Tribal leaders representing more than half of the American Indian trust assets in the United States walked out of a Billings meeting last Friday with Department of Interior officials because of a lack of consultation between the Interior and tribes in the reorganization of two federal agencies.

The Interior officials came to Billings last week to conclude a month-long schedule of presentations to Bureau of Indian Affair's 12 regional offices.

The Rocky Mountain Regional Office was the last of the offices to be visited.

The tribes oppose the Interior's plan to reorganize two critical agencies, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Office of Special Trustee, that serve both tribes and individual American Indians.

"As elected tribal leaders from the large land-based tribes of Montana and Wyoming, we stand in our continued opposition to the unilateral reorganization of the most critical government agency that impacts the sovereignty and stability of tribal governments," the tribal leaders said in a statement.

The Interior is attempting to reorganize the two agencies in order to streamline the way services are provided to American Indians. The two agencies are responsible for carrying out the federal government's trust obligations to both tribal governments and individual American Indians.

The issue at hand is that the Interior's reorganization and expansion plan was created by a Joint Tribal Leaders/Interior Task Force rather than government-to-government consultation as President Bush promised last November during the 2002 National American Indian Heritage Month, the tribal officials said.

"To enhance our efforts to help Indian nations be self-governing, self-supporting and self-reliant, my administration will continue to honor tribal sovereignty by working on a government-to-government basis with American Indians and Alaska Natives. We will honor the rights of Indian tribes and work to protect and enhance tribal resources," Bush said at the time.

The tribal leaders oppose the route that the Interior has used to create this reorganization and expansion plan of the two agencies because the Bush administration used a task force instead of one-on-one consultations.

"We stand in opposition based on the lack of tribal consultation at the local tribal level with each tribal sovereignty based on the executive orders of President William Clinton and recently re-affirmed by President George W. Bush," stated the tribal leaders.

Interior officials said that they were disappointed in the tribal leader's actions.

"The department is seeking to increase accountability and efficiency in its trust management functions by reorganizing the agencies that manage Indian trust funds and assets," said Nedra Darling, a Interior spokesperson for Indian Affairs.

The tribal leaders are requesting that President Bush and all the sovereign tribes discuss the nature of government-to-government consultation.

The tribal leaders wrote that it is within this context of mutual respect and consultation that a discussion can occur on many important issues to the tribes including trust reform and positive changes to the BIA, Interior agencies and federal departments and agencies, which serve tribal governments.

White House officials who handle Indian Affairs did not return calls both Tuesday and Wednesday to respond to the tribal leaders' request for a meeting to discuss government-to-government issues.

Involved in the walk out were tribal leaders representing the Northern Cheyenne, Fort Peck, Blackfeet, Fort Belknap and Chippewa Cree tribes of Montana and the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes of Wyoming.

"We received calls from other tribes in other regions that wanted to walk out also, but didn't," said Geri Small, president of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.

Reporter Shawn White Wolf can be reached at 447-4028 or shawn.whitewolf@helenair.com.