The US Department of the Interior has developed a reasonable process to account for billions of dollars owed to American Indian landholders, a top department official told the US District Court on Wednesday.
Associate Deputy Interior Secretary James Cason defended the government's accounting of the Indian trust lands in the opening day of the latest arguments in an 11-year-old lawsuit. Judge James Robertson is presiding over the trial after Judge Royce Lamberth was removed last year by an appeals court.
The lawsuit by Indians claims that the government mismanaged more than US$100 billion in oil, gas, timber and other royalties held in trust from their lands dating back to 1887.
The litigation, filed in 1996 by Blackfeet Indian Elouise Cobell, deals with individual Indians' lands. Several tribes have sued separately, claiming mismanagement of their lands.
Lawyers for the Indian plaintiffs argued on Wednesday that the department is accounting improperly for the money owed to thousands of trustees.
"Hopefully, your honor, after 120 years some of our clients are going to see justice,'' said Dennis Gingold, the plaintiffs' lead attorney.
The department says it has spent more than US$127 million on historical accounting of the trust lands since 2003. Lawyers for the government said the department is not delaying the accounting or acting to limit its liability, as the plaintiffs have suggested.
At the same time, Cason said the department has a difficult job when Congress is appropriating limited funds for the accounting.
The government proposed paying US$7 billion partly to settle the Cobell lawsuit in March, but that was immediately rejected by the plaintiffs. They have estimated the government's liability could exceed US$100 billion, although they have considered in the past settling for much less.
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