FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE www.indiantrust.com
June 22, 2001



HOUSE APPROPRIATORS, FED UP WITH INTERIOR'S DELAYS,
SIGNAL END OF PATIENCE ON TRUST FUND ACCOUNTING

"No Interest" in Funding a Department Plan That Won't Work, Panel Says


WASHINGTON, D.C. - The House Appropriations Committee, irked by the 
lack of a plan to account for billions in missing Indian trust funds 
and concerned by $614 million in spending for trust reform without 
visible results, has issued a blunt warning to Interior Department 
officials that its patience has worn thin.

In a report attached to Interior's budget bill for 2002, frustrated 
House members said they have been waiting since last fall to see 
Interior's plans to comply with a federal judge's order that the 
department give Indian trust beneficiaries a complete historical 
accounting of billions in missing revenues from Indian-owned lands.

Appropriators strongly urged Interior last fall to settle the Indians' 
class action litigation (Cobell v. Norton) rather than spend tens of 
millions of dollars trying to reconcile the accounts. Interior has 
admitted in court that it has lost or destroyed most of the trust 
records, which date as far back as 1887. The report said that a recent 
federal appeals court ruling upholding the required historical 
accounting "places additional pressure" on Interior to come up with a 
credible plan or settle the case.

"The Committee remains very concerned over the escalating costs 
associated with the Cobell v. Norton litigation," the report said, 
adding that Congress has appropriated more than $31 million for the 
case, of which Interior says it spent $17 million trying to dig up 
records just for the five Indian individuals who represent 500,000 
individual Indian trust beneficiaries in the class action lawsuit. 

"The Committee has no interest in appropriating additional resources 
for litigation support when these resources come at the expense of 
on-the-ground Indian programs designed to promote the well-being of 
the Indian and Alaska Native populations," the report said. "Therefore, 
the Committee reiterates its position that it will not appropriate 
hundreds of millions of dollars for an historical accounting that 
provides funds for a protracted reconciliation process whose outcome 
is unlikely to be successful."

The Cobell plaintiffs have repeatedly pointed out that a so-called 
statistical sampling plan - floated by former Interior secretary Bruce 
Babbitt in the closing days of the Clinton administration and embraced 
earlier this year by Interior Secretary Gale Norton - will cost millions 
and has no chance of success because most of the Indian trust records 
no longer exist and Interior's trust databases are highly unreliable.
Since 1996, Congress has appropriated $610 million for ineffective trust 
reform efforts at Interior, including new data management systems and 
attempts to clean up data and improve records management and real 
estate services.

A senior Bureau of Indian Affairs official revealed in February that 
trust reform is "imploding" and based on "wishful thinking and rosy 
scenarios." Shortly afterward, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth 
installed a Court Monitor at Interior to report to the court on the 
true state of trust reform and the credibility of Interior's statements 
about its progress.

The Interior appropriations bill, approved by the Committee on June 13,
 is awaiting action by the full House. 

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Contact: Philip Smith (202-661-6350)