Ever since Judge James Robertson of Washington, D.C., federal district court urged Congress to act on the Cobell settlement, there’s been a lot of buzz on Capitol Hill about the proposed deal, which would award more than $1.4 billion to a class of hundreds of thousands of Indians.
The deal, announced in December, can’t move forward without congressional approval, and the deadline for Congress to pass the necessary legislation has been extended three times already. Robertson pushed back the latest deadline to the end of May, and he said he would invite members of Congress to testify before him if nothing is done about approving the settlement before then.
