On the recordJanuary 21, 2010
As has been pointed out, this and the two bills that follow ratify out-of-court settlements that arise from decades-old litigation filed by various Indian tribes against the United States Government. They apportion water rights, among the three of them, to over 110,000 acre feet of water, and they draw more than half a billion dollars from the taxpayers of the United States, mainly for the development of those water resources. From the outset, I believe that the controlling issue in approving any of these claims is simply this: Is it cheaper to settle out of court or to go to trial? To answer that question, we must turn to the Attorney General. The Attorney General is presumably involved in these negotiations. He commands the legal expertise to judge the soundness or weakness of the government's case, and he is the official of our government directly responsible for representing the people of the United States in this litigation. Yet, when these bills were brought to us last fall, the Attorney General's office was completely silent on that question.
