[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15210-15211]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           COBELL SETTLEMENT

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, as we conclude our work prior to the 
August break, we are working very hard to try to address the Cobell 
settlement and the Pigford settlement, these settlements are the result 
of lawsuits that were filed, negotiations that ensued, and eventually 
reaching agreement to settle these two cases.
  I would like to talk briefly about the Cobell settlement. To start, I 
want to show a photograph, a picture of a woman named Mary Fish. I 
wonder how anyone serving in this Chamber or how anyone in this country 
would feel had they been Mary Fish. She was an Oklahoma Indian. She 
lived in a small, humble home, never had very much. But she had a piece 
of property, 40 acres, and she had six oil wells on her land--six oil 
wells on her land.
  How she got ``her land'' dates back to 1887 when the Federal 
Government first divided up tribal lands and gave individual Indians 
separate parcels of land and then said to the Indians: You know what. 
We are going to give you separate parcels of land that will be yours. 
But, we are going to manage them for you. We will hold them in trust 
and provide income from your land to you.
  So poor Mary Fish, an Oklahoma Indian, had six oil wells on her land 
and lived a humble life and died a few years ago waiting, waiting for 
justice, justice that she never received. The Federal Government never 
explained to Mary how much oil was being pumped from the wells on her 
land.
  Even with all of the oil wells on her land, Mary made only a few 
dollars a year from six wells. At one point she got a check from the 
Federal Government for 6 cents. Another time she got a check from the 
Federal Government for $3. One time she got a check for $3,000. Another 
time, although oil was still being produced, one of the statements that 
Mary received showed a negative $5 in her account.
  She died waiting for the government to account for the royalties on 
her land, and for this legislation that would settle this matter. She 
died waiting for justice.
  So what is the Cobell settlement, and what does it have to do with 
Mary Fish and all the oil produced from her land. The Cobell settlement 
is an agreement reached by the Secretary of the Interior and the all of 
the plaintiffs in the Cobell lawsuit--individual Indians like Mary. I 
am going to speak about the Cobell settlement, and a couple of 
colleagues are going to talk about the Pigford settlement. We are here 
today talking about settling both of these issues.
  The Cobell settlement established deadlines for the Congress to act. 
The Court wants to see this matter resolved. The current deadline for 
Congress is August 6. We have already missed six deadlines established 
by the federal court. And if Congress does not act, the parties will 
return back to litigation, litigation that has gone on now for almost 
15 years in the federal courts.
  As I indicated, this situation in the Cobell case resulted from a 
century of mismanagement of Indian trust accounts. I want to show a 
photograph of the way trust records of the accounts for the individual 
Indians were kept on one Indian reservation--rat-infested warehouses 
with boxes laying all over. They would not be able to find a piece of 
paper in this pile to save their souls. And this is how the government 
kept records for individual Indian trust accounts. The result is, so 
many Indians were cheated. Yes, there have been circumstances in the 
last century in which Indians were systematically cheated and looted. 
Grand theft occurred, a substantial amount of money

[[Page 15211]]

was made off these lands. Someone else got it, the Indians did not. 
After all these years, it is long past the time for us to agree to 
settle these grievances.
  The government has long known about the problem. In 1915, a 
government report identified ``fraud, corruption and incompetence in 
the management of these Indian trust accounts.'' That was in 1915. In 
1992, a House report compared the federal government's management of 
Indian trust accounts to ``a bank that doesn't know how much money it 
has.''
  Finally, in 1994, Congress passed a law requiring that the government 
account for the money it was managing for American Indians, and then 2 
years later, where there was still nothing being done and no progress, 
Elouise Cobell filed a case asking the government to follow the law.
  Elouise Cobell is a member of the Blackfeet Nation of Montana. She is 
quite a remarkable woman. Like many American Indians, she grew up 
hearing stories of government checks and how the checks never made any 
sense. The checks arrived once in a while and were in amounts no one 
understood or could explain.
  In 1996, she filed a lawsuit. Her lawsuit said: Give me an accounting 
of the money that you have collected from my lands, and do the same for 
every other American Indian. That was in 1996.
  We are now in the year 2010, and finally agreement has been reached 
by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of 
Justice to settle these accounts. It was 10 years ago when the court 
ruled against the Federal Government. The Federal Court said the 
Federal Government was wrong; they mismanaged these accounts, and 
violated the trust. Yes, there has been corruption, incompetence, and 
mismanagement.
  So 10 years ago, the Federal court ruled against the Federal 
Government, saying the Federal Government had lost, damaged, destroyed 
trust records, and the Federal Government admitted it could not account 
for these trust moneys. After all of this, the government had the nerve 
to spend taxpayers' money to appeal the court's decision. So it goes on 
and on and on. Millions have been spent in endless litigation with no 
settlement in sight.
  Finally, last December, and agreement was reached in settlement talks 
with the Interior Department and the Indians that resulted a settlement 
and this legislation to approve the settlement.
  I want to just mention a couple of other brief points. I know a 
couple of colleagues wish to make some comments today.
  The judge, when hearing of the settlement between the Federal 
Government and the Cobell plaintiffs, said the agreement was a win/win 
and that justice is on hold. That is what this is about. It is about 
providing the funding to settle the Cobell case and provide some amount 
of justice.
  Others will talk about settling the Pigford case.
  I will very briefly say again a lot of American Indians have died 
waiting for this moment. There are other stories I want to share.
  This is Susie White Calf. She is a Blackfeet Indian from Montana. 
This picture was taken in 2001, the same year the courts found the 
Federal Government had broken its responsibility to Indians. Six years 
later, she passed away, in 2007. She will not get justice. But perhaps 
we can provide justice for tens of thousands of other Indians by doing 
the right thing.
  I have other things to say, but I know some of my colleagues wish to 
say a few words. If I might, the Senator from Arkansas has to be away 
from the Chamber very briefly. She wanted to say a few words. Then I 
know that Senator Kyl and some others wish to say some other words as 
well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.

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