Mr. President, earlier today we had some suggestion on the floor of the Senate about the Cobell case--that is the settlement of the Cobell case--the Federal court case Cobell, et al. v. Salazar. A…
Mr. President, earlier today we had some suggestion on the floor of the Senate about the Cobell case--that is the settlement of the Cobell case--the Federal court case Cobell, et al. v. Salazar. A negotiation ensued late last year with an agreement in December of last year that would settle at last--at long, long last--a 15-year litigation in Federal court dealing with American Indians and the mismanagement of their trust accounts--literally stealing and looting trust accounts over the years and, in addition to that, a substantial amount of incompetence along the way.
I described today people who have had oil wells on their land and who have lived in poverty because somebody else got the money from their oil wells. They didn't get it, despite the fact that the government held their land in trust and promised to provide them their income from that land, whether it was from minerals, oil, grazing, agriculture, or another activity. For 140 years, American Indians have too often been cheated.
Well, a court case that has existed now for 15 years determined that the Federal Government had a responsibility and liability. Rather than have that court case continue for more years in the Federal courts, there was a negotiation late last year with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Cobell plaintiffs. They reached an agreement and the Federal judge gave Congress 30 days to provide the funding and approve the settlement. The Congress did not do that in 30 days. In fact, the deadline for the settlement has been extended now six times during which the Congress has not acted.
We have tried very hard to find ways to satisfy everybody here, but apparently that is not capable of being done today. I am profoundly disappointed in that. I think my colleague from Wyoming wishes he were one of the negotiators. He was not, of course. It was the Interior Secretary who and the plaintiffs who negotiated. The Congress simply is an evaluator of whether it wishes to dispense the funding for the settlement that was done. I was not a negotiator. Nobody in Congress was a negotiator.
The question isn't, by the way, whether Indians were cheated or whether they are owed money as a result of mismanagement and fraud over these decades. The Federal court has already determined that was the case. They found in favor of the plaintiffs, and then the case was appealed further by the Federal Government.
The question is whether we have a responsibility here. We do. The Federal court has already found that to be the case. The question is whether we will meet our responsibility. This negotiation that ensued with Cobell v. Salazar, as far as I am concerned, represented a sound and reasonable approach, and I believe we should fund and approve it and move forward.
The unanimous-consent request that I am going to offer includes Cobell v. Salazar and the authorized settlement in that case, as well as the approval and funding for the final settlement of claims from the Black farmers discrimination litigation that has been discussed at some length on the floor as well.
Mr. President, having said that, I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4994, and that the Senate proceed to its consideration; that the substitute amendment at the desk, which authorizes the settlement of Cobell, et al., v. Ken Salazar, et al., and to provide an appropriation for final settlement claims from In re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation, be considered and agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, all without intervening action or debate.
I object.
Mr. President, let me say again how extraordinarily disappointed I am. I have in my hand the proposal Senator Barrasso offered to the Secretary of the Interior.
By the way, I don't accuse anybody of bad faith. The Senator from Wyoming is a friend of mine. I am enormously disappointed with him at this point. He has a right to be disappointed with me, if he wishes. Let me just say this. This negotiation ensued last November and December, resulting in a settlement. None of us here were part of that settlement--excuse me, we weren't a part of the negotiation that reached the settlement. That is not the role of the Senate, to be involved in a 100-person negotiation.
The lawsuit was a suit brought by plaintiffs against the Secretary of the Interior. The negotiations were negotiations with the Secretary of the Interior, who was the defendant in that suit. That is appropriate and the way it should be.
If we don't like what that negotiations developed and don't support the settlement and believe we can do better, then we should object. But then we don't get this done. That has happened six times this year. Over and over and over again, we have failed to act on this matter.
My colleague has five things he wants that are different than the settlement. Maybe they are better, I don't know. I don't have the foggiest idea. I said to him a while ago that I wish he would take yes for an answer because the response to his requests of the Interior Secretary was a letter from the Secretary saying he agreed with him and would do them. But my colleague wants them in legislative language. That changes the settlement and the negotiation.
It is 7:30 on a Thursday night in August, months and months and months after the settlement was sent to the Congress by a Federal judge, saying do this in 30 days. I just say it is very hard to get things done. Next, it will be somebody else who has four provisions or five provisions or who can write the settlement better or think it through more clearly. I don't know. I do know this. The people who have been cheated--and there are a lot of them and many of whom have died waiting for this settlement--are not going to get any benefits from this settlement until this Congress decides whether it is going to pass legislation dealing with the settlement.
It may be that any Member of the Congress can do a better job and write better provisions, except that we weren't the negotiators because we were not the defendants in the lawsuit. We have every right to say no, if that is the point. We have said no since last December. If that is the point, I suppose more plaintiffs will die. They will wait years and probably go back to Federal court. Maybe we can go another 10 years in Federal court, having lawyers earning money and Indians living on lands with oil wells 100 yards from their house and they get checks of 5 cents or 8 cents or maybe $3 as revenue from the wells. That is what has been happening for the last 130 years.
I understand why there is frustration. If I sound frustrated, think of the people I describe who have been cheated and have lived in poverty most of their lives because they have not had the opportunity to get income from the lands they owned. I don't understand it. I guess people see competing UCs, and wonder what is the result of what are called in the Senate competing UCs? Does anybody go home feeling good? Not me. We are either going to do this or not. If we don't like this settlement, let's not do it. I happen to like it; let's do it. My colleague, perhaps, wants to respond.
I will yield the floor.
Mr. President, let me describe the difficulty with the procedure my colleague described. We can't just bring something up for a vote, because if somebody here doesn't like it, they object. Then you have to file a cloture motion, and it takes 48 hours to get a cloture vote. Then you have 30 hours postcloture. That is what we run into. I agree with that; let's put the best idea up and have a vote on it. If you don't like the settlement and decide that somehow these plaintiffs are not worthy, despite the fact they have been bilked for 130 years, then vote no. But we can't even get a vote.
At any rate, I will wait and see if there is a better idea that will get votes in the Senate or are we going to continue every 30 days or so to say to this Federal judge that we understand a settlement was negotiated and reached on behalf of the United States of America, but we don't intend to vote for it?
I have another bill at the desk. Before I ask unanimous consent, I will describe it. In the piece of legislation we passed today, dealing with FMAP, and funding for teachers, and so on, there was a provision that was first described as a pay-for but actually scored as zero, which meant it was a pay-for that had zero impact. It does have an impact on American Indians, and I wanted to describe it briefly.
When the Economic Recovery Act was passed, we proposed that at least a small amount of money go to Indian reservations around this country because they had the highest rates of unemployment. So there was put in place a piece of legislation that provided an Indian guaranteed loan program account. There was $6.8 million remaining in that account that would support a substantial number of projects around the country-- somewhere in the neighborhood of $80 million--that would put a lot of people to work--investing in new infrastructure and projects. That legislation--the so-called pay-for that is scored as zero in the bill passed today--in my judgment, we need to rescind that action because it had no impact on the legislation the Senate passed. But it will have a substantial impact on loan guarantees for these Indian reservations, most of which have the highest rates of unemployment in the country.
I have spoken to a good many people about the need to do this. Again, I have been on the phone to the Congressional Budget Office. They say that a zero score--as I introduced it today, it will not score. Therefore, I believe it is very important to do.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3761, which is at the desk; that the bill be read the third time and passed; that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record, as if read.
Mr. President, I understand my colleague from Wyoming suggests there are some here who may not be acquainted with this legislation. I have spoken to both Republicans and Democrats today, during the course of the proceedings, because I think it is very important. I think this is something we need to fix as well. I understand my colleague from Wyoming is objecting on behalf of others.
Let me make one other point on this. I have spent a fair amount of time talking to Senator Kyl about this. He is on an airplane at the moment. He was not able to hear from the Congressional Budget Office before he left town. I do hope, even though there is an objection now-- and to be fair to my colleague, he is objecting on behalf of other Senators with respect to this--that we can find a way to repair this because I think it is very important that we do so.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter dated August 5, 2010 from the CBO.
With that, I yield the floor.
