Washington – Just pick a number, lawmakers were told Wednesday by both sides looking to Congress to resolve a lawsuit over billions of dollars in federal royalties that American Indians claim they are owed.
Estimates of the money owed for unpaid royalties on oil, gas, timber and other resources from Indian lands range from half a billion dollars to $27.5 billion, a panel of negotiators and tribal leaders told Senate and House members.
Many people with a stake in the bitter class-action lawsuit against the Interior Department are now convinced that only Congress can settle it equitably. And many now believe an arbitrary decision could be fairer than any technical, data-driven fix.
“One number’s as good as another?” asked Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
“Ultimately, this is an arbitrary solution. There is no right number,” mediator John Bickerman told a joint hearing by McCain’s committee and the House Resources Committee.
No one disputes that the government has done a poor job handling the Indian trust funds in the past, he said. The only question, he added, is how to put a value on that liability.
The tribes’ $27.5 billion estimate is based on the presumption that Indians are still owed about a fifth of the $100 billion to $170 billion in royalties they should have received, most of that accrued interest. The government’s much lower figure is based on efforts to account for possible errors in collections, deposits and payments.
