From AP via the Santa Fe New Mexican:
A plan to return a large swath of federal land to one of Oregon’s poorest Indian tribes requires a leap of faith, Sen. Gordon Smith says.
But potential payoffs justify that, the Oregon Republican said Tuesday at a Senate hearing on his plan to transfer nearly 63,000 acres of the Siuslaw National Forest near Florence, Ore. to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, to hold in trust for the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians.