by Bill McAllister
Denver Post Washington Bureau Chief
The Denver Post
WASHINGTON – Congress has told the Interior Department to
settle the billion-dollar lawsuit over the mangled trust accounts that the
Bureau of Indian Affairs maintains for more than 300,000 American Indians.
The newly signed Interior Appropriations Act contains a blunt congressional
directive urging the department to quickly resolve the issues in the 1996
lawsuit rather than continue to attempt to reconcile the accounts
individually, a process that could take years.
Lawyers for Indians challenging the department’s handling of the accounts
say that $20 billion to $40 billion that the government is holding for
American Indians is at stake. Some of the individual Indian accounts are
large, but many are tiny, not worth the millions that Congress says it will
cost to reconcile the accounts.
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Attorney General Janet Reno and top White
House officials all want the case settled before President Clinton leaves
office, said ex-Denver lawyer Dennis Gingold, who represents the Indians.
Why hasn’t it happened?
“The Justice Department has been stonewalling,” Gingold said. Blame for the
impasse lies specifically with Assistant Attorney General Lois J. Schiffer,
he said.
As the government’s top lawyer for environment and natural resource issues,
Schiffer is in charge of the government’s handling of the trust case, and
Gingold said she is the reason the government has not settled the case.
Schiffer couldn’t be reached for comment, but Christine Romano, a Justice
Department spokeswoman, called Gingold’s comment “hokum.” Settlement talks
began in May at the urging of Thomas N. Slonaker, the president’s special
trustee for American Indians. Despite what Gingold calls “extraordinary
efforts” by American Indians and their lawyers to reach an agreement, he
said Justice has been unwilling to resolve the conflict.
Interior spokeswoman Stephanie Hanna said the department, which initially
hailed a lowercourt order that sharply criticized the government, is fully
behind the Justice Department’s handling of the case. “They are our
lawyers,” she said.
Justice insisted that the ruling be appealed, which took some Interior
officials and Indians by surprise.
Hanna said Interior wants the court case settled. “Everyone is equally
interested” in a settlement, she said, calling the protracted litigation “a
colossal waste of money.”
“We have always felt that there is a better way to do business,” she said.
Because of missing records, the BIA says it cannot determine how much money
should be in each account. Some accounts date from the 1800s when the
government sold oil and minerals from Indian lands and held the proceeds for
Native Americans.
Many of the accounts have remained unresolved for decades. Unless something
happens quickly, it is likely to be one of the biggest financial question
marks the next administration will inherit.
In the Interior Appropriations conference report, which Clinton signed into
law, Congress warns that it does not want to continue to have to spend
millions of dollars each year to help resolve the accounts. There is $27.6
million in the just-passed bill for that purpose and the ongoing appeal of
the case, the report notes.
“Ultimately the (House and Senate) managers (of the bill) believe that
resolution of the long-standing issues of the performance of the Department
of Interior’s management of Indian trusts is best worked out through a
negotiation and settlement process and not by spending millions of dollars
for accountants to reconcile relatively small sums of funds over decades,”
the report says.
If the government lawyers cannot reach a settlement of the court case, the
Interior spending bill directs Interior officials to come to Capitol Hill
with details of plan for correcting the accounts through a sampling method.
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