{"id":6483,"date":"2020-06-16T10:10:55","date_gmt":"2020-06-16T14:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=6483"},"modified":"2020-06-16T16:59:23","modified_gmt":"2020-06-16T20:59:23","slug":"cares-act-litigation-prairie-band-potawatomi-nation-v-mnuchin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/2020\/06\/16\/cares-act-litigation-prairie-band-potawatomi-nation-v-mnuchin\/","title":{"rendered":"CARES Act Litigation: Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation v. Mnuchin"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"embed-responsive  embed-responsive-16by9\"><div class=\"iframe-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"embed-responsive-item\"   title=\"&#039;8 billion dollars for our tribal governments&#039;: #COVID19 and Indian Country\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WiTaaygXMzY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbpindiantribe.com\">Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation<\/a> on June 15, 2020, filed a notice of appeal in its CARES Act lawsuit against the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Notice is hereby given this 15th day of June, 2020, that Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation hereby appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from the order of this Court entered on the 11th day of June, 2020 denying Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation\u2019s motion for a preliminary injunction in this matter,&#8221; the <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/04517880167.pdf\">one-page document<\/a> reads.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>PDF: <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/04517880167.pdf\">Notice of Appeal<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Kansas-based&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=6188\">tribe filed suit on June 8<\/a>. The <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/prairiebandpotawatominationmnuchin.pdf\">complaint accuses the Department of the Treasury<\/a> of underfunding the tribe&#8217;s share of the $8 billion coronavirus relief fund by failing to take its enrollment into account. The lawsuit claims the tribe was deprived of $7.65 million.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn this motion, plaintiff seeks to restrain Treasury from disbursing $3.2 billion dollars of CARES Act funds to \u2018Tribal governments\u2019 until it adopts an allocation methodology&nbsp;that corrects its underfunding of tribes like Prairie Band Potawatomi that resulted from Treasury\u2019 arbitrary and capricious decision to ignore tribal enrollment when making distributions on the basis of Tribal population,\u201d states a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/pbp060820.pdf\">motion for a temporary restraining order,<\/a>&nbsp;also filed on June 8.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>PDF:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/prairiebandpotawatominationmnuchin.pdf\"><em>Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation v. Mnuchin<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<li>PDF:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/pbp060820.pdf\">Motion for Temporary Restraining Order<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Following a <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=6305\">teleconference hearing on June 11<\/a>, Judge Amit P. Mehta denied the tribe&#8217;s motion for a preliminary injunction. In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/2020\/06\/12\/04517874919.pdf\">five-page decision<\/a>, Mehta said the tribe waited too long to file suit and noted that Treasury&#8217;s allocation methodology was &#8220;unreviewable&#8221; in court.<\/p>\n<p>Mehta also pointed out that tribes have been waiting more than two months for the Trump administration to distribute the COVID-19 relief promised under the <a href=\"\/m.asp?url=https:\/\/home.treasury.gov\/policy-issues\/cares\">Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act<\/a>, also known as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/Video\/2020\/03\/30\/cares-act-coronavirus-relief-f.asp\">CARES Act.<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"page\" title=\"Page 4\">\n<div class=\"layoutArea\">\n<div class=\"column\">\n<p>Mehta said &#8220;it would be patently unfair to make Tribal governments wait any longer to receive the remaining CARES Act funds.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>PDF: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/2020\/06\/12\/04517874919.pdf\">Memorandum Opinion and Order<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Despite the order, Treasury on the following day announced it was <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/treasury061220.pdf\">withholding $679 million from tribes, <\/a>because of the Prairie Band lawsuit. Another round of payments from the coronavirus relief fund was <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=6399\">authorized on June 12<\/a>, though tribes didn&#8217;t start seeing the money in their accounts until June 15.<\/p>\n<p>Later on June 15, Mehta ordered Treasury to <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=6445\">distribute the full amount owed to tribes<\/a>&nbsp;as part of a different case known as <em>Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians v. Mnuchin<\/em>. The department has not yet said whether it has done so.<\/p>\n<p>With the notice, <em>Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation v. Mnuchin<\/em> will move to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>PDF: <a href=\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/04517882550.pdf\">Transmission of Notice of Appeal and Docket Sheet to USCA<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation on June 15, 2020, filed a notice of appeal in its CARES Act lawsuit against the Trump administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[613,390,38,433,64,330,235],"class_list":["post-6483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-institutions","category-tribes","tag-amit-mehta","tag-cares-act","tag-dc","tag-dc-circuit","tag-pbp","tag-steve-mnuchin","tag-treasury"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6483"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6507,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6483\/revisions\/6507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}