Norton Admits Some Indian Trust Records ‘No Longer Exist’
Interior Chief Defends Reform Efforts
The Washington Post
By: Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
February 14, 2002
Testifying in her own contempt trial, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton said yesterday the government has lost an unknown amount of trust fund records for Native Americans, but defended her agency’s management of billions of dollars in the Indian accounts.
Norton’s 3½ hours on the stand in U.S. District Court were the strongest attempts by the Bush administration to date to show that officials have been working hard to reform the $500 million-per-year trust fund, a system that has been documented in court papers as one of the worst-managed programs in government history.
Plaintiffs say incompetence or neglect in the 115-year-old program is so profound that 500,000 Indians are owed as much as $10 billion in missing funds.
Norton was in court to defend herself against contempt charges for allegedly misleading the judge about the lack of progress in fixing the trust accounts. Norton calmly portrayed the Bureau of Indian Affairs program as one with historical problems, but one that is now in competent hands.
“The basic functions of the system are working, but we want to make improvements to make those systems work more correctly,” Norton said, testifying before Judge Royce C. Lamberth. “We undoubtedly do have some missing data . . . and all of us are going to have to find a way to deal with the fact that some information no longer exists.”
Lamberth’s courtroom was jammed with observers on the 27th day of a trial that could make Norton the third Cabinet-level officer to be held in contempt. The five contempt charges in the case stem from allegations that she and 38 other agency officials failed to carry out court orders or covered up failures in their attempts to overhaul the program.
The two Cabinet officials that have been held in contempt were Norton’s predecessor, Bruce Babbitt, and then-Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin. Lamberth held them in contempt in 1999 for their failures in managing the same trust fund. He ordered the government to pay $685,000 of the Indians’ attorney’s fees as a sanction.
The computer accounting system that Babbitt and other Clinton officials promoted as a solution is now in shambles, according to reports filed by a court-appointed monitor and a special master. Computer security was so poor that in December Lamberth ordered Interior to shut down its Internet sites. The court monitor had discovered that hackers could easily set up false trust fund accounts.
That shutdown temporarily left the National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and other agencies without Web access. For almost two months, trust payments to Indians were cut off.
The trust fund system, set up in 1887, requires the government to manage more than 11 million acres of Indian land. The government then distributes the income from the leasing of oil, gas, land and mineral rights to the 500,000 or so shareholders. Many of those payments are small, but essential to many impoverished people.
In a question-and-answer session with Lamberth, Norton touted her plan to create a new agency within Interior, to be called the Bureau of Indian Trust Asset Management. She rejected the creation of a outside receivership – an idea Lamberth has sometimes explored from the bench.
“We’re motivated to get this done,” she said. “We’re working to get the budgetary resources, to develop the political consensus necessary. I’d like to see significant changes take place during my term.”
Lamberth is not expected to issue a ruling in the contempt trial for at least six weeks. It was unclear yesterday how successful Norton was in defusing some of the judge’s skepticism about the agency’s competence. She repeatedly answered, “I don’t know,” and “I’m just a layperson,” when Dennis M. Gingold, the plaintiff’s lead attorney, asked her specific questions about the accounts.
Lamberth in October suggested the agency should throw itself on the “mercy of the court” and said some of Norton’s initial actions after taking office last year were “so contemptuous that I don’t know what to do.”
“She made a very good case for why we need a receiver to take over the system,” said Elouise Cobell, the named plaintiff in the lawsuit. “There’s no sense of urgency. She didn’t even seem nervous – and I think most people, if called before a federal judge on contempt charges for their documented mismanagement of billions of dollars of other people’s money, would at least appear to be upset about it.”
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