Wampum

Lots of juicy stuff this morning over at Indianz.com's news aggregator, but this one tops the lot:

Interior hits the road with new trust reform initiative
Wednesday, February 8, 2006

The Bush administration is launching a new round of trust reform talks, the likes of which haven't been seen since the reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the controversial BITAM proposal.

The first meeting takes place over two days in Albuquerque, New Mexico, next week. Interior Department officials say at least four more sessions are being planned and that everything -- from leases to land-into-trust applications to fees for trust services -- is on the table.

"We'll be taking lots of comments and hearing from Indian tribes, plus the individuals, on how we want to move forward," Donna Erwin, the deputy Special Trustee for American Indians, said in an interview on Monday.

The proposed regulations has been circulating in Indian Country since late December. The draft covers a wide range of trust and trust-related issues, including probate, land title, trust fund accounting and whereabouts unknown.

Comments are being accepted on the draft until March 3, said Michelle Singer, a Bureau of Indian Affairs attorney and former chief of staff at the Office of Special Trustee. The department will take three to four weeks to review the comments before publishing the regulations in the Federal Register, she said.

That will trigger another 60-day comment period, after which the regulations could be finalized. Singer said some of the regulations are needed by June in order to meet the requirements of the American Indian Probate Reform Act, a new law that is designed to streamline the probate of Indian estates and consolidate highly fractionated parcels of Indian land.
Willis acknowledged that some of regulations are outdated and probably nee to be revised. But he said an "internal" departmental group has been working on the proposal, mostly to the exclusion of Indian Country.

The last time Interior opened up discussions with Indians over Trust Fund reform was back in 2002, when, after what seemed, from the Indians perspective, that some progress was being made, Norton completely scrapped the talks and all proposals, and unilaterally instituted sweeping changes, including the formation of the Office of the Trustee, a virtual rubber-stamp official with little actual power and no autonomy from the Secretary. That was also the point where Congress got involved and curtailed funding of the court ordered Trust Fund accounting through a secret "midnight rider", pushed by Delay and Co.

So what are the proposed changes and how do they impact the Indians? Well, most tribal offices have only just received the 200 page document, only two weeks from the first hearing date. But initial responses are not positive:

"Only recently have tribes been invited into that process," [tribal attorney Michael] Willis told tribal leaders. Based on his preliminary review of the regulations for trust land acquisitions, he said the proposal would "dramatically curtail tribal rights."

"The new fee-to-trust regulations that Interior has drafted are very burdensome on tribes and provide an unprecedented 'veto' right of surrounding communities in determining whether a fee-to-trust application is granted," he said.

It's very clear that the Bush Administration is trying to tie the "Indian gaming lobbyist scandal" and its "campaign financing loopholes" to reform of Indian land trusts, hence, the inclusion of land-in-trust issues. Of course, land-in-trust for gaming purposes is a current hot button issue for John McCain, as he stampedes his "reform" bill through Senate Indian Affairs, with or without Indian support. But the land-into-trust issues included in the current proposed changes from Interior are not explicitly related to McCain's current crusade, but that's not of course how anti-sovereignty Conservative hacks and their media watercarriers will frame it, and uninformed Americans will eat it up. "All Indians want land so they can build casinos, end of story." Heck, even Howard Dean pushed that meme for years as governor of Vermont. Watch the rhetoric heat up as McCain pushes his bill - Editorial pages around the country will be brimming with borderline racist diatribes against dirty Injuns.

That the Administration is once again suddenly pushing "reform" through Interior indicated they're very concerned that the votes might not be there to get reformed passed in the House, particularly if things go poorly for the GOP this November. Remember, Bush, and Norton's goal first and foremost is to protect their big industry (oil & gas, mining, forestry, agribusiness) moneybags. Everything else come a far distant second.

Here are the proposed changes.