Interior’s shabby mess
The Denver Post
Editorial
March 3, 2002
A century ago, the U.S. government could treat American Indians shabbily and get away with it. The situation hasn’t improved in the 21st century.
Since December, the U.S. Department of the Interior has withheld payments owed to Indians for rents and royalties from grazing leases, timber contracts and, most importantly, oil and gas rights. The Boulder-based Native American Rights Funds estimates that, in three months, Uncle Sam has fallen behind on $15 million in payments owed to 43,000 Indians nationwide.
Why has Interior withheld the payments? Well, the Indians had the nerve to demand a proper accounting of the trust money the feds owe them and to insist that government computer records be kept safe from hackers. Although the Indians sought what anyone deserves from a financial trustee, the government responded with an indefensible abuse of power.
The government admitted last December that it couldn’t keep hackers out of the computers that generate the payment checks. Alarmed, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered access to the computer system shut down until Interior fixed the mess.
DOI arrogantly used that order as an excuse to stop payments to the Indians, many of whom are elderly or impoverished and depend on the monthly checks to survive.
In recent weeks, DOI did make some one-month payments based on the previous two month’s checks. But the Indians who got checks were paid only about half of what they usually receive. The payments went to only a small percentage of those who have been owed rents and royalties since December and didn’t include any money from oil and gas leases.
Outraged, Lamberth threatened to hold Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the former Colorado attorney general, in contempt.
Members of Congress should be equally angered. Since the Reagan administration, Interior secretaries have tried and failed to resolve the trust fund mess. U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Colorado Republican, says he’s was tired of hearing administration after administration say it can fix the problem if DOI just had more funds.
“We could have set the money out in the middle of the street and set it on fire” for all the results DOI has produced with the funds Congress has given it to date, Campbell groused.
Campbell is right. Lack of money isn’t why DOI hasn’t untangled the Indian trust fund mess. The real problems are DOI’s lack of accountability and determination to get the job done.
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