Wow, 3 billion just because you were born Indian.


WASHINGTON —
The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed spending more than $3 billion to settle claims dating back more than a century that American Indian tribes were swindled out of royalties for oil, gas, grazing and other leases.

Under an agreement announced Tuesday, the Interior Department would distribute $1.4 billion to more than 300,000 Indian tribe members to compensate them for historical accounting claims, and to resolve future claims. The government also would spend $2 billion to buy back and consolidate tribal land broken up in previous generations. The program would allow individual tribe members to obtain cash payments for land interests divided among numerous family members and return the land to tribal control.

The settlement also would create a scholarship account of up to $60 million for tribal members to attend college or vocational school.

If cleared by Congress and a federal judge, the settlement would be the largest Indian claim ever approved against the U.S. government - exceeding the combined total of all previous settlements of Indian claims.

Last year, a federal judge ruled that the Indian plaintiffs are entitled to $455 million, a fraction of the $47 billion or more the tribes have said they are owed for leases that have been overseen by the Interior Department since 1887.

President Barack Obama said settlement of the case, known as Cobell v. Salazar, was an important step to reconcile decades of acrimony between Indian tribes and the federal government.

"As a candidate, I heard from many in Indian Country that the Cobell suit remained a stain on the nation-to-nation relationship I value so much," Obama said Tuesday in a written statement. "I pledged my commitment to resolving this issue, and I am proud that my administration has taken this step today."

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called settlement of the 13-year-old case a top priority for him and Obama and said the administration worked for many months to reach a settlement that is both honorable and responsible.

"This historic step will allow Interior to move forward and address the educational, law enforcement, and economic development challenges we face in Indian Country," Salazar said.

Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe from Montana who was the lead plaintiff in the case, called the proposed settlement crucial for hundreds of thousand of Native Americans who have suffered for more than a century through mismanagement of the Indian trust.

"Today is a monumental day for all of the people in Indian Country that have waited so long for justice," said Cobell, who appeared at a news conference Tuesday with Salazar, Attorney General Eric Holder and other U.S. officials.

"Did we get all the money that was due us? Probably not," Cobell said, but added: "There's too many individual Indian beneficiaries that are dying every single day without their money."



The proposed settlement affects tribes across the country, including virtually every recognized tribe west of the Mississippi River. Tribes in North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma and Montana are especially affected by the breakup of Indian land into small parcels, said Keith Harper, a lawyer who represents the plaintiffs.

The settlement would give every Indian tribe member with an Interior Department account an immediate check for $1,000, with additional payments to be determined later under a complicated formula that takes into account a variety of factors. Many tribe members also would receive payments for parcels of land that are held in some cases by up to 100 family members, in an effort to consolidate tribal land and make it more useful and easier to manage.

The settlement does not include a formal apology for any wrongdoing by the U.S. government, but does contain language in which U.S. officials acknowledge a "breach of trust" on Indian land issues.

An apology "would have been nice," Cobell said, but was less important than settling the dispute. "Actions are more important to me than apologies," she said.

"American Indian tribes were swindled out of royalties for oil, gas, grazing and other leases."
"Wow, 3 billion just because you were born Indian. "
It's money that should have been paid out years ago. It took the government over 100 years to compensate the Blackfeet for the seizure of the Sweet Grass Hills. The Cobell case was filed in 1996 and the orignal estimate was around 176 billion so the case was settled cheaply.
At one point a judge issued a contempt of court against the federal government in general and Norton in particular for stone walling and not producing court ordered documents. The case was filed when the government failed to negotiate in good faith.
And yes, I'm a member of the Blackfeet tribe and Earl Old Person, one of the original plaintiffs is a relative.
It is a lot easier to have a knee jerk reaction than to bother to check some facts.

Exactly.

Some people around here openly hope for another round of genocide a la Custer.

That 3 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the two centuries of straight up theft perpetrated by the Dept of Interior at the behest of logging, mining, and drilling interests, not to mention the direct theft by the gov't of monies held in trust accounts by the BIA.

Playing the victim card seems to be more profitable than holding down a job...

While I am not a member of any tribe, I have family members who are, I don't like the way it is used to divide the U.S. citizens.

No victim card being played. Read the article. It's money that was
stolen over a period of 100 years. Do you understand at least that much?

200 billion in leftover funds are burning hole in the feds pocket... spin the wheel boys and girls lets see who the next big winner will be...

seriously, to bad it wasn't an official appology though... those tend to go alot farther than cash when it comes to mending fences

Won the battle, and still losing the war.

Mf

I am decidedly not a "birther", but you got the rest of it right...

If 3 Billion settles it then I'm all for it..........sorry Bra here's 3,000,000,000...we cool now?

This little settlement will probably do more to stimulate the U.S. economy than the Stimulus Plan and the Bail Out combined.

Which is still better that the bail out & stimulus combined.

Makes me want to open a Liquor store....

And just how much do the tribes cost the tax payer every year?

Nothing.

Your average trailer park/ housing project's annual welfare/SSI/medicare tab costs taxpayers as much or more than any indian reservation.

The reason why is because reservations attract businesses looking to exploit the legal loopholes that reservations maintain, and the revenue goes into the tribal general fund, a small portion of which is re-distributed to tribal members as an annual per capita payment and taxed by the IRS as unearned income, an even much higher rate than that which comes out of a average paycheck. So in effect, many Indians pay higher taxes than average since the revenue is not only taxed 1st as business revenue, but then again as personal income.

The claim that Natives live high on the hog at the taxpayer's dime is ludicrous and baseless. Just ignorant vitriol spewed by the uninformed.