Washington, D.C.
– Today, the Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs
held a hearing
on the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Cobell Land Consolidation
Program. The program authorizes DOI to purchase highly fractionated
allotments and consolidate them in tribal ownership. After an
expenditure of over $1 billion, it remains unclear that the
program has greatly reduced Indian land fractionation.
In
many cases, a single tract of Indian land can be owned by dozens or
hundreds of Indians. As generations of Indian owners die intestate,
their heirs each own tiny, undivided
interests often in multiple tracts. Consolidation into a single owner
reduces the DOI’s burden in administering these lands and benefits
Native Americans by increasing the potential for productively using
these properties.
Acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior Jason Cason testified that the Obama administration-run program “has
not been successful in materially reducing fractional interests” despite spending $1.3 billion dollars to date.
Cason
offered two options for the future of the program: either leaving the
initial legislation in place and allowing the program to use the
remaining funds to resolve a tiny
portion of fractionation, or allow Interior to “leverage the reaming $586 million dollars to carefully target interests.” This would create a stream of revenue that could be put back into the program.
The
program will end in 2022, but the funds will be depleted long before
the sunset date. Without reform – administratively or legislatively –
fractionation will continue to drain
resources needed to meet DOI’s responsibilities to tribes across the
country.
“I
view the Buy-Back Program as a once in a lifetime opportunity to
meaningfully address fractional interests that plague tribal communities
and their efforts towards sovereignty
and self-determination,” Cason stated. “[I]n my mind we are almost back where we started eight years later, just treading water.”
Click
here to view full witness testimony.
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