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MONDAY, JULY 28, 2003

The following is the floor statement of Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) on S.1459, the American Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act Amendments Act of 2003. on Friday, July 25, 2003.

Mr. President, today I once again join with Senators John McCain and Tim Johnson in introducing legislation that addresses the longstanding problem of mismanagement of assets held by the United States in trust for federally recognized Indian tribes and individual American Indians.

Indian country has faced many challenges over the years. Few, however, have had more far-ranging ramifications on the lives of individual Native Americans, or been more vexing, than that of restoring integrity to trust fund management.

For over 100 years, the Department of the Interior has administered a trust fund containing the proceeds of leasing of oil, gas, land and mineral rights on Indian land for the benefit of Indian people. Today, that trust fund may owe as much as $10 billion to as many as 500,000 Indians.

To provide some perspective, the 16 tribes of the Great Plains in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska hold 10 million acres of trust lands representing over one-third of the tribal trust assets. Many enrolled members of the nine South Dakota tribes have individual trust accounts.

There is little disagreement that current government administration of the trust fund is a failure. However, there is no consensus on how to reform it.

Senators McCain, Johnson, and I believe that Congress should be more assertive in promoting a solution to the trust management problem and in ensuring that tribes and individual Indian account holders have a true voice in shaping that solution. That is why we have proposed legislation that would redesign the trust management process.

Today, Senators McCain, Johnson, and I are introducing a revised version of S. 175, a trust reform proposal we introduced earlier this year. This bill incorporates feedback we received from interested stakeholders and responds to developments that have occurred since S. 175 was introduced.

We are joined in this effort by Representatives MARK Udall and NICK Rahall who are introducing a companion measure in the House. I commend them for their commitment to correcting the trust management problem and value their leadership on this issue.

This legislation lays out legislative standards that form the cornerstone of the United States of America's trust responsibility to Indian nations. It directs the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a historical accounting for all trust accounts, regardless of amount, and authorizes an Indian tribe to manage Indian trust funds or trust assets through contracts or compacts. The trust responsibility of the Secretary or the trust status of funds and assets is not terminated but a voluntary option of cobeneficiary management is allowed if a tribe chooses that option.

A clear line of authority for trust management is established by elevating the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs to Deputy Secretary of Indian Affairs status. The special trustee's responsibilities are transferred to the Deputy Secretary, and the special trustee is terminated as intended in the 1994 act.

Finally, a temporary congressional commission is created to review trust funds management by the Department of the Interior. Comprised of 12 members, it will review and assess Federal management of trust funds and provide recommendations relating to the administrative and management duties of the Department.

It is our hope that this proposal will encourage more constructive dialog among the Congress, the Interior Department, and Indian country on the trust management problem and lead to a true consensus solution. With that goal in mind, the bill has been reviewed by representatives of the Great Plains tribes, the Native American Rights Fund, the National Congress of American Indians, the InterTribal Monitoring Association, and the tribes of Arizona.

With respect to the Great Plains tribes, I would like to note that Mike Jandreau, chairman of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, has been a particularly eloquent advocate and effective champion of trust reform. Mike and Cheyenne River Sioux tribal chairman, Harold Frazier, led very productive working sessions with tribal leaders from South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska that both raised awareness of the importance of this issue and built support for the bill that is being introduced today.

I commend the commitment and contribution of the participating Great Plains tribal leaders who have been an integral part of a public process that will not stop until the trust management problem is solved. The McCain-Daschle-Johnson bill is intended to contribute to this result.

It should also be noted and understood that we are not addressing the Cobell litigation or settlement issues in this bill. Our focus is the broader trust responsibility of the Department of the Interior.

The issues of trust reform and reorganization within the Bureau of Indian Affairs are nothing new to us here on Capitol Hill or in Indian country. Collectively, we have endured many efforts--some well intentioned and some clearly not--to fix, reform, adjust, improve, streamline, downsize, and even terminate the Bureau of Indian Affairs and its trust activities.

These efforts have been pursued under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Unfortunately, they have rarely included meaningful involvement of tribal leadership or respected the Federal Government's treaty obligation to tribes.

Restoring accountability and efficiency to trust management is a matter of fundamental justice. Nowhere do the principles of self-determination and tribal sovereignty come more into play than in the management and distribution of trust funds and assets.

I am deeply disappointed that this problem has not been solved to the satisfaction of tribal leaders by now. That fight is not over.

An effective long-term solution to the trust problem must be based on government-to-government dialog. The McCain-Daschle-Johnson bill will not only provide the catalyst for meaningful tribal involvement in the search for solutions, it can also form the basis for true trust reform. I look forward to participating with tribal leaders, administration officials, and my congressional colleagues in pursuit of this essential objective.