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Opinion: Cobell trust settlement addresses land issues (02/01)
"The close of 2009 saw resolution of a nearly invisible but monumental problem facing America’s first, and one of its most disadvantaged, populations. The settlement of Cobell v. Salazar, a lawsuit initiated 14 years ago by Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet...
Deadline approaches to approve trust fund settlement (02/01)
February 28 is the deadline for Congress to approve the $3.4 billion Cobell trust fund settlement but attorneys for the plaintiffs and the Obama administration remain hopeful. The original deadline was December 31, 2009, but the parties agreed to an...
Dennis Gingold: The facts behind trust fund settlement (01/29)
"Mr. William Martin suggests in his opinion published Jan. 26, 2010, on Indian Country Today’s Web site that the $3.4 billion Cobell settlement is unfair to 500,000 individual Indians. Unfortunately, Mr. Martin omits mention of the fact that the settlement...
Bill Martin: No rubber stamp for trust fund settlement (01/26)
"f you are anything like me, you breathed a sigh of relief when the news broke last month that the Cobell case had been settled. I suspect virtually everyone in Indian country welcomed the prospect of a Cobell settlement...
Editorial: Congress must act fast on Cobell settlement (01/22)
"After more than a century of obstruction and delays, still another deadline looms for a settlement that would compensate hundreds of thousands of American Indians for billions of dollars lost by a government that failed miserably to manage tribal lands...
Chickasaw firm secures land consolidation contract (01/21)
Chickasaw Nations Industries, the economic development corporation of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, has landed a contract for the Indian land consolidation program for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. CNI will hire up to 105 jobs nationwide. Employees will work...
Opinion: Indian trust beneficiaries finally getting paid? (01/20)
"It’s not true that every Native American gets a fat check each month. It's definitely myth that the government pays them a monthly allotment for land White people took from them. True, some tribes have casinos, logging, oil and grazing...
Interview with Elliott Levitas, attorney for Cobell case (01/18)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviews Elliott Levitas, a former U.S. Congressman from Georgia, about the Cobell Indian trust fund lawsuit. "Q: What is the significance of the Cobell case? A: This is clearly a historical, landmark piece of litigation. As far...
Millions coming to Montana under Cobell settlement (01/07)
Tribal members in Montana could receive at least $14.4 million or as much as $43.2 million under the Cobell settlement. The Great Falls Tribune reports. Montana is home to 28,805 known Individual Indian Money account holders. Each would receive a...
Congress gets more time to act on Cobell settlement (01/06)
February 28 is the new deadline for Congress to take action on the $3.4 billion Cobell settlement. The Cobell plaintiffs and the Department of Justice agreed to an extension after Congress failed to take action by December 31. The settlement...
Editorial: A long overdue settlement to Cobell lawsuit (01/06)
"It took nearly 14 years of litigation, three administrations and two contempt citations against Cabinet secretaries, but Native Americans are finally poised to receive some measure of restitution from the U.S. government for its gross mismanagement of Indian trusts. Elouise...
Letters: A good settlement to Indian trust fund case (12/21)
Stephen C. Torbit: "By settling an old, contentious lawsuit this week, Interior Secretary Salazar righted an important wrong and proved the federal government takes its responsibility to American Indians seriously. As President Obama noted, this is only the government’s first...
Cobell urges Senate to move quickly on settlement (12/18)
The Senate Indian Affairs
Committee held a hearing on Thursday to address the Cobell settlement.
Editorial: Cobell deal corrects century-old old wrong (12/18)
"The federal government is finally moving to resolve a century-old legacy of its mistreatment of Indian tribes. Recently, a tentative $3.4 billion agreement was announced to settle claims that the government mismanaged Indian trust accounts. Generations of Native Americans failed...
Editorial: Settlement and accountability in trust fund (12/18)
"We hope that a settlement reached over a royalty dispute with American Indian tribes will soon reach its end. The Obama administration proposed a $3.4 billion settlement in the Cobell v. Salazar lawsuit that had its legal beginnings in 1996....
Column: Free Indians of federal government control (12/18)
"American Indians have agreed to take $3.4 billion of some $200 billion that tribes have said the federal government owes them for mismanagement of trust lands, and let's see -- that's more than a cent and a half on the...
Editorial: Settlement in Cobell case is long overdue (12/16)
"Congress and a federal judge are the last remaining hurdles in a settlement reached between the U.S. Department of Interior and Native American tribes nationwide. If given final approval, the federal government will pay tribes $3.4 billion to settle decades-old...
Mary Pember: The small picture of the Cobell deal (12/16)
"When my Uncle Don passed back in 1991, I received documents informing me that he had left me his fraction of land allotments on the Bad River, Red Cliff and Fond du Lac reservations in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The interest...
Opinion: Deal won't change much in Indian Country (12/16)
"Last week, the Obama administration offered $3.4 billion to settle the long running Cobell Indian Trust lawsuit. The offer still has to be approved by Congress, but if it is, the settlement will bring both triumph (though not how you...
Editorial: Act quickly to approve Cobell settlement (12/16)
"The announcement that the federal government has agreed to settle one of the largest and most complex class-action lawsuits this nation has ever faced is welcome news not only for American Indians but for all Americans. The settlement will finally...
Witness List: Senate hearing on Cobell settlement (12/16)
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow to address the Cobell settlement. The hearing takes place immediately following a business committee meeting at 2:15pm in Room 628 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building. The witness list follows:...
Bill Means: Cobell settlement a rip-off for Indians (12/15)
"With all due respect to Elouise Cobell, lead plaintiff in a recently settled lawsuit over American Indian trust funds, I think the United States is continuing a policy of "Indians are not humans." During the course of this long-running, class-action...
Editorial: At last, a settlement to Cobell trust case (12/15)
"For the last 13 years, the case of Cobell v. Salazar has wound its way through the United States District Court for the District of Columbia like a latter-day version of Dickens’s Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. The defendants — the secretaries...
North Dakota tribes back settlement in Cobell case (12/14)
The United Tribes of North Dakota passed a resolution to urge Congress to approve the $3.4 billion Cobell trust fund settlement. The settlement will benefit members of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation; the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate; the Standing Rock...
Column: Navajo woman helped settle Cobell case (12/14)
"Health reform, economic recovery, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — President Obama has had his challenges and taken his share of lumps. But the Indian trust settlement was something no president in 14 years has even come close...
Opinion: Indian plaintiff won't see trust settlement (12/14)
"Over the course of a long and proud life, Oklahoma native daughter Mildred Imoch Cleghorn, a Fort Sill Apache, understood firsthand that two wrongs do not make a right. But had she lived to mark her 99th birthday last week,...
Johnny Flynn: Cheating Indians out of land, money (12/14)
"Moses Bruno, my great-grandfather, was “given” eighty acres of land by the US government in 1887 when he was fourteen years old. The land was his anyway since it belonged to the Citizen Potawatomi tribe and Moses was a...
Editorial: Approve settlement to Cobell trust case (12/14)
"If members of Congress take the time to examine the history of the Native trust system, they won't have to think twice about approving the proposed $3 billion settlement in a long-running lawsuit over the way it was managed for...
Editorial: Preventing future trust mismanagement (12/14)
"The proposed settlement of the Indian accounting lawsuit would end costly litigation that has spanned three presidential administrations and pump an estimated $27 million into Montana with payments to individual account holders. The proposed $3.4 billion settlement includes $1.4 billion...
Editorial: Land consolidation program 'worrisome' (12/11)
"It is hard to understate the significance of this proposed settlement, though it still must clear several hurdles before Indian beneficiaries start seeing checks in the mail. Congress must pass legislation approving the settlement, and the court overseeing the lawsuit...
Washington tribes react to Cobell case settlement (12/11)
Washington tribes will benefit from the $3.4 billion Cobell settlement, the leader of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe said. Chairman Ron Allen said the deal enables the Bureau of Indian Affairs to address other issues. "With this resolved, it will free...
Senate committee sets Cobell settlement hearing (12/11)
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee is moving quickly to address the Cobell settlement. The committee has scheduled a hearing next Thursday, December 17, to discuss the $3.4 billion deal. A witness list hasn't been made public. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-North...
Lynne Harlan: A new era in federal Indian relations (12/11)
"This week, a landmark lawsuit settlement was offered in the Cobell v. United States case. Basically, the Cobell parties sued the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs for mismanagement of Indian trust accounts. While the details...
Editorial: Acknowledge past mistakes in trust fund (12/11)
"We’re glad to see the end is in sight for American Indians’ lawsuit against the federal government over alleged mismanagement of individual trust accounts. Ultimately, the Indians lowered their settlement demand. The Oklahoman’s Chris Casteel reports that they offered to...
Editorial: A long overdue settlement to Cobell suit (12/11)
"It’s long overdue, but it appears that finally a agreement has been reached to settle a lawsuit on behalf of Native Americans that was led by Blackfeet tribal member Elouise Cobell. The lawsuit charged that the government had swindled billions...
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