Congress is urging the Clinton administration to settle a lawsuit over mismanagement of trust accounts for about 500,000 American Indians, a move that could cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
Nonbinding instructions that accompanied the 2001 Interior Department budget, passed by Congress and signed into law earlier this month, said the problems with the accounts would be "best worked out through a negotiation and settlement process." Spending millions over decades to determine how much should be in each account is wasteful, the instructions said.
The Indians sued in 1996 over a century's worth of problems with the system that handles about $500 million a year in proceeds from oil wells and other uses of Indian land. The Indians say they are due at least $10 billion.
The federal judge handling the case sided with the Indians last December, calling the mismanagement "government irresponsibility in its purest form."
The federal government has acknowledged mismanagement, but the Justice Department is appealing the case because it claims U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth overstepped his authority in ordering a full accounting of the money and appointing himself overseer of reform efforts.
Officials on both sides of the fight say they welcome Congress attention. But they say although talks are continuing ~ both sides met this week ~ a resolution is unlikely anytime soon.
"I think that with the right mindset from the (government) defendants, there is the opportunity to settle this case before the end of the Clinton administration," said Keith Harper, a Cherokee who is one of the Indians' lawyers.
Kevin Gover, who heads the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs, agreed a fast settlement is preferable, but added "obviously every day that passes makes that a little tougher."
"We don't want to leave this for the next guys to deal with," said Gover, a Pawnee Indian. "My concern is no new administration is going to come in ... and be prepared to make decisions worth hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in its first months in office."
The government plans to spend $27.6 million this year on the lawsuit and $80 million to try to straighten out the accounts.
Justice Department spokeswoman Christine Romano declined to comment on specifics of the settlement negotiations.
"The Justice Department would like to resolve this important case through a settlement approved by all parties," Romano said.
The trust accounts came from an 1887 federal law that divided some reservation land into smaller plots for individual Indians. The federal government holds that land in trust for the Indians ~ meaning it cannot be taxed or sold and the government must approve any leases.
Many of the tracts are leased for uses such as grazing, logging, mining or oil drilling. Proceeds from those leases are supposed to be deposited in government accounts and then paid to the Indian landholders.
Since the beginning, however, those accounts have been
mismanaged in almost every way imaginable, the government acknowledges. Records for many accounts were never kept, while documentation for others was lost or destroyed. Some of the money was stolen or used for other federal programs. Some lease proceeds were never collected. Thousands of the accounts have money in them but no names attached.
On the Net:
Bureau of Indian Affairs:
http://www.doi.gov/bureau-indian-affairs.html
Indian account holders' site:
http://www.indiantrust.org/
