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12/17/2009
On Thursday December 17, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar testified to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, urging them to approve the proposed settlement of the Cobell class-action lawsuit.
Ron Tull: In testimony before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes, and Interior Solicitor Hilary Tompkins urged Congress to approve the recently proposed settlement of the long-running and highly contentious Cobell class-action lawsuit.
Secretary Salazar: When you think about the past wrongs we’re trying to right here, these past wrongs go way back to over a hundred years. And so what we will do is correct those past wrongs so we don’t have to look at the past anymore and we can look to the future. The second thing that it does is it sets up a program that we avoid the problem from occurring again in the future. It would do us not much good, in my view, to essentially settle the damages portion of this case and not to move forward with a proactive effort to try and make sure that we’re not back in the same problem five years and ten years and 20 years from now. And I think that some of the numbers that Senator Dorgan spoke about relative to fraction, illustrates that the problem is simply going to exacerbate and become larger. There are now four million interests that we are dealing with here. But if the fractionation issue continues to move forward in the same direction that its moved in our projection is that we’ll be dealing with 11 million, 11 million fractionated interest by the year 2030.
Ron Tull: Secretary Salazar accompanied by Deputy Secretary David Hayes, Solicitor of the Interior Hilary Tompkins and Associate U.S. Attorney General Tom Perrelli answered a range of questions on the details of the settlement. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, home to the Northern Arapahoe and Eastern Shoshone Tribe asked the Secretary directly if this is a good settlement.
Senator John Barrasso (R-WY): Based on what you know about the case and the issues that would be resolved by this settlement, is this settlement fair to the Indian account holders and the landowners?
Secretary Salazar: The answer to that is yes. And at the end of the day, because of the litigation and its history, I can tell you that the plaintiff and the United States did not come together under the leadership of Judge Robinson to get to this settlement if it hadn’t been a fair and reasonable compromise. So it is a fair and reasonable compromise that does reach that objective.
Senator John Barrasso (R-WY): And the second question, is it a good settlement for the United States and the American taxpayer?
Secretary Salazar: Absolutely.
Ron Tull: $1.4 billion will be used to compensate members of the class action suit and pay legal fees, another $2 billion is proposed to buy back fractionated land interest, which will give individual account holders more money and bring down administrative costs.
This has been a podcast from the U.S. Department of the Interior, I’m Ron Tull, Washington.