Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 14

B2 Casper Star-Tribune Friday, September 19, 2008 WYOMING DOJ will not provide Indian crime data sive," Wrigley said. Dorgan said previous congressional testimony has shown that Indian crimes are low priority in some prosecutors' offices. "Unfortunately, some offices have taken an out of sight, out of mind attitude with regard to our obligation in Indian Country," he said, calling the system "a proven failure." Dorgan recently introduced a bill that would aim to fight high crime levels on American Indian reservations by boosting tribal law enforcement and improving coordination between federal and local authorities. By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press writer WASHINGTON The Justice Department is refusing to provide statistics to Congress that would show how many crimes the federal government declines to prosecute on Indian reservations. North Dakota U.S.

Attorney Drew Wrigley delivered that message to frustrated senators at a hearing Thursday, saying that releasing the information could compromise the safety and privacy of victims and witnesses. North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, criticized the Justice Department for the decision, along with Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Jon Tester, D-Mont. "Something's desperately wrong and we need to find a way to fix it," Dorgan said.

Federal statistics have shown American Indians are the victims of violent crime at 2.5 times the national rate, with rates of homicide and domestic violence much higher than national averages. Dorgan has asked the federal government to elaborate on statistics released by Syra cuse University that say the Justice Department declined to prosecute 62 percent of Indian Country crimes between 2004 and 2007. That includes 50 percent of reservation murders, 72 percent of child sex crimes, and 76 percent of adult rapes. Wrigley defended the work of the department and said the data would not paint an accurate picture of their work because crimes in Indian country are often tracked differently from other crimes. "Indeed such publication would simply create fodder for false comparisons that would inevitably prove corro Government seeks appeal of Indian trust case SHEPARD Continued from B1 UW officials said.

Shortly after Shepard was found, a deputy sheriff informed the media that the beating appeared to be a hate crime because Shepard was gay. This focused the nation's and the world's attention on Laramie for several years while the criminal justice system dealt with Russell Arthur Henderson and Aaron James McKinney, who are both serving life sentences for felony murder and kidnapping. Another outgrowth of the murder was a dramatic work entitled "The Laramie together by the Tectonic Theater Project and its artistic director Moises Kaufman of New York. That organization brought several employees to Laramie who interviewed numerous people involved with Shepard and the aftermath of the horrible crime. "The Laramie Project" is a compilation of excerpts from those interviews and was made into a movie filmed in Laramie.

It has also been staged by hundreds of theater groups throughout the country over the years. Kaufman and several of the interviewers from 10 years ago returned to Laramie during the past couple of weeks and interviewed some of the original participants and others about what changes the Shepard murder has brought to Laramie. The new interviews will become an epilogue to the play, according to an article by Patrick Healy in the New York Times on Wednesday, after he apparently was allowed to view some of the taped interviews. One of those interviewed was Laramie Mayor Klaus Hanson, a retired University of Wyoming languages professor who taught Matthew Shepard. Hanson sat for a video-taped, hour-long interview by Kaufman on Saturday.

On Wednesday, shortly after the Times article appeared online, Hanson received an e-mail from a California woman expressing shock and abhorrence that nothing was planned to commemorate Shepard's death and offering to make a contribution toward that end. Hanson located the Tunes article and was astonished to see that it only mentioned one small exchange from the interview. "Kaufman's questions were directed to whether Laramie has changed so I concentrated on that," Hanson told the Star-Tribune. "And then all of a sudden he asked, 'What are you doing to commemorate the According to the Times article, Hanson said nothing was Elanned but that "now that you ave touched upon it, I will need to rethink it." The Times article says Kaufman, in an interview later, "shook with anger that Mr. Hanson was not doing anything to commemorate the anniversary." "That got me upset," Hanson said Thursday.

"He didn't react at all at the time. He could have said something. They came here with the hope that Laramie has changed, but from what I have observed now it seems they came here with the proviso they would find what they want to find." Hanson said Thursday he had had no communication from UW about the bench dedication or he would have mentioned it to Kaufman. He said he has made the Shepard murder the subject of his regular monthly column for the local newspaper, entitled "The Anniversary." He noted that an annual Shepard Symposium for Social Justice has been occurring at UW for several years and that Laramie passed a "hate bias ordinance." In response to the California woman, Hanson wrote, "It is always easier to point to the moral failings of others, and the press of this country and the world has done this with Laramie. "There is no excuse for what happened.

Yet the condemnation of an entire city or state for this crime is easy. But it did not then and does not now reflect the attitudes and thinking of our community, at least as far as I can observe." rowly defining the government's obligations in managing the Indian trust. The government trust should be treated the same as a private trust, which would have been held to stricter standards, plaintiffs' lawyers said. Robertson originally intended to begin a new phase of the trial that would determine how and to whom the government should award the money. But he said at an August status hearing that he would allow appeals now so the process would not be delayed further.

The class-action suit deals with individual Indians' lands and covers about 500,000 Indians and their heirs. Several tribes have sued separately, claiming mismanagement of their lands. er royalties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887. The government appeal, filed Thursday, contends Robertson's court does not have the jurisdiction to award the money at all, pointing to his January decision that the task of accounting for the trust money was ultimately impossible. "If the accounting were indeed impossible, it was not the role of the court to devise an alternate remedy," the government lawyers wrote.

In 1994, Congress demanded the Interior Department fulfill an obligation to account for money received and distributed. Two years later, when account statements still had not been reconciled, Elouise Co-bell, a member of the Blackfeet By MARY CLARE JALONICK Associated Press writer WASHINGTON The government has requested an appeal of a judge's ruling to award American Indian plaintiffs $455 million in a 12-year-old trust case. The government's request to appeal comes two weeks after the plaintiffs signaled they would ask for an appeal of the same decision. U.S. District Judge James Robertson said Aug.

7 that the plaintiffs are entitled to the $455 million, a fraction of the $47 billion that they had sought. The long-running suit claims the Indians were swindled out of billions of dollars in oil, gas, grazing, timber and oth Tribe from Montana, joined with others in suing. Because many ofthe records have been lost or destroyed, it has since been up to the court to decide how to best estimate how much individual Indians many of whom are nearing the end of their lives should be paid, or how the money should be accounted for. At issue in the trial's most recent phase was how much of the royalty money was withheld from the Indian plaintiffs over the years, and whether it was held in the U.S. treasury at a benefit to the government.

Robertson said in his opinion that plaintiffs did not successfully argue that it was. The plaintiffs argued for more money in their appeal, saying Robertson is too nar BAILOUTS: we're in a time of correction Fagan joins Lummis staff as campaign manager Continued from B1 Democratic, was responsible for the financial crisis. She said calls for tougher regulation on Wall Street may be misguided. "I would argue no, that an armchair quarterback looking back and saying there were regulations that should have been in place, is exercising tremendous 2020 hindsight," she said. She said the subprime mortgage market behind the crisis will need regulatory attention.

"But this overall market correction that is occurring, that includes not only sub-prime but prime, is not entirely the result of lax regulation," she said. Lummis said the government shouldn't try to eliminate risk. "Markets correct themselves," she said. "There are times of great largesse and there are times of correction. And we're in a time of correction." Trauner said the "hands-off policies of the past eight years precipitated the current economic crisis.

He said private hedge funds, private equity funds and investment banks should be subject to the same oversight and accountability as the regular banking system. "I think that we've got a systemic failure of policy over the last eight years, because you know what, the free market doesn't work without proper transparency and ness Council, Fagan directed the old Wyoming Department of Commerce. He also had a long Air Force career, retiring as vice commander of the 20th Air Force. Lummis' new press secretary is Rachael Seiden-schnur, who until recently was press secretary for Rep. Barbara Cubin in Washington, D.C.

CHEYENNE (AP) -Cynthia Lummis has hired a campaign manager and a press secretary in her pursuit of Wyoming's seat in the U.S. House. Her campaign manager is Tucker Fagan, former CEO of the Wyoming Business Council. Fagan says this is his first foray into politics. Besides heading the Busi- BAN Continued from B1 lilt 11.111 1 It 1 JV'U11.

II II1J.UV 111V term Rep. Barbara Cubin, who's not seeking proper oversight," he said. Trauner and Lummis are competing to replace seven- OIL SHALE: Anadarko has no plans to produce from deposits policy was reversed and Rice traveled to Iran for talks. Carter, the Democrat running against Barrasso in November, said international law allowing Ahmadinejad to attend the U.N. General Council is well established, and Barrasso's efforts are meaningless.

"I think Sen. Barrasso should spend less time grandstanding on such topics that are clearly against international law and spend more time concentrating on the financial market crisis that some of his votes have contributed to," Carter said. Enzi's Democratic opponent, University of Wyoming instructor Chris Rothfuss of Laramie, said Ahmadinejad is clearly not a "good guy," but the United States can't be in the business of refusing visas for people coming to the United Nations. "If we are recognizing Iran as a U.N. Member state, then we have to allow their representatives to come to the United States for U.N.

business," Rothfuss said. this treaty we entered into" if Rice grants with Barrasso's request, Kearley added. Kearley said that the call for Ahmadinejad's exclusion from the General Assembly is an attractive political gesture because of Iran's continued actions in opposition to U.N. Security Council wishes, but it's also self defeating. "It's self defeating since (Ah-madinejad) is someone we have to talk to," Kearley said.

He represents a country that we have to deal with. That's precisely why these people are invited to the U.N., because they are someone we need to talk with." Ahmadinejad has been to the United States before, including a visit one year ago during which he gave a controversial speech at Columbia University. The Bush Administration refused direct contact with Iran until earlier this year, when the made in some deep offshore drilling where technology advanced fast enough to make production of the resource profitable even without the royalty breaks that were granted. "In other words there is no greater incentive to produce than high crude oil prices, regardless of typical royalty rates," Freudenthal wrote. To acquire rights to develop the federal resource, companies must also pay a "bonus bid." So far, the BLM has considered a minimum bonus bid requirement of $1,000 per acre.

Freudenthal said the bonus bid minimum should at least be substantial enough to prevent "speculation." He also requested that potential developers be required to show proof to the BLM that they have completed socio-economic studies and community planning with state and local officials before being allowed to lease oil shale. Continued from B1 Wyoming reflects the overall six-state Rocky Mountain Region, according to the poll. Fifty-eight percent are in favor of lifting the moratorium, 28 percent are against and 14 percent are undecided. In 2006, Shell said it wants to use electricity to freeze a wall of ice 2,000 feet underground and around a 15-acre area for its Mahogany Research Project in Rio Blanco, Colo. Then, while that's frozen, more electricity would be used to heat up the cerogen rock within the parameter of the "freeze wall" to about 650 degrees Fahrenheit.

Four years later, petroleum would flow out of the rock and up a series of wells, according to Shell. Shell did have success with the in-situ process on a smaller scale an area 30 feet by 40 feet that yielded 1,700 barrels of petroleum. The resource Geologists estimated in 2006 there were about 1 trillion barrels of oil locked in shale or rock in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. Pilot projects are mostly focused in northwestern Colorado, where the massive Green River deposit is expected to yield the most potential. One BLM official estimated that Wyoming oil shale, on average, might yield 15 to 30 gallons of oil per ton of oil shale rock.

Colorado and Utah deposits could produce 30 to 40 gallons, with some sites capable of producing 60 gallons of oil per ton of oil shale. But the only major oil and gas company with significant oil shale holdings in the state says oil shale isn't on its "to-do" list. Anadarko Petroleum holds vast amounts of mineral properties in the "Land Grant Strip" along the southern Wyoming railroad corridor, including checkerboard ownership over oil shale deposits in southwest Wyoming. "We're not actually looking at any of that," said Anadarko spokeswoman Paula Beasley. Royalty recommendations After careful study by state auditors, the governor this week provided detailed comments to the BLM regarding the possible royalty structure and leasing rules for oil shale development.

Much of the mineral resource is federally owned it belongs to the taxpayers. Typically, companies pay a royalty to taxpayers. Federal land managers have considered a royalty of 5 percent. Freudenthal said any royalty incentive offered to oil shale producers ought to be tied to Erice triggers rather than an ar-itrary holiday period a mistake the federal government YOUR SNAPSHOT We Aeetpt All Medicare MMeaid ROCKY MOUNTAIN Joyce Kennedy of Riverton sent in this photo of her granddaughters, left to right, Ryleigh, Karleigh and Molleigh panning for gold on Willow Creek at South Pass City. With lessons from a helpful prospector, all three girls were able to find gold.

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