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Washington, D.C. - Legislation introduced by Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) to stop Indian lands from becoming further fractionated unanimously passed the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and now heads to the Senate floor where it is expected to pass.

The Campbell bill, the American Indian Probate Reform Act of 2004 (S.1721) is the result of 10-month efforts involving Indian tribes, key national Indian organizations, the Department of Interior, and Congress.

"The number one problem in trust reform and what lies at the heart of the Cobell v Norton accounting case is fractionated lands.

"Today is historic because we have turned the corner in our ability to stop the hemorrhaging and put a stop to land fractionation", said Campbell, an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

The Campbell amendments will reduce and prevent the fractionation of individual Indian-owned lands; improve the administration of Indian estates and probate process; and improve the management of Indian lands so that they become productive assets for their Indian owners.

"One hundred and seventeen years after the Dawes Act began to break up Indian lands, this bill will re-consolidate those lands and revitalize what are now large tracts of economically useless lands", Campbell said.

Campbell's bill provides:

1) a uniform probate code, unless a similar tribal code is in place;

2) encouragement to Indian landowners to draft wills;

3) authority to buyers to purchase undivided interests during probate;

4) authority to the owners of highly fractionated interests to consolidate ownership through partition by sale;

5) provisions that will greatly improve the Interior Department's "buy-back" of fractionated lands; and

6) a heightened priority on estate planning for individual Indians.

Campbell anticipates the Senate will quickly take up and pass S.1721 with House action on the bill thereafter.