_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 14, ISSUE 005 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, WOTANGING IKCHE - Lakota - Common News Wotanging Ikche and Native American News Copyright c. 1996-2006 nanews.org Aboriginal/AmerIndian Perspective about the First Nations of Turtle Island February 4, 2006 Cree cepizun/old moon Yuchi hodadzo/wind moon Kiowa kaguat p'a san/little bud moon Passamaquoddy piyatokonis/moon when the spruce tips fall +-------------------------------------------------------+ | Much more happens in Indian Country than is reported | | in this weekly newsletter. For daily updates & events | | go to http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm | +-------------------------------------------------------+ Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin -- Blackfeet -- News for All the People Ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min -- Ojibwe -- We Are Talking About Ourselves Aunchemokauhettittea -- Naragansett -- Let Us Share News Kanoheda Aniyvwiya -- Cherokee -- Journal of the People O Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse -- Creek -- People's New News O o O Acimowin -- Plains Cree -- Story or Account O o O Tlaixmatiliztli -- Nahuatl -- News O o o o o O Agnutmaqan -- Listuguj Mi'kmaq -- News O o O Sho-da-ku-ye -- Teehahnahmah -- Talking Birchbark O o O Un Chota -- Susquehannic Seneca -- The People Speak O Ha-Sah-Sliltha -- Ditidaht Nation -- News of the People Ximopanolti tehuatzin, inin Mexika tlahtolli -- Nahuatl -- For you we offer these words It-hah-pe-hah Ah-num pah-le -- Chickasaw -- Together We Are Talking Dineh jii' adah' ho'nil'e'gii ba' ha' neh -- Navajo Nation -- What's Happening among The People News Okla Humma Holisso Nowat Anya -- Choctaw -- People(s) Red Newspaper Hi'a chu ah gaa -- Pima -- The stories or the talk of the People s ch mA mL tL squee Lux -- Okanogan -- News from the People Native American News -- Language of the Occupation Forces ++>If you speak a Native American language not listed above, please send us your words for "News of the People." We'd rather take up this whole page saving these few words of our hundreds of nations than present a nice clean banner in the language of the occupation forces who came here determined to replace our words with their own. email gars@nanews.org with the equivalent of "News of the People" in your tribal language along with the english translation <================<<<< >>>>================> This newsletter is produced in straight ASCII text for greatest portability across platforms. Read it with a fixed-pitch font, such as Courier, Monaco, FixedSys or CG Times. Proportional fonts will be difficult to read. <================<<<< >>>>================> This issue contains articles from www.owlstar.com; www.indianz.com; www.pechanga.net; Chiapas95-English, Native American Poetry and Iron Natives Mailing List; UUCP Mail IMPORTANT!! ----------- In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, all material appearing in this newsletter is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for educational purposes. <================<<<< >>>>================> This newsletter is a way of keeping the brothers and sisters who share our Spirit informed about current events within the lives of those who walk the Red Road. ++ It may be subscribed to via email by sending a request from your own internet addressable account to gars@speakeasy.org ++ It is archived at http://www.nanews.org <================<<<< >>>>================> +-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --+ + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + | As historian Patricia Nelson | | Once a language is lost, it is | | Limerick summarized in "The | | gone forever | | Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken | | * Of the 300 original Native | | Past of the American West... | | languages in North America, | | "Set the blood quantum at | | only 175 exist today. | | one-quarter, hold to it as a | | * 125 of these are no longer | | rigid definition of Indians, | | learned by children. | | let intermarriage proceed as | | * 55 are spoken by 1 to 6 elders;| | it had for centuries, and | | when they die, their language | | eventually Indians will be | | will disappear. | | defined out of existence." | | * Without action, only 20 | | "When that happens, the federal | | languages will survive the next| | government will be freed of | | 50 years. | | its persistent 'Indian problem.'"| | Source: Indigenous Language | +-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --+ | Institute | |http://www.indigenous-language.org| This issue's Quotes: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + =================== "There has never been a time when the media accurately depicted the issues and lives of Native people, but I believe it has become much worse in recent years as federal support for social programs has declined, as more and more tribal governments have turned to gaming to generate revenue for basic services like housing, education, and health care." __ Chief Wilma Mankiller, Cherokee +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Indian Pledge of Allegiance | The Indian Pledge of Alleg- | | iance was first presented | I pledge allegiance to my Tribe,| on 2 December '93 during the | to the democratic principles | opening address of the Nat- | of the Republic | ional Congress of American | and to the individual freedoms | Indian Tribal-States Relat- | borrowed from the Iroquois and | ions Panel in Reno, NV. NCAI | Choctaw Confederacies, | plans distribution of the | as incorporated in the United | Indian Pledge to all Indian | States Constitution, | Nations. | so that my forefathers | | shall not have died in vain | Walk in Beauty! Night Owl +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Journey | In the summer and early fall | The Bloodline | of 1998 the Treaty Unity Riders | | rode a thousand miles on horse- | For all that live and live by law | back, carrying a staff and | We Stand, we Call, We Ride | praying each step of the way. | For All that fear and fear by sight | | We Hear, we Listen, we Ride | These prayers were offered for | For all that pray and pray by strength| each of us, and that the Unity | We Feel, we Move, we Ride | of all Peoples might happen. | For all that die and die by greed | | We Hurt, we Cry, we Ride | Tatanka Cante forwarded this | For all that birth and birth by right | poem on behalf of all the Unity | We Smile, we Hold, we Ride | Riders that we might stop and | For all that need and need by heart | ask if the next words we say, the | We Came, we Went, we Rode. | next act we make is for the good | | of the People or is it from ego | Treaty Unity Riders | for self. +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ O'siyo Brothers and Sister! The political trend in this country has more of a flavor of the '50s and Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities hearings (witch hunts) and '60s efforts to end tribal sovereignty. If you are red or mixed-blood and tribally enrolled, your profile is in the crosshairs. In the lead article in this issue "Commentary: Swimmer still not telling the Truth", DC attorney Lee Helfrich takes Ross Swimmer and the Department of Interior to task for repeated lies and obfuscations. The Department of Interior under the Bush administration has gone to great lengths to hide the truth regarding the Indian Trust Fund, including efforts to undermine the presiding judge in the Cobell litigation, Judge Royce Lamberth. Apparently, that is not enough. Articles are now appearing calling for the end of tribal sovereignty. In a January 27 piece in the Wall Street Journal titled "The Projects on the Prarie" (http://online.wsj.com/article_email/article_ print/SB113833760164357997-lMyQjAxMDE2MzI4NzMyMzc3Wj.html, John J. Miller proposes ending the reservation systems. Of course, he contends this would be for our own good, giving Indians the right of land ownership and other benefits granted to all U.S. citizens. It doesn't take long before the real intent becomes evident. If there were no identifiable national homeland, tribal members would all be absorbed into the great melting pot. The tribal gas stations and tobacco stores would pay state and local taxes, rather than to their nation, and casinos would become corporations like any other, with both the business itself and its stockholders subject to taxation and regulation by local and state munipalities. John Dendahl, the former chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party, writes a column for The Albuquerque Journal. In a September 9 column he ventured Tribal sovereignty is no longer useful. The cause of all his ranting to end tribal sovereignty is to eliminate all this hand wringing over public lands that we dare to call Sacred. Some recent column titles give a very clear picture of Dendahl's real attitude and real agenda: - Governor Helps Tribes Wink and Pocket Gas Tax (Fri, Jan 13, 2006) - Liberals Undermining Bush's Efforts (Sat, Dec 31, 2005) - Indian Sovereignty Has Outlived Its Practicality (Fri, Sept 9, 2005) Both Miller and Dendahl miss (or ignore) an important point. True, some reservations bear startling resemblance to impoverished ghettoes. True, others have found strategies that have ended poverty in their nations, and they are building infrastructure to expand their prosperty. But these aren't merely impoverished communities or prospering enterprise zones. According to the Constitution and treaties and laws undertaken in regard to tribes, these are nations. Reservation land is, by treaty, granted to them as their national land. The response to underdeveloped nations' plight everywhere but inside the US borders is foreign aid. The response to developing nations who do well is investment. Why is the response to the need of some Indian nations, and the prosperity of others the threat of extinction? National sovereignty is the guarantee each nation has that others will respect their right to exist and control their own destinies in accord with international law and treaty rights. If a tribe takes up arms and declares war against the US, then they have accepted the consequence of being overthrown. That is not the case. All some tribes are doing is undertaking legitimate business enterprises to ensure their own and their people's economic survival. Miller's "benevolence" argument falls on its face because restrictions in sovereignty imposed upon Indian nations, based on the assumption that Indians are incompetent to manage property, prohibit an Indian nation from granting private ownership of land to its citizens. They are instead at the mercy of an agency that is bent on betraying their "trust." True help is empowering the nation and its people, not destroying their nation and identity. As for soverienty being "useful" - doesn't that depend on whose usefulness we're talking about? I can think of nations that don't think the U.S.'s existence is useful, or even moral. The point is, they don't have a right to make that decision, and neither does a politician in New Mexico. The whole argument that any nation should deny the right of another nation to exist to placate local municipalities' or corporate interest, is something that, if acted upon, should attract the interest of groups like the World Court and the UN. If the Global Bully starts that stuff right here at home after playing fast and loose with 500 treaties over the past couple of hundred years, why should other nations NOT be a little uneasy? Miller and Dendahl's articles are more than simple fishing expeditions. They are the opening vollies of a new effort to finally answer the "Indian Question" with "What Indians?". Dohiyi Ani Oginalii , , Gary Smith (*,*) wotanging@bellsouth.net P. O. Box 672168 (`-') gars@nanews.org Marietta, GA 30006, U.S.A. ===w=w=== http://www.nanews.org ----------- News of the people featured in this issue ----------- - Commentary: Swimmer - No more hoops for Hoopa Tribe still not telling the Truth - GIAGO: When did Politics - DOI allows underpayment and Religion become one? of Natural Gas Royalties - ROBIDEAU: Abramoff latest - Senators seek review in Long Line of Thieves of Royalty Collections - GONZALES/RODRIGUEZ: - Sioux Family fights odds Spirit of Humanity desecrated for Sister's Health - HARJO: Now they know - Lawmakers want buffer - Mexican Rebel makes Comeback to protect Bear Butte - Brazil sacks Indian Expert - Agreement reached after spat over Lands on Graving Yard negotiations - System not working for Aboriginals - Alabama Tribe struggles - Aboriginal Leaders in quest for Recognition wary of new Tory Government - Part-Ute Plaintiffs' - Imperial vows North to benefit Lawsuit is dismissed - Sentenced Mohawks freed - Border Town Racism - Debra Flute hopes to be the topic of Conference to bridge Cultural Confusion - Outagamie County, - Native Prisoner Oneidas reach fee agreement -- Native on Parole Board - Tribe applies to set good choice own Water Quality Standards -- Follow Up: - Tulsa Indian Group takes lead Montana Prayer Warriors against stalking - History: Carlisle Indian School - Native American Groups - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days demand apology for Shirts - Rustywire: - Three S.C. Indian Tribes She was from Nataani Nez win recognition - Lee Goins Poem: - Tribe Land transfer Faith Under a Sunless Moon on hold for now - Upcoming Events --------- "RE: Commentary: Swimmer still not telling the Truth" --------- Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 08:49:14 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LEE HELFRICH: FACTS VS SWIMMER'S LIES" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=0070 Nieman Watchdog DC lawyer again blasts Interior over handling of Indian Trust By Lee Helfrich helfrich@lnllaw.com January 25, 2006 Responding to spokesman Ross Swimmer's posting on this Web site, Lee Helfrich portrays the Interior Department as "Blunderland" and questions the agency's sincerity and competence. Why should the Indian people, Congress and the public believe Interior now? Interior deserves to have its point of view on Trust reform acknowledged by the media. [Click here to see an earlier piece on this Web site by Ross Swimmer of the Interior Department.] The press has reported on it, but not to the exclusion of the positions of the Cobell plaintiffs As Interior's spokesman on the Cobell v. Interior saga, Ross Swimmer surely knows that no press representatives are going to be as one-sided in their coverage as Interior may prefer. Still, Interior may be dismayed with editorial boards that have addressed the case, most of whom have called upon Interior to pay up and clean up. The editorials have largely focused on the poverty in Indian Country. Although Mr. Swimmer has suggested elsewhere that poverty is the result of socio-economic factors beyond Interior's control, squandering valuable Indian land assets cannot be overlooked as a cause. From my perspective, even Indians in the top 1% deserve a full Trust Accounting, which is not what Interior is providing. My earlier article, which Mr. Swimmer responded to, was aimed at giving the media more information than has been provided by Interior and the Cobell plaintiffs. Getting "underneath" the litigation is key to evaluating whether Interior's efforts are adequate or misdirected. It also aids evaluation of the judicial response and the effectiveness of the lawsuit as a means of providing full reparations for Interior's neglect. A string of sound bites should be met with skepticism by journalists. Parsing requires putting them in fuller context. It means, in short, taking a trip down the rabbit hole to Blunderland. Let's start with trust accounting. Suppose a father sets up an investment trust for his children to be managed by a bank. If the bank decides to move blue chips to bonds, it, at a minimum, has to justify why this is in the best interest of the beneficiaries and, at least upon request, provide the documentation that supported its decision. Land based Trust Accounting is no different. Interior isn't doing it. Interior sometimes refers to what it is doing as a reconciliation of accounts. Reconciliations are a much more modest exercise. Reconciliations are typically done on a continuous basis, which makes the process much simpler. Their bona fides depend, however, on correct opening balances. Beginning with the first balance or deposit, adjustments of receipts and disbursements are made on a forward basis, including assuring that all disbursements cleared and made it into the hands of the right recipient. Interior is not doing reconciliations either. Instead it is only sampling some "transactions", e.g., a receipt, to test that it was recorded properly. This might be termed a "partial reconciliation", but is more accurately termed "data entry verification." Interior is not checking, historically, whether cash was cleared. The problem of correct opening balances has been cited in every audit report of Indian accounts since 1988. From 1988 to 1990, these audit reports were completed by Arthur Anderson & Co. - a firm not noted for biting the hand that feeds it, but yet it bit Interior. Similar audit reports by different companies were issued between 1994 and 2005. Does this explain why Interior is not performing true reconciliations? Probably. At the risk of some repetition, what follows is a fuller explanation of some of my previous points and some clarification of Mr. Swimmer's. There are eight areas: court misstatements, Trust obligations, dilution of the Trust, document destruction, BIA employees, litigation delay, 100 million dollars, and the Office of Special Trustee. Feel free to skip down to whatever issue is of interest. First, Mr. Swimmer does not deny Interior's misrepresentations to the Court in the Cobell case. This past summer, a hearing was held on Interior's credibility. Interior came up short. Some Interior employees conceded that Interior's representations were akin to a public relations effort to make it appear that things were better than they are. Others testified that they took shortcuts because this was expected by Headquarters. Senator John McCain, in a hearing in 2002, bemoaned Interior's lack of institutional credibility. Why should the public, the Indian people, Congress, the courts, the press - let alone the Cobell plaintiffs - believe Interior now? Mr. Swimmer says that if there had been "institutional" mishandling by Interior, it "could not survive over 100 years given all the scrutiny of the Indian trust." Obviously, this statement is inconsistent with the decades of congressional and GAO reports on continuing neglect, the findings of the federal courts in Cobell, and the testimony of Interior officials that after 1996 - the year the Cobell suit was filed - they did not have a firm grasp of Trust duties. As many in Congress explained in 1994, the only thing that "all the scrutiny" produced was a temporary "flurry" of activity by Interior, which lapsed when investigators moved on to address other issues. Scrutiny is only as good as an agency's response. For "100 years", Interior's response has been found wanting. Mr. Swimmer's assertion - like Associate Deputy Secretary James Cason's confusion over the difference between the words "bulletproof" and "broken" - is an incredible overstatement. Second, Mr. Swimmer does not address Congress's and the GAO's conclusions on "systemic problems", fraud and theft in the accounting of Indian assets. Instead, from Interior's data verification efforts, it concludes that there is no evidence of "institutional" fraud or mishandling of Indian accounts and suggests that Interior's liability is minimal. These conclusions are wrong. Interior's Trust responsibility extends beyond assuring that receipts and disbursements were properly recorded. Interior's Trust responsibility includes collecting what was owed for private development on Indian lands. To the extent that companies did not pay, did not pay correctly or did not disclose the correct production volumes - all findings of former Secretary Watt's "blue ribbon" commission - the fact that the royalty rate for Indian lands is 16 1/3 %, something Mr. Swimmer lauds, is meaningless. Fact: Volumes x Value x Rate is the basic royalty equation - if volumes or values are understated, Indians have been short-changed. Sixteen and a third of nothing is nothing; 16 1/3 of $100 is less than 16 1/3 of $1000. Oh yes, as a postscript, companies have been known to use incorrect (lower) royalty rates in calculating what they owe. Interior's Trust responsibility also included adequate site security to assure that companies weren't running dual pipes from wells on Indian land and paying on the production transported from only one. Interior's Trust responsibility includes assuring that companies pay fair market value for rights-of-way over Indian land. Does Interior believe that Indians "fare better" when companies are allowed to erect billboards on Indian land free of charge? Does Interior believe that it is in the Indian's "best interests" to be able to read large ads for restaurants or gas stations rather than being paid for that use of their land? Does Interior believe that Indian interests are served by accepting less than a fourth of the market value for rights-of-way for industry's pipelines? None of this well-documented neglect will be exposed by any partial reconciliation effort. By definition, the monetary consequences of this neglect will not show up as a "receipt" - if a company doesn't pay, there is no "receipt." Hardly rocket science. All of this neglect represents "institutional" mishandling of Indian assets. As a Trustee, Interior is liable for the damages resulting from these breaches of the Trust. Now, granted, as my initial article explained, these mismanagement and true Trust Accounting issues are not currently on the courtroom table in Cobell because of a February 2005 ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. But Congress is also considering reparations and Trust reform and its reach is broader than what is currently in court. Interior keeps telling Congress that the damage is miniscule. Interior keeps telling Congress that the "parties" are too far apart, in terms of settlement, based on its partial reconciliation effort. According to congressional testimony, Interior's legal advisors think its duty "is to limit the liability of the U.S. government," not fulfilling its Trust duties. Third, although Mr. Swimmer vehemently denies that it is "fighting hard to dilute its responsibilities" to Indians, he does not mention Interior's position in Cobell. If Interior is not trying to dilute its duties, it should have a long and hard conversation with its lawyers. Mr. Swimmer correctly notes that, early in the Cobell case, Interior admitted its breach of Trust. Since then, the issues have revolved around the remedy, for the past damage to Indian interests and to assure conformance with Trust principles in the future. For the past, the case has focused on the "historical accounting"; for the future the case has focused on issues such as computer security - an issue that Mr. Swimmer dismisses as a "delaying" tactic on the part of the Cobell plaintiffs, but which, in actuality, is part of Interior's Trust obligation according to both the district and appellate courts. By the way, the findings on Interior's "broken" computer security were based on its failure to follow plain vanilla federal law applicable to all agencies' computer systems, not any statute or duty uniquely applicable to Indians. Interior's consistent position in Court has been that its reforms should be evaluated under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The APA sets out the standards of review of agency actions for any member of the public. Generally, if an agency can provide a plausible, non-capricious rationalization for its actions, they will be upheld despite damage to the litigants' interests. Federal agencies are given every benefit of the doubt, i.e., good enough for government work. The duty owed to Indians is greater than an agency "owes" to Joe Average. As Chief Justice Benjamin Cardozo said: "Many forms of conduct permissible for those acting at arm's length are forbidden to those bound by fiduciary ties. A Trustee is held to something stricter than the morals of the market place." Thus, Indian interests should not be reviewed as if Indians are "any member of the public". Indians should be concerned about Interior's courtroom efforts to shove review of issues impacting their interests under the APA. Review under the APA, if the courts agree with Interior, whittles down - "dilutes" - Trust obligations. The more often that Interior succeeds in its APA arguments, the closer Indians come to "termination" of Trust obligations. I'm not the first to notice this; Mr. Swimmer's predecessor, Thomas Slonaker, noted it in his congressional testimony in September 2004. Mr. Swimmer's statements on Indian opposition to any termination of Trust obligations, and what he called "fairness" "to all parties involved, including every American taxpayer" also need clarification. Indians do "steadfastly oppose" removal of the Trust, as they should. It is, however, incorrect to say that they oppose efforts to modify Interior's unfettered control. In July 2002, "tribal leaders and Indian organizations" demanded that Congress establish an independent commission to oversee Interior. As reported by the Associated Press: "Tribal leaders want the commission to have the power to subpoena documents, audit the department's accounting of ... royalties and impose fines against the interior secretary to repair the history of mismanagement that has squandered an unknown amount of money." This hardly jibes with Mr. Swimmer's depiction of a warm and fuzzy relationship. Footnote: most Indian leaders opposed Mr. Swimmer's appointment as Special Trustee. Fairness to taxpayers is important, but what is fair is fair. Indians aren't asking for federal largesse or welfare. Indians own the lands. Interior, through its mismanagement (which was charged to the taxpayer), lost funds owed Indians that had absolutely nothing to do with taxpayer funds. Taxpayers might be more upset to learn that their funds are being used to pay for private lawyers to defend Interior officials and employees in Cobell. Mr. Swimmer, in essence, is arguing that Indians again should eat the loss of Interior's neglect because making Indians whole now must come from taxpayer dollars; a situation that would not exist if the Trust obligations had been met in the first place or after the repeated warnings of Congress and the GAO, which would have limited the damage. Personally, I would prefer if the Indians were made whole through foreclosure on the assets of former "Teapot Dome" Interior Secretary Albert Fall's predecessors and successors. But that isn't going to happen. If the taxpayer is upset, the entity to blame is Interior. Interior has no right to balance taxpayer interests against Indians interests. Mr. Swimmer might want to read the Supreme Court's decisions in Ervien v. United States and Lassen v. Arizona for a start. In both, the Supreme Court held that public benefits are irrelevant to performance of Trust duties. To the extent that Mr. Swimmer equates the interested "parties" with industry, he also might read National Parks and Conservation Association v. Board of State Lands, among other authorities. There the Utah Supreme Court held that public Trustees breach their fiduciary duties by relying on company analyses of the worth of Trust properties, e.g., Anson Baker's sole reliance on a single company offer to lease Indian lands. Fourth, Mr. Swimmer says that the press should focus on those documents that Interior has managed to retrieve, rather than those that have been destroyed. This begs the questions - how many have been destroyed and what are the practical ramifications of the document loss? Both of Mr. Swimmer's predecessors as Special Trustee concluded that a complete Trust Accounting could not be done because full documentation no longer existed. Does Mr. Swimmer disagree with these gentlemen, both of whom were experienced Trust managers? If so, why? Can Interior conduct a bona fide statistical sampling of historic accounts - even a partial reconciliation of accounts - without that documentation? How can Indians be assured that the documents that remain are representative of all types and sizes of Indian accounts? Some of the document destruction was intentional. Some remains inexplicable - no one yet knows, for example, the who and the why of the Indian documents found in the dumpsters and trash cans at the National Archives in 2005, at a facility that is responsible for maintaining documents of historic significance. The National Archives promptly reported the matter, which at least suggests that no one there was responsible. Even some of Interior's efforts to collect the documents that remain have been curious. Mr. Swimmer, wrapping soaked boxes of documents in plastic produces fading, if not paper mush. It also violates federal regulations on proper document retention and preservation. Interior's effort to get the Indian documents that remain out of leaky and rat-infested storehouses is a good thing. Yet, there is still cause for the press and Indians to be wary. According to Interior's progress report, the purpose of its collection effort is to provide access to Indians and Tribes to their "historical" account information. This dovetails nicely with the current congressional bills that, essentially, place the burden on Indians to document their share of any legislated settlement amount. Reality check: If it actually took Interior $100 million to sample 10% of the transactions for the automated period in the land-based Indian accounts (1994 to 2000 according to the progress report) with the use of outside accountants from "Big 4" firms, does Interior seriously and in good faith expect that Indians will have the resources to trace transactions in their accounts? Now let's turn to fractionation that Mr. Swimmer, repeatedly, points to as a severe problem with Trust management. In the progress report, Interior says access will be granted "with permission of Interior" (read Mr. Swimmer). If I am one of the "1000 owners" of a land allotment and want to check out the validity of the receipts in my account, will Interior give me permission to review the remaining 999 accounts? The reality is that I can't be assured that I received the proper payment without looking at the total payment on the land allotment and how that was disbursed to the remaining owners. Mr. Swimmer may want to ask Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) how it has dealt with a similar problem regarding divided ownership of unitized land, i.e, a single producing property that may contain a mix federal, state-owned, allotted, Tribal and possibly privately owned lands. MMS has said, apparently on the advice of Interior's Solicitor's Office, that because of the Trust obligation only Interior can look at all the pieces in the land puzzle. If Interior follows the Solicitor's path, the only entity that can see the big picture is Interior itself, not individual Indians that make the long trek to Lenexa, Kansas, rather than a short drive to their regional BIA office. Indian leaders have already highlighted this location problem. Mr. Swimmer says that fractionation has been a known "problem" for "more than 75 years" and says this is so because "Congress and the tribes" have only "recently" taken it "seriously". Has Interior even engaged in a "flurry" of activity to resolve it through proposals, legislative or otherwise? Or is this another "mountain" created by Interior's long term neglect? In discussing fractionation, Mr. Swimmer says that many Indian accounts currently have minimal balances and no activity for the last 18 months. Has Interior looked behind these anomalies to check whether there still are any producing properties or paying leases associated with those accounts? The answer is no. Fifth, Mr. Swimmer says that it is "irresponsible" to blame BIA employees for continuing "detrimental practices" because BIA is largely staffed by Indians. As Mr. Swimmer knows, BIA is only part of the problem with Interior's Trust management, some of which falls under the bailiwick of other Interior agencies, such as the MMS, the Office of Special Trustee and the Bureau of Land Management. As Mr. Swimmer's predecessors and Judge Lamberth have noted, this lack of a coherent organization for Trust management plays a big role in Interior's problem. The continuous turf battles and finger pointing among Interior's various agencies, which the IG noted in one of his many reports, isn't helping. The latter didn't begin with the initiation of the Cobell lawsuit. One of Mr. Swimmer's predecessors, Paul Homan, told the Senate that "through no fault of their own", BIA employees and managers "have virtually no effective knowledge or practical experience with the type of trust management policies, programs and best practices that are so effective, efficient and prevalent in [the] private sector." BIA staff, he testified, lack background, training and experience. Contributing to this is the fact that individual responsibilities at BIA are compartmentalized - like an administrative assembly line. Even assuming that all BIA employees are generally aware of Interior's Trust obligations because they are Indians, there is misunderstanding and confusion about how their jobs fall within the big picture. As noted, testimony in the Cobell case also exposed that even Interior Headquarter officials lacked a firm grasp on their Trust obligations and just last summer there was testimony that officials weren't sure what was a Trust document and what was not. In another IG report, it was found that a substantial percentage of Interior employees believe that "discipline" is not meted out fairly and policy disagreement is not countenanced. Evidence of this is the retaliation against Interior employees for revealing problems with Interior's Trust management. Google the names Mona Infield, Deborah Lewis, Kevin Gambrell and Ronnie Levine for a start. While only two of these individuals are of Indian heritage, news of retaliation spreads through any Department or agency like wildfire. The chill is as severe as a prior restraint on the press. BIA employees are in a different position than many other Indians. BIA employees have a job, a pension, benefits and the possibility of a bonus if they toe the line. Speaking out puts this all at risk. Interior officials and apologists have been heard to say that the Cobell case and particularly Judge Lamberth are the reason that Interior employees feel demoralized and fearful. They have even said that some of Judge Lamberth's actions have disrupted their friends' ability to use the internet to arrange vacation plans. Advice: Use the phone, watch the weather channel. The IG report and Interior's retaliatory actions strongly suggest that Judge Lamberth is not the problem. To the extent that the judge shares some blame, maybe it's because Interior employees have not been informed of his "Anti-Retaliation Order." An Interior lawyer calls Cobell "that case we do not mention." That might be part of the problem too. Sixth, Mr. Swimmer says that the Cobell plaintiffs are responsible for delaying Interior's reforms. That's rich. The Cobell plaintiffs reduced their damage claim, for purposes of settlement, by over 80%, which would only lift from Interior's shoulders the burden of its toughest task: sorting out its sordid past. This isn't indicia of an effort to delay. Mr. Swimmer refers to a laundry list of stuff that he thinks has caused the delay. The oddest of these is the claim that the Cobell plaintiffs are "delaying us from mailing historical accounting reports to Indian trust beneficiaries." What did this involve? Interior was sending account statements to minors, stating that if they did not contest the statements administratively, in a couple of months, further claims would be waived. In other words, these Indians could not recover from any damage award in the Cobell. Interior did not seek Court approval to do this, although the very adequacy of its "historical accounting" was under judicial review. Later, Interior appealed an order requiring it to provide notice to Indians that its trust account information "may" be "unreliable". Interior didn't disagree that its data was faulty; it just didn't want the burden of cutting and pasting one paragraph into its letters. Interior went so far as to assert that the paragraph would be a "disservice" because it might confuse Indians as to the nature the unreliability. Yet, there was nothing in the Court's order or the plaintiffs' papers that suggested that Interior would be barred from providing more detail and there was nothing in Interior's papers that suggested that it could provide such. It couldn't - the account statements were not audited or fully reconciled because Interior isn't doing that. Litigation is rarely a quick thing. It tends to be lengthier when one party challenges most document requests and deposition notices, appeals every major decision by the trial judge, sometimes on inexplicable grounds (at least according to the appellate court), and provides misleading or false reports to the Court. That party is Interior. Seventh, the $100 million dollars is amazing amount of money, especially given that Interior is only sampling 10% of the receipts and disbursements in the land based accounts post-1994, which were, by that date, automated. Wow, even its current automated accounting systems must be a mess. Apparently Interior felt it needed to hire four accounting firms for this effort, at least three of which had no prior experience with BIA's accounting systems. That's a lot of money on a learning curve. Of course, these firms are famous (and expensive), e.g., KPMG, and putting their names on Interior's reform efforts is impressive in a PR sense and, possibly, politically appealing. Both Congress and the Administration like to hand out costly contracts under the guise of privatization and down- sizing government. Mr. Swimmer is right that "in some cases" Interior tested transactions "back ... as far as 1938." These were the account statements of the five Cobell plaintiffs; Interior possibly did some tests of transactions in two types of accounts, which it also said, in its progress report, were simpler to sample and adjust. The real money, however, is in the land- based accounts. The $100 million dollars! Without a breakdown, which can only be provided by Interior, this amount might be compared to the budgets of other Interior agencies - like Minerals Revenue Management (MRM). MRM is in charge of auditing all of the mineral revenue actually due, but not paid, from the leasing of federal onshore, offshore, Indian Allottee and Tribal lands. That's a lot of land and ocean bottom, and a lot of money. MRM's annual budget is less than $100 million and about 20 to 25% goes to a private consultant, another big firm, for fixing an automated "compliance" system that was badly designed and doesn't work. MRM says that it provides "compliance review" coverage, similar to "data entry verification", for about 70 to 90% of royalties owed on an annual basis. I'm not about to vouch for that statement or for the quality and efficiency of what MRM does. It also no longer conducts routine audits. Still, MRM's goal sounds like more work than testing 10% of the receipts and disbursements in Indian accounts to assure that they were recorded right. Eighth, a few words also should be added about the Office of Special Trustee (OST). Mr. Swimmer is Interior's Special Trustee for American Indians, a job he started in 2002. He was also Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs from 1985 to 1989. The OST was created after Congress, in 1994, directed Interior to stop ignoring its Trust obligations to Indians. As set up by Interior, the OST had no authority independent of Interior's hierarchy - it was expected to adhere to the "priorities" of the Administration. Even Mr. Swimmer is a second fiddle to Associate Deputy Secretary Cason. Prior to the OST, some of the Trust was the responsibility of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. Interior didn't want to hear what Mr. Swimmer's predecessors' had to say. Mr. Swimmer has done a much better job of conveying the Administration's viewpoint. The first Special Trustee was Paul Homan, an experienced Trust manager. Mr. Homan resigned in 1999 because Interior's plans for Trust "reorganization" were not consistent with Trust principles. Mr. Homan was replaced by Thomas Slonaker, who has 36 years of private sector Trust experience. In July 2002, Secretary Gale Norton and then- Deputy Secretary Steve Griles gave Mr. Slonaker a letter of resignation to sign; the alternative, according to Mr. Slonaker, was being fired. According to press reports, this "transition" was due to Mr. Slonaker's refusal to testify before Congress that Secretary Norton's plan for Trust reform was sound. Apparently, Interior, its lawyers and others in the Administration did not want Congress, let alone the Cobell courts, to hear Mr. Slonaker's expert analysis on the Trust reform. During the July 2002 congressional hearing, Mr. Griles testified that Interior's plan was hunky dory. Although he was the politico over BIA, Mr. Griles had no experience in Trust management, but considerable private experience in lobbying - the ultimate PR guy and a well-known friend to industry. Both Mr. Homan's and Mr. Slonaker's jobs involved evaluating what was wrong with Interior's Trust performance before 1994 so that they could recommend reforms. This raises questions. For example: What were you doing, Mr. Swimmer, in 1985 to 1989 to correct Trust Fund mismanagement? In 1983, Congress directed Interior to reconcile mineral revenue accounts. Did you make any efforts to assure that the partial reconciliation efforts that were tried after 1983 included Indian Allottee accounts? Where were you when Interior entered into its 1989 agreement with industry to cut off audits for the period prior to 1983? Is it fair to say, that whatever was done or not during your tenure as Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs was responsible for Congress' determination in 1994 that more concrete direction was needed? Is this why Tribal leaders opposed your return to Interior? Mr. Swimmer says I am a victim of "commonly-held misunderstandings" about Interior and its role in the Cobell case. Thank heaven! If I knew any more, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. If I misunderstand, mea culpa. So in closing let me just say, "You're doin' a good job, Brownie." Lee Helfrich is a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Lobel, Novins & Lamont. E-mail: helfrich@lnllaw.com Copyright c. 2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. --------- "RE: DOI allows underpayment of Natural Gas Royalties" --------- Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 08:38:40 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="COMPANIES SHOW RECORD PROFITS" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/23/politics/23leases.html?_r=1 [Companies post record profits while taxpayers and other beneficiaries, including individual Indians, tribes and states, don't see any gain.] As Profits Soar, Companies Pay U.S. Less for Gas Rights By EDMUND L. ANDREWS January 23, 2006 WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 - At a time when energy prices and industry profits are soaring, the federal government collected little more money last year than it did five years ago from the companies that extracted more than $60 billion in oil and gas from publicly owned lands and coastal waters. Shifting Numbers on Price Reports (January 23, 2006) If royalty payments in fiscal 2005 for natural gas had risen in step with market prices, the government would have received about $700 million more than it actually did, a three-month investigation by The New York Times has found. But an often byzantine set of federal regulations, largely shaped and fiercely defended by the energy industry itself, allowed companies producing natural gas to provide the Interior Department with much lower sale prices - the crucial determinant for calculating government royalties - than they reported to their shareholders. As a result, the nation's taxpayers, collectively, the biggest owner of American oil and gas reserves, have missed much of the recent energy bonanza. The disparities in gas prices parallel those uncovered just five years ago in a wave of scandals involving royalty payments for oil. From 1998 to 2001, a dozen major companies, while admitting no wrongdoing, paid a total of $438 million to settle charges that they had fraudulently understated their sale prices for oil. Since then, the government has tightened its rules for oil payments. But with natural gas, the Bush administration recently loosened the rules and eased its audits intended to uncover cheating. Industry executives deny any wrongdoing, arguing that the disparities stem primarily from different rules for calculating the sale prices for paying royalties and the sale prices for informing shareholders. "The price of gas downstream is always going to be higher because you have costs that have to be recouped for getting it to the customer," said Robert H. Davis, a spokesman for Exxon Mobil. "You have to process the gas. You have to transport it, and you have to sell it. There will always be a discrepancy there." Companies that pump oil and gas on federal property are required to pay the government royalties, usually 12 percent to 16 percent of the value of what they sell. Royalties for natural gas have climbed sharply in the last three years. But while prices nearly doubled from 2001 to 2005, the $5.15 billion in gas royalties for 2005 was less than the $5.35 billion in 2001. When oil and gas are combined, royalties were about $8 billion in 2005, almost the same as in 2001. Because much of the information about specific transactions is kept secret, it remains unclear to what extent, if at all, the weakness in royalty payments stems from deliberate cheating or from issues with the rules themselves. But one major producer, Burlington Resources, admitted to shareholders last year that it might have underpaid about $76 million in gas royalties in the 1990's. And in Alabama, a jury ruled in 2003 that Exxon had cheated on $63.6 million worth of royalties from gas wells in state-owned waters. The jury awarded $11.9 billion in punitive damages, which a judge later reduced to $3.5 billion. Exxon disputes the charges and is appealing the verdict. The possible losses to taxpayers in gas could be even higher than the losses tied to the scandals over oil royalties. For one thing, natural gas production on federal land is worth twice as much as oil. Moreover, the Interior Department has scaled back on full audits, pushed out a couple of its more aggressive auditors and been criticized by its own inspector general for the audits that it did pursue. "We are talking about the same issues and in many cases the same players as before," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group that exposed many of the oil royalty scandals. "These companies had knowingly been cheating on oil for years, if not decades," Ms. Brian continued. "To ignore the likelihood that the same thing is happening on the gas side is absurd." Johnnie M. Burton, director of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, said the disparities were mostly the result of deductions that the regulations let companies take, reducing the sale prices they report to the government. Shifting Numbers on Price Reports (January 23, 2006) But Ms. Burton said she had not known and could not explain why companies were reporting higher sale prices to their shareholders and to the Securities and Exchange Commission than to her office. "I can't answer because I don't know," she said in an interview. "We don't look at S.E.C. filings. We don't have enough staff to do all of that. If we were to do that, then we would have to have more staff and more budget. You know, there is such a thing as budget constraint, and it's been real tough, let me tell you." The contrasts between what companies are telling the government and what they are telling shareholders is stark. The Interior Department, using the numbers given by companies paying royalties, said the average sale price of natural gas on federal leases was $5.62 per thousand cubic feet in fiscal 2005, which ended Sept. 30. By contrast, Exxon told shareholders that it received about $6.88 per thousand cubic feet in the nine months that ended Sept. 30. Chevron said its average price in that period was $6.49. Kerr-McGee, which suffered huge losses from hedging against a drop in prices, nonetheless said it still received an average price of $6.59. "There's no reason why what the companies report to their shareholders should be higher than what they report" to the Minerals Management Service, said Lee Helfrich, a lawyer who has represented California in many battles with the industry over royalties. "The ultimate goals or mission of the S. E.C. and the M.M.S. are different, but the information reported to each should be the same." In the scandals over oil royalties in the 1990's, government investigators, aided by industry whistle-blowers and investigation by the Project on Government Oversight, found that companies were using a host of tricks to understate their sale prices. These included buy-sell agreements in which producers swapped oil with each other at artificially low prices and then resold it at higher prices. Companies also sold oil at below-market prices to their own affiliates, classified high-priced "sweet" oil as much cheaper "sour" oil and padded their deductions for transportation costs. In the wake of the scandals, the outgoing Clinton administration pushed through tough new rules for valuing crude oil, which relied on comparing company reports with an index of spot market prices. A Pro-Industry Approach But the Bush administration did not close any loopholes for valuing natural gas. Indeed, in March 2005 it expanded the list of deductions and decided against valuing sales at spot-market prices when companies were selling to their own affiliates. The industry-friendly stance was intentional. Mr. Bush and top White House officials also placed a top priority on promoting domestic energy production. Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force called for giving lucrative new incentives to companies that drill in the Gulf of Mexico and other high-risk areas. The Bush administration also took a much more relaxed approach to auditing and fraud prevention. In 2003, the Interior Department's inspector general declared that the auditing process was "ineffective" and "lacked accountability" and that many of the auditors were unqualified. In one instance, inspectors discovered that auditors had lost the working papers for an important audit and tried to cover up their blunder by creating and back-dating false documents. Rather than punish anybody, the inspector general recounted, the minerals service gave the employee who produced the new documents a financial bonus for "creativity." Administration officials said last week that they had addressed most of the criticisms and that the inspector general had since said its corrective actions were "sufficient." The Interior Department also fired two of its most aggressive and successful auditors. One of them was Bobby L. Maxwell, a veteran auditor who had recovered hundreds of millions of dollars in underpayments over a 22-year career and received an award for meritorious service in 2003 from Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton. Mr. Maxwell was fired in early 2005 after clashing with superiors over his belief that Kerr-McGee had shortchanged the government $12 million. Mr. Maxwell charged that he had been wrongfully fired, and the government paid him an undisclosed amount of money to settle out of court. Mr. Maxwell is now pursuing Kerr-McGee, which has denied any guilt, with his own lawsuit under the False Claims Act, which allows private citizens who prove fraud to collect some of the money they help recover. Shifting Numbers on Price Reports (January 23, 2006) Patrick Etchart, a spokesman for the Minerals Management Service in Denver, said that Mr. Maxwell lost his job because of a reorganization and that he had declined an offer to move to a different city. But lawmakers who wrestled with the government over previous royalty scandals are dubious. "It's all gotten worse, not better," said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, who led Congressional investigations into cheating on oil royalties in the 1990's. "They make the process so complicated that no one can really follow the money." Ending Detailed Inspections Perhaps the most striking example of sluggish auditing is the government's effort to collect back royalties from companies that blatantly ignored one of the government's basic rules. Under current rules aimed at promoting energy production in deep waters, companies can produce large volumes of oil and gas without paying royalties at all. But the rules also require companies to start paying royalties if market prices climb above certain "threshold" levels. As it happens, market prices have been above those levels since the 2003 fiscal year. But even though dozens of companies never bothered to start paying, Ms. Burton said earlier this month that the government had yet to demand repayment three months into the 2006 fiscal year. "It's more complicated than you might think," said Lucy Querques Dennett, associate director of the Minerals Management Service in charge of the issue. But enforcing the rules about price thresholds is easy compared with verifying the actual sale value of natural gas. Over the last four years, the Bush administration has ordered its auditors to move away from detailed inspections in favor of a more cursory approach of looking for anomalies in company reports. If a company in Louisiana, say, reported prices that differed from those of other companies in the same region, it would attract closer scrutiny. Mr. Etchart, the agency's spokesman, said that the number of full-scale audits had declined slightly over the past few years and that the budget for compliance had fallen. But he said the government still took a "close look" at 71 percent of oil and gas production. "Our strategy would obviously be to focus on anomalies," he said, "but it is also to focus on large producing areas." The agency's strategy has drawn protests, however, from many states, which are entitled to a share of federal royalties, and from some of the Interior Department's most aggressive auditors. One of those auditors was Kevin Gambrell, director of the Federal Indian Minerals Office in Farmington, N.M. Mr. Gambrell fought with his superiors over many issues, one of which was their demand that he do fewer audits and simply monitor posted prices of companies in the same area. "Where the M.M.S. approach falls short is that there are so many different types of deductions you can take in getting gas and oil to the market, and there are so many premiums and bonuses in the contracts," Mr. Gambrell said in a recent interview. "You have to take a detailed look at the contracts to know what's going on." The Interior Department forced Mr. Gambrell out in 2003, charging that he had improperly destroyed office documents. Mr. Gambrell sued for wrongful termination, arguing that he had discarded only copies of documents. He also presented evidence that his office had recovered eight times as much money as offices that used the administration's preferred approach. The government settled his case in 2004 by clearing him of any wrongdoing and paying him an undisclosed amount of money. For practical purposes, the biggest cost to taxpayers may have less to do with cheating and fraud than with the government's inscrutable rules. Consider the case of Burlington Resources, a Houston-based producer that ConocoPhillips acquired in December for $35.6 billion. Burlington paid $8. 5 million in 2001 to settle charges of cheating related to its oil royalties. Last March, Burlington disclosed that it might also have underpaid gas royalties by about $76 million during the 1990's. It set aside $81 million to cover possible litigation costs. Unlike others, Burlington executives provided information to The Times on the royalties it paid for natural gas and on the sale prices that it has reported to the Interior Department since 2002. During those four years, Burlington said it paid $627 million in gas royalties and that its annual payment shot up from $89 million in 2002 to $233 million in 2005. That surge in royalties does track closely with the rise in market prices. But Burlington's numbers also highlight the essential issue raised by many critics: the rules let companies understate the value of their gas sales by taking scores of deductions. Those deductions include the cost of transportation, processing, brokerage fees, pipeline reservation fees and even certain "theoretical losses" for companies that own their own pipelines. In 2001, Burlington reported an average price of $1.98 per thousand cubic feet to the government but an average sale price of $3.20 to its shareholders. In 2005, the company reported an average sale price of $5.75 to the government and $6.46 to shareholders. Keeping Royalties Secret James Bartlett, a spokesman for Burlington, said part of the discrepancy resulted from the fact that much of Burlington's production is in the Rocky Mountains, where natural gas fetches lower prices. The federal government does not require companies to divulge the amount of royalties they pay or what they tell the government about sale prices. And unlike Burlington Resources, Exxon and most other major oil companies refused to disclose the information when asked. "It's not required information," said Mr. Davis of Exxon, echoing responses from Chevron, Royal Dutch/Shell and other big producers. "We're not going to publish it." Copyright c. 2006 The New York Times Company. --------- "RE: Senators seek review of Royalty Collections" --------- Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 08:49:14 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GAS AND OIL ROYALTIES" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://ogj.pennnet.com/articles/article_display.cfm?Section=ONART Senators seek review of federal royalty collections Oil and Gas Journal Nick Snow Washington Correspondent January 25, 2006 WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 25 - Twenty-two US senators have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether the US Minerals Management Service is fully collecting federal oil and gas royalties from leases on public and Indian lands. "In this time of rising oil and gas prices, the program has been the subject of criticism for alleged under-collections resulting in the public not receiving fair value for its mineral resources," said Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), chief minority member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the 20 other Senate Democrats and one Republican in a letter. "It is essential that the US Treasury, the states, and the tribes receive the amounts owed to them for production from federal and tribal leases," they wrote David M. Walker, the GAO's comptroller general, on Jan. 24. The group asked Walker to answer nine sets of questions within 30 days, including why royalty collections totals from federal lands have not risen at the same rate as oil and gas prices, whether MMS has reduced its number of auditors employed and audits conducted each year, and if the US Department of the Interior agency has adequate resources and funding to do the job. The senators also asked whether MMS implemented recommendations from a DOI inspector general's report that was critical of its royalty audit process, if deepwater royalty relief provisions have been properly implemented and royalties collected when the oil or gas prices passes the minimum threshold, and the basis for withholding information about royalty payers' specific payments, including what constitutes proprietary information. Bingaman initially said a day earlier that he would ask the congressional watchdog agency to review MMS oil and gas royalty collections in response to a New York Times story that raised its own questions about the subject. Republican Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Democrats Daniel K. Akaka (Ha.), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Thomas R. Carper (Del.), Mark Dayton (Minn.), Byron L. Dorgan (ND), Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), Russell D. Feingold (Wis.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Tim Johnson (SD), John F. Kerry (Mass.), Frank R. Lautenberg (NJ), Carl Levin (Mich.), Robert Menendez (NJ), Barbara A. Mikulski (Md.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Barack Obama (Ill.), Harry Reid (Nev. ), Ken Salazar (Colo.), Charles E. Schumer (NY), and Ron Wyden (Ore.) also signed the letter. Copyright c. 2006: PennWell Corporation, Tulsa, OK; All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Sioux Family fights odds for Sister's Health" --------- Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 08:43:34 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="KIDNEY NEEDED" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=7485 Sioux family fights odds for sister's health Sam Lewin January 24, 2006 When it became clear that Sue-Ann Iron Shell would die if she did not receive another kidney, her entire immediate family wanted to help. "We all stepped up to get our blood matched," Sue's sister Rose, who at 31 is 15-months younger than her sister, told the Native American Times. "It's our sister. We want her to get better." Always bad, Sue-Ann's condition was now getting deadly serious. She was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when she was 13. Last year things took a turn for the worse. "Her kidney shut down last March. She has been on dialysis since then and has had quite a few hospitalizations in intensive care" Rose said. "Her heart has quit a few times from kidney failure. If she didn't get the transplant she was going to die." Sue-Ann's older brother Calvin has agreed to donate his kidney. The surgery takes place in February. The operation will be performed at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, about a six-hour drive from the Iron Shell's home on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. According to a study by the Rosebud Sioux Tribe's Phil Two Eagle, unemployment on the reservation is a stunning 82%, and Todd County is historically one of the poorest counties in the country. Rose and Calvin are some of the few people living there lucky enough to have jobs: Rose works at an Indian Health Service hospital and Calvin is an electrician. Donating his kidney means Calvin will have to miss up to a month and a half of work, a tough financial blow for a family struggling to make ends meet in an economically depressed area. Rose said that even the drive to Omaha would be a financial burden. Despite the concerns about money, making the operation happen was never a question. "Hopefully this will help Sue-Ann get back to living," Rose said. Donations can be sent to: The Iron Shell family PO Box 512 Rosebud. SD 57570 Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Lawmakers want buffer to protect Bear Butte" --------- Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 08:40:21 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="OPPOSITION TO PROPOSED BUFFER ZONE" http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/01/27/news/top/news02.txt Lawmakers want buffer to protect Bear Butte By Celeste Calvitto, Journal Staff Writer January 27, 2006 PIERRE - Paul Valandra and Jim Bradford are on a mission. The two Democratic state lawmakers, by introducing legislation to prohibit liquor licenses within four miles of Bear Butte near Sturgis, are seeking to protect a site that is sacred to many American Indians on the northern Great Plains. "But we don't want to scare anybody, either," Valandra said this week. Valandra, a Rosebud Sioux, and Bradford, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said they are working on an outreach effort to let people who think they might be affected know that the legislators want to talk to everybody. "We know that we are causing concern for many people out there," Valandra said. "We want to hear their views. ... They've got our cell-phone numbers." Specifically, HB1233 says that on-sale licenses would not be issued to current businesses or those that will be within four miles of the boundaries of Bear Butte State Park. The action comes as a result of an announcement last summer by Jay Allen, the Arizona-based owner of the Broken Spoke Saloon in Sturgis. He wants to build a biker bar and concert site on land south of Bear Butte for this year's Sturgis motorcycle rally. "I remember thinking, that guy is going to catch some hell before this is all over," Valandra said with a chuckle. "There will be Indians coming from all over." Allen did not return phone calls seeking comment before news deadline. But in an interview with the Rapid City Journal last year after opposition surfaced to his plans, he said, "From the onset, I've reached my arms out to the Native American community with totally good intentions to recognize their heritage, only to discover that it was not well received." State Sen. Kenneth McNenny, R-Sturgis, said the proposal may have "disastrous consquences." He said the proposed boundaries are unclear but that he is concerned that the plan could affect a number of venues such as campgrounds and may include part of the city of Sturgis. "I am very apprehensive about it," House Majority Leader Larry Rhoden, R-Union Center, said. Meanwhile, Bradford said he and Valandra have a plan to "grandfather" existing establishments with liquor licenses that might be affected. They also have an explanation for the four-mile distance. When tribes challenged a plan for a shooting range near Bear Butte as disruptive, experts said it would take four miles to create a buffer from noise. "We decided to go with that," Valandra said. They said the quest to protect Bear Butte is shared by others. "It's not only Indians who are concerned," Bradford said. The Defenders of the Black Hills group, which came out against Allen's plan, is raising money to buy land around Bear Butte to create a buffer zone. "Bear Butte belongs to everbody," Valandra said. And the two lawmakers believe that bikers who make the pilgrimage to Sturgis each year won't be upset with their plan. "Bikers are cool guys," Valandra said. "They don't want to desecrate Indian ground." Bradford said more and more Sturgis rally bikers from throughout the country are visiting the Pine Ridge reservation. "They are interested in our culture," he said. Bradford acknowledged that even if the law is passed, it won't go into effect until July 1, and it wouldn't stop Allen's plan if he buys a Meade County license before then. But he calls it a "step in the right direction" to preserve the integrity of Bear Butte. "To me, it's a unified church," Bradford said. "I feel like other people would whose religion is being disturbed." Contact Celeste Calvitto at 394-8438 or Celeste.Calvitto@rapidcityjournal.com Copyright c. 2006 Rapid City Journal. --------- "RE: Agreement reached on Graving Yard negotiations" --------- Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 08:49:14 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LOWER ELWHA KLALLAM" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/sited/story/html/228552 State, tribe reach agreement on graving yard negotiations by JIM CASEY January 26, 2006 OLYMPIA - Gov. Chris Gregoire is expected to sign today an agreement that frames negotiations with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe over Tse-whit-zen and the former Hood Canal Bridge graving yard. The agreement's immediate result will be that Gregoire's chief of staff, Tom Fitzsimmons, revisits Port Angeles on Friday and independent negotiator John Bickerman meets Monday with local government officials. Bickerman will tour the Tse-whit-zen site and talk with tribal members Monday afternoon, according to Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles. Bickerman, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer and international negotiator, last fall mediated a water rights agreement between the city of Everett and the Tulalip Tribes of Marysville that both sides say should last 100 years. Issues that Bickerman will negotiate regarding Tse-whit-zen include development of the Port Angeles waterfront. In addition to the state and the tribe, parties to at least some of the discussions will include the city of Port Angeles, Port of Port Angeles and Clallam County. In the meantime, the tribe will support building concrete anchors for the bridge on the shoreward portion of the 22.5-acre graving yard site, provided that the project avoids an ancestral village and cemetery and that the state not operate heavy machinery in those places. Remains stopped project Discovery of Native American remains and artifacts at the graving yard in the crook of Ediz Hook led the tribe to request a halt to construction late in December 2004. The yard would have been the site for constructing not only the huge anchors but the even larger pontoons to float the east end of the Hood Canal span. The pontoons instead will be built at Concrete Technologies in Tacoma. Copyright c. 2006 Kenai Peninsula Daily News, Horvitz Newspapers, Inc. --------- "RE: Alabama Tribe struggles in quest for Recognition" --------- Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 18:20:20 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MOWA CHOCTAW" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/1138443667146800.xml&coll=2 Alabama tribe struggles in its quest for recognition Once scorned as Indians, Mowa now seek that official status THOMAS SPENCER News staff writer January 28, 2006 MOUNT VERNON - Chief Wilford "Longhair" Taylor marvels that for 150 years his people - the distinctive and tightly interwoven families of north Mobile and south Washington counties - were labeled Indians when that meant scorn, land swindles, segregation and discrimination. But for the past 25 years, when being an Indian has meant federal aid and tax incentives, governmental autonomy and access to the revenues of Indian gaming, the Mowa Choctaws aren't considered Indians at all. "We were Indians when it didn't amount to anything," Taylor said. "If there is any justice in this country, we should be federally recognized." The Mowa, who take their name from the two Alabama counties that their state-recognized reservation straddles, are turning one last time to Congress. They are trying to overcome rejection by the federal bureaucracy that governs Indian affairs, a process that took decades and put the tribe through an expensive and exhaustive effort, only to have its petition denied in 1998. In what the Mowa and their supporters say is a last effort to avoid a federal lawsuit over the question, U.S. Rep. Joe Bonner has introduced legislation to grant the Mowa their long-sought federal recognition. "My only intention is to make certain that the same rules that apply to other Native American tribes apply equally to our friends in southwest Alabama," Bonner said. The legislation, introduced last summer, sits in committee. Politics of gambling The already complicated question of who is rightfully an American Indian now is further complicated by the modern politics of gambling. The Mowa, who have had historic social and family ties with neighboring Native Americans, now find those neighbors opposed to recognition for the Mowa. The Mississippi Band of Choctaws, with gambling operations to the west, and the Poarch Creek of Alabama, who have electronic bingo and casino aspirations to the east, have argued against recognition for the Mowa. Their arguments are couched in terms of history, but Taylor believes the objections were inspired by a desire to keep out gaming competition. "It's mostly Indians vs. Indians since casinos came on the scene," Taylor said. "Money is very much involved." Taylor said the Mowa, centered 25 miles north of Mobile, have been approached by casino developers. But the quest for federal recognition is not about gambling, he said. It's about the tribe's being able to offer lucrative industrial tax breaks available to Indians. The Mowa also want the enhanced funding for housing, health and education that comes with federal recognition. Only about half the Mowa have a high school degree or better, according to the U.S. Census. On the 2000 census, about 1,700 people in south Alabama identified themselves as Mowa. Taylor said the tribal roll lists 6,500 Mowa spread across the country, with more than 3,000 in and around the reservation. According to the census, their per-capita income is about half the state average. The unemployment rate is about twice that of the state's population as a whole. "Federal recognition just opens up the door," Taylor said. "Gaming is not the issue. I'm leaving the casino option open. We should have every right any other tribe has, but it would be the last thing on our agenda." Living in isolation The Mowa community is remote. Drive at night through miles of scrubby pine on a twisting road, and the sky is black and the stars brilliant, low-hanging and stark white. You're sure you're lost, that no one lives this far out. According to the Mowa, that is the way the Indians, who've lived in these woods and swamps for more than 150 years, wanted it. In a remote patch between the small Alabama towns of Citronelle, Mount Vernon and McIntosh, the Mowa eked out a living in inhospitable country. They hunted and fished the swamps and farmed the sandy uplands, land ignored by white settlers because the soil was too poor to grow cotton. They weren't supposed to be there. In the 1830s, the government shipped the eastern Indians west on the Trail of Tears. But in this remote corner, a small band of Choctaws, who were native to the river country north of Mobile, stayed. They were joined by a smattering of Alabama Creek and Cherokee refugees. Their presence is noted in government documents and newspaper accounts of the period, buttressing the Mowa oral history passed down through generations. Accounts from Mobilians recall Indians coming to town to sell firewood and the game they killed. The Mowa don't claim a history of ethnic purity. There are strains of the French, who'd originally settled Mobile, plus white settlers and some free blacks, too. Despite racial purity's not being a requirement for federal recognition, this intermarriage has led some to question the Mowa's tribal claims. It was the basis for the Bureau of Indian Affairs' decision to deny their application for recognition. Sometime in the 1800s, the group came to be widely known as Cajuns, though the label has no basis in history. Louisiana Cajuns were French exiles from Nova Scotia who fled in the mid-1700s, in the aftermath of the French and Indian War. Cajun, as applied to the Mowa, was a shorthand way to categorize them as not white and not black, but something else. The fact that tag stuck is an indication that the group was a cohesive and persistent community, according to historians and anthropologists who've studied the Mowa. Difficult to document The Mowa feel they're in a curious situation. They are being asked to provide extensive official documentation that they were Indians at a time when many of their ancestors were illiterate and kept their distance from the government. They were motivated to conceal their Indian identity to avoid being sent west. Those who could claim European ancestry were inclined to do so, the Mowa say. Still, evidence persists that the Mowa and the surrounding community considered them Indian, much of it fished out by Birmingham historian Jacqueline Matte, the author of the book "They Say the Wind Is Red: The Alabama Choctaw - Lost in Their Own Land." The tribe still owns a schoolhouse, paid for by the state and built in 1835, which according to historic records was built "for Indians by Indian labor." It is listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings. Historians have found Confederate reports of the Choctaw of north Mobile County being recruited as scouts during the Civil War. In the 1800s, census takers counted them as Indians. In the early 20th century, the Baptists sent missionaries to convert them. The Mowa still have generations' worth of stories and folklore. They practiced folk medicine, and the community included fluent Choctaw speakers until the late 1980s, although the language did not die out. The language, plus dance custom and history are taught in the elementary school. In addition to the state of Alabama, the U.S. Department of Justice, the department of Health and Human Services and the department of Housing and Urban Development recognize the Mowa as an independent self-governing entity. Identified in records According to the classifications of the No Child Left Behind Act, 93 percent of the pupils at the community's Calcedeaver Elementary School are identified as Native American. The school's population reflects the Mowa's economic status; 90 percent of the children qualify for free or reduced-price meals. But Calcedeaver also represents the Mowa's promise. With a strong sense of community focused by its Native American identity, Calcedeaver Elementary ranked third in the state last year in K-3 reading proficiency. Of 145 pupils, including special education students, all but four read at grade level. Principal LaGaylis Harbuck, a Mowa, is determined to be No. 1 this year: "We are shooting for 100 percent." Taylor said the tribe has done the best it can with what it has. To its land, the tribe has recruited a medical waste processing plant and a soil remediation plant, where soil from oil fields is brought in and decontaminated. Taylor and former chief Framon Weaver sat in the tribal headquarters sipping coffee talking about the Mowa's long quest. Both are combat veterans of Vietnam, listed as American Indians on their military records. They'd like to see the government give them the chance to better their long-isolated community. "I went to Vietnam and fought for this country," Weaver said. Taylor added: "I'd like to think their is a enough decency left in Washington to see that justice is done." Copyright c. 2006 The Birmingham News. --------- "RE: Part-Ute Plaintiffs' Lawsuit is dismissed" --------- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 08:59:32 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MIXED-BLOOD SUIT DENIED" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3451618?source=rss Part-Ute plaintiffs' lawsuit is dismissed Feds win: 'Mixed-bloods' have no valid claim to $32 million awarded to the tribe, a federal judge rules By Pamela Manson The Salt Lake Tribune January 30, 2006 A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed by hundreds of mixed- blood Utes, ruling their challenge to the legal termination of their rights as tribal members came years too late. The six-year period to sue had ended by 1967 at the latest, U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts, who is based in Washington, D.C., said in granting a motion by the government to throw out the case. The legal action centered on the Ute Partition Act of 1954, which divided the tribe into "mixed-bloods" and "full-bloods." Under the legislation, 490 mixed-blood individuals lost recognition by the federal government as Indians and were removed from tribal roles. In addition, they lost their rights to share in a $32 million judgment obtained by the Ute tribe over the federal government's taking of Colorado lands previously occupied by the White River and Uncompaghre Bands. All but a few of the terminated members were Uintah Band descendents. Full-bloods were defined as tribal members whose ancestry was at least one-half Ute and more than one-half Indian. Mixed-bloods were defined as members who lacked sufficient Ute or Indian ancestry to qualify as full- bloods. On Aug. 27, 1961, the the secretary of the interior published the names of the 490 mixed-bloods and the termination policy in the Federal Register. The terminated members filed suit in November 2002, seeking reinstatement in the Ute tribe or federal recognition as a separate tribe and an accounting of the $32 million allocated to the Colorado bands. But time had run out, Roberts said. "Even assuming that plaintiffs' claim did not accrue until the most recent act alleged in the complaint - the publication in the 1961 Federal Register of the list of terminated members - the six-year statute of limitations expired before plaintiffs filed this action," the judge wrote. Oranna Felter, the lead plaintiff in the case, said Friday that she was still reviewing the ruling with the group's attorney and had no immediate comment. Copyright c. 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. --------- "RE: Border Town Racism to be the topic of Conference" --------- Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 08:49:14 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MISSOULA CONFERENCE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.goldentrianglenews.com/articles/2006/01/25/glacier_reporter/news/news4.txt Border town racism to be the topic of April conference in Missoula. By John McGill, Glacier Reporter Editor January 25, 2006 "It will be the first of its kind," said Rodney "Fish" Gervais Monday, Jan. 23. "There's never been a conference on border town racism before, so we started from scratch in compiling the issues and topics of why border towns seem to be where conflicts are so evident." The director of the Blackfeet Tribe's TERO program, Gervais began, some years ago, gathering information on prejudicial treatment of Indian people by the justice system in neighboring Cut Bank. "Other parts of the country don't see it," said Gervais. "It's interesting that non-Indians who are not from border towns can't believe the problems even exist. As one person put it, `The reservation border town mentality seems to be stuck in the 1800s.'" While the national TERO group is planning a series of workshops on the issue, Gervais said he and a group of local volunteers are working to put on a local conference. "We concluded we needed a forum for the issues to be talked out," he said. "When we did research for the EEOC [Equal Economic Opportunity Commission] we had a series of public forums with comments, and nearly all the comments were the same as other Indian border town situations across the country. Civil rights have not reached Indian country for the most part, and that makes it difficult for Indian people because their rights are also being violated by their own tribal governments. So at the conference we're dealing with practical realities and we must hold tribal governments accountable, so we're approaching it from an educational standpoint." Most federal protection for Indians is focused on tribal governments and not individuals, said Gervais, so the conference is focusing primarily on individual situations and complaints. The federal government "never allowed Indian people the right to appeal, so it's time for tribal governments to be more accountable to the tribal membership because their rights are being violated," said Gervais. While tribal governments are part of the problem, the issue of border town racism is also real. "The figures are there," said Gervais. "It's three times more likely they'll have higher sentences and guilty verdicts and three times more likely to get tickets, according to a Montana Highway Patrol study we did." Gervais himself kept records of proceedings at the Courthouse in Cut Bank, "and the evidence was overwhelming. The people at the jail said that 90 percent or more were Indian people and at lending institutions Indian are twice as likely to be overcharged for their mortgages." Some of the issues affected by border town racism, said Gervais, include Indian voting, practices of lending institutions, school systems, sports, access to programs, employment and justice. "Reservations are left out of most civil rights legislation," Gervais said. "The federal government says it's a Tribal Council matter, but the Tribal Council doesn't extend rights to its members, for the most part." The planned conference is set for April 5-7 in Missoula, and its primary objective is to establish an Indian Civil Rights Commission. "We want a commission for complaints against tribal governments and other discrimination, to have a group to deal with these issues and bring civil rights to Indian country." Gervais said he is working with the nation's TERO groups to get a commission established. "There are conflicts throughout Indian country, so let's put together a mechanism to deal with the complaints, to process civil rights complaints." Gervais said the conference should attract representatives of other minority groups, as well as tribal, state and federal officials, including key people in the area of civil rights. For more information, call 338-7887. Copyright c. 2006 Golden Triangle Newspapers. --------- "RE: Outagamie County, Oneidas reach fee agreement" --------- Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 08:49:14 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="COUNTY SERVICES FEES" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com//GPG0101/601260522/1207/GPGnews Outagamie County, Oneidas reach fee agreement By Susan Squires Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers January 26, 2006 The Oneida Nation of Wisconsin has agreed to pay Outagamie County $1.2 million over the next 10 years for services the county will provide to tax-exempt tribal land. The tribe owns more than 12,000 acres in the county. About half is in the town of Oneida, where it is held in tax-exempt federal trust. The tribe pays property taxes to local governments on the rest of its land. The payments, beginning with $90,000 this year, are equal to about 60 percent to 65 percent of the taxes the land would generate in today's dollars if it were not held in trust by the U.S. government. In Brown County, officials have been negotiating with the Oneidas for a similar agreement for almost two years. The last agreement between Brown County and the Oneidas was for two years and expired in 2003. The payment amount was $500,000 a year. Outagamie County has more Oneida territory than Brown County. Brown County Executive Carol Kelso said Wednesday she continues to meet with the Oneidas, along with Dan Haefs, the County Board vice chairman. She said she believes negotiations are going well, but she acknowledged the negotiations are taking longer than expected. Last summer, Brown County officials had told the Green Bay Press-Gazette they hoped for an agreement by November. The Code of Federal Regulations allows tribes to put property - typically reservation land - in trust when it "is necessary to facilitate tribal self-determination, economic development or Indian housing." In exchange for the payments, the county agrees, with a few caveats, not to oppose Oneida efforts to enroll more land in trust. The tribe is in the process of buying back the 65,430 acres of its original reservation, which includes the town of Oneida, and all of Hobart and sections of Ashwaubenon and Green Bay in Brown County. Oneida spokeswoman Bobbi Webster said the tribe last week filed applications to put 26 Outagamie parcels in trust. The Oneidas also have voluntary agreements for payments in lieu of taxes with Ashwaubenon, De Pere and Hobart. "We feel these intergovernmental type agreements are good for establishing good government-to-government relations," Oneida Vice Chairwoman Kathy Hughes said Wednesday. "Ultimately, we think we can provide better services to our constituents when we can share in providing services." Outagamie County Executive Toby Paltzer says a government-to-government relationship with the Oneida could have benefits for Outagamie County beyond fee-for-service payments. "They can partner in programs (with the county) and they can get federal money to help pay for programs the county can't," he said. Copyright c. Green Bay Press-Gazette, Gannett Newspapers, Inc. --------- "RE: Tribe applies to set own Water Quality Standards" --------- Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 08:49:14 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LAC DU FLAMBEAU WATER" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.duluthsuperior.com/duluthsuperior/news/local/13715764.htm Tribe applies to set own water quality standards BY ROBERT IMRIE ASSOCIATED PRESS January 26, 2006 WAUSAU, Wis. - A northern Wisconsin Indian tribe has again applied to the federal government for authority to set its own standards for keeping reservation waters free of pollution, a request that has some groups nervous about the change's possible ramifications. If the government agrees, the Lac du Flambeau Band of Chippewa could set stricter clean water standards than the state's. That could perhaps force off-reservation groups, such as a sanitary district, to pay more to clean its treated water that eventually flows through the reservation, officials said. "Frankly, at this point it appears that the livelihood and economic viability of the region are threatened," U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Wis., wrote to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week. But the tribe said its goal is to make sure its waters are protected against polluters, a concept it says is good for the area's economy. On Green's request, the EPA extended a deadline by 30 days for getting public comments on the proposal. Congress passed legislation in 1989 permitting tribes to apply for so- called "treatment as a state" status, which allows them to set air and water standards on their reservations. Only 32 of the nation's 290 federally recognized tribes have obtained that authority regarding water quality, said Don DeBlasio of the EPA's Midwest region. One Wisconsin tribe - the Mole Lake Band of Chippewa - was granted the authority in 1995. According to the EPA, under provisions of the U.S. Clean Water Act, tribes with the authority can enforce stricter standards than under state laws, subject to the agency's approval. Larry Wawronowicz, Lac du Flambeau's deputy administrator for natural resources, said the tribe applied for the authority several years ago and it was approved, along with applications from the Oneida and Menominee tribes. The approval was withdrawn in 2000 after the state sued over the decision and it was learned an EPA official had falsified some documents, he said. The tribe submitted a new application in October. "Water is a vital resource to the tribe. It is not only a natural resource but a cultural resource," Wawronowicz said. "Clean water is vital. It is as simple as that." As for Green's worries, Wawronowicz said: "People have some misinformation and it is snowballing." The Lac du Flambeau Reservation has 261 lakes and71 miles of creeks, river and streams, Wawronowicz said. According to the state Department of Natural Resources, two entities - the Lakeland Sanitary District and a DNR fish hatchery in Woodruff - discharge into the Tomahawk River that flows through a corner of the Lac du Flambeau Reservation. They would be subject to any new tribal standards. Copyright c. 2006 Duluth Superior. --------- "RE: Tulsa Indian Group takes lead against stalking" --------- Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 08:43:34 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="T K WOLF TAKES PRO-ACTIVE STANCE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=7488 Tulsa Indian group takes lead against stalking Native women disproportionately affected TULSA OK Native American Times January 24, 2006 According to the National Institute of Justice, 1.4 million people are stalked every year in the United States. Although solid figures in Indian Country are hard to come by, according to the Mending the Sacred Hoop Project of North Dakota, almost two out of every ten Native American women have been stalked, a number higher than other ethnic groups. Since the crime disproportionately impacts Native women, counselors at T.K. Wolf, Inc. in Tulsa, a non-profit, Indian-run organization, believe they have a duty to address the problem. T.K. Wolf's Clark Inkanish has learned what stalking can do. "There was a case I was exposed to this week where the mother of a victim found evidence that the stalker was living in their attic. They were putting up Christmas lights and saw a window had been broken. They could tell someone had been living there," Inkanish tells the Native American Times. Inkanish believes that there are several reasons why Indian women seem to suffer stalkers at a higher rate. "Non-Indian people are aware that jurisdiction [on Indian land] is a difficulty, and that more than likely if they are apprehended they will never be charged," he said. Others agree. According to the Southwest Center for Law and Policy: "Many tribes lack codes to properly address stalking... Tribal criminal codes should be broad enough to encompass the various methods that stalkers use to stalk their victims." There is also the problem of the perception that stalking is a solely a women's issue. Not true, Inkanish says. "Males stalk males," he said. "Women stalk women." There is also the factor the many reservations are located in rural places, away from watchful neighbors and frequent police patrols. In 2003, Congress declared January to be National Stalking Awareness Month after a New Mexico woman was murdered by her boyfriend. Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson recently said that it's important for stalking victims to seek help immediately. In addition to offering services to anyone in need of assistance, T.K. Wolf has proposed a series of steps to eliminate the problem. Some of those involve greater communication with area tribes, streamlining jurisdiction laws, and letting women know that all fifty states have-anti stalking measures on their books. In addition, a federal law makes it a crime to "travel across state, tribal or international lines to stalk another person." The law also applies to using regular mail, e-mail, or the Internet. The National Center for Victims of Crime has a number for victim assistance: 1-800-FYI-CALL. TK Wolfe can be reached at 918-447-5560. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Native American Groups demand apology for Shirts" --------- Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 08:43:34 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RACIST ALUMNI USURPING INTENT OF UNIVERSITY" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.stanforddaily.com/content&repository=0001_article&id=19067 Native American groups demand apology for shirts By Daisy Chung January 25, 2006 For many students, the Stanford Cardinal has always represented the University on its playing fields, exemplifying the spirit of the school within its ranks and to the community at large. However, alumni who attended Stanford before 1972 might recall an entirely different mascot - the Stanford Indian. With an increased sensitivity to the issues at stake in a multi-cultural community, the University officially replaced the Indian mascot after 55 students and staff members submitted a petition asking that the symbol be removed. In recent months, however, the Native American community at Stanford has noted a reemergence of the Stanford Indian on various spirit and athletic paraphernalia. "We were extremely disappointed by the recent reappearances of the Stanford Indian," said senior Jackson Brossy, co-chair of the Stanford American Indian Organization (SAIO). One incident involved T-shirts advertised in the varsity sailing team's newsletter. Members of the sailing team and head coach Jay Kehoe declined to comment. "The T-shirts were printed by an alumnus before Big Game - the individual intended to distribute them to other alums and members of the sailing team," said Gary Migdol, assistant athletic director. He explained that the T-shirts featured an Indian sitting on a bear. "I believe there were 25 T-shirts printed, and five were left over after Big Game," he said. "The alumnus suggested that the team sell these shirts, and an ad was placed in the sailing team's newsletter." Members of the Native American community at Stanford noticed the shirts and brought the issue up for consideration within their organization. "The sailing team plans to print a letter in their next newsletter apologizing for the advertisement, which was inappropriate," Migdol said. In another sighting of the Stanford Indian, the Sigma Chi Fraternity designed Big Game shirts that used the "Chief" logo this past November. "There has been a recent resurgence of the Stanford `Chief' logo throughout the campus and our use of it was meant to invoke visions of tradition and history (which was reinforced by the phrase `Killing Bears since 1892...' on the back of the T-shirt), not racism or intolerance," said senior Kunal Gullapalli, president of the Alpha Omega Chapter of Sigma Chi. Representatives of the Native American community, however, took offense at these images. "These symbols, caricatures, and crude sketches of American Indians are to the Stanford community, especially the Native American community," Brossy added. "Characterizing more than 500 individual nations as wild- eyed, big-nosed, tomahawk-chopping savages is racist and cannot be tolerated by the greater Stanford community." Student groups who have resurrected the Indian maintain that they were merely referencing the University's history. "There was absolutely no intention of offending any group with this shirt (with the possible exception of the UC-Berkeley Bears)," Gullapalli wrote in an e-mail to The Daily. "We still recognize that, while our good intentions may be clear, any use of images representing racial stereotypes can negatively impact the consciousness of our community. Thus, Sigma Chi looks forward to proactively cooperating with the University and campus groups to resolve this unfortunate misunderstanding as well as working towards preserving our open and respectful campus," Members of the Native American community on campus are also working toward a renewed awareness of the issue within the larger Stanford population. "We plan to deliver a letter to President Hennessy, the athletic director and the University [today], asking for a public denouncement of the use of the mascot, and a reiteration of the message that the use of the American Indian mascot will not be tolerated because it is demeaning and offensive," Brossy said. --------- "RE: Three S.C. Indian Tribes win recognition" --------- Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 17:35:11 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="STATE RECOGNITION ACHIEVED" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/13733432.htm Three S.C. Indian tribes win recognition By JOEY HOLLEMAN Staff Writer January 28, 2006 When James Caulder applied for a driver's license in Florence in 1958, the woman checking the applications looked up and said, in a nasal voice he'll never forget: "You've got the race wrong here. South Carolina ain't got no Indians." If Caulder could have found that woman Friday, he would have told her proudly that not only does the state have Indians, but he's chief of one of the tribes. Caulder's Pee Dee Indian Tribe of South Carolina, the Beaver Creek Indians and the Santee Indian Organization officially were recognized as American Indian tribes Friday by the S.C. Commission for Minority Affairs. "Today erased all of those years of being identified as `others' or `black' or `white,'" Caulder said. "It gives myself and my people the opportunity to say `Hey, we are Indians, and we are proud.'" Friday's action brings to five the number of state-recognized tribes. The Waccamaw Indian People and the Pee Dee Indian Nation of Upper South Carolina were the first to be recognized, last year. The commission also recognized the American Indian Chamber of Commerce in Ladson as a special interest organization. The Pee Dee Indian Tribe, with about 2,000 members, is based in the Marlboro County town of McColl. The Beaver Creek tribe, with about 950 members, has an office in the Aiken County town of Salley and roots in Orangeburg County. The Santee tribe, with about 600 members, is based in the Orangeburg County town of Holly Hill. Their members have participated in American Indian events for years. Many, like Caulder, have been identified as American Indians on military records for decades. Some said they want to have the race of some of their ancestors reclassified on birth or death records. To gain state recognition, the tribes must meet strict criteria, which include a link to common Indian ancestors along with tribal traditions. The next deadline for tribes to apply is in April; the commission has received no applications. The Catawba tribe is the only one in South Carolina meeting stricter federal standards. Gaining state recognition isn't a factor in gaining federal recognition, and none of the state-recognized tribes has started down the long and difficult path to federal recognition. The state recognition grants the tribes few tangible benefits. They now can label the crafts they sell as "Native American," and they can apply for minority grants or scholarships. The intangible benefits of recognition flowed in tears down the faces of dozens after the commission's vote. "We're finally getting to be what we really are," said Santee Chief Roosevelt Scott. "Before, we acted like we were ashamed to be Indians." In the past, if you claimed Indian heritage, you usually ended up in an argument, said Louie Chavis, chief of the Salley-based Beaver Creek tribe. Now, the state finally is acknowledging that indigenous people live here. "I hope that my ancestors who've gone on have a chance to look back and see how far we've come." Reach Holleman at (803) 771-8366 or jholleman@thestate.com. Copyright c. 2006 The State, A Knight Ridder Publication. --------- "RE: Tribe Land transfer on hold for now" --------- Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 08:43:34 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ALABAMA BENEFACTOR RESOLVING CONTRACTUAL ISSUES" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.times-journal.com/report.lasso?WCD=5109 Tribe land transfer on hold for now By Mark Harrison The Times-Journal January 24, 2006 The deeding of 69 acres in Fort Payne to an Oklahoma-based Indian tribe has been delayed, to resolve legalities concerning "contractual obligations." It was expected that Ider resident David Hammonds would deed the land to the Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians last week, but Hammonds said Monday that the deeding is now expected to take place at a later time. Keetoowah tribal leaders visited the land last week, which sits next to an ancient Indian burial ground the Keetoowah say is specific to their tribe. They also say that the Fort Payne area is the tribe's ancestral home. Hammonds has repeatedly said the land transfer could open the door for legalized gaming in Fort Payne, in contrast to statements from Keetoowah tribal leaders who say gaming isn't currently in the cards. The Keetoowah already operate a casino in Oklahoma. Such gaming operations are essentially regulated by the federal government, leaving elected state and local officials with little say so in the matter, which some say they feel is unfair. Sen. Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, joined with U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt and Gov. Bob Riley in voicing opposition to any move that would bring legalized gaming to Fort Payne. He said he feels local residents should, at least, be entitled to a vote. Barron is a long-time political foe of Hammonds, and Hammonds has previously challenged Barron, unsuccessfully, for the 8th district state senate seat. "I oppose an issue as important as this being forced down the throats of any local community without their voting it in. We have gaming in this state in about four locations, and in each the people have had an opportunity to vote," Barron said. "We should make that absolute, that any community has a chance to vote [on legalized gaming]. I think that's the least we should demand. "Do the federal regulations override the county and the state? I don't know the answer to that as it refers to gambling but, if federal law does, that's very wrong," Barron said. "I think it's imperative that local communities make the choice at the ballot box as to whether or not they want gaming. Should the people of Fort Payne, at the ballot box say yes, I'll stand back and say okay, the people have spoken, we should have gaming. But until that happens, I will strongly opposing gaming in Fort Payne." Keetoowah tribal leaders say they are more interested in preserving the local burial site and in building a cultural center there, saying they have no immediate plans to build a casino here. However, tribal leaders have not ruled it out as a long-term possibility. Hammonds said the delay in the land transfer is because more time is needed to resolve the legalities involved, including certain "contractual obligations." He would not specify what those obligations entail but said, "It's simply a contractual benefit not only for myself, but also for Fort Payne and DeKalb County." Hammonds added, "Anytime you enter into a contract, it's something that must stand up in court. The [land transfer] will definitely happen, it's not a question of the actual transfer of the property, but just getting legalities worked out as far as contractual obligations." Keetoowah tribal leaders earlier categorized the land transfer as a "gift" from Hammonds, but Hammonds said he couldn't afford an "outright donation" of 69 acres of land and has repeatedly said he would personally benefit from the transfer, which he describes as "a business arrangement." Hammonds said he believes the installation of a casino could be an economic boom for Fort Payne, something that would create jobs and stimulate economic growth. "It is something that could help turn the city around in light of the economic downturn we've seen and the continuing loss of hosiery jobs," Hammonds said, pointing to the recently announced shutdown of production at DeSoto Hosiery, a move that will result in the loss of more than 200 jobs. The city has lost some 1,000 hosiery-related jobs over the course of about a year, according to local economic experts. Copyright c. 2006 The Fort Payne Times-Journal. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: No more hoops for Hoopa Tribe" --------- Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 18:20:20 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HOOPA DENIED BY HUMBOLDT COUNTY ASSOCIATION" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.times-standard.com/opinion/ci_3447642 No more hoops for Hoopa tribe The Times-Standard January 28, 2006 Eighteen years and what do you get? If you are the Hoopa Valley Tribe, and you've spent 18 years jumping through bureaucratic hoops and steadily advancing your claim to be admitted to the Humboldt County Association of Governments, you get - nothing. At least, so far. HCAOG includes the cities of Arcata, Blue Lake, Eureka, Ferndale, Fortuna, Rio Dell, Trinidad and Humboldt County. The behind-the-scenes agency is largely responsible for state highway, local street and road improvements, public transportation resources and roadside call boxes. As we've reported, the agency board in December had a series of deadlocked votes on whether to include the Hoopa Tribe in its agency. Normally, tribes are not considered public agencies and are not eligible to participate, but Hoopa was declared a public agency in the 1980s under a bill written by then Assemblyman Dan Hauser for the specific purpose of allowing Hoopa to take part in HCAOG. In that voting, representatives of Fortuna, Rio Dell, Ferndale and the county cast the "no" votes. Supervisor Roger Rodoni, who represents Southern Humboldt, voted for the county. But despite that vote, the county Board of Supervisors has taken action to support Hoopa's request and to ask the board to consider the issue again. Their action was requested by Assemblywoman Patty Berg and State Sen. Wes Chesbro. It's unclear whether the board's request will lead to a change in Rodoni's vote. Also unclear are the specific reasons why the tribe should be excluded from the agency. Fortuna Mayor Odell Shelton has said he wants more information about what the move would mean for the agency and whether it would open the door to other tribes. "The tribes could almost outnumber the cities and when you're outnumbered you get outvoted and the Indians are entitled to a whole bunch of money from the federal government that we can't get," he has noted. "It may be a perfectly good thing, but I don't know." But Hauser has said the legislation he wrote in the mid-1980s - now state government code - was specific to the Hoopa Valley Tribe. Any other local tribes wanting to join HCAOG would have to demonstrate a government framework similar to Hoopa's with departments like fire, police and roads. The process would likely take many years, if it even happens. A main reason offered for keeping the tribe out of the agency - we're "outnumbered" - sounds a little outdated, like the Old West, and not the new West we live in. It's also just not a good enough reason. The Hoopa Valley Tribe is a Humboldt County government in fact; it should be recognized as such, in title as well. Enough hoops have been tossed at tribal officials, and they've leaped through every one in the last two decades. We urge HCAOG to reconsider its vote, and soon. It's past time for Hoopa to officially join up with Humboldt's other governments. Copyright c. 2005 Times - Standard --------- "RE: GIAGO: When did Politics and Religion become one?" --------- Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 08:38:40 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GIAGO: THE NEW THEOCRACY" http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=7477 Notes from Indian Country When did politics and religion become one? Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) Copyright c. 2006 Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc. January 23, 2006 When I was young and living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation at the Pejuta Haka (Medicine Root) Community my father said to me, "There are two arguments you will never win and they are about politics and religion." Never in my wildest dream did I ever think that in the 21st Century those two arguments would be reduced to one. It seems to me that today politics and religion are interchangeable. From the history books I learned that in years past nations were ruled by Popes and great battles were fought between Christians and Muslims. Now let me see; on which side were the infidels? No matter how it is sugarcoated, there is still a war going on between Christians and Muslims. One would be a fool to believe that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are political wars only. It seems that the enemy of the Americans is using religious battle cries of Jihad or God is Great before pulling the switch on their suicide belts. Their martyrdom opens the gates of Heaven to them immediately. And yet the reasons the suicide bombers kill and maim are firmly rooted in politics because, in their minds, religion and politics cannot be separated. In the lands where Mullahs rule, the politics of the nation are solidly based upon religious beliefs. In other words, the laws of politics are the laws of the Quran. Ironically, in America, we now are faced with a leadership that leans heavily upon religious convictions when making political decisions. President George W. Bush publicly flaunts his deep religious feelings perhaps assuming that all Americans believe exactly as he feels. And once again we are observing the infringement upon the rights of individuals by those who believe that the laws of the land should be based upon the laws of the Bible. Should our laws be based on the Bible just as the laws of Islam are based upon the Quran? Even in a sparsely populated state like South Dakota the religious right has assumed control of the legislative body and too often inserts its religious opinions into legal or political decisions. In America a "red state" can be labeled as "God fearing," while a "blue state" can be accused of being "Godless." When did this Nation come to this ridiculous condition? History tells us that the Indian people of the Southwest, the Pueblo, were deeply religious, but it was the wrong kind of religiosity. It wasn't Christian enough. The Spanish conquistadors murdered, maimed and indoctrinated those who did not embrace Catholicism. The Pueblo men and women were reduced to slavery while their children were forced into schools where their language and customs were beaten out of them, or so the conquerors believed. But some religious beliefs die hard, and the people of the Pueblos kept their spiritual beliefs underground until it was safe to bring them into the light. What happened to the indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere should be used as a lesson to the rest of America. The new religious leaders scoffed at their spiritual beliefs and forced conversion became the law of the land. One of the fastest growing religions with the youngest population now thrives in the Muslim world. They believe their religion is the only true religion. Sound familiar? They believe it is not only all right, but a religious duty for young Muslims to sacrifice their lives to kill non- believers. Sixty years ago the Americans first encountered those who believed it was their religious responsibility to crash their planes into the war ships off the coast of Okinawa. The word Kamikaze literally means "Divine Wind." It was perplexing to the ideologies of the Americans then and it is perplexing to the Americans of today. Americans are not trained by religion or politics to take their own lives to destroy an enemy. It is a totally foreign concept. Muslims are taught at a very young age that martyrdom is a state of honor. To read a newspaper today or watch a television newscast creates an almost surreal world. The suicide attacks upon Iraqi civilians and upon American soldiers seem to run together so that it is hard to separate one attack from the other. And of late the attacks are becoming too numerous to register as real. But from the photos of the burned out cars and mangled bodies, we know that they are only too real. When American politicians decided to tackle the Muslim world they grabbed a tiger by the tail and now they cannot decide how to let go. If they let go too soon the tiger will surely kill them. Unforeseen circumstances have turned Iraq and Afghanistan into religious wars. After all, weren't the Taliban Muslim fundamentalists? My father could never have known that when he advised me many years ago to never argue politics or religion that they would eventually become one and the same. --- Tim Giago is the president of the Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc., and the publisher of Indian Education Today Magazine. He can be reached at najournalists@rushmore.com or by writing him at 2050 W. Main St., Suite 5, Rapid City, SD. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: ROBIDEAU: Abramoff latest in Long Line of Thieves" --------- Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 08:43:34 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ROBIDEAU: ABRAMOFF JUST LATEST THEIF" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-1/573/573_04_Robideau.shtml American Indian Movement activist on the Abramoff scandal: "One of many racists out to defraud Native tribes" January 27, 2006 GEORGE BUSH and his Republican buddies are scrambling to shift attention away from a scandal that could send some of the most powerful people in Washington packing - if not land them behind bars. At the center of the scandal is Jack Abramoff, a longtime Republican Party operative who became a high-powered lobbyist in the 1990s. Abramoff goes way back with important Republican leaders (former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed was a college buddy), and he became increasingly powerful as the right-wingers like ex-Majority Leader Tom DeLay took over in the House of Representatives. Because of his connections to DeLay and other prominent Republicans - such as Ohio Rep. Bob "Freedom Fries" Ney - Abramoff was able to offer his lobbying clients inside access when their interests were threatened by legislation pending in Congress. In return, Abramoff got filthy rich. But Abramoff isn't in hot water for selling political influence. He got caught ripping off his clients - in particular, Native American tribes who run casino and gambling operations. The tribes would hire Abramoff to lobby for them over gaming issues, and Abramoff would tell them which politicians to make political donations to. What he didn't say was that he and his business partner Michael Scanlon were sometimes working for groups whose interests were directly opposed to the tribes. For example, in 2002, Abramoff and Scanlon worked for religious conservatives lobbying the state of Texas to shut down a casino run by the Tigua of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo in Texas - at the same time that Abramoff was charging the Tiguas millions to lobby for the casino. Abramoff had nothing but contempt for his Native American clients. In e- mails exposed a few years ago, Abramoff called tribal members "trogdolytes" and "morons." "I have to meet with the monkeys from the Choctaw tribal counsel," he wrote to Scanlon. Overall, the Abramoff scandal is offering a glimpse of how political power is bought and sold in America, but this particular aspect is shining a light on a small part of an injustice that dates back even longer - the U.S. government's genocide against Native Americans, its theft of their land and the crushing of anyone who stood in their way. --- ROBERT ROBIDEAU is co-director of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. Along with Leonard, his cousin, Robert was an activist in the American Indian Movement, an organization formed in the 1970s to demand civil rights and defend Native Americans from government violence. Robert was accused along with Leonard of killing two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1975. Robert was acquitted; in a separate trial, Leonard was convicted and sentenced to prison, where he remains unjustly to this day. Robert has continued the struggle for Leonard and for Native American rights. He wrote this article for Socialist Worker in response to the Abramoff scandal. --- HISTORICALLY, RACISM has characterized and justified unscrupulous behavior toward Native Americans. This attitude has kept us in poverty and ill health since the inception of the reservation system. The long historical racist mentality, accentuated through the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, has allowed countless political types and racist individuals like Jack Abramoff to defraud Native tribes of billions of dollars. This theft is consistent with congressional double-dealings that manipulate away profit, land, natural resources and enterprising attempts by Native American tribes to make their nations economically and socially independent. When tribal people stand up in self defense, as they did in the 1970s, when thousands marched across North America on the Trail of Broken Treaties to Washington, D.C., to protest tribal corruption sanctioned by federal policies and congressional acts, we were met with clubs and violence. Before federal treaties removed tribes from their traditional lands, they lived a rich and abundant life for thousands of years. Since then, congressional acts have kept tribes locked in poverty and ill health to the present day. The federal government's programs enacted by Congress have whittled away millions of areas of reservation land for profit, and continue an ongoing policy that sanctions thefts of Indian land and natural resources. The gaming industry represents a continuation of congressional manipulations that erode tribal sovereignty and continue to plague the quality of life for Native people. We have fought the land rush, gold rush and oil rush. Now comes the gaming rush, which has created more corruption in our tribal governments and animosity among Native Americans. Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988, and it has only brought money-mongering politicians scurrying in from Washington, D.C., sniffing out casino profits. Governmental reports alleging that gaming revenue has been used to "reduce poverty and unemployment rates, build schools and hospitals, paved road and construct sewer systems, preserve and revitalize cultural traditions and build responsive and responsible government institutions such as tribal courts" are a smokescreen for the United States to escape its treaty obligations. If these treaties had been honored decades ago, the Native American communities would have enjoyed the same opportunities and the same standard of living as mainstream America. The United States is the wealthiest country in the world, with a higher poverty rate than any other progressive nation. Native Americans rank the poorest in health and economy due to federal "Indian policies." The government has attempted to mask these policies as good and wholesome, but in reality, they are bent towards genocide, ethnocide and land and resource theft in the name of divine "manifest destiny" to spread civilization by territorial expansion and subjugation of American Indians. --- THE AMERICAN Indian Movement fought against tribal corruption in the 1970s, which resulted in us being labeled "terrorist" and wholesale federal attacks on us by their political police force, the FBI, which used its counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO) to destroy our legitimate protest movement. The Church Committee declared that these methods were in violation of the constitutional protections. Despite the Church Committee's findings, the federal government declared war on the American Indian Movement, resulting in over 300 assaults and homicides by a corrupt tribal government that was armed and protected by the FBI, an agency of the Department of Justice. The USA PATRIOT Act is today using similar methods against us. The federal government justifies such acts through scare tactics that label threats under the name "terrorist." Leonard Peltier, a victim of the COINTELPRO program, has served 30 years in prison to date, and there seems to be no end in sight to his continued incarceration. Congressional acts are passed to regulate the lives of Indian people into oblivion. One of the most outrageous congressional acts passed was about freedom of religion. Why did we need a special act protecting our religious rights when the U.S. Constitution alleges to protect everyone's religious freedom and rights? Just as the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) controls the lives of tribal people through corruption, so too does the casino business create and maintain corrupt tribal leadership. Tribal leadership is now using what remains of our sovereignty as a weapon against their own people. Many American Indians now view the Gaming Act as just another congressional act of genocide, similar to congressional acts like the Relocation and Termination Act. These were attempts to remove Indians from their remaining lands and make them disappear into the melting pot of North America. Many California tribes, in order to get a bigger share of the profits, have been thinning out their population by arbitrarily kicking hundreds of members from tribal roles and/or denying them enrollment. The Enterprise Rancheria kicked out 75 members, while still other tribes corrupted by the money are kicking out hundreds. The real kicker is that when these tribal members attempt to appeal these outrageous acts of genocide by their own Nations through the U.S. Department of Justice, tribal sovereignty is recognized. It i