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Interior chief held in contempt over tribal funds
Judge says Norton�s department �unwilling or unable� to manage well WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 � In a scathing ruling, a federal judge on Tuesday held Interior Secretary Gale Norton in contempt for failing to heed his order to fix oversight problems with a trust handling hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties to Native Americans. Norton is the third Cabinet officer held in contempt over the trust fund. Former President Clinton�s treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, and interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, also were held in contempt on the case. U.S. DISTRICT Judge Royce Lamberth called the Interior Department�s handling of the money and the action of government attorneys in the case disgraceful, noting that he has the authority to take management of the funds away from the department. �The agency has indisputably proven to the court, Congress, and the individual Indian beneficiaries that it is either unwilling or unable to administer competently the (Indian) trust,� Lamberth wrote in a 267-page opinion. �Worse yet, the department has now undeniably shown that it can no longer be trusted to state accurately the status of its trust reform efforts. In short, there is no longer any doubt that the secretary of Interior has been and continues to be an unfit trustee-delegate for the United States.� The Justice Department, responding for Interior, said it planned to appeal. �The Department of Justice does not believe that the facts of this case or the applicable law justify a finding of contempt,� Assistant Attorney General Robert McCallum said in a statement. �We disagree with the court�s decision and are evaluating it to consider all of the options for appeal.� The Interior Department, for its part, issued a statement saying in part: �This administration has done more to fix a very broken trust management system than any previous administration in history. Indeed, this progress has been noted by the judge and the court monitor during proceedings.� �TRULY OUTDONE ITSELF� The government has acknowledged major problems with the trust fund. The Interior Department has spent more than $600 million since 1996 to comply with instructions from both Congress and Lamberth, but accounting problems persist. Norton inherited many of the problems with the trust fund. In December the judge shut down most of the Interior Department�s Internet connections because he said the agency could not ensure hackers wouldn�t break in and steal money. During a 29-day trial that ended in late February, Norton asked Lamberth for more time to make fixes. Lamberth was unmoved. On several occasions during the trial and since it concluded, he scolded Interior officials for foot-dragging and failure to comply with his orders. The judge on Tuesday said the Interior Department not only failed to comply with his orders but also had lied to him about its progress in repairing the trust. �In February of 1999, at the end of the first contempt trial in this matter, I stated that, �I have never seen more egregious misconduct by the federal government,�� Lamberth wrote. �Now at the conclusion of the second contempt trial in this action, I stand corrected. The Department of Interior has truly outdone itself this time.� The contempt ruling also applies to Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb. $40 BILLION OWED TO INDIANS? The trust, which now handles funds for about 300,000 Native Americans, began in 1887 when Congress took 90 million acres from Indian tribes and gave the land to white homesteaders. The Indians were left with allotments ranging from 40 acres to 320 acres, with the Interior Department assigned to manage grazing, timber and oil and gas drilling on the land, and ensure Indians received royalties for those activities. For more than a century, an untold amount of money meant for some of the nation�s poorest residents was lost, stolen or never collected. Indians sued in 1996, claiming the mismanagement cost them between $10 billion and $40 billion. Lamberth ordered the department in 1999 to fix the system and piece together what the Indians are owed. He also found Babbitt and Rubin in contempt and ordered the government to pay $600,000 of the plaintiffs� attorneys fees for failing to turn over documents in the case. NEW MANAGEMENT? In the latest ruling, Lamberth ordered the Interior Department to pay all attorneys� fees for the group of Indians who sued the department in 1996. Dennis Gingold, the plaintiff�s attorney, said those fees would be in the millions of dollars. �The court confirmed what we�ve been saying all along. The secretary of Interior and Justice Department lawyers have been lying to the court, and she continues to lie to the court,� Gingold said of Norton. Lamberth also said that he has the authority to strip the department of its oversight of the Indian royalties and appoint a trust expert outside the department to mange the money. The judge asked the plaintiffs to propose a new management structure. Norton�s own efforts to overhaul the management of the trust funds stalled last week when a task force of tribal leaders refused to back down on a demand that a panel outside the Interior Department, and including Indian members, supervise the department�s management of the money. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. 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