[House Report 109-324]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



109th Congress                                                   Report
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
 1st Session                                                    109-324

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    TO AMEND PUBLIC LAW 107-153 TO FURTHER ENCOURAGE THE NEGOTIATED 
                      SETTLEMENT OF TRIBAL CLAIMS

                                _______
                                

December 6, 2005.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the 
              State of the Union and ordered to be printed

                                _______
                                

  Mr. Pombo, from the Committee on Resources, submitted the following

                              R E P O R T

                        [To accompany H.R. 4292]

      [Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]

    The Committee on Resources, to whom was referred the bill 
(H.R. 4292) to amend Public Law 107-153 to further encourage 
the negotiated settlement of tribal claims, having considered 
the same, report favorably thereon without amendment and 
recommend that the bill do pass.

                          Purpose of the Bill

    The purpose of H.R. 4292 is to amend Public Law 107-153 to 
further encourage the negotiated settlement of tribal claims.

                  Background and Need for Legislation

    In consequence of certain treaties, statutes, executive 
orders, and continuous dealings with Indian tribes, the United 
States through the Department of the Interior holds legal title 
to more than 50 million acres of lands in trust for tribes and 
individual Indians. The revenues derived from these assets, and 
the accounts into which these revenues are deposited, are also 
held in trust by the federal government.
    Tribes currently have nearly $2.5 billion in the tribal 
trust accounts managed by the Department of the Interior. For 
years, many tribal governments and individual Indians claimed 
that the Department had mismanaged their trust assets and that 
the Department could not provide sufficient accounting reports. 
Beginning in the late 1980s, Congress began requiring the 
Interior Department to reconcile all Indian accounts.\1\
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    \1\ Although the Department is responsible for both accounting for 
both tribal and individual Indian accounts held in trust, the 
accounting for tribal accounts was separated from accounting for 
individual Indians, which is being adjudicated in Cobell v. Norton. The 
Cobell accounting claims are not addressed by H.R. 4292.
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    In 1996, the Department began sending accounting 
reconciliation reports to tribes. The General Accounting Office 
(now called the Government Accountability Office) reviewed 
these efforts and found that a reliable and complete accounting 
for the tribes' accounts could not be assured. Without a 
sufficient accounting, tribes would not have reliable means to 
determine if their assets had been correctly managed by the 
federal government.
    To protect their right to a proper accounting, by 2002 
tribes began filing lawsuits to force a complete accounting of 
tribal accounts. They did so over concerns that a six-year 
statute of limitations had begun running on their accounting 
claims in 1996, the year when they began receiving the 
Department's accounting reports.
    To stem the potential avalanche of lawsuits, Congress 
enacted Public Law 107-153. Public Law 107-153 deemed December 
31, 1999, to be the date on which tribes received the 
accounting reports. This effectively gave tribes until December 
31, 2005, to negotiate settlements with the United States 
before their claims could be barred by the statute of 
limitations. In other words, the law was meant to encourage 
negotiation instead of litigation.
    For a number of reasons, tribes and the federal government 
have yet to reach settlements of the accounting claims. There 
is a great possibility that many tribes will file lawsuits 
before December 31, 2005, to protect such claims from being 
time-barred by the statute of limitations.
    H.R. 4292 amends Public Law 107-153 to deem December 31, 
2005, to be the date upon which tribes received tribal 
accounting reports from the Federal Government. This 
effectively begins a new six-year running of the statute of 
limitations. With a new six-year time-clock set, tribes will 
not feel compelled to file lawsuits before the end of 2005 to 
protect the viability of their claims. An avalanche of lawsuits 
is not in the interest of the tribes, the Administration, and 
U.S. district courts (and appellate courts) that would have to 
address them.

                            Committee Action

    H.R. 4292 was introduced on November 10, 2005, by Resources 
Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA). The bill was 
referred to the Committee on Resources. On November 16, 2005, 
the Full Resources Committee met to consider the bill. No 
amendments were offered and the bill was ordered favorably 
reported to the House of Representatives by unanimous consent.

            Committee Oversight Findings and Recommendations

    Regarding clause 2(b)(1) of rule X and clause 3(c)(1) of 
rule XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives, the 
Committee on Resources' oversight findings and recommendations 
are reflected in the body of this report.

                   Constitutional Authority Statement

    Article I, section 8 of the Constitution of the United 
States grants Congress the authority to enact this bill.

                    Compliance With House Rule XIII

    1. Cost of Legislation. Clause 3(d)(2) of rule XIII of the 
Rules of the House of Representatives requires an estimate and 
a comparison by the Committee of the costs which would be 
incurred in carrying out this bill. However, clause 3(d)(3)(B) 
of that Rule provides that this requirement does not apply when 
the Committee has included in its report a timely submitted 
cost estimate of the bill prepared by the Director of the 
Congressional Budget Office under section 402 of the 
Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
    2. Congressional Budget Act. As required by clause 3(c)(2) 
of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives and 
section 308(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, this 
bill does not contain any new budget authority, credit 
authority, or an increase or decrease in revenues or tax 
expenditures. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 
enactment of this bill could result in some unspecified amount 
of direct spending.
    3. General Performance Goals and Objectives. This bill does 
not authorize funding and therefore, clause 3(c)(4) of rule 
XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives does not 
apply.
    4. Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate. Under clause 
3(c)(3) of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of 
Representatives and section 403 of the Congressional Budget Act 
of 1974, the Committee has received the following cost estimate 
for this bill from the Director of the Congressional Budget 
Office:

H.R. 4292--A bill to amend Public Law 107-153 to further encourage the 
        negotiated settlement of tribal claims

    H.R. 4292 would effectively extend by six years the statute 
of limitations for certain tribal claims against the federal 
government related to federal management of tribal trust funds. 
Under the bill, tribes would have until December 31, 2011, to 
file such claims.
    By extending the deadline for filing claims, H.R. 4292 
could increase direct spending from the Judgment Fund for 
awards resulting from claims that might not otherwise be filed. 
Additionally, the bill could affect the timing of payments for 
claims that might be filed under current law. Enacting the bill 
also could lead to negotiated settlements rather than 
additional lawsuits against the federal government. CBO has no 
basis for estimating the bill's effect on the number and timing 
of tribal claims or settlements, and we therefore cannot 
estimate the timing or magnitude of any resulting change in 
federal spending. H.R. 4292 would not affect revenues.
    H.R. 4292 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector 
mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and 
would impose no costs on state, local, or tribal governments. 
Enacting this legislation could benefit Indian tribes by giving 
them additional time to file claims against the federal 
government.
    On November 9, 2005, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for S. 
1892, a bill to amend Public Law 107-153 to modify a certain 
date, as ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Indian 
Affairs on October 27, 2005. The two pieces of legislation are 
similar, and their effects on the federal budget would be 
identical.
    The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Mike Waters. The 
estimate was approved by Robert A. Sunshine, Assistant Director 
for Budget Analysis.

                    Compliance With Public Law 104-4

    This bill contains no unfunded mandates.

                Preemption of State, Local or Tribal Law

    This bill is not intended to preempt any State, local or 
tribal law.

         Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported

    In compliance with clause 3(e) of rule XIII of the Rules of 
the House of Representatives, changes in existing law made by 
the bill, as reported, are shown as follows (existing law 
proposed to be omitted is enclosed in black brackets, new 
matter is printed in italic, existing law in which no change is 
proposed is shown in roman):

                         ACT OF MARCH 19, 2002


                          (Public Law 107-153)

    AN ACT To encourage the negotiated settlement of tribal claims.

  Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SETTLEMENT OF TRIBAL CLAIMS.

  (a) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, 
for purposes of determining the date on which an Indian tribe 
received a reconciliation report for purposes of applying a 
statute of limitations, any such report provided to or received 
by an Indian tribe in response to section 304 of the American 
Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act of 1994 (25 U.S.C. 
4044) shall be deemed to have been received by the Indian tribe 
on [December 31, 1999] December 31, 2005.

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