Settlement
In December 2009 the government announced having reached a settlement in the trust case. In 2010 Congress passed the Claims Resolution Act of 2010, which provided $3.4 billion for the settlement of the Cobell v. Salazar class-action trust case (and four Indian water-rights cases.) Among the provisions are for the government to buy land from Indian owners, which has been highly fractionated, and finally return it to communal tribal ownership, correcting for a longstanding issue that was supposed to be a temporary provision.
"The $3.4 billion will be placed in a still-to-be-selected bank and $1.4 billion will go to individuals, mostly in the form of checks ranging from $500 to $1,500. A small group, such as members of the Osage tribe who benefit from huge Oklahoma oil revenues, will get far more, based on a formula incorporating their 10 highest years of income between 1985 and 2009. As important, $2 billion will be used to buy trust land from Indian owners at fair market prices, with the government finally returning the land to tribes. Nobody can be forced to sell."
Read more about this topic: Cobell V. Salazar
Famous quotes containing the word settlement:
“A Tory..., since the revolution, may be defined in a few words, to be a lover of monarchy, though without abandoning liberty; and a partizan of the family of Stuart. As a Whig may be defined to be a lover of liberty though without renouncing monarchy; and a friend to the settlement in the protestant line.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
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—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“The Puritans, to keep the remembrance of their unity one with another, and of their peaceful compact with the Indians, named their forest settlement CONCORD.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)