Lawmakers angry with attorneys more than doubling their fee request in a $3.4 billion American Indian settlement are proposing to cap those fees at $50 million.
A congressional panel takes up the proposal by Republican Reps. Don Young of Alaska and Doc Hastings of Washington on Tuesday.
Congress late last year approved the settlement that ended 15 years of litigation between Native American landowners and the federal government. The plaintiffs led by Elouise Cobell of Browning, Mont., claimed the individual accounts of hundreds of thousands of Indians were mismanaged for more than a century, costing billions of dollars in royalties.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys had initially agreed on fees not to exceed $99.9 million. They are now seeking $223 million, saying $99.9 million is far below the standard for such a settlement.
