FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 3, 1999

CONTACT: Christopher M. Changery (202) 224-2251

CAMPBELL CONSIDERING MEASURE TO BLOCK BABBITT'S

EXECUTIVE ORDER ON TRUST FUNDS

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Chairman Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) today said he may offer legislation to prevent Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt from restructuring the office in charge of reforming management of Indian trust funds.

Campbell's comments came at a joint Senate Indian Affairs/Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on the trust funds. At issue was an executive order issued by Babbitt in January drastically changing the structure and authority in the Office of the Special Trustee (OST). The OST was created by Congress in 1994 after investigations revealed that, due to decades of mismanagement, the Bureau of Indian Affairs could not account for billions of dollars belonging to hundreds of thousands of Indian individuals and tribes.

"Secretary Babbitt's testimony today did nothing to convince me that his changes to the trustee's office are consistent with Congress's intent," Campbell said. "I am also concerned that those changes will make the current situation worse, not better. The United States has a commitment to cleaning up this mess."

During the hearing, Campbell displayed photographs, taken in 1993, of BIA warehouses where trust fund documents were stored.

"It is important for people to understand how this problem started. These photographs show trust fund documents, mixed in with all the other documents kept by the field offices, with no organization and no attention paid to the conditions. These are essentially bank records, but they are water damaged, kept in trashbags, disintegrating boxes, next to paint cans, mop buckets and road signs.

"While I would hope things have improved since these photos were taken in 1993, they may have gotten worse. Incredibly, last year the Interior Department claimed they could not comply with a court order to produce some documents because they were covered in mouse droppings and there was a concern about hantavirus infestation."