by Matt Kelley
Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) The government must allow a judge to supervise its efforts to resolve problems with a multibillion-dollar system of accounts for American Indians, an appeals court ruled Friday.
The Interior and Treasury departments also must give the Indians an accounting of how much money they have lost since the 19th century to mismanagement, theft and incompetence, the three-judge panel said. The ruling is another court victory for more than 300,000 Indians who are seeking more than $10 billion they say the government owes them in proceeds from usage of Indian land. ”This is one of the biggest victories for Native Americans ever,” said Elouise Cobell, the Blackfeet tribal member who is a leader of the lawsuit against the government. She compared it to the Indian rout of Lt. Col. George Custer at Little Big Horn.
Interior Department spokeswoman Stephanie Hanna said department officials were ”disappointed with some parts and heartened by some parts of the decision.” She would not elaborate. The judges unanimously upheld a 1999 ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who called mismanagement of the accounts ”fiscal and governmental irresponsibility in its purest form.” Lamberth ordered officials to report every three months for five years on their progress in fixing the accounting system. The accounts hold proceeds from oil drilling, timber cutting, grazing and other uses of Indians’ land. About $500 million passes through the system each year. All sides agree that the accounts have been mismanaged since they were created in 1887, with money being lost, stolen, not collected or spent on other federal programs.
Justice Department lawyers had challenged Lamberth’s ruling, saying he didn’t have the power to order the government to make specific reforms or to provide a full accounting of how much money the Indians should have. The judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected all the government’s arguments.
Judge David Sentelle, writing for the panel, said that the Interior and Treasury departments clearly had violated their duties to the Indians. Lamberth was correct to oversee reforms because previous efforts had been ”a day late and a dollar short,” Sentelle wrote. Although Lamberth has the authority to order the Interior Department to account for how much money should be in the system, he may not have the power to tell officials how to do the accounting, Sentelle wrote. Lamberth can keep oversight of reforms for five years but may end his oversight before that if federal officials show they have corrected the problems, Sentelle wrote.
Lamberth has not set a date for hearings on the accounting
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