Let me give just another great example of how the Federal Government is shirking its trust responsibility to Native American tribes. A draft report released last week by the inspector generals office fo the U.S. Department of the Interior confirms suspicionsthat extractive industries have been cheating the federal government for years, and government officials have looked the other way. The Minerals Management Service is a department of the Department of Interior (just like the Bureau of Indian Affairs) and is charged with collecting, accounting for and distributing royalties from about 28,000 leases. To spur oil exploration in teh Gulf of Mexico, Congress directed that deep-water oil and gas leases be exempted from federal royalty payments of 12.5%. However, if oil prices ever rose above $36 a barrel, which they have, the payments were to be reinstated and those funds then credited to the reservations wehre the drilling occurred. Over the past decade, the Interior Department signed agreements with oil and gas companies that failed to include the provision intended to protect taxpayers if oil and gas prices moved up. The mistake was discovered at least 5 years ago, but Interior covered it up. Compounding the errors were repeated failures by the MMS to conduct thorough audits which of course is nothing new to Native Americans.
These transgressions are further evidence that the Cobell litigation must be settled in an expedient manner and damages awarded for the amounts that are rightfully owed to Indian Country.
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