by Bill McAllister
Denver Post Washington Bureau Chief
The Denver Post
WASHINGTON – Conceding that her department must do a better job handling billions of dollars in trust funds for American Indians, Interior Secretary Gale Norton proposed sweeping changes Thursday in its handling of Indian accounts.
The secretary’s actions, described as “bold and courageous” by the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, come two weeks before she faces possible contempt-of-court charges over her stewardship of the more than 300,000 accounts.
“It’s important that we make progress in better managing trust assets,” Norton, a former Colorado attorney general, said in an interview. A statement issued by her department was more blunt. “The results produced during the past eight years have not been satisfactory,” it said.
Under the plan, Congress will be asked to confirm a new assistant interior secretary for Indian trust asset management. That person, a presidential appointee who would report directly to Norton, would take charge of all trust management issues, removing them from the long-troubled BIA.
The plan would appear to answer one of the chief criticisms a federal judge has voiced about Norton’s approach to the trust accounts by centralizing responsibility for the accounts with one official. Whether that step is enough to make U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth retreat from his public threat to hold Norton in contempt probably won’t be known until a Nov. 30 hearing.
Although Norton declined to discuss any issue raised by an Indian lawsuit over the accounts, she acknowledged the litigation was a major factor in the reorganization. “The court action certainly has focused attention on these issues,” she said.
In a statement filed in Lamberth’s court Thursday, Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles noted the judge’s concern about who was in charge. He said that he had taken responsibility for trust issues and the new plan attempts to address that issue.
Elousie Cobell, a Montana banker and member of the Blackfeet tribe who has led the case against the government, is not satisfied. “The bottom line is that the plan released today is a clear admission by the government that everything we, the Indian plaintiffs, have been alleging for 51/2 years was true,” she said. “The trust is in shambles and in need of top-to-bottom reconstruction.”
She said it was “another typical, last-minute backs-to-the-wall effort to stave off action by the court.”
Norton rejected that charge. “This will allow everyone involved in the issue to work together in a more coordinated way,” she said.
The reorganization is the latest in a long series of steps the government has taken to resolve a problem that dates to 1887 when Interior was first given trust responsibilities for Indians.
It was to hold monies raised from the sale of minerals and oil from Indian lands in special accounts for individuals as well as tribes.
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