square determine without any input into that square what the timber assets in that square are and their allocated share to come from that?

Who is going to pay the Yuroks if they were to split the reservation for that share of that, of their share that has now been awarded through the Jessie Short case for that square?

You are talking about millions of dollars. I am talking about multimillions of dollars when you talk about that kind of issue, because that reservation square is worth a lot more than some $43 million worth of timber on that reservation.

I myself have assumed and gone out and got a legal appraiser from this county to go in there and give his legal appraisal of the square and it's some $450 million worth of assets on that square and its extension and its total reservation. We're not talking about some piddling little amount of money that is involved with some fishing rights and some timber rights. There is a total livelihood involved.

Peter Masten says that every Yurok wants to go up there and live. I don't know. There's all kinds of Yuroks living on the square right now. They are intermarried and they have been living there for years. So what is he talking about? Nobody is going up there seeking land base or a land home.

We have our own land and our own home. We are talking about the judge and what the judge and the court awarded our people as individual Indians.

I ask you as Congressmen-you know, do you believe-and I have never heard this before.

It is shocking for me today to believe that every Indian in this nation has to belong to some kind of a tribe or he is not going to be recognized as an Indian.

Individual rights as an Indian can be usurped by Congress or by a court unless he belongs to a tribe. I would think that-Mr. McCloskey, whom I feel that he has stood up for indigent people, who stood up for those people who are oppressed and what-haveyou-you don't ask a person here in Eureka to join the City Council to get benefits from the city.

As a citizen his rights are preserved as that citizen. As an Indian individual, we want individual rights as an Indian and as an individual. There are constitutional rights that should be bestowed on every American and to force our people to join tribes to preserve those constitutional rights for individuals I think is outlandish for this country to even think about.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Well, I can only ask that you read this Indian document of the Indian Review Commission that said, in order to give the Indians their rights we want each Indian tribe to have a sovereign government to defend those rights, because individual interests could not.

Even individual who wants to defend his or her rights has got to have some governmental entity that can fight for them and I think you make a terrible mistake not to have a tribal organization of some kind that can fight for your rights.

You have rights and you are entitled to those rights and you have proven it in court. But the next step is to have a voice that can speak and a voice that can bind all of your members. I think that is essential.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I think that Congress fights for every person's rights in this country and there should be no segregation between. Indians or whites, blacks, pinks, oranges or greens.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. I agree with you.

Mr. WILLIAMS. And I agree that we have constitutional rights in this country as individuals. We have an entitlement to a piece of land. If you had an entitlement to a piece of land in the country you don't have to go out and get the rural country community to fight for your personal thing or have the city council come in an fight for your rights as a personal individual.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. We give today revenue sharing of, I think, over $6 million a year and we give that to each city government and each county government and each State government.

And if a Yurok wanted a share in revenue sharing of the United States tax money he would have to get it through a city government, a county government or a State government. That is the only mechanism we have to distribute Federal tax dollars.

You have a very similar situation here.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I would like to acquaint this committee also with the fact that the Federal Government has already made individual payments to Indians. They have made individual payments to California Indians.

They made two sets of individual payments to California Indians in cases that were involved with Indians. There is no such thing that the Federal Government cannot make individual payments. It has made individual payments to the Cheyenne; it has made individual payments to the Indians of Oregon and the State of Washington. It has made individual payments to a lot of Indians throughout the United States.

Since when did the government state that they cannot make individual payments to an Indian?

Mr. BREAUX. Does Mr. Clausen have additional questions of the witnesses?

Mr. CLAUSEN. Well, I am going to submit the question to each one of you in writing so that you will have ample time to be able to respond. One of the questions that I want to have you respond to is what you believe the role and the responsibilities of the BIA should be as relates to your own individual activities as well as an organization.

There is another issue in particular that I do want you to address and that's the question of resources. I would like to have you assess the effect of the salmon restoration program now being proposed by the State-the $50 million recommendation announced this morning by Mr. Fullerton.

In the statement of Mr. Gerard, he said:

Let me emphasize the problems associated with the management supply of salmon on the Klamath River are due to a number of complex factors and are not susceptible to easy solutions.

But then, here is the point that I am concerned about: For instance, the construction of new fish hatcheries alone provides no guarantee of a bigger fish run in the river. However, last fall the Department became committed to enhancement of the salmon fisheries of the Klamath and Trinity Rivers.

So, this seems to be in conflict and I would like to have you critique this and submit your comments for this record, because that is what we are after.

Do you think you could respond to that, Mr. Lara?

Mr. LARA. Yes. In the $50 million that would come in from the State-the concern of the Indians right now is that if we allow the State to come on our reservation, then are we obligated to them afterwards?

This is the way that we would like Congress to, you know, kind of-we are still under the Government's control and all here on this reservation and we don't want to give any sovereignty up to the State.

We can as individuals. I know that. I heard talk of termination this morning; recommendations to this committee to terminate the lower Klamath and open it up. Well, something like that happened when they opened up the lower part of the reservation 50 or so many years ago, to homesteading without the jurisdiction or the right to do that because there was still Indians around here. They couldn't-so, you see, we don't want to get into a long thing of strict controls and regulations and them telling us what to do. And whenever we form a government we would like to be able to control and regulate our own affairs.

Do you understand what I am saying, sir?

Mr. CLAUSEN. Yes.

Mr. LARA. So, everything's fine as long as there is no strings attached and we need to, we need to have that defined to us by Congress.

Also, in those lines, if you guys tell us for sure that this isn't going to happen-I mean Congress-our representative and this gentleman over here, is that we are going to not have any more dams and we're not going to have any more water taken off our reservation, we need sincere people to tell us this so we don't need to jump up and down every time there is this type of move made. Now, we know they have scheduled meetings to talk about this already and you know, we are having a problem here. We are talking about the fish and talking about rights and talking about outside commercial fishing. You are talking about more or lessCongressman McCloskey, you are talking about being re-elected, when you start talking about these type of things.

So, the Klamath River is important to all of us. The fish, if it is depleted-the white man, he can go out and catch some other kind of fish to eat, but the Indian really depends on that salmon.

So, we are more concerned about it, actually, than anybody else. Mr. CLAUSEN. Well, that is why we have placed so much emphasis on this hearing, because we agree the emphasis has to be on protecting and sustaining that resource.

Well, I am not going to take any more time, Mr. Chairman. But I take it you would be willing to respond to those questions in writing after today, is that right?

Mr. WILLIAMS. If you furnish us with the information you want we will be glad to furnish that back to you, Mr. Clausen.

Mr. CLAUSEN. All right.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I would like to say, again, as a comment to that request, that it seems like ever since I got involved in this Jessie

Short case-and I have been involved since the beginning—it's always been our group furnishing either a committee some information or furnishing the law firms some information, furnishing the BIA some information and every year a new committee comes to us and tells us: We are going to resolve your problem if you will furnish us the information.

And we go on furnishing this information and I would like to have this information be the last bit of information we have to furnish anybody and that we get something really done.

Mr. BREAUX. Well, thank you for your comment. I know you can overwhelm yourself with paperwork, but I think this is probably the first time that a committee of Congress has come out and sat down with you and talked to you.

Mr. WILLIAMS. And we do appreciate that, Mr. Congressman. Mr. BREAUX. We do have some authority that others do not. Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. BREAUX. Do you have another comment to make, Mr. Lara? Mr. LARA. Yes; I do.

Mr. BREAUX. Go ahead.

Mr. LARA. My concern-you know, I tried to keep up on the Jessie Short case as much as I can, but I have, you know, that's another, as you say, another part of this whole reservation here and I don't want to get too involved in that.

Still my concern is right now we talk about this plan here and that plan there [indicating] which Mr. Willlams says isn't going to work. I don't know whether it will or not.

I have had a conversation with some lady who says they are going to do this whether the Indians like it or not and you know, it's a turn-off when you have people talking to you like this. Congressman McCloskey, you say you can't get involved in the court case because you are Congress, right? But still, the Department of the Interior was part of the lawsuit and they can get involved in the court action, organize the Yuroks to resolve the court problem.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Mr. Lara, in that respect, I understand your distrust of the BIA. But in this particular case what the BIA is trying to do now in organizing the Yuroks is a direct result of when Mr. Williams and the others came to me a year ago and said, help us, and in particular, let's stop this commercial fishing, which is hurting the fish.

So, we had the meeting and we asked Gerard and we brought him up in front of the committee and we said, why are you allowing commercial fishing?

And he said that for 5 years they had not assisted the defendants in the Jessie Short case to realize a monetary judgment. So, we said in response to him: Look, you have an obligation to help the Yurok Indians get their monetary judgment. You are trustees for them.

And he said, well, we have got to have them organized as a tribe. So, when they put out this plan to organize them as a tribe they were in effect responding to our anger that we expressed to the hearing just like this in October of 1978.

We said, how can you possibly defend the BIA position? You have lost the lawsuit and for 5 years you have played dog in the

manger and you haven't helped the winning plaintiffs get their

money.

In response to that they came up with this concept of the plan. It was in direct response to what we wanted. It wasn't a conspiracy. We may not agree with that, that it's the action they should have taken, but it was an honest action. At least I'll say this: It's a better BIA than I have ever seen in 12 years in the Congress and I think that Secretary Andrus and Assistant Secretary Gerard are trying to do the right thing and I think you are unfairly criticizing them and holding them to account for 10 years and maybe 100 years during which the BIA has been inept.

I think that they are honestly trying to do the right thing. Mr. LARA. OK. I'm glad somebody thinks they are honest.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Well, we have come to that conclusion very reluctantly sometimes, but then, in this case I think they are. I haven't seen them do something dishonest.

Mr. LARA. Like I am trying to say, it's my concern that we-you know, this is not going to work, I'm not going to be supportive of it; I'm not going to do anything of it. If it works it is going to be because of somebody else.

OK. Now, I am concerned about the fishing and the destruction of hatcheries and the crippling of the Klamath River.

We have to have some responsible body there to accept these problems.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Mr. Lara, I am sorry that you weren't here for Monday's hearings, because we agreed completely with the Indians' concern over the river.

The logging practices, we are going to hold the Forestry Service to that. As far as the creation of new spawning programs, this $50 million program to enhance the spawning is helpful.

We have rung the bell of the Bureau of Reclamation. They apparently are going to increase and guarantee a higher stream flow from upstream and that then will work to your benefit.

And the offshore fishing, well, they have cut that 15 percent. It may not be enough, but this committee will keep on top of that situation and if that ocean fishery begins to look like it's going to destroy the Klamath, we will fight to cut down ocean fishery as well, then.

But we have got to resolve this question as to who controls sports fishing, subsistence and commercial fishing on the Klamath. Ideally it would be the Yurok Indian tribe on that 40-mile strip that would control it. And if that occurs, then we have to work out a compromise with the State to regulate sports fishing.

As Mr. Getz said here today, I don't see any problem with the dual jurisdiction, with the State of California to license sports fishermen with a two-fish limit. If the Indians say that two fish is too many or if the State of California says that your commercial fishing is too much, then we can cooperatively resolve that.

But it seems to me we can't do any of this until there is a Yurok tribal council to control that 40 miles. The Hoopas aren't really involved. The Hoopas, as I understand their interest, what they want is enough fish upstream so that they can have their traditional subsistance and ceremonial fishing, but they don't essentially want to manage that 40-mile stretch.