Bruce F. Vento: “this settlement of the treaty that is 57 years old I would just point out has never been successfully legally challenged…”

“this settlement of the treaty that is 57 years old I would just point out has never been successfully legally challenged in court. I am talking about the clouded titles that occurred with Native American lands, because there was a clouded title issue with regard to Native American lands. The courts found that. The courts did that. We came back. The reason we did that, and I want the chairman of the subcommittee to listen to me, and others, is because we found that after the early 1900s, not 150 years back, just about 80 years back, we found all the money was going to be spent on attorneys in terms of subdividing these lands and the types of claims and processes that we have to go through. That is what the gentleman is funding here, they are funding that type of analysis. I am sure there are inequities that have occurred, none that have successfully challenged the treaty. What the gentleman is setting in motion here is a situation where the attorneys and the various land management agencies are going to have to spend an extraordinary amount of money with regard to resolving this.”