UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 
_________________________________ 
ELOUISE PEPION COBELL, et al., 
Plaintiffs, 
v. Case No. 1:96CV01285 
(Judge Lamberth) 
)
)
)
)
)
) 
GALE A. NORTON, Secretary of the ) 
Interior, et al., 
)
) 
Defendants. ) 
_________________________________) 
DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO STAY THE 
COURT'S STRUCTURAL INJUNCTION PENDING APPEAL 
Defendants respectfully move to stay the Order Issuing Structural Injunction entered by 
the Court on September 25, 2003 ("Order"), pending the disposition of Defendants' appeal of that 
Order.1 As discussed below, the Order should be stayed because new legislation has altered the 
law upon which the injunction was based. In addition, the vast expenditures that would be 
required for the Department of the Interior ("DOI" or "Interior") to meet the obligations set out in 
the Order require a stay pending resolution of these issues by the Court of Appeals.2 
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 
1 Pursuant to Local Civil Rule 7(m), counsel for Defendants has conferred with 
counsel for Plaintiffs regarding this motion, and Plaintiffs oppose the motion. 
2 Defendants are aware that the Court has stated that it will not entertain a motion 
for a stay of the injunction pending appeal, see Memorandum Opinion ("Historical Accounting") 
("Op.") at 228, 249-50, and accordingly Defendants are seeking such relief from the Court of 
Appeals. See Fed. R. App. P. 8(a)(2)(motion for stay pending appeal may be made to the 
appellate court if, inter alia, "moving first in the district court would be impracticable"). 
However, because one of the bases for the relief Defendants seek is a change in the applicable 
law that has never been presented to this Court, Defendants move before this Court as well. See 
Fed. R. App. P. 8(a)(1)("A party must ordinarily move first in the district court" for, inter alia, a 
stay pending appeal). Out of an abundance of caution, Defendants also include in this motion 
additional grounds that are being raised before the Court of Appeals.
In January 2003, Interior issued a plan to complete an accounting within five years at a 
cost of $335 million. In its September 25, 2003 injunction Order, this Court rejected Interior's 
plan and now asserts judicial control over virtually all aspects of trust fund management. The 
injunction imposes a broad variety of requirements with compliance dates beginning November 
24, 2003. See Order at 4, 7. The ultimate cost of the injunction is estimated to be at least six 
billion dollars. See Declaration of Associate Deputy Secretary of the Interior James E. Cason, 
executed November 10, 2003, and submitted herewith ("Cason Decl."), at 5. The injunction also 
provides for the appointment of a new "Judicial Monitor" and subordinate "agents" having 
"unlimited access" to DOI facilities and information and "the power to conduct confidential 
interviews" with DOI personnel. See Order at 17. 
Congress, responding to the Court's ruling, has now enacted legislation changing the law 
governing DOI's duty to perform a historical accounting. That provision, contained in the FY 
2004 Interior Appropriations statute, was signed into law on November 10, 2003. It provides: 
[N]othing in the American Indian Trust Management Reform Act 
of 1994, Public Law 103-412, or in any other statute, and no 
principle of common law, shall be construed or applied to require 
the Department of the Interior to commence or continue historical 
accounting activities with respect to the Individual Indian Money 
Trust until the earlier of the following shall have occurred: 
(a) Congress shall have amended the American Indian Trust 
Management Reform Act of 1994 to delineate the specific 
historical accounting obligations of the Department of the 
Interior with respect to the Individual Indian Money Trust; 
or 
(b) December 31, 2004 
H.R. 2691 (attached hereto as Exhibit A). The President has signed the new legislation into law. 
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A stay is plainly warranted in light of the new legislation. As Congress recognized in 
enacting the legislation, it would be "devastating to Indian country" to divert resources in the 
manner required by the injunction. See H.R. Conf. Rep. 108-330, at 117 (Oct. 28, 2003) 
(included with Exhibit A). Moreover, as discussed below, a stay would be warranted even absent 
the new legislation. The Court's wholesale assumption of executive branch responsibilities 
reflects a fundamentally mistaken assessment of the proper role of the judiciary and the nature of 
this case, is without record basis, and disregards the Court of Appeals' two prior decisions in this 
litigation. 
As discussed in the Declaration of Associate Deputy Secretary Cason, DOI expects to 
proceed with significant steps related to the performance of an accounting pending the appeal and 
further action by Congress. It would be improper to require DOI to reallocate resources in a 
manner squarely foreclosed by Congress that would result in no discernible benefit to account 
holders. Accordingly, we ask this Court for an immediate stay of the entire Order pending 
appeal. 
PERTINENT BACKGROUND 
This Court has reviewed two plans submitted by Interior pursuant to Court order. The 
first was the Historical Accounting Plan for Individual Indian Money Accounts, directly 
addressing historical accounting issues. DOI also submitted a separate Fiduciary Obligations 
Compliance Plan, which concerned matters beyond the subject of historical accounting, including 
improvements to be made to help ensure that future accountings would be accurate. Later, DOI 
submitted to the Court an additional Comprehensive Trust Management Plan, which had not 
been required by the Court but was submitted for informational purposes only. The 
Comprehensive Trust Management Plan encompasses matters beyond the Fiduciary Obligations 
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Compliance Plan, covering the full range of Interior's trust responsibilities, including natural 
resource and asset management. Following a 44-day bench trial, the Court issued its injunction 
Order, accompanied by a "Historical Accounting" opinion and a "Fixing the System" opinion that 
radically transform the Interior Accounting Plan and Comprehensive Trust Management Plan and 
incorporated both, as altered, into the injunction. 
The "Historical Accounting" Ruling A. 
The injunction Order rejects virtually every premise and parameter of the DOI 
Accounting Plan. The DOI Plan would provide existing account holders (and holders of 
accounts opened since 1994), with an accounting of all transactions in their accounts since 1938. 
The Plan reflects the 1994 Act's directive, as interpreted by the Court of Appeals, that Interior 
account for trust funds "which are deposited or invested pursuant to the Act of June 24, 1938," 
Pub. L. 103-412, § 102(a); see Cobell v. Norton, 240 F.3d 1081, 1102 (D.C. Cir. 2001). 
Under the DOI Plan, Interior would produce, based on existing paper and electronic 
bookkeeping records and without the use of statistical methods, a statement of account for each 
open IIM account that describes all of the post-1938 transactions in each account.3 The Plan also 
identified the methods that would be used to verify the transactions set forth in the statement of 
account. For the approximately 200,000 land-based IIM accounts, Interior would examine the 
relevant records for all transactions of $5,000 or more. See DOI Accounting Plan at 1, I-1. 
Interior would examine statistically valid samples of the transactions below $5,000. See id. at 1. 
3 Under its Plan, DOI's historical accounting period would close on December 31, 
2000, the date on which relevant Interior offices were converted to the Trust Funds Accounting 
System (TFAS). See DOI Accounting Plan at II-4. "Account information recorded since 
December 31, 2000, will be considered current accounting activity." Id. 
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Two statistically valid samples of about 80,000 transactions each would be selected from the 
Electronic Records Era (1985-2000). See id. A similar approach would be used to sample 
transactions from the Paper Records Era (pre-1985). See id. This sampling methodology would 
allow Interior to determine the accuracy rate of the accounting with a 99% degree of confidence. 
See id. The use of sampling reflects the fact that the vast majority of transactions involved 
relatively small sums of money. See Cason Decl. at 2, 4. It would also be consistent with the 
Court of Appeals' declaration that decisions about "how the accounting would be conducted, and 
whether certain accounting methods, such as statistical sampling or something else, would be 
appropriate," are "properly left in the hands of administrative agencies." 240 F.3d at 1104. 
By contrast, the Court's injunction requires not only the production of a statement of 
account, but also an individualized verification of every transaction taking place from the time of 
the passage of the General Allotment Act of 1887, 24 Stat. 388. Op. at 165, 207-208. This 
includes a verification of changes in interests not only in funds held in trust for each individual 
Indian, which is the subject of this lawsuit, but of all interests in land allotments. Op. at 169-71. 
The accounting and verification must be performed for all accounts, even those that have long 
since been closed, although the account holder may have died decades ago. Op. at 159-63. 
Interior may not rely on probate determinations which, the Court ruled, have no conclusive effect 
in determining what interests should have been probated. Op. at 165-68. Interior must also 
account for funds never held in trust at all, but rather received by an allotment holder in a direct 
transaction with a third party. Op. at 172-76. 
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The "Fixing the System" Ruling B. 
The Comprehensive Trust Management Plan submitted by Interior encompasses virtually 
every aspect of trust management, outlining in general terms the organizational changes proposed 
by Interior to improve its management and supervision of Indian trust funds and assets. It 
proposes the improvement of (1) accounting for trust funds, see DOI Comprehensive Plan at 3-7; 
(2) investing and disbursing funds, see id.; (3) maintaining accurate land ownership records, see 
id. at 3-6; and (4) managing Indian lands and resources. See id. "The change effort will be a 
DOI-wide transformation encompassing most aspects of the trust." Id. at 5-10. 
In its "Fixing the System" opinion, the Court declared that the "scope and nature" of 
Interior's duties to IIM beneficiaries were "coextensive" with the duties of a common law trustee. 
Memorandum Opinion ("Fixing the System") (Sept. 25, 2003) ("FTS Op.") at 45; see also id. at 
45-53 (outlining these duties). Although the duties described in the Comprehensive Trust 
Management Plan are without anchor in the duty to be enforced in this case, the Court adopted 
the plan, as modified, as an injunction. The modifications include: (1) Interior must file a 
"statement" detailing the manner in which it will comply with each of the common law trust 
duties the Court has set out, id. at 56; (2) In managing tribal resources, Interior must abide by 
tribal law, and must prepare a list of all applicable tribal laws and a statement of how they would 
affect trust administration, id. at 60; (3) Interior must submit a "detailed plan" for the integration 
of the title, leasing, and accounting systems, id. at 68; and (4) Interior must submit a statement 
"identify[ing] the steps" it would take during its historical accounting to distinguish IIM trust 
principal from income, id. at 68-69. 
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ARGUMENT 
The Government's Appeal Will Succeed On The Merits I. 
Congress Has Altered The Governing Law Underlying The Structural Injunction A. 
As the Court of Appeals made clear in its initial opinion in this case, the only actionable 
duty at issue in this litigation is the duty to perform an accounting. Congress has now altered the 
governing law, providing that, pending further congressional action (or decision not to act), 
neither the 1994 Act nor any principles of common law incorporated into federal law "require the 
Department of the Interior to commence or continue historical accounting activities with respect 
to the Individual Indian Money Trust . . ." H.R. 2691. 
As the Conference Report accompanying this legislation explained, Congress has 
previously "stated in no uncertain terms that it would not appropriate billions of dollars for a 
historical accounting[.]" H.R. Conf. Rep. 108-330, at 117. Observing that the accounting 
ordered by this Court was estimated to cost between six and twelve billion dollars, the committee 
explained that the ruling "would require that vast amounts of funds be diverted away from other 
high-priority programs, including Indian programs." Id. The committee stressed that this "would 
be devastating to Indian country and to the other programs in the Interior bill." Id. As the 
committee explained, the expenditure of billions of dollars on an accounting "would not provide 
a single dollar to the plaintiffs[.]" Id. 
The committee added that it would be "unwise to expend hundreds of millions of dollars 
on further accounting while this case is under appeal," id., and rejected "the notion that in passing 
the American Indian Trust Management Reform Act of 1994 Congress had any intention of 
ordering an accounting on the scale of that which has now been ordered" by the Court, id. at 117- 
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18. The committee stressed that "[s]uch an expansive and expensive undertaking would certainly 
have been judged to be a poor use of Federal and trust resources." Id. at 118. 
Accordingly, as discussed above, Congress altered the governing law to provide that 
neither the 1994 Act nor any common law principles incorporated into federal law require DOI to 
commence or continue historical accounting activities with respect to the IIM accounts. At the 
same time, Congress "limited the funds available to the Department for historical accounting to 
those activities that need to be accomplished and can be accomplished in the short-term." H.R. 
Conf. Rep. 108-330, at 118; see H.R. 2691 (amounts "not to exceed $45,000,000 shall be 
available for records collection and indexing, imaging and coding, accounting for per capita and 
judgment accounts, accounting for tribal accounts, reviewing and distributing funds from special 
deposit accounts, and program management of the Office of Historical Trust Accounting, 
including litigation support"). 
As the Court of Appeals has made clear, the only actionable duty at issue in this suit is the 
duty to perform an accounting. The new legislation removes any arguable legal basis for this 
Court's injunction Order insofar as the injunction purports to enforce that duty. And to the extent 
that the injunction purports to enforce other duties that are not properly at issue in this suit at all, 
its ruling is plainly without basis. 
The Court Had No Authority To Issue A Structural Injunction B. 
Even if Congress had not acted, the Court's decision would be fundamentally unsound. 
The structural injunction effects an explicit judicial takeover of Interior's IIM trust program. The 
Order contravenes established limits on judicial review of executive branch action and would 
constitute clear error even if this suit concerned the full breadth of trust management issues and 
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even if the record reflected across-the-board failures of management. As the Court of Appeals 
has recognized, a party "'cannot seek wholesale improvement of [a] program by court decree,'" 
but must seek this kind of relief "'in the offices of the Department [of the Interior] or the halls of 
Congress, where programmatic improvements are normally made.'" 240 F.3d at 1095 (quoting 
Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, 497 U.S. 871, 891 (1990)). 
As the Court of Appeals also made clear, this suit is not (and could not be) a suit to 
enforce performance of all trust-related matters. Thus, the appellate court required this Court to 
amend its opinion to reflect the fact that the "actual legal breach is the failure to provide an 
accounting, not [the government's] failure to take the discrete individual steps that would 
facilitate an accounting." Id. at 1106. The appellate court further instructed this Court to be 
mindful of the limits of its jurisdiction, which would be confined to determining "whether in 
preparing to do an accounting the Department takes steps so defective that they would 
necessarily delay rather than accelerate the ultimate provision of an adequate accounting . . ." Id. 
at 1110. The ruling of the Court of Appeals left no room for "structural injunctions," much less 
overarching orders to "fix the system." 
If this Court had, in fact, properly determined that some aspects of the Interior 
Accounting Plan were so defective as to cause delay, it could identify those errors. At that point, 
however, the Court's jurisdiction would end: The "guiding principle . . . is that the function of [a] 
reviewing court ends when an error of law is laid bare." Federal Power Commission v. Idaho 
Power Co., 344 U.S. 17, 20 (1952). 
The rationale for this rule, which is undergirded by principles of separation of powers, is 
particularly clear in this case. How to "reform the trust" raises sweeping questions for both 
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Congress and Interior, questions that Congress is again addressing. It is for the political branches 
to determine what changes in law, asset allocation, or management techniques will best serve the 
interests of the beneficiaries and will make best use of limited resources (which, unlike in a 
private trust, are not provided by the trust itself but by the public fisc). This Court cannot, in 
effect, appropriate funds and direct their expenditure. 
The Court's decision to enforce its injunction by means of a new "Judicial Monitor" and a 
team of "agents" underscores the nature of its takeover and constitutes independent error. The 
Court has no authority to give its "agents" "unlimited access" to government facilities and 
information and "the power to conduct confidential interviews" with government personnel. 
Order at 17. The creation of a new Monitor and agents pointedly disregards the Court of 
Appeals' ruling that such a role "is unknown to our adversarial legal system." Cobell v. Norton, 
334 F.3d 1128, 1142 (D.C. Cir. 2003). 
Finally, the record provides no basis for concluding that Interior has abdicated its trust 
responsibilities. Since the Court of Appeals' initial remand order, there have been two 
evidentiary proceedings– a contempt trial and the trial preceding issuance of the structural 
injunction. The evidence adduced at the 44-day trial conducted in the summer of 2003 confirms 
that Interior has continued to take significant steps in furtherance of both historical accounting 
and reform of trust administration. The Court cited no evidence demonstrating that the agency is 
defaulting on its responsibilities. 
The Court's decision to wrest control of "trust reform" from Interior is, instead, based on 
the contempt trial, which was held in late 2001 and early 2002, following which the Court 
declared the Secretary of the Interior an "unfit" trustee-delegee. Although its contempt ruling 
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was vacated on appeal, the Court announced that it would treat the factual findings made in its 
contempt ruling as having been established because, in the Court's view, they had not been set 
aside by the Court of Appeals. See Op. at 23-24. 
The Court's reasoning once more disregards the Court of Appeals' rulings. The Court of 
Appeals vacated this Court's rulings on all five specifications of contempt. See 334 F.3d at 1147- 
50. In so ruling, it made absolutely clear that the record provided no basis for calling into 
question the good faith or reasonable efforts of the present Secretary. To the contrary, the Court 
of Appeals declared that 
the district court's findings clearly indicate that in her first six months in office 
Secretary Norton took significant steps toward completing an accounting. By 
June 2001 the Secretary had contracted with EDS, a national consulting firm, to 
evaluate the status of the TAAMS project, and by November 2001 the Department 
had proposed a reorganization plan aimed at eliminating the problems EDS had 
identified. In July 2001 Secretary Norton created the Office of Historical Trust 
Accounting, which has since made significant progress toward completing an 
accounting. Hence, the Court Monitor stated in his Fifth Report, "[t]here is no 
doubt the OHTA has made more progress . . . in six months [July through 
December, 2001] than the past administration did in six years." 
Id. at 1148 (citations omitted). In examining this Court's contempt ruling with respect to 
allegedly misleading statements regarding Interior's computer system, the Court of Appeals found 
this Court's reasoning "mystifying," id. at 1149, and described the contempt ruling on computer 
security as "inconceivable," id. at 1150. The earlier contempt trial thus could provide no possible 
basis for the Court's decision to assume responsibility for trust reform in general or for the 
accounting in particular. C. The Court's Understanding Of DOI's Accounting 
Responsibilities Has At No Time Had A Basis In Law 
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As the history of both the 1994 Act and the most recent legislation demonstrate, the 
Court's redefinition of an "accounting" comports neither with congressional intent nor common 
sense. 
As noted, the 1994 Act provides that "[t]he Secretary shall account for the daily and 
annual balance of all funds held in trust by the United States for the benefit of . . . an individual 
Indian which are deposited or invested pursuant to the Act of June 24, 1938 (25 U.S.C. 162a)." 
Pub. L. 103-412, § 102(a). The DOI Accounting Plan, built on years of concerted effort, fully 
complied with the Court of Appeals' understanding of that provision. The DOI Accounting Plan 
would provide a statement of all of the post-1938 transactions in each IIM account that was open 
in 1994 or thereafter, and for the verification of those transactions. See Accounting Plan at II-2, 
III-1. By examining every transaction of $5,000 and over, and by verifying the remaining 
transactions in the land-based accounts by use of statistical sampling, Interior's plan 
contemplated 99% confidence in the stated accuracy rate of the accounting statements. Id. at 1. 
Interior estimates that its plan would take 5 years and cost $335 million. Id. 
Before the enactment of the 1994 Act, Congress noted that "it might cost as much as $281 
million to $390 million to audit the IIM accounts at all 93 [Bureau of Indian Affairs] offices." 
H.R. Rep. No. 102-499, at 26 (Apr. 22, 1992). It stressed that, "[o]bviously, it makes little sense 
to spend so much when there was only $440 million deposited in the IIM trust fund for account 
holders as of September 30, 1991." Id. 
Even the DOI Accounting Plan raised the fiscal concern identified by Congress. The 
Court's ruling dismissed Congress's concern. The Court did not find that Interior's plan would 
fail to deliver the results contemplated in the DOI Accounting Plan or that the techniques on 
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which the plan would rely are unreliable. Instead, the Court redefined the accounting in ways 
that multiply its expense many times over while providing little if any discernible benefit to 
account holders. This point is crystallized by a brief examination of the more significant 
requirements imposed by the Court. 
1. Parameters: Providing An Accounting For All 
Closed 
Accounts And For All Transactions Dating Back To 1887 
The DOI Accounting Plan provided for an accounting to current account holders (and 
holders of accounts open in 1994) for funds deposited or invested pursuant to the 1938 Act. The 
structural injunction requires that Interior provide an accounting for all IIM accounts that have 
ever been in existence as far back as 1887, including those that have been closed for decades. 
See Op. at 159-63, 165. The Court's belief that its ruling was compelled by the 1994 Act is 
without basis. Congress had no need to specify that it wished to provide an accounting to current 
account holders and not to account holders long since deceased. Indeed, the Court's reading 
cannot be squared with the statute's provision that Interior account for "the daily and annual 
balance of all funds held in trust." Nor is it evident how any tangible benefit could be derived 
from the Court's mandatory revisiting of closed accounts. 
The requirement that Interior account for transactions back to 1887 is similarly 
inexplicable. The 1994 Act provided for an accounting of funds "deposited or invested pursuant 
to the Act of June 24, 1938 (25 U.S.C. 162a)." Whatever the scope of Interior's accounting 
responsibility, no reading of the statute could plausibly compel an accounting of transactions that 
pre-date the 1938 statute. 
Lands and Probate 2. 
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The 1994 Act addressed an accounting for funds deposited or invested pursuant to the 
1938 Act. The structural injunction Order requires a description of all land assets for each 
predecessor in interest of every current account holder. The Court's Order conflates land trust 
obligations under the General Allotment Act of 1887 with the accounting responsibilities at issue 
in this suit. 
About 48% of the IIM trust money is held in the roughly 200,000 land-based IIM 
accounts, which contain funds derived from the roughly 10 million acres of land that the United 
States holds in trust for individual Indians. See DOI Accounting Plan at II-1, III-1. DOI 
manages revenue-producing activities on those lands, including oil and gas leases, farming and 
grazing, and timber harvesting. See id. at II-1. While approximately 10 million acres are 
currently held in trust, Interior estimates that the figure at the time of the 1887 Allotment Act and 
in the period thereafter was two to four times as large. See Cason Decl. at 8. 
By requiring Interior to explore the land holdings of all predecessors in interest of IIM 
account holders, the Court has effectively required Interior to examine the holdings of related 
land interests of persons with no IIM accounts and to describe interests in land that has long 
ceased to be held in trust by the government. Since Interior must reconstruct every IIM account 
since 1887 and every land interest since 1887, and establish the relationships between 
predecessors and successors in interest to these assets since 1887, the injunction apparently 
requires Interior to revisit the substance of nearly every probate decision since 1887. Indeed, the 
Court's Order specifically instructs that probate decisions cannot be accorded conclusive effect 
with respect to the description of the estate at the time of probate and the amounts that should 
have been distributed. Op. at 165-68. 
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Moreover, the benefit to be derived from this expenditure is altogether unclear. Through 
heirship and marriage, the ownership interest in a single parcel of land is frequently split among 
many beneficiaries as it passes from generation to generation, so that a present beneficiary's 
ownership interest in a tract of land may be infinitesimally small. In such cases, compliance with 
the Court's requirement to account for a particular land holding may cost more than the 
underlying property interest is worth. See Cason Decl. at 8-9. 
Accounting For Funds Never Held In IIM Accounts 3. 
Not all revenues generated by Indian trust lands are collected and managed by Interior. 
See DOI Accounting Plan at II-4. Some monies are paid directly to the Indian owner of the land 
by a third-party lessee. See id. The structural injunction requires Interior to provide an 
accounting for these direct payments from third parties, even though they were never held by the 
government at all, much less placed into an IIM account. See Op. at 172-76. 
Statistical Sampling 4. 
In its initial decision, the Court of Appeals noted that this Court had properly "left open 
the choice of how the accounting would be conducted, and whether certain accounting methods, 
such as statistical sampling or something else, would be appropriate," explaining that these 
decisions are "properly left in the hands of administrative agencies." 240 F.3d at 1104. As 
Interior's accounting plan explains, the plan would produce, based on Interior's paper and 
electronic bookkeeping records, a ledger for each open IIM account that describes all of the post- 
1938 transactions in each account. Under the DOI Plan, sampling would not be used to generate 
the account statements. Sampling would be used only to verify the accuracy of the statement, 
consistent with accepted auditing practice. To verify the accuracy of the account statements for 
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the judgment and per capita accounts, the DOI Plan called for the examination of the relevant 
paper records (such as the underlying lease) for each transaction. The Plan provided for the same 
method of verification for transactions over $5,000 in the land-based IIM accounts. For 
transactions below $5,000, i.e., the category of transactions where sampling would be invoked, 
the Plan called for examination of statistically valid samples using a methodology that would 
provide 99% confidence in the stated accuracy rate of these transactions. See DOI Accounting 
Plan at 1. 
The structural injunction, by contrast, requires the government to verify each transaction 
individually. (Although the Court suggested that Interior could use sampling to perform an audit 
function, the requirement that each transaction be individually verified would make any 
additional auditing superfluous.) This requirement dramatically expands the number of 
transactions to be individually examined. The vast majority of these transactions are for 
relatively small amounts. Thus, in many instances, the cost of verifying the transaction is likely 
to be greater than the entire amount of the transaction itself. See Cason Decl. at 4. In 
conjunction with the expanded scope of the accounting required (e.g., examining transactions 
prior to 1938), the costs imposed by the Court's requirement of individual transaction-bytransaction 
verification are estimated at approximately $6 billion. See id. at 7. 
Balance Of Harms And The Public Interest II. 
The Court's assessment of the costs and benefits of its structural injunction is flatly at 
odds with that of Congress, which has now altered the law regarding Interior's accounting duties 
and which is responsible for determining how public monies may be spent. 
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The DOI Plan would cost approximately $335 million. The current, total balance of the 
IIM accounts is about $415 million. The estimated cost of the structural injunction is at least $6 
billion. See Cason Decl. at 5. As the Conference Report accompanying the new legislation 
emphasized, Congress had previously "stated in no uncertain terms that it would not appropriate 
billions of dollars for a historical accounting[.]" H.R. Conf. Rep. 108-330, at 117. Congress 
observed that the reallocation of resources required by the structural injunction "would be 
devastating to Indian country and to the other programs in the Interior bill." Id. The Court 
sought to justify its injunction on the basis of the purported dependence of Indian beneficiaries 
on trust disbursements (see Op. at 102), but as the committee explained, the expenditure of 
billions of dollars on an accounting "would not provide a single dollar to the plaintiffs, and 
would without question displace funds available for education, health care and other services." 
H.R. Conf. Rep. 108-330, at 117. 
As the recent legislation reflects, Congress is revisiting the issues related to an accounting 
of the IIM accounts. For now, Congress has "limited the funds available to the Department for 
historical accounting to those activities that need to be accomplished and can be accomplished in 
the short-term." H.R. Conf. Rep. 108-330, at 118. See H.R. 2691 (amounts "not to exceed 
$45,000,000 shall be available for records collection and indexing, imaging and coding, 
accounting for per capita and judgment accounts, accounting for tribal accounts, reviewing and 
distributing funds from special deposit accounts, and program management of the Office of 
Historical Trust Accounting, including litigation support"). 
The structural injunction imposes short deadlines for the submission by Interior of a host 
of detailed plans and other submissions encompassing every aspect of Interior's trust 
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responsibilities and beyond. These requirements force Interior in a direction opposite from that 
commanded by Congress. Congress has appropriated only $45 million for all accounting-related 
activities while it considers the appropriate parameters of an accounting, explaining that it has 
"limited the funds available to the Department for historical accounting to those activities that 
need to be accomplished and can be accomplished in the short-term." H.R. Conf. Rep. 108-330, 
at 118. The injunction requires the submission or implementation of plans based on legal 
premises that were incorrect before the most recent legislation, and that are flatly at odds with the 
new statute. 
Moreover, as Associate Deputy Secretary Cason explains, even to comply with the more 
distant deadlines of the structural injunction would require DOI immediately to reallocate 
resources to perform tasks that would not have been required under the DOI Plan and are clearly 
outside the contemplation of Congress. For example, the Court's injunction requires verification 
of over 30 million transactions that pre-date the electronic records era. Any attempt to perform 
this task within the Court's time frame would require immediate and substantial expenditures on 
equipment and personnel that would ultimately yield little if anything of value to the public or 
account holders. See Cason Decl. at 12. 
The performance of an accounting under the DOI Plan would not be advanced by 
performance of the tasks described in the injunction. As discussed above, the injunction requires 
a re-creation of all transactions related to funds and land from 1887 onwards as a condition for 
providing an accounting to current account holders. The Interior Plan, in contrast, would 
generally work backwards from the present, a method that would require different tasks in a 
different order and would allow completion of accounting for land-based accounts far in advance 
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of the very different accounting contemplated by the Court. Even the Court's most immediate 
deadline, dealing with collection of third-party records, reflects this fundamental divergence. 
Under the DOI Plan, Interior would first look to the millions of documents in its possession and 
then seek to fill any gaps by seeking information from third parties. Under the Court's Order, 
however, Interior would be forced to focus immediately on a detailed plan to obtain outside 
records including the use of potentially large numbers of subpoenas (see Order at 4). Such 
record-gathering would be largely unnecessary and extremely burdensome to third parties as well 
as Interior, costing the government alone an estimated sum in the hundreds of millions of dollars. 
See Cason Decl. at 10, 12. 
The requirement that Interior file a detailed account of the tribal laws that it believes 
applicable is also illustrative. DOI consults with tribes regarding trust management, but has never 
subordinated the federal government's responsibilities to tribal jurisdiction. Indeed, the 
Complaint makes no allegation that the United States is acting in disregard of applicable tribal 
laws or ordinances. Nevertheless, the injunction would require DOI to devote immediate 
attention to the issue of how to respond to the Order with respect to the more than 500 separate 
tribal jurisdictions in the United States. See Cason Decl. at 11. 
Finally, absent a stay, Interior may be subject to the appointment of a new Court Monitor 
and other agents with "unlimited access" to government facilities and extraordinary and entirely 
improper powers "to conduct confidential interviews" with government personnel. Order at 17. 
A stay will allow Interior to proceed with a number of significant steps in the preparation 
of statements of account for IIM account holders – steps that are intended to make concrete 
progress and that are consistent with Congress's recent enactment. These steps include 
-19-
continuing the ongoing reconciliation of judgment accounts; continuing the ongoing 
reconciliation of per capita accounts, continuing the ongoing review and distribution of funds 
from special deposit accounts; continuing with ongoing efforts regarding tribal accounting; and 
continuing with ongoing records collection, indexing, imaging and coding activities. See Cason 
Decl. at 13. 
In sum, the structural injunction marks an extraordinary usurpation of executive branch 
responsibility, without foundation in the record, based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the 
1994 Act and the decisions of the Court of Appeals. The new legislation makes entirely clear 
that the duties reflected in the 1994 Act cannot be the basis for the historical accounting ordered 
by the Court, and makes equally clear that Congress regards the expenditure of funds required by 
the injunction as inimical to the interests of account holders as well as to the public generally. 
An immediate stay of the structural injunction is appropriate. 
-20-
CONCLUSION 
For all of the foregoing reasons, Defendants respectfully request that the Court enter an 
Order staying the structural injunction Order pending appeal. 
Dated: November 10, 2003 
Respectfully submitted, 
ROBERT D. McCALLUM, JR. 
Associate Attorney General 
PETER D. KEISLER 
Assistant Attorney General 
STUART E. SCHIFFER 
Deputy Assistant Attorney General 
J. CHRISTOPHER KOHN 
Director 
/s/ John T. Stemplewicz 
SANDRA P. SPOONER 
D.C. Bar No. 261495 
Deputy Director 
JOHN T. STEMPLEWICZ 
Senior Trial Counsel 
Commercial Litigation Branch 
Civil Division 
P.O. Box 875 
Ben Franklin Station 
Washington, D.C. 20044-0875 
(202) 514-7194 
-21-
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 
I declare under penalty of perjury that, on November 10, 2003 I served the foregoing 
Defendants’ Motion to Stay the Court’s Structural Injunction Pending Appeal was served by 
Electronic Case Filing, and on the following who are not registered for Electronic Case Filing in 
the manner indicated: 
Per the Court’s Order of April 17, 2003, 
by Facsimile 
Earl Old Person (Pro se) 
Blackfeet Tribe 
P.O. Box 850 
Browning, MT 59417 
(406) 338-7530 
/s/ Kevin P. Kingston 
Kevin P. Kingston 
-22-
__________________________________________
) 
ELOUISE PEPION COBELL, et al., ) 
Plaintiffs, 
v. 
GALE NORTON, Secretary of the Interior, et al., ) 
Defendants. 
)
) 
__________________________________________) 
This matter comes before the Court on the Defendants’ Motion to Stay the Court’s Structural 
Injunction Pending Appeal, Dkt # _____. Upon consideration of the Motion, any Opposition, any Reply 
thereto, and the entire record of this case, it is hereby 
ORDERED that the Motion should be and is hereby GRANTED, and it is further 
ORDERED that the Order Issuing Structural Injunction of September 25, 2003 [Dkt # 2310] be 
stayed pending appeal. 
SO ORDERED 
Date:______________ 
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 
Case No. 1:96CV01285 
(Judge Lamberth) 
)
)
)
)
) 
ORDER 
___________________________________ 
Hon. Royce C. Lamberth 
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 
United States District Court for the 
District of Columbia cc: 
Sandra P. Spooner 
John T. Stemplewicz 
Commercial Litigation Branch 
Civil Division 
P.O. Box 875 
Ben Franklin Station 
Washington, D.C. 20044-0875 
Fax (202) 514-9163 
Dennis M Gingold, Esq. 
Mark Brown, Esq. 
607 - 14th Street, NW, Box 6 
Washington, D.C. 20005 
Fax (202) 318-2372 
Keith Harper, Esq. 
Richard A. Guest, Esq. 
Native American Rights Fund 
1712 N Street, NW 
Washington, D.C. 20036-2976 
Fax (202) 822-0068 
Elliott Levitas, Esq. 
1100 Peachtree Street, Suite 2800 
Atlanta, GA 30309-4530 
Earl Old Person (Pro se) 
Blackfeet Tribe 
P.O. Box 850 
Browning, MT 59417 
(406) 338-7530
H. R. 2691 
One Hundred Eighth Congress 
of the 
United States of America 
AT THE FIRST SESSION 
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday, 
the seventh day of January, two thousand and three 
An Act 
Making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related agencies 
for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the 
following sums are appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury 
not otherwise appropriated, for the Department of the Interior 
and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004, 
and for other purposes, namely: 
TITLE I—DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT 
MANAGEMENT OF LANDS AND RESOURCES 
For necessary expenses for protection, use, improvement, 
development, disposal, cadastral surveying, classification, acquisition 
of easements and other interests in lands, and performance 
of other functions, including maintenance of facilities, as authorized 
by law, in the management of lands and their resources under 
the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management, including the 
general administration of the Bureau, and assessment of mineral 
potential of public lands pursuant to Public Law 96–487 (16 U.S.C. 
3150(a)), $850,321,000, to remain available until expended, of which 
$1,000,000 is for high priority projects, to be carried out by the 
Youth Conservation Corps; $2,484,000 is for assessment of the 
mineral potential of public lands in Alaska pursuant to section 
1010 of Public Law 96–487; (16 U.S.C. 3150); and of which not 
to exceed $1,000,000 shall be derived from the special receipt 
account established by the Land and Water Conservation Act of 
1965, as amended (16 U.S.C. 460l–6a(i)); and of which $3,000,000 
shall be available in fiscal year 2004 subject to a match by at 
least an equal amount by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation 
for cost-shared projects supporting conservation of Bureau lands; 
and such funds shall be advanced to the Foundation as a lump 
sum grant without regard to when expenses are incurred; in addition, 
$32,696,000 is for Mining Law Administration program operations, 
including the cost of administering the mining claim fee 
program; to remain available until expended, to be reduced by 
amounts collected by the Bureau and credited to this appropriation 
from annual mining claim fees so as to result in a final appropriation 
estimated at not more than $850,321,000; and $2,000,000, 
to remain available until expended, from communication site rental
H. R. 2691—23 
annual financial statement of the Department of the Interior 
bureaus and offices funded in this Act. 
OFFICE OF SPECIAL TRUSTEE FOR AMERICAN INDIANS 
FEDERAL TRUST PROGRAMS 
For the operation of trust programs for Indians by direct 
expenditure, contracts, cooperative agreements, compacts, and 
grants, $189,641,000, to remain available until expended: Provided, 
That of the amounts available under this heading not to exceed 
$45,000,000 shall be available for records collection and indexing, 
imaging and coding, accounting for per capita and judgment 
accounts, accounting for tribal accounts, reviewing and distributing 
funds from special deposit accounts, and program management 
of the Office of Historical Trust Accounting, including litigation 
support: Provided further, That nothing in the American Indian 
Trust Management Reform Act of 1994, Public Law 103–412, or 
in any other statute, and no principle of common law, shall be 
construed or applied to require the Department of the Interior 
to commence or continue historical accounting activities with respect 
to the Individual Indian Money Trust until the earlier of the following 
shall have occurred: (a) Congress shall have amended the 
American Indian Trust Management Reform Act of 1994 to delineate 
the specific historical accounting obligations of the Department 
of the Interior with respect to the Individual Indian Money Trust; 
or (b) December 31, 2004: Provided further, That funds for trust 
management improvements and litigation support may, as needed, 
be transferred to or merged with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 
‘‘Operation of Indian Programs’’ account; the Office of the Solicitor, 
‘‘Salaries and Expenses’’ account; and the Departmental Management, 
‘‘Salaries and Expenses’’ account: Provided further, That 
funds made available to Tribes and Tribal organizations through 
contracts or grants obligated during fiscal year 2004, as authorized 
by the Indian Self-Determination Act of 1975 (25 U.S.C. 450 et 
seq.), shall remain available until expended by the contractor or 
grantee: Provided further, That notwithstanding any other provision 
of law, the statute of limitations shall not commence to run on 
any claim, including any claim in litigation pending on the date 
of the enactment of this Act, concerning losses to or mismanagement 
of trust funds, until the affected tribe or individual Indian has 
been furnished with an accounting of such funds from which the 
beneficiary can determine whether there has been a loss: Provided 
further, That notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary 
shall not be required to provide a quarterly statement of 
performance for any Indian trust account that has not had activity 
for at least 18 months and has a balance of $1.00 or less: Provided 
further, That the Secretary shall issue an annual account statement 
and maintain a record of any such accounts and shall permit 
the balance in each such account to be withdrawn upon the express 
written request of the account holder: Provided further, That not 
to exceed $50,000 is available for the Secretary to make payments 
to correct administrative errors of either disbursements from or 
deposits to Individual Indian Money or Tribal accounts after September 
30, 2002: Provided further, That erroneous payments that 
are recovered shall be credited to and remain available in this 
account for this purpose.
108TH CONGRESS R " ! 
EPORT 
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 1st Session 108–330 
MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND 
RELATED AGENCIES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 
2004, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES 
OCTOBER 28, 2003.—Ordered to be printed 
Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina, from the committee of conference, 
submitted the following 
CONFERENCE REPORT 
[To accompany H.R. 2691] 
The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the 
two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R. 2691) 
‘‘making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related 
agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004, and 
for other purposes’’, having met, after full and free conference, have 
agreed to recommend and do recommend to their respective Houses 
as follows: 
That the House recede from its disagreement to the amendment 
of the Senate, and agree to the same with an amendment, as 
follows: 
In lieu of the matter stricken and inserted by said amendment, 
insert: 
That the following sums are appropriated, out of any money in the 
Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the Department of the Interior 
and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 
2004, and for other purposes, namely: 
TITLE I—DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT 
MANAGEMENT OF LANDS AND RESOURCES 
For necessary expenses for protection, use, improvement, development, 
disposal, cadastral surveying, classification, acquisition of 
easements and other interests in lands, and performance of other 
functions, including maintenance of facilities, as authorized by law, 
in the management of lands and their resources under the jurisdiction 
of the Bureau of Land Management, including the general administration 
of the Bureau, and assessment of mineral potential of 
public lands pursuant to Public Law 96–487 (16 U.S.C. 3150(a)), 
90–095 
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23 
PAYMENTS IN LIEU OF TAXES 
For expenses necessary to implement the Act of October 20, 
1976, as amended (31 U.S.C. 6901–6907), $227,500,000, of which 
not to exceed $400,000 shall be available for administrative expenses: 
Provided, That no payment shall be made to otherwise eligible 
units of local government if the computed amount of the payment 
is less than $100. 
OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR 
SALARIES AND EXPENSES 
For necessary expenses of the Office of the Solicitor, 
$50,374,000. 
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL 
SALARIES AND EXPENSES 
For necessary expenses of the Office of Inspector General, 
$38,749,000, of which $3,812,000 shall be for procurement by contract 
of independent auditing services to audit the consolidated Department 
of the Interior annual financial statement and the annual 
financial statement of the Department of the Interior bureaus and 
offices funded in this Act. 
OFFICE OF SPECIAL TRUSTEE FOR AMERICAN INDIANS 
FEDERAL TRUST PROGRAMS 
For the operation of trust programs for Indians by direct expenditure, 
contracts, cooperative agreements, compacts, and grants, 
$189,641,000, to remain available until expended: Provided, That of 
the amounts available under this heading not to exceed $45,000,000 
shall be available for records collection and indexing, imaging and 
coding, accounting for per capita and judgment accounts, accounting 
for tribal accounts, reviewing and distributing funds from special 
deposit accounts, and program management of the Office of 
Historical Trust Accounting, including litigation support: Provided 
further, That nothing in the American Indian Trust Management 
Reform Act of 1994, Public Law 103–412, or in any other statute, 
and no principle of common law, shall be construed or applied to 
require the Department of the Interior to commence or continue historical 
accounting activities with respect to the Individual Indian 
Money Trust until the earlier of the following shall have occurred: 
(a) Congress shall have amended the American Indian Trust Management 
Reform Act of 1994 to delineate the specific historical accounting 
obligations of the Department of the Interior with respect 
to the Individual Indian Money Trust; or (b) December 31, 2004: 
Provided further, That funds for trust management improvements 
and litigation support may, as needed, be transferred to or merged 
with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, ‘‘Operation of Indian Programs’’ 
account; the Office of the Solicitor, ‘‘Salaries and Expenses’’ account; 
and the Departmental Management, ‘‘Salaries and Expenses’’ account: 
Provided further, That funds made available to Tribes and 
Tribal organizations through contracts or grants obligated during 
fiscal year 2004, as authorized by the Indian Self-Determination Act 
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24 
of 1975 (25 U.S.C. 450 et seq.), shall remain available until expended 
by the contractor or grantee: Provided further, That notwithstanding 
any other provision of law, the statute of limitations shall 
not commence to run on any claim, including any claim in litigation 
pending on the date of the enactment of this Act, concerning losses 
to or mismanagement of trust funds, until the affected tribe or individual 
Indian has been furnished with an accounting of such funds 
from which the beneficiary can determine whether there has been a 
loss: Provided further, That notwithstanding any other provision of 
law, the Secretary shall not be required to provide a quarterly statement 
of performance for any Indian trust account that has not had 
activity for at least 18 months and has a balance of $1.00 or less: 
Provided further, That the Secretary shall issue an annual account 
statement and maintain a record of any such accounts and shall 
permit the balance in each such account to be withdrawn upon the 
express written request of the account holder: Provided further, That 
not to exceed $50,000 is available for the Secretary to make payments 
to correct administrative errors of either disbursements from 
or deposits to Individual Indian Money or Tribal accounts after 
September 30, 2002: Provided further, That erroneous payments 
that are recovered shall be credited to and remain available in this 
account for this purpose. 
INDIAN LAND CONSOLIDATION 
For consolidation of fractional interests in Indian lands and expenses 
associated with redetermining and redistributing escheated 
interests in allotted lands, and for necessary expenses to carry out 
the Indian Land Consolidation Act of 1983, as amended, by direct 
expenditure or cooperative agreement, $21,980,000, to remain available 
until expended: Provided, That funds provided under this 
heading may be expended pursuant to the authorities contained in 
the provisos under the heading ‘‘Office of Special Trustee for American 
Indians, Indian Land Consolidation’’ of the Interior and Related 
Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001 (Public Law 106–291). 
NATURAL RESOURCE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT AND RESTORATION 
NATURAL RESOURCE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT FUND 
To conduct natural resource damage assessment and restoration 
activities by the Department of the Interior necessary to carry 
out the provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, 
Compensation, and Liability Act, as amended (42 U.S.C. 9601 et 
seq.), Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended (33 U.S.C. 
1251 et seq.), the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (Public Law 101–380) 
(33 U.S.C. 2701 et seq.), and Public Law 101–337, as amended (16 
U.S.C. 19jj et seq.), $5,633,000, to remain available until expended. 
ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS 
There is hereby authorized for acquisition from available resources 
within the Working Capital Fund, 15 aircraft, 10 of which 
shall be for replacement and which may be obtained by donation, 
purchase or through available excess surplus property: Provided, 
That existing aircraft being replaced may be sold, with proceeds derived 
or trade-in value used to offset the purchase price for the re- 
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117 
OFFICE OF SPECIAL TRUSTEE FOR AMERICAN INDIANS 
FEDERAL TRUST PROGRAMS 
The conference agreement provides $189,641,000 for Federal 
trust programs instead of $219,641,000 as proposed by both the 
House and the Senate. 
Changes to the House include a shift of $981,000 from program 
operation, support, and improvements into executive direction and 
a reduction of $30,000,000 for the historical accounting project. 
The Department of the Interior’s July 2, 2002, report to Congress 
detailed the cost involved if the government were required to 
undertake a transaction-by-transaction historical accounting of the 
Individual Indian Money accounts without regard to when the 
funds were deposited. The Department indicated that such an accounting 
would cost at least $2.4 billion over 10 years. Both prior 
to and subsequent to submission of that report, Congress has stated 
in no uncertain terms that it would not appropriate billions of 
dollars for a historical accounting of such magnitude. Partly in response 
to Congressional concerns, the Department submitted to the 
Court a $335 million accounting plan that included both a transaction-
by-transaction accounting as well as the use of sound, wellproven 
statistical methods. The Department argues that such an 
accounting is consistent with its duties under law. 
In its September 25, 2003, ruling in the Cobell v. Norton class 
action lawsuit, the Court dismissed Congressional concerns about 
the scope of the accounting and ordered a greatly expanded effort 
that surpasses even the accounting described in the July 2, 2002, 
report to Congress. Initial estimates indicate that the accounting 
ordered by the Court would cost between $6 billion and $12 billion 
over this Court-mandated time frame. 
There is only one source of money available to the Subcommittee 
on Interior and Related Agencies, and an accounting of 
this magnitude would require that vast amounts of funds be diverted 
away from other high-priority programs, including Indian 
programs. That would be devastating to Indian country and to the 
other programs in the Interior bill. The managers note that, over 
the past three years, funding increases for the Bureau of Indian Affairs 
were primarily for trust reform related activities. The Office 
of Special Trustee for American Indians also tended to receive a 
disproportionate share of the funding increases available to the Department. 
The managers continue to believe that fixing trust systems 
prospectively is a high priority, thereby allowing the Secretary to 
meet her trust and fiduciary responsibility to Indian country. But 
Indian country would be better served by a settlement of this litigation 
than the expenditure of billions of dollars on an accounting. 
Those billions would not provide a single dollar to the plaintiffs, 
and would without question displace funds available for education, 
health care and other services. 
There will be further court proceedings in the Cobell case 
based on the government’s likely appeal of the September 25, 2003, 
court ruling. The managers believe that it would be unwise to expend 
hundreds of millions of dollars on further accounting while 
this case is under appeal. Furthermore, the managers reject the no- 
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118 
tion that in passing the American Indian Trust Management Reform 
Act of 1994 Congress had any intention of ordering an accounting 
on the scale of that which has now been ordered by the 
Court. Such an expansive and expensive undertaking would certainly 
have been judged to be a poor use of Federal and trust resources. 
The managers therefore feel that it is time for Congress to act 
to delineate the exact scope of the historical accounting called for 
in the 1994 Act, or to develop alternative methods of resolving the 
current dispute. To provide time for thoughtful action on this question, 
language has been included in the bill affirmatively declaring 
that nothing in the 1994 Act or common law shall be construed to 
require the type of accounting described in the September 25th ruling. 
It is not the intent of the managers to forestall indefinitely either 
the Cobell litigation or any efforts to conduct an historical accounting. 
But in light of the expansive accounting and constrained 
timelines contemplated in the Court’s order, it is clear that time is 
needed for Congress to consider the issues and tradeoffs at stake. 
The managers have therefore limited the funds available to the Department 
for historical accounting to those activities that need to 
be accomplished and can be accomplished in the short-term. Beyond 
that, the managers will not provide any funding until the 
scope of an historical accounting is resolved by the courts or by the 
legislative committees of jurisdiction. 
During floor debate over the Interior bill, the chairman of the 
authorizing committee in the House made a commitment to develop 
a comprehensive legislative solution to what has become an intractable 
problem. The authorizing committee in the Senate has held 
numerous hearings, and has also expressed interest in addressing 
the problem. The managers believe that a legislative solution may 
be the only way to resolve these trust reform issues. 
INDIAN LAND CONSOLIDATION 
The conference agreement provides $21,980,000 for Indian land 
consolidation programs instead of $20,980,000 as proposed by the 
House and $22,980,000 as proposed by the Senate. The increase 
above the House is to support the land consolidation efforts of the 
Quapaw Nation. 
NATURAL RESOURCE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT AND RESTORATION 
NATURAL RESOURCE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT FUND 
The conference agreement provides $5,633,000 for the natural 
resource damage assessment fund as proposed by both the House 
and the Senate. 
ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS 
The conference agreement includes the Senate proposed language 
regarding administrative provisions for Departmental Offices. 
The agreement also requires a semiannual report on reimbursable 
support agreements between the Office of the Secretary 
and the National Business Center and the bureaus and offices of 
the Department. 
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