Posts Tagged ‘War-funding bill’

22
Jul

BREAKING NEWS: Senate rejects $3 billion Indian trust settlement

   Posted by: admin    in Cobell vs. Salazar, Elouise Cobell, Indian trust funds, Interior Department

Here’s the entire story from the Associated Press:

Elouise Cobell in Washington, D.C., last December, when the settlement was announced. Congressional approval has proved elusive. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Elouise Cobell in Washington, D.C., last December, when the settlement was announced. Congressional approval has proved elusive. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)


HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The U.S. Senate has rejected a $3.4 billion government settlement with American Indians that had been added to a much larger war-funding bill.

The Senate passed the almost $60 billion bill funding President Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan late Thursday — but not before stripping out the settlement and $20 billion in other domestic spending approved by the House.

The Senate’s approval would have given the Obama administration the authority to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 1996 by Elouise Cobell of Browning, Mont.

Between 300,000 and 500,000 Native Americans claim the Interior Department mismanaged billions of dollars held in trust by the government.

The House attached the settlement to the war-funding bill earlier this month.

Thursday’s vote marks the second time the settlement has failed to pass the Senate. It was originally included in the Democrats’ jobs-agenda bill that was caught in a filibuster last month.

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2
Jul

UPDATED – U.S. House approves Cobell settlement. On to Senate

   Posted by: admin    in Blackfeet, Cobell vs. Salazar, Indian trust funds, Interior Department, Senate Committee on Indian Affairs

Here’s the story by Matt Volz of the Associated Press:

Elouise Cobell (AP photo)

Elouise Cobell (AP photo)

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The U.S. House of Representatives attached a $3.4 billion government settlement with Indian trust beneficiaries to a war-funding bill that it passed just before breaking for the July Fourth holiday.

The settlement was one of several additions made late Thursday to the $80 billion appropriations bill that includes funding for the troop surge in Afghanistan and money for federal disaster assistance. It authorizes the Obama administration to settle a class-action lawsuit with between 300,000 and 500,000 American Indians who claims the Interior Department mismanaged billions of dollars held in trust by the government.

The House originally authorized the settlement in May, but it was tucked into the Democrats’ jobs legislation that stalled in a Senate filibuster late last month.

The plaintiffs hope including the settlement in the war-funding and disaster-relief bill will mean the Senate will approve it.

“We expect that the Senate must give prompt and serious consideration to the bill because, without enactment, there are no funds for our war efforts and no funds for FEMA,” plaintiffs attorney Dennis Gingold said Friday. “The bill is too important to this country. Partisan politics must not obstruct passage.”

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