush administration has tried unsuccessfully to remove
the fiery judge from the case, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who
chairs the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, has taken a different
tack. Last spring, he asked the plaintiffs to suggest reforms to
fix the problem, which stems from shoddy accounting on hundreds of
thousands of parcels of reservation land that the federal
government has leased to energy companies, ranchers and timber
companies.
Led by Elouise Cobell, a Blackfoot banker from
Montana, the plaintiffs came up with 50 key points they would like
to see in legislation to settle the case. For example, they asked
that Congress appropriate new funds for a settlement, not simply
shift money from other Indian programs; that beneficiaries not have
to pay taxes on their settlements; and that a new deputy secretary
office be established to oversee the agencies managing the trust.
The plaintiffs also proposed a settlement of $27.5
billion, an amount far less than the more than $100 billion their
accountants argue they are rightfully owed.
McCain,
however, calls that number "just way out of sight," and says
Congress would never appropriate the money. Instead, he has
introduced a bill he calls "a starting point." To the
plaintiffs’ chagrin, it doesn’t offer an exact dollar
amount. Instead, it provides a negotiated lump-sum settlement and
establishes a settlement fund. The U.S. Treasury Department would
administer the settlements and pay claimants.
Plaintiffs
have reacted angrily: Cobell was quoted in South Dakota’s
Rapid City Journal, comparing the bill to the infamous Baker
Massacre, considered one of the worst-ever slaughters of American
Indians by United States troops.
McCain defended his bill
at an Indian Affairs Committee hearing on the legislation, saying
it "reflects extensive listening to the parties in the litigation."
In response to Cobell’s comment, for which she later
apologized, he said, "It cannot credibly be compared to a massacre
even in a figure of speech." McCain has told the plaintiffs to
seize the chance to sit down and negotiate with lawmakers. "Leave
the rhetoric to others," he told Cobell. "You won’t have this
opportunity again any time soon."
The class-action
lawsuit has been mired in controversy since it was filed in 1996 on
behalf of more than 300,000 Indian landowners. Government employees
have inexplicably shredded trust fund documents, Lamberth has held
two Interior secretaries in contempt of court, and computer systems
safeguarding the trust information have been repeatedly hacked. The
federal government has already spent $100 million trying to mend
the trust accounts — but government accountants still
can’t answer a basic question: How much has the U.S.
government earned from leasing Indian land?
Meanwhile,
Indian landowners continue to wonder where their royalty money has
gone. Navajo grandmother Mary Johnson, 80, owns land near Montezuma
Creek, Utah, where four oil wells have been pumping for nearly half
a century. They’ve polluted the creeks running through her
land, fouled the air, and sickened her livestock. All that, for
monthly royalty checks from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs that
have averaged around $40. Speaking to Judge Lamberth through an
interpreter in Washington this summer, she asked simply, "How can
there be no money?"