But after similar contracts were broken with hundreds of other Native American tribes and the debts they were owed snowballed to an estimated $2 billion, federal contractors joined their court battle, alarmed that the practice might eventually ensnare them as well.
Now, more than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for a second time in favor of the tribes and ordered the government to pay up, the two federal agencies that are on the hook — the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs — have settled fewer than 1 percent of the claims, agency records show. The Obama administration, meantime, is asking Congress to approve a proposal that would permanently limit how much Native Americans could be paid in the future for certain costs associated with government contracts.
All this has federal contractors on edge again.
