Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Cobell Settlement
The thirteen year lawsuit by Native American plaintiffs against the U.S. Department of Interior has reached a negotiated settlement. The misappropriated royalties from the plaintiffs' 56 million acres, administered by Interior under the Indian Trust Fund, will be partially restored and distributed, possibly by year's end. The willingness to settle for $1.4 billion of the estimated $47 billion stolen by the U.S. government since 1887, notes Cobell, reflects the desperate poverty of the plaintiffs as a class, as well as the realization that it's probably the best they could do given the American political system.
