Post by blackcrowheart on Mar 11, 2007 18:52:36 GMT -5
Tribes sue over trust accounts By JODI RAVE
Lee News Friday, January 05, 2007
www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/01/05/news/wyoming/786bd9\
03b6923fe38725725a000450cd.txt
<http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/01/05/news/wyoming/786bd\
903b6923fe38725725a000450cd.txt>
<http://adsys.townnews.com/c58464007/creative/casperstartribune.net/news\
+wyoming+rtcontophorsize.2/19008.gif?r=http://www.stalkupsrv.com> The
head of the Interior Department will be forced in 2007 to balance two
major class-action lawsuits -- one involving billions of dollars owed to
a half-million individual American Indian landowners, and now a
trust-fund lawsuit that includes more than 250 tribes.
The Native American Rights Fund, a nonprofit law firm in Boulder, Colo.,
announced Wednesday the latest class-action filing in federal district
court in Washington, D.C. The tribal trust-fund suit seeks full and
complete accountings from the Interior Department on tribal accounts
worth an estimated $200 billion.
For tribes, Nez Perce vs. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is nearly
two centuries overdue.
"This lawsuit is a reflection of a huge historical problem with the
federal government's mismanagement of tribal trust accounts," said Nez
Perce Tribal Chairwoman Rebecca Miles. "We have tried to work with the
agencies, and we have tried to work with Congress. Our hope now is with
the courts. We are pleased to step forward with NARF in leading this
fight for Indian justice." Wyoming's Eastern Shoshone and Northern
Arapaho tribes have been involved in similar litigation for years, and
recent rulings and settlements have brought the tribes millions of
dollars.
For the Interior Department, the new suit nearly mirrors the decade-old
Elouise Cobell vs. Kempthorne suit, which seeks an historical accounting
of the individual trust fund money accounts managed by the department.
Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton said the Cobell suit consumed the
majority of her time in office.
Meanwhile, the department has nothing to say about the latest suit. "Our
policy is we don't discuss pending litigation," Interior spokesman Shane
Wolf said Thursday. "That's the answer you'll get every time there's
pending litigation."
But more than two decades of government reports and investigations
reveal what the department hasn't wanted to talk about since it first
sought to manage money earned off tribal trust lands in 1820.
The government's trust responsibility over Indian-land money, including
individuals and tribes, is rooted in treaties, laws and agreements.
Congress controls and manages all trust funds through legislation.
Congress has doled Indian trust responsibility across several federal
departments, including the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which is
also named as a defendant in the recently filed suit. The federal
government currently holds an estimated $3 billion in some 1,600 trust
fund accounts for more than 300 tribes.
John Echohawk, the Native American Rights Fund's executive director,
said past events made the lawsuit inevitable. First, tribes have never
been able to get a proper accounting of their trust funds. The
Government Accounting Office and the Interior Department's Office of the
Inspector General have issued key reports identifying major problems
with the management of both tribal and individual Indian trust funds.
The money in question is revenue earned by tribes from natural
resources, including timber, minerals, oil and gas; court judgments
entered against the United States for the unlawful appropriation of
Indian land and property; and income from the investment of money held
in the accounts.
For both individual and tribal trust funds, government reports show that
records were often lost or never kept, and that systems didn't work or
weren't coordinated. Also, reports showed how policies were deficient or
never existed.
In 1987, Congress ordered the Interior Department to audit and reconcile
the accounts and to provide full and complete accountings to tribes and
individuals. The GAO stated that without improvement, trust fund account
holders could not be assured their balances are accurate.
In 1994, Congress enacted the American Indian Trust Management Reform
Act, requiring the federal government to provide tribal trust fund
beneficiaries with full and complete accountings of their trust funds.
In 2005, Interior's inspector general said the department procedures and
controls were not adequate to ensure trust fund activities and balances
were recorded properly or timely.
Nothing to date has yielded adequate accountings.
Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs hired the accounting firm Arthur
Andersen LLP to do a limited reconciliation of tribal trust fund
accounts in the 1990s. Despite acknowledged shortcomings with the
project, federal officials asked tribes to accept the reports.
Arthur Anderson's five-year, $21 million accounting sampling covered a
20-year span between 1972 and 1992.
Congress gave tribes a Dec. 31, 2005, deadline to challenge the
reconciliation reports. The deadline was extended to Dec. 31, 2006,
prompting tribes to sue late last month, seeking a court order declaring
the Arthur Andersen reports inaccurate, and to demand a proper
accounting.
"We are confident that the court will agree that the Arthur Andersen
reconciliation reports are not full and complete accountings," said John
Gonzales, NARF's board chairman. "The real battle will be over what more
the court or Congress will do to protect the rights of tribes and to
hold the government accountable for its duties as the trustee for tribal
trust funds."
Lee News Friday, January 05, 2007
www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/01/05/news/wyoming/786bd9\
03b6923fe38725725a000450cd.txt
<http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/01/05/news/wyoming/786bd\
903b6923fe38725725a000450cd.txt>
<http://adsys.townnews.com/c58464007/creative/casperstartribune.net/news\
+wyoming+rtcontophorsize.2/19008.gif?r=http://www.stalkupsrv.com> The
head of the Interior Department will be forced in 2007 to balance two
major class-action lawsuits -- one involving billions of dollars owed to
a half-million individual American Indian landowners, and now a
trust-fund lawsuit that includes more than 250 tribes.
The Native American Rights Fund, a nonprofit law firm in Boulder, Colo.,
announced Wednesday the latest class-action filing in federal district
court in Washington, D.C. The tribal trust-fund suit seeks full and
complete accountings from the Interior Department on tribal accounts
worth an estimated $200 billion.
For tribes, Nez Perce vs. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is nearly
two centuries overdue.
"This lawsuit is a reflection of a huge historical problem with the
federal government's mismanagement of tribal trust accounts," said Nez
Perce Tribal Chairwoman Rebecca Miles. "We have tried to work with the
agencies, and we have tried to work with Congress. Our hope now is with
the courts. We are pleased to step forward with NARF in leading this
fight for Indian justice." Wyoming's Eastern Shoshone and Northern
Arapaho tribes have been involved in similar litigation for years, and
recent rulings and settlements have brought the tribes millions of
dollars.
For the Interior Department, the new suit nearly mirrors the decade-old
Elouise Cobell vs. Kempthorne suit, which seeks an historical accounting
of the individual trust fund money accounts managed by the department.
Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton said the Cobell suit consumed the
majority of her time in office.
Meanwhile, the department has nothing to say about the latest suit. "Our
policy is we don't discuss pending litigation," Interior spokesman Shane
Wolf said Thursday. "That's the answer you'll get every time there's
pending litigation."
But more than two decades of government reports and investigations
reveal what the department hasn't wanted to talk about since it first
sought to manage money earned off tribal trust lands in 1820.
The government's trust responsibility over Indian-land money, including
individuals and tribes, is rooted in treaties, laws and agreements.
Congress controls and manages all trust funds through legislation.
Congress has doled Indian trust responsibility across several federal
departments, including the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which is
also named as a defendant in the recently filed suit. The federal
government currently holds an estimated $3 billion in some 1,600 trust
fund accounts for more than 300 tribes.
John Echohawk, the Native American Rights Fund's executive director,
said past events made the lawsuit inevitable. First, tribes have never
been able to get a proper accounting of their trust funds. The
Government Accounting Office and the Interior Department's Office of the
Inspector General have issued key reports identifying major problems
with the management of both tribal and individual Indian trust funds.
The money in question is revenue earned by tribes from natural
resources, including timber, minerals, oil and gas; court judgments
entered against the United States for the unlawful appropriation of
Indian land and property; and income from the investment of money held
in the accounts.
For both individual and tribal trust funds, government reports show that
records were often lost or never kept, and that systems didn't work or
weren't coordinated. Also, reports showed how policies were deficient or
never existed.
In 1987, Congress ordered the Interior Department to audit and reconcile
the accounts and to provide full and complete accountings to tribes and
individuals. The GAO stated that without improvement, trust fund account
holders could not be assured their balances are accurate.
In 1994, Congress enacted the American Indian Trust Management Reform
Act, requiring the federal government to provide tribal trust fund
beneficiaries with full and complete accountings of their trust funds.
In 2005, Interior's inspector general said the department procedures and
controls were not adequate to ensure trust fund activities and balances
were recorded properly or timely.
Nothing to date has yielded adequate accountings.
Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs hired the accounting firm Arthur
Andersen LLP to do a limited reconciliation of tribal trust fund
accounts in the 1990s. Despite acknowledged shortcomings with the
project, federal officials asked tribes to accept the reports.
Arthur Anderson's five-year, $21 million accounting sampling covered a
20-year span between 1972 and 1992.
Congress gave tribes a Dec. 31, 2005, deadline to challenge the
reconciliation reports. The deadline was extended to Dec. 31, 2006,
prompting tribes to sue late last month, seeking a court order declaring
the Arthur Andersen reports inaccurate, and to demand a proper
accounting.
"We are confident that the court will agree that the Arthur Andersen
reconciliation reports are not full and complete accountings," said John
Gonzales, NARF's board chairman. "The real battle will be over what more
the court or Congress will do to protect the rights of tribes and to
hold the government accountable for its duties as the trustee for tribal
trust funds."