U.S. Bows to Indian Trust Ruling
Interior Promises to Reform Its Accounting Practices
The Washington Post
By: Bill Miller
Staff Writer
June 5, 2001
The Bush administration has decided against fighting a court ruling that requires the Interior Department to overhaul a trust fund kept for 300,000 Native Americans, saying officials will move forward with accounting reforms under a judge’s strict supervision.
The decision means that U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth will continue to oversee efforts to provide an accurate accounting of the trust fund in the wake of more than a century of government record-keeping lapses. Lamberth intends to determine in a trial how much money is owed to Indians. Lawyers for the Indians have said that at least $10 billion is owed, but government lawyers have maintained the amount is much less.
The government set up the accounts in the 1880s to compensate Indians for the use of their land. Royalties from the sale of oil, timber and other natural resources are channeled into the accounts, which are passed down through generations. Roughly $500 million in royalties is put into the accounts each year. The Interior Department handles most of the trust duties, but the Treasury Department also has some responsibilities.
Government lawyers had contended that Lamberth overstepped his bounds in December 1999 when he ordered an accounting and put the trust system under at least five years of court oversight. He has appointed a special master and a monitor to help him chart progress. In February, Lamberth’s ruling was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which cited “the magnitude of government malfeasance.”
The appeals court ruling, issued unanimously by a three-judge panel, declared that it was “beyond question that the government has delayed fulfilling its trust obligations for many years.” The appellate judges rejected the government’s contention that the Indians had no legal right to a complete historical accounting.
The Justice Department had until last Friday to ask the Supreme Court to review the case. Lawyers let the deadline pass, heeding a recommendation from Interior officials.
Despite the harsh language of the appellate opinion, Interior spokeswoman Stephanie Hanna noted that the panel urged Lamberth to let the government attempt its own accounting before making any final decisions. She said that preserved Interior’s ability to carry out reforms already in the works. “We can certainly proceed under that guidance,” Hanna said. “We didn’t feel there was any need to appeal. We intend to move forward and get the job done.”
Dennis M. Gingold, a lawyer for the Native Americans, said Lamberth has no obligation to wait indefinitely for Interior to complete an accounting and that he doubted the task would be done in a timely manner. “We have seen no evidence that there has been any genuine effort at trust reform at Interior,” Gingold said.
Gingold said there have been no recent negotiations toward settling the suit.
The trust accounts cover at least 300,000 Indians of an overall national population of about 2.2 million, according to the Native American Rights Fund, which filed the underlying class action over the government’s stewardship in 1996. Many account holders are impoverished and rely on trust income for everyday needs.
| 
