Montana Landmark Legal Settlements
Cobell trust settlement could mean $1.4 billion to Indian plaintiffs
A lawsuit filed by Elouise Cobell of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana alleging gross mismanagement of American Indian trust accounts resulted in a $3.4 billion settlement with the federal government.
Under the 2010 settlement, the government will send $1.4 billion to Native Americans to compensate them for historical accounting claims, and another $2 billion will be used to buy back and consolidate tribal land lost by previous generations.
The suit was filed in 1996 on the grounds that the government’s Department of Interior mismanaged the trust accounts of more than 300,000 Indians.
Right now, the Department of Interior manages 56 million acres of Indian trust land and more than 100,000 leases. The agency estimates it manages $3.5 billion in Indian trust funds.
Precedent-setting global warming agreement between the MEIC and the BLM approved
In 2010 the federal government agreed to suspend 38,000 acres of oil and gas leases throughout Montana while it analyzes how oil field exploration, development and production contribute to global warming to settle a lawsuit with a state environmental group.
The Montana Environmental Information Center (MEIC) and two other environmental groups sued when the leases were sold in 2008, arguing that the industry’s activities are wasteful and use inefficient technologies that could be improved.
Under the settlement, the federal Bureau of Land Management suspended 61 leases by the end of June 2010. The leases must go through a new round of environmental review before the suspensions can be lifted.
Settlement proposed in Montana Power shareholder suit
Montana Power Company (MPC) shareholders will receive $115 million under a 2009 agreement to settle three lawsuits over the utility's asset sales.
The class action lawsuit was filed in 2001 when MPC sold most of its utility assets, causing stock prices to fall drastically.
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