ALBUQUERQUE, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- Several Indian leaders from the Southwest spoke out Thursday against an Interior Department plan to overhaul management of Indian trust accounts which they said have been mishandled for decades.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton, facing federal contempt of court charges for her handling of the trust accounts, confronted the first of several hearings scheduled over the next two months to hear the views of Indians on the proposed changes.
In October, Norton established a new office to administer the trust accounts, which hold monies the federal government has collected over the years for individual Indians from sales of oil, gas and mineral leases on Indian lands. Some of them are said to be more than 100 years old.
Norton came under fire from some of the speakers Thursday because they said the Interior Department did not solicit any input from Indians before creating the management system.
"Creating a new agency doesn't create reform," said Tex Hall, president of the National Congress of American Indians.
"And announcing and defending (the proposal) is not consultation."
Norton told the Indian leaders that she was committed to fixing the system.
About 600 Indian leaders attended the meeting, the Tribune reported.
The Interior Department, more specifically the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is the target of a massive lawsuit filed by thousands of Indians who claim that more than $10 billion in accounts may have been lost after years of government bungling.
Norton and Assistant Indian Affairs Secretary Neal McCaleb are facing contempt of court charges in federal court at Washington for making false and misleading statements about the governor's efforts to straighten out about 300,000 Indian trust accounts.
Elouise Cobell, a member of Montana's Blackfeet tribe and the original plaintiff in the lawsuit, wants a third-party receiver to take over the accounts but Norton has resisted.
