Lujan Promises to Correct Abuses in Indian Programs

Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. promised Thursday to correct abuses in his department’s Indian programs but rejected a suggestion for a White House office to coordinate the $3 billion each year that the federal government spends on such matters.

Lujan’s promise to move on abuses uncovered by an eight-month congressional inquiry won praise from all three members of the investigations subcommittee of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, although the panel’s two Democratic members urged the Cabinet officer to be more aggressive.

“I think somebody’s got to shake them up. Somebody’s got to go in there and kick butt,” said Sen. Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), citing a series of problems the subcommittee had found with Indian programs during the Ronald Reagan Administration.

Expresses Disappointment

Subcommittee Chairman Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) expressed disappointment at Lujan’s dismissal of a subcommittee suggestion for a presidential office to oversee programs for the nation’s 1.4 million Native Americans.

“You might be able to get more and be able to kick some butt if you had someone down there in the White House,” DeConcini said.

All three senators wrote President Bush earlier this spring, urging that he follow the lead of former President Richard M. Nixon and create a White House office to handle Indian issues. But Lujan said he saw no need for such an office and expressed confidence that he could effectively coordinate the Bush Administration’s programs himself.

“We’ll do what Sen. Daschle suggested; we’ll do a little kicking around,” he said.

Lujan promised to establish an office within the Bureau of Indian Affairs to police what the subcommittee has charged is massive fraud by companies given contract preference as Indian-owned and to crack down on child abuse in federally run Indian schools.

The secretary also pledged to increase the Bureau of Land Management’s control over fraud by oil companies that purchase crude oil from Indian tribes.

DeConcini said the subcommittee staff had identified “several millions” of dollars in oil fraud in its eight-month investigation, while a BLM staff of 10 oil inspectors had discovered $20,000 in stolen oil during years of work.

The secretary was one of the final witnesses in what has been a sweeping $1.5-million investigation into a number of Indian issues, from corruption among tribal leaders to fraud in housing programs.

“The things you have found, those are the easy things to fix,” Lujan told the committee, promising to take administrative actions to eliminate some of the abuses. “It’s a big challenge. I will do my best,” he said.

The subcommittee’s two Democrats pressed Lujan to shake up a bureaucracy that they charged had developed serious problems during the Reagan Administration. “The secretary is not meeting that responsibility” of serving as the federal government’s trustee for Native Americans, DeConcini told Lujan, without blaming any specific secretary.

Lujan said his top priority would be education, signaling a shift from the Reagan Administration’s priority of stressing economic development on Indian reservations.

Daschle, citing high mortality rates among Indians, urged Lujan to reconsider and place greater emphasis on health care. “They’ve got to live before they can be educated,” the senator said.