Wampum

Just in time for Cobell v. Kempthorne (was Norton, was Babbitt) to blow the lid (with help from the Democratic Congress?) off of a century of theft and corruption regarding natural resource industries royalty payments, there's a new lawsuit in town. Only this time, it's tribal accounts, versus "individual" ones:

Tribes sue feds, alleging poor trust fund management
09:49 PM PST on Thursday, January 11, 2007
Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho - Nearly a dozen Indian tribes, including the Nez Perce of Idaho, have filed suit against the federal government, asking it to account for billions of dollars held in tribal trusts.

The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to the government's handling of American Indian trust money, which tribal representatives contend has been shoddy and inadequate.

The Native American Rights Fund, a Boulder, Colo.-based nonprofit law firm, is seeking to represent about 240 tribal governments that have trust accounts with the United States. The firm says the U.S. Department of the Interior, which manages the accounts, has failed to provide a complete accounting despite several congressional orders.

The government holds about 1,600 trust fund accounts for more than 300 tribes. Their total worth is estimated at about $3 billion.

But the real issue here is buried way down in the AP article, in coverage of the earlier and ongoing litigation over the Individual Indian Monies (IIM) trusts:

The latest lawsuit joins another claim alleging mismanagement of Indian trust funds. In that case, Blackfeet Indian Elouise Cobell, of Blackfoot, Mont., sued the government in 1996 over what she said was its mismanagement of hundreds of thousands of accounts held on behalf of individual Indians, containing more than $100 billion.

That suit is on hold while the Indians fight an appellate court decision to remove a federal judge from their case. The government has said it is too expensive to piece together from its records how much the Indian accounts are actually worth, and has proposed an $8 billion settlement.

The "expense" for the Bush Administration and the GOP would be overwhelmingly political, as the only way, at this juncunture, to get the most accurate accounting would be to have industry open their books. However, as we've seen in recent months in the scandal exploding at the Mineral Management Services, that would expose the decades of underpayment of royalties by the oil, gas, mining and forestry industries for their leases on Indian land. A full accounting a potential liability of tens, if not hundreds of billions in underpayments (and nonpayments) by the financial backers of mostly Republican political interests in this country. The fallout would be catyclismic.

With all the Trust-related news pouring out in the last few days, I have lots to write about. First I need to follow a few new leads...

[H/T to Indianz.com on the Tribal Trust Accounts litigation.]