I
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 2664
To provide for equitable compensation of the Spokane Tribe of Indians of
the Spokane Reservation in settlement of its claims concerning its con-
tribution to the production of hydropower by the Grand Coulee Dam,
and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JULY 30, 1999
Mr. NETHERCUTT introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Resources
A BILL
To provide for equitable compensation of the Spokane Tribe
of Indians of the Spokane Reservation in settlement of
its claims concerning its contribution to the production
of hydropower by the Grand Coulee Dam, and for other
purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Spokane Tribe of Indi-
ans of the Spokane Reservation Grand Coulee Dam Equi-
table Compensation Settlement Act’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) From 1927 to 1931, at the direction of
Congress, the Corps of Engineers investigated the
Columbia River and its tributaries to determine sites
where power could be produced at low cost.
(2) The Corps of Engineers listed a number of
sites, including the site where the Grand Coulee
Dam is now located, with recommendations that the
power development be performed by local govern-
mental authorities or private utilities under the Fed-
eral Power Act.
(3) Under section 10(e) of the Federal Power
Act, licensees must pay Indian tribes for the use of
reservation lands.
(4) The Columbia Basin Commission, an agen-
cy of the State of Washington, applied for, and in
August 1933 received, a preliminary permit from the
Federal Power Commission for water power develop-
ment of the Grand Coulee Site.
(5) In the mid-1930’s, the Federal Government,
which is not subject to the Federal Power Act, fed-
eralized the Grand Coulee Dam project and began
construction of the Grand Coulee Dam.
(6) At the time the Grand Coulee Dam project
was federalized, the Federal Government knew and
recognized that the Spokane Tribe and the Confed-
erated Tribes of the Colville Reservation had com-
pensable interests in the Grand Coulee Dam project,
including but not limited to development of hydro-
power, extinguishment of a salmon fishery upon
which the Spokane Tribe was almost totally depend-
ent, and inundation of lands with loss of potential
power sites previously identified by the Spokane
Tribe.
(7) In an Act dated June 29, 1940 (54 Stat.
703; 16 U.S.C. 835d), Congress enacted legislation
to grant to the United States all the rights of the
Indians in lands of the Spokane Tribe and Colville
Indian Reservations required for the Grand Coulee
Dam project and various rights-of-way over Indian
lands required in connection with the project. The
Act provided that compensation for the lands and
rights-of-way required shall be determined by the
Secretary of the Interior in such amounts as such
Secretary determines just and equitable.
(8) In furtherance of the Act of June 29, 1940,
the Secretary of the Interior paid to the Spokane
Tribe the total sum of $4,700. The Confederated
Tribes of the Colville Reservation received a pay-
ment of $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 past damages and
annual payments of $15,250,000 in perpetuity, ad-
justed annually, based on revenues for the sale of
electric power and transmission of such power by the
Bonneville Power Administration.
(10) In legal opinions issued throughout the
years by the Department of the Interior Solicitor’s
Office, a Task Force Study conducted from 1976 to
1980 ordered by the Senate Appropriations Com-
mittee, and in hearings before the Congress when
the Confederated Tribes Act was enacted, it has re-
peatedly been recognized that the Spokane Tribe
suffered similar damages and had a case legally
comparable with that of the Confederated Tribes of
the Colville Reservation with the sole exception that
the 5-year statute of limitations provided in the In-
dian Claims Commission Act of 1946 prevented the
Spokane Tribe from bringing its own action for fair
and honorable dealings as provided in that Act.