by Editorial
The Denver Post
Thursday, December 13, 2001 – The federal government made an astonishing
confession in court Monday: After spending millions of dollars fighting a
lawsuit and expending many more millions buying fancy computer systems, the
Interior Department hasn’t reconciled even one of the 300,000 accounts it
holds in trust for American Indians.
More than a century ago, the government took control of Indian assets such
as oil royalties and grazing leases, promising to manage the properties on
the Indians’ behalf. But the government never kept proper records, so the
Indians understandably believe they have been shortchanged by billions of
dollars.
Over five years ago, the Boulder-based Native American Rights Fund and
former Denver lawyer Dennis Gingold sued the government to get a thorough
accounting of the trust funds. Yet under two presidential administrations,
Interior has chosen to fight the lawsuit rather than fix the problem.
About three years ago, Interior officials told U.S. District Judge Royce
Lamberth, who is hearing the case in Washington, D.C., that it was cleaning
up the mess. It wasn’t. Two and a half years ago, Lamberth issued a strong
order to blast Interior into action. Nothing changed. In the meantime,
Interior got significant sums from Congress to implement a new computer
system to do the work. The system failed miserably. At every turn, Interior
has lied to the court and misled Congress, all the while dragging its feet
on trust fund reform.
During the past year, special court officials gave Lamberth several reports
that severely criticized Interior’s handling of the accounts and noted the
department’s repeated failures. Interior Department lawyers didn’t challenge
the reports at the time – but now they are, line by line, in a drawn-out
court hearing. So once more Interior officials and their buddies at the
Justice Department are wasting tax dollars on a sideshow that won’t do
anything to resolve the underlying mess.
Instead of giving its lawyers permission to play college debate team on
Uncle Sam’s nickel, Interior Secretary Gale Norton should order the
department’s accountants to reconcile at least some of trust funds.
A detailed examination of scattered paper records is tough, but well within
accepted audit and accounting practices. For example, if your old Aunt Jenny
died leaving a substantial amount to her heirs but all her financial files
sat in cardboard boxes in the attic, there still would be a way to sort out
the mess to make sure you and your kids got their proper inheritance.
Interior should use similar green eye-shade techniques to examine a handful
of Indian trust accounts, starting with ones that might be easier to
resolve, such as assets recently scrutinized by state probate courts.
If Interior sincerely wanted to fix the Indian trust fund mess, it would
have engaged in this basic bookkeeping work long ago. As it is, Interior’s
broken promises and wasteful expenditures have demonstrated plain bad faith.
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