Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I share my colleagues' concerns about what's in the bill, but I'm also concerned by what's not in the bill and, frankly, that's money to fund the settlement of the so-called Cobell lawsuit. As my colleagues on both sides of the aisle know, this lawsuit against the Federal Government stems from the mismanagement of Indian trust accounts and trust land since 1887. It involves over half a million claimants; it has drug on for 14 years through three different administrations involving both parties. Finally, in December of last year, a settlement was reached, $3.4 billion: $1.4 billion to individual claimants, $2 billion to allow for the repurchase of fractionated lands, and some money set aside for an Indian scholarship fund. I want to particularly, frankly, commend Secretary Salazar, who did a wonderful job in bringing this issue to closure. But it's now squarely in our court in the Congress of the United States. The President has asked us to solve this problem or to fund the settlement that he's negotiated. For the record, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to enter the President's letter to the Speaker asking action on this particular item. So it's now squarely in our court. When the settlement was negotiated, there was a deadline that we would act in Congress by December 31 of last year. Obviously, we missed that. There's a second deadline of February 28. We missed that. The last deadline is April 15.…”