[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 13]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 18884-18885]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



            INTRODUCTION OF THE SPOKANE TRIBE SETTLEMENT ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                     HON. GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR.

                             of washington

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 30, 1999

  Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce The Spokane 
Tribe of Indians of the Spokane Reservation Grand Coulee Dam Equitable 
Compensation Act. This legislation will provide for a settlement of the 
claims of the Spokane Tribe of Indians resulting from its contribution 
to the production of hydropower by the Grand Coulee Dam. Similar 
settlement legislation was enacted in 1994 to compensate the 
neighboring Confederated Colville Tribes. That Act, P.L. 103-436, 
provided for a $53 million lump sum payment for past damages and 
roughly $15 million annually from the ongoing proceeds from the sale of 
hydropower by the Bonneville Power Administration to the Colville 
Tribes. The Spokane Settlement Act, which I am introducing today, 
provides for a settlement of the Spokane Tribe of Indians claims 
directly proportional to the settlement afforded the Colville Tribes 
based upon the percentage of lands

[[Page 18885]]

appropriated from the respective tribes for the Grand Coulee Project, 
or approximately 39.4 percent of the past and future compensation 
awarded the Colville Tribes.
  Although the Department of the Interior and other federal officials 
were well aware of the flooding of Indian trust lands and other severe 
impacts the Grand Coulee Project would have on the fishery and other 
critical resources of the Spokane and Colville Tribes, no mention was 
made of these impacts or the need to compensate the Tribes in either 
the 1933 or 1935 authorizations. Federal interdepartmental and 
interoffice correspondence from September 1933 through October 1934 
demonstrate the government knew the Colville and Spokane Tribes should 
be compensated for the flooding of their lands, destruction of their 
fishery and other resources, destruction of their property and annual 
compensation from power production for the use of the Tribes' land and 
water resources contributing to power production.
  Congress passed legislation in 1940 to authorize the Secretary of the 
Interior to designate whichever Indian lands he deemed necessary for 
Grand Coulee construction and to receive all rights, title and interest 
the Indians has in them in return for his appraisal of its value and 
payment of compensation by the Secretary. The only land that was 
appraised and compensated for was the newly flooded lands for which the 
Spokane Tribe received $4,700. There is no evidence that the Department 
advised or that Congress knew that the Tribes' water rights were not 
extinguished. Nor had the Indian title and trust status of the Tribal 
land underlying the river beds been extinguished. No compensation was 
included for the power value contributed by the use of the Tribal 
resources nor the loss of the Tribal fisheries or other damages to 
tribal resources.
  In a 1976 opinion, Lawrence Aschenbrenner, Acting Associate Solicitor 
with the Department of the Interior's Division of Indian Affairs, 
stated, ``The 1940 act followed seven years of construction during 
which farm lands, and timber lands were flooded, and a fishery 
destroyed, and during which Congress was silent as to the Indian 
interests affected by the construction. Both the Congress and the 
Department of the Interior appeared to proceed with the Grand Coulee 
project as if there were no Indians involved there. . . . It is our 
conclusion that the location of the dams on tribal land and the use of 
the water for power production, without compensation, violated the 
Government's fiduciary duty toward the Tribes.''
  The Colville settlement legislation of 1994 ratified a settlement 
agreement reached between the United States and the Colville Tribes to 
settle the claims of the Tribes to a share of the hydropower revenues 
from the Grand Coulee Dam. This claim was among the claims which the 
Colville Tribes filed with the Indian Claims Commission (ICC) under the 
Act of August 13, 1946. This Act provided for a five year statute of 
limitations to file claims before the Commission. While the Colville 
Tribes had been formally organized for over 15 years at this point, the 
Spokane Tribe did not formally organize until 16 days prior to the ICC 
statute of limitations deadline. In addition, evidence indicates that 
while the Bureau of Indian Affairs was aware of the potential claims of 
the Spokane Tribe, it does not appear that the Tribe was ever advised 
of the potential claim.
  Since the mid-1970's, both Congress and Federal agencies have 
expressed the view that both the Colville and Spokane Tribes should be 
compensated. The legislation I am introducing today will provide for 
compensation to the Spokane Tribe. There is ample precedent for such 
settlement legislation that addresses the meritorious claims of a tribe 
and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

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