Mark Trahant is a writer, speaker and Twitter poet. He is a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and lives in Fort Hall, Idaho. Trahant’s recent book, “The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars,” is the story of Sen. Henry Jackson and Forrest Gerard.

Congress has a long to-do list to complete before the end of the year.

It must enact a budget, either a real one, or for most federal agencies, a Continuing Resolution that funds the government after the current one expires on Dec. 16. Many ask: “Why doesn’t Congress just pass the budget?” Because neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have enough votes to say yes, but they do have enough votes to reject the alternative.

Still, Congress must pass a new round of payroll tax cuts and extend unemployment benefits or both of those programs will expire at the end of the year.

Currently Republicans are adding all sorts of amendments that have little to do with either a budget or a tax cut. The House bill on the payroll tax, for example, requires a 60-day deadline for permitting the Keystone XL Pipeline to pipe oil from Northern Alberta across Montana, South Dakota and other states in the midwest. There is significant opposition to the pipeline construction from Indian Country. The National Congress of American Indians in June said: “The Keystone XL pipeline . . . would threaten, among other things, water aquifers, water ways, cultural sites, agricultural lands, animal life, public drinking water sources and other resources vital to the peoples of the region in which the pipeline is proposed to be constructed.”

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Tags: Congress, Democrats, Mark Trahant, National Congress of American Indians, payroll, payroll tax, payroll tax debate, republicans, Trahant Reports, u.s. budget

Elouise Cobell, lead plaintiff in the landmark class action $3.4 billion Indian trust case, uses her frequent Ask Elouise column to answer questions about the settlement, and updates people on the process that should eventually result in money for thousands of Native Americans.

The most recent Ask Elouise letter concerns last week’s failure by Congress to approve the $3.4 billion settlement reached last December.

The hopes of Cobell and her fellow plaintiffs in the case now rest on the lame-duck congressional session scheduled for after the Nov. 2 election. Cobell writes:

Between now and October 15, I will consult with our attorneys and our champions in Congress to determine if (and how) our settlement legislation can be passed, as well as our options if we determine that there is no reasonable chance of passage.

The settlement has its own website, with a section for Frequently Asked Questions.

People with questions for the column can e-mail Cobell at askelouise@cobellsettlement.com, or send a letter to:

Ask Elouise
Cobell Settlement
PO Box 9577
Dublin, OH 43017-4877

Gwen Florio

Tags: Cobell v. Salazar, Congress, Elouise Cobell, Gwen Florio, Indian trust case

Mark Trahant is a writer, speaker and Twitter poet. He is a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and lives in Fort Hall, Idaho. Trahant’s new book, “The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars,” is the story of Sen. Henry Jackson and Forrest Gerard.

By Mark Trahant

We hate health care reform. The bill was too many pages, too complicated and didn’t fix all the problems right now, this minute. (One of America’s core democratic values is our impatience.)

But the why is fascinating. Many of us hate the reform bill because it went too far; but most of us are unhappy because health care reform didn’t go far enough. We wanted more action, a smarter health care system, even, more government to make our health care system work smarter.

Yet that voter angst – both for and against – set the stage for this November election and the Republicans’ Pledge to America. “In a self-governing society, the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent of the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent,” the pledge says. (Except that some of us do give our consent.)

Elections are policy choices. And this GOP Pledge is a clear guide about what Republicans would do if given power. There are significant implications for Indian Country in this document (even though American Indians and Alaska Natives aren’t mentioned at all).

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Tags: Congress, Democrats, GOP, Health care reform, Indian Health Service, Mark Trahant, ndian Health Care Improvement Act, Pledge to America, Republican Party, The Last Great Battle of the Indian Wars, Trahant Reports

Mark Trahant is a Kaiser Media Fellow examining the Indian Health Service and its relevance to the national health care reform debate. He is a member of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. Comment here.

It’s amazing how fast a year goes by. Last May, when I met with the selection committee for the Kaiser Media Fellowship, I outlined my project. Several folks on the committee said I shouldn’t wait until fall to begin. The health care reform debate might be over by then – or so we thought.

Of course it didn’t work out that way. My year as a Kaiser Fellow has been amazing because it’s paralleled so much of the legislative debate. I started writing columns (or blog posts, depending on your point of view) on July 6, 2009.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010. And, now a different kind of debate begins. Federal agencies, primarily at the Department of Health and Human Services and Treasury are writing regulations to implement the new law. There will be fights over words like “quality” or how we define and measure success.

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Tags: Congress, Consumer Price Index, Gwen Florio, Health care reform, Kaiser Family Foundation, Kaiser Media Fellowship, Mark Trahant, Medicare, Medicare Part D, Mitch McConnell, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Indian Country Today’s Rob Capriccioso has this news on the settlement in the $3.4 billion Cobell v. Salazar Indian trust case, which faced a court-mandated deadline of today for congressional approval:

Elouise Cobell poses, center, with her legal team in the law offices of Kilpatrick & Stockton in Washington, Tuesday. Left to right are Bill Dorris, Cobell, Keith Harper, Dennis Gingold and Geoffrey Rempel. The Obama administration says it will spend more than $3 billion to settle a long-running and contentious lawsuit over royalties owed to American Indians. (Gerald Herbert/AP)

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats said Thursday evening they would not be able to pass an extenders bill with the Cobell v. Salazar settlement attached in time to meet a deadline agreed to by the Indian plaintiffs in the case.

In recent days, legislators attached the $3.4 billion settlement to the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, a measure aimed at extending unemployment benefits, Medicare reimbursements, and several tax credits.

The White House supported the settlement as part of the legislation, although some Congress members wanted it to be voted on as a standalone measure.

Unable to come to an agreement on the overall bill due to cost concerns facing members in both chambers, Senate Democrats decided late Thursday to try to pass a short extension of unemployment benefits, rather than agree to a pared-down version of the larger bill the House had been working on.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., says work on the larger member will resume when the senators return June 7 from their Memorial Day recess.

Dennis Gingold, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs says today that “[W]e have no present plans to discuss an extension of the settlement agreement.”

The case is named for lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell, who is Blackfeet from Montana, and includes hundreds of thousands of Native Americans whose mineral and other royalties were mismanaged by the Interior Department.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Blackfeet, buffalo post, Cobell v. Salazar, Congress, Elouise Cobell, Gwen Florio, Indian trust case, Interior Department, Native American news, Sen. Harry Reid, U.S. Senate

Native American farmers and ranchers have been waiting a long time for results from their Keepseagle v. Vilsack case.

The case seeks redress for Indian people denied millions of dollars in the same sorts of ag loans that went to their white neighbors (see previous post, here). But hope may be on the horizon.

As the AP’s Ben Evans reports here:

The Obama administration on Tuesday offered $1.3 billion to settle complaints from female and Latino farmers who say they faced discrimination from the Agriculture Department.

The proposal comes as Congress is poised to approve a $1.25 billion settlement with African-American farmers in a similar discrimination case. The agency also is negotiating with Native American farmers over another lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Friday is the court-mandated deadline for congressional approval in the historic Cobell v. Salazar case that would distribute $3.4 billion to Native Americans bilked out of oil, timber and other royalties held in trust for them by the federal government.

As lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell, who is Blackfeet from Browning, Mont., told the AP’s Matt Volz, here, earlier this week:

“I want us to win for once, you know? Indians are always losing.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Cobell v. Salazar, Congress, Elouise Cobell, George Keepseagle, Gwen Florio, Indian trust case, Keepseagle v. Vilsack, Latino farmers, Native American farmers, Native American news, Obama Administration, Women farmers

Here’s an interesting story from Matthew Brown of the Associated Press:

BILLINGS (AP) – American Indian leaders on Thursday asked Congress to streamline the development of energy projects on tribal lands by curbing some federal oversight and providing incentives for companies to strike deals with reservations.

Reservations from Oklahoma to Montana and Alaska sit atop large amounts of oil, natural gas and coal. Others in wind-swept regions of the Northern Plains and on the West Coast have huge renewable energy potential.

But existing government rules make it easier for energy companies to pursue projects on non-tribal land, some members of Congress and tribal leaders say. As a result, tribes often miss out on the chance to develop their natural resources.

“Tribes in some of the poorest counties in America have vast renewable energy resources that can help them overcome poverty,” said Joe Garcia, Chairman of the All Indian Pueblo Council of New Mexico.

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Tags: All Indian Pueblo Council, buffalo post, Congress, D-N.D., Energy development, environment, Gwen Florio, Indian reservations, National Wildlife Federation, Native American news, R-Wyoming, Sen. John Barrasso, Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Sovereignty, U.S. Interior Department, U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan

Here’s the entire story from the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge has granted more time for Congress to approve a $3.4 billion settlement against the government for swindling Indian tribes out of royalties for oil, gas and grazing leases.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson says the delay is the last he will approve. It’s the third delay since the lawsuit settlement was announced in December.

The proposed settlement calls for the Interior Department to distribute $1.4 billion to more than 300,000 Indian tribe members. It would also have to spend $2 billion to buy back and consolidate tribal land broken up in previous generations.

If Congress does not confirm the settlement by mid-May, Robertson says he will order Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to appear before him to explain why.

Tags: buffalo post, Cobell v. Salazar, Congress, Elouise Cobell, Gwen Florio, Indian trust case, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Native American news, U.S. District Judge James Robertson, U.S. Interior Department

So says Seneca Nation President Barry Snyder Sr., in this Associated Press story about the recent vote by Congress to ban mail-order cigarettes.

Both the House and Senate have now passed PACT (Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking) Act, which goes to President Obama for his signature. He’s expected to sign it today, according to a morning report by NPR.

“This is a sucker punch to our federal treaty rights,” Snyder says. “This is a direct assault on our economy and our people. And it will have a devastating ripple effect on the Western New York economy.”

Tribes say the ban will affect 1,000 jobs – held by both Native and non-Native people:

While numerous tribes sell tobacco products around the country, the Senecas have the most at stake, with dozens of Web sites offering cigarettes at discount prices unaffected by state’s $2.75-per-pack excise tax and 4 percent sales tax.
The post office has been the primary means of delivery since UPS, DHL and FedEx agreed with the New York Attorney General several years ago not to ship cigarettes nationwide.

The western New York tribe’s tobacco business accounts for about half of its $1.1 billion economy, said Snyder, who said tribes around the country and the National Congress of American Indians had rallied in support of the Senecas against the bill.

New York state, and now Congress, have eyed taxes on tribal smoke shops and tribally produced cigarettes as a way to refill tax coffers drained by the recession. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., who sponsored the PACT Act, along with Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said New York alone loses as much as $1 billion a year from cigarette tax evasion, according to the AP.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Barry Snyder Sr., buffalo post, Congress, D-N.Y., Gwen Florio, Navajo Nation, PACT Act, President Barack Obama, Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act, R-Texas, Rep. Anthony Weiner, Rep. Lamar Smith, Seneca Nation, Tribal cigarette sales, tribal sovereignty