INTERTRIBAL MONITORING
ASSOCIATION on Indian Trust Funds
Phone: 505/247-1447
Fax: 505/247-1449 e-mail:
itma@itmatrustfunds.org
REPORT
Oversight Hearing on
the
“Status of Indian
Trust Fund Lawsuit, Cobell v. Norton”
__________
Panel One - James Cason
Acting Assistant
Secretary James Cason briefly made a statement and offered to answer questions.
In his written statement he summarized the following pertinent information:
1
Department of the
Interior (DOI or Department) manages 56 million acres of trust land
2
(46 million acres for
Tribes; 10 million acres for individual Indians).
3
DOI manages over
100,000 leases for Tribes and individuals.
4
$205 million is
collected annually for 245,000 IIM accounts.
5
$414 million is
collected annually for 1,400 tribal accounts for 300 Tribes.
6
$3.0 billion is
additionally managed for Tribes.
7
$400 million is
additionally managed for individual Indian accounts.
Cason responded to
Chairman Pombo’s questions about solutions:
DOI budgeted $135 million for historical accounting. Cason believed there are other places the
money could be used if the DOI were allowed to “move on.”
DOI has been impacted negatively everywhere. Even BIA careers have been negatively
impacted because of the taint of working on the Cobell issues.
Ten percent of DOI has no Internet and have resorted to “workaround”
efforts. Employees receive e-mail at
home, attorneys are not able to conduct legal research from web sites.
Cong. Napolitano
asked what elements should be part of the solution?
Cason responded that:
DOI views a solution as hampered by (1) expectations of DOI. There is a view that there is a substantial
error and fraud in DOI’s trust fund management but accounting tests showed a
small error rate and inconsistencies. No
issues of fraud were found.
(2) Uncertainty hampers a solution because there are $100’s of
millions of dollars in accounts that need to be reconciled without documents.
DOI wants a fair settlement. DOI met with plaintiffs dozens of times
through meetings and each had their perceptions of what is fair.
Cong. Hayworth stated
that § 131 Tribes under the Trust Demonstration Project were demonstrating that
generally tribes do a more efficient job and provide increased services.
Cason agreed.
Cong. Hurset, S.
Dakota asked if a historical accounting was critical?
Cason responded:
DOI believes that an accounting may not meet expectations. There is confusion as to what kind of
accounting is required.
The question was
asked why does it cost so much to audit the accounts?
Cason responded:
There was no flawed accounting in the system and the accounting was done
by fellow Indians. There was no
accounting for lost or stolen revenues.
Cong. Faleomavaega
asked why can't give $4 billion at the outset which is the Indians money to
begin with.
Cason responded:
DOI was trying to get to a solution.
Very few small errors had been found.
But the $4 billion to $150 billion figure is all over the place. What is
the magnitude?
Cong. Udall asked if
Cason had a solution to put in front of the Committee.
Cason said the DOI was addressing
process, settlement, and total piece options.
Udall said he did not
want a patchwork or band-aid solution.
Cong. Pierce asked if
DOI's opinion was that the errors were small, infrequent, and there was no consistent mismanagement, does
DOI have examples to show this is so.
Cason did not answer the question.
Panel Two - Keith Harper
Harper made a
preliminary statement summarizing a detailed, informative written statement.
Cong. Faleomavaega
asked why mediation did not work.
Harper responded:
Procedural issues were not resolved.
In fact, plaintiffs had made an offer and no counter-offer was made.
There were questions of personal liability of Department officials. The plaintiffs were simply required that the
officials tell the truth to the Court and when they did not, sanctions were
proper for giving false statements to the Court. Further, there is no accountability for
officials in DOI.
Harper was asked if
this was an Administrative Procedures Act (
Harper responded that the Court had already ruled this is a trust law
case with a strict duty to account to beneficiaries.
Harper was asked his
recommendation:
Harper stated that the case should
not take away from DOI appropriations.
DOI should find reasonable
dollar amounts.
As to trust reform, the plaintiffs did not agree with the
re-organization. There was no
accounts receivable. Without this,
what numbers are we looking at? Without such numbers, there can be no
negotiation for fair market value.
SUMMARY
In sum, Mr. Cason
appeared to make the argument that DOI could not provide solutions because of
the (1) expectations of DOI that it has a high error rate and (2) uncertainty
that exists because of the lack of records. He repeated the theme that DOI
found few, infrequent errors with no consistent mismanage. The BIA accounting was done by fellow
Indians. While Mr. Cason referred to judgment fund and per capita accounts, he
did not address leasing accounts involved oil and gas, grazing or agriculture and
timber leases, either for tribes or individuals.
Mr. Harper cited a
1915 Report of the Joint Commission of the Congress of the
Marcella Giles
ITMA Trust Reform Liaison