Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the legislation that is pending and on which we now have general debate is legislation that is important. I know there has been plenty of discussion about it. I want to discuss one element of it. The legislation includes provisions to approve the Cobell settlement. The Cobell settlement is perhaps something which people do not know much about. It is a settlement of a longstanding lawsuit that has been winding its way through the Federal courts for 14 years. It is about things that have been done to American Indians that are almost unthinkable and for which they have sought redress in the Federal courts. Let me describe this, if I may, by using a photograph of a woman. This is a photograph of Mary Fish. By telling you a little about Ms. Fish, I can describe the problem that the Cobell settlement, which is in this underlying legislation, attempts to address. Mary Fish died a few years ago. Mary Fish was an Oklahoma Indian. She lived in a very small, humble house with 40 acres. There were six oil wells on her land that had been pumping Oklahoma sweet crude for years. Even with all of these oil wells pumping on Mary's land, she made only a few dollars a year from those wells. Why would it be the case that this woman had oil wells on her land, lived in a small, little house, had virtually nothing, and got only a few dollars from the oil wells?…”