McCain For Bill to Settle Cobell Lawsuit
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has vowed to move forward on a bill that would settle the decade-old class-action lawsuit filed by Elouise Cobell on behalf of as many as 500,000 Native Americans against the federal government over the mismanagement of their lands.
McCain, who runs the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said he will continue to work on the bill which will clear the way for lawmakers to begin discussing the legislation. McCain warns that no one will be happy with the result.
The Cobell group argues the Interior Department squandered $137 billion it collected, for more than a century, from oil, gas and other companies leasing Indian land. The plaintiffs have offered to settle for $27.5 billion. McCain maintains Congress will never agree to that amount so he will introduce another solution.
Unless Congress acts the lawsuit could drag on for years argues McCain whose new bill will provide a lump-sum settlement of the claims and revamp the way Indian land trusts are administered by the government.
Rep. Richard Pombo(R-CA)sponsored similar legislation in the House. Lawmakers agreed the case would never be settled out of court without intervention from Congress.
Consensus seems to be building among tribal leaders that the case need to be quickly resolved, one of the few things on which Interior officials and tribal leaders agree.
The settlement amount continues to be a source of contention. Jim Carson, associate deputy Interior secretary, did not say how much the government thinks Indians are owed but said it is probably in the low millions. (And, how many billions has Bush’s Iraq War cost the American taxpayer???)
This column has been edited for content and length from an article in the March 2nd edition of The Arizona Republic bylined Diana Marrero, Gannett News Service.
Congress Urged To Settle Cobell Lawsuit For Billions
Indianz.Com. In Print.
URL: http://www.indianz.com/News/2006/012774.asp
Thursday, March 2, 2006
Witnesses at a joint House-Senate hearing on Wednesday urged members of Congress to settle the Cobell v. Norton trust fund lawsuit for billions of dollars. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee and the House Resources Committee heard from a slate of mediation, financial and tribal leaders. Nearly all of them said American Indian beneficiaries deserve billions for the mismanagement of their trust funds.
"There's no dispute about liability," testified John Bickerman, a dispute resolution expert. "The courts have proven it, the plaintiffs have been successful in their efforts and liability is just not an issue."
Bickerman was one of two mediators appointed in 2004 by Congress to try and resolve the lawsuit, filed in 1996. Although no agreement was reached, he said $13 billion -- the amount the Cobell plaintiffs and the Bush administration agree has passed through the Individual Indian Money (IIM) trust -- could be used as a foundation for determining the final payout.
Depending on the error rate and interest rate, a settlement could be worth anywhere from $5.6 billion to $9.8 billion, Bickerman said. He didn't recommend these figures outright but urged lawmakers to reject the Interior Department's suggestion that less than $500 million is owed.
Stuart E. Eizenstat, a former U.S. ambassador who helped settle the class action Holocaust lawsuit for $8 billion, advocated a "rough justice" approach. He said it was fruitless to spend time developing a methodology to examine the IIM trust.
"In coming to a number, which almost certainly should be in the billions," he testified, "the committees should take into account the passage of time, the lost investment opportunities, the massive negligence, or worse, of the Interior Department, the fact that you are really returning their money and similar factors."
Without a settlement, tribal leaders told the committee that Indian Country will continue to suffer as the federal government continues to divert funds from reservation programs to pay for the lawsuit and related activities. Since 1996, the Clinton and Bush administrations have spent $3.4 billion on trust reform.
"At this time we are losing approximately $100 million annually out of Indian programs to pay for the accounting and the reorganization reforms that tribes opposed," said Joe Garcia, the president of the National Congress of American Indians.
The leaders of the House and Senate committees have introduced identical legislation to settle the case and make other changes. Key sticking points include the settlement figure, the scope of the settlement and the distribution method of the settlement funds
Bickerman said the settlement should resolve all trust funds mismanagement claims but not land mismanagement claims. The former category focuses on whether IIM money was collected, properly deposited and properly disbursed while the latter category involves whether trust beneficiaries received the fair amount for use of their assets.
Eizenstat, on the other hand, said the settlement should encompass trust funds mismanagement and land mismanagement claims. Bickerman later said both solutions could be considered.
The Cobell plaintiffs and most tribal leaders have objected to a provision in the settlement legislation that would allow the Treasury Department to distribute the funds. Eizenstat agreed that it is probably not in the best interests of Indian Country to allow a named defendant in the lawsuit to exercise such authority.
Instead, he said an independent federal entity could be created to take care of the distribution.
Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff, said she was encouraged by the hearing. "It is especially noteworthy that all the independent people who testified today recognized that liability has been established and any settlement must be in the multiple of billions of dollars," she said in a statement.
According to Congressional staff, the Bush administration has not officially responded to the settlement legislation, although officials have indicated opposition to key provisions. "We are supportive," associate deputy Interior Jim Cason said at the NCAI winter session in Washington on Monday," but the devil is in the details."
Tribal leaders urged the two committees to move quickly on the legislation, something McCain promised to do. But whatever the amount that is selected, he acknowledge no one will be satisfied.
"I can guarantee you will be roundly criticized but I think its the right and courageous thing to do to pick a number and try to end this," Bickerman said. His co-mediator, former federal judge Charles Renfrew, was unable to attend the hearing.
NATIVE UNITY - A place for Native American Peoples to solidify their tribes to make a positive impact on the cultural, social, economic and political fabric of American society and a place for non-Natives to better understand the ways of the American Indian.
McCain, who runs the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said he will continue to work on the bill which will clear the way for lawmakers to begin discussing the legislation. McCain warns that no one will be happy with the result.
The Cobell group argues the Interior Department squandered $137 billion it collected, for more than a century, from oil, gas and other companies leasing Indian land. The plaintiffs have offered to settle for $27.5 billion. McCain maintains Congress will never agree to that amount so he will introduce another solution.
Unless Congress acts the lawsuit could drag on for years argues McCain whose new bill will provide a lump-sum settlement of the claims and revamp the way Indian land trusts are administered by the government.
Rep. Richard Pombo(R-CA)sponsored similar legislation in the House. Lawmakers agreed the case would never be settled out of court without intervention from Congress.
Consensus seems to be building among tribal leaders that the case need to be quickly resolved, one of the few things on which Interior officials and tribal leaders agree.
The settlement amount continues to be a source of contention. Jim Carson, associate deputy Interior secretary, did not say how much the government thinks Indians are owed but said it is probably in the low millions. (And, how many billions has Bush’s Iraq War cost the American taxpayer???)
This column has been edited for content and length from an article in the March 2nd edition of The Arizona Republic bylined Diana Marrero, Gannett News Service.
Congress Urged To Settle Cobell Lawsuit For Billions
Indianz.Com. In Print.
URL: http://www.indianz.com/News/2006/012774.asp
Thursday, March 2, 2006
Witnesses at a joint House-Senate hearing on Wednesday urged members of Congress to settle the Cobell v. Norton trust fund lawsuit for billions of dollars. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee and the House Resources Committee heard from a slate of mediation, financial and tribal leaders. Nearly all of them said American Indian beneficiaries deserve billions for the mismanagement of their trust funds.
"There's no dispute about liability," testified John Bickerman, a dispute resolution expert. "The courts have proven it, the plaintiffs have been successful in their efforts and liability is just not an issue."
Bickerman was one of two mediators appointed in 2004 by Congress to try and resolve the lawsuit, filed in 1996. Although no agreement was reached, he said $13 billion -- the amount the Cobell plaintiffs and the Bush administration agree has passed through the Individual Indian Money (IIM) trust -- could be used as a foundation for determining the final payout.
Depending on the error rate and interest rate, a settlement could be worth anywhere from $5.6 billion to $9.8 billion, Bickerman said. He didn't recommend these figures outright but urged lawmakers to reject the Interior Department's suggestion that less than $500 million is owed.
Stuart E. Eizenstat, a former U.S. ambassador who helped settle the class action Holocaust lawsuit for $8 billion, advocated a "rough justice" approach. He said it was fruitless to spend time developing a methodology to examine the IIM trust.
"In coming to a number, which almost certainly should be in the billions," he testified, "the committees should take into account the passage of time, the lost investment opportunities, the massive negligence, or worse, of the Interior Department, the fact that you are really returning their money and similar factors."
Without a settlement, tribal leaders told the committee that Indian Country will continue to suffer as the federal government continues to divert funds from reservation programs to pay for the lawsuit and related activities. Since 1996, the Clinton and Bush administrations have spent $3.4 billion on trust reform.
"At this time we are losing approximately $100 million annually out of Indian programs to pay for the accounting and the reorganization reforms that tribes opposed," said Joe Garcia, the president of the National Congress of American Indians.
The leaders of the House and Senate committees have introduced identical legislation to settle the case and make other changes. Key sticking points include the settlement figure, the scope of the settlement and the distribution method of the settlement funds
Bickerman said the settlement should resolve all trust funds mismanagement claims but not land mismanagement claims. The former category focuses on whether IIM money was collected, properly deposited and properly disbursed while the latter category involves whether trust beneficiaries received the fair amount for use of their assets.
Eizenstat, on the other hand, said the settlement should encompass trust funds mismanagement and land mismanagement claims. Bickerman later said both solutions could be considered.
The Cobell plaintiffs and most tribal leaders have objected to a provision in the settlement legislation that would allow the Treasury Department to distribute the funds. Eizenstat agreed that it is probably not in the best interests of Indian Country to allow a named defendant in the lawsuit to exercise such authority.
Instead, he said an independent federal entity could be created to take care of the distribution.
Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff, said she was encouraged by the hearing. "It is especially noteworthy that all the independent people who testified today recognized that liability has been established and any settlement must be in the multiple of billions of dollars," she said in a statement.
According to Congressional staff, the Bush administration has not officially responded to the settlement legislation, although officials have indicated opposition to key provisions. "We are supportive," associate deputy Interior Jim Cason said at the NCAI winter session in Washington on Monday," but the devil is in the details."
Tribal leaders urged the two committees to move quickly on the legislation, something McCain promised to do. But whatever the amount that is selected, he acknowledge no one will be satisfied.
"I can guarantee you will be roundly criticized but I think its the right and courageous thing to do to pick a number and try to end this," Bickerman said. His co-mediator, former federal judge Charles Renfrew, was unable to attend the hearing.
NATIVE UNITY - A place for Native American Peoples to solidify their tribes to make a positive impact on the cultural, social, economic and political fabric of American society and a place for non-Natives to better understand the ways of the American Indian.
posted by Bobbie Hart O'Neill @ 4:11 PM
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