Opinion
Tulsa World
When it comes to its treatment of American Indians, the U.S. Department of
Interior has some explaining to do.
But talk’s cheap. What American Indians really need is the $10 billion in
misappropriated royalties that were lost, stolen or never collected since
1887. And, the Department of Interior needs to fix a system that manages
billions of dollars of Indian money.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton will testify this week before U.S. District
Judge Royce Lamberth, who has ordered Norton to prove the Interior
Department did not commit a fraud on the court by concealing the failure of
key Indian trust fund accounting systems.
Norton could become the third Cabinet secretary in three years held in
contempt of court for continued failures to repair the management of a
system of Indian trust funds.
Although much of the alleged wrongdoing occurred during the tenure of her
predecessor, Bruce Babbitt, Norton and Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs
Neal A. McCaleb, an Oklahoman, are on trial as the officials in charge.
Lamberth is frustrated by the Interior Department’s approach, at one point
calling Norton’s handling of certain aspects “clearly contemptuous.”
The lawsuit stems from a century of mismanaged mining, grazing and timber
royalties from 45 million acres of Indian land held in trust.
The Indians’ attorneys claim the government owes more than 300,000 American
Indian account holders $10 billion. They want responsibility for the trust
stripped from Interior and assigned to an outside receiver. Norton has
proposed creating a bureau within Interior to manage the money.
That does not sound like a good plan since the government admits to
mismanaging the trust fund but has done little to correct the problem.
Norton must try to correct this situation. And the first step is to deal
forthrightly with the court and other side. The $10 billion is owed to the
American Indians and it will be a national disgrace if they don’t get it.
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