Norman D. Dicks: “first of all, it is going to cost about $900 million just to do the accounting back to 1985. The department does not…”

“first of all, it is going to cost about $900 million just to do the accounting back to 1985. The department does not have all of these records, or they would have done it. We have to have a settlement. At some point this Congress is going to have to impose a settlement on this issue. I have done one before, the Puyallup Indian land claim settlement, a very comprehensive settlement which Congress supported. We are going to have to craft a settlement. Now, if these gentlemen who have come here to the floor today to help us, if their committees would get busy and develop a compromise and do a settlement on this issue, it could be coming from the Congress. Somehow we have to resolve this, because we do not have enough money. I think there is a lot of wishful thinking that suggests that this is all going to come out of the Justice Department. It may not come out of the Justice Department. If there is malfeasance, Mitch Daniels is going to say, Interior, you repay this $2.5 billion, 5 billion, whatever the number is.”