HR1797JUL29

TheWeekInCongress.com

Week Ending July 29, 2005

H.R.1797 To provide for equitable compensation to the Spokane Tribe of Indians of the Spokane Reservation for the use of tribal land for the production of hydropower by the Grand Coulee Dam, and for other purposes.

BRIEF

The report accompanying the bill noted that after the Grand Coulee Dam was built in the 1930’ and 40’s it inundated 2,500 acres of the Spokane Indian Reservation. The Spokane tribe filed the obligatory complaint and settled in 1967 but not for all the Indian lands impacted. The Spokane Tribe filed again but looked for a legislative solution rather than one in court.

The bill provides that $17.8 million will be deposited in the Treasury on behalf of the Spokane Tribe in 2006 and $12.8 million each year for the next four years. The money is partly compensation for the loss of the land and the amounts are arrived at based partly on what the Spokane Tribe should have collected from electric sales revenues. The settlement is not of a legal claim but of a moral wrong, the report said.

The Spokane (Tribe) Business Council will handle the funds but the first $5 million is to be used to establish and maintain a Cultural Resource Repository and Interpretive Center.

The bill includes the provision that the amount paid to the Spokane Tribes will be raised by raising the rate of the electricity produced and sold from the dam.

Sponsor: Representative Cathy McMorris (R-WA-5^th)

Vote: Passed House by voice vote (July 25, 2005)

Cost to the taxpayers: CBO says $69 million 2006 through 2010.