U.S. Pays Navajo Half-Billion Dollars

The Obama administration has settled with the Navajo Nation for $554 million over claims that the U.S. mismanaged money and natural resources on the reservation for decades. The settlement is the largest for a single American Indian tribe ever, and it will be signed in Window Rock, Arizona on Friday. Some of the claims in the suit go back over 50 years. The Navajo reservation is the largest and most populous, containing land leased for farming, grazing, oil, and gas. Back in 2011, the administration shelled out $380 million to the Osage Tribe for similar mismanagement, $1 billion in 2012 for 41 tribes with claims going back 100 years, and in 2009 settled the Cobell lawsuit over mismanagement of American Indian trust assets for $3.4 billion.