Pigford II Settlement

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I appreciate the hard work done by my colleague from North Dakota and his commitment as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee to try to come to a solution in the Cobell settlement.

He is absolutely right. We still need to work on some policy issues, as well
as some issues in terms of how this will be paid for. He and I both agree we need to settle the Cobell lawsuit. There has been much rhetoric. We both agree we need to settle the Cobell lawsuit.

At the President's insistence, and the House and the Senate majorities, they have repeatedly tried to get this bill enacted outside the regular process. This settlement has been inserted into various bills over the past several months that have absolutely nothing to do with American Indian issues. You ask yourself why. Well, perhaps folks wanted to avoid some scrutiny--scrutiny by Congress, by the press, and, most of all, by those who have been most affected, the stakeholders.

Two weeks ago, I came to the floor and offered an amendment to legislation that addressed some of the more egregious problems with the settlement. I am talking policy as well as pay-for issues. The majority leader dismissed my amendment, and he called it the ``beat up the lawyers'' amendment. Well, he called it that because one of the provisions in the amendment establishes a $50 million cap on presettlement attorneys' fees--$50 million. The settlement says it should be between $50 million and $100 million. My amendment said, let's keep it at that lower figure. Only in Washington, DC, would anyone ever call a $50 million cap on attorneys' fees--$50 million of attorneys' fees--as beating up the lawyers.

Well, because attorneys' fees were capped at $50 million, the majority leader objected to both the Cobell and the Pigford settlements.

There was and still is a good reason for that cap. Every Member of this body should read a couple of op-eds on this Cobell settlement. One was in the August 1 edition of The Hill, the other in today's August 5th edition. The August 1 article: ``Cobell settlement worth doing right, together.'' The one from today: ``Unconscionable Cobell.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that both these articles be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record

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Mr. BARRASSO. So there are issues of policy dealing with transparency, dealing with the production of records by the attorneys who are involved in this. When you read one of these editorials, the one in today's Hill, ``Unconscionable Cobell,'' written by a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison:

Number of published court opinions in the case: 80-plus

Amount awarded to plaintiffs by courts at present: $0

Amount to attorneys under settlement: $100 Million. .....

Amount to each account holder under [this] settlement:

We are talking now about those who have been affected by this--

$1,000.00

What an incredible disparity.

Well, if we were all to take the time to look through these two editorials, the changes to the settlement I have been proposing would not only seem reasonable, they would be absolutely necessary. They point out several real problems with the settlement, including the way the attorneys' fees are handled. I am continuing to work with my colleagues on dealing with that. These are the blunt facts.

So I agree with my colleague from North Dakota, the problems with the Cobell settlement are by no means insurmountable. They can and they must be resolved. In fact, I do not think it would be difficult to resolve the differences we have regarding the Cobell settlement. We can sit down, and we plan to do that, to discuss the issues directly. I think we can get beyond this impasse, and that is what I am committed to do.

I yield the floor.

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