SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds that—
(1) from 1927 to 1931, at the direction of Con-
gress, the Corps of Engineers investigated the Co-
lumbia River and its tributaries to determine sites at
which power could be produced at low cost;
(2) the Corps of Engineers—
(A) identified a number of sites, including
the site at which the Grand Coulee Dam is lo-
cated; and
(B) recommended that power development
at those sites be performed by local govern-
mental authorities or private utilities under the
Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 791a et seq.);
(3) under section 10(e) of that Act (16 U.S.C.
803(e)), a licensee is required to compensate an In-
dian tribe for the use of land under the jurisdiction
of the Indian tribe;
(4) in August 1933, the Columbia Basin Com-
mission, an agency of the State of Washington, re-
ceived a preliminary permit from the Federal Power
Commission for water power development at the
Grand Coulee site;
(5) in the mid-1930’s, the Federal Government,
which is not subject to the Federal Power Act (16
U.S.C. 791a et seq.)—
(A) federalized the Grand Coulee Dam
project; and
(B) began construction of the Grand Cou-
lee Dam;
(6) at the time at which the Grand Coulee Dam
project was federalized, the Federal Government rec-
ognized that the Spokane Tribe and the Confed-
erated Tribes of the Colville Reservation had com-
pensable interests in the Grand Coulee Dam project,
including compensation for—
(A) the development of hydropower;
(B) the extinguishment of a salmon fishery
on which the Spokane Tribe was almost com-
pletely financially dependent; and
(C) the inundation of land with loss of po-
tential power sites previously identified by the
Spokane Tribe;
(7) in the Act of June 29, 1940, Congress—
(A) in the first section (16 U.S.C. 835d)
granted to the United States—
(i) all rights of Indian tribes in land
of the Spokane Tribe and Colville Indian
Reservations that were required for the
Grand Coulee Dam project; and
(ii) various rights-of-way over other
land under the jurisdiction of Indian tribes
that were required in connection with the
project; and
(B) in section 2 (16 U.S.C. 835e) provided
that compensation for the land and rights-of-
way was to be determined by the Secretary of
the Interior in such amounts as the Secretary
determined to be just and equitable;
(8) in furtherance of that Act, the Secretary of
the Interior paid—
(A) to the Spokane Tribe, $4,700; and
(B) to the Confederated Tribes of the
Colville Reservation, $63,000;
(9) in 1994, following 43 years of litigation be-
fore the Indian Claims Commission, the United
States Court of Federal Claims, and the United
States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit,
Congress ratified an agreement between the Confed-
erated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the
United States that provided for damages and annual
payments of $15,250,000 in perpetuity, adjusted an-
nually, based on revenues from the sale of electric
power from the Grand Coulee Dam project and
transmission of that power by the Bonneville Power
Administration;
(10) in legal opinions issued by the Office of
the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior, a
Task Force Study conducted from 1976 to 1980 or-
dered by the Committee on Appropriations of the
Senate, and hearings before Congress at the time at
which the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Res-
ervation Grand Coulee Dam Settlement Act (Public
Law 103–436; 108 Stat. 4577) was enacted, it has
repeatedly been recognized that—
(A) the Spokane Tribe suffered damages
similar to those suffered by, and had a case le-
gally comparable to that of, the Confederated
Tribes of the Colville Reservation; but
(B) the 5-year statute of limitations under
the Act of August 13, 1946 (25 U.S.C. 70 et
seq.) precluded the Spokane Tribe from bring-
ing a civil action for damages under that Act;
(11) the inability of the Spokane Tribe to bring
a civil action before the Indian Claims Commission
can be attributed to a combination of factors,
including—
(A) the failure of the Bureau of Indian Af-
fairs to carry out its advisory responsibilities in
accordance with that Act; and
(B) an attempt by the Commissioner of In-
dian Affairs to impose improper requirements
on claims attorneys retained by Indian tribes,
which caused delays in retention of counsel and
full investigation of the potential claims of the
Spokane Tribe;
(12) as a consequence of construction of the
Grand Coulee Dam project, the Spokane Tribe—
(A) has suffered the loss of—
(i) the salmon fishery on which the
Spokane Tribe was dependent;
(ii) identified hydropower sites that
the Spokane Tribe could have developed;
and
(iii) hydropower revenues that the
Spokane Tribe would have received under
the Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 791a et
seq.) had the project not been federalized;
and
(B) continues to lose hydropower revenues
that the Federal Government recognized were