[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 118 (Thursday, August 5, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6800-S6803]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PIGFORD II SETTLEMENT
Mrs. LINCOLN. Madam President, I want to say a special thanks to my
colleague, Senator Dorgan, not only for yielding, but also, most
importantly, for his incredible passion for justice. He has worked long
and hard in this body and in the other, but certainly working hard for
justice for those whose voices are often quieted. He does a tremendous
job at it. I think we are all very grateful for that passion and for
that plea for justice.
I come to the Senate floor today to urge with great passion my Senate
colleagues to support another important piece of legislation; that is,
to fund the racial discrimination settlement known as Pigford II
between African-American farmers and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
The time is long overdue to move beyond USDA's discriminatory past
and begin to right the wrong of African-American producers and what
they have experienced. We have a keen opportunity today to be able to
move forward and to see, again, justice as has been described by
Senator Dorgan in talking about moving forward and away from the past
and the discrimination that occurred and putting an end to these
settlements that have already been settled. We have spent the time and
the energy and the resources to settle these arguments. Now we need to
make sure those who have been wronged will be right.
Between 1981 and 1996, African-American farmers seeking farm loans
and credit were discriminated against, denying them access to
government programs and to capital. In some cases, these farmers were
discouraged from even applying for loans. They were told they were
ineligible or that application forms were unavailable. In other
instances, loan applications were intentionally delayed to miss
deadlines, continuing to disadvantage those African-American farmers.
As a result of the discrimination, many of these farmers were unable to
run successful businesses and sustained severe damages to their credit
histories.
Despite these challenges, despite all of what they were presented
with and what they were dealing with, some of these farmers are still
farming today, embodying the essence of resilience and the industrious
characteristic of all American farmers. We should be proud they are
still farming today, and we should honor that by making sure we move
this settlement forward and make sure these awards are granted to those
who have been wronged.
Another fallout faced by African-American farmers is their shaken
faith in the USDA and, by extension, the U.S. Government. Who can blame
them--to have been wronged and to be found they were in the right and
yet still not to be made whole? Many farmers have spent more than 20
years seeking recognition of the discrimination they experienced. While
no settlement can completely compensate them for the anxiety, the
anguish, and, of course, the humiliation they experienced, finally
funding this settlement is a critical first step in restoring the
USDA's credibility among minority farmers.
I hope my colleagues will understand how critically important this is
to the embodiment of who we are as a people and a government to move
this forward. While it is understood that a legal settlement agreement
is rarely perfect, funding this agreement will provide much needed
reconciliation for African-American farmers. It is an opportunity to
restore their faith in their government, by renouncing a past riddled
with discrimination and rightfully honoring the settlement.
Time is of the essence, as many Pigford claimants have passed away
waiting for closure on this matter, just as Senator Dorgan mentioned
Native Americans who have passed away waiting for justice. We simply
cannot afford to delay this process any further. We have seen multiple
opportunities and efforts to try to move forward. I hope today is an
opportunity none of us will deny to move the issue forward.
In my State of Arkansas, I have heard the stories of hard-working
farm families who, despite years of neglect and discrimination from
their own government, continue pushing ahead. I have heard from farmers
such as Mr. Charlie Knott, a hard-working Arkansan who sought farm
loans in the 1980s but was misled and mistreated in that process. Mr.
Knott was refused timely access to sufficient capital because of
discrimination, limiting production and ultimately crippling his
business.
When Mr. Knott fell ill, his children tried to take over the farm but
were also met with resistance and neglect from their government,
leading to destroyed credit ratings, a loss of 230 acres, as well as
the family tractor and other farm equipment. After farming on the same
land for over 100 years, the Knott family was forced to quit.
Adding insult to injury, the Knott children were once again denied
access to the Pigford claim because of missed filing deadlines. The
Knott children are determined to return to farming, to restore the
family business and their dignity, and to uphold the legacy of their
father, who fought for years not only to serve his family and community
but to contribute to the strong legacy of American farming.
Farmers such as Mr. Knott deserve justice and gratitude from a nation
that wouldn't be what it is today absent their sacrifices and
contributions. Farmers such as Mr. Knott have suffered gross
injustices. It is incumbent on the Members of Congress to demonstrate
the leadership to correct this injustice and to pass this legislation.
If not today, when? When will we do this? This action is long overdue.
The time has come to take this step, to live up to our founding
principles, to begin the healing process that is so needed, and to
restore faith in our government. I urge my colleagues to support this
measure today as we move forward and put it behind us, as we begin to
heal and rebuild faith in our government.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Arkansas for
what she has said. It really is unfortunate that we cannot get this
Pigford legislation passed.
I know the distinguished Presiding Officer, the junior Senator from
North Carolina, has been working on this very hard as well. In fact,
she and I have cosponsored a piece of legislation to give justice in
this area as well.
Today, we have an opportunity to finally take care of this situation
of bringing justice to Black farmers who have been waiting for decades
to settle their discrimination claims against the Department of
Agriculture. Earlier this year, Secretary Vilsack was able to reach a
settlement agreement with the Pigford II claimants who were denied a
determination on the merits of their claims against the USDA for no
reason other than they had filed late.
The government has an obligation to fund the settlement, which is
subject to court approval, and Congress must act to provide relief for
these claimants and do it quickly. The Black farmers have been asking
for stand-alone consideration of this bill. That is what I was hoping
to get done today.
I have nothing against what my colleagues are doing on the Cobell
settlement as well.
I think it is fair to say that such appropriation for the Pigford
settlement ought to be offset.
There is an advocate for the Black farmers--John Boyd. I have been
working with him for a long period. He was working hard on this a long
time before I was. We should be getting this resolved for the benefit
of the farmers but also for the advocates, those people who have been
working so hard finding ways to get it done. We thought now was the
opportunity to get it done.
The farm bill we passed last year does one thing right: it focuses a
considerable amount of resources on new and beginning farmers and
ranchers. Many of the Pigford claimants were in that same boat 20 years
ago. We have an opportunity to rectify that misjustice. We know USDA
has admitted the discrimination occurred. Now
[[Page S6801]]
we are obligated to do our best getting relief to those who deserve it.
It is time to make these claimants right and move forward into a new
era of civil rights in the Department of Agriculture.
I look forward to the time we can get this done. I plead with my
colleagues, as the Senator from Arkansas pleaded, to get this done
right now.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I add my voice in support of coming to
closure on this important issue. I thank Senator Dorgan and Senator
Lincoln for their extraordinary leadership for the Pigford and Cobell
claimants. We are very close to settling a grave injustice that has
gone on in two communities, one the Native-American community and the
other the African-American community. I surely hope we can find a way
forward in the next few hours, before we leave, to get this done; if
not, that it would be one of the first orders of business when we
return.
Explanations have been made beautifully on both sides. I represent
1,000 African-American farmers. I am going to fight for them and
advocate for them and continue to bring their cases before this body
until we get justice.
People in Louisiana generally, of many different races, understand
systematic injustice. Talking about oil moneys not coming the way they
should, there are many people in Louisiana right now shaking their
heads in great sympathy with the stories the Senator from North Dakota
shared with us about Native Americans.
I support the Pigford settlement. I support the Cobell settlement. I
hope we can find the $5 billion, approximately, so that it does not
affect the deficit, paid for in a responsible way to end this
discrimination and to provide some hope and support to these families.
I was proud to send Clarence Hawkins' name to run the USDA in
Louisiana, the first African-American administrator to do so, former
mayor of Bastrop. The President appointed him at my suggestion. We are
making some headway in Louisiana to rectify past injustices.
Again, I thank Senators Dorgan and Lincoln for their leadership.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, Senator Barrasso and I, as chairman and
vice chairmen of the Indian Affairs Committee, have been working on
this issue for a long while. Senator Kyl, Senator Baucus--we have had
discussions. Senator Kyl had to leave the floor, but I believe he will
return. He very much wants to find a way to resolve these issues, as do
I and others.
This is not complicated. This is a case where the Federal Government
said to American Indians in the late 1800s: We are going to break up
these tribal lands and give you personal ownership of these lands. And
then we will manage the lands for you and take care of it for you in
trust, and the income that comes off those lands will be yours. We will
manage your trust accounts.
The fact is, they took control of the lands and created trust
accounts. And the Indians got bilked, looted. Grand theft occurred.
Let me show one more photograph. This fellow is still alive. His name
is James Kennerly. He is a Blackfeet Indian, standing in front of his
rather humble home. He is hoping that Congress will resolve this by
approving the settlement. His father was a World War I veteran,
wounded, disabled in combat. The family lives on land that has
considerable oil and gas leases. Thousands of barrels a week were
pumped off that land. Years later, the oil wells still continue to
pump, but all the lease documents have disappeared. This family lives
in a humble home despite having had oil interests on their property.
Another person waiting for justice, Johnson Martinez, a Navajo Indian
in his seventies, lives in a rundown trailer house near Bloomfield, NM.
He has no running water and no electricity. At night, he builds a fire
to keep himself and his dogs warm. He lives yards away from where the
gas pipelines cross his family's land. He lives off the right-of-way
fees for the gas pipeline. One month, he got a check for $80. Sometimes
he gets a check for a few cents. A court-appointed investigator found
that non-Indians were receiving 20 times more than Navajo Indians such
as Johnson Martinez were receiving in the same circumstances.
And then there is Esther and Sam Valdez--Navajo Indians--they live
100 feet from natural gas wells. They have been producing natural gas
for a long while. Yet this family has trouble putting food on the
table. They receive checks for $6 and $8. Sometimes the checks come,
sometimes they don't. The Federal Government can never explain to them
what happens to the money. This is grand theft.
For more than a century, American Indians were cheated. Yes, there is
some incompetence here. That is the comfortable word. But there is also
looting and theft involved in having these folks cheated.
The lawsuit was filed 15 years ago. Ten years ago, the Federal court
said the Federal Government is completely without merit and violated
its trust. The court found in favor of the plaintiffs, saying that they
have been bilked. That was 10 years ago. But, the case continued in
Federal court with more and more money spent on lawyers.
Finally, at long last, Interior Secretary Salazar and Attorney
General Holder, and the plaintiffs in this case negotiated an
agreement, and the Federal judge in the case said: This looks like
justice to me. This settlement was sent to the Congress for approval
and to provide the funding for this agreement.
I came to the floor to offer a unanimous consent request to see if at
long last we might put the Cobell litigation behind us and do the fair
thing. I understand a unanimous consent request would be objected to at
this moment because of what is called the ``pay-for.'' So we have a
disagreement about that. But I also understand from discussions we have
held that there is the possibility and the potential that this
afternoon we might find a way to reach agreement on the ``pay-for''
portion of this and have the Senate finally approve the Cobell
settlement, and also the Pigford settlement so that we can move beyond
on this.
In the situation that led to the Cobell case, there are people who
should hang their head in shame, many of them now departed, who have
bilked the Indians out of so much money over so many years.
I would finally say this about the Cobell matter and the American
Indians involved. This is a chart that shows the 10 poorest counties in
America, the 10 counties with the most significant poverty in our
country. Madam President, 8 of the 10 counties have Indian reservations
in them--8 of them. We know that. We know what is going on.
Then I talk about these people, American Indians, who live in humble
homes with no money, with six oil wells on their land. Somebody is
getting the money, but the Indians are not. Who is cheating them? Who
cheated them a decade ago, five decades ago, ten decades ago? Will we
ever settle our account here? Will this country ever deal responsibly
with what I call a shame?
Well, my colleague, Senator Barrasso, and I have worked on this a
long while. He has had some concern about certain aspects of the
settlement, but I do not think there is a disagreement between us at
all about the need to move forward to resolve this issue. My hope is we
can do that very soon.
As I said, I was intending to seek a unanimous consent request, but I
think I will stop short of that at this moment because there is the
potential, perhaps later this afternoon, for us to reach agreement on
the ``pay-for'' and a couple of other elements and get a unanimous
consent request agreed to, which would be a very significant
achievement in this body today.
I know Senator Barrasso from Wyoming wishes to seek recognition. Let
me yield the floor so that might happen.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burris). The Senator from Wyoming is
recognized.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I appreciate the hard work done by my
colleague from North Dakota and his commitment as chairman of the
Indian Affairs Committee to try to come to a solution in the Cobell
settlement.
He is absolutely right. We still need to work on some policy issues,
as well
[[Page S6802]]
as some issues in terms of how this will be paid for. He and I both
agree we need to settle the Cobell lawsuit. There has been much
rhetoric. We both agree we need to settle the Cobell lawsuit.
At the President's insistence, and the House and the Senate
majorities, they have repeatedly tried to get this bill enacted outside
the regular process. This settlement has been inserted into various
bills over the past several months that have absolutely nothing to do
with American Indian issues. You ask yourself why. Well, perhaps folks
wanted to avoid some scrutiny--scrutiny by Congress, by the press, and,
most of all, by those who have been most affected, the stakeholders.
Two weeks ago, I came to the floor and offered an amendment to
legislation that addressed some of the more egregious problems with the
settlement. I am talking policy as well as pay-for issues. The majority
leader dismissed my amendment, and he called it the ``beat up the
lawyers'' amendment. Well, he called it that because one of the
provisions in the amendment establishes a $50 million cap on
presettlement attorneys' fees--$50 million. The settlement says it
should be between $50 million and $100 million. My amendment said,
let's keep it at that lower figure. Only in Washington, DC, would
anyone ever call a $50 million cap on attorneys' fees--$50 million of
attorneys' fees--as beating up the lawyers.
Well, because attorneys' fees were capped at $50 million, the
majority leader objected to both the Cobell and the Pigford
settlements.
There was and still is a good reason for that cap. Every Member of
this body should read a couple of op-eds on this Cobell settlement. One
was in the August 1 edition of The Hill, the other in today's August
5th edition. The August 1 article: ``Cobell settlement worth doing
right, together.'' The one from today: ``Unconscionable Cobell.''
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that both these articles be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Hill's Congress Blog, Aug. 2, 2010]
Cobell Settlement Worth Doing Right, Together
(By Kimberly Craven)
Today, the Senate will be asked to approve by unanimous
consent settlement of the proposed Cobell lawsuit (Cobell v.
Salazar). Senators are not being advised that the proposed
settlement is constitutionally dubious and greatly expands
the original litigation. It authorizes a mandatory class of
plaintiff with no regard to the due-process rights of
individuals to opt. It creates a new class to settle land and
natural resource mismanagement claims which were never part
of the original litigation and not been part of the 14-year-
long Cobell lawsuit which, we have been told, sought only an
accounting of individual Indian money (IIM) accounts.
If Congress approves it, the settlement will consist of two
classes: those of the historical accounting class and the new
``un-litigated'' class--the trust mismanagement class. The
first class will receive $1,0oo and any traditional safe-
guard of opting-out will be denied this class. The new second
class will receive $500 and a formula based on the top 10
sums that have filtered through a person's IIM account.
Creation of the new class has been disturbing to many
tribes and American Indians. The government will be
authorized to pay more than $3.4 billion without even filing
an Answer to the new Complaint of land mismanagement claims.
What it means is that if you're a Native person whose land
has been flooded or damaged, timber destroyed, mineral
royalties underpaid, soil poisoned, grass lands over-grazed
by your lessee or if you've just been the victim of trespass,
your claims will be settled for $500 and a formula amount
that bears no resemblance to actual damages or loss.
Many American Indians think this entire settlement,
although cloaked in righteous language, has been cobbled
together for the primary purpose of permitting the
Administration to fulfill a campaign promise. This settlement
will permit the attorneys to claim as much as $100 million in
attorney fees with a side agreement they are not even
required to document the time spent on the case for the first
fourteen years. Personally, I find it disturbing that one of
the plaintiff attorneys served on the Obama campaign,
transition team, and posted pictures of himself on Facebook
partying at the White House holiday party around the time the
settlement was reached, and now is rumored to be up for 10th
Circuit Court of Appeals nomination. The lead plaintiff has
been very upfront that some Indians will get hundreds of
thousands of dollars and is on record as saying, ``Some
people will be very, very rich.'' I think we know who some of
those people might be. The litigation was filed in a Court of
Equity where only an accounting (an equitable action) could
be ordered and money damages could not be awarded. The seven
attorneys will share in $100 million and the lead plaintiff
will also be entitled to up to $15 million in
``reimbursements'' for ``repayable grants,'' surely an
oxymoron even in Washington-speak, plus an undisclosed amount
in ``incentive fees for the four lead plaintiffs.''
As I wrote this opinion piece, I researched elements of an
unfair class action lawsuit and found this information at
www.classactionlitigation.com/faq. Elements include ``any
settlement where the release being demanded as a condition of
the settlement is extremely overbroad and encompasses claims
that were neither pursued in the class complaint nor subject
to true adversarial litigation prior to the settlement and
virtual nonexistence of discovery by the class counsel who
proposes a settlement.'' This surely meets those thresholds
with no discovery, judicial record, or due process for the
proposed second class.
Both the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and the
Great Plains Tribal Chairmen's Association are on record as
wanting changes to the settlement. Sen. John Barrasso (R-
Wyo.) has recommended many of these changes to address the
fairness, restoration, due process, and other infirmities in
the settlement proposed today and many Indian people
appreciate his efforts in his leadership role as Vice
Chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Having
worked for a Republican Senator, Sen. Daniel J. Evans (R-
Wash.), who also served in this capacity, I know firsthand
that Indian issues are not partisan in nature. If this is
worth doing to the tune of $3.4 billion, then it's worth
doing right together.
____
[From the The Hill's Congress Blog, Aug. 5, 2010]
Unconscionable Cobell
(By Richard A. Monette)
A few facts about the Cobell settlement to be voted on in
Senate today:
Number of published court opinions in the case: 80-plus;
Amount awarded to plaintiffs by courts at present: $0;
Amount to attorneys under settlement: $100 Million (through
Dec. 7, 2009);
Amount to each account holder under settlement: $1,000.00;
Number of accounts with less than $15: 107,806;
Total amount of money in accounts with less than $15 (small
accounts): $15,210.51;
Average balance in 107,806 small accounts: $7.09;
Total to be paid under settlement to small accounts:
$107,806,000.
The Senate is asked today to give approval, sight-unseen
and by unanimous consent, to a $3.4 billion ``settlement'' of
a 14-year-old lawsuit brought by five individuals on behalf
of all American Indians who have money or land held in trust
by the United States. $2 billion of this amount will be
earmarked to pre-fund an existing Bureau of Indian Affairs
program for 10 years. The amount awarded by the courts to
date after more than 10 trials is exactly zero dollars and
zero cents. If approved by the Congress, and subsequently by
the courts, the remainder of this money will be parceled out
by formula in the form of reparations without regard to any
individual's actual losses or damages.
The only individuals who will be permitted to present
actual clams are the attorneys and the five named individual
plaintiffs. The five named plaintiffs are authorized up to
$15 million as ``reimbursements'' for ``repayable grants,''
plus an undisclosed amount as ``incentive fee awards.'' The
lawyers will be authorized to claim up to $100 million off
the top, plus their ``normal hourly rates'' for as long as it
takes to settle up with some 300,000 individuals, more than
83,000 of whose whereabouts are unknown. Much smaller mass
settlement awards have taken more than 10 years to close out.
More than 100,000 of these individuals have account
balances of less than $15. Each of them will receive a check
for $1,000, or an amount more than 6,600 percent of their
current balance. Those individuals with more than $1 million
in their accounts will receive $1,000 also, or less than one-
tenth of 1 percent of their current balances. There is
neither rhyme nor reason to this scheme.
The $2 billion, pre-funded BIA program completely usurps
the authority of the Appropriations Committees for 10 years.
This settlement also confers jurisdiction on a federal
district court that does not presently have it; rewrites the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for this case to authorize
the court to exercise the conferred jurisdiction; and
presents the court not with a case or controversy as required
by Article III of the Constitution, but with a pre-packaged
financial program simply to administer. The sponsor of this
measure in the Senate stated that no other committee (i.e.,
Judiciary) needs to review this measure before it is
presented for a vote.
Proponents claim this settlement will ``turn the page'' on
a dark chapter. Some who are familiar with the litigating
history beyond this case of the lead counsel and lead
plaintiff think this settlement is more likely only to fuel a
war chest for subsequent, similarly entrepreneurial and
extortionate litigation. No senator should think this
settlement approximates ``justice'' that has somehow escaped
the attention of the federal
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judges who have actually presided over the 14-year history of
this case.
Mr. BARRASSO. So there are issues of policy dealing with
transparency, dealing with the production of records by the attorneys
who are involved in this. When you read one of these editorials, the
one in today's Hill, ``Unconscionable Cobell,'' written by a law
professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison:
Number of published court opinions in the case: 80-plus
Amount awarded to plaintiffs by courts at present: $0
Amount to attorneys under settlement: $100 Million. . . .
Amount to each account holder under [this] settlement:
We are talking now about those who have been affected by this--
$1,000.00
What an incredible disparity.
Well, if we were all to take the time to look through these two
editorials, the changes to the settlement I have been proposing would
not only seem reasonable, they would be absolutely necessary. They
point out several real problems with the settlement, including the way
the attorneys' fees are handled. I am continuing to work with my
colleagues on dealing with that. These are the blunt facts.
So I agree with my colleague from North Dakota, the problems with the
Cobell settlement are by no means insurmountable. They can and they
must be resolved. In fact, I do not think it would be difficult to
resolve the differences we have regarding the Cobell settlement. We can
sit down, and we plan to do that, to discuss the issues directly. I
think we can get beyond this impasse, and that is what I am committed
to do.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as I indicated, I intend to withhold the
unanimous consent request because it would clearly be objected to.
There are some people who disagree with the method by which this
settlement would be paid for.
But I also wish to mention that I have some hope that later today,
finally at long last, we may be able to come to the floor of the Senate
with an agreement that would be able to withstand the unanimous consent
request. If we do that before we break, we would have resolved a very
longstanding issue, not just 15 years of litigation, or a century of
mismanagement, but also since last December, when this agreement was
reached and the Congress was given time to approve it, but then that
deadline had to be extended six times. At long last, perhaps we will be
able to decide we can do this together.
I very much appreciate the work Senator Barrasso is doing and Senator
Kyl and Senator Baucus and others. My hope is that later this afternoon
I will be able to come to the floor with such a unanimous consent
request.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the Pigford II
settlement pending full action by the U.S. Senate.
We all know that farming is a difficult occupation. The hours are
long, the weather is unpredictable, and the challenge of competing in a
global marketplace is intense. Tens of thousands of Black farmers have
had to face all those normal challenges. Tragically, they have also had
to deal with a challenge that was unique to them based solely on race.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, was discriminating against
them.
More than 12 years ago, Black farmers across America brought a class
action suit against the USDA for racial discrimination. The history of
that discrimination is a sad one, and it is well documented. Farmers,
like all businesses, need access to loans. They need to borrow money
for expensive equipment and they need funding to help them when
droughts strike or when markets collapse. The Congress has recognized
this need for decades, and we have established special loan programs in
the USDA to support these special needs. But when it came to lending,
tens of thousands of Black farmers were the victims of systemic
discrimination. During the 1980s and 1990s, the average processing time
for a loan application by White farmers was 30 days; the average time
for a loan application by Black farmers was 387 days. Black farmers had
to wait 12 times as long to receive a loan. This discrimination earned
the USDA the regrettable nickname ``the Last Plantation.''
Black farmers finally sought justice through a class action lawsuit
in 1997. More than 20,000 farmers initiated claims citing racial
discrimination in the USDA farm loan programs. Two years after the
action was initiated, the U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia entered a consent decree approving a class action settlement
to compensate these farmers for years of racial discrimination by the
USDA. Each farmer who could prove discrimination was entitled to
damages. Out of the initial 20,000 farmers, 15,000 were meritorious in
the claims they brought.
As the legal process continued, additional farmers began to join the
class action and filed their own claims. Approximately 80,000 farmers
eventually brought claims. Unfortunately, many of these farmers did not
know about the class action suit, and by the time they learned of its
existence, the filing deadline had passed.
In 2008, Congress recognizing the injustice of stopping 80 percent or
more of the farmers who potentially suffered discrimination by our
government--decided to take action and created a new cause of action
for farmers previously denied access to justice. In the 2008 farm bill,
with bipartisan support, Congress included $100 million for payments
and debt relief as a downpayment to satisfy the claims filed by
deserving claimants denied participation in the original settlement
because of timeliness issues.
After years of litigation and negotiation between the Department of
Justice, which represented the USDA, and lawyers for the farmers, a
settlement was finally reached in February 2010. The Pigford II
settlement agreement will provide $1.25 billion, which is contingent on
appropriation by Congress, to African-American farmers who can show
they suffered racial discrimination in USDA farm loan programs. Once
the money is appropriated farmers can pursue their individual claims
through the same nonjudicial process used in the first case.
To address this funding need, President Obama included $1.15 billion
in additional funding for his fiscal year 2010 and fiscal year 2011
budgets. Both Chambers of Congress have worked to pass appropriations
to fulfill the settlement agreement since February. The House of
Representatives has passed funding language for the Pigford case twice;
once as part of the war supplemental and the other on a tax extenders
bill. But the Senate has not been able to do the same. Despite the
majority leader's efforts in finding ways to pay for the legislation
and move the legislation for full Senate consideration, we have been
unable to proceed to a rollcall vote. This bill has come before the
Senate a half dozen times. There are no known objections to the
settlement, yet we have failed to pass the funding therefore denying
the process for funding to these farmers who were discriminated against
by our own government.
We must move to appropriate these funds. The settlement that was
reached is only valid until August 18, 2010. Failure to appropriate the
money by then could cause the agreement to be voided. William Gladstone
once said that ``justice delayed is justice denied.'' Let us not be in
the business of delaying and denying justice for African-American
farmers. Let us be in the business of allowing the justice system to
work and provide them with adequate redress. I urge my colleagues to
support this funding.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I think my friends and colleagues on the
other side have blocked out some time. If they would not mind, I would
be very grateful if I could take 5 or 6 minutes to make some comments
about the Kagan nomination. I see heads nodding affirmatively, so I
appreciate it.
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