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 Volume 9, Summer 2002 |
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California Tribes, CILS Respond to Trust Reform Indian Land Consolidation Act Amendments of 2000 Soon to Take Full Effect Bishop Office Wins Water Rights Battle Case Highlight: Full Faith and Credit in Child Custody Indian Children Need Indian Foster Parents Tribal Response to Domestic Violence in the Workplace 4th Annual Golf Classic a Huge Success for CILS CILS Public Policy Internships Support For Free Legal Services for Low-Income CA Indians CILS Advocate Recognized for Work for Seniors Board Member Profile: Tracy Edwards, Chair- Redding Rancheria
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California Tribes, CILS Respond to Trust Reform For many years, individual Indians and tribes, Congress, and the courts have known that the Department of the Interior (Interior) has grossly mismanaged the assets held in trust by the United States for individual Indians in Individual Indian Money accounts (IIM) and for tribes in tribal trust accounts. Some estimate that billions of dollars have disappeared with no record whatsoever. Congress has made several attempts to address more than one hundred years of mismanagement and demanded accountability and reform through enactment of the American Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act of 1994 and the creation of the Office of the Special Trustee to oversee the trust fund management reform. In December 1999, the Court presiding over Cobell v. Norton, a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of Indian beneficiaries of the IMM, issued a landmark decision finding that the United States has mismanaged the IIM trust accounts and has failed to comply with several requirements of the 1994 Trust Fund Management Reform Act. Along with its decision, the Court issued several orders for Interior to comply with the accounting and reporting requirements of the 1994 Trust Fund Management Reform Act. More than two years later, the Court learned that Interior has made very little progress in improving trust fund management. The Court has issued sanctions against the United States for using delay tactics, and has held contempt of court hearings for Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton’s failure to comply with various interim court orders – the Court’s findings in the contempt trial are expected soon. In response to the Cobell plaintiffs’ request to place the IIM accounts under receivership, and the Court’s consideration, in November 2001 Secretary Norton announced the creation of a new bureau within Interior, the Bureau of Indian Trust Assets Management (BITAM). BITAM was announced without any prior consultation with tribes, the plaintiffs’ representatives in Cobell, or Congress. As initially laid out – and as it remains today – the proposal is extremely vague, and void of substantive details. Calling for the transfer of trust functions from the BIA to BITAM, the Secretary’s proposal was so broadly framed that it appeared to threaten to redefine the trust responsibilities of the United States and the trust relationship between the United States and tribes. The proposal suggested that Interior was narrowing its conception of what the trust responsibility entailed, and contained provisions that might make it increasingly difficult for tribes to acquire new lands and have them placed into trust – a critical issue for land-poor California tribes. In announcing the proposal, and in some of the public discussions surrounding its release, Interior staff implied that the processing of fee-to-trust applications would be transferred from the BIA to the new bureau, and from regional BIA offices back to Washington, D.C. In subsequent meetings, Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb and other senior officials have said that fee-to-trust functions will not, in fact, be transferred to BITAM. In the absence of tribal consultation, the creation of the new BITAM and the proposed reorganization of trust functions historically delegated to the BIA met with strong resistance throughout Indian Country. Interior’s first response to tribes’ demands for consultation was to hold seven meetings in various locations throughout Indian Country. CILS staff attended as many of these meetings as possible for the purpose of getting information back to California tribal leaders quickly and accurately. Following the overwhelmingly critical response to the way it had developed and announced the BITAM proposal, Interior responded positively to the suggestion that a task force of tribal leaders be established to work in a collaborative manner to fashion an alternative trust reform proposal. Although many tribal leaders view this process with suspicion, given the long history of having the work of similar trust reform task forces and committees ignored, most leaders agree that this process is too important not to participate in. Task Force on Trust Management Reform The Tribal Leaders Task Force on Trust Management Reform was proposed at the Department of the Interior’s first consultation meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in December, 2001. The Task Force consists of 36 tribal leaders, with two representatives and one alternate from each of 12 BIA regions, and officials from the Department of the Interior. Chairwoman Susan Masten of the Yurok Tribe, Chairwoman Rachel Joseph of the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Reservation and Chairwoman Mary Belardo of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians represent the Trust Reform Task Force’s Pacific Region, which consists of California tribes exclusively. Chairwoman Susan Masten was elected as a co-Chair of the Task Force along with Chairman Tex Hall of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation; Chairman Hall also serves as President of the National Congress of American Indians. Officials from Interior who have actively participated in the Trust Reform Task Force have included Deputy Secretary Steven Griles, Associate Deputy Secretary James Cason, Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb, Special Trustee for American Indians Thomas Slonaker, and Director of the Office of Trust Transition Ross Swimmer. CILS has worked very closely with the California delegation, and has been appointed to sit on two of the four subcommittees, Trust Reform Proposals Review and Legislation Development. Additionally, CILS has provided logistical support for consultation meetings between Task Force representatives and the California Indian community, and has continued to provide timely tribal and legislative alerts via fax, email, postal service, and our website (www.calindian.org). Anyone who would like to review the events of the last six months in greater detail may find all of our previous tribal alerts on our website or may contact a local CILS office. The Trust Reform Proposals Review subcommittee, which CILS sits on, was assigned the task of receiving and analyzing proposals submitted by tribes and intertribal organizations, identifying common elements and providing recommendations to the Task Force. Twenty eight proposals, including Secretary Norton’s BITAM and Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s initiative, have been submitted to the Task Force for review. The subcommittee is reviewing each proposal, with input from the proposal drafters, to pick out key criteria and common themes among the proposals. These criteria and themes will then be brought before the Task Force for development of a proposal or proposals which unifies and utilizes all the important elements of each proposal. The Legislation Development subcommittee, which CILS also sits on, has the task of identifying trust management reform solutions that would require implementing legislation, drafting such legislation, and working with both the Administration and Congress to pass such legislation. The legislation thus far identified by the subcommittee will address the following:
The EDS Scope of Work subcommittee will identify processes that work and those that do not work in the delivery of trust services throughout Indian Country, determine what needs to be fixed, and develop a plan for service delivery. The Protocols subcommittee will develop draft protocols and fundraising proposals for sustaining the operations of the Task Force. Alliance of Small Landbase and Landless Tribes In addition to playing key roles in the trust reform process, California tribal leaders recommended that small landbase and landless tribes be represented among the organizations allowed to directly participate in the trust reform discussions so that issues unique to small landbase and landless tribes are properly addressed. Similar ideas have been raised many times throughout the years by tribal leaders wishing to strengthen and perpetuate traditional alliances and to engage in new ones for the mutual benefit of all. Current developments have impressed upon tribal leaders the need to move forward with this organizing effort. CILS was asked to assist in the formation of the Alliance so that it could quickly mobilize efforts to protect and promote interests unique to small landbase and landless tribes. The inaugural meeting of the Alliance of Small Landbase and Landless Tribes preceded the most recent Task Force meeting in San Diego in April. |
